The unsettled boundary lines though still causes of uneasiness and vexatious delays, are gradually approaching final decision. The controversy concerning the western boundary had lasted sixty-five years. More effectual means are employed to enforce the registry of births, marriages and deaths. Peddlers, the field of whose industry had already been reduced by previous statutes, were forbidden to sell any kind of goods under pain of forfeiture. Early attention is paid to the preservation of deer and the protection of fish. The planting of hemp and flax, and the manufacture of duck are again the subject of legislation, and receive increased bounties. James Franklin sets up a printing press in Newport after having failed to establish a newspaper in Boston. Not discouraged by his failure, he made a similar attempt at Newport with a similar result. He was in advance of his time. Important laws were enacted for the encouragement and regulation of trade. Special officers were appointed for special departments. Lumber of every kind was placed under the protection of surveyors. Packed meats and fish were examined by viewers. Casks were measured by official surveyors. The whale and cod fisheries were encouraged by bounties. And to incite the efforts of honest but unfortunate men, bankrupt laws equally useful to creditor and debtor were established.
Roads and bridges continue to call for legislation. The Pawtuxet bridge had fallen to decay, and Rhode Island and Massachusetts united, first in pulling it down and soon after in building it up again. A new ferry was established between Portsmouth and Bristol. Lands in Westerly were set apart for an Indian house of worship.
The fortifications of the Colony were not neglected. “A regular and beautiful fortification of stone” was built at Newport and the new King petitioned to give forty cannon for its armament.
The records of the time tell of an earthquake which in October, 1727, was felt through New England, exciting much alarm but doing little damage—far less indeed than the attempt to build up commerce upon public loans and paper money. To this period also belongs the first appearance of the Palatine Light, a curious electric phenomenon according to some, produced according to others by hydrogeneous gas, but believed by local superstition to be the phantom of a wrecked emigrant ship whose passengers had fallen prey to the avarice of her captain and crew.
The Legislature continues its labor of law-making, and among its provisions is one prohibiting the manumission of slaves without bonds from the owner to prevent them from coming upon the town. Another act sets bounds to the authority of moderators in town meetings, and requires that any motion supported by seven freeholders shall be put to vote. Another requires that all money questions shall be announced in the call for the meeting.
Among public annoyances we find Indian dances especially mentioned and the regulation of them referred to the town councils, and the selling or giving of intoxicating drinks upon the dancing ground strictly forbidden.
To meet the growth of the Colony a new division of it into three counties was made, and the judicial system altered to meet the change. “Each county was to have its court house and jail.” The responsibility of public officers increases with the increase of the Colony in wealth. The public treasurer was required to give bonds to the amount of twenty thousand pounds and his salary raised first to one, and two years later to two hundred pounds. A distrust of lawyers found expression in the October session of 1729 in an act forbidding them to serve as deputies. At the next session it was repealed and though never reënacted was more than once brought up for discussion.
Among the eminent Englishmen of the first half of this century was George Berkeley, Dean of Derry, better known by his later title of Bishop of Cloyne, and still better by Pope’s line:
“To Berkeley every virtue under Heaven.”
He had taken high rank among the philosophers of his age by his new theory of vision and other writings in which he denied the existence of matter. Advancement in the church made him master of a large income, which he resolved to employ in the service of religion by founding a college in the Bermudas for the training of pastors for the colonial churches and missionaries to the Indians. The benevolent object failed through the failure of Lord Carteret to give him the aid of government. Instead, therefore, of establishing himself in Bermuda, he purchased a farm near Newport and built a house on it, which is still known by the name of Whitehall. He brought with him a choice library, a collection of pictures and a corps of literary men and artists, among them the painter Smibert, who thus became the teacher of Copley and West.