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-- all without

    a governing policy or without a central direction. The result was, in the fine phrase of the Webbs, "an anarchy of local autonomy." 15
     

VII
    The Webbs' phrase also describes the situation of the American colonies before the American Revolution. All but Georgia had been founded in the seventeenth century, and by the eighteenth century, though all were under the supervision of Britain, they pretty well ran their own affairs. The general outlines of their formal relationship to the Crown were known, but their objective situation -- their virtual autonomy -- was not. The disparity between reality and what was imagined in England is not surprising: the distance between England and America was great and communication imperfect, and no very enlightened colonial administration which might have explained each to the other existed.
     
    The colonies had been founded under the authorization of the Crown, and governmental authority in them had always been exercised in the king's name, though rather ambiguously in the three proprietary colonies, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and tenuously in Rhode Island and Connecticut, the two corporate colonies. What had lasted long apparently seemed best left unchanged. The administrative structure on which the Crown relied to "govern" the colonies was old and never really adequate to govern the vast holdings in the New World. In England the Privy Council and the Secretary of State for the Southern Department did the actual work of administration before 1768. The Privy Council's primary responsibilities lay elsewhere, or its interests did; and the chief concern of the Secretary of State for the Southern Department was relations with Europe. For advice the Secretary relied on the Board of Trade, an advisory body primarily concerned with trade. 16
     
    If this structure made for confusion because responsibility for the conduct of colonial affairs was not clearly placed, the differences among the colonial governments themselves added to it, as did the problem of communication among governments separated by the Atlantic Ocean. The one relatively steady hand in this structure was provided by the Board of Trade, which funneled information received from the colonies
     
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15
Sidney Webb and Beatrice Webb, English Local Government from the Revolution to the Municipal Corporations Act, IV: Statutory Authorities for Special Purposes ( London, 1922), 353.
16
Oliver Morton Dickerson, American Colonial Government, 1696-1765 ( Cleveland, Ohio, 1912); Andrews, Colonial Period , IV.
    to the Secretary and relayed his instructions to governors and other officials in America. For a time early in the eighteenth century the Board lost influence as certain English officials succeeded in curbing its authority. But in 1748 the Earl of Halifax became its president and increased its influence and his own. In 1757 Halifax was made a member of the Privy Council; his appointment alleviated the confusion in colonial administration, for he remained president of the Board of Trade.
    When Halifax resigned in 1761, the Board lost influence and the colonies lost an intelligent administrator. Administrative order never again really attained the level reached at midcentury. The most important effort to establish such order made between Halifax's retirement and the Revolution was the creation in 1768 of the office of the Secretary for Colonial Affairs, a department charged with supervision of the colonies. Unfortunately, this office aroused the jealousy of other ministers and fell into the hands of inept secretaries.
    At another time in British history, administrative inefficiency, even stupidity and an absence of understanding, would not have mattered much. But late in the century it did. Administrative agencies did not make policy on crucial matters, but they contributed to it by supplying information and advice. And they had a responsibility to keep the colonials and the ministry in touch