finally bought off. Another such favorite was about to be inflicted on Aristopia, when Governor Morton's agents succeeded, by the payment of twenty thousand pounds, in inducing the King to renounce his intention and sign a solemn promise that the charter given by his grandfather should be forever respected to the letter.
That charter had given Governor Morton the right to levy customs, and had exempted the colony from the levying of royal customs within its borders. But the terms of this exemption were vague, and Governor Morton had much difficulty in keeping his colony free from royal spies in the form of customs officers; he wished to conceal from the English government the proceedings of the commonwealth and the fact that Aristopia was exporting largely of its manufactures—a fact which, if fully known, would have aroused the jealousy of the English government and provoked restrictive legislation. It is popularly but erroneously supposed in America that restrictive legislation against manufacturing in the colonies began with the colonization; but in fact it was more than a century after the founding of Jamestown before the English manufactur-
