Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919). New York. 1906.
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| council, and assembly, the latter to be elected by the colonial freeholders. |
| The stoppage of the collections of taxes caused the colony to become a drain instead of a source of revenue to James; and the duke seriously considered the project of selling such an unproductive province. Finally however he decided, as an alternative, to grant the wished-for franchise, and see if that would improve matters; being, it is said, advised to take this course by William Penn whose not over-creditable connection with the Stuarts occasionally bore good fruit. As the person to put his plans into execution and to act as first governor under the new system, the duke chose Thomas Dongan, a Roman Catholic Irish gentleman of good family, the nephew of the Earl of Tyrconnel. Dongan acted with wise liberality both in matters political and in matters religious, toward the province he was sent to govern; for he was a man of high character and good capacity. Yet it is impossible to say how much of his liberality was due to honest conviction, and how much to the considerations of expediency that at the moment influenced the House of Stuart. It was an age of religious intolerance and of government by privileged classes; and the religion to which Dongan and his royal master adhered was at that time, wherever it was dominant, the bitterest foe of civil and religious liberty. But in England the |