charters were not given to the colonies of New England till they had
acquired a certain existence. Plymouth, Providence, New Haven, the State
of Connecticut, and that of Rhode Island *n were founded without the
co-operation and almost without the knowledge of the mother-country.
The new settlers did not derive their incorporation from the seat of
the empire, although they did not deny its supremacy; they constituted
a society of their own accord, and it was not till thirty or forty
years afterwards, under Charles II. that their existence was legally
recognized by a royal charter.

[Footnote m: See "Pitkin's History," p, 35. See the "History of the
Colony of Massachusetts Bay," by Hutchinson, vol. i. p. 9.] [Footnote n:
See "Pitkin's History," pp. 42, 47.]

This frequently renders its it difficult to detect the link which
connected the emigrants with the land of their forefathers in studying
the earliest historical and legislative records of New England. They
exercised the rights of sovereignty; they named their magistrates,
concluded peace or declared war, made police regulations, and enacted
laws as if their allegiance was due only to God. *o Nothing can be more
curious and, at the same time more instructive, than the legislation of
that period; it is there that the solution of the great social problem
which the United States now present to the world is to be found.

[Footnote o: The inhabitants of Massachusetts had deviated from the
forms which are preserved in the criminal and civil procedure of
England; in 1650 the decrees of justice were not yet headed by the royal
style. See Hutchinson, vol. i. p. 452.]

Amongst these documents we shall notice, as especially characteristic,