While these arbitrary and unjust laws were crippling her commerce, a fatal change was also taking place in her constitution. The first assembly elected after the Restoration consisted almost entirely of the aristocratic party, whose first measures were to revise the legislative code, and weed out those democratic tendencies which had been introduced during the period of self-government. Under this new, or rather this revival of the original constitution, the English episcopal church became the religion of the state, with its canons, liturgy and catechism. And though, as we have said, there were only about ten ministers in the fifty parishes, yet strict conformity was required, and every one was taxed for the support of the established church. Glebes and parsonages were to be provided with a maintenance of not less than fourscore pounds to each clergyman, besides fees and perquisites; for any funeral sermon, 400 pounds weight of tobacco; marriage published by banns, fifty pounds; by licence, two hundred pounds. Nonconformist preachers were to be silenced or sent out of the country. Quakers, who “gathered together unlawful assemblies, teaching and publishing lies and false doctrines,” were to be imprisoned without trial till they could be sent out of the colony, and treated as felons on their return. Among other enactments we find that any “who, out of new-fangled conceits of their own heretical invention, refuse to have their children baptized by the lawful minister,” shall be subjected to a fine of 2,000 pounds weight of tobacco. And a member of the assembly, being accused of favouring Anabaptist and Quaker opinions, was expelled.
All this severity, however, had not so much the effect of destroying as of diffusing these “heresies.” Men and women, to whom the great wilderness had been as the temple of God, in which the spirit had taught them divine things, now that bigotry and intolerance commenced their pitiless work in Virginia, removed into the new state of North Carolina, and took deep root there, as we have seen.
And not only was the church well provided for by the royalist assembly, but the state also. While Virginia by her citizens elected her governor, she had allowed him a fixed salary, which, now that he was nominated by the crown, was insufficient. One thousand pounds, derivable from a permanent tax on tobacco, with an additional two hundred more than the whole annual expenditure of the government of Connecticut, was granted as his permanent salary; but even that did not satisfy him. He complained that he had not three times as much, adding for his consolation, “I am, however, supported by my hopes that his gracious majesty will one day consider me.” Such now was the royal governor of Virginia.
The justiciary government of the province was also changed; the magistrates were appointed by the governor and council, and held their offices for life. The county courts, now independent of the people, levied county-rates at their own pleasure and for their own expenses—they being an irresponsible body. Like the county magistrates, the newly-elected members of assembly, though nominally chosen for two years held themselves to be equally irresponsible, and remained in office for many years. Before long, therefore, “the meetings of the people at the usual places of election had for their object, not the election of burgesses, but to present their grievances.” Indeed the power of election, if the exercise of it had been required, was soon limited; the elective franchise being now restricted to freeholders and householders.
The Restoration produced in Virginia a political revolution, opposed to the principle of popular liberty and the progress of humanity. To sum up the changes which had taken place; we shall find the General Assembly, which sat at the pleasure of the governor, imposing arbitrary taxes, and deriving extravagant and exorbitant emoluments; we shall find a constituency restricted and diminished; religious liberty at an end, arbitrary taxation in the counties by irresponsible magistrates; hostility to popular education and the press—regarding which we may quote the governor’s own words: “Thank God, there are no free schools nor printing, and I hope we shall not have for these hundred years; for learning has brought disobedience, and heresy, and sects into the world, and printing has divulged them and libels against the best government. God keep us from both!”
In this artificial and unhealthy state of the colony, the cultivation of tobacco no longer paid the planter, and in order to raise the price, a “stint” was proposed, that is to say, that the cultivation of tobacco should cease for one or more years, so as to raise the price. About the time when this extraordinary measure was proposed, Sir William Berkeley sent out an exploring party, who crossed the first ridge of the Blue Mountains, and discovered the wonderful succession of valleys beyond, full of the richest vegetation, and abounding “with turkey, deer, elk, and buffalo, gentle and undisturbed as yet by the fear of man.” These beautiful and affluent regions, which it might have been expected would have attracted settlers immediately, were however, owing to the sorrows which were coming upon the colony, not penetrated again for fifty years.
About the same time also, a question was started with regard to negro slaves, the decision of which was, as might be expected, prejudicial to that unhappy class. The lawfulness of holding African slaves had been supposed in part to rest upon their being “heathen;” but now, as considerable numbers were converted and baptized Christians, this former plea, if valid, ceased to be so. But the assembly soon settled the question to the satisfaction of the planters, by an enactment which made the negro, whether Christian or not, a slave; and furthermore it was enacted that to cause the death of a slave by excess of punishment should not be considered as felony. As regarded Indians being held as slaves, a new law was provided, which made all servants, not being Christians imported by shipping, slaves for life; and Indian slaves were imported into Virginia from the West Indies and the Spanish main.
While the governor and the assembly were depriving the Virginian people of their franchises, and laying burdens on them grievous to be borne, Charles II., the monarch whom the aristocratical portion of the state regarded with reverential affection, was preparing to invade even their rights in no less unwelcome a manner than they had invaded the rights of the people. In 1669, the Northern Neck, as it is called, the district lying between the Rappahannock and Potomac rivers, was granted to Lord Culpepper, “one of the most cunning and covetous men in England,” the same territory having, immediately after the execution of Charles I., been granted to a party of cavaliers as a refuge for royalists, whose long-established settlements were thus invaded. Nor did the invasion of rights end here. Four years afterwards, the same lavish monarch granted to the same Lord John Culpepper and to Henry, Earl of Arlington, one of the most extravagant of Charles’s courtiers, the husband of the king’s favourite, Lady Castlemaine, and esteemed to be the “best-bred man at court,” “all the dominion of land and water called Virginia for the full term of thirty-one years, together with all quit-rents, escheats, the power to grant land, and all other powers of absolute sovereignty.”
The assembly was alarmed; and sent over deputies to beseech of the king to reconsider this grant, or to purchase it for the colony; for which purpose, as well as for the expenses of the deputies, an enormous poll-tax was imposed. Under this new grant, Berkeley’s commission as governor expired, but the aristocratic party voted him an increase of salary, and solicited his reappointment as governor for life; and he continued to hold office.
The discontent of Virginia rose to a great height. The people, who had not their political or local gatherings, “now met in the solitude of the forests to discuss their grievances. They were ripe for insurrection; and, seeing the spirit that was in them, the men of wealth and consideration, who otherwise were stung by their own and their country’s wrongs to resistance, held aloof.”