ABSTRACT
Archibald Kennedy (1685–1763) was born in Craigoch, Ayrshire, and probably arrived in New York in June 1710 in the retinue of Governor Robert Hunter. In his early years he served in the New York militia and as lieutenant in the regular army. Though very much of the ‘Court Party’ (as it was called in New York), he was conciliatory with people and pragmatic in policy, even eventually arguing for elimination of most navigation duties in favour of economic growth through freer trade. The beginning of this tract makes clear, however, that Kennedy believed in the political justifiability if not the practicality of mercantilism. Britain had, he thought, founded the colonies for its own commercial benefit and a colony was ‘compensated by the Protection of the Mother-Country, who defends it by her Arms, or supports it by her Laws’. Yet Kennedy’s imperial authoritarianism was founded on Whig rather than absolutist principles.
