CHAPTER XXV.
1655-1658.
Digges elected Governor—Bennet goes to England the Colony's Agent—Colonel Edward Hill defeated by the Ricahecrians—Totopotomoi, with many Warriors, slain—Miscellaneous matters—Matthews Elected Governor—Letter to the Protector—Acts of Assembly—Magna Charta recognized as in force—Governor and Council excluded from Assembly—Matthews declares a Dissolution—The House resists—Dispute referred to the Protector—Declaration of Sovereignty—Matthews re-elected—Council newly reorganized—Edward Hill elected Speaker—Rules of the House.
In March, 1655, Edward Digges was elected by the assembly governor of the colony of Virginia. He was of an ancient and distinguished family, and had been made a member of the council in November, 1654, "he having given a signal testimony of his fidelity to this colony and Commonwealth of England." He succeeded Bennet, who had held the office since April, 1652, and who was now appointed the colony's agent at London.
In the year 1656, six or seven hundred Ricahecrian Indians having come down from the mountains, and seated themselves near the falls of the James River, Colonel Edward Hill, the elder, was put in command of a body of men, and ordered to dislodge them. He was reinforced by Totopotomoi, chief of Pamunkey, with one hundred of his tribe. A creek enclosing a peninsula in Hanover County, retains the name of Totopotomoy; and Butler, in Hudibras, alludes to this chief:—
"The mighty Tottipotimoy
Sent to our elders an envoy,
Complaining sorely of the breach
Of league held forth by brother Patch."
Hill was disgracefully defeated, and the brave Totopotomoi, with the greater part of his warriors, slain. It appears probable that Bloody Run, near Richmond, derived its name from this sanguinary battle. The action in which so many Indians were afterwards massacred by Bacon and his men, and with which a loose tradition has identified Bloody Run, did not occur near the falls of the James River. Hill, in consequence of his bad conduct in this affair, was subsequently, by unanimous vote of the council and the house of burgesses, condemned to pay the expenses of effecting a peace with the Indians, and was disfranchised.[234:A] During this year an act was passed allowing all free men the right of voting for burgesses, on the ground that "it is something hard and unagreeable to reason that any persons shall pay equal taxes, and yet have no votes in elections." So republican was the elective franchise in Virginia, under the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell two centuries ago! In this year, 1656, Colonel Thomas Dew, of Nansemond, sometime before speaker of the house of burgesses, and others, were authorized to explore the country between Cape Hatteras and Cape Fear. The County of Nansemond had long abounded with non-conformists.
The salary of the governor, as ordered at this time, consisted of twenty-five thousand pounds of tobacco, worth two hundred and fifty pounds sterling, together with certain duties levied from masters of vessels, called castle duties, and marriage license fees. A reward of twenty pounds was offered to any one who should import a minister; ministers, with six servants each, were exempted from taxes, it being provided that they should be examined by Mr. Philip Mallory and Mr. John Green, and should be recommended by them to the governor and council, who were invested with discretionary control of the matter.[234:B] Letters were sent to Matthews, Virginia's agent at the Protector's court, directing him to suspend for the present the further prosecution of the long and fruitless controversy with Lord Baltimore respecting the disputed boundary.[234:C] Matthews, returning from England, was elected by the assembly to succeed Digges in the office of governor, who was now employed as agent. Colonel Francis Morrison, speaker, was desired by the assembly to write a letter to the Protector, and another to the secretary of state, which was as follows:—
"May it please your Highness,—
"We could not find a fitter means to represent the condition of this country to your highness, than this worthy person, Mr. Digges, our late governor, whose occasions calling him into England, we have instructed him with the state of this place as he left it; we shall beseech your highness to give credit to his relations, which we assure ourselves shall be faithful, having had many experiences of his candor in the time of his government, which he hath managed under your highness, with so much moderation, prudence, and justice, that we should be much larger in expressing this truth, but that we fear to have already too much trespassed, by interrupting your highness' most serious thoughts in greater affairs than what can concern your highness' most humble, most devoted servants.
"Dated from the Assembly of Virginia, 15th December, 1656."
Superscribed, for his "Highness, the Lord Protector."
The letter to the secretary of state was as follows:—
"Right Honorable,—
"Though we are persons so remote from you, we have heard so honorable a character of your worth, that we cannot make a second choice without erring, of one so fit and proper as yourself to make our addresses to his Highness, the Lord Protector. Our desires we have intrusted to that worthy gentleman, Mr. Digges, our late governor; we shall desire you would please to give him access to you and by your highness. And as we promise you will find nothing but worth in him, so we are confident he will undertake for us that we are a people not altogether ungrateful, but will find shortly a nearer way than by saying so, to express really how much we esteem the honor of your patronage, which is both the hopes and ambition of your very humble and then obliged servants.
"From the Assembly of Virginia, 15th December, 1656."
Superscribed, to the "Right Honorable John Thurlow, Secretary of State."
The allusion in the close of the letter appears to be to a douceur which it was intended to present to the secretary.
Digges was instructed to unite with Matthews and Bennet, in London, and to treat with the leading merchants in the Virginia trade, and to let them know how much the assembly had endeavored to diminish the quantity, and improve the quality of the tobacco; and to see what the merchants, on their part, would be willing to do in giving a better price; for if the planters should find that the bad brought as high a price as the good, they would of course raise that which could be raised the most easily.[236:A] It appears that Digges was appointed agent conjointly with Bennet. Matthews was elected by the assembly to succeed Digges as governor; but the latter was requested to hold the office as long as he should remain in Virginia. Digges departing for England toward the close of 1655, would appear to have co-operated for a short while with both Matthews and Bennet. By a singular coincidence, Digges, Matthews, and Bennet, who were the first three governors of Virginia under the Commonwealth of England, were transferred from the miniature metropolis, Jamestown, and found themselves together near the court of his Highness the Lord Protector, Oliver Cromwell.
Digges was succeeded as governor by Matthews, early in the year 1656. The laws of the colony were revised, and reduced into one volume, comprising one hundred and thirty-one acts, well adapted to the wants of the people and the condition of the country. Of the transactions from 1656 to 1660, the year of the restoration, Burk says there is an entire chasm in the records; Hening, on the contrary, declares that, "in no portion of the colonial records under the Commonwealth, are the materials so copious as from 1656 to 1660." The editor of the Statutes at Large is the better authority on this point.
The church government was settled by giving the people the entire control of the vestry; while the appointment of ministers and church wardens, the care of the poor, and parochial matters, were entrusted to the people of each parish. An act was passed for the keeping holy the Sabbath, and another against divulgers of false news. The ordinary weight of a hogshead of tobacco at this time did not exceed three hundred and fifty pounds, and its dimensions by law were forty-three inches long and twenty-six wide. Letters, superscribed "For the Public Service," were ordered to be conveyed from one plantation to another, to the place of destination. A remedy was provided for servants complaining of harsh usage, or of insufficient food or raiment. The penalty for selling arms or ammunition to the Indians was the forfeiture of the offender's whole estate. It was enacted that no sheriff, or deputy sheriff, then called under-sheriff, should hold his office longer than one year in any one county. The penalty of being reduced to servitude was abolished. The twenty-second day of March and the eighteenth of April were still kept as holy days, in commemoration of the deliverance of the colonists from the bloody Indian massacres of 1622 and 1644. The planters were prohibited from encroaching upon the lands of the Indians. The vessels of all nations were admitted into the ports of Virginia; and an impost duty of ten shillings a hogshead was laid on all tobacco exported, except that laden in English vessels, and bound directly for England; from the payment of which duty vessels belonging to Virginians were afterwards exempted. An act was passed to prohibit the kidnapping of Indian children.
In the year 1656 all acts against mercenary attorneys were repealed; but two years afterwards attorneys were again expelled from the courts,[237:A] and no one was suffered to receive any compensation for serving in that capacity. The governor and council made serious opposition to this act, and the following communication was made to the house of burgesses: "The governor and council will consent to this proposition so far as shall be agreeable to Magna Charta. Wm. Clayborne." The burgesses replied, that they could not see any such prohibition contained in Magna Charta; that two former assemblies had passed such a law, and that it had stood in force upwards of ten years. It thus appears that Magna Charta was held to be in force in the colony.
The ground leaves of tobacco, or lugs, were declared to be not merchantable; and it was ordered that no tobacco should be planted after the tenth day of July, under the penalty of a fine of ten thousand pounds of that staple. The exportation of hides, wool, and old iron, was forbidden. The salary of the governor, derived from the impost duty on tobacco exported, was fixed at sixteen hundred pounds sterling.
The burgesses having rescinded the order admitting the governor and council as members of the house, and having voted an adjournment, Matthews, on the 1st of April, 1658, declared a dissolution of the assembly. The house resisted, and declared that any burgess who should depart at this conjuncture, should be censured as betraying the trust reposed in him by his country; and an oath of secrecy was administered to the members. The governor, upon receiving an assurance that the business of the house would be speedily and satisfactorily concluded, revoked the order of dissolution, referring the question in dispute, as to the dissolving power, to his Highness the Lord Protector. The burgesses, still unsatisfied, appointed a committee, of which Colonel John Carter, of Lancaster County, was chairman, to draw up a resolution asserting their powers; and in consonance with their report the burgesses made a declaration of popular sovereignty: that they had in themselves the full power of appointing all officers, until they should receive an order to the contrary from England; that the house was not dissolvable by any power yet extant in Virginia but their own; that all former elections of governor and council should be void; that the power of governor for the future should be conferred on Colonel Samuel Matthews, who by them was invested with all the rights and privileges belonging to the governor and captain-general of Virginia; and that a council should be appointed by the burgesses then convened, with the advice of the governor.
The legislative records do not disclose the particular ground on which the previous elections of governor and appointments of councillors under the provisional government were annulled; but from the exclusion of the governor and council from the house, it might be inferred that it was owing to a jealousy of these functionaries being members of the body that elected them. Yet Bennet, the first of the three governors, and his council, were, in 1652, expressly allowed to be ex officio members of the assembly. An order was also made, April 2d, 1758, by the assembly, in the name of his Highness the Lord Protector, to the sheriff of James City, and sergeant-at-arms, to obey no warrant but those signed by the speaker of the house; and William Clayborne, secretary of state, (under Bennet, Digges, and Matthews,) was directed to deliver the records to the assembly. The oath of office was administered to Governor Matthews by the committee before mentioned, and the members of the council nominated by the governor and approved by the house, took the same oath.[239:A]
The number of burgesses present at the session commencing in March, 1659, was thirty. Colonel Edward Hill, who had been disfranchised, was now unanimously elected speaker. Colonel Moore Fantleroy, of Rappahannock County, not being present at the election, "moved against him, as if clandestinely elected, and taxed the house of unwarrantable proceedings therein." He was suspended until the next day, when, acknowledging his error, he was readmitted.
Any member absent from the house was subject to a penalty of twenty pounds of tobacco. A member "disguised with overmuch drink" forfeited one hundred pounds of tobacco. A burgess was required to rise from his seat, and to remain uncovered, while speaking. The oath was administered to the burgesses by a committee of three sent from the council.
FOOTNOTES:
[234:A] Hening, i. 402, 422; Burk's Hist. of Va., ii. 107.
[234:B] Hening, i. 424.
[234:C] Burk's Hist. of Va., ii. 116. An Armenian was imported by Digges for the purpose of making silk.
[236:A] Burk's Hist. of Va., ii. 116.
[237:A] Hening, i. 434, 482.
[239:A] The governor and council were as follows: Colonel Samuel Matthews, Governor and Captain-general of Virginia, Richard Bennet, Colonel William Clayborne, Secretary of State, Colonel John West, Colonel Thomas Pettus, Colonel Edward Hill, Colonel Thomas Dew, Colonel William Bernard, Colonel Obedience Robins, Lieutenant-Colonel John Walker, Colonel George Reade, Colonel Abraham Wood, Colonel John Carter, Mr. Warham Horsmenden, Lieutenant-Colonel Anthony Elliott.
