CHAPTER VII
ROYAL GOVERNORS AND LOYAL CAPTAINS
DO any of my young readers know what is meant by a Charter? "Yes," I hear some of you say. "No," say others. Well, I must speak to the "No," party; the party that doesn't know, and wants to know.
A charter is a something written or printed which grants certain rights or privileges to the party to whom it is given. It may come from a king or a congress, or from any person in power, and be given to any other person who wishes the right to hold a certain property or to do some special thing.
Do you understand any better now? I am sorry I can not put it in plainer words. I think the best way will be to tell you about some charters which belong to American history. You should know that all the people who crossed the ocean to make new settlements on the Atlantic Coast had charters from the king of England. This was the case with the Pilgrims and the Puritans, with Roger Williams, William Penn, Lord Baltimore, and the others I have spoken about.
These charters were written on parchment, which is the skin of an animal, made into something like paper. The charters gave these people the right to settle on and own certain lands, to form certain kinds of government, and to do a variety of things which in England no one could do but the king and the parliament.
The colonies in New England were given the right to choose their own governors and make their own laws, and nobody, not even the king, could stop them from doing this. The king had given them this right, and no other king could take it away while they kept their charters.
Would you care to be told what took place afterwards? All kings, you should know, are not alike. Some are very mild and easy, and some are very harsh and severe. Some are willing for the people to have liberty, and some are not. The kings who gave the charters to New England were of the easy kind. But they were followed by kings of the hard kind, who thought that these people beyond the sea had too much liberty, and who wished to take away some of it.
Charles II., who gave some of these charters, was one of the easy kings, and did not trouble himself about the people in the colonies. James II., who came after him, was one of the hard kings. He was somewhat of a tyrant, and wanted to make the laws himself, and to take the right to do this from the people. After trying to rob the people of England of their liberties, he thought he would do the same thing with the people of America. "Those folks across the seas are having too good a time," he thought. "They have too many rights and privileges, and I must take some of them away. I will let them know that I am their master."
But they had their charters, which gave them these rights; so the wicked king thought the first thing for him to do was to take their charters away from them. Then their rights would be gone, and he could make for them a new set of laws, and force them to do everything he wished.