discouraging the growth of a healthy diversity of type and method.
Every one of the new colonies of this period was provided with the
accustomed machinery of representative government: in the case of
Carolina, the philosopher, John Locke, was invited to draw up a
model constitution, and although his scheme was quite unworkable,
the fact that he was asked to make it affords a striking proof of
the seriousness with which the problems of colonial government
were regarded. In several of the West Indian settlements self-
governing institutions were organised during these years. In the
Frame of Government which Penn set forth on the foundation of
Pennsylvania, in 1682, he laid it down that 'any government is
free where the laws rule, and where the people are a party to
these rules,' and on this basis proceeded to organise his system.
According to this definition all the English colonies were free,
and they were almost the only free communities in the world. And
though it is true that there was an almost unceasing conflict
between the government and the New England colonies, no one who
studies the story of these quarrels can fail to see that the
demands of the New Englanders were often unreasonable and
inconsistent with the maintenance of imperial unity, while the
home government was extremely patient and moderate. Above all,
almost the most marked feature of the colonial policy of Charles
II. was the uniform insistence upon complete religious toleration
in the colonies. Every new charter contained a clause securing
this vital condition.

It has long been our habit to condemn the old colonial system as
it was defined in this period, and to attribute to it the
disruption of the empire in the eighteenth century. But the
judgment is not a fair one; it is due to those Whig prejudices by