Thus was self-government established in the colony. In England the clash of arms and the struggle of class and religious groups resulted, not in establishing a republic, but only in exchanging one despot for another. But though Virginia had played but an insignificant role in the great drama, she reaped a full reward. For the next eight years it was the people who ruled through their representatives in the House of Burgesses.
And the people, most of them at heart still loyal to the monarchy, would tolerate no persecution of the King's friends. Berkeley and some of the Councillors, thinking that life under the new government would be unendurable, had stipulated in the articles that they be permitted to leave the colony and take their property with them. In July, 1653, Berkeley was still planning to leave. Yet neither he nor any of the others seem to have done so, contenting themselves with sending Colonel Francis Lovelace to Europe to attest to the exiled Prince Charles their continued loyalty. Only when some ardent royalist could not bridle his tongue were severe penalties inflicted. We have an example of this in Northumberland County when a Mr. Calvert had to pay one thousand pounds of tobacco to save his wife from thirty lashes on her shoulders for stigmatizing "the keepers of the liberty of England as rogues, traitors, and rebels."[36]
Nor was there any persecution of Church of England men in retaliation for the expulsion of Puritans under Berkeley. There seems to have been no thought of prohibiting the use of the Book of Common Prayer, no thought of turning Anglican ministers out of their cures. In fact the Burgesses were so deeply concerned at the many complaints of vacant pulpits that they offered a reward of £20 to anyone bringing over a clergyman.[37]
Though Puritans and Anglicans, Commonwealth men and royalists lived together in peace, there was friction between the English merchants and the planters. The former argued that the act of 1650, which prohibited foreign ships from trading with the colonies, was still in force. The latter claimed that the law had been temporary in character and was now invalid. And they pointed out that the articles of surrender had promised them free trade with all nations. So when a Dutch merchant vessel came into the James or the York, they gladly loaded her with tobacco and accepted the cheap goods of Amsterdam in exchange.
But the situation changed when England became involved in war with the Netherlands. In the summer of 1653, when the Leopolus, a merchantman of Dunkirk, came into the Elizabeth River, the captains of two English ships came on board to demand her special license. Apparently the master had no license, for the vessel was seized by the Virginia authorities and sold for £400.[38]
After this there seem to have been no further seizures by the Virginians. But the English masters took it upon themselves to try to break up the Dutch trade, and the planters looked on helplessly as they intercepted sloops taking their tobacco to the Dutch vessels, or seized the vessels themselves and took them off as prizes. In 1660 the Assembly plucked up courage to declare that "the Dutch and all strangers of what Christian nation soever in amity with the people of England shall have free liberty to trade with us." And they required the masters of all incoming English ships to give bond not to molest any vessels whatsoever in Virginia waters.[39]
It is obvious that during the entire Commonwealth period the trade with Holland was kept open. In 1655 certain English shipowners complained that "there are usually found intruding upon the plantation divers ships, surreptitiously carrying away the growth thereof to foreign parts."[40] It was this which widened the market for tobacco, kept up the price, and brought a degree of prosperity to the colony.
With the articles of surrender stipulating that Virginia should have its original bounds, it seemed a golden opportunity for the colony to regain the territory granted to Lord Baltimore. Surely the Puritan government of England would be eager to root out the group of Roman Catholics in Maryland. So when the Assembly sent Samuel Mathews to have the articles ratified they instructed him to plead for the annulling of Baltimore's patent. But Baltimore had cut the ground from under their feet by recognizing the Commonwealth as early as 1648, appointing a Puritan Governor of Maryland, and proclaiming religious freedom. Though Richard Bennett came over to join Mathews in defending Virginia's claim, the final settlement left Maryland a separate colony.[41]
The people of Virginia watched with intense interest the dramatic events in England in the years from 1652 to the restoration of the monarchy in 1660—the dissolution of the Rump Parliament, the election of the Praise-God Barebone Parliament, the naming of Cromwell Protector, the foreign wars, the death of Cromwell, the brief rule of Richard Cromwell. But they were less affected by them than by happenings in the mother country at any other time during the colonial period. Virginia was left to her own devices because the men in power in London were too greatly occupied with other matters to bother with her. One wonders whether they knew what was going on, for the correspondence with persons in the colony dwindled to a trickle.
On August 31, 1658, a group of merchants trading to Virginia wrote the Council of State complaining of "the loose and distracted condition of that colony." It seems that Cromwell had already been considering certain proposals "for supplying that defect," but before he could come to any decision he died.