CHAPTER formist settlers from Virginia, founders of North CaroXV. lina, had already established themselves. 1663. Another curious old law, originally passed during Berkeley's former administration, was now re-enacted : "Whereas it is frequent with divers inhabitants of this country to entertain strangers, with their horses, without making any agreement with the party what he shall pay for his accommodations, which, if the party live, causeth many litigious suits, and, if the stranger die, lays a gap open to many avaricious persons to ruin the estate of the person deceased-for remedy for the future, be it enacted, that no person not making a positive agreement with any one he shall entertain into his house for diet or storage, shall recover any thing against any one so cntertained, or against his estate, but that every one shall be reputed to entertain those of courtesy with whom they make not a certain agreement." To raise the price of tobacco by some legislative interference had long been a favorite theory in Virginia. The means proposed was a "stint" or "cessation,” an omission, that is, to plant for a year or more. But, to carry out this scheme, it was necessary to get Maryland to come into the arrangement. After much negotiation, 1666. that province passed an act for the purpose, and a "cessation" for a year was arranged, during which debtors were to have the privilege of paying only one half of their tobacco debts, for which grain and other produce were also made a legal tender. Before this act came into operation, the whole scheme was defeated by the proprietary of Maryland, who objected to it as injurious to the poorer planters, and to the king's revenue as well as his own. The "nakedness of the country," occasioned by the low price of tobacco and the defeat of this scheme for raising its price, led to new legislative efforts for the intro XV. duction of manufactures. Every county was to set up CHAPTER a loom at its own expense, and to provide a weaver. Not having been found to produce the desired effect, the 1666. requirement to plant mulberry trees, in force since the early days of the colony, was now at last abandoned. The rewards hitherto offered for silk, cloths, and the building of vessels, were also withdrawn. It was about this time that Berkeley sent out an exploring party, the first that crossed the Blue Ridge and penetrated into the valley beyond-an enterprise not again repeated for near fifty years. The breaking out of the Dutch war had occasioned considerable alarm in Virginia. James River was entered by Dutch privateers, and trading vessels were seized there. Under the influence of this alarm, forts were built at Nansemond and James City, and on the York, Rappahannoc, and Potomac, on which were mounted some thirty pieces of cannon, partly purchased by the colony, and the rest sent out by the king. But the expense of keeping up these forts proved a heavy burden to the colony. The lawfulness of holding Africans as slaves was supposed to rest, in part at least, on the fact that they were heathen. But of the negroes brought to Virginia, some had been converted and baptized, and this was the case to a still greater extent with those born in the colony. By what right were these Christians held as slaves? This question having been raised in Virginia, the Assembly came to the relief of the masters by enacting that 1667. negroes, though converted and baptized, should not thereby become free. At the same session, in remarkable deviation from the English law, it was also enacted, that killing slaves by extremity of correction should not be esteemed felony, "since it can not be presumed that prepense malice should induce any man to destroy his own CHAPTER estate." The prohibition against holding Indians as XV. slaves was also relaxed as to those brought in by water, 1667. a new law having enacted "that all servants, not being Christians, imported by shipping, shall be slaves for life." About this period, and afterward, a considerable number of Indian slaves seem to have been imported into Virginia and New England from the West Indies and the Spanish Main. As a necessary pendent to the slave code, the system now also began of subjecting freed slaves to civil disabilities. It had already been enacted that female servants employed in field labor should be rated and taxed as tithable. Negro women, though free, were now subjected to the same tax. Free negroes and Indians were also disqualified to purchase or hold white servants. While the slave code was thus extended, the privileges and political power of the poorer whites underwent a corresponding diminution. During the period of the Commonwealth, the Virginia Assemblies had been chosen for only two years; but this privilege of frequent elections was no longer enjoyed. The Assembly of 1661 was still in existence, such vacancies as occurred being filled from time to time by special elections. Even this small privilege was begrudged to the poorer freemen; and, on the usual pretexts of tumultuous elections, and want of sufficient discretion in the poorer vot 1670. ers, it was now enacted that none but householders and freeholders should have a voice in the election of burgesses—a principle maintained in Virginia to this day. Some replies of Berkeley to a series of questions submitted to him by the plantation committee of the Privy 1671. Council give quite a distinct picture of the colony as it then was. The population is estimated at 40,000, including 2000 "black slaves," and 6000 "Christian XV. servants," of whom about 1500 were imported yearly, CHAPTER principally English. Since the exclusion of Dutch vessels by the acts of navigation, the importation of negroes 1671. had been very limited; not above two or three ship-loads had arrived in seven years. The English trade to Africa, a monopoly in the hands of the Royal African Company, does not seem to have been prosecuted with much spirit; and such supply of slaves as that company furnished was chiefly engrossed by Jamaica and the other sugar colonies. Tobacco, to the quantity of fifteen or twenty thousand hogsheads of three hundred and fifty pounds each, is represented by Berkeley as the only exportable commodity, for the transportation of which, and the supply of the colony with imported goods, there came yearly from England and Ireland some eighty ships, besides a few ketches from New England. The Navigation Act is complained of as cutting off the market for staves, timber, and corn; but this could only be by excluding Dutch and other foreign ships from the colony; for, notwithstanding the navigation acts, the Virginians remained at full liberty to send those articles wherever they pleased. Unluckily, they had no shipping. "There is a gov ernor and sixteen counselors, who have from his sacred majesty a commission of oyer and terminer, who judge and determine all causes that are above £15 sterling; for what is under, there are particular courts in every county, which are twenty in number. Every year, at least, the Assembly is called, before whom lie appeals; and this Assembly is composed of two burgesses out of every county. These lay the necessary taxes, as their exigencies require." It is added, however, that the Indian neighbors of the colony are "absolutely subjected, so that there is no fear of them." "We have forty-eight parishes," adds the governor, "and our min XV. CHAPTER isters are well paid, and by my consent should be better, if they would pray oftener and preach less. But as of 1671. all other commodities, so of this, the worst are sent us, and we have few that we can boast of since the persecution, in Cromwell's tyranny, drove divers worthy men hither. But I thank God there are no free schools nor printing, and I hope we shall not have these hundred years; for learning has brought disobedience, and heresy, and sects into the world, and printing has divulged them, and libels against the best government: God keep us from both!" 1672. No opposition appears to have been made in Virginia to the establishment of a crown custom-house to collect the duties imposed by act of Parliament on the shipment of "enumerated articles" from one colony to another. The Virginians might deem that act to be aimed rather at the New Englanders than at them. Yet grievances from England were not wanting. Public attention was soon much engrossed by some proceedings on the part of the king, which might lead the Virginians to question whether even the "tyranny of Cromwell" were not quite as tolerable, on the sacred majesty" Charles II. stead of being applied to the been given away, for a term of years, to one Colonel Norwood, whom Berkeley calls a "deserving servant of the crown ;" but wherein his desert consisted does not appear. The whole "northern neck," that is, the peninsula between the Rappahannoc and the Potomac, had been granted to the Earl of St. Alban's, Lord Culpepper, and others, without even excepting the plantations already 1673. settled there. Finally, the entire colony was assigned, Feb. 25. for thirty-one years, to Lords Culpepper and Arlington, including all quit-rents, escheats, the power to grant lands whole, as the rule of "his The royal quit-rents, inbenefit of the colony, had |