Book Reviews

BOOK REVIEWS The Colonial Period of American History: England's Commercial and Colonial Policy, IV. By CHARLES M. ANDREWS. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1938. 477 p. $4.00.) In the first three volumes of his Colonial Period of American History Mr. Andrews has analyzed the motives that impelled Englishmen to found colonies, and discussed the legal and institutional nature of their early settlements. Now, in a fourth volume, he tells of England's experience with her colonies so founded —her conception of their functions, and its expression in administrative machinery. In tracing the development of "England's Commercial and Colonial Policy" from its confused beginning through to the years following the Peace of Paris, Mr. Andrews focuses his attention on the working out of the policy as it appeared to Englishmen. Only occasionally does he suggest how this same policy may have appeared to colonials for whom it was designed and whom it directly affected, and very rarely is he concerned with judgments of its validity or unsoundness. The outlines of this treatment are familiar to readers of the earlier works of Mr. Andrews and of other students in the field. The present volume crowns these earlier studies by filling any gaps yet left in the history of the American colonies from the imperial viewpoint. It is best reviewed, therefore, by noting new points of emphasis, and examining the basic point of view. English commercial policy never embodied "an exact system." A condition rather than a theory, it strove to meet the expanding needs of the state. The Navigation Acts, framed to meet these needs, receive careful analysis, and a long and interesting citation of cases demonstrates their actual operation. Though aimed principally against the Dutch, the new acts appear to have affected the trade of Holland but little prior to 1675. Mr. Andrews agrees substantially with G. L. Beer in his conclusion that neither Maryland nor Virginia appears to have suffered seriously from the enumeration or plantation duty, and believes that such regulation had little to do with the uprisings of Bacon or Culpepper. While accepting the view that the Navigation Acts wrought no long-time havoc to the prosperity of the tobacco colonies, there are those who will still feel that they were responsible for at least temporary economic dislocation there. Three chapters on the enforcement of the Navigation Acts, the administration of the Customs Service, and the work of the Admiralty Courts contain a vast amount of information hitherto unassembled. In writing of the Admiralty Courts, Mr. Andrews stresses their constructive rather than their coercive fea- tures. Their activities he finds to have been vital in the development of colonial commerce, their judges, especially in Rhode Island, Massachusetts and South Carolina, generally fair in their dealings. A chapter on the Board of Trade sup- plements the work of O. M. Dickerson and modifies some of his conclusions. Mr. 462 1939 BOOK REVIEWS 463 Andrews softens the charges of procrastination and neglect of business, finds attendance at the board satisfactory during the years 1696-1750, and demonstrates the fundamental harmony of its activities with those of the Secretary of State. He insists, and I believe rightly, that the Board existed primarily for the promotion of English commerce, and was not created for colonial administration. Yet one might well ask why such an important segment of the imperial business was left without an administrative agency for its transaction, and in its absence find it fair to criticize the Board, which was "open to everything save fundamental ideas," as a phase of British policy. An interesting and enlightening chapter explores the mind of the "merchant- capitalist." "What the mercantilists of this period wanted was what all states and nations wanted and still want ... a wide margin of profit, a surplus laid by for emergencies. ..." But as there was no complete agreement among them as to how this profit might best be secured, there could be no mercantile "system." Such men conceived only two possible policies in regard to the colonies: either to maintain them as dependencies and monopolize their trade; or to cast them loose and risk their falling into French hands. No third course deserved consideration, for, as Davenant said: "It can't be reasonably admitted that the mother country should impoverish herself to enrich the children, . least the procedure should in time furnish us with a subject for a melancholy reflection." So, with these views, and the imperfect machinery for putting them into practice, England set about enforcing her policy in the colonies. This policy evolved very gradually, and not always logically. As was to be expected with Englishmen, there was much muddling through, and a monotonously consistent misunder- standing of the colonies and their people. Administration at Whitehall, suffering from apathy and inertia after 1713, found any constructive action abhorrent. Meanwhile the colonies were growing, and while they were maturing they greatly changed. At this point we must enter a caveat with respect to this admirable book. Mr. Andrews' almost exclusive emphasis on the British point of view implies a mis- leading neglect of the colonial aspects of the problem. While British policy shifted to meet the needs and conditions of the eighteenth century, the colonies themselves underwent a marked transformation. The clash of British with colonial interests can be understood only in the light of the remarkable growth of the latter. Mr. Andrews touches only briefly on this growth, and his own undoubted awareness of it is not always made clear to the reader. His insistence upon colonial particularism [413] which appears to me to have been largely political, seems to blind him to the very considerable development of coopera- tion and even unity in social and economic spheres. His statement that "contact by land was infrequent" seems to overlook the great intercolonial migrations, the circulation of ideas and information via the colonial post and press, and the increasing amount of land travel, which, though small by modern standards, had significant results. Granting that "probably more men [e. g., travelers] went to England," the Continent and the West Indies, "than to colonies along their own seaboard," yet coastwise trade, in the thirty years before the Revolution, 464 BOOK REVIEWS October both in volume and importance, was impressive. Nor am I able to agree that the colonies were "as far apart mentally as they were geographically [414]." Ex- tensive study of colonial culture seems to reveal more uniformity than diversity, its differences those of detail rather than of fundamentals. Moreover, uniformity was hardly a virtue of the eighteenth century. There may have been a lesser chasm in outlook and customs between a Massachusetts Yankee and a Low- country South Carolinian than between a Prussian and a Wurttemberger, a Gascon and a Breton, or a Londoner and a North Briton. More consideration of the centripetal forces in colonial society would, I believe, lead to a reassessment of the relative importance of the centrifugal influences of politics. Similarly, the events leading up to and following the year 1775 appear unreasonable and in- explicable unless in the study of our colonial past we are as aware of the development of colonial economy and points of view as of English interests and concepts. Without the balance the colonies appear in 1775 as children sprung suddenly from infancy to manhood, without the apprenticeship of adolescence—a cataclysmic theory that hardly accords with the facts. I have perhaps belabored this point, not so much to criticize the work of Mr. Andrews, whose views have over the last thirty years provided an antidote that was sorely needed to the romantic, unscientific, filio-pietistic attitude toward the colonial period, as to emphasize that in following this remarkably able, learned and fair analysis of England's outlook on her colonies and their problems the reader should bear constantly in mind that there is another side of the picture to be studied—that of the colonial outlook on its own problems and towards Eng- land. A closer approximation to the historical truth of our early development will, I believe, proceed from a fusion of the two points of view. After all, I suppose what I am really saying is that I find The Colonial Period of American History too inclusive a title, even for this great historical work. Brown University CARL BRIDENBAUGH Cities in the Wilderness: The First Century of Urban Life in America, 1625- 1742. By CARL BRIDENBAUGH. (New York: The Ronald Press Company, 1938. xiv, 500 p. Illustrated. $5.00.) It is a truism that American society today is an industrial one, dominated by influences radiating from cities, and presided over by urban directors of Big Business and finance. The antecedents of the present state of affairs are to be found in the commercial towns and in the merchant capitalism of colonial times. Yet so pervasive has been the influence of rural life in the past that the study of the origins of capitalism and urban activity have been seriously neglected. Now, with the publication of Dr. Carl Bridenbaugh's Cities in the Wilderness, the gap has been filled. The subjects of his work are the origins of Boston, Philadelphia, New York, Charleston, and Newport and their growth to the year 1742. The book is remarkably symmetrical and coherent in organization. There are three parts, each consisting of four chapters. The first part discusses the founding of the towns and their early history as villages, to 1690. The second treats of the i939 BOOK REVIEWS 465 growth of the towns, 1690-1720, which magnified urban problems and revealed cultural strivings.

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