It was inevitable in the circumstances that their colonial governments should be like themselves, home-made and free from control in the management of what chiefly concerned their own lives. They were just as hard to supervise and regulate when the settlements were small as when they grew large and populous,—a little harder, indeed, because the colonists were the more anxious then about how the new life they were beginning was to go, and the less sure of their power or influence to resist the efforts of the crown to manage and interfere with them. By the time the French war came there was no mistaking the fact that the English colonies had grown to be miniature states, proud, hard-fibred, independent in temper, practised in affairs. They had, as Edmund Burke said, “formed within themselves, either by royal instruction or royal charter, assemblies so exceedingly resembling a parliament, in all their forms, functions, and powers, that it was impossible they should not imbibe some opinion of a similar authority.” At first, no doubt, their assemblies had been intended to be little more than the managing bodies of corporations. “But nothing in progression can rest on its original plan. We may as well think of rocking a grown man in the cradle of an infant. Therefore, as the colonies prospered and increased to a numerous and mighty people, spreading over a very great tract of the globe, it was natural that they should attribute to assemblies so respectable in their formal constitution some part of the dignity of the great nations which they represented.” They “made acts of all sorts and in all cases whatsoever. They levied money upon regular grants to the crown, following all the rules and principles of a parliament, to which they approached every day more and more nearly.” And Burke saw how inevitable, as well as how natural, the whole growth had been. “Things could not be otherwise,” he said; “English colonies must be had on these terms, or not had at all.” [Illustration: EDMUND BURKE] They had used their governments for their own purposes, and rather like independent states than like dependent communities. In every colony the chief point of conflict between governor and assembly, whether in the proprietary or in the crown colonies, had always been connected with the subject of salaries. Again and again governors had been instructed to insist upon an adequate income, charged permanently upon some regular source of public revenue; but again and again, as often as made, their demand had been refused. They could get only annual grants, which kept all officers of the crown dependent upon the people’s assemblies for maintenance while in office. There had long been signs that the ministers of the King and the proprietors at home were tired of the contest, and meant, for the mere sake of peace, to let the colonial assemblies alone, to rule, as Parliament ruled, by keeping control of the moneys spent upon their own governments.