And they were adamant in refusing repeated demands for permission for the Governor and Council by themselves to levy a tax even though a very small one. "Your Lordships will ... find their total denial that the Governor and Council should have any power to lay the least levy to ease the necessity for so frequent Assemblys," Effingham wrote the Committee of Trade and Plantations in February, 1686. "This was propounded by me to them before his Majesty's instructions came to hand ... but nothing would prevail, nor I believe will, unless his Majesty's special command therein."[64]
There was consternation in the Assembly when they learned that the King was attempting to build up a revenue independent of the Burgesses by increasing the returns from the quit rents. This tax on land, for such it really was, had always been paid in tobacco. In 1662 the Assembly had fixed the rate of payment at twopence a pound, which at that time approximated the current price. But the decline in the value of the leaf had greatly lessened the value of the returns. So in 1684 the King ordered Effingham to accept only specie, "that is to say in money and not in tobacco or in any other commodity."[65] Since tobacco was then selling at a halfpenny a pound, this would have quadrupled the value of the quit rents, imposed a heavy burden on the impoverished country, and strengthened the authority of the Governor.
The controversy over this matter led to another and a more serious encroachment on the rights of the people, for when the Assembly refused to repeal the law of 1662, the King voided it by proclamation. Having heard that "persons go about ... imposing bad tobacco upon our collectors at the rate of 2d per pound, under pretence of an act of Assembly ... we have thought fit to repeal the said act."[66] Upon receipt of this order Effingham sent for the Burgesses to meet him in the Council Chamber. When they filed in he soon found that they were in no mood to yield. Not only did they again refuse to repeal the law of 1662, but they "rudely and boldly disputed the King's authority in repealing laws by proclamation."[67] Moreover, they pointed out, it was impossible to pay in pounds or shillings since there were not enough in the entire colony. This argument was unanswerable, and in the end the Governor was forced to assent to a compromise by which the tax was to be paid in tobacco, but at the rate of one penny per pound instead of two.
The difference in the theories of government held by Charles and James on the one hand, and the people of the colony on the other was brought into focus by a dispute over the King's right to revive a law by repealing a law which had repealed it. When James revived a law of 1680 concerning attorneys by annulling the repealing law of 1682, the Burgesses rose as one man in angry protest. "A law may as well receive its beginning by proclamation as such a revival," they said. "Some Governor may be sent to govern us who under the pretence of the liberty he hath to construe prerogative and stretch it as far as he pleaseth, may by proclamation revive all the laws that for their great inconveniences to the country have been repealed through forty years since."[68]
The Councillors as well as the Burgesses must have been startled when Effingham in reply told them that the King had the right to nullify or revive what laws he pleased, since the only authority the Assembly had to legislate at all rested on a grant from the Throne. They had been under the impression that the right of the people to make laws through their representatives was inherent in all Englishmen. If it were a grant from the King, which the King might at will withdraw, liberty in America rested on a shaky basis indeed. In an address to Effingham they stated that they did not dare "to say what is prerogative and what is not,"[69] but they made it clear that when prerogative was stretched so far that it threatened to enslave them, they would resist by every means within their power.
Despots throughout the years have feared a free press, and have either prohibited printing or controlled it for their own purposes. So it was in keeping with the spirit of the Second Stuart Despotism that Charles and James would allow no press in Virginia. It was in 1682 that John Buckner, a prominent merchant and landowner of Gloucester County, and a member of the House of Burgesses, employed William Nuthead to set up a printing establishment at Jamestown. But they had picked an inauspicious time for their venture. Nuthead was ordered to appear before the Council "to answer for his presumption in printing the acts of Assembly ... and several other papers without licence." The Council ordered that "for prevention of all troubles and inconveniences that may be occasioned through the liberty of a press ... Mr. John Buckner and William Nuthead the printer enter into bond for one hundred pounds sterling ... that from and after the date hereof nothing be printed by either of them ... in this colony until the signification of his Majesty's pleasure shall be known."[70]
His Majesty's pleasure therein was a foregone conclusion. "Whereas we have taken notice of the inconvenience that may arise by the liberty of printing in Virginia," stated Charles in his instructions to Effingham, "no person is to be permitted to use any press for printing upon any occasion whatsoever."[71] So Nuthead took the press to Maryland and for nearly half a century Virginia was without a printer.[72]
The quartering of troops upon the people has been a serious grievance wherever it has been practiced. People object to having rough soldiers thrust into their homes, to disrupt their daily life, or perhaps to create disorders. When the British troops sent over to suppress Bacon's Rebellion were quartered on the people, there were bitter complaints. "Instead of being a guard and safety" to us as was intended, "they have by their long stay and ill behavior not only been totally useless, but dangerous," and the greatest of our terrors.[73] To make matters worse, complaints came in to the Assembly from Isle of Wight, York, James City, and Nansemond Counties that payments for quarters were in arrears by six months or more. So it was with thanksgiving that the people received the announcement that the money to pay for the quarters had arrived from England together with orders to disband the troops.[74]
Effingham was even more brazen than Berkeley in using the patronage openly to force obedience to the King. Berkeley ruled chiefly by rewarding those who did as he told them; Effingham by punishing all who opposed him. To acquiesce in everything he proposed was the only way for one to retain one's job. William Sherwood and Colonel Thomas Milner, for forwarding an address of the Burgesses to the Privy Council, were dismissed from office. Mr. Arthur Allen was "turned out of all employment, civil and military" to his great loss, "he being a surveyor of land at that time."[75] Effingham himself explains why. He was "a great promoter of those differences between me and the Assembly concerning the King's negative voice ... as not thinking it fit that those who are peevishly opposite to his Majesty's interest should have any advantage by his favor."[76]
Another prominent member of the House of Burgesses, Mr. Charles Scarburgh, was "turned out of all employment, and as a mark of his Lordship's displeasure, a command was sent to the clerk of the county to raze his name out of the records as a justice of peace."[77] Mr. William Anderson, Scarburgh's colleague from Accomac County, must have been even more active in opposing the Governor, for when the session of 1688 was over he had him "put in the common jail," where he was "detained seven months without trial, though often prayed for.... Nor could he obtain the benefit of habeas corpus."[78]