Nor did he scruple to resort to open fraud in satisfying his greed. There were, in 1680, two companies remaining in Virginia of the troops sent over to suppress Bacon's Rebellion. Having received no pay for many months, the soldiers were discontented and mutinous.[951] The Privy Council entrusted to Culpeper, upon his first departure for the colony, money to satisfy them, and to compensate the householders with whom they had been quartered.[952] At this period, as always in the seventeenth century, there was a great scarcity of specie in Virginia. But there circulated, usually by weight, various foreign coins, the most common of which was the Spanish piece of eight, about equal in value to five shillings in English money. My Lord, upon his arrival, industriously bought up all the worn coins he could secure, arbitrarily proclaimed them legal tender at the ratio of six shillings to one piece of eight, and then paid the soldiers and the landlords. This ingenious trick probably netted him over £1,000. Later he restored the ratio to five to one, so that he would lose nothing when his own salary became due. Of such stuff were some of the Virginia colonial governors.[953]
But Culpeper's many defects were not wholly unfortunate for the colony, for they rendered him unfit to carry out the designs of the King. His frequent absences from his government made it impossible for him to become thoroughly acquainted with conditions in the colony, or to bind the wealthy to him by a judicious use of the patronage. He was too weak, too careless to pursue a long continued attack upon the established privileges of the people.
It boded ill, therefore, for Virginia, when he was removed, and a commission granted to Lord Howard. The new Governor was well fitted for the task of oppression and coercion. Unscrupulous, deceitful, overbearing, resentful, persistent, he proved a dangerous foe to the representative institutions of the colony, and an able defender of royal prerogative. Had he not encountered throughout his entire administration, the united and determined resistance of the Burgesses, he might have overthrown all constitutional government. Well it was for Virginia that at this moment of imminent danger, the Burgesses should have been so conscious of their duty and so resolute in executing it. They were still, as in most periods of colonial history, men of high social position, but they represented, not their own class, but the entire colony. And they were ever watchful to guard the interests of the commons.
Effingham took the oath of office in England, October 24, 1683,[954] and a few months later sailed for the colony.[955] No sooner had he set foot in Virginia than the struggle with the Burgesses began. The session of Assembly of April, 1684, was filled with their bitter disputes.
Consternation reigned in the House when Lord Howard produced an instruction from the King forbidding appeals from the inferior courts to the Assembly.[956] As early as October, 1678, Colonel Francis Moryson had advised the Privy Council to abolish the judicial powers of the Assembly, claiming that they were the source of the great influence and "arrogancy" of that body.[957] Their Lordships did not awaken at once to the importance of this matter, but before long they became convinced that Moryson was right. Accordingly Lord Culpeper, in his commission of 1682, was directed to procure the immediate repeal of all laws "allowing appeals to the Assembly".[958] But Culpeper, interested only in securing money from the Burgesses, failed to put this instruction into operation. "As to what concerns Appeals," he declared, "I have never once permitted any one to come to the Assembly, soe that the thing is in effect done. But having some thoughts of getting a Revenue Bill to pass, I was unwilling actually to repeal ye Laws relating thereunto till the next session of Assembly should be over, well knowing how infinitely it would trouble them."[959]
But Effingham had no such scruples, and told the Burgesses plainly the commands he bore from the King.[960] The House, in great dismay, requested the Governor and the Council to join them in an address to his Majesty, imploring him to restore a privilege which had so long been enjoyed "according to ye Laws and antient Practice of the Country".[961] But Lord Howard replied coldly, "It is what I can in noe parte admitt of, his Majesty haveing been pleased by his Royal instruccons to direct & command that noe appeales be open to the General Assembly."[962]
Nor did the Assembly ever regain this important power. As late as 1691 we find the agent of the Burgesses in England asking in vain for the restoration of the right of appeals.[963] The change threw into the hands of the Governor and Council extraordinary power over the judiciary of the colony. The county justices, who sat in the lower courts, were the appointees of the Governor, and could not effectually resist his will. Moreover, as appeals lay from them to the General Court, they were powerless before the decisions of the superior tribunal. Thus the judiciary of the colony lost its only democratic feature.
The Burgesses, undismayed by their defeat in this matter, at this same session entered a vigorous protest against the King's right to annul acts of Assembly. During Berkeley's administration his Majesty had seldom exercised this power, but of late many acts had been repealed by proclamation without the consent or knowledge of the Assembly. This, the Burgesses claimed, was an unwarranted infringement upon the privileges granted them "by sundry Comissions, Letters and Instructions", that was most destructive of their cherished liberties and rights. And they demanded that henceforth their statutes should have the force of law until they had been "Repealed by the same Authority of Generall Assembly".[964] But they received no encouragement from the Governor. What you ask, he told them, "is soe great an entrenchment upon ye Royall authority that I cannot but wonder you would offer at it".[965]
Thereupon the House determined to appeal directly to the King, petitioning him not only to give up the right of repealing laws by proclamation, but to permit the continuation of appeals to the Assembly. Since the Governor refused to transmit their address to his Majesty, they forwarded copies to Secretary Jenkins by two of their own members—Thomas Milner and William Sherwood.[966]
This address received scant consideration from the King and the Privy Council. "Whereas," James II wrote Effingham in October, 1685, "it hath been represented unto us by our Committee for Trade and Plantations, that they have received from some unknown persons a paper entitled an address and supplication of the General Assembly of Virginia ... which you had refused to recommend as being unfit to be presented.... Wee cannot but approve of your proceedings.... And wee doe further direct you to discountenance such undue practices for the future as alsoe the Contrivers and Promoters thereof."[967] For their activity in this matter Sherwood and Milner "in ye following year were both turned out of all imployments to their great damage and disgrace".[968]