CHAPTER XII.
WILLIAM AND MARY.
Political education.
Between the breaking out of Bacon’s rebellion in the summer of 1676 and the Declaration of Independence, the interval was exactly a hundred years. It was for Virginia a century of political education. It prepared her for the great work to come, and it brought her into sympathy more or less effective with other colonies that were struggling with similar political questions, especially with Massachusetts. It was in that same year, 1676, that Charles II. sent Edward Randolph to Boston, to enforce the Navigation Act and to report upon New England affairs in general. This mission of Randolph led to quarrels which resulted in the overthrow of the charter and the sending of royal governors to Massachusetts. From that time forth the legislatures of Massachusetts and Virginia had to contend with similar questions concerning the powers and prerogatives of the royal governors, so that the two colonies kept a close watch upon each other’s proceedings, while both received a thorough training in constitutional politics. Amid such circumstances came into existence the necessary conditions for the establishment of political independence and the formation of our Federal Union.
Robert Beverley.
His refusal to give up the journals.
The suppression of Bacon’s rebellion was far from equivalent to a surrender to Charles II. or his representatives. Questions of privilege soon arose, and it was not long before Berkeley’s most efficient officer came himself to be regarded almost in the light of a rebel. Major Robert Beverley, of Beverley in Yorkshire, an ardent royalist, had come to Virginia in 1663. He was elected clerk of the House of Burgesses in 1670, and held that office for many years. No one was more active in stamping out rebellion in the autumn of 1677, but after the arrival of the royal commissioners he was soon at feud with them. As the disturbances had been quieted without the aid of their troops, there was a disposition to resent their coming as an interference, especially as they seemed to lend too ready an ear to the complaints of the malcontents. In the list of grievances of Gloucester County we find “a complaint against Major Robert Beverley that when the country had (according to Order) raised 60 armed men to be an Out-guard for the Governor—who not finding the Governor nor their appointed Comander they were by Beverly comanded to goe to work, fall trees and maule and toate railes, which many of them refusing to doe, he presently disbanded them & sent them home at a tyme when the countrey were infested by the Indians, who had a little before cut off six persons in one family, and attempted others.” Upon this the commissioners remarked, “Wee conceive this dealing of Beverly’s to be a notorious abuse and Grievance, to take away the peoples armes while ther famlies were cutt off by the Indians, and they deserve just reparation here.” But Berkeley declared that what Beverley had done was by his orders, and the newly elected House of Burgesses stood by its clerk. After Berkeley had sailed for England, in April, 1677, the commissioners called upon the House of Burgesses to give up its journals for their inspection, and Beverley refused to comply with the demand. No king in England, said the burgesses, would venture to make such a demand of the House of Commons. Then the commissioners seized the journals, and the burgesses indignantly voted that such an act was a violation of privilege. This enraged the king, and in February, 1679, the privy council ordered that Beverley should be removed from office.
Lord Culpeper.
A change of governors, however, altered the situation. After Jeffries and Chichely, who served but a year each, came Lord Culpeper, whom Charles II. had undertaken to make co-proprietor of Virginia, along with the Earl of Arlington. Culpeper was an average specimen of the public officials of the time, fairly agreeable and easy-going, but rapacious and utterly unprincipled. In one respect he might be contrasted unfavourably with all the governors since Harvey. Such men as Bennett and Mathews and Berkeley looked upon Virginia as home. After his own fashion the tyrannical Berkeley had the interest of Virginia at heart. But Culpeper regarded the Virginians simply as people to be fleeced. Through four years of chronic brawl he kept coming and going, coming to manage the assembly and returning to consult with the king. Charles wished to have the power of initiating legislation taken away from the burgesses. All laws were to be drafted by the governor and council, and then sent to England for the royal approval, before being submitted to the burgesses. With such an arduous task before him, it was wise for Culpeper to avoid giving needless offence; and seeing the high regard in which Beverley was held, he caused the order for his removal to be revoked.
The Plant-cutter’s Riot, 1682.
The evil effects of the Navigation Act still continued. In 1679 the tobacco crop was so large that a considerable surplus was left over till the next year unsold. In 1680 the surplus was still greater, so that there was evidently more than enough to supply the English market for two years. The assembly therefore proposed to order a cessation of planting for the year 1681, but on account of the customs revenue it was necessary to obtain the king’s assent to such an order. By the same token the assent was refused, and great was the indignation in Virginia. The price of tobacco had fallen so low that, according to Nicholas Spencer, a whole year’s crop would not so much as buy the clothes which people needed.[80] The distress was like that which was caused in the War of Independence by the Continental currency and the rag money issued by the several states. It was the kind of sickness that has always come and always will come with “cheap money.” Culpeper insisted that the only chance of relief was in exporting beef, pork, and grain to the West Indies. A more effective measure would have been the repeal of the Navigation Act. In the spring of 1682, on the petition of several counties, the assembly was convened for the purpose of ordering a cessation of planting. Amid great popular excitement the assembly adjourned without taking any decisive action. Then a fury for destroying the young plants seized upon the people. “The growing tobacco of one plantation was no sooner destroyed than the owner, having been deprived either with or without his consent of his crop, was seized with the same frenzy and ran with the crowd as it marched to destroy the crop of his neighbour.”[81] The contagion spread until ten thousand hogsheads of tobacco had been destroyed. In Gloucester, where the most damage was done, two hundred plantations were laid waste. The riot was suppressed by the militia, three ringleaders were hung, and the rest pardoned. One, we are told, received pardon on condition that he should build a bridge.[82]