Washington:Published by Peter Force.1838.
An event happened this year (1642) which at first gave great uneasiness to the Colony, but in the end proved advantageous to them, as it removed all their apprehensions of being reduced to a Proprietary Government, and fixed the Constitution on a firm and permanent basis.
The Colony had now remained seventeen years under the immediate government of the Crown, that is, from the dissolution of the Company in the last year of James I., to the year 1642. During this period they had enjoyed a felicity unknown to them under the Company's Government, which had been extremely severe and arbitrary. Several attempts were made to restore the Company's power and authority, but they were constantly defeated by the vigilance of the Grand Assembly, who were determined never more to submit to a Proprietary Government.
In the year 1639, the Grand Assembly appointed George Sandis, Esq., their agent to the English Court, with particular instructions to oppose the re-establishment of the Company, and to give them the earliest intelligence of their machinations; but this gentleman forgetting his duty to his constituents, presented a petition to the House of Commons, in the name of the adventurers and planters in Virginia, for restoring the Letters Patent of Incorporation to the Treasurer and Company, with all the rights, powers, and privileges, contained in their old charter, except that the right of nominating and appointing the Governour was to be reserved to the Crown.
When the Grand Assembly were informed of this petition, they immediately passed a solemn declaration and protestation against the Company, in the form of an act, in which they disclaim their agent's conduct, declare he had mistaken his instructions, and that it never was the meaning or intent of the Assembly, or inhabitants of the Colony, to give way for the introducing the said Company, OR ANY OTHER.
They say, that having maturely considered the reasons for and against restoring the Company, and looking back into the condition of the times under the Company, and comparing it with the present state of the Colony under his Majesty's government, we find the late Company in their government intolerable, the present comparatively happy, and the old corporation cannot with any possibility be again introduced without the absolute ruin and dissolution of the Colony.
That the Colony laboured under intolerable calamities, by the many illegal proceedings and barbarous treatments inflicted upon divers of his Majesty's Subjects in the time of the said Company's government.
That the whole trade of the Colony, to the great grievance and complaint of the inhabitants, was monopolized by the Company; insomuch,that when any person desired to go for England he had not liberty to carry with him the fruits of his own labour, for his comfort and support, but was forced to bring it to the magazine of the Company, and there to exchange it for unprofitable and useless wares.
That our present happiness is exemplified by the freedom of ANNUAL Assemblies, warranted to us by his Majesty's gracious instructions, by legal trials by juries in all criminal and civil causes, by his Majesty's royal encouragement upon all occasions to address ourselves unto him by our humble petitions, which so much distinguisheth our happiness from that of the former times, that private letters to friends were rarely admitted a passage.
That the old corporation cannot be introduced without proving the illegality of the King's proceedings against them, so that all grants since, upon such a foundation, must be void; and if, as they pretend, the King had no right to grant, our lands held by immediate grant from his Majesty, must be void, and our possessions must give place to their claim, which is an invincible argument of ruin and desolation to the Colony, as we must be ousted of our possessions, if their pretence take place. And though it is alleged by them that the charter of Orders from the Treasurer and Company (Anno. 1618) gives us claim and right to be members of the Corporation quatenus planters, yet it appears by the Charter, that planters and adventurers, who are members of the Company, are considered by themselves, and distinguished in privileges, from planters and adventurers not being members; and, as the King's Grantees, we find ourselves condemned in the said Charter, one clause of it pronouncing in these words: "We do ordain that all such persons as of their own voluntary will and authority shall remove into Virginia, without any grant from us, in a Great and General Quarter Court, in writing, under our seals, shall be declared, as they are, occupiers of our lands; that is, of the common lands of us the said Treasurer and Company." Now, if persons who remove into this country, without license from the Treasurer and Company, are to be deemed occupiers of the Company's land, much more will such Grantees be deemed occupiers of their land who hold their rights under an erroneous judgment, as they pretend.
That if the Company be revived, and they have leave, by virtue of their charter of Orders, publickly to dispossess us, the wiser world, we hope, will excuse us if we refuse to depart with what, next to our lives, nearest concerns us (which are our estates, the livelihood of ourselves, our wives, and children) to the courtesy and will of such taskmasters, from whom we have already experienced so much oppression. That we will not admit of so unnatural a distance as a Company to interpose between his sacred Majesty and us, his Subjects, from whose immediate protection we have received so many royal favours and gracious blessings.
That, by such admission, we shall degenerate from our birthrights, being naturalized under a monarchical and not a popular or tumultuary Government, depending upon the greatest number of votes of persons of several humours and dispositions, as that of a Company must be granted to be, from whose general Quarter Courts all Laws binding the planters here did, and would again, issue.
That we cannot without breach of natural duty and religion, give up and resign the lands we hold by grants from the King upon certain annual rents (fitter, as we humbly conceive, if his Majesty shall so please, for a branch of his Royal stem, than for a Company) to the claim of a corporation; for, beside our births, our possessions enjoin on us a fealty without a Salva Fide aliis Dominis.
That by the admission of a Company the freedom of our trade (the blood and life of a commonwealth) will be monopolized: for they who with most secret reservation, and most subtlety, argue for a Company, though they pretend to submit the government to the King, yet reserve to the corporation property to the land, and power of managing the trade; which word MANAGING, in every sense of it, is convertible to monopolizing, and will subject the trade to the sole control and direction of their Quarter Courts, held at so great a distance from us that it is not probable, or possible, for them to be acquainted with the accidental circumstances of the Colony, so as to form proper rules and regulations for our trade, which our Grand Assembly, acquainted with the clime and accidents thereof, have and may, upon better grounds, prescribe, and which in any other way will be destructive to us.
That the pretence, that the Government shall be made good to the King, that is, that the King shall nominate and appoint the Governour, we take, at best, to be but a fallacy and trap, not of capacity enough to catch men with eyes and forethought; for upon a supposition that the Governour shall be named and appointed by the King, yet his dependence, so far as respects his continuance or removal, will, by reason of their power and interest with great men, rest in the Company, which naturally brings with it conformity to their wills in whatever shall be commanded, and we leave it to the best judgments whether such dependence will not be pernicious to the Colony.
These are the great reasons given by the Grand Assembly for refusing to submit to a Proprietary Government. But they did not content themselves with bare reasons for their refusal; they proceeded (with a firmness, resolution, and spirit, worthy the imitation of later times, when the rights and liberties of the Colony are invaded) to enforce their reasons by their positive declaration and protestation, in the following remarkable words:
"We the Governour, Council, and Burgesses, of this present Grand Assembly, having taken into their serious consideration these many and other dangerous effects which must be concomitant in and from a company and corporation, have thought fit to declare, and hereby do declare, for ourselves and all the commonalty of this Colony, that it was never desired, sought after, or endeavoured to be sought for, either directly or indirectly, by the consent of any Grand Assembly, or the common consent of the people; and we do hereby further declare, and testify to all the WORLD, that we will NEVER admit the restoring said Company, or any for or in their behalf, saving to ourselves here in a most faithful and loyal obedience to his most sacred Majesty, our dread Sovereign, whose royal and gracious protection, allowance, and maintenance, of this our just Declaration and Protestation, we doubt not (according to his accustomed clemency and benignity to his Subjects) to find.
"And we do farther enact, and be it hereby enacted and manifested by the authority aforesaid, that what person or persons soever either is, or shall HEREAFTER, any planter or adventurer, shall go about, by any way or means, either directly or indirectly, to sue for, advise, assist, abet, countenance or contrive, the reducing this Colony to a Company or Corporation, or to introduce a contract or monopoly upon our persons, lands, or commodities, upon due proof or conviction of any of the premises, (viz: by going about by any way or means to sue for, advise, abet, assist, countenance, or contrive, directly or indirectly the reducing of this Colony to a Company or Corporation, or to introduce a contract or monopoly as aforesaid, upon due conviction as aforesaid) shall be held and deemed an enemy to the Colony, and shall forfeit his or their whole estate, or estates, that shall be found within the limits of the Colony; the one half shall be and come to the publick use, the other moiety, or half, to the informer."
This act was passed upon the first day of April, 1642, with uncommon solemnity. It was signed by the Governour, the respective members of the Council of State, the House of Burgesses; the Seal of the Colony was affixed to it, in their presence; and they immediately applied to the King, by their humble petitions, for his Royal allowance and confirmation of it.
Having thus passed their solemn declaration and protestation, in which they had employed much time, the Grand Assembly adjourned to the second day of June, the same year, by particular act for that purpose. At this meeting they entered upon a revision of the Constitution, abolished from it every vestage of the Company's authority, released the publick tenants from their servitudes, who, like one sort of villains, anciently in England, were regardant to the lands appropriated by the Company's charter of Orders, for the support of the Governour and the other Officers of the State; established rules and forms of proceeding in the Courts of Law, and regulated the several parishes, by fixing their respective limits.
After the great business of the session was finished, and they had banished from the Constitution every appearance of the old Government, by regulating it upon the principles of the English Constitution, the Grand Assembly published a remonstrance, directed to the inhabitants of the Colony. In it they enumerate the several weighty matters that had employed their consideration, and occasioned the great length of their session; and they conclude with declaring their great motive for entering, at that time, upon a regulation of the Constitution, was to establish their liberties and privileges, and to settle their estates, which had been often assaulted and threatened, and were then invaded by the late Corporation; that to prevent the future designs of monopolizers, contractors, and pre-emptors, (ever incessant upon them, not only bereaving them all cheerfulness and alacrity, but usurping the benefit and disposition of their labours) they apprehend no time could be misspent, or labour misplaced; that a firm peace to themselves and their posterity, and a future indemnity from fines and impositions, they expected would be the fruits of their endeavours; to which end they thought it reasonable for them, liberally and freely, to open their persons, not doubting but all well affected persons would, with all zeal and good affection, embrace the purchase, and pray to Almighty God for the success.
Within a few weeks after this Assembly broke up, their solemn declaration, protestation, and act against the establishment of a Proprietary Government in the Colony, was returned to them, with the Royal ascent to it, in the following gracious and extensive words:
"CHARLES, REX.
"Trusty and well-beloved, we greet you well. Whereas, we have received a Petition from you, our Governour, Council, and Burgesses, of the Grand Assembly in Virginia, together with a Declaration and Protestation, of the first of April, against a Petition presented in your names to the House of Commons in this our Kingdom, for restoring the Letters Patent for incorporating of the late Treasurer and Company, contrary to your intent and meaning, and against all such as shall go about to alienate you from our immediate protection; and whereas, you desire, by your Petition, that we should confirm this your Declaration and Protestation, under our Royal signet, and transmit it to that our Colony: These are to signify, that your acknowledgement of our Grace, Bounty, and Favour, towards you, and your so earnest desire to continue under our immediate protection, is very acceptable to us; and that, as we had not before the least intention to consent to the introduction of ANY company over that our Colony, so we are by it much confirmed in our resolution, as thinking it unfit to change a form of Government wherein (besides many other reasons given, and to be given,) our Subjects there, having had so long experience of it, receive so much contentment and satisfaction. And this our approbation of your Petition and Protestation we have thought fit to transmit to you, under our Royal signet.
"Given at our Court at York, the 5th of July, 1642."
This Royal Declaration was thus directed:--"To our trusty and well-beloved, our Governour, Council, and Burgesses, of the Grand Assembly of Virginia."
By this solemn act of legislation (which the Grand Assembly considered as the magna charta and palladium of their liberties) the Constitution of the Colony was established upon a foundation which could not be altered without their own consent; so that our history does not afford an instance of any farther attempt to dismember the Colony from their immediate dependence upon the Crown, except that in the year 1674 the Lords Arlington and Culpeper obtained a grant, for the term of thirty-one years, from Charles H, of all the lands, rights, jurisdictions, quitrents, and other royalties within the dominion of Virginia. But this grant was so vigorously and firmly opposed by the Grand Assembly that it was vacated and surrendered to the Crown, as will be more particularly related in the course of these Annals.