"Upon the whole the commissioners were of opinion that the choice was most properly placed in the representatives of the people."
[116] Franklin's comment was (see note above): "Governors have sometimes wantonly exercised the power of ... continuing the sessions of Assemblies, merely to harass the members and compel a compliance; and sometimes dissolve them on slight disgusts." This provision may have been suggested to Franklin by the fact that in his own colony the legislative sittings were independent of the governor's will (No. 103, b, above).
[XX. HARSH PHASES OF COLONIAL SOCIETY][117]
115. Legal Punishment in Virginia, 1662-1748
Hening's Statutes, II, 75. The following statute was enacted in March, 1662. It was reënacted, in similar words, in 1705 and in 1748 (ib. 367-368 and 507-508), and was in force at the opening of the Revolution.
Whereas many offences are punishable by the laws of England and of this country with corporall punishments, for executeing whereof noe such provision hath been made as the said laws doe require; Be it therefore enacted, that, in every county, the court cause to be sett up a pillory, a pair of stocks, and a whipping post, neere the courthouse, and a ducking-stoole in such a place as they shall think convenient ... And the courts not causeing the said pillory and whipping post, stocks and ducking stoole to be erected within six months, after the date of this act shall be fined five thousand pounds of tobacco to the use of the publique.
116. White Servants in 1774
William Eddes, Letters from America.
These Letters, written in 1774, were printed in London in 1792. Eddes was a customs official at Annapolis.
Persons in a state of servitude are under four distinct denominations: negroes, who are the entire property of their respective owners: convicts, who are transported from the mother country for a limited term: indented servants, who are engaged for five years previous to their leaving England; and free-willers, who are supposed, from their situation, to possess superior advantages....