INTRODUCTION. THE present volume comprises ten of the Charters which were granted to our early American Colonies. The same Charters were originally collected by a bookseller, named Almon, at the close of the last century; but as his edition has become scarce, and is much sought after, they are now reprinted, with the addition of some explanatory statements and notes. It has not been thought necessary to add to their number, though many are wanting to complete the series,* inasmuch as Almon's edition contains the principal specimens of each class into which they have been appropriately distinguished. An attempt only has been made to improve upon Almon's method, who, to borrow a simile from Mr. Carlyle, edited them as you edit bricks, by tilting the wagon. Be the result as it may, it is necessarily imperfect, as the intention was conceived but a week or two since, in connexion with the question of Colonial misgovernment. The object was to furnish at a critical time materials for comparison between our present attempts, and the grandest and most successful colonizing opera * In fact, to the time of the founding of New South Wales, when the convict system involved the adoption by England of the centralized methods of France and Spain, a Colony had a Charter as an indispensable condition of its political existence. A 2 tions which England, or, indeed, any other nation, ancient or modern, has ever accomplished. It is obviously not so much a perfect design, as a pressing want, which was here contemplated, and the value of the book should be estimated accordingly. The want of such a work was, indeed, exemplified, a few nights back, in an eminent instance. When Lord John Russell made his exposition of the future Colonial policy of the Government, and when, for that purpose, he professed to review the past history of our Colonial possessions, it was remarkable that he never once alluded to those which were the earliest and greatest of all. As I could not impute to his Lordship for a moment the design of slipping over a difficulty, I can only conceive that he shared in the disability, which we have most of us commonly laboured under hitherto, of a want of familiarity with their most ancient records. Inasmuch as these are the key to their history, it is not to be wondered at that our leading statesmen have, as yet, been unable to appreciate its value. The Charters themselves will be found most instructive, by showing, in the first place, the liberal terms upon which our ancestors commenced to colonize. At the outset, they acquired the rights and privileges of British born subjects-an extensive grant, when, according to the theory of those early times, these Colonies were assumed to be the property of the Crown. Under this provision, they at once obtained the benefit of the common law of England, with all its inferential rights and obligations; and though this incident is necessarily implied in the later and truer theory of state, which concludes that these Colonies were a part of the Empire, at that time, it behoves us |