George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 4, 15th edition.

‘ [372] on the crown of Great Britain.’ His reme-

chap. XVI.} 1760.

dies were, ‘a perpetual revenue,’ fixed salaries, and ‘an hereditary council of privileged landholders, in imitation of the Lords of parliament.’ At the same time, he warned against the danger of applying a standing revenue to favorites, or bestowing beneficial employments on strangers alone, to the great discouragement of the people of the plantations. Influenced by a most ‘favorable opinion’ of Colden's ‘zeal for the rights of the crown,’ Lord Halifax conferred on him the vacant post of lieutenantgov-ernor of New York.¹

In the neighboring province of New Jersey, Francis Bernard, as its governor, a royalist, selected for office by Halifax, had, from 1758, the time of his arrival in America, been brooding over the plans for enlarging royal power which he afterwards reduced to form. But Pennsylvania, of all the colonies, led the van of what the royalists called ‘Democracy.’ Its Assembly succeeded in obtaining its governor's assent to their favorite assessment bill, by which the estates of the proprietaries were subjected to taxation. They revived and continued for sixteen years their excise, which was collected by officers of their own appointment; and they kept its ‘very considerable’ proceeds solely and entirely at their own disposal. ‘This act alone,’ it was thought, ‘must, in effect, vest them with almost all the power in that government.’ Still, these measures, they said, ‘did not yet sufficiently secure their constitution;’ and by other bills they enlarged popular power, taking from