Just here it is perhaps fit that the salient features of the unique government under which the forefathers lived and prospered should be briefly sketched; and in order that this exposition may be clear, claiming the privilege of a chronicler, we shall command the clock of this narration to stand still, while we peer at times into the then future, in tracing some law to its result, or in depicting the change of front of an exploded policy. At the outset, the arrangements of the Pilgrims were extremely simple, and grew naturally from their needs, from their crude ideas of liberty, and their imperfect conception of a model state. Nominally, the sovereignty of Britain was recognized; in fact, all through these opening decades of American history, the colonists were despised by the home government, and left free to plant the most radical principles of a “proper democracy.” It was only when the greed of gain squeezed her heart, not repentance nor love, that England recognized the legitimacy of the neglected child whom she had pronounced a bastard, and left to freeze in the winter wilderness. When God wrote success upon the frontlet of the colony, the Shylocks on the Rialtos of the world were eager to invest in the enterprise, while England, with motherly pride, patted New England upon the head and said, “I rocked your cradle; but, bless me, how you are grown, and how like me you are. You may pay me your earnings, and I’ll send you a governor.” But through the bitter months of the incipient settlement Shylock could see nothing in New England but a barren coast, while Britain could not discern Plymouth Rock across the water; nor if she had would any craving governor have itched to set up his chair of state in a cheerless Eldorado of ice and snow. So the Pilgrims were left to shift for themselves until, strengthened by incessant tussles with a rugged climate and the savage foe, they expanded into robust manhood. In these first months, the Plymouth colonists regarded themselves as one family, at whose head stood the governor, _in loco parentis_.[310] But as business increased, the whole burden of government was felt to be too onerous for the single shoulders of the governor to bear; and when Bradford stepped into the gubernatorial chair left vacant by the death of Carver, he was voted an assistant.[311] In 1624, he was given five assistants. Afterwards, in 1633, the number was increased to seven; and these, called “the Governor’s Council,”[312] governed the commonwealth in conjunction with their primitive executive. The vote of each councillor counted one, and the vote of the chief magistrate was but double—the only check he had over the action of the Council.[313]