INTRODUCTION. 47 



tion at home, bestowed no thought on colonial representation. The company by 

 whom the colony was Ibundecl had an abfolutc power over its government.* 

 - The form of government established was cssenlialty feudal. Charters were 

 given to patroons, conveying large grants of land to be occupied by a tenantry, 

 over whom the proprietor exercised military and judicial authority, personally 

 presiding in his courts of justice ; but in important cases an appeal was re- 

 served to the govei'nor.f Such jurisprudence, as was then known in the colony, 

 was derived from the Roman civil law.J Tlie institution of human slavery 

 was contemporaneous with the foundation of the colony, " the company pledging 

 itself to furnish the colonial manors \vith negroes, if the traffic should prove 

 lucrative." No legal j^rovision was made for the diffusion of religion or knowledge. 

 The jealous spirit of commercial monopoly in Holland forbade the colonies to 

 make any woolen, linen or cotton fabric, on penalty of exile ; and to imjiair the 

 monopoly was punishable as a perjury.§ The first fruits of such a charter were 

 seen in the venality of the directors and agents of the company, who soon ap- 

 propriated to themselves, under pretence of founding settlements, all the impor- 

 tant points where the natives came to traffic, and jars and dissensions between 

 the feudal possessors and the government necessarily followed. Nor did the inha- 

 bitants of the province immediately gain political advantages from the conquest 

 by the English. Nichols, by whom the reduction of the colony was effected, and 

 who was the first English governor, during his short stay in New- York, enriched 

 himself as did many of his successors, by maldng new grants of land and exacting 

 compensation for confirming those previously made. The governor chose his own 

 council, and exercised executive and legislative powers. A court of assize was 

 constituted, but the justices were appointed by the governor and dependent on 

 him, and served only to increase his importance while diminishing his responsi- 

 bilities. He called a convention of two deputies from each town, but conceded 

 to that body no legislative powers ; and the assembly, after settling the civil divi- 



♦ Bancroft. t Barnard's Discourse. 5 Kent. § Bancroft. 



