WE PREFER ANOTHER GOVERNOR
The people of Jamestown in the years from 1626 to 1640, when they saw a
vessel coming up the river, must have crowded around the landing place
to ask sailors and passengers for the latest news from England. Was King
Charles still raising funds with which to run the government by means of
forced loans? Was he still billeting his soldiers on the people? Was
martial law in force? They must have been thrilled to hear of the
Petition of Rights in which the House of Commons protested against
Charles' arbitrary rule.
When the Burgesses came to town for a session of the Assembly, the
struggle between King and Parliament must have been the chief topic of
conversation around the table in each crude little tavern. Now it was
the jailing of nine members of the House of Commons; now the granting of
monopolies; now the collecting of ship money; now the suppression of
free speech; now the proceedings of the Star Chamber; now the efforts of
Archbishop Laud to enforce religious conformity.
The Virginians were fully aware that these events affected them
profoundly. They had just won a degree of self-government. If the King
succeeded in his efforts to make himself absolute in England, all their
gains might be lost. Might he not overthrow their Assembly? If he could
imprison men arbitrarily in England, he would not hesitate to do so in
Virginia. If he could tax the people of England under the thin veil of
loans, or the revival of ancient laws, would he hesitate to tax the
colonists without their own consent? Might he not place over them
another Dale or Argall to hang men or break them on the wheel?
So when Sir George Yeardley, their liberal Governor, died in November,
1627, they were filled with grief. They remembered that it was he who
had brought over the Virginia Magna Carta, and had called the first
Assembly. We have lost "a main pillar of this our building and thereby a
support to the whole body," wrote the Council.[1]
Their concern must have been all the greater because Yeardley's
commission of March 14, 1626, named John Harvey as his successor. The
Virginians knew this man well. He had been one of the King's
commissioners who came to the colony in 1624 to draw up a report on
conditions there to be used in overthrowing the charter of the Company.
Just why it was thought that he was the right man to act as Governor is
not apparent, for he was a mariner by vocation and had served as captain
of a ship which went to the East Indies in 1617. In November, 1625, we
find him in command of a ship in the expedition against Cadiz. He may
have owed his appointment as Governor to Viscount Dorchester, the
Secretary of State, whom he thanked for his "wonted nobleness" to him.
But Virginia was to have a breathing space before Harvey's arrival.
Yeardley's commission had specified that in the absence of Harvey the
Council should elect one of their number to act in his place. They chose
Captain Francis West, brother of Lord De la Warr.[2] West was a seasoned
Virginian, for he had come to the colony in 1608 with Captain Newport.
He had been commander of Jamestown many years, and a member of the
Council since 1619. It was during his brief administration that the
first legal Assembly since the dissolution of the London Company was
called together, the Assembly which rejected the King's proposal for a
tobacco contract.
In March, 1629, West was appointed agent for the colony and sent to
England. To serve as Governor until his return or the arrival of Harvey,
the Council chose Dr. John Pott. This man had been in Virginia since
1621, when he came over as "Physician to the Company" and member of the
Council. He was described as "a Master of Arts ... well practiced in
chirurgery and physic, and expert in distilling of waters, besides many
other ingenious devices."[3] He seems to have consumed a goodly quantity
of "distilled waters" himself, for he was fond of his cups and jovial
company. George Sandys wrote of him that "he kept company too much with
his inferiors, who hung upon him while his good liquor lasted."[4]
The most notable of Pott's "ingenious devices" was the poisoning of a
large number of Indians after the massacre of 1622. In justification of
this act, his friends explained that the barbarous and perfidious
savages knew nothing about the rules of war, so it was fair play to
resort to anything that tended to their ruin. But this did not save Pott
from criticism in England. The Earl of Warwick was so shocked that at
his request Pott was left out of the Council because "he was the
poisoner of the savages there." But he seems to have been forgiven, for
in 1626 we find him once more in his seat.
It was during Pott's administration that Lord Baltimore visited
Virginia. In 1623 he had received a grant of land in Newfoundland, and
had planted a colony of English Catholics there. But when four years
later he visited the place, he found "the air so intolerable cold as it
is hardly to be endured." He wrote King Charles that he had decided to
move with some forty persons to Virginia, and petitioned for "a precinct
of land there."
On October 1, 1629, he, with his wife and children, arrived at
Jamestown. Here he met with a cool reception. A certain Thomas Tindall
got into an altercation with him, called him a liar, and threatened to
knock him down. The Virginians did not want in their midst a group of
Catholics who were trying to lop off one of the most fertile parts of
their territory. So to get rid of them the Governor and Council tendered
my Lord the oath of supremacy, knowing that as a Catholic he could not
take it, for to do so was to acknowledge the King as the supreme
authority in ecclesiastical matters. When he refused they asked him to
leave. This he did, but since he left his family in Virginia, it was
obvious that he intended to return. So William Claiborne was sent after
him as agent for the colony to oppose his designs.
To add to the troubles of the people, in the early spring of 1630 Harvey
arrived and took his seat as Governor. He had lingered in England to
make sure that the office would yield a good return. Only after the King
had promised him the fines imposed by any of the courts did he set sail.
His voyage was far from being pleasant, for his ship was leaky, he was
delayed at the Cape Verde Islands by a Dutch fleet, and he was laid low
by "a great sickness" that attacked him at sea.[5]
After landing it was several weeks before he was able to take over his
duties. But after he had done so, his intentions at once became
apparent. The man was by nature a despot. The despotism of Sir Edmund
Andros in New England and of Lord Howard of Effingham in Virginia in the
years just preceding the Glorious Revolution stemmed, not so much from
the character of these men, as from the deliberate policy of Charles II.
There is no evidence that Charles I ordered Harvey to make himself
absolute. He had too many troubles at home to give much thought to
Virginia.
It may have been Harvey's training as a sea captain which made him
impatient of restraint. In Virginia he acted as though he were still on
the deck of his ship thundering out commands which no one must question.
If the King were in Virginia, would not his orders be obeyed? Then why
not the orders of his Governor? He never tired of reminding the members
of the Council and others that he was the King's substitute. When to his
passion for power are added his rudeness and violence, his avarice and
disregard for the rights of others, we have the picture of one utterly
unsuited to be the chief executive of a liberty loving people.
Harvey was accused of diverting public funds to his own pocket, but of
this we have no direct proof. It is probable that he tried to levy taxes
without the consent of the Assembly. Otherwise one wonders why the
Assembly should have thought it necessary to order "that the Governor
and Council shall not lay any taxes or impositions upon the colony ...
otherwise than by the authority of the Grand Assembly."[6]
But it was chiefly through the courts that he carried out his designs.
He himself presided over the quarter court, and it was he who appointed
the commissioners or justices who sat on the local courts. Thus it was
not difficult for him to secure any verdict he wished. So he had at hand
an instrument to satisfy his lust for power by crushing those who
resisted him, and his lust for money by imposing heavy fines. It should
have been obvious to Charles I when he agreed to give Harvey all fines
and amercements, that it was a dangerous thing to permit a judge, or one
who appointed judges, to profit from his or their decisions.
The most notorious abuse of the judicial power by Harvey was his
prosecution of Dr. Pott. Charging the pleasure-loving physician with
pardoning murder and marking other men's cattle for his own, he
suspended him from the Council, and confined him to his plantation
pending the day of his trial. When Pott defied the Governor's order and
came to Elizabeth City, Harvey put him in prison and set a guard around
it. In July, 1630, he was put on trial.
We have only one detail of the proceedings, but that like a flash is
revealing of Pott's character and of the farcical character of the
prosecution. When a certain Richard Kingswell testified against him,
Pott declared that he was as great a liar and hypocrite as Gusman of
Alfrach. He was referring to the book by Mateo Aleman, of Seville, in
which Gusman is shown first as a scullion, then as an errand boy, then
as a thief, then as a pretended gentleman who cheated his creditors.[7]
But this thrust did not save him. He was convicted, and his entire
estate confiscated.[8]
It would seem that in this case Harvey was actuated more by a desire to
show his power than by avarice. If he could humble so prominent a man as
Pott, one who had been acting Governor, others would stand in awe of
him. "It will be a means to bring people to ... hold a better respect to
the Governor than hitherto they have done," he wrote.[9] But having
shown his power to ruin, he now sought to show that he could also
restore. So he wrote the King suggesting clemency. "For as much as he is
the only physician in the colony, and skilled in the epidemical diseases
of the planters ... I am bound to entreat" your Majesty to pardon
him.[10]
A more sincere plea came from the doctor's wife, Elizabeth. Getting up
from a sick bed, she made the long and dangerous voyage to England to
complain to the King "touching the wrong" done her husband. Charles
referred the case to the Virginia Commissioners, who listened
sympathetically as she poured out the story of injustice and
persecution.[11] They concluded that there had been "some hard usage
against" Pott, and recommended that the King pardon him. Accordingly,
Charles forgave his "offences" and restored his property.[12] But the
jovial doctor never regained his seat in the Council.
The prosecution of Pott set the example for others. "The Governor
usurped the whole power in all causes without any respect to the votes
of the Council," reported Samuel Mathews, "whereby justice was done but
so far as suited his will to the great loss of many men's estates and a
general fear in all." If other members of the court opposed him, he
would revile them and tell them they were there merely to advise him. He
could accept or reject their opinions as he liked, since "the power lay
in himself to dispose of all matters as his Majesty's substitute."[13]
With the General Court dominated by the overbearing and avaricious
Governor no man was safe. At any moment one might be hauled before the
bar, charged with some petty offence, found guilty, and given a ruinous
fine. Mathews said that there were an "infinite number of particular
men's grievances."[14] William Claiborne thought it strange that Harvey
"should so demean himself," for "all men were wronged, and even good and
bad had forsaken him."[15] It was in every man's mouth that "no justice
was done." When a report of these things reached England, Sir John
Wolstenholm, one of the Virginia Commissioners, said that "Sir John
Harvey stunk in Court and city."[16]
Harvey's attempts to make himself absolute, his disregard of other men's
rights, his perversion of justice did not go unchallenged. Soon the
meetings of the Council became stormy. The Governor insisted that he, as
the King's substitute, had a right to determine all things. The
Councillors were merely his assistants, whose duty it was to advise him,
but not to oppose him. But the Councillors dissented vigorously. Look at
your commission, they told him, and you will see that it directs that
all matters must be determined by the majority of voices. Does it not
say that the King grants to the Governor and Council "and the greater
number of you respectively full power and authority to execute" the
duties of the executive body?
Soon Harvey was filling his letters with complaints of the opposition of
the Council. "For instead of giving me assistance, they stand contesting
and disputing my authority, averring that I can do nothing but what they
shall advise me, and that my power extendeth no further than a bare
casting voice."[17] He had shown them a letter from the King
strengthening his commission, but they refused to budge from their
position. He would be grateful if his Majesty would be so explicit "that
the place of Governor and the duty of Councillors may be known and
distinguished."[18]
The Privy Council answered by warning both sides to put an end to their
disputes and cooperate with each other in advancing the good of the
colony. So they drew up and signed a formal reconciliation. They
promised "to swallow up and bury" all complaints, and to turn their
"alienated and distempered" minds to thoughts of love and peace. The
Councillors vowed to give the Governor "all the service, honor, and due
respect which belongs to him as his Majesty's substitute."[19]
The reconciliation proved a sham. Harvey continued to be overbearing and
arbitrary; the Councillors were as bitter as ever. When one of them,
Thomas Hinton, in an outburst of anger gave Harvey some "ill words," he
ousted him from his seat. Love and peace were far indeed from the
Governor's mind when he responded to some "ill language" from Captain
Richard Stevens by landing a blow in his face with a cudgel and knocking
out some of his teeth.[20]
In 1634 a certain Captain Thomas Young arrived in Virginia with a
commission from the King authorizing him to discover and search the
unexplored parts of the colony. Needing two shallops, and hearing that
one of the planters had an indentured worker who was a skilled
shipwright, he seized him and put him to work. In this violation of
property rights he was supported by the Governor. But it aroused the
anger of the Council, and several of them came to Harvey to demand an
explanation.
Harvey may have had in mind the Forced Loans as a precedent for taking
the property of the subject, when he replied that his Majesty had given
Young "authority to make use of any persons he found there." Young
needed the shipwright "to prosecute with speed the King's service," he
said. Speaking for the others, Samuel Mathews retorted angrily that if
things were done in that fashion it would breed ill blood in Virginia.
Turning his back he whirled a truncheon he carried in his hand, and
lashed off the heads of some high weeds.[21] The Governor, ignoring
this, said: "Come, gentlemen, let us go to supper, and for the night
leave this discourse." But they were in no humor to be appeased. With
one accord they turned their backs and left "in a very irreverent
manner."
The Virginians were further embittered against Harvey for the aid he
gave to Lord Baltimore's settlers. It was on February 27, 1634, that the
_Ark_ and the _Dove_, with Leonard and George Calvert, twenty "gentlemen
adventurers," and three-hundred laborers, arrived at Point Comfort. They
bore a letter to the Governor from the King requiring him to treat them
with courtesy and respect, permit them to buy cattle and other
commodities, and do all he could to advance their settlement.
Harvey did his best to comply. He sent them some of his own cows and
promised to procure more. But this was not easy. The planters were so
outraged at having a part of their territory torn away for a colony of
Catholics that they swore they would knock their cattle on the head
rather than sell them to the Marylanders. Some of the members of the
Council had been informed by letters from England of Lord Baltimore's
plans. When Samuel Mathews opened one of them, he threw his hat on the
ground in a fury, stamped, and cried: "A pox upon Maryland!"[22] He,
with William Claiborne and other members of the Council, held many
secret meetings to decide upon a course of action. But they were
powerless to prevent the _Ark_ and the _Dove_ from moving up the
Chesapeake Bay with the newcomers, and the founding of a little town
near the mouth of the Potomac.
Three years before their arrival Claiborne had made a settlement on Kent
Island in the Chesapeake near the site of Annapolis. So now he found
himself torn from Virginia and handed over to another government. The
result was open warfare. It was prophetic of the battle between the
Merrimac and the Monitor in Chesapeake waters more than two centuries
later, when two pinnaces full of armed men captured an armed vessel sent
out by the Kent Islanders.
When this news reached Jamestown there was great indignation. Harvey
tried to justify the Marylanders, but this merely intensified the
people's hatred of him. So he not only aids in the dismemberment of
Virginia, it was said, but upholds the intruders in murdering our
people. Is it right that one who is Governor of the colony should side
with her enemies?
The crisis came in 1635. King Charles, ever pressed for money, tried
once more to secure a tobacco contract. So he wrote Harvey directing him
to call an Assembly and to ask for "the sole pre-emption of all
tobacco," at a lower price and a reduced quantity. The members of the
Council, especially Samuel Mathews, John Utie, and William Pierce,
opposed the contract "very saucily."[23] As for the Burgesses, they
hated all contracts. So they drew up an answer which was in effect a
refusal. In order to give the paper the character of a petition they all
signed it. This they gave to Harvey to send to the King.
But instead of forwarding it, the Governor detained it. In excuse of
this arbitrary action he said he feared the King "would not take well
the matter thereof, and that they should make it a popular business by
subscribing a multitude of hands thereto, as thinking thereby to give it
countenance."[24] The people were outraged. So our Governor takes it on
himself to decide what or what not we shall say to our King. Is it not
the right of all Englishmen to address their sovereign? "The wrong done
by the Governor to the whole colony in detaining the foresaid letters to
his Majesty did exceedingly perplex them, whereby they were made
sensible of the condition of the present government," wrote Samuel
Mathews.[25]
Things had now come to a head. A petition demanding a redress of
grievances was drawn up, which Francis Pott, brother of Dr. John Pott,
took about the country. Everywhere he found the people tired of Harvey's
arbitrary conduct, tired of his injustice to individual persons. So they
pressed forward eagerly to sign the petition. Harvey says that only in
Accomac did they refuse.[26]
It was in April, 1635, that Pott, Captain Nicholas Martian, and William
English, the sheriff of York County, addressed a gathering at the house
of William Warren. This meeting has a special significance in the long
struggle for American liberty, for Warren's house was on or near the
site of the Moore House, at Yorktown, where the British army under Lord
Cornwallis surrendered a century and a half later. The speakers were
denouncing Harvey's despotic government when some friends of the
Governor tried to enter. A servant kept them out, but they hung around
outside and "bended themselves to hearken to the discourse among
them."[27] When the speeches were concluded those present gathered
around the petition and affixed their signatures.
When this was reported to Harvey, he flew into a rage. Calling the
Council, he issued warrants for the arrest of Francis Pott, English, and
Martian. They were brought up in irons. Pott handed over the petition
and declared that if he had offended he appealed to the King. "He was
sure of no justice from Sir John Harvey." When the prisoners asked why
they were arrested, the Governor told them that they would be told at
the gallows. So they were hustled off to prison.[28]
Harvey then called the Council together again and told them that it was
necessary to try the prisoners by martial law. But the Councillors
insisted on a legal trial. In the dispute which followed Harvey became
violently angry. Finally, he sat down and ordered the others to sit.
Looking around with a frown, he said: "I am to propound a question to
you.... What do you think they deserve that have gone about to persuade
the people from their obedience to his Majesty's substitute?"
Turning to George Menefie, he said, "I begin with you." Menefie answered
that since he was but a young lawyer he did not dare give an opinion
"upon the sudden." Here Nicholas Farrar interposed to protest against
this method of proceeding. But Harvey cut him short with the command to
hold his tongue until he was spoken to. Thereupon Samuel Mathews spoke
up to enter his protest. But instantly, in the King's name, he was told
to be silent. Mathews insisted there was no precedent for this attempt
to make men incriminate themselves unless it was that by a tyrant. Here
he was alluding to the passage in Shakespeare's _King Richard_ III in
which Richard asked Lord Hastings what should be done to the women who
had bewitched him. Hastings replied that if they had done so they ought
to die. "Talk'st thou to me of ifs," replied Richard, "thou art a
traitor. Off with his head." Harvey evidently did not relish being
compared to Richard, and so retorted with many "bitter languages."[29]
The Councillors were now determined to bring their dispute with the
Governor to an issue. The next time he summoned them to meet, they
brought with them fifty musketeers and concealed them near the house.
Harvey asked them with a stern look what they thought was the reason for
the petition against him. "The chief cause was the detaining of the
letters to his Majesty," replied Mr. Menefie. This infuriated Harvey.
Rising from his chair, he struck Menefie a resounding blow on the
shoulder, saying: "I arrest you on suspicion of treason to his Majesty."
But now he had gone too far. Utie and Mathews seized him, exclaiming:
"And we you upon suspicion of treason to his Majesty."[30]
At this juncture Dr. Pott, who was standing near the door, held up his
hand as a signal, and the musketeers came running up "with their pieces
presented." "Stay here until there be use of you," Pott commanded. In
the meanwhile, Mathews had forced Harvey down into a chair. "Sir, there
is no harm intended against you only to acquaint you with the grievances
of the inhabitants," he told him. So he poured out the recital of the
wrongs done the colony and demanded that they be redressed. But the
Governor, who was in no mood for making concessions, denied that any
wrong had been done. After an ominous pause Mathews said: "Sir, the
people's fury is up against you and to appease it is beyond our power,
unless you please to go for England." Harvey replied that the King had
sent him to Virginia to be Governor, and he would not leave until he
ordered him to do so.
But he soon changed his mind. That night a courier came riding up with a
letter to Harvey from Thomas Purifie, who seems to have been one of his
few friends in the Council, giving an alarming report of the threatening
attitude of the people. At first the Governor said he would defy them to
do their worst. Would it not be better to remain, though he be cut in a
thousand pieces, than to desert his charge? he asked Secretary Richard
Kemp. Kemp replied that for him to remain might "hazard the King's
service" by provoking the infuriated people to further acts of violence.
So at last he yielded and promised to leave.[31]
The rebellious Councillors now took over the government. They released
English, Martian, and Francis Pott, forced Harvey to deliver his
commission and instructions to Secretary Kemp, set an armed guard around
him ostensibly to protect him from violence, posted armed men in "all
ways and passages," called a General Assembly, and sent out a
proclamation inviting the people to lay their grievances before it, and
appointed their senior member, John West, a brother of Lord De la Warr,
acting Governor.[32]
In the meanwhile, Harvey had left Jamestown to seek refuge in the house
of Mr. William Brocas, "whose wife was generally suspected to have more
familiarity with him than befitted a modest woman." Here he thought
himself secure enough to dismiss his guard. And from here he wrote a
threatening letter to the members of the Assembly, commanding them in
the King's name to disperse. He also wrote Secretary Kemp demanding the
return of his commission and instructions. The Councillors seized the
first letter, refused to read it to the Burgesses, and the Assembly went
on with the consideration of the grievances, "which were innumerable."
As for the commission and the instructions, they had taken them from
Kemp and turned them over to Menefie for safe keeping.[33]
The Assembly now passed resolutions accusing Harvey of misgovernment and
injustice, and explaining why the people had been driven to the extreme
expedient of sending him back to England. As their agent to deliver
these papers to the King they appointed one of the Burgesses, Thomas
Harwood. With him went Francis Pott to plead his case before the King.
Since it would be several months before the tobacco ships sailed for
England, there seems to have been only one vessel leaving at the time.
So Harvey, as well as Pott and Harwood, had to embark on it.
As events turned out this was unfortunate. Not that Harvey's frowns and
threats frightened Pott and Harwood, but that it gave him a chance to
frustrate their plans when they landed at Plymouth. Hardly had the ship
touched dock when he hastened to see the mayor of the city to tell him
of the "late mutiny and rebellion" in Virginia. So the mayor put Pott
under arrest "as a principal author and agent thereof," and seized the
trunk containing the papers entrusted to Harwood. Pott was dragged off
to London and locked up in the old debtors' prison called the Fleet.[34]
In the meanwhile, Harwood had set off post haste to get to London ahead
of Harvey so as to make friends and tell of his misgovernment. He got a
ride with the postman who was carrying the mail. At Exeter he stopped at
the Sign of the Valiant Soldier, and drank a pint of wine with the
proprietor. This seems to have loosened his tongue, for he poured out
the story of Harvey's misdeeds to this stranger, told him of his
mission, and added that if Harvey ever returned to Virginia "he would be
pistolled or shot."[35]
We do not know whether Harwood or Harvey won the race to London. But it
was the Governor who succeeded in gaining the support of the King and
the Privy Council. It is possible that his accusation that Harwood "was
one of the chief of the mutineer Burgesses that opposed his Majesty's
service in the tobacco contract and in stirring up the country to this
mutiny," may have landed him in prison. At all events, when the Privy
Council met, the Governor had things his own way.
The King was greatly surprised that the Virginians had dared defy him by
ousting their duly appointed Governor. He was determined to send Harvey
back if but for one day, he said. And should he clear himself of the
charges against him, he would keep him there longer than he had
intended. As a further vindication of his authority, he gave orders that
West, Mathews, Utie, and Pierce, the leaders of the mutiny, be brought
to England "to answer their misdemeanors." He also directed the Attorney
General to draw up a new commission for Harvey with an enlargement of
his powers.[36]
Though Harvey may have been a bit nervous over the threat of
"pistoling," he was too anxious to regain his confiscated property and
get revenge on his enemies to hesitate to return to Virginia. He made no
secret of his intention to confiscate the property of those who had so
humiliated him. As for Samuel Mathews, whose estate consisted largely of
cattle, he vowed he would leave him not worth a cow's tail.[37] Yet he
thought it prudent to ask for one of the King's ships, explaining that
this would "much abate the boldness of the offenders." So on October 2,
1636, he set forth proudly in the _Black George_. But he did not get
very far. The _Black George_ proved so leaky that for a while it seemed
that it might prove a Godsend to Virginia by taking Sir John to the
bottom. But it turned back and succeeded in reaching port. The Governor
set sail again, this time on a merchant vessel.
When he reached Virginia, in January, 1637, Harvey could not wait for
the ship to wend its way up to Jamestown before asserting his authority,
but landed at Point Comfort and established a temporary capital at
Elizabeth City. Here he began immediately to turn sheriffs and justices
out of office and replace them with men more to his liking.[38]
Messengers were sent to summon the Council to meet in the Elizabeth City
church. It must have been with an air of triumph that he greeted the
Councillors, for now the day of retribution had come.
One would think that Harvey's expulsion would have taught him a lesson.
Instead, his desire for revenge drove him into new excesses. With the
enlarged powers of his new commission, with the Council submissive to
his will, with the courts manned by his favorites, with the prestige of
the King's backing, he went to great extremes. The Reverend Anthony
Panton accused him of "many arbitrary and illegal proceedings in
judgment, tyranny, extortion." The "unjust whippings, cutting of ears,
fining and confiscation of honest men's goods," must have brought back
memories of Dale and Argall. The converting of fines to his "own profit
and use," or to reward his henchmen, convinced the people that men were
accused and sentenced, not because they were guilty of any crime, but
merely to have an excuse for taking their property.[39]
In the meanwhile, West, Mathews, Utie, and Pierce had been sent as
prisoners to England to answer the charge of mutiny, where a bill was
exhibited against them in the Star Chamber. But here the matter hung
fire. George Donne, Muster General of Virginia and a member of the
Council, who had come to England to prosecute them, became ill. Harvey
neglected to put up the money for necessary fees. The great cost of the
voyage across the Atlantic prevented the sending over of witnesses.
But in the absence of the accused men, Sir John took ample revenge on
them. They were informed by letters from Virginia that "divers of their
goods, cattle, and servants" had been confiscated. So they complained to
the Privy Council. Mathews assured them that Harvey was bent on ruining
him, and that he had been heard to say that if one "stood, tother should
fall, and if he swum, the other should sink." He seems to have convinced
the Privy Council, for on May 25, 1637, they wrote Harvey ordering him
to restore Mathews' property.[40]
But so reluctant was Harvey to be cheated out of his revenge that he
postponed compliance in the hope that something might occur to give him
an excuse for not obeying. This excuse he found in a letter from the
Privy Council expressing satisfaction with his administration. It was
his excuse, also, for further severities against Mathews. Kemp and
others entered his house, broke open the doors of several rooms,
ransacked his trunks, examined his papers, and carried off a part of his
goods and eight of his servants.[41]
When word of this reached the Privy Council, the sub-committee to whom
the case was referred gave it as their opinion that Mathews had been
"very hardly dealt with." "We cannot but clearly discern somewhat of
passion in the said proceedings," they reported. So the Privy Council
wrote again to Harvey, commanding him once more to restore Mathews'
property. This time the Governor complied, writing the Privy Council a
long, but lame excuse for what he had done.[42]
Another victim of Harvey's malice was the Reverend Anthony Panton,
minister of the parishes of York and Chiskiack. Panton had quarreled
with the Governor's warm friend, Secretary Kemp, and had incurred his
lasting enmity by calling him a "jackanapes," who was "unfit for the
place of secretary," adding that "his hair-lock was tied up with ribbon
as old as St. Paul's." So he was now brought to trial, charged with
mutinous speeches and disobedience to the Governor, and with disrespect
to the Archbishop of Canterbury. The farcical character of justice as
administered by Harvey is shown by the fact that in the trial Kemp acted
not only as prosecutor but as one of the judges. Panton's conviction was
a matter of course. He was fined L500, forced to make public
submission, and was banished from Virginia and forbidden ever to return
on pain of death, and authority was given "to any man whatsoever to
execute him."[43]
Throughout Virginia colonial history the parties to any dispute who were
in London to urge their side had a great advantage. So Mathews, Utie,
Pierce, and Francis Pott, after they secured their liberty under bail,
devoted their time to undermining Sir John at Court. The Governor
charged that they planted spies in all parts of the city to invite
persons who had just arrived from Virginia into taverns, treated them to
wine to make them talkative, and got them to state their grievances. So
they poured out the stories of Harvey's confiscations, extortions,
whippings, and pressure on the courts of justice.[44]
As the evidence against Harvey piled up the exiles gained the support of
the sub-committee of the Privy Council to whom colonial affairs were
usually referred. Sir John wrote at length to refute what he called "the
malicious untruths of such who by all means do go about and study to
traduce us." But in vain, for the Privy Council decided to remove
him.[45]
The shoe was now on the other foot. On January 11, 1639, Sir Francis
Wyatt received a commission as Governor of Virginia. When this news
reached the colony there was rejoicing, for Wyatt had shown himself a
staunch defender of liberty during his previous administration. The
people could be sure that he would redress their wrongs and see to it
that justice was done all men. Nor were they disappointed. No sooner had
Wyatt arrived than he summoned the General Court and brought Harvey
before it to answer for his misdeeds.[46]
Kemp, who was retained as Secretary and Councillor by order of the Privy
Council, was helpless to prevent his fellow judges from passing sentence
on the deposed Governor. "They of the old commission have been
persecuted with much malice," he wrote in March, 1640, "the weight
whereof hath hitherto principally fallen on Sir John Harvey, whose
estate is wholly sequestered at present, and at the next court now
approaching will assuredly be swept away."[47] Harvey wrote that he
groaned under the oppression of his enemies, and that he was so closely
watched that he hardly had privacy enough to write a letter. His enemies
had now been advanced to be his judges, and were tearing his estate from
him by inviting his creditors to clamor against him. Both Harvey and
Kemp asked permission to go to England, but this was refused. Not only
were they held to answer charges, but because the new administration had
no desire to have them clamoring against them at Court.
"Sir John being ... laid flat," Wyatt next took up the case of Anthony
Panton against Kemp.[48] This matter had been sifted out by the Privy
Council, who reported that they could find no proof of the charges
against the minister. It seemed strange to them that he should be
accused of mutinous behavior throughout six or seven years, in view of
the fact that ten months previously Harvey had presented him to a
benefice. So they suspended the harsh sentence, and referred the matter
to Governor Wyatt. The Virginia court promptly reversed the previous
action, declared Panton guiltless, and restored his estate. So he
returned in triumph and resumed his duties in his two parishes. To Kemp
this was the crowning humiliation. "I am exceedingly injured, and shall
suffer without guilt unless my friends now assist me," he wrote. "The
Governor and Council aim at my ruin."[49]
The men employed to watch Harvey and Kemp must have relaxed their
vigilance, for both escaped and made their way back to England. Thomas
Stegg, who aided Kemp in getting away, had to pay dearly, for the
Governor and Council fined him L50 and imprisoned him. In London, Harvey
and Kemp sought influential friends, poured out their complaints to
them, and tried to undermine Wyatt at Court. Kemp later returned to
Virginia, where he resumed his place as Secretary, and his seat in the
Council. Harvey seems to have given up politics as a bad business and
returned to the sea as what he probably considered a less dangerous
vocation. He died in 1650.
The thrusting out of Sir John Harvey is a landmark in the long struggle
for self-government in Virginia. It showed that there was a point beyond
which no Governor dared go in trampling upon the rights of the people.
It was a daring thing for the Virginians to defy the King by deposing
the man he had sent as their Governor, and notifying him in effect that
they wanted him to make a better selection. That Charles sent Harvey
back and that he was as tyrannical after his return as he had been
before, does not obscure the meaning of this uprising as a clash between
the royal assertion of despotic right and the American devotion to
liberty.
Harvey based his claims to supreme power on the theory that he was the
King's substitute, and as such should have the unquestioning obedience
of the people. The Virginians contended that his power was limited by
law. Even had his rule been marked by justice and moderation, they would
have denied his pretensions. But when he made them the basis for an
odious tyranny, they took a step unique in American colonial history, by
laying violent hands on him, and sending him back to his royal master.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] CO1-4, p. 18.
[2] _Virginia Magazine_ 13: 301.
[3] E. D. Neill, _Virginia Company of London_, 221.
[4] _Ibid._, 79.
[5] _Virginia Magazine_ 7: 375-376.
[6] W. W. Hening, _Virginia statutes at large_ 1: 171.
[7] E. D. Neill, _Virginia Carolorum_, 79.
[8] CO1-5, p. 32.
[9] _Ibid._
[10] _Ibid._, 33.
[11] CO1-5, p. 33.
[12] _Ibid._
[13] _Virginia Magazine_ 1: 416.
[14] _Ibid._, 417.
[15] E. D. Neill, _Virginia Carolorum_, 122.
[16] _Virginia Magazine_ 1: 430.
[17] CO1-6, p. 34.
[18] _Ibid._, 37.
[19] _Ibid._
[20] _Virginia Magazine_ 8: 405.
[21] CO1-8.
[22] CO1-6, p. 46.
[23] CO1-8.
[24] CO1-8.
[25] _Virginia Magazine_ 1: 416.
[26] _Ibid._, 427.
[27] _Ibid._, 303.
[28] CO1-8, p. 48.
[29] _Virginia Magazine_ 1: 418, 419.
[30] _Virginia Magazine_ 8: 304.
[31] _Ibid._
[32] _Virginia Magazine_ 1: 421.
[33] _Ibid._, 422; CO1-8.
[34] CO1-8, p. 61.
[35] _Ibid._, 403.
[36] CO1-8, p. 61.
[37] CO1-10, p. 64.
[38] _Virginia Magazine_ 10: 265.
[39] E. D. Neill, _Virginia Carolorum_, 150; _Report of Commission on
Historical Manuscripts_, 3.
[40] _Virginia Magazine_ 9: 179, 180.
[41] CO1-9, p. 121.
[42] CO1-10, p. 14.
[43] CO1-10, p. 32.
[44] _Ibid._, 15.
[45] _Ibid._, 3.
[46] CO1-10, p. 61.
[47] _Ibid._
[48] _Ibid._, 64, I.
[49] CO1-10, 64.