The principle of representation, by which a few are charged with acting and speaking for the many in the conduct of public affairs, has been familiar to Englishmen since the time when a parliament was convoked during the contest between John and the barons (1213). The practice was adopted early in the history of the colonies,--the first house of burgesses of Virginia meeting in 1619; while in Massachusetts, the refusal of Watertown (1632) to be taxed without representation caused the adoption of the plan of sending deputies to the General Court. The American colonial assemblies were more truly representative of the great body of the people than the English Parliament of the period; to-day, male suffrage is nearly universal in England, and entirely so in all the British dependencies, with the exception of the Crown colonies. Sidenote: Rights of the colonists. In the American colonies the execution of the laws was as a rule comparatively an easy task. The English colonists had been trained in the political art of self-control; they had an abounding regard for just laws and the courts; they respected precedent, and stoutly stood for the common law, or recognized customs of their race. They were restive under statutes which conflicted with the customary rights of Englishmen, which had come down to them from the earliest times, and had been confirmed by Magna Charta. These rights had not been strictly observed by the Tudor sovereigns, and many of the earlier settlers had in the mother-country assisted in agitation for their renewal. Now that they were transplanted to America, the struggle was continued at long range with the Stuarts, thus developing in the colonists a habit of resistance which was to stand them in good stead in the troublous period leading up to the American Revolution. CHAPTER IV. THE COLONIZATION OF THE SOUTH. (1606-1700.) 27. References. Bibliographies.--S. Kingsbury, _Introduction to Records of Virginia Company_, 207-214; P. Bruce, _Economic History of Virginia_, I. xv.-xix.; N. Mereness, _Maryland_, 521-524; E. Whitney, _Government of South Carolina_, footnotes; Avery, _United States_, II. 411-417, 434-438, III. 407-410, 412, 413; Larned, _Literature of American History_, 100-106; Winsor, III. 153-166, 553-562, V. 335-356; C. Andrews, _Colonial Self-Government_, 351-354; Channing and Hart, _Guide_, §§ 97-102. Historical Maps.--Nos. 2 and 3, this volume (_Epoch Maps_, Nos. 2, 3); Doyle, _English Colonies_, I.; MacCoun, Winsor, and school histories cited in our ch. i.