Chap. XVII. CROWN AND CHARTERED COLONIES. 469 
A truly great man, with unusual moral courage, and 
extraordinary powers of reasoning, with a wide- 
spreading benevolence and a resolution too firm to be 
shackled or controlled by any sinister influence, could 
alone cope with the difficulties which had accumulated 
under his predecessor, and during an interregnum 
which only increased them by its more childish tam- 
pering with the question. 
Some faint conjectures were thrown out that a man 
of note as a statesman might be intrusted with the 
responsible task. But the small amount of the salary 
and the inferior grade of the office were pointed out 
as obstacles to such an arrangement. The infant 
colonies of Great Britain, in whose commencement 
more talent is required than in their management as 
more established communities, are placed under the 
charge of a petty officer with low salary. Yet it would 
seem a very reasonable proposal that the task of draw- 
ing the plans and laying the foundations of the build- 
ing should be intrusted to a well-paid and experienced 
architect, while the subsequent filling up of the frame 
might be confided to a master-bricklayer, who should 
require less salary and have less onerous duties of cal- 
culation to perform. 
In former times, great men, such as Lord Baltimore 
and Penn, were found willing to undertake the charge 
of infant colonies. Those chartered colonies car- 
ried out all the elements of self-government, and the 
Governor, although poorly paid in money, retained 
his place by the respect and affection of his subjects ; 
so that a noble ambition was called forth, and those 
who excelled among the colonists were proud to be, 
as it were, their patriarchs. But under the present 
system of Crown Colonies, it is hardly to be expected 
that men of mark should aspire to an ill-paid office. 
