In such a mood would the commissioners have found the colony and General Assembly, had they not procured copies of the two slanderous petitions, in spite of all the precautions of the king and the secrecy of his council and commissioners. Although they felt little interest in the controversy, they felt great interest in defending themselves from defamation, and their country from false and malicious representations, well calculated to disparage and depreciate it in the estimation of those, with whom they wished it to stand fairest. In six days from their meeting Feb. 20, 1624, they had prepared spirited and able answers to these petitions; declaring in their preamble, "that they holding it a sin against God and their own sufferings, to permit the world to be abused with false reports, and to give to vice the reward of virtue,--They, in the name of the whole colony of Virginia, in their General Assembly met, many of them having been eye-witnesses and sufferers in those times, had framed out of their duty to their country, and love of truth the following answer given to the praises of Sir T. Smith's government, in the said declaration."

They next drafted a petition to the king, which with a letter to the privy.. council and the other papers, were committed to the care of Mr. John Pountis, a member of the council, who was selected to go to England to represent the general interests of the colony before his majesty and the privy council; and whose expenses were provided for by a tax of four pounds of the best merchantable tobacco for every male person sixteen years of age, who had been in the country for one year. This gentleman unfortunately died on his passage. The letter to the privy council marks very strongly the value which they set even at that early day upon the right of legislating for themselves, the principal prayer in it, being "that the governors may not have absolute power, and that they might still retain the liberty of popular assemblies, than which, nothing could more conduce to the public satisfaction, and public utility."

A contest of wits was commenced between the 'commissioners and the Assembly. The former under various pretexts withheld from the latter a a sight of their commission, and the other papers with which they had been charged, and the governor and the Assembly thought proper to preserve an equal mystery as to their own proceedings. In this dilemma Mr. Pory, who was one of the commissioners, and who had been secretary to the. company, and discharged from his post for betraying its councils to the earl of Warwick; now suborned Edward Sharpless, a clerk of the council, to give him copies of the proceedings of that body and of the Assembly. This treachery was discovered, and the clerk was punished with the loss of his ears; whilst an account was sent home to the company, expressive of the greatest abhorrence at the baseness and treachery of Pory. The commissioners finding their secret maneuvering defeated, next endeavored, by the most artful wheedling, to induce the Assembly to petition the crown for. a révocation of the charter. In reply to this the Assembly asked for their in establishing the colony, without the smallest aid from the government. King. James suspended their powers by proclamation of July 15, 1624, and Charles I. took the government into his own hands. Both sides had their partisans in the colonybut in truth the people of the colony in general thought themselves little concerned in the dispute. There being three parties interested in these several charters; what passed between the first and second it was thought could not affect the third. If the king seized on the powers of the company, they only passed into other hands, without increase or diminution, while the rights of the people remained as they were. Jefferson's Notes on Va., pa, 152-3.

authority to make 'such a proposition, which of course they could not give without betraying their secret instructions, and were compelled to answer the requisition in general terms and professions. The Assembly took no farther notice of the commissioners, but proceeded with their ordinary legislation.

Thirty-five acts of this Assembly have been preserved to the present time, and exhibit with great strength, the propriety and good sense with which men can pass laws for the regulation of their own interests and concerns. One of these acts establishes at once in the most simple and intelligible language the great right of exemption from taxation without represen tation; it runs in these words:-"The governor shall not lay any taxes or impositions upon the colony, their lands or commodities, other way than by the authority of the General Assembly, to be levied and employed as the said Assembly shall appoint."-By a subsequent act it was declared that the governor should not withdraw the inhabitants from their private labors to any service of his own, upon any color whatsoever, and in case the public service required the employment of many hands, before the holding of a General Assembly, he was to order it, and the levy of men was to be made by the governor and whole body of the council in such manner as would be least burthensome to the people and most free from partiality. To encourage good conduct, the old planters who had been in the colony since the last arrival of Gates, were exempted from taxation or military duty. Many acts of general utility were passed; the members of the Assembly were privileged from arrest; lands were to be surveyed and their boundaries recorded, which is no doubt the origin of our highly beneficial recording statutes; vessels arriving were prohibited from breaking their cargoes until they had reported themselves; inspectors of tobacco were established in every settlement; the use of sealed weights and measures was enforced; provision was made for paying the public debt, "brought on by the late troubles;" no person was, upon the rumor of supposed change and alteration, to presume to be disobedient to the present government, or servants to their private officers, masters or overseers, at their uttermost perils.

Wise regulations were likewise made to prevent surprises by the Indians; every house was to be fortified with palisadoes; no man should go or send abroad without a party sufficiently armed, or to work without their arms, with a centinel over them; the inhabitants were forbidden to go aboard ships or elsewhere in such numbers as to endanger the safety of their plantations; every planter was to take care to have sufficient arms and ammunition in good order; watch was to be kept by night; and no planter was to suffer powder to be expended in amusement or entertainments. To promote corn-planting, and ensure plenty of provision, no limit was fixed to its price; viewers were appointed to see that every man planted a sufficiency for his family, and all trade with the savages for corn was strictly prohibited.

Having thus given a specimen of colonial spirit, and colonial legislation, we return to the little intrigues of James, who was striving by every means in his power to become possessed of the control of the colony; partly to gratify his love of arbitrary authority and of money, and partly to gratify his royal self-complacency by framing a code of laws, for a people with whose character and condition he was utterly unacquainted, and who from the specimens recently given appeared to be fully competent to the manage

ment of their own affairs, without the dictation or advice of this royal guardian; who while he displayed the craft without the talent of a Philip, aspired to the character of a Solon. The recent acts of the king led to a solemn council of the company on the state of their affairs, in which they coufirmed by an overwhelming majority the previous determination to defend their charter, and asked for a restitution of their papers for the purpose of preparing their defence. This request was pronounced reasonable by the attorney general, and complied with. Whilst these papers were in the hands of the company, they were transcribed, and the copy has been fortunately preserved, and presents a faithful record of many portious of Virginia history which it would be otherwise impossible to elucidate.*

The king had caused a quo warranto to be issued against the company Nov. 10, 1624, soon after the appointment of his commissioners to go to Virginia, and the cause was tried in the King's Bench, in Trinity Term of 1624. A cause which their Royal master had so much at heart could not long be doubtful with judges entirely dependent upon his will for their places; it is even credibly reported that this important case, whereby the rights of a powerful corporation were divested, and the possibility of remuneration for all of their trouble and expense forever cut off, was decided upon a mere technical question of special pleading!"

In the mean time the commissioners had returned, and reported very favorably of the soil and climate of Virginia, but censuring deeply the conduct of the company,-recommending the government of the original charter of 1606, and declaring that a body so large and so democratic in its forms as the company, could never persevere in a consistent course of policy, but must veer about as the different factions should prevail. In this it must be admitted that there was much truth, and all hopes of profit having for some time expired, and the company only being kept up by the distinguished men of its members, from patriotic motives and as an instrument of power for thwarting the king, in which capacity its present unpopulari ty rendered it of little use, it was now suffered to expire under the judi cial edict, without a groan. The expiration of the charter brought little immediate charge to the actual government of the colony, a large committee was formed by the king, consisting principally of his privy council, to discharge the functions of the extinct company; Sir Francis Wyatt was reappointed governor, and he and his council only empowered to govern "as fully and amply as any governor and council resident there, at any time within the space of five years last past:"--which was the exact period of their representative government. The king in appointing the council in Virginia, refused to appoint embittered partisans of the court faction, but formed the government of men of moderation.

So leaving Virginia free, whilst his Royal Highness is graciously pleas; ed to gratify his own vanity in preparing a new code of laws to regulate her affairs, we pass on to a new chapter.

*Burk, pa. 274-5. Stith compiled his history principally from these documents. +Note to Bancroft, pa. 207. Stith, pa. 329, 330, doubts if judgment was passed. The doubt may be removed. "Before the end of the same term, a judgment was declared by the Lord Chief Juitice Ley, against the company and their charter, only upon failer or mistake in pleading." See a Short Collection of the most Remarkable Passages from the Original to the Dissolution of the Virginia Company. London, 1651, pa. 15. See also Hazard V. I. pa. 19; Chalmer's, pa. 62; Proud's Pennsylvania, V. I. pa. 107.

576

CHAPTER IV.

PROGRESS OF THE COLONY FROM THE DISSOLUTION OF THE LONDON COMPANY, TO THE BREAKING OUT OF BACON'S REBELLION IN 1675.

Accession of Charles I,-Tobacco trade,-Yeardley governor,--his commission favorable-his death and character,-Lord Baltimore's reception, State of religion,-legislation upon the subject-Invitation, to the Puritans to settle on Delaware bay, Harvey governor-Error with regard to his early administration,-Dismemberment of the colony-Grant of Carolina and Maryland, probable cause of discontent, -Harvey deposed-restored,- Wyatt governor,-Acts of the Legislature improperly censured,-Berkeley governor-Indian relations, Opechancanough prisoner-his death,-Change of government in Englant-Fleet and army sent to reduce Virginia,-Preparation for defence by Berkeley,-Agreement entered into between the colony and the commissioners of the commonwealth,Indian hostilities, Matthews elected governor,-Difficulties between the governor and the legislature -adjusted,-State of the colony and its trade,-Commissioners sent to England, The Restoration,-General legislation.

THE dissolution of the London Company was soon followed by the death of James, and the accession of his son Charles I. The

March 27, 1625. king troubled himself little about the political rights and

privileges of the colony, and suffered them to grow to the strength of estab lished usage by his wholesome neglect; whilst he was employed in obtaining a monopoly of their tobacco. This valuable article, the use of which extended with such unaccountable rapidity, had early attracted the avidity of king James. The 19th article of the charter of 1609 had exempted the company, their agents, factors and assignees from the payment of all subsidies and customs in Virginia for the space of one and twenty years, and from all taxes and impositions forever, upon any goods imported thither, or exported thence into any of the realms or dominions of England; except the five per cent usual by the ancient trade of merchants. But notwithstanding the express words of this charter, a tax was laid by the farmers of the customs in the year 1620 upon the tobacco of the colony; which was not only high of itself, but the more oppressive because it laid the same tax upon Virginia and Spanish tobacco, when the latter sold in the. market for three times the price of the former. In the same year, the same prince was guilty of another violation of the charter in forcing the company to bring all of their tobacco into England; when he found that a portion of their trade had been diverted into Holland, and establishments made at Middleburg and Flushing. The charters all guaranteed to the colony all of the rights, privileges, franchises, and immunities of native born Englishmen, and this act of usurpation was the first attempt on the part of the mother country to monopolize the trade of the colony. The next year the king, either his avidity being unsatisfied, or not liking the

* Henning St. at L. v. I. p. 94.

usurped and precarious tenure by which his gains were held, inviegled the Virginia and Somer's Isle's company into an arrangement, by which they were to become the sole importers of tobacco; being bound however to import not less than forty nor more than sixty thousand pounds of Spanish varinas, and paying to the king in addition to the six pence duty before paid, onethird part of all the tobacco landed in the realms. The king on his part was to prohibit all other importation and all planting in England and Ireland; and that which was already planted was to be confiscated.

When the company petitioned Parliament to prolong its existence in opposition to the efforts of the king, they failed, but that portion of their petition which asked for the exclusive monopoly of tobacco to Virginia Sep. 29, 1624. and the Somer Isles, was granted, and a royal proclamation Sep. 29, 1624. issued accordingly; whether this exclusiveness was understood with the limitation in the previous contract between the king and the two companies, it is impossible to say, as the original documents are not accessible to the writer. But the probabilities are greatly against the limitation.

Charles had not been long on the throne before he issued a proclamation April 9, 1625. confirming the exclusive privileges of the Virginia and April 9, 1625. Somer Isles tobacco, and prohibiting a violation of their monopoly, under penalty of censure by the dread star-chamber. This was soon followed by another in which he carefully set forth the forfeiture of their charter by the company, and the immediate dependance of the colony upon the crown; concluding by a plain intimation of his intention to be come their sole factor.

Soon after this a rumor reached the colonies that an individual was in treaty with the king for an exclusive contract for tobacco, one of the conditions of which would have led to the importation of so large an amount of Spanish tobacco as would have driven that of the colonists from the market; the earnest representations of the colony on this subject caused an abandonment of the scheme, but in return the colony was obliged to excuse itself from a charge of trade with the lower countries, and promise to trade only with England. But the king's eagerness for the possession of this monopoly was not to be baffled thus; he made a formal proposition to the colony for their exclusive trade, in much the same language as one tradesman would use to another, and desired that the General Assembly might be convened for the purpose of considering his proposition. The answer March 26, 1628. by the General Assembly to this proposition is preserved. It sets forth in strong but respectful language the injury which had been done the planters by the mere report of an intention to subject their trade to a monopoly; they state the reasons for not engaging in the production of the other staples mentioned by the king; and dissent from his proposition as to the purchase of their tobacco, demanding a higher price and better terms of admission, in exchange for the exclusive monopoly which he wished.1

In the mean time the death of his father rendered it necesary for Sir Francis Wyatt to return to Europe to attend to his private affairs, 1626. and the king appointed Sir George Yeardley his successor.

This

*Burk, 1. 291, and Bancroft 1, 206-quoting Stuth, Cobbett's Parliament. Hist, and Hazard.

Burk's Ancient records--Burk, V. 2. 19. * Hening, vol. 1 134.