obnoxious. He was prominent in parliament in opposing the King's arbitrary policy, and was reported to be "the king's greatest enemye." More than once he had been committed to custody by royal order. An envious business associate testified that "there was not any man in the world that carried a more malitious hearte to the government of a Monarchie than Sir Edwin Sandys did," and that Sandys had said repeatedly that he "aymed. to make a free popular state there [in Virginia] in which the people should have noe government putt upon them but by their owne consents."

When Sandys' term expired, in 1620, the King sent to the "General Court" of the Company the names of four men from whom he ordered them to elect a new Treasurer. The Company (some hundreds of the best gentlemen of England present) remonstrated firmly against this interference with the freedom of election guaranteed by their charter; and James yielded, exclaiming petulantly, "Choose the Devil, an ye will; only not Sir Edwin Sandys!" Sandys then withdrew his name; and the Company sent a committee to his friend, the Earl of Southampton who was little more to the royal taste to inquire whether he would accept the office. "I know the King will be angry," said the Earl to his friends, "but, so this pious and... glorious work be encouraged, let the Company do with me as they think good." Then, "surceasing the ballot," the meeting elected him "with much joy and applause, by erection of hands." 1 Sandys was chosen Deputy Treasurer and remained the real manager.

When Southampton's second term expired (1622), James again sent to the Court of Election five names. It would be pleasing to him, he said, if the Company would choose a new Treasurer from the list; but this time he carefully disclaimed

1 Southampton was the liberal leader in the House of Lords. He had been a friend and patron of Shakspere. These spicy anecdotes of the election come from the private papers of the Ferrars brothers, who were high officials in the Company. The official records are in the Source Book, No. 20. There the language is more courtly, but the spirit is equally definite.

§ 43] THE KING OVERTHROWS THE COMPANY 37

any wish to infringe their "liberty of free election." The Company reëlected Southampton by 117 ballots, to a total of 20 for the King's nominees. Then they sent a committee to thank James" with great reverence" for his "gracious remembrance" and for his "regard for their liberty of election!" It is reported that the King "flung away in a furious passion." Small wonder that he listened to the sly slur of the Spanish ambassador who called the London Company's General Court "the seminary for a seditious parliament."

43. Since James could not secure control of the Company, he decided to overthrow it. A revival of the old factions within it, and the Indian massacre of 1622 in Virginia, furnished a pretext. James sent commissioners to the colony, to gather further information unfavorable to the Company's rule; but the Virginians supported the Company ardently and made petition after petition to the King in its favor. The Company made a strong defense. The charter could be revoked only by a legal judgment. But just at this time the English courts were basely subservient to the monarch,' and, in 1624, the King's lawyers secured judgment that the charter was void. Thus ended the London Company, "the greatest and noblest asso

ciation ever organized by the English people."

EXERCISE. Note a passage in this chapter that contains evidence that voting by ballot was usual with the London Company. (Further proof may be found in the Source Book, No. 23.) Note the two distinct periods in the history of the Company, and the character of its rule in Virginia in each period. Compare the meanings of “Virginia on maps on pages 24 and 29. Suggestions for library work will be found at the close of chapter v.

1 Sir Edward Coke, the great Chief Justice, had been dismissed from office by James for refusing to degrade his position by consulting the King's will in bis decisions. Such interference with the courts was a new thing in England, and was never to recur after the Stuart reigns.

CHAPTER V

VIRGINIA SAVES HER ASSEMBLY

1624-1660

It is to the self-government of England, and to no lesser cause, that we are to look for the secret of that boundless vitality which has given to men of English speech the uttermost parts of the earth as an inheritance.

44. Virginia had become a royal province. this meant three things.

-JOHN FISKE.

To the people

a. Land titles from the Company to settlers held good. But all the territory still owned by the Company at its fall became crown land again. Thereafter, royal governors made grants from it to settlers much as the Company had done.

Virginia afterwards frequently claimed its "ancient bounds as described in the charter of 1609 (§ 32). That grant, however, was not made to the colony. The King was undoubtedly within his rights when he soon gave part of the old grant to Lord Baltimore for the colony of Maryland.

b. The colony now had to support itself. In fifteen years the London Company had spent five million dollars on it — without return to the stockholders; and most settlers believed the colony must sink unless such fostering continued. In the next four years the colonists sent four petitions to the King for aid. One of them runs, in part:

"The ground work of all is that there must bee a sufficient publique stock to goe through with soe greate a worke; which we can not compute to bee lesse than £20,000 a yeare. . . . For by it must be mainetayned the Governor and his Counsell and other officers here, the forest wonne and stocked with cattle, fortifications raysed, an army mainetayned, discoveries mayde by Sea and land, and all other things requisite in soe mainefold a business."

§ 45]

STRUGGLE TO SAVE THE ASSEMBLY

39

But the King was quarreling with parliament about money enough to run the government at home, and he paid no attention to such prayers. This was fortunate. The colony found that

it could walk alone.

c. Political control over the colonists was now in the King's hands. And, as the colonists feared that the King would help too little, so, with more reason, they feared that he would govern too much.

45. The Virginians were determined to save their Representative Assembly. As soon as it became plain that the Company was to be overthrown, in the spring of 1624, a body of leading settlers sent to the King an address in which they

humbly entreat . . . that the Governors [to be appointed by the king] may not have absolute authority, . . . [and] above all . . . that we may retayne the Libertie of our General Assemblie, than which nothing can more conduce to our satisfaction or the public utilitie."

At the same time the Assembly itself solemnly put on record its claim to control taxation, in a memorable enactment:

"That the Governor shall lay no taxes or ympositions upon the colony, its lands or goods, other way than by the authority of the General Assembly, to be levied and ymployed as the said Assembly shall appoynt." This was the first assertion on this continent of the English principle, "No taxation without representation."

That same summer, however, King James began his control by reappointing the old governor and Council in Virginia and giving them full authority to rule the colony. The instructions to these officers made no mention of an Assembly. Nor was an Assembly mentioned by the new King, Charles I, the next year, when he appointed a new governor in Virginia. Indeed no Assembly met for five years (1624-1628).

Still the colonists kept asking for one; and in 1625 they sent Yeardley to England to present their desires. Yeardley told the royal council that only the grant of an Assembly could allay the universal distrust in Virginia, where "the people,

... justly fearing to fall into former miseries, resolve rather to seek the farthest parts of the World."

Neither this threat nor other petitions met with any direct answer. But, in 1628, Charles did order the governor to call

an Assembly, because he hoped,

vainly, to persuade it to grant him a monopoly of the profitable tobacco trade. Soon after, Charles appointed Sir John Harvey governor. Harvey belonged to the court faction in England, and had been one of the royal commissioners sent to Virginia in 1623. Apparently he had learned there that it would not be wise to try to rule the colony without an Assembly. His commission from Charles made no mention of one; but, in 1629, before leaving England, he drew up for the King's consideration a list of seven "Propositions touching Virginia." One of these propositions asked for a representative Assembly as part of the government.

The King seems to have been influenced by this request from the courtier-governor more than by the petitions of the colony. He was just entering upon his eleven-year period of "No Parliament" in England, but, in his answer to Harvey, he approved an Assembly for Virginia.2

With this sanction, the Assembly continued regularly; and formal directions to call Assemblies became a part of each future governor's instructions.

The change from a proprietary colony to a royal colony, then, did not make political liberty less. King James did plan a despotic government; but he died in a few months after the change, before he had time to complete the "new constitution" that he was drawing up for Virginia. And

1 Modern Progress, p. 196, or Modern World, § 435.

2 Source Book, No. 32.