40

DISSOLUTION OF THE LONDON COMPANY.

lony so entirely from any dread of the Indians, that its settlements began again to extend, and its industry to revive.'

While these events were passing in Virginia, the London company was rapidly hastening towards its final dissolution. This body had become very numerous, and its meetings furnished occasion for discussions on government and legislation, which were by no means pleasing to so arbitrary a sovereign as James I. Having sought in vain to give the court party the ascendency in the company, he began to charge the disasters and the want of commercial success in the colony to the mismanagement of the corporation.

Commissioners were appointed by the privy council to inquire into the affairs of Virginia from its earliest settlement. These commissioners seized the charters, books, and papers of the company, and intercepted all letters from the colony. Their report was unfavourable to the corporation, who were accordingly summoned, by the king, to surrender their charter. This being declined, the cause was brought before the Court of King's Bench, and decided against them. The company was dissolved, and its powers reverted to the king.

More than one hundred and fifty thousand pounds sterling had been expended on the colony, and nine thousand emigrants had been sent out to people it; yet the annual imports from it did not exceed twenty thousand pounds, and the number of inhabitants was only eighteen hundred.

While the controversy between the king and the company was going forward, the colonists were continuing to exercise the right of self-government. The general assembly met in February, 1624. Their most important act was a solemn declaration, 'that the governor should not impose any taxes on the colony, otherwise than by authority of the general assembly; and that he should not withdraw the inhabitants from their private labour to any service of his own.' Other measures for the protection of the colonists against arbitrary power were passed; and 'the laws of that session generally,' says Judge Marshall, ' are marked with that good sense and patriotism which are to be expected from men perfectly understanding their own situation, and legislating for themselves.'

They resisted the attempt of the royal commissioners to extort from them a declaration of unlimited submission to the king; but transmitted a petition to him praying for a confirmation of the civil rights then enjoyed, together with the sole importation of tobacco. They also petitioned to

PROGRESS OF CIVIL FREEDOM.

41

have the direction of any military force which the king might station in the country. All the acts of this assembly indicate a remarkable progress of the colonists in the knowledge and appreciation of their civil rights.

King James I. was not disposed to yield up a second time the unlimited control of the colony. He issued a special commission, appointing a governor and twelve councillors, to whom the entire direction of the affairs of the province was committed. He did not recognise the assembly as a part of the government; but attributing the late disasters to the influence of that body, he determined on its discontinuance. He granted to Virginia and the Somers Isles (Bermuda) the exclusive right of importing tobacco into England and Ireland, as had been desired, but totally disregarded the wishes of the colonists respecting the continuance of their civil freedom. His death prevented the completion of a code of laws, in which he proposed to carry out his favourite principles of government.

Charles I. inherited the arbitrary disposition and despotic principles of his father. He appears, however, to have attached very little importance to the political condition of Virginia. His principal aim was to derive profit from their industry. He neither granted nor restricted franchises; but his first act was to confirm the exclusive trade in tobacco to Virginia and the Somers Isles, and his next was to proclaim himself, through his agents, the sole factor of the planters.'

Sir George Yeardley was the successor of governor Wyatt : (1626.) The assemblies were, of course, continued under the administration of the man who had first introduced them. The king did not disturb the Virginians in the exercise of this important civil right. Emigrants continued to arrive in great numbers, and the agriculture and commerce of the colony were in a most flourishing state.

On the death of governor Yeardley, which took place in November, 1627, the council elected Francis West to succeed him. During his administration, the king proposed to the assembly to contract for the whole crop of tobacco; but this attempt to monopolise the chief staple of the colony was met by a decided refusal.

In 1629, John Harvey, the governor who had been commissioned by the king, on the decease of Yeardley, arrived in Virginia. He had formerly resided in the colony, and was personally unpopular. A strong party was formed in oppo

42

DESIGNS OF CHARLES I.

sition to him, and when, in some dispute about land titles, he was found to favour the court, in opposition to the interests of the colonies, he was removed from the government, and West appointed in his place. He subsequently consented to go to England, with two commissioners on the part of the colonists, in order that their complaints might be heard by the king. Instead of listening to them, Charles reappointed Harvey, who remained in office till 1639. He has been stigmatised by most of the old historians as a tyrant; but it does not appear that he attempted to deprive the colonists of any of their civil rights. The assemblies were continued as before, and exercised all the powers which they had acquired in Yeardley's time.

Harvey's successor was Sir Francis Wyatt, who continued in office till Feb. 1642, when Sir William Berkeley, having been appointed to succeed him, arrived and assumed the government. He recognised and confirmed the privileges which the Virginians had previously enjoyed, and received the cordial support of all parties. Some abuses in the construction and administration of the laws were reformed. Religion was provided for; the mode of assessing taxes was changed for a more equitable one; and the people, under this able and popular governor, enjoyed their liberties without disturbance from any quarter.

We must not omit to mention an order of the assembly establishing Episcopacy as the religion of the colony; and banishing all non-conforming ministers. Missionaries from New England, who had come on, for the purpose of preaching to the puritan settlements in Virginia, were silenced and ordered to leave the colony. This intolerance was in accordance with the spirit of the age; and examples of a similar character were not wanting in the history of Massachusetts.

In 1644, the Indians, against whom a hostile spirit had been kept up since the great massacre of 1622, made a sudden attack upon the frontier settlements, and killed about three hundred persons, before they were repulsed. An active warfare was immediately commenced against the savages, and their king, the aged Ŏpechancanough, was made prisoner, and died in captivity. The country was soon placed in a state of perfect security against further aggressions from that quarter. In 1646, a treaty, accompanied with a cession of lands, was concluded between the inhabitants of Virginia and Necontowanee, the successor of Opechancanough.

Its commerce

The colony was now in a flourishing state. had increased, so that upwards of thirty ships were engaged in the traffic with different ports in New England and Europe. The inhabitants, in 1648, had increased to twenty thousand.

In the dispute between Charles I. and the parliament of England, Virginia espoused the cause of the king; and when the republicans had obtained the ascendency, a fleet was fitted out from England, for the purpose of reducing the colony to submission.

In the mean time, an ordinance of parliament, of 1650, which forbade all intercourse between the loyal colonies and foreign countries, was rigorously enforced, as well as the act of 1651, which secured to English ships the entire carrying trade with England. When the fleet arrived, commissioners were instructed to reduce the colony to submission. It was found that parliament offered to the colonists, provided they would adhere to the commonwealth, all the liberties of Englishmen; with an amnesty for their past loyalty to the deposed king, and, as free trade as the people of England.' On the other hand, war was threatened in case of resistance.

The Virginians, with their accustomed gallantry, 'refused to surrender to force, but yielded by a voluntary deed, and a mutual compact.' All the rights of self-government, formerly enjoyed, were again guaranteed. Richard Bennet, who had been one of the commissioners of parliament, was elected governor, and Berkeley retired to private life.

In 1655, and 1658, the assembly of burgesses exercised the right of electing and removing the governor of the colony; and on occasion of receiving intelligence of the death of Cromwell, they were careful to re-assert this right, and require the governor, Matthews, to acknowledge it, in order, as they said, 'that what was their privilege now, might be the privilege of their posterity.'

On the death of Matthews, the government of England being in an unsettled state, the assembly elected Sir William Berkeley for governor; and, as he refused to act, under the usurped authority of the parliament, the colonists boldly raised the royal standard, and proclaimed Charles the Second, as their lawful sovereign. This was an act of great temerity, as it fairly challenged the whole power of Great Britain. The distracted state of that country saved the Virginians from its consequences, until the restoration of Charles to the British throne gave them a claim to his gratitude, as the last among his subjects to renounce, and the first to return to, their allegiance.

CHAPTER VIII.

VIRGINIA AFTER THE RESTORATION.

THE intelligence of the restoration was received with enthusiasm in Virginia. It naturally excited high hopes of favour, which were increased by the expressions of esteem and gratitude, which Charles found no difficulty in addressing to the colonists. These hopes they were, for a short time, permitted to indulge. The assembly introduced many important changes in judicial proceedings; trial by jury was restored; the Church of England, which of course had lost its supremacy during the protectorate, was again established by law; and the introduction of Quakers into the colony was made a penal offence.

The principles of government, which prevailed in England during the reign of Charles II., were extended to the colonies, which were now considered as subject to the legislation of parliament, and bound by its acts. The effects of this new state of things, were first perceived in the restrictions on commerce. Retaining the commercial system of the Long Parliament, the new house of commons determined to render the trade of the colonies exclusively subservient to English commerce and navigation. One of their first acts was to vote a duty of five per cent. on all merchandise exported from, or imported into, any of the dominions belonging to the crown. This was speedily followed by the famous Navigation Act,' the most memorable statute in the English commercial code.

·

By this law, among other things, it was enacted, that no commodities should be imported into any British settlement in Asia, Africa, or America, or exported from them, but in vessels built in England, or the plantations, and navigated by crews, of which the master and three-fourths of the mariners, should be English subjects, under the penalty of forfeiture of ship and cargo; that none but natural born subjects, or such as had been naturalised, should exercise the occupation of merchant or factor, in any English settlement, under the penalty of forfeiture of goods and chattels; that no sugar, tobacco, cotton, wool, indigo, ginger, or woods used in dyeing, produced or manufactured in the colonies, should be shipped from them