One would think that Harvey's expulsion would have taught him a lesson. Instead, his desire for revenge drove him into new excesses. With the enlarged powers of his new commission, with the Council submissive to his will, with the courts manned by his favorites, with the prestige of the King's backing, he went to great extremes. The Reverend Anthony Panton accused him of "many arbitrary and illegal proceedings in judgment, tyranny, extortion." The "unjust whippings, cutting of ears, fining and confiscation of honest men's goods," must have brought back memories of Dale and Argall. The converting of fines to his "own profit and use," or to reward his henchmen, convinced the people that men were accused and sentenced, not because they were guilty of any crime, but merely to have an excuse for taking their property.[39]
In the meanwhile, West, Mathews, Utie, and Pierce had been sent as prisoners to England to answer the charge of mutiny, where a bill was exhibited against them in the Star Chamber. But here the matter hung fire. George Donne, Muster General of Virginia and a member of the Council, who had come to England to prosecute them, became ill. Harvey neglected to put up the money for necessary fees. The great cost of the voyage across the Atlantic prevented the sending over of witnesses.
But in the absence of the accused men, Sir John took ample revenge on them. They were informed by letters from Virginia that "divers of their goods, cattle, and servants" had been confiscated. So they complained to the Privy Council. Mathews assured them that Harvey was bent on ruining him, and that he had been heard to say that if one "stood, tother should fall, and if he swum, the other should sink." He seems to have convinced the Privy Council, for on May 25, 1637, they wrote Harvey ordering him to restore Mathews' property.[40]
But so reluctant was Harvey to be cheated out of his revenge that he postponed compliance in the hope that something might occur to give him an excuse for not obeying. This excuse he found in a letter from the Privy Council expressing satisfaction with his administration. It was his excuse, also, for further severities against Mathews. Kemp and others entered his house, broke open the doors of several rooms, ransacked his trunks, examined his papers, and carried off a part of his goods and eight of his servants.[41]
When word of this reached the Privy Council, the sub-committee to whom the case was referred gave it as their opinion that Mathews had been "very hardly dealt with." "We cannot but clearly discern somewhat of passion in the said proceedings," they reported. So the Privy Council wrote again to Harvey, commanding him once more to restore Mathews' property. This time the Governor complied, writing the Privy Council a long, but lame excuse for what he had done.[42]
Another victim of Harvey's malice was the Reverend Anthony Panton, minister of the parishes of York and Chiskiack. Panton had quarreled with the Governor's warm friend, Secretary Kemp, and had incurred his lasting enmity by calling him a "jackanapes," who was "unfit for the place of secretary," adding that "his hair-lock was tied up with ribbon as old as St. Paul's." So he was now brought to trial, charged with mutinous speeches and disobedience to the Governor, and with disrespect to the Archbishop of Canterbury. The farcical character of justice as administered by Harvey is shown by the fact that in the trial Kemp acted not only as prosecutor but as one of the judges. Panton's conviction was a matter of course. He was fined £500, forced to make public submission, and was banished from Virginia and forbidden ever to return on pain of death, and authority was given "to any man whatsoever to execute him."[43]
Throughout Virginia colonial history the parties to any dispute who were in London to urge their side had a great advantage. So Mathews, Utie, Pierce, and Francis Pott, after they secured their liberty under bail, devoted their time to undermining Sir John at Court. The Governor charged that they planted spies in all parts of the city to invite persons who had just arrived from Virginia into taverns, treated them to wine to make them talkative, and got them to state their grievances. So they poured out the stories of Harvey's confiscations, extortions, whippings, and pressure on the courts of justice.[44]
As the evidence against Harvey piled up the exiles gained the support of the sub-committee of the Privy Council to whom colonial affairs were usually referred. Sir John wrote at length to refute what he called "the malicious untruths of such who by all means do go about and study to traduce us." But in vain, for the Privy Council decided to remove him.[45]
The shoe was now on the other foot. On January 11, 1639, Sir Francis Wyatt received a commission as Governor of Virginia. When this news reached the colony there was rejoicing, for Wyatt had shown himself a staunch defender of liberty during his previous administration. The people could be sure that he would redress their wrongs and see to it that justice was done all men. Nor were they disappointed. No sooner had Wyatt arrived than he summoned the General Court and brought Harvey before it to answer for his misdeeds.[46]
Kemp, who was retained as Secretary and Councillor by order of the Privy Council, was helpless to prevent his fellow judges from passing sentence on the deposed Governor. "They of the old commission have been persecuted with much malice," he wrote in March, 1640, "the weight whereof hath hitherto principally fallen on Sir John Harvey, whose estate is wholly sequestered at present, and at the next court now approaching will assuredly be swept away."[47] Harvey wrote that he groaned under the oppression of his enemies, and that he was so closely watched that he hardly had privacy enough to write a letter. His enemies had now been advanced to be his judges, and were tearing his estate from him by inviting his creditors to clamor against him. Both Harvey and Kemp asked permission to go to England, but this was refused. Not only were they held to answer charges, but because the new administration had no desire to have them clamoring against them at Court.