[177:B] Hening's Statutes, i. 119, 129.
CHAPTER XIX.
1624-1632.
Charles the First commissions Sir Thomas Wyat, Governor—Assemblies not allowed—Royal Government virtually established in Virginia—Other Colonies on Atlantic Coast—Wyat returns to Ireland—Succeeded by Yeardley—Yeardley succeeded by West—Letter of Charles the First directing an Assembly to meet—Assembly's Reply—John Pott, Governor—Condition of Colony—Statistics—Diet—Pott superseded by Harvey—Dr. John Pott Convicted of Stealing Cattle—Sir John Harvey—Lord Baltimore visits Virginia—Refuses to take the Oaths tendered to him—Procures from Charles the First a Grant of Territory—Acts relative to Ministers, Agriculture, Indians, etc.
In August, 1624, King Charles the First granted a commission appointing Sir Thomas Wyat Governor, with a council during pleasure, and omitting all mention of an assembly, thinking so "popular a course" the chief source of the recent troubles and misfortunes. The eleven members of the council were, Francis West, Sir George Yeardley, George Sandys, Roger Smith, Ralph Hamor, who had been of the former council, with the addition of John Martin, John Harvey, Samuel Matthews, Abraham Percy, Isaac Madison, and William Clayborne. Several of these were then, or became afterwards, men of note in the colony. This is the first mention of William Clayborne, who was destined to play an important part in the future annals of Virginia.
Thus in effect a royal government was now established in Virginia; hitherto she had been subject to a complex threefold government of the company, the crown, and her own president or governor and council.[179:A]
From 1624 to 1628 there is no mention in the statute-book of Virginia, or in the journal of the Virginia Company, of any assembly having been held in the colony, and in 1628 appeals were made to the governor and council; whereas had there been an assembly, it would have been the appellate court.
The French had established themselves as early as 1625 in Canada; the Dutch were now colonizing the New Netherlands; a Danish colony had been planted in New Jersey; the English were extending their confines in New England (where New Plymouth numbered thirty-two houses and one hundred and eighty settlers) and Virginia; while the Spaniards, the first settlers of the coast, still held some feeble posts in Florida.