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CHAPTER XI.

VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND DURING THE ENGLISH CIVIL
WARS AND THE COMMONWEALTH.

XI.

THE meeting of the Long Parliament was a subject CHAPTER of rejoicing as well in Virginia as in Massachusetts. Shortly after its assembly, in an address to their con- 1641. stituents, the burgesses refer to the "happy Parliament in England" as affording opportunity for establishing their "liberties and privileges," and for "preventing the future designs of monopolizers, contractors, and preemptors, ever hitherto incessant."

The old Virginia Company applied to the Long Parliament for the restoration of their charter, but this application found no favor in Virginia. The assembly declared, "that, having fully debated and maturely con- 1642. sidered the reasons on both sides, and looking back to April 1. the times under the company, and also upon the present state of the colony under his majesty's government, they find the late company in their government intolerable, and the present comparatively happy." This protest wound up in the form of an act, with a clause imposing a severe penalty on all who should aid or abet the reduction of the colony to any company or corporation. It was sent to the king, who returned a very gracious answer, dated at York, where he had already retired, July 18. . and raised his standard against the rebellious Parliament.

Shortly after the breaking out of the civil war in En- 1643. gland, the Virginia code underwent a second revision.

CHAPTER Most of the former laws were continued, but with some XI. modifications and additions, derived from acts passed by 1643. the intermediate assemblies. The new code provided for

parish vestries, to consist of the minister, two churchwardens, and the "most sufficient and selected men of the parish;" the vestrymen to be chosen annually by the major part of the parishioners. They are empowered to levy assessments for church repairs and parish expenses, and required annually, in presence of the commanders of settlements and the commissioners of the monthly courts, to give an account of their collections and disbursements. The ministers, to be recommended by the vestries and admitted by the governor, are made subject to suspension by the governor and council, and removal by the assembly. All ministers are to use the Liturgy, and to conform to the Church of England; the governor and council to compel non-conformists "to depart the colony with all conveniency." No popish recusant is to hold any office; and all popish priests are to be sent out of the colony within five days after their arrival. Traveling and shooting on the Sabbath are made punishable by fines.

Besides the parish and ministerial taxes, there was another poll tax known as the "colony levy," imposed annually by the Assembly for the payment of colonial expenses. From this tax the vestries are empowered to excuse, on certificates of poverty. Conveyances of land are required to be registered; tenants dispossessed by a superior title are to be allowed compensation for improvements a very decided advance on the English law, adopted at present in many of the States. Every planter is required to fence in his crops at his own peril— thus settling a question which had made a political revolution in Massachusetts, and establishing a rule which,

XI.

Hunting 1643.

by statute or usage, still pervades all the Southern CHAPTER States. The killing of tame hogs is made felony; nor could wild hogs be killed without a license. over other people's cultivated lands is forbidden. Servants without indentures, if of age, are to serve four years; if under twenty, five years; if under twelve, seven years. Servitude, as a punishment, is abolished. To deal with runaway servants, or any servants, without consent of their masters, is made a criminal offense. Penalties are imposed on servants marrying without leave of their masters, running away, or carrying powder and shot to the Indians. Any freeman who sells powder and shot to the Indians is to forfeit all his estate. who trades with them in other commodities without license is to be imprisoned at the discretion of the governor and council. Arms lent to Indians may be taken away by any person, and the lender is subject to a fine.

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The monthly courts are changed into county courts, to be held six times a year in each county, by commissioners appointed by the Assembly; each commissioner being also authorized to sit alone to decide petty controversies. From the county courts, which possessed a comprehensive jurisdiction in all cases, both in law and equity, an appeal lay to the quarter courts, composed of the governor and council, and thence to the Assemblya judicial system closely resembling that of New England. Juries were to be allowed, where parties desired it, "if the case were fit for a jury." The fees of attorneys in county courts are limited to twenty pounds of tobacco in each case, and twice as much at quarter courts. Two years after, the Massachusetts practice was adopted, and all "mercenary attorneys" were prohibited. If the court perceived that either party, by his weakness, was like to lose his cause, they were themselves "to open the case,"

XL.

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CHAPTER or to appoint "some fit man out of the people" to do it, to whom a reasonable compensation was to be allowed. 1643. The extortionate fees of physicians had become a subject of complaint. By an act, omitted in this revision, but presently revived, they might be compelled to state the cost of their medicines under oath. All suits for debts contracted out of the colony, except for goods imported, are indefinitely postponed. Goods taken on execution are to be appraised and delivered to the creditor. Prisons are to be provided at the expense of the counties.

It had formerly been enacted that all accounts and judgments should be in money and not in tobacco. But the deficiency of coin had caused this policy to be changed, and, by the present code, money debts were not recoverable. Some six years afterward a scheme was enacted for introducing a currency of copper, upon which an artificial value was to be fixed, the coins to be redeemed by the colony at their nominal value if ever called in. But that scheme, which much resembles the paper money system afterward introduced, does not appear to have been carried into effect. The trade of Virginia was a good deal in the hands of the Dutch, and provision is made for the encouragement of Dutch trading vessels. Attempts to diversify the industry of the colony were not yet abandoned; premiums are offered to producers of potashes, soap, salt, flax, hemp, and cotton.

The last clause of the code, after mentioning the withdrawal, "through the unkind differences now in England," of the former royal allowance to the governor, assures to him for the year, by way of salary, two shillings for every tithable in the colony, payable in Indian corn, wheat, malt, beef, pork, butter, cheese, geese, turkeys, good hens, and pigs, at prices named in the act,

and not materially different from those now current in CHAPTER the New York market.

XI.

It would appear that each county, as yet, possessed 1643. the right of sending as many burgesses to the Assembly as it chose. Special delegates seem also to have been sent by some, if not by all the parishes. But a year or two after the counties were limited to four burgesses 1645. each, their expenses to be paid by those who sent them; and this number was subsequently reduced to two. The burgesses had been voted for hitherto by subscribing a paper, at the head of which was the name of the favored candidate. But, by a law presently enacted, voters were 1646. required to come personally to the place named by the sheriff, and give in their votes viva voce- -an imitation of the English parliamentary elections still kept up in Virginia.

Jan.

The Parliamentary Commissioners for Plantations, to 1644. induce the Virginians to acknowledge their authority, offered them the choice of their own governor, and the same freedom from imposts granted to New England. But Governor Berkeley, a stanch Royalist, persuaded a majority of the counselors to take an oath to adhere to the king. Yet the Londoners, though chief supporters of the Parliament, were assured, by a special act of Assembly, that it was not intended to break off trade with them.

The Virginians generally were loyal Episcopalians; yet there were some Puritans among them. Philip Bennet had visited Boston a year or two before, with letters 1642. from many "well-disposed people of the upper new farms," bewailing their destitute condition, and earnestly entreating a supply of faithful ministers, "whom, upon experience of their gifts and godliness, they might call to office." These letters were publicly read in Boston on

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