USA > Virginia > Virginia colonial decisions : the reports by Sir John Randolph and by Edward Barradall, of decisions of the general court of Virginia, 1728-1741, v. I > Part 7
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In the dining room were tables of various patterns;
'See post. Chapter VIII. Education "The Social Life in Virginia, 160.
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open cupboards with liberal displays of plates and dishes; the commonly used utensils of pewter, though there were dishes, cups, mugs, bowls, castors, spoons, etc., of silver.
For amusements there were musical instruments, " the virginal, the hand lyre, the fiddle and violin, flute and hautboy,"1 and there are few of the older people of today who have not seen the thin-legged spinets of generations ago stored in the garrets.
The wealthier class got their clothes from England after the fashions of London; silk stockings, black hose, red slippers, sea-green scarfs, felt hats, doublets, and even gold belts and swords. There came a law2 against such finery, but the finely finished shirt, the lace ruffles protruding from the sleeves, the parti- colored vests,3 the coats of broadcloth or plush dyed an olive color, neck cloths of the finest holland or muslin, shoes with shining brass, steel, or silver buckles, lace handkerchiefs and the like, were stronger than the law, and defied it, as it will always be a venial offense to defy most merely sumptuary legislation.
But if the men dressed so, what of the women? Let me quote the attractive and instructive writer from whom I have culled most of these facts of colonial domestic life: "The dress of the ladies was even more remarkable for fineness of texture and beauty of aspect. There are innumerable references in the inventories of personal estates, of silk and flowered gowns, bodices of blue linen or green satin; waistcoats, bonnets and petticoats trimmed with silk or silver lace; sarsanet and calico hoods, scarfs of brilliant shades of colour,
'The Social Life in Virginia, 104. 2Id.
3Washington was married in "a suit of blue cloth, lined with red silk and ornamented with silver trimmings, a waistcoat of embroidered white satin, knee buckles of gold, and powdered hair." Virginia Historical Collections. Vol. XI, 117.
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mantles of crimson taffeta, laced and galooned shoes, silk and golden stomachers, and fans richly orna- mented." From a number of inventories of the ward- robes of different ladies, we find such articles of finery as "a scarlet waistcoat trimmed with silver lace, a sky-coloured satin bodice, and a pair of red paragon bodies, .. . a printed calico gown, lined with blue silk, a white striped dimity jacket, a blue silk waistcoat, a pair of scarlet sleeves with ruffles, and a Flanders lace band." There was also a proportionate accom- paniment of jewelry-of gold, pearls, rubies, rings of all descriptions, some diamonds, amber necklaces, and gold and silver bodkins for holding together and decorat- ing the hair.
These are the pictures of the richer classes. The poorer people lived in more modest houses, and as was the fashion of that day, made apparent the distinctions of social rank by marked differences in their apparel. But while that was the day of jealous regard for personal freedom, it was the day of legally recognized class distinctions, as it was the day when no man had yet suggested that there was even an inconsistency between all this and holding black men in slavery.
The occupations of the people were, necessarily, principally agricultural. In the early years of the settlement necessity compelled the cultivation of corn, and the imported stock. especially hogs, did well. and these conditions improved as the country was cleared up and regularly cultivated with better im- plements and methods. Wheat at first failed, but later its cultivation was so successful that it became. as early as 1643, an article of export. Flax and hemp were raised and linen of a good quality made in the colony, but it was a long time before wool sufficient for domestic-use was produced. Silk husbandry was
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tried without great success, and wine making with but little more. Tobacco became very soon the staple of the country, and amid many fluctuations in its market value it held its own, being the currency of the country, and, perhaps, as unsafe a standard, because of its instability, as could have been selected.
Iron-making on a small scale was tried with but little success in many parts of the country. When tobacco as a currency had, by its total inadequacy for that purpose, irritated the colonists into a partial trial of fundamental financial principles, minor coins were made, but the face value of the coin having little regard to its actual value, the law had to be invoked to prescribe the legal rates at which it should pass, with the imposition of fines for the refusal to accept it at what its false face imputed it to be worth.1 By degrees, coins from England, Spain and Mexico came into limited circulation. These and the coins from France, Portugal, Spanish America, and even Arabia,2 bore different values, and, consequently, debts were contracted to be paid in specific kinds of coins, and the distinction between pounds sterling in gold and in silver was regarded in every deal. Prices varied in quite large proportions between payments in English and Virginia currency, and a preference was also given to New England money.3
While the chief business of the country was agri- culture, yet all the ordinary trades were represented, and ship and boat building to quite a large extent. Dr. Tyler4 mentions among the residents of Williams- burg, store keepers, jewelers and goldsmiths, doctors, lawyers, ordinary keepers and teachers, and, as was
1Economic History of Virginia. Bruce. Vol. II, page 505.
2Id., 513.
3Id., 515.
+Williamsburg, 57.
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to be expected in a college town, there were naturalists and scientific men.
But with it all, so far as the written laws were con- cerned, there was a stern and severe paternalism. Morals, religion, prices of commodities, the fees of lawyers, the wages of laborers and the manners and behavior of the people were at least attempted to be regulated by statute, with a confidence in the infalli- bility of such interference with economic and natural laws that oft repeated and disastrous experiences took many years to shake.1
'This subject of " The People " is further treated in the chapters on "The Church," " The City," " The Courts " and " Law and the Lawyers," as it relates more peculiarly to those branches of this introduction.
CHAPTER IV THE GOVERNMENT
By 1607, Queen Bess was dead, and James of Scot- land, the son of her most unforgiven and unforgotten enemy, Queen Mary, reigned in England in her stead. Among the other superstitions, such as witchcraft and the like, which had come to James, both by education and inheritance, was a profound conviction of the divinity of Kings. On this rock he hoped to found an empire in the new land beyond the sea, and all - that he did to this end was consistent with that belief.
An eminent writer of English history1 has given this uncomplimentary but graphic description of Elizabeth's successor: " His big head, his slobbery tongue, his quilted clothes, his rickety legs, his goggle eyes, stood out in grotesque contrast with all that was recalled of Henry or Elizabeth, as his gabble and rodomontade, his want of personal dignity, his coarse buffoonery, his drunkenness, his pedantry, his con- temptible cowardice. Under this ridiculous exterior, however, lay a man of much natural ability, a ripe scholar, with a considerable fund of shrewdness, of mother wit and ready repartee."
The writer moreover says of James that he was dubbed " the wisest fool in Christendom," and that " he had the temper of a pedant, and with it a pedant's love of theories, and a pedant's inability to bring his theories into any relation with actual facts." And he proved all this by his preparation and recipes for a government of the colony which he was to found, as shown by the charter of 1606,
-Green's History of the English People, 471.
دا.
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of which he was practically the author. This paper, dated April 10, 1606, provides for the establish- ment of the southern colony of the London Com- pany, between thirty-four and forty-one degrees of north latitude. The colony was to be' governed by a council of thirteen persons, of whom, however, only seven were named.1 These were to choose their own successors, to elect annually their president from among their own number, to fill vacancies as they might occur in their body, and, for cause, to remove any member. This body was to be under the manage- ment and direction of a council of thirteen in London, but practically the Virginia Council was to be governed by the King in person.
The council was given very large powers, but the right to punish offenders against other friendly states was reserved to the crown, and to the King were to be sent such as should try to seduce the allegiance of any from crown or church. The christian religion was to be preached to the Indians; land was to descend according to the English laws of inheritence; a jury was to be required in capital cases unless the accused stood mute, but the council was to act as a court of last resort, as well as of original jurisdiction, in all other cases; murder, manslaughter, incest, rape, adultery, and dangerous tumults and seditions were punishable with death; religion was to be in accordance with the forms and doctrines of the Church of England; power was given the company to coin money, and to collect a revenue for twenty-one years from all vessels trading to their ports; a community of goods was established, and for a term of years the colony was to be free from taxation .? For minor
'Howe's History and Antiquities of Virginia, 23.
"English Colonies in America.
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breaches of its ordinances the council could by a majority vote, inflict such penalties as fines, imprison- ment, and reasonable corporal punishment. The judicial proceedings were to be conducted orally, but a record was to be made of all cases decided by the court.1 Persons convicted of capital charges could be reprieved by the council, but they could only be pardoned by the King.2
One important clause in the charter became the text of many a political sermon from 1770 to 1776, that " who(ever) shall dwell and inhabit within every and any of said several colonies and plantations, and every of their children . . . . shall have and enjoy all liberties, franchises and immunities within any of our other dominions, to all intents and purposes as if they had been abiding and born within this our realm of England."
But the efficacy of these provisions remained sub- ject to a further provision that the King's instructions should prevail in all questions of government. The instructions3 seem to relate to matters of detail, the proper conduct of which could hardly be antici- pated by a man, King though he was, who had, neces- sarily, the vaguest knowledge of conditions that might exist in the forests on the Powhatan, and who was wholly without experience in adventures in strange lands among tribes of savage men.
But the council oligarchy lasted only two years. In 1609 there was an amendment of the charter in the very important matter of providing for the appoint- ment by the company of a governor, who was to take the place of this council, and to have almost absolute
'Cooke's History of Virginia, 15. Howe's History and Antiquities of Virginia,
23. Justice in Colonial Virginia, 10.
'Justice in Colonial Virginia, 11.
'English Colonies in America.
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power.1 Justice to the individual now depended upon such laws as the governor might promulgate, and upon both his sense, and sense of justice, in admin- istering them. These governors varied much according to their dispositions and capacities, and rights of property and even rights of life and liberty, varied in the same degrees. Possibly a community like that, composed of a miscellaneous lot of people emptied out of the ships into the wilderness, needed an autocrat to save the state in the perils of its infancy, but it is · a tribute both to the improvement in the people them- selves and to the appreciative judgment of the company as to what was naturally to be considered best for a . colony of Englishmen, that in ten years this despotic form of government was abolished, and a large part of government put in the hands of the people, in that they were granted the right to meet, through their chosen representatives, in the first legislative body that ever assembled in America.
For this new charter the colonists were indebted more to Sir Edwin Sandys, a tolerant and liberal member of the English Parliament, than to any other source. Governor Yeardley was instructed to issue writs for the election of a General Assembly in Virginia. The elections were held in the same primitive and informal ways that have, indeed, characterized the be- ginnings of all free governments, and the General Assembly met on July 30, 1619, in the little wooden church at Jamestown.
The occasion was a far more momentous one than the participants realized; the surroundings, though simple, were dignified and impressive, the actors were earnest minded men, happy in the thought of
1Hening. Vol. I. Justice in Colonial Virginia, 12. Genesis of the United States. Brown. 208, 233-234, 375-380.
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the improved conditions in the character of their government, but they had no thought of posing as if all the centuries yet to come would be gazing upon them.
The governor and members of the council created with him sat in the choir, the governor in the centre and the members on either side of him. The twenty burgesses of the twenty-two1 elected for eleven bor- oughs sat also in the choir, with their hats on, but after the prayer was said and the oath of supremacy taken, the burgesses took their seats in the body of the church fronting the governor and council. Thus, instinctively, the party of men in that little wooden church in the little village on the banks of the river, set the form for future parliamentary bodies in America, of two houses, the governor and council being the senate, and the elected burgesses the direct represen- tatives of the people; although, in point of fact, until 1680 they sat together and voted together as one house.
But the likeness of this assembly to its successors under the Constitution of the United States and of those of the several states does not extend far. The latter are purely legislative bodies, while that which held its first session at Jamestown combined, in almost equal degrees, legislative, judicial and executive functions.
The General Assembly was thus composed of the gov- ernor and council - called the council,- as one body, and the House of Burgesses as the other, but sitting as one house until 1680, had full power of legislation for the colony, although its acts did not acquire validity until approved by the General Court of the London Company, but, on the other hand, no enactment of the Company for the colony was valid until approved by the General Assembly.2
'Two were excluded. See ante page 34
*English Colonies in America, 9.
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The right to representative government was further assured by still another charter granted on July 24, 1621.1 By this all the powers granted by the charter of 1619 were confirmed,2 but it was further provided that the governor should call together the General Assembly once a year and not oftener, unless on very extraordinary and important occasions. 3
To the governor was given the right to veto any bill of the General Assembly, but the Assembly was to have " full power to treat, consult and conclude, as well of all emergent occasions concerning the public weal of the said colony, and every part thereof, as also to make, ordain and enact such general laws for the behoof of said colony and the good government thereof as from time to time might seem necessary."4
Further it was directed that the General Assembly and Council of State must imitate and follow the policy of the form of government, laws, customs and manner of trial, and of the administration of justice used in the realm of England, as near as might be, as the Company itself was required to do by its charter. No law or ordinance was to continue in force or validity unless it was solemnly ratified by a general quarterly court of the Company, and returned under seal; and it was directed that as soon as the government of the colony should once have been well framed and settled, that no orders of court should afterwards bind the colony unless they were ratified in the same manner by the General Assembly.5
The session of the General Assembly held July 30, 1619, beyond praying the London Company that the
1Old Virginia and Her Neighbors. Vol. I, 187. Howe's History and Anti- quities of Virginia, 42. Vols. VII, VIII. Virginia Historical Collections. *Old Virginia and Her Neighbors. Vol. I, 187.
'See the end of this chapter.
^Howe's History and Antiquities of Virginia, 43.
BId.
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clause in its charter guaranteeing equal laws might not be violated,1 adopted no measures of any moment. What they did enact was in the way of matters of general utility, sumptuary laws, and more particularly police regulations. The Assembly provided for the control of the clergy and laid a tax on tobacco for their support.
The early conception of its powers by the General Assembly is an important factor in a proper under- standing of the government of the colony at this stage of its existence.
The council, or appointed branch of the General Assembly, was more especially a court, sitting as such wholly independent of the burgesses. It followed naturally, therefore, that when judicial questions were brought before the General Assembly they were in- clined to and generally did refer them to the council; but the General Assembly did not by any means abrogate its judicial functions. As late as 1662 the first day of every session was set apart for hearing indictments made by grand juries, and for inquiry into the methods employed by the courts and abuses practised by judges and juries,2 and on several occa- sions the Assembly quite pointedly denied the power of any court to controvert any of its acts.3
Its judicial jurisdiction was, for a time at least, both original and appellate, civil and criminal, and during this time its original jurisdiction seems to have been concurrent with that of the Quarter Court. But as early as 1641 its civil jurisdiction was limited to appellate cases, and at times it took to itself a sort of certiorari jurisdiction, by providing that there was
1English Colonies in America, 9.
*Justice in Colonial Virginia, 20.
$Justice in Colonial Virginia, 20. Hening, Statutes at Large. Vol. II, 108.
Vol. I, 264, 447.
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to be admitted to the Assembly for trial, any cause that had had a hearing in any court, provided an act of injustice had been committed by the award of the lower tribunal,1 nor but for a time was any minimum sum fixed as the limit to the jurisdiction of the As- sembly.2
The trial of cases was not before the whole Assem- bly, but they were conducted through commit- tees, whose findings were not binding until con- firmed by the Assembly in session. The Assembly could and did impose penalties for crimes by fines and the lash. It had also the power, seldom exercised, of passing acts of attainder and the right, often exer- cised, of docking entails, and granting permission to alienate entailed estates.3
While after its appellate jurisdiction was taken away from the General Assembly, the General Court became the highest judicial authority in the colony, the action on appeals by the General Assembly had never been that of a court of last resort. The right of appeal to England always existed, and the Company in London could set aside a decision given in Virginia, if it con- sidered it unjust, or that it had not been rendered in accordance with their general instructions. After 1624,4 . when the charter of the Company was annulled, ap- peals to England were made to the King and the Privy Council.
All of these valued concessions to free, regular and reputable government came from the London Company, which stood for fair dealing and home rule between the
'Justice in Colonial Virginia, 22, and a number of authorities there cited.
"Id. The council ceased to sit with the burgesses in June, 1680, and occupied a separate building. When the capitol was built at Williamsburg the council occupied a' room in the same building, but separate from the assembly, and thence- forth sat as the Upper House. The Legislature of the Province of Virginia. Miller 40-173.
3Justice in Colonial Virginia, 26.
Id., 29.
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colony and the King. But this mere interposition, to say nothing of the necessity for it, appeared to discriminate between Englishmen on England's soil and those who had gone out to found colonies for the mother kingdom. The complete equality, therefore, of the colonists in the right to the enjoyment of the liberties of England, seemed to make it necessary that the London Company should be dispensed with, and that the colony should thereafter stand as a part of the realm of England, without the aid of such artificial
support. This was the not unnatural way of looking at the matter from the viewpoint of the more liberal and advanced statesmen of England, who were especially friendly to the colony. At the time, however, it was by no means the wish of the colonists, for the good things that had come to them had come through the Company, while the evil had been chiefly of the King's making. The end of the Company came, however, from several influences, but more immediately from James' jealousy of the freedom of discussion in the meetings of the council of the London Company, as if there was to be yet another Parliament in England for the con- trol of colonial affairs. Down in his heart James would have liked to dispense with both Parliament and Company. But exactly the opposite influence was at the same time working to the same end - the end of the Company, - for that was the quickest way by which Parliament could show its resentment at the King's usurpation in attempting to control the election of the members of the council of the Company. Factions in the Company itself hastened its downfall, and finally, in October, 1623, about seventeen years after it came into existence, its charter was revoked by an act of the Privy Council, and its delegated powers of sovereignty were resumed by the King.
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The Company did not suffer extinction without protest. It tried its remedy of quo warranto in the King's Bench, but for very curious and complaisant reasons the court confirmed the action of the Privy Council and pronounced the charter null and void.1
On the 26th day of June, 1624, the Privy Council ordered the Rev. Nicholas Ferrar, one of the committee who had prepared the able defense of the Company to the accusations brought against it by the King, to bring all the books and papers of the Company and hand them over to its custody. Fiske2 tells interestingly the story of how Ferrar, not daring to disobey the order, but willing to come as near doing so as was consistent with safety, had copies made of all the Company's proceedings from April, 1619, to June 7, 1624, before he gave up the original books and papers. He tells of how this copy was for forty-three years preserved by the son and successor of the Earl of Southampton, who, with Ferrar, had taken such an active part in the Company's affairs; and of how this manuscript was bought from the executors of Southampton by William Byrd of Virginia. From the Byrd library it went to Rev. William Stith, the historian and president of William and Mary College. Then it passed to Peyton Randolph, a kins- man of Stith, and was afterwards bought by Thomas Jefferson. In 1814, Mr. Jefferson sold his library, including this manuscript, to the United States, and there it is now in the Library of Congress, seven hundred and forty-one folio pages, bound in two volumes.
To complete the story, and the connection between this courageous patriotism of Ferrar and the two prosaic looking volumes which lie upon my desk while
1Old Virginia and Her Neighbors. Vol. I, 201-222. 'Id., 220, 223.
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I write, it is enough to say that abstracts of this manu- script were made by the scholar and lawyer, Conway Robinson, about the year 1856. These were presented by Mr. Robinson's widow to the Virginia Historical Society and printed by its order, in 1887, as volumes VII and VIII of its proceedings. To this publication was added, by Dr. R. A. Brock, the secretary of the society, an introduction so full of valuable and interest- ing matter that as a bibliography of the early history of Virginia it is hardly possible that any other publi- cation can be compared with it.
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