Berkeley was accused of using the courts to punish his enemies and reward his favorites. A manifesto entitled "Declaration of the People," said that he had "rendered contemptible the magistrates of justice by advancing to places of judicature scandalous and ignorant favorites." Colonel Henry Norwood wrote Secretary Williamson in 1667 that great injury had been done in the courts "by the insinuation of some that make advantages of the Governor's passion, age, and weakness." It was a grievance, he said, that in the Assembly the chairman of the committee to consider appeals from the county courts was usually a member of the Council.[10]
Berkeley vowed that he knew of nothing in which he had not distributed equal justice to all men, but there is reason to think that he did use the courts to further his own interests. Thomas Mathew states that he cheated Thomas Lawrence out of "a considerable estate on behalf of a corrupt favorite," and we know that Lawrence never forgave him. William Drummond was another who had a personal grievance and it was his efforts to gain revenge which drove the Governor to such acts of savage cruelty when he had him in his power.
Though Berkeley may have been indifferent to the rights of others, he was quick to complain when his own interests were concerned. He had been eloquent in denouncing the restrictions on the trade of Virginia under the Commonwealth, and now he was greatly concerned when his adored Charles II gave his assent to even more stringent acts. All goods sent to the colonies, even though of foreign growth or manufacture, must come by way of England; all tobacco, sugar, wool, etc., produced in the colonies must be shipped to England or her dominions.[11]
The results for Virginia were disastrous. The Dutch traders had paid three pence a pound for tobacco; the English merchants now offered a half penny or in some cases only a farthing. The mass of the people were reduced to poverty and rags. Secretary Ludwell reported that when the small planter had paid his taxes, very little remained for him for the support of his family. "So much too little that I can attribute it to nothing but the mercy of God that he has not fallen into mutiny and confusion."[12] Nine years later Ludwell had occasion to remember these words when the poor did fall into mutiny and confusion.
Berkeley sailed for England in May, 1661, where no doubt he talked with his brother Lord John Berkeley in an effort to have the Navigation Acts repealed. But he had no success. The fault is your own, he was told. Stop planting so much tobacco and produce the more useful commodities needed by England. Send us masts for our ships, flax for our linen, hemp for our ropewalks, potash for our woolens.[13]
Berkeley made a sincere effort to turn the colony to the production of commodities other than tobacco, but all his experiments ended in failure. Ten years later, when the Lords of Trade asked him what impediments there existed to trade, he blurted out: "Mighty and destructive by that severe act of Parliament which excludes us from having any commerce with any nation in Europe but our own.... If this were for his Majesty's service or the good of his subjects we should not repine, whatever our sufferings are for it. But on my soul it is contrary to both."[14]
Not only did the Navigation Acts impoverish Virginia, but they brought additional disaster to the people by provoking the Dutch to war. In 1667 a fleet of five Dutch warships entered the Chesapeake Bay. The crew of the English frigate Elizabeth, not suspecting danger, had careened her to clean her bottom. So they had to stand by helpless as the enemy moved up and captured her. The Dutch then turned on the tobacco fleet and took twenty vessels.[15] In a second Dutch war a desperate engagement was fought off Lynhaven Bay. Nine or ten of the tobacco ships, in their haste to get away, ran aground and were taken.[16]
Had Edward Johnson been in Virginia in the year 1667, he would have been sure that the series of misfortunes which befell the colony came as a sign of God's anger. "This poor, poor country ... is now reduced to a very miserable condition," Thomas Ludwell wrote Lord John Berkeley. "In April ... we had a most prodigious storm of hail, many of them as big as turkey eggs, which destroyed most of our young mast and cattle.... But on the 27th of August followed the most dreadful hurricane that ever the colony groaned under.... The night of it was the most dismal time that ever I knew or heard of, for the wind and rain raised so confused a noise, mixed with the continual cracks of falling houses.... But when the morning came and the sun risen it would have comforted us after such a night, had it not lighted us to the ruins of our plantations, of which I think not one escaped. The nearest computation is at least 10,000 houses blown down, all the Indian grain laid flat on the ground, all the tobacco in the fields torn to pieces and most of that which was in the houses perished with them."[17] Even then the misfortunes of the planters were not ended, for in 1673 an epidemic occurred among their cattle, which carried off fifty thousand animals.[18]
In the midst of their suffering the people looked back on the Commonwealth period as a golden era. Then they had enjoyed self-government; now their representatives had betrayed them. Then the trade with the Dutch had brought prosperity; now the Navigation Acts had made their tobacco almost worthless and reduced them to rags. Then men were advanced to places of trust and honor because of their ability; now the chief offices were reserved for those who toadied to the Governor. Then taxes had been moderate; now they were crushing.
The legend built up by Berkeley that Charles I had been the loving father of the people received a crushing blow when it became known that he had granted all the vast region between the Potomac and the Rappahannock to Lord Hopton and several other noblemen. Charles II so far responded to the plea of the Virginians for relief as to recall the patent and issue another in its place containing promises to protect their rights and property. But when they noted that the new patent required them to duplicate the quit rents of the past eleven years to pay off the patentees, they were in despair. This would amount to so vast a sum that it would wipe out many estates.[19] So they appointed Major General Robert Smith, Colonel Francis Moryson, and Thomas Ludwell to plead their cause in England.