be his successor. In January, 1619, Yeardley sailed from England with several documents, probably duplicates of the Magna Carta, authorizing him to hold an election for a General Assembly.[14] His instructions have been preserved, but his commission, or constitution for the colony, has been lost. Yet undoubtedly it was similar to, if not identical with the Magna Carta of 1617, and with the "Ordinance and Constitution" of July 24, 1621, given Sir Francis Wyatt.

This constitution called for a Council to be chosen from time to time by the Company to assist the Governor in maintaining the "people in justice and Christian conversation amongst themselves, and in strength and ability to withstand their enemies." Another body "to be called by the Governor once yearly and no oftener but for very extraordinary and important occasions, shall consist for the present of the said Council of State, and two Burgesses out of every town, hundred, or other particular plantation, to be respectively chosen by the inhabitants." This body, which was called the General Assembly, was to "have free power to treat, consult, and conclude, as well of all emergent occasions concerning the public weal of the said colony ... as also to make, ordain, and enact such general laws and orders ... as shall from time to time appear necessary." To the Governor was reserved a negative voice.

The Governor and Assembly were directed "to imitate and follow the form of government, laws, customs, and manner of trial, and other ministration of justice used in the realm of England." And a limit was put to the authority of the Assembly by a provision that no law should "continue in force" unless ratified by the Company. But a degree of independence was granted in the instruction that "after the government of the said colony shall once have been framed ... no orders of court afterwards shall bind the said colony, unless they be ratified in like manner in the General Assemblies."[15]

There must have been rejoicing in Virginia when Yeardley arrived with orders "for the better establishing a commonwealth." Perhaps there were cheers, perhaps tears of joy in the crowd which assembled in Jamestown to listen to his proclamation. It promised that those cruel laws by which they had so long been governed were now abrogated, and that they were to be governed by those free laws which his Majesty's subjects in England lived under.[16]

On August 9, 1619, the first representative assembly in American history met in the crude little church at Jamestown. When Governor Yeardley had taken his seat in the choir, the members of the Council sat beside him, some on one side, some on the other. "But forasmuch as men's affairs do little prosper when God's service is neglected, all the Burgesses took their places in the choir till a prayer was said by Mr. Buck, the minister." Then the Burgesses were called in order by name, and so every man took the oath of supremacy.[17]

The Assembly assumed from the first that it was to be the Parliament of Virginia. But they realized that they must make no laws which contravened those of England, or the charter, or the instructions of the London Company. During the first session, acts were passed concerning the Church, Indian affairs, land patents, morality, prices, trade, etc. But by far the most important law was one ordering "that every man and man servant above sixteen years of age shall pay into the hands and custody of the Burgesses ... one pound of the best tobacco."[18]

The control of taxation by the representatives of the people was to play a vital role in the development of self-government in America. It was based on the fact, universally recognized by Englishmen, that no power had the right to take a man's property without his own consent. A century after the first session of the Virginia Assembly the New York Assembly reminded Governor Robert Hunter that their inherent right "to dispose of the money of the freemen" did "not proceed from any commission, letters patent, or other grant from the Crown, but from the free choice and election of the people, who ought not to be divested of their property (nor justly can) without their consent." Similarly the Virginia House of Burgesses declared: "The rights of the subjects are so secured by law that they cannot be deprived of the least part of their property but by their own consent."

The Virginia Assembly of 1619, when they assumed the right to tax the people, probably did not realize that they were laying the cornerstone of the structure of American liberty. Yet it was the control of taxation by the representatives of the people in all the colonies which made it possible to win victory after victory over the royal Governors. It is an old saying that one dare not quarrel with one's paymaster. Yet that was just what most of the Governors had to do. They needed money, money to cover their own salaries, money with which to pay other government officials, money to raise and equip men to fight the Indians, or the Dutch, or the French. The price they had to pay was a part of the royal prerogative.

It is to be noted that the money raised by the levy of 1619 in Virginia was to be paid, not to the Governor or to a Treasurer appointed by the Governor, but to the Burgesses. The question of who was to receive the revenues and who to decide upon their use was second in importance only to who had the right to levy taxes. It was to give rise to many disputes between Governors and Burgesses.

The people of Virginia in their happiness in the setting up of representative government seem to have overlooked the King's hostility. But they could not have expected him to assent meekly to the duplication in the infant colony of the Parliament, the body which was causing him so much trouble and vexation. They might have been warned of what was coming when James threw Sir Edwin Sandys in the Tower.

This was followed by a frontal assault on the London Company. John Ferrar wrote: "The King, notwithstanding his royal word and honor pledged to the contrary ... was now determined with all his force to ... give the death blow...."[19] He began by ordering a certain Nathaniel Butler to write a pamphlet describing conditions in Virginia. In his Unmasking of Virginia, as he called it, Butler drew a vivid picture of the suffering of the people from disease, hunger, and the Indians. In reply the Company published A True Answer, explaining the misfortunes which had plagued the colony, and denying responsibility for them.[20]

The King now appointed a commission to inquire into "all abuses and