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The Third British Empire: Transplanting the English Shire to Wales, Scotland, Ireland, and America

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 January 2014

Myron C. Noonkester
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Extract

During their hegemony in world affairs, the English exported persons, commodities, and texts to regions that they absorbed into a widening pale of influence. Discussion of these ventures has consumed a vast literature. What once seemed to be a simple matter of transporting Protestantism (or convicts) into an overseas wilderness or making distant lands safe for English farming and trade now seems a matter too complex to be captured in a metaphor or an alliterative catchphrase. Yet it remains a matter of historical fascination that a relatively small archipelago off the coast of Europe not only could become the first “modern” nation-state but could then transform itself into a vast global empire, ultimately making it seem as if the affairs of this proverbial workshop encompassed world history itself. For many years, such success seemed too evident for investigation, and scholarly attention turned toward explaining how this achievement unraveled or declined. The result has been a quest for detailed precision and microhistorical reconstruction on the part of those who have adopted an “empirical,” geopolitical approach to imperialism and an outpouring of criticism from those who, on the opposite end of the ideological spectrum, have penned polemical classics whose evocative, if not evidentiary, power envisioned revolution as historical destiny and a means of filling the intellectual and political void left by imperial evacuation. Their disagreements notwithstanding, however, both categories of imperial commentary display relative innocence of the paradox that imperial power represented: that, despite voluble criticism, it enjoyed eclipsing success for a time and produced effects whose mysteries continue to survive postcolonial deconstruction.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of British Studies , Volume 36 , Issue 3 , July 1997 , pp. 251 - 284
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference of British Studies 1997

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98 Acts and Laws of His Majesty's English Colony of Connecticut (n. 84 above), pp. 270, 328 (see also p. 82 for jails and jailers); Laws of New York from 1691 to 1773 (New York, 1774), p. 760Google Scholar; Archives of Maryland, vol. 2, Proceedings and Acts of the General Assembly, April 1666–June 1676, ed. Browne, W. H. (Baltimore, 1884), pp. 322, 520, 532Google Scholar; Osgood (n. 82 above), 2:304–5.

99 Richardson and Sayles (n. 23 above), p. 142 and n. In early Irish history, sheriffs could be fined for failure to answer a writ of summons for a parliament or a great council (ibid., p. 143 and n.). For writs of summons, see ibid., pp. 302–5.

100 J. Davies (n. 26 above), p. 241.

101 Vaughan, John, Reports and Arguments (London, 1677), pp. 395 ff.Google Scholar

102 Karraker, pp. 80–81.

103 10 Car. I, c. 13, 16, 19 (Ireland), cited in Barnard, Toby, Cromwellian Ireland: English Government and Reform in Ireland, 1649–1660 (Oxford, 1975), pp. 253–54Google Scholar.

104 Ibid., p. 278.

105 James, , Stair, Viscount, The Institutions of the Laws of Scotland (1693), ed. Walker, David M. (Edinburgh, 1981), p. 951Google Scholar; Mitchison, R., “North and South: The Development of the Gulf in Poor Law Practice,” in Scottish Society 1500–1800, ed. Houston, R. A. and Whyte, I. D. (Cambridge, 1989), pp. 202, 210, 212, 222Google Scholar.

106 All Persons Indebted to His Majesty for Quit-Rents of Land, etc. (New York, 1752)Google Scholar; Osgood, 2:43, 350. In the Pennsylvania Archives (see Reed [n. 78 above], 1:106), it states that Pennsylvania sheriffs were to be charged with receipt of fines “as they do in England.”

107 Richardson and Sayles, p. 90. Irish parliaments could check the accounts of sheriffs (ibid., p. 75n.).

108 Beverly (n. 94 above), p. 248.

109 Saunders (n. 42 above), 6:990–91, Mr. Reed to the Secretary, June 26, 1763.

110 Hening (n. 41 above), 1:498, cited in Rankin (n. 78 above), pp. 10–11.

111 Boyd (n. 42 above), p. 166; Saunders, 7:497, Governor Tryon to the earl of Shelburne; and 8:93–94. See also Boyd, pp. 170–72; and Karraker, pp. 130–46.

112 J. Davies (n. 26 above), p. 251. See also PRO, SP 63/89/20 (CSPI, 1574–85, p. 349), G. Beverly to Lord Burghley, February 6, 1582; SP 63/89/38 (CSPI, 1574–85, p. 350), Auditor Jenyson to Lord Burghley, February 20, 1582; SP 63/125/33 (CSPI, 1586–88, p. 115), July 1586; SP 63/124/821 (CSPI, 1586–88, p. 81), opinion of Thomas Jenyson, Her Majesty's Auditor of Ireland, 1586.

113 Richardson and Sayles (n. 23 above), p. 216.

114 PRO, SP 63/126/531 (CSPI, 1586–88, p. 172).

115 Hazard (n. 78 above), 7:252, V. P. Bryan to James Claypoole, sheriff, March 17, 1779. For postrevolutionary reforms, see Nelson, William E., Americanization of the Common Law: The Impact of Legal Change on Massachusetts Society, 1760–1830 (Cambridge, 1975), pp. 92–93Google Scholar. But ibid., p. 209, n. 63, demonstrates that sheriffs continued to monopolize process. See also Labaree, L. W., ed., The Public Records of the State of Connecticut, May 1789 to October 1792 (Hartford, Conn., 1948), pp. 14, 18, 60, 89–90, 148, 159, 163, 280, 298, 317, 351, 545, 552Google Scholar.

116 Browne, , Archives of Maryland (n. 79 above), 1:158, 159, 286, 350Google Scholar, and 3:117, cited in Semmes (n. 84 above), p. 9.

117 See Browne, , Archives of Maryland, 2:246 ff.Google Scholar; Collections of the Connecticut Historical Society, vol. 11, The Law Papers: Correspondence and Documents during Jonathan Law's Governorship in the Colony of Connecticut, 1741–1750 (Hartford, Conn., 1907), pp. 80–81Google Scholar, Thomas Hill to Jonathan Law, April 25, 1743.

118 Browne, , Archives of Maryland, 4:395, 396Google Scholar, cited in Semmes, p. 10.

119 Ibid., 41:315, 316, 333, cited in Semmes, p. 410.

120 Ibid., 4:401, 402, 434–37, cited in Semmes, p. 11.

121 Ibid., 41:602, 603, cited in Semmes, p. 11.

122 Ibid., 17:42, 57, 58, 60–63, 96, cited in Semmes, p. 13. Usually sheriffs were fined only for obstinance and even then it is hard to determine whether the fines were levied. See cases regarding the escape of a hog killer and a tobacco debtor in ibid., 49:137–38, 477–78, cited in Semmes, pp. 13–14.

123 Rankin (n. 78 above), p. 116.

124 PRO, Treasury 1/446, Greenleaf's deposition, cited in Maier, Pauline, “Popular Uprisings and Civil Authority in Eighteenth-Century America,” in Katz, (n. 79 above), p. 438Google Scholar.

125 Hazard (n. 78 above), 10:63, Secretary Armstrong to the sheriffs, July 30, 1783; 3:105, Gov. Denny to the sheriff of Cumberland County, 1757.

126 Herbert, Trevor and Jones, Gareth Elwyn, eds., The Remaking of Wales in the Eighteenth Century (Cardiff, 1988), p. 9Google Scholar.

127 See, e. g., CSPI, 1586–88 (n. 26 above), p. 20.

128 Belfast Newsletter (August 1–12, 1768), cited in Johnston, Edith M., Great Britain and Ireland, 1760–1800: A Study in Political Administration (Edinburgh, 1963; reprint, Westport, Conn., 1978), pp. 139–40Google Scholar.

129 Brogan (n. 74 above), p. 106n.; Journal of the Votes and Proceedings of the General Assembly of the Colony of New York (New York, 1764), p. 227Google Scholar; Boyd (n. 42 above), pp. 174–80; Karraker (n. 71 above), pp. 117–21; Lovejoy (n. 96 above), p. 115.

130 Sirmans, M. Eugene, Colonial South Carolina: A Political History, 1663–1763 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1966), p. 70Google Scholar. In the same election the house itself chose among two men who had “tied for the last place in the Berkeley County delegation” (ibid., p. 70). See also Browne, , Archives of Maryland, 7:19, November 1678Google Scholar.

131 Miles, Lion G., “The Red Man Dispossessed: The Williams Family and the Alienation of Indian Land, 1736–1818,” New England Quarterly 67 (1994): 46–76Google Scholar, esp. p. 70. Van Wyck Brooks wrote of Concord residents who hid fugitive slaves in an effort to “foil the inquisitive sheriff” in New England Indian Summer, 1865–1915 (Boston, 1940), p. 56Google Scholar.

132 This point may be further appreciated after consideration of the number of nineteenth-century American cases regarding sheriffs that depended on the construction of English statutes from the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries. See Brown, Elizabeth G., British Statutes in American Law, 1776–1836 (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1964), pp. 329–31Google Scholar. Subjects of controversy included such supposedly archaic matters as the order of indictments in a sheriff's tourn. With a few exceptions, sheriffs' manuals also came relatively late to America and were then often reprints or recapitulations of English manuals. This may be seen alternatively as an indication of the unsophisticated nature of peripheral legal discourse or the prescriptive nature of the imperial model. See, e.g., Conductor Generalis: or the Office, Duty and Authority of Justices of the Peace, High-Sheriffs, Under-Sheriffs, etc (New York, 1788)Google Scholar; Haywood, John, The Duty and Office of Justices of the Peace and of Sheriffs, Coroners, etc. (Halifax, N.C., 1800)Google Scholar; Martin, Francis Xavier, The Office and Authority of a Justice of the Peace and of Sheriffs, Coroners, etc. (Newbern, N.C., 1804)Google Scholar; Martin, Francis Xavier, A Treatise on the Powers and Duties of a Sheriff (Newbern, N.C., 1806)Google Scholar; The Civil Officer, or the Whole Duty of Sheriffs, Constables and Collectors of Taxes (Boston, 1814)Google Scholar; Brewster, Francis E., The Secret “Customs” and Revenue of the Sheriffs Office (Philadelphia, 1819)Google Scholar.

133 The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Bergh, Albert E., 20 vols. (Washington, D.C., 1903–1904), 15:34–35, 39Google Scholar, Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval, July 12, 1816. For another comparative perspective, see Sumner, C. P., A Discourse on Some Points of Difference between the Sheriff's Office in Massachusetts and in England (Boston: Freeman & Bolles, 1829)Google Scholar. The latter had appeared in the American Jurist in 1829.

134 For background, see Chu, Jonathan M., “Debt Litigation and Shays's Rebellion.” in In Debt to Shays: The Bicentennial of an Agrarian Rebellion, ed. Gross, Robert A. (Charlottesville, Va., 1993), pp. 81–99Google Scholar.

135 Law Report (Ireland, [1879–1993]), 32:243Google Scholar, cited in Osborough, W. N., “Executive Failure to Enforce Judicial Decrees: A Neglected Chapter in Nineteenth Century Constitutional History,” in The Common Law Tradition: Essays in Irish Legal History, ed. McEldowney, J. F. and O'Higgins, Paul (Dublin, 1990), pp. 101–2Google Scholar.

136 For movement in this direction, see my “Charles I and Shrieval Selection, 1625–6,” Historical Research 64 (1991): 305–11Google Scholar, “Dissolution of the Monasteries and the Decline of the Sheriff,” Sixteenth Century Journal 23 (1992): 677–98Google Scholar, and “Due Process: The Early-Modern Shrievalty and Propertied Rule in the English-Speaking World” (manuscript in preparation).

137 Proceedings in Parliament, 1628, 6 vols., Commons Debates, vols. 1–4 (New Haven, Conn., 1977–1978), 2:463Google Scholar, cited in Christianson, Paul, “Arguments on Billeting and Martial Law in the Parliament of 1628,” Historical Journal 37 (1994): 552Google Scholar.

138 The Speeches of William Huskisson with a Biographic Memoir, 3 vols. (London, 1831), 3:287–88Google Scholar, cited in Parry (n. 14 above), pp. 42, 345, n. 55.

139 For an example of the Webbs' continued influence, see Parry, pp. 120, 352, n. 2, 373. For county community historiography, see Holmes, Clive, “The County Community in Stuart Historiography,” Journal of British Studies 19, no. 2 (1980): 54–73CrossRefGoogle Scholar.