King and colony to a great extent. In an age of state regulation and monopolies, in an age which did not provide fixed salaries for men in high position, there was a close relationship between the Exchange and the Court. A merchant dealing with overseas trade could not be successful unless he had influence at Court. Even after the King took away the charter of the Virginia Company, merchants continued to apply pressure to the committees and commissions set up to advise the King on colonial policy. Although the colonists feared that Charles I might reinstitute a company over them, and the former representatives of the Virginia Company pressed for such a move, the merchants were not able to re-establish direct control over the colony.

In September 1632, under Governor Harvey's direction, the first revisal of Virginia's laws was made. Twenty-five years of experience under varying forms of government lay behind the revisal. All previous laws were examined and brought into conformity with existing conditions. Most of the legislation concerned the Church, tobacco, and the Indians, good indications of what most concerned the early settlers. Highways were also authorized to be laid out in convenient places, the first sign that settlement was spreading from the rivers—the traditional highways of Virginia—into the interior. Virginia was becoming more than a military outpost. It was becoming a "home."

The success of Harvey's attempt to stabilize and diversify agricultural production is confirmed in the account of Captain Thomas Young of his voyage to Virginia and Delaware Bay in 1634. Sailing up the James River he noticed that "the cuntry aboundeth with very great plentie of milk, cheese, butter and corne, which latter almost every planter in the country hath." The grim threat of starvation that had in former times hung over the colony had been dispelled. Although there had been a rapid increase in population, the food supply more than kept up with the increase, and thousands of bushels of corn were even transported and sold to the New England colonists.

The year 1634 also marked the establishment of the county form of local government in Virginia. The scattered plantations and settlements, rapidly expanding and hence more difficult to govern from James City, were now organized into eight counties. For each a monthly court was established by commission from the Governor and Council. Provision for separate courts in outlying areas had been made as early as 1618. Now the shift to decentralized government was formalized.

In 1635, in one of the most famous incidents in Virginia's early history, Governor Harvey was deposed by his Council. Many historians have assumed that Harvey was deposed by a spontaneous uprising of the people no longer able to bear his oppressive government. There is, however, little justification for this view. Many more accusations have been hurled at Harvey by later historians than by his contemporaries, and it is undoubtedly Harvey's position as a royal Governor and his quick temper that have caused historians to take such a hostile view of him. Ever since the successful American Revolution of 1776, American historians, in interpreting the events of the colonial period, have jumped at any evidence of discontent as an anticipation of, and justification for, the War for Independence. They have not stopped to determine whether the charges hurled at the royal Governors were true or not. It is enough that someone accused them of oppression.

The causes of the revolt against Harvey were various. Of first importance was the continual opposition that existed between the Governor and his Council. The revolt was not primarily a revolt of the people but a revolt by certain members of the Council who attempted to give their particular insubordination the appearance of a general rebellion.

Harvey's commission was such that he could do nothing except by majority vote of himself and the Council sitting as a single body. The Council frequently outvoted him, effectively blocking his proposals. Harvey bitterly disputed the Council's power to thwart his will. He pointed out that the King had sent him to Virginia not only as the new Governor but with the specific duty of correcting the abuses that were reported to have existed under previous Governors, especially those abuses for which members of the Council were responsible. Previous to his arrival the government had been in the hands of Francis West and Dr. John Pott, elected to office by the other members of the Council. Pott, whose reputation has been mentioned earlier, was not pleased to be brought to justice for his dishonest actions. Nor was Samuel Mathews, an important member of the Council, pleased to be brought to justice for withholding the cattle and property of other men. (Mathews, the richest man in the colony, successfully resisted all legal attempts to divest him of this property.) Nor were the Council members pleased when, in accordance with His Majesty's commands, Harvey attempted to punish those responsible for the ill treatment of William Capps, sent earlier by the King to start production of tar, potash, salt, pipe staves and other commodities. The Council had discouraged him from his mission, except in so far as it concerned the production of salt, and Pott had issued an order preventing him from leaving the colony to report to the King.

Another cause for grievance against Harvey was the peace he made with the local Indians. The colonists distrusted the Indians more than they distrusted other Europeans. The great massacre of 1622, when the Indians made a desperate attempt to destroy the English settlement, had placed Indian-white relations on a basis of perpetual enmity. Legally, the Indians had never been considered to have the same rights as the English. English law throughout the seventeenth century maintained the doctrine that between Christians and infidels there could exist nothing but perpetual enmity, a view which was a hangover from the period of the Crusades, wars against the Turks, and expansion by militant Christian nations into heathen lands during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. It is true that practical co-operation and on-the-spot recognition of Indian rights had developed in Virginia in the early years. The massacre of 1622, however, gave Virginians an excuse for abandoning all forms of co-operation with, and respect for, the Indians. Deceit and breach of faith were elevated into acknowledged instruments of policy. The right of the Indians even to occupy the land of their forefathers was denied. They were admitted to exist and to hold land in fact, but the English refused to recognize in law either their existence or their title to land. Total extirpation was resolved against those Indian nations which had taken part in the massacre. "Marches" were periodically ordered against the various tribes with the purpose of destroying or seizing their corn, burning their shelters, and killing as many members of the tribe as possible.

Governor Harvey reversed this policy and made peace with the Indians against the advice of Dr. Pott and other Councilors. He also attempted to see that some measure of equity was extended to Indian-white relations. As a result, the more aggressive planters accused him