seriousness with which the problems of colonial government were regarded.  In several of the West Indian settlements self-governing institutions were organised during these years.  In the Frame of Government which Penn set forth on the foundation of Pennsylvania, in 1682, he laid it down that ’any government is free where the laws rule, and where the people are a party to these rules,’ and on this basis proceeded to organise his system.  According to this definition all the English colonies were free, and they were almost the only free communities in the world.  And though it is true that there was an almost unceasing conflict between the government and the New England colonies, no one who studies the story of these quarrels can fail to see that the demands of the New Englanders were often unreasonable and inconsistent with the maintenance of imperial unity, while the home government was extremely patient and moderate.  Above all, almost the most marked feature of the colonial policy of Charles II. was the uniform insistence upon complete religious toleration in the colonies.  Every new charter contained a clause securing this vital condition.

It has long been our habit to condemn the old colonial system as it was defined in this period, and to attribute to it the disruption of the empire in the eighteenth century.  But the judgment is not a fair one; it is due to those Whig prejudices by which so much of the modern history of England has been distorted.  The colonial policy of Shaftesbury and his colleagues was incomparably more enlightened than that of any contemporary government.  It was an interesting experiment—­the first, perhaps, in modern history—­in the reconciliation of unity and freedom.  And it was undeniably successful:  under it the English colonies grew and throve in a very striking way.  Everything, indeed, goes to show that this system was well designed for the needs of a group of colonies which were still in a state of weakness, still gravely under-peopled and undeveloped.  Evil results only began to show themselves in the next age, when the colonies were growing stronger and more independent, and when the self-complacent Whigs, instead of revising the system to meet new conditions, actually enlarged and emphasised its most objectionable features.

(c) The, Conflict of French and English, 1713-1763

While France and England were defining and developing their sharply contrasted imperial systems, the Dutch had fallen into the background, content with the rich dominion which they had already acquired; and the Spanish and Portuguese empires had both fallen into stagnation.  New competitors, indeed, now began to press into the field:  the wildly exaggerated notions of the wealth to be made from colonial ventures which led to the frenzied speculations of the early eighteenth century, John Law’s schemes, and the South Sea Bubble, induced other powers to try to obtain a share of this wealth; and Austria, Brandenburg,