Following the war Virginia returned to its two great peacetime
interests--trade and expansion. In the Assembly of April 1647 Berkeley,
the Council, and the Burgesses joined in a declaration which reveals the
extent to which the colony relied on Dutch traders. It noted that
"absolute necessities" had caused earlier Assemblies to invite the Dutch
to trade with the inhabitants of Virginia, "which now for some few
yeares they have injoyed with such content, comfort and releife that
they esteeme the continuance thereof, of noe lesse consequence then as a
relative to theire being and subsistence." Rumors had been raised, the
declaration went on, that by a recent ordinance of Parliament, all
foreigners were prohibited from trading with any of the English
plantations "which wee conceive to bee the invention of some English
merchants on purpose to affright and expell the Dutch, and make way for
themselves to monopolize not onely our labours and fortunes, but even
our persons." The declaration noted the baneful effects on the colony of
the greed of the English merchants and pointed out that by ancient
charter and right the inhabitants of Virginia were allowed to trade with
any nation in amity with the King. It would be inconceivable that
Parliament would abridge this right "especially without hearing of the
parties principally interested, which infringeth noe lesse the libertye
of the Collony and a right of deare esteeme to free borne persons:
_viz._, that no lawe should bee established within the kingdome of
England concerninge us without the consent of a grand Assembly here."
But since they had heard nothing officially concerning the rumored act,
"wee can interprett noe other thing from the report, then a forgerye of
avaritious persons, whose sickle hath bin ever long in our harvest
allreadye." To provide for Virginia's subsistence the Governor, Council,
and Burgesses ordered that the right of the Dutch nation to trade with
Virginia be reiterated and preserved, and her traders given every
protection.
Virginia's other great problem, that of unregulated expansion, was dealt
with by the Grand Assembly of November 1647 in an extraordinary way. The
Governor, Council, and Burgesses ordered that persons inhabiting
Northumberland and "other remote and straying plantations on the south
side of Patomeck River, Wicokomoko, Rappahannock and Fleets Bay" be
displanted and removed. They justified this act on the basis of frequent
instructions from the King to Berkeley and the Council directing that
the planters not be allowed to scatter themselves too widely, and also
because they considered such settlement "pernicious" and "destructive"
to the peace and safety of the colony, animating the Indians to attack,
and thus imbroiling the country in troublesome and expensive wars. Since
winter was approaching, the inhabitants were allowed one year to remove
themselves to the south side of York River.
The same session of the Assembly authorized Capt. Edward Hill and others
to establish, at the head of Rappahannock River, a military and trading
outpost which was deemed valuable to the peace and safety of the colony.
Hill and his associates were to provide forty men to man the fort which
was not to exceed five acres at most, on pain of having the grant
revoked.
It was a brave and sensible policy which Berkeley and the Assembly
pursued, but one that was destined to be overridden by the power,
self-interest, and numbers of the thousands of new members of the
colony, both those being born in Virginia in ever-increasing numbers,
and those who had left behind them the civil strife of England. In less
than a year the Assembly enacted that the tract of land between the
Rappahannock and Potomac rivers should be called Northumberland and that
it should have power to elect Burgesses. The reasons of "state" that had
convinced the Assembly of November 1647 to order the utter dissolution
of the Northumberland settlements were thus thrown to the winds by the
next Assembly. No doubt the pressure of the inhabitants, would-be
inhabitants, and speculators, in addition to the difficulty of enforcing
the decision, caused the repeal of the act. The restraining hand of the
Governor was never again to be felt as it had been in the period
following the 1646 peace. The explosive growth of settlement in Virginia
had proved impossible to control.
The justification of the settlement south of the Potomac River was not
the only victory of the people in the Assembly of October 1648. Upon the
representation of the Burgesses to the Governor and Council complaining
of the worn-out lands and insufficient cattle ranges of the earlier
settlements, the Governor and Council, after long debate, joined the
Burgesses in authorizing settlement on the north side of the York and
Rappahannock rivers. The act declared, however, that "for reasons of
state to ... [the Governor and Council] appearing, importing the safety
of the people in their seating," no one was to go there before the first
of September of the following year. Surveys of the area were allowed at
once, however, and land patents were authorized to be taken out. The act
making it a felony to go to the north side of York River was repealed.
The settlers' and speculators' victory was complete. Reasons of "policy"
and "state" proved only of sufficient power to delay the inevitable.
EXECUTION OF CHARLES I AND CAPTURE OF COLONY BY PARLIAMENTARY FORCES,
1649-1652
On January 30, 1649, King Charles I was beheaded by the Parliamentary
forces. It was a logical climax to the turmoil into which English
institutions and values had been cast by the long years of civil war
that preceded the deed. The execution of the King shocked Englishmen as
well as foreigners. The reaction of the Virginians came in the form of
Act I of the Assembly of October 1649 which hailed "the late most
excellent and now undoubtedly sainted king," denounced the perpetrators
of the deed, and declared that if any person in the colony should defend
"the late traiterous proceedings ... under any notion of law and
justice" by words or speeches, such person should be adjudged an
accessory _post factum_ to the death of the King. Anyone who expressed
doubt, by words and speeches, as to the inherent right of Charles II to
succeed his father as King of England and Virginia, was likewise to be
adjudged guilty of high treason.
The death of Charles I left the Parliamentary forces supreme in England.
Some royalists retired to the continent of Europe, and some came to
Virginia. England became a Commonwealth without a King; Oliver Cromwell
was later named Protector. The new government, after consolidating its
power in England, attempted to extend its control over the colonies,
some of which, like Virginia, continued to demonstrate their loyalty to
royal authority. On October 3, 1650, Parliament, as a punitive measure,
prohibited the trade of the colonies with foreign nations except as the
Parliamentary government should allow. "This succession to the exercise
of the kingly authority," wrote Jefferson later, "gave the first colour
for parliamentary interference with the colonies, and produced that
fatal precedent which they continued to follow after they had retired,
in other respects, within their proper functions."
The reaction of the Virginia Burgesses to this act was as violent as
their reaction to the beheading of Charles I. Their temper on both
occasions owed much to the eloquence of their Governor, and to the
admiration in which he was held by the people. In March 1651 they met to
consider the Parliamentary threat to their beliefs and to their
livelihood. Sir William Berkeley spoke to them on the subject of
Parliament's claim to speak for the English nation. Said the Governor:
If the whole current of their reasoning were not as ridiculous, as
their actions have been tyrannicall and bloudy, we might wonder with
what browes they could sustaine such impertinent assertions: For if
you looke into it, the strength of their argument runs onely thus:
we have laid violent hands on your land-lord, possessed his manner
house where you used to pay your rents, therfore now tender your
respects to the same house you once reverenced.... They talke indeed
of money laid out on this country in its infancy: I will not say how
little, nor how centuply repaid, but will onely aske, was it
theirs?... Surely Gentlemen we are more slaves by nature, then their
power can make us if we suffer our selves to be shaken with these
paper bulletts, and those on my life are the heaviest they either
can or will send us.
Berkeley was confident that if Virginia put up a determined resistance,
the new English rulers would beg the colony to trade with them. He
compared the state of England with the state of Virginia, to the
disadvantage of the former. The Parliamentary government of England, he
asserted, did not represent the will of the people who would not endure
their "slavery, if the sword at their throats did not compell them to
languish under the misery they howrely suffer." As for Virginia, "there
is not here an arbitrary hand that dares to touch the substance of
either poore or rich." Berkeley called on the Burgesses to support his
stand against the act, asking:
What is it can be hoped for in a change, which we have not allready?
Is it liberty? The sun looks not on a people more free then we are
from all oppression. Is it wealth? Hundreds of examples shew us that
industry and thrift in a short time may bring us to as high a degree
of it, as the country and our conditions are yet capable of: Is it
securely to enjoy this wealth when gotten? With out blushing I will
speake it, I am confident theare lives not that person can accuse me
of attempting the least act against any mans property. Is it peace?
The Indians, God be blessed round about us are subdued; we can onely
feare the Londoners, who would faine bring us to the same poverty,
wherein the Dutch found and relieved us; would take away the liberty
of our consciences, and tongues, and our right of giving and selling
our goods to whom we please. But Gentlemen by the Grace of God we
will not so tamely part with our King, and all these blessings we
enjoy under him; and if they oppose us, do but follow me, I will
either lead you to victory, or loose a life which I cannot more
gloriously sacrifice then for my loyalty, and your security.
The speech being ended the House of Burgesses, unanimously with the
Governor and Council, agreed to reject the Parliamentary act of October
3, 1650, as illegal, and to continue in allegiance to King Charles II,
always praying for his restoration to the throne and for the repentance
of those who, "to the hazard of their soules" opposed him. The Assembly
proclaimed that they would continue to trade freely with all persons of
whatever nation who came to trade with them, not excluding the
Londoners.
This assertion of Virginia's traditional freedom and rights was, of
course, a direct challenge to the Parliamentary government. In the fall
of 1651 that government determined to chastise the rebellious colony and
subject it by force. A fleet was dispatched in October to conquer
Virginia and Barbados, another rebellious colony. Robert Dennis, Richard
Bennett, Thomas Stegge, and William Claiborne were chosen commissioners
to take over the government of Virginia once it had been conquered.
Bennett and Claiborne were living in Virginia at the time.
Part of the fleet arrived in Virginia waters in January 1652. Berkeley
called upon the people to prepare for resistance. One thousand troops,
it is said, gathered in James City for the purpose. Five hundred Indian
allies of the colony promised their aid. Berkeley denounced the leaders
of the Parliamentary expedition as bloody tyrants, pirates, and robbers.
He warned the Virginians that, if they did not repel the attack, their
land titles would be thrown into doubt and they would be brought under a
company of merchants who would order them at their pleasure and keep
them from trade with all others. To counteract the Governor's influence,
the Parliamentary commissioners circulated letters and declarations
throughout the country denying any such evil intentions. Finally, on
January 19, they sent a summons to the Governor and Council to
surrender, and set sail from the lower reaches of the James to
Jamestown. A milder answer than expected was returned, setting forth
various demands and privileges desired by the Virginians.
The commissioners' reply to these proposals was favorable enough to
cause Berkeley to call an Assembly, and negotiations were entered into
between the Governor, Council, and Burgesses on the one hand, and the
Parliamentary commissioners on the other. Articles of submission were
agreed upon which were honorable to both sides, Virginia receiving
guarantees of the privileges of freeborn people of England, authority
for the Grand Assembly to continue to function, guarantees of immunity
for acts or words done or spoken in opposition to Parliament, guarantees
of the bounds of Virginia, of the fifty-acre headright privilege, and of
the right to "free trade as the people of England do enjoy to all places
and with all nations according to the lawes of that commonwealth."
Special provisions were made which allowed the Governor and Council to
refrain from taking any oath to the Commonwealth for one year and
guaranteed them for one year from censure for speaking well of the King
in their private houses. Berkeley and the Council were given leave to
sell their estates and quit Virginia, either for England or Holland. No
penalties were to be imposed on those who had served the King.
The commissioners of Parliament considered that they had been lucky to
reduce the colony without bloodshed, even though forced to agree to such
mild terms. At the same time the event suggests that the bitterness
which existed in England between Roundheads and Cavaliers was not quite
so extreme in the colonies, where little blood had been shed for the
cause of either. The colonies had interests of their own which ran
counter to those of the mother country, whether in the hands of King or
Parliament. Governor, Council, and Burgesses in Virginia were closer to
each other economically and politically than they were to their
respective counterparts in England. What held the colonies to the mother
country was not self-interest but ties of historical tradition and
racial patriotism. The execution of Charles I and seizure of the colony
by the Parliamentary fleet loosened these ties. The Crown, symbol of
continuity with past ages of English subjects and of unity among all the
King's realms, was now not only removed but denounced by those who had
done the deed.
Virginia never showed sympathy for those who had killed the King, and
the Assembly took to heart Governor Berkeley's warning of 1651 that the
blood of Charles I "will yet staine your garments if you willingly
submit to those murtherers hands that shed it." It is true that
following the surrender the Parliamentary commissioners agreed with the
representatives of the people on a provisional government for Virginia,
but the bonds that held Virginia to England had lost much of the cement
of love and tradition. Local and self-interest were now to dominate to a
great extent Virginia's actions. Such motives had always been latent,
and indeed active. But under royal government, the Governor could often
exert a countervailing force to prevent such interests from overriding
the interests of nation and morality.
Under the terms of the settlement the Grand Assembly was to continue to
function, and the Assembly and commissioners agreed that Richard
Bennett, one of the commissioners, should act as Governor for a year. It
was expected that orders would shortly arrive from England establishing
new patterns of government. Such instructions were especially necessary
to determine the role and authority of the Governor and Council,
formerly appointed by the King. The new rulers in England were made
aware of the need for a new policy for the colonies, but they never
found time to make the necessary decisions. At intervals the colonists
were informed that Cromwell had not forgotten them and that His Highness
would soon let them know his pleasure. But instructions never came
except spasmodically and inadequately. The merchants who stood to gain
from the Navigation Act of 1651, which generally excluded foreign ships
from the colonies and attempted to restrain colonial trade with foreign
countries, complained at the failure of the colonists to obey the act
and demanded that orders be sent to enforce it, but no adequate
provisions were ever made.
Thus the colony was left to its own devices during the period. Virginia
traders paid little attention to Parliamentary restrictions on their
commerce. They insisted that the provision of the Articles of Surrender
allowing them free trade with all nations according to the laws of the
Commonwealth did not prevent them from trading with foreigners. They
argued that since the first article of the surrender agreement
guaranteed them the rights of freeborn Englishmen, an act discriminating
against them in matters of trade because they happened to live in the
colonies was illegal. Dutch ships called often, though perhaps not so
frequently as some have believed, and individual Virginians traded as
they pleased with the Dutch and English colonies in America.