American colonial governments, which were established over the course of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, took, as is well known, one of three basic forms. They were organized either as royal, proprietary, or corporate colonies. By the middle of the eighteenth century, the majority of colonies (eight of the thirteen) had been taken under the direct rule of the British Monarch. Three colonies remained proprietorships, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Delaware, which “ntil the Revolution … had [a separate legislature but] the same governor as Pennsylvania.”1 Only two, Connecticut and Rhode Island, retained their status as corporate colonies.