As the previous volumes in this series have shown, Britain's system of unfederal government had, by 1840, passed a cultural crossroads. There had been a parting of the ways in which the old representative system that had provided rule for colonies (including those in America and the Caribbean) in earlier centuries was being superseded. In this fourth volume Madden and Fieldhouse focus on those colonies in North America, Australasia, and South Africa where British subjects had settled in considerable numbers, and where the restrictions of the old system had been outgrown and representative...

Beginning with the consolidation of British colonial rule and ending with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, the years 1689-1783 marked a new era for the British imperial system, both in the economic relations of Britain and her colonies and in the growth of the political, constitutional, and legal status of the colonies and the institutions for their government. The documents trace the attack on, and defense of charters; attempts at consolidation and union; the application and evolution of colonial law; and the workings of the machinery of government (government, counsels,...

This volume--the fifth in a series providing key documents for the constitutional history of the British Empire and Commonwealth from the twelfth century to the twentieth--deals with those dependencies of the Crown where for various reasons it was considered premature to concede fully representative, let alone responsible, government, and also with Ireland where the union with Britain made in 1800 was coming under increasing strain. It covers the years from 1840 to 1900, in parallel with the companion volume IV which dealt with the four main settler colonies. The documents in this volume...