The prevailing characterization of the seventeenth century English Atlantic Empire as one in which commercial interests are pre-dominated seems to be myopic. Gradually legal and political considerations, as much as economic considerations, shaped imperial policies throughout this period, and formed the basis for the development of England's imperial constitution. Analyzing the expansion and evolution of the Empire on the basis of law reveals why the Empire developed the way it did and how that form changed over time. Over the course of the late seventeenth century, the Lords of Trade sought to control the legal and political development of the Atlantic colonies. This book illustrates the concerted effort to create a centralized system of legal oversight through the regulation of colonial statutes and the circumscription of law-making power of colonial governments. Legal principles, more than mercantile interests or commercial policies, provided the primary framework through which relationships between metropolitan officials and colonial settlers were mediated. Legal actions have started to become critical vehicles for the consolidation of imperial authority over the colonial periphery. Imperial legal policies should be considered in connection with domestic politics as both undoubtedly influenced the shape of Restoration imperial policy. Although historians have tended to ignore the influence of domestic politics in the development of the Empire, the interplay between domestic and imperial legal politics demonstrates that imperial policies were often forged in relation and in response to political events and ideologies in Restoration England.
