England in America, 1580-1652

by Lyon Gardiner Tyler

Still ignorant of the death of King James, Governor Sir Francis Wyatt and his council, together with representatives from the plantations informally called, sent George Yardley to England with a petition, dated June 15, 1625, that they be permitted the right of a general assembly, that worthy emigrants be encouraged, and that none of the old faction of Sir Thomas Smith and Alderman Johnson have a part in the administration; "for rather than endure the government of these men they were resolved to seek the farthest part of the world."

Yardley reached England in October; and the king, when informed of Wyatt's desire to resign the government of Virginia on account of his private affairs, issued a commission, dated April 16, 1626, renewing the authority of the council in Virginia and appointing Yardley governor.[32 ] The latter returned to Virginia, but died in 1627. After his death the king sent directions to Acting Governor Francis West to summon a general assembly; and March 26, 1628, after an interval of four years, the regular law-making body again assembled at Jamestown, an event second only in importance to the original meeting in 1619.[33 ]

Other matters besides the form of government pressed upon the attention of the settlers. Tobacco entered more and more into the life of the colony, and the crop in the year 1628 amounted to upward of five hundred thousand pounds.[34 ] King Charles took the ground of Sandys and Southampton, that the large production was only temporary, and like his father, subjected tobacco in England to high duties and monopoly. He urged a varied planting and the making of pitch and tar, pipe-staves, potashes, iron, and bay-salt, and warned the planters against "building their plantation wholly on smoke." It was observed, however, that Charles was receiving a large sum of money from customs on tobacco,[35 ] and it was not likely that his advice would be taken while the price was 3s. 6d. a pound. Indeed, it was chiefly under the stimulus of the culture of tobacco that the population of the colony rose from eight hundred and ninety-four, after the massacre in 1622, to about three thousand in 1629.[36 ]

In March, 1629, Captain West went back to England, and a new commission was issued to Sir John Harvey as governor.[37 ] He did not come to the colony till the next year, and in the interval Dr. John Pott acted as his deputy. At the assembly called by Pott in October, 1629, the growth of the colony was represented by twenty-three settlements as against eleven ten years before. As in England, there were two branches of the law-making body, a House of Burgesses, made up of the representatives of the people, and an upper house consisting of the governor and council. In the constitution of the popular branch there was no fixed number of delegates, but each settlement had as many as it chose to pay the expenses of, a custom which prevailed until 1660, when the number of burgesses was limited to two members for each county and one member for Jamestown.[38 ]

In March, 1630, Harvey arrived, and Pott's former dignity as governor did not save him from a mortifying experience. The council was not only an upper house of legislation, but the supreme court of the colony, and in July, 1630, Pott was arraigned before this tribunal for stealing cattle, and declared guilty. Perhaps Harvey realized that injustice was done, for he suspended the sentence, and on petition to the king the case was re-examined in England by the commissioners for Virginia, who decided that "condemning Pott of felony was very rigorous if not erroneous."[39 ]

The year 1630 was the beginning of a general movement of emigration northward, and in October Chiskiack, an Indian district on the south side of the York, about twenty-seven miles below the forks of the river where Opechancanough resided, was occupied in force. So rapid was the course of population that in less than two years this first settlement upon the York was divided into Chiskiack and York. One year after Chiskiack was settled, Kent Island in Chesapeake Bay was occupied by a company under William Claiborne, the secretary of state; and in 1632 Middle Plantation (afterwards Williamsburg) was laid out and defended by a line of palisades from tide-water to tide-water.[40 ]

Meanwhile, the old colonial parties did not cease to strive with one another in England. Harvey had been appointed by the vacillating Charles to please the former court party, but during the quarrel with his Parliament over the Petition of Right he became anxious again to conciliate the colonists and the members of the old company; and in May, 1631, he appointed[41 ] a new commission, consisting of the earls of Dorset and Danby, Sir John Danvers, Sir Dudley Digges, John Ferrar, Sir Francis Wyatt, and others, to advise him upon "some course for establishing the advancement of the plantation of Virginia." This commission had many consultations, and unanimously resolved to recommend to the king the renewal of the charter of 1612 with all its former privileges—except the form of government, which was to be exercised by the king through a council in London and a governor and council in Virginia, both appointed by him.

In June, 1632, Charles I. so vacillated as to grant Maryland, within the bounds of "their ancient territories," to Lord Baltimore, regardless of the protest of the Virginians; and April 28, 1634, he revoked the liberal commission of 1631, and appointed another, called "the Commission for Foreign Plantations," composed almost entirely of opponents of the popular course of government, with William Laud, archbishop of Canterbury, at the head. This commission had power to "make laws and orders for government of English colonies planted in foreign parts, to remove governors and require an account of their government, to appoint judges and magistrates, to establish courts, to amend all charters and patents, and to revoke those surreptitiously and unduly obtained."[42 ]

Harvey's conduct in Virginia reflected the views of the court party in England. He offended his council by acting in important matters without their consent, contrary to his instructions; and showed in many ways that he was a friend of the persons in England who were trying to make a monopoly of the tobacco trade. He attempted to lay taxes, but the assembly, in February, 1632, re-enacted the law of 1624 asserting their exclusive authority over the subject.[43 ] At the head of the opposition to Harvey was William Claiborne, the secretary of state, who opposed Lord Baltimore's claim to Maryland, and, in consequence, was in the latter part of 1634 turned out of office by Harvey, to make way for Richard Kempe, one of Lord Baltimore's friends.

The people of Virginia began in resentment to draw together in little groups, and talked of asking for the removal of the governor; and matters came to a crisis in April, 1635, when Harvey suppressed a petition addressed to the king by the assembly regarding the tobacco contract, and justified an attack by Lord Baltimore's men upon a pinnace of Claiborne engaged in the fur trade from Kent Island. At York, in April, 1635, a meeting of protest was held at the house of William Warren.