INTRODUCTION. 
4? 
tion at home, bestowed no thought on colonial representation. The company by 
whom the colony was founded had an ab» olute power over its government.* 
The form of government established was essentially 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 governor.! Such jurisprudence, as was then known in the colony, 
was derived from the Roman civil law.J The institution of human slavery 
was contemporaneous with the foundation of the colony, “ the company pledging 
itself to furnish the colonial manors with negroes, if the traffic should prove 
lucrative.” No legal provision 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 impair 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 making 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. 
t Kent. 
§ Bancroft. 
