CHAPTER VI.

VI.

Mar.

27.

RESTRICTIONS ON COLONIAL COMMERCE.

CHAP. ASCENDING the throne in his twenty-fifth year, Charles I. inherited the principles and was governed 1625. by the favorite of his father. The rejoicings in consequence of his recent nuptials, the reception of his bride, and preparations for a parliament, left him little leisure for American affairs. Virginia was esteemed by the monarch as the country producing tobacco; its inhabitants were valued at court as planters, and prized according to the revenue derived from the staple of their industry. The plantation, no longer governed by a chartered company, was become a royal province and an object of favor; and, as it enforced conformity to the church of England, it could not be an object of suspicion to the clergy or the court. The king felt an earnest desire to heal old grievances, to secure the personal rights and property of the colonists, and to promote their prosperity. Franchises were neither conceded nor restricted; for it did not occur to his pride, that, at that time, there could be in an American province any thing like established privileges or vigorous political life; nor was he aware that the seeds of liberty were already germinating on the borders of the April Chesapeake. His first Virginian measure was a proclamation on tobacco; confirming to Virginia and the Somer Isles the exclusive supply of the British market,

VIRGINIA RETAINS ITS FRANCHISES.

195

VI.

under penalty of the censure of the star-chamber for CHAP. disobedience. In a few days, a new proclamation appeared, in which it was his evident design to secure 1625. May the profits that might before have been engrossed by 13. the corporation. After a careful declaration of the forfeiture of the charters, and consequently of the immediate dependence of Virginia upon himself, a declaration aimed against the claims of the London company, and not against the franchises of the colonists, the monarch proceeded to announce his fixed resolution of becoming, through his agents, the sole factor of the planters. Indifferent to their constitution, it was his principal aim to monopolize the profits of their industry; and the political rights of Virginia were established as usages by his salutary neglect.1

SO

There is no room to suppose that Charles nourished the design of suppressing the colonial assemblies. For some months, the organization of the government was not changed; and when Wyatt, on the death of his father, obtained leave to return to Scotland, Sir George 1626. Yeardley was appointed his successor. This appointment was in itself a guaranty, that, as "the former interests of Virginia were to be kept inviolate," 2 the representative government, the chief political interest, would be maintained; for it was Yeardley who had had the glory of introducing the system. In the commission now issued,3 the monarch expressed his desire to benefit, encourage and perfect the plantation; "the same means, that were formerly thought fit for the maintenance of the colony," were continued ; and the power of the governor and council was limited, as

1 Hazard, i. 202–205. Burk, ii. 14, 15.

2 Letter of the privy council, in Burk, ii. 18.

3 Hazard, i. 230-234.

Mar.

4.

196

VIRGINIA RETAINS ITS FRANCHISES.

VI.

CHAP. it had before been done in the commission of Wyatt, by a reference to the usages of the last five years. In that period, representative liberty had become the cus tom of Virginia. The words were interpreted as favoring the wishes of the colonists; and King Charles, intent only on increasing his revenue, confirmed, perhaps unconsciously, the existence of a popular assembly. The colony prospered; Virginia rose rapidly 1627. in public estimation; in one year, a thousand emigrants arrived; and there was an increasing demand for all the products of the soil.

Nov.

The career of Yeardley was now closed by death. Posterity will ever retain a grateful recollection of the man who first convened a representative assembly in the western hemisphere; the colonists, announcing his decease in a letter to the privy council, gave at the same time a eulogy on his virtues; the surest evidence Nov. of his fidelity to their interests. The day after his burial, Francis West was elected his successor; 2 for the council was authorized to elect the governor, "from time to time, as often as the case shall require."3

14.

1628.

But if any doubts existed of the royal assent to the continuance of colonial assemblies, they were soon reJune moved by a letter of instructions, which the king ad16. dressed to the governor and council. After much

caviling, in the style of a purchaser who undervalues the wares which he wishes to buy, the monarch arrives at his main purpose, and offers to contract for the whole crop of tobacco; desiring, at the same time, that an assembly might be convened to consider his proposal. This is the first recognition, on the part of a Stuart, of a representative assembly in America.

1 Burk, ii. 22, 23.

2 Hening, i. 4.

3 Hazard i. 233.

4 Burk, ii. 19, 20. Hening, i. 129.

SIR JOHN HARVEY'S ADMINISTRATION.

197

VI.

Mar.

26.

Hitherto, the king had, fortunately for the colony, CHAP. found no time to take order for its government. His zeal for an exclusive contract led him to observe and to sanction the existence of an elective legislature. The assembly, in its answer, firmly pro- 1629. tested against the monopoly, and rejected the conditions which they had been summoned to approve. The independent reply of the assembly was signed by the governor, by five members of the council, and by thirty-one burgesses. The Virginians, happier than the people of England, enjoyed a faithful representative government, and, through the resident planters who composed the council, they repeatedly elected their own governor. When West designed to embark for Europe, his place was supplied by election.'

2

No sooner had the news of the death of Yeardley 1628. reached England, than the king proceeded to issue a commission to John Harvey. The tenor of the instrument offered no invasions of colonial freedom; but while it renewed the limitations which had previously been set to the executive authority, it permitted the council in Virginia, which had common interests with the people, to supply all vacancies occurring in their body. In this way direct oppression was rendered impossible.

to

1629,

It was during the period which elapsed between 1628 the appointment of Harvey and his appearance in America, that Lord Baltimore visited Virginia. The zeal of religious bigotry pursued him as a Romanist; 3 and the intolerant jealousy of Popery led to memorable results. Nor should we, in this connection, forget the hospitable plans of the southern planters; the people

1 Hening, i. 134–137. Burk, ii. 24. 2 Hazard, i. 234-239.

3 Records, in Burk, ii, 24, 25. Hening, i, 552.

198

SIR JOHN HARVEY'S ADMINISTRATION.

CHAP. of New Plymouth were invited to abandon the cold VI and sterile clime of New England, and plant themselves in the milder regions on the Delaware Bay;1a plain indication that Puritans were not then molested in Virginia.

Mer.

2

It was probably in the autumn of 1629 that Harvey arrived in Virginia. Till October, the name of Pott 1630 appears as governor; Harvey met his first assembly 24. of burgesses in the following March.3 He had for several years been a member of the council; and as, at a former day, he had been a willing instrument in the hands of the faction to which Virginia ascribed its earliest griefs, and continued to bear a deep-rooted hostility, his appointment could not but be unpopular. 1630 The colony had esteemed it a special favor from King 1635. James, that, upon the substitution of the royal author

to

ity for the corporate supremacy, the government had been intrusted to impartial agents; and, after the death of Yeardley, two successive chief magistrates had been elected in Virginia. The appointment of Harvey implied a change of power among political parties; it gave authority to a man whose connections in England were precisely those which the colony regarded with the utmost aversion. As his first appearance in America, in 1623, had been with no friendly designs, so now he was the support of those who desired large grants of land and unreasonable concessions of separate jurisdictions; and he preferred the interests of himself, his partisans and patrons, to the welfare and quiet of the colony. The extravagant language, which exhibited him as a tyrant, without specifying his crimes, was the natural hyperbole of po