FOOTNOTES:[1]W. W. Hening,Statutes at large2: 531-533.[2]CO5-1359, p. 344.[3]CO5-1359, p. 255.[4]CO5-1314, Doc. 15G.[5]CO5-1356, pp. 125, 126.[6]CO5-1359, p. 320.[7]CO1-40, p. 104.[8]CO5-1359, pp. 95, 96.[9]Ibid., 97, 98.[10]H. J. Ford,Rise and growth of American politics, 267.[11]CO5-1314, Doc. 17.[12]Ibid., Doc. 10.[13]CO5-1314, Doc. 23.[14]P. 34.[15]P. 46.[16]CO5-1315, Sept. 1, 1706.[17]CO5-1314, Doc. 43.[18]CO5-1315, Sept. 1, 1706.[19]Journals of the House of Burgesses, 1659-1693: 477.[20]CO5-1318.[21]Journals of the House of Burgesses, 1695-1702: 133.[22]June 28, 1758.[23]Journals of the House of Burgesses, 1659-1693, 381.[24]W. W. Hening,Statutes at large2: 363, 369.[25]CO1-41, p. 118.[26]W. W. Hening,Statutes at large1.[27]W. W. Hening,Statutes at large1: 363-365.[28]Bath papers, IIa, 44.[29]Ibid., 142.[30]The complete works of Benjamin Franklin, J. Bigelow, ed., 10: 369.[31]The present state of Virginia, 44, 45.[32]Virginia Magazine, 3: 142.[33]Ibid.2: 172.[34]The present state of Virginia, 66, 67.[35]CO5-1359, 344.[36]Executive journals of the Council5: 299.[37]CO5-1361, p. 426.[38]Executive journals of the Council2: 406.[39]Ibid., 407.[40]Ibid.3: 421.[41]CO5-1314, Doc. 63I.
[1]W. W. Hening,Statutes at large2: 531-533.
[1]W. W. Hening,Statutes at large2: 531-533.
[2]CO5-1359, p. 344.
[2]CO5-1359, p. 344.
[3]CO5-1359, p. 255.
[3]CO5-1359, p. 255.
[4]CO5-1314, Doc. 15G.
[4]CO5-1314, Doc. 15G.
[5]CO5-1356, pp. 125, 126.
[5]CO5-1356, pp. 125, 126.
[6]CO5-1359, p. 320.
[6]CO5-1359, p. 320.
[7]CO1-40, p. 104.
[7]CO1-40, p. 104.
[8]CO5-1359, pp. 95, 96.
[8]CO5-1359, pp. 95, 96.
[9]Ibid., 97, 98.
[9]Ibid., 97, 98.
[10]H. J. Ford,Rise and growth of American politics, 267.
[10]H. J. Ford,Rise and growth of American politics, 267.
[11]CO5-1314, Doc. 17.
[11]CO5-1314, Doc. 17.
[12]Ibid., Doc. 10.
[12]Ibid., Doc. 10.
[13]CO5-1314, Doc. 23.
[13]CO5-1314, Doc. 23.
[14]P. 34.
[14]P. 34.
[15]P. 46.
[15]P. 46.
[16]CO5-1315, Sept. 1, 1706.
[16]CO5-1315, Sept. 1, 1706.
[17]CO5-1314, Doc. 43.
[17]CO5-1314, Doc. 43.
[18]CO5-1315, Sept. 1, 1706.
[18]CO5-1315, Sept. 1, 1706.
[19]Journals of the House of Burgesses, 1659-1693: 477.
[19]Journals of the House of Burgesses, 1659-1693: 477.
[20]CO5-1318.
[20]CO5-1318.
[21]Journals of the House of Burgesses, 1695-1702: 133.
[21]Journals of the House of Burgesses, 1695-1702: 133.
[22]June 28, 1758.
[22]June 28, 1758.
[23]Journals of the House of Burgesses, 1659-1693, 381.
[23]Journals of the House of Burgesses, 1659-1693, 381.
[24]W. W. Hening,Statutes at large2: 363, 369.
[24]W. W. Hening,Statutes at large2: 363, 369.
[25]CO1-41, p. 118.
[25]CO1-41, p. 118.
[26]W. W. Hening,Statutes at large1.
[26]W. W. Hening,Statutes at large1.
[27]W. W. Hening,Statutes at large1: 363-365.
[27]W. W. Hening,Statutes at large1: 363-365.
[28]Bath papers, IIa, 44.
[28]Bath papers, IIa, 44.
[29]Ibid., 142.
[29]Ibid., 142.
[30]The complete works of Benjamin Franklin, J. Bigelow, ed., 10: 369.
[30]The complete works of Benjamin Franklin, J. Bigelow, ed., 10: 369.
[31]The present state of Virginia, 44, 45.
[31]The present state of Virginia, 44, 45.
[32]Virginia Magazine, 3: 142.
[32]Virginia Magazine, 3: 142.
[33]Ibid.2: 172.
[33]Ibid.2: 172.
[34]The present state of Virginia, 66, 67.
[34]The present state of Virginia, 66, 67.
[35]CO5-1359, 344.
[35]CO5-1359, 344.
[36]Executive journals of the Council5: 299.
[36]Executive journals of the Council5: 299.
[37]CO5-1361, p. 426.
[37]CO5-1361, p. 426.
[38]Executive journals of the Council2: 406.
[38]Executive journals of the Council2: 406.
[39]Ibid., 407.
[39]Ibid., 407.
[40]Ibid.3: 421.
[40]Ibid.3: 421.
[41]CO5-1314, Doc. 63I.
[41]CO5-1314, Doc. 63I.
The people of Jamestown in the years from 1626 to 1640, when they saw a vessel coming up the river, must have crowded around the landing place to ask sailors and passengers for the latest news from England. Was King Charles still raising funds with which to run the government by means of forced loans? Was he still billeting his soldiers on the people? Was martial law in force? They must have been thrilled to hear of the Petition of Rights in which the House of Commons protested against Charles' arbitrary rule.
When the Burgesses came to town for a session of the Assembly, the struggle between King and Parliament must have been the chief topic of conversation around the table in each crude little tavern. Now it was the jailing of nine members of the House of Commons; now the granting of monopolies; now the collecting of ship money; now the suppression of free speech; now the proceedings of the Star Chamber; now the efforts of Archbishop Laud to enforce religious conformity.
The Virginians were fully aware that these events affected them profoundly. They had just won a degree of self-government. If the King succeeded in his efforts to make himself absolute in England, all their gains might be lost. Might he not overthrow their Assembly? If he could imprison men arbitrarily in England, he would not hesitate to do so in Virginia. If he could tax the people of England under the thin veil of loans, or the revival of ancient laws, would he hesitate to tax the colonists without their own consent? Might he not place over them another Dale or Argall to hang men or break them on the wheel?
So when Sir George Yeardley, their liberal Governor, died in November, 1627, they were filled with grief. They remembered that it was he who had brought over the Virginia Magna Carta, and had called the first Assembly. We have lost "a main pillar of this our building and thereby a support to the whole body," wrote the Council.[1]
Their concern must have been all the greater because Yeardley's commission of March 14, 1626, named John Harvey as his successor. The Virginians knew this man well. He had been one of the King's commissioners who came to the colony in 1624 to draw up a report on conditions there to be used in overthrowing the charter of the Company. Just why it was thought that he was the right man to act as Governor is not apparent, for he was a mariner by vocation and had served as captain of a ship which went to the East Indies in 1617. In November, 1625, we find him in command of a ship in the expedition against Cadiz. He may have owed his appointment as Governor to Viscount Dorchester, the Secretary of State, whom he thanked for his "wonted nobleness" to him.
But Virginia was to have a breathing space before Harvey's arrival. Yeardley's commission had specified that in the absence of Harvey the Council should elect one of their number to act in his place. They chose Captain Francis West, brother of Lord De la Warr.[2]West was a seasoned Virginian, for he had come to the colony in 1608 with Captain Newport. He had been commander of Jamestown many years, and a member of the Council since 1619. It was during his brief administration that the first legal Assembly since the dissolution of the London Company was called together, the Assembly which rejected the King's proposal for a tobacco contract.
In March, 1629, West was appointed agent for the colony and sent to England. To serve as Governor until his return or the arrival of Harvey, the Council chose Dr. John Pott. This man had been in Virginia since 1621, when he came over as "Physician to the Company" and member of the Council. He was described as "a Master of Arts ... well practiced in chirurgery and physic, and expert in distilling of waters, besides many other ingenious devices."[3]He seems to have consumed a goodly quantity of "distilled waters" himself, for he was fond of his cups and jovial company. George Sandys wrote of him that "he kept company too much with his inferiors, who hung upon him while his good liquor lasted."[4]
The most notable of Pott's "ingenious devices" was the poisoning of a large number of Indians after the massacre of1622. In justification of this act, his friends explained that the barbarous and perfidious savages knew nothing about the rules of war, so it was fair play to resort to anything that tended to their ruin. But this did not save Pott from criticism in England. The Earl of Warwick was so shocked that at his request Pott was left out of the Council because "he was the poisoner of the savages there." But he seems to have been forgiven, for in 1626 we find him once more in his seat.
It was during Pott's administration that Lord Baltimore visited Virginia. In 1623 he had received a grant of land in Newfoundland, and had planted a colony of English Catholics there. But when four years later he visited the place, he found "the air so intolerable cold as it is hardly to be endured." He wrote King Charles that he had decided to move with some forty persons to Virginia, and petitioned for "a precinct of land there."
On October 1, 1629, he, with his wife and children, arrived at Jamestown. Here he met with a cool reception. A certain Thomas Tindall got into an altercation with him, called him a liar, and threatened to knock him down. The Virginians did not want in their midst a group of Catholics who were trying to lop off one of the most fertile parts of their territory. So to get rid of them the Governor and Council tendered my Lord the oath of supremacy, knowing that as a Catholic he could not take it, for to do so was to acknowledge the King as the supreme authority in ecclesiastical matters. When he refused they asked him to leave. This he did, but since he left his family in Virginia, it was obvious that he intended to return. So William Claiborne was sent after him as agent for the colony to oppose his designs.
To add to the troubles of the people, in the early spring of 1630 Harvey arrived and took his seat as Governor. He had lingered in England to make sure that the office would yield a good return. Only after the King had promised him the fines imposed by any of the courts did he set sail. His voyage was far from being pleasant, for his ship was leaky, he was delayed at the Cape Verde Islands by a Dutch fleet, and he was laid low by "a great sickness" that attacked him at sea.[5]
After landing it was several weeks before he was able to take over his duties. But after he had done so, his intentions at oncebecame apparent. The man was by nature a despot. The despotism of Sir Edmund Andros in New England and of Lord Howard of Effingham in Virginia in the years just preceding the Glorious Revolution stemmed, not so much from the character of these men, as from the deliberate policy of Charles II. There is no evidence that Charles I ordered Harvey to make himself absolute. He had too many troubles at home to give much thought to Virginia.
It may have been Harvey's training as a sea captain which made him impatient of restraint. In Virginia he acted as though he were still on the deck of his ship thundering out commands which no one must question. If the King were in Virginia, would not his orders be obeyed? Then why not the orders of his Governor? He never tired of reminding the members of the Council and others that he was the King's substitute. When to his passion for power are added his rudeness and violence, his avarice and disregard for the rights of others, we have the picture of one utterly unsuited to be the chief executive of a liberty loving people.
Harvey was accused of diverting public funds to his own pocket, but of this we have no direct proof. It is probable that he tried to levy taxes without the consent of the Assembly. Otherwise one wonders why the Assembly should have thought it necessary to order "that the Governor and Council shall not lay any taxes or impositions upon the colony ... otherwise than by the authority of the Grand Assembly."[6]
But it was chiefly through the courts that he carried out his designs. He himself presided over the quarter court, and it was he who appointed the commissioners or justices who sat on the local courts. Thus it was not difficult for him to secure any verdict he wished. So he had at hand an instrument to satisfy his lust for power by crushing those who resisted him, and his lust for money by imposing heavy fines. It should have been obvious to Charles I when he agreed to give Harvey all fines and amercements, that it was a dangerous thing to permit a judge, or one who appointed judges, to profit from his or their decisions.
The most notorious abuse of the judicial power by Harvey was his prosecution of Dr. Pott. Charging the pleasure-loving physician with pardoning murder and marking other men'scattle for his own, he suspended him from the Council, and confined him to his plantation pending the day of his trial. When Pott defied the Governor's order and came to Elizabeth City, Harvey put him in prison and set a guard around it. In July, 1630, he was put on trial.
We have only one detail of the proceedings, but that like a flash is revealing of Pott's character and of the farcical character of the prosecution. When a certain Richard Kingswell testified against him, Pott declared that he was as great a liar and hypocrite as Gusman of Alfrach. He was referring to the book by Mateo Alemán, of Seville, in which Gusman is shown first as a scullion, then as an errand boy, then as a thief, then as a pretended gentleman who cheated his creditors.[7]But this thrust did not save him. He was convicted, and his entire estate confiscated.[8]
It would seem that in this case Harvey was actuated more by a desire to show his power than by avarice. If he could humble so prominent a man as Pott, one who had been acting Governor, others would stand in awe of him. "It will be a means to bring people to ... hold a better respect to the Governor than hitherto they have done," he wrote.[9]But having shown his power to ruin, he now sought to show that he could also restore. So he wrote the King suggesting clemency. "For as much as he is the only physician in the colony, and skilled in the epidemical diseases of the planters ... I am bound to entreat" your Majesty to pardon him.[10]
A more sincere plea came from the doctor's wife, Elizabeth. Getting up from a sick bed, she made the long and dangerous voyage to England to complain to the King "touching the wrong" done her husband. Charles referred the case to the Virginia Commissioners, who listened sympathetically as she poured out the story of injustice and persecution.[11]They concluded that there had been "some hard usage against" Pott, and recommended that the King pardon him. Accordingly, Charles forgave his "offences" and restored his property.[12]But the jovial doctor never regained his seat in the Council.
The prosecution of Pott set the example for others. "The Governor usurped the whole power in all causes without any respect to the votes of the Council," reported Samuel Mathews, "whereby justice was done but so far as suited his will to the great loss of many men's estates and a general fear in all." If other members of the court opposed him, he would revile them and tell them they were there merely to advise him. He could accept or reject their opinions as he liked, since "the power lay in himself to dispose of all matters as his Majesty's substitute."[13]
With the General Court dominated by the overbearing and avaricious Governor no man was safe. At any moment one might be hauled before the bar, charged with some petty offence, found guilty, and given a ruinous fine. Mathews said that there were an "infinite number of particular men's grievances."[14]William Claiborne thought it strange that Harvey "should so demean himself," for "all men were wronged, and even good and bad had forsaken him."[15]It was in every man's mouth that "no justice was done." When a report of these things reached England, Sir John Wolstenholm, one of the Virginia Commissioners, said that "Sir John Harvey stunk in Court and city."[16]
Harvey's attempts to make himself absolute, his disregard of other men's rights, his perversion of justice did not go unchallenged. Soon the meetings of the Council became stormy. The Governor insisted that he, as the King's substitute, had a right to determine all things. The Councillors were merely his assistants, whose duty it was to advise him, but not to oppose him. But the Councillors dissented vigorously. Look at your commission, they told him, and you will see that it directs that all matters must be determined by the majority of voices. Does it not say that the King grants to the Governor and Council "and the greater number of you respectively full power and authority to execute" the duties of the executive body?
Soon Harvey was filling his letters with complaints of the opposition of the Council. "For instead of giving me assistance, they stand contesting and disputing my authority, averring that I can do nothing but what they shall advise me, and that my power extendeth no further than a bare casting voice."[17]Hehad shown them a letter from the King strengthening his commission, but they refused to budge from their position. He would be grateful if his Majesty would be so explicit "that the place of Governor and the duty of Councillors may be known and distinguished."[18]
The Privy Council answered by warning both sides to put an end to their disputes and cooperate with each other in advancing the good of the colony. So they drew up and signed a formal reconciliation. They promised "to swallow up and bury" all complaints, and to turn their "alienated and distempered" minds to thoughts of love and peace. The Councillors vowed to give the Governor "all the service, honor, and due respect which belongs to him as his Majesty's substitute."[19]
The reconciliation proved a sham. Harvey continued to be overbearing and arbitrary; the Councillors were as bitter as ever. When one of them, Thomas Hinton, in an outburst of anger gave Harvey some "ill words," he ousted him from his seat. Love and peace were far indeed from the Governor's mind when he responded to some "ill language" from Captain Richard Stevens by landing a blow in his face with a cudgel and knocking out some of his teeth.[20]
In 1634 a certain Captain Thomas Young arrived in Virginia with a commission from the King authorizing him to discover and search the unexplored parts of the colony. Needing two shallops, and hearing that one of the planters had an indentured worker who was a skilled shipwright, he seized him and put him to work. In this violation of property rights he was supported by the Governor. But it aroused the anger of the Council, and several of them came to Harvey to demand an explanation.
Harvey may have had in mind the Forced Loans as a precedent for taking the property of the subject, when he replied that his Majesty had given Young "authority to make use of any persons he found there." Young needed the shipwright "to prosecute with speed the King's service," he said. Speaking for the others, Samuel Mathews retorted angrily that if things were done in that fashion it would breed ill blood in Virginia. Turning his back he whirled a truncheon he carried in his hand, and lashed off the heads of some high weeds.[21]TheGovernor, ignoring this, said: "Come, gentlemen, let us go to supper, and for the night leave this discourse." But they were in no humor to be appeased. With one accord they turned their backs and left "in a very irreverent manner."
The Virginians were further embittered against Harvey for the aid he gave to Lord Baltimore's settlers. It was on February 27, 1634, that theArkand theDove, with Leonard and George Calvert, twenty "gentlemen adventurers," and three-hundred laborers, arrived at Point Comfort. They bore a letter to the Governor from the King requiring him to treat them with courtesy and respect, permit them to buy cattle and other commodities, and do all he could to advance their settlement.
Harvey did his best to comply. He sent them some of his own cows and promised to procure more. But this was not easy. The planters were so outraged at having a part of their territory torn away for a colony of Catholics that they swore they would knock their cattle on the head rather than sell them to the Marylanders. Some of the members of the Council had been informed by letters from England of Lord Baltimore's plans. When Samuel Mathews opened one of them, he threw his hat on the ground in a fury, stamped, and cried: "A pox upon Maryland!"[22]He, with William Claiborne and other members of the Council, held many secret meetings to decide upon a course of action. But they were powerless to prevent theArkand theDovefrom moving up the Chesapeake Bay with the newcomers, and the founding of a little town near the mouth of the Potomac.
Three years before their arrival Claiborne had made a settlement on Kent Island in the Chesapeake near the site of Annapolis. So now he found himself torn from Virginia and handed over to another government. The result was open warfare. It was prophetic of the battle between the Merrimac and the Monitor in Chesapeake waters more than two centuries later, when two pinnaces full of armed men captured an armed vessel sent out by the Kent Islanders.
When this news reached Jamestown there was great indignation. Harvey tried to justify the Marylanders, but this merely intensified the people's hatred of him. So he not only aids in the dismemberment of Virginia, it was said, but upholds theintruders in murdering our people. Is it right that one who is Governor of the colony should side with her enemies?
The crisis came in 1635. King Charles, ever pressed for money, tried once more to secure a tobacco contract. So he wrote Harvey directing him to call an Assembly and to ask for "the sole pre-emption of all tobacco," at a lower price and a reduced quantity. The members of the Council, especially Samuel Mathews, John Utie, and William Pierce, opposed the contract "very saucily."[23]As for the Burgesses, they hated all contracts. So they drew up an answer which was in effect a refusal. In order to give the paper the character of a petition they all signed it. This they gave to Harvey to send to the King.
But instead of forwarding it, the Governor detained it. In excuse of this arbitrary action he said he feared the King "would not take well the matter thereof, and that they should make it a popular business by subscribing a multitude of hands thereto, as thinking thereby to give it countenance."[24]The people were outraged. So our Governor takes it on himself to decide what or what not we shall say to our King. Is it not the right of all Englishmen to address their sovereign? "The wrong done by the Governor to the whole colony in detaining the foresaid letters to his Majesty did exceedingly perplex them, whereby they were made sensible of the condition of the present government," wrote Samuel Mathews.[25]
Things had now come to a head. A petition demanding a redress of grievances was drawn up, which Francis Pott, brother of Dr. John Pott, took about the country. Everywhere he found the people tired of Harvey's arbitrary conduct, tired of his injustice to individual persons. So they pressed forward eagerly to sign the petition. Harvey says that only in Accomac did they refuse.[26]
It was in April, 1635, that Pott, Captain Nicholas Martian, and William English, the sheriff of York County, addressed a gathering at the house of William Warren. This meeting has a special significance in the long struggle for American liberty, for Warren's house was on or near the site of the Moore House, at Yorktown, where the British army under Lord Cornwallis surrendered a century and a half later. The speakers weredenouncing Harvey's despotic government when some friends of the Governor tried to enter. A servant kept them out, but they hung around outside and "bended themselves to hearken to the discourse among them."[27]When the speeches were concluded those present gathered around the petition and affixed their signatures.
When this was reported to Harvey, he flew into a rage. Calling the Council, he issued warrants for the arrest of Francis Pott, English, and Martian. They were brought up in irons. Pott handed over the petition and declared that if he had offended he appealed to the King. "He was sure of no justice from Sir John Harvey." When the prisoners asked why they were arrested, the Governor told them that they would be told at the gallows. So they were hustled off to prison.[28]
Harvey then called the Council together again and told them that it was necessary to try the prisoners by martial law. But the Councillors insisted on a legal trial. In the dispute which followed Harvey became violently angry. Finally, he sat down and ordered the others to sit. Looking around with a frown, he said: "I am to propound a question to you.... What do you think they deserve that have gone about to persuade the people from their obedience to his Majesty's substitute?"
Turning to George Menefie, he said, "I begin with you." Menefie answered that since he was but a young lawyer he did not dare give an opinion "upon the sudden." Here Nicholas Farrar interposed to protest against this method of proceeding. But Harvey cut him short with the command to hold his tongue until he was spoken to. Thereupon Samuel Mathews spoke up to enter his protest. But instantly, in the King's name, he was told to be silent. Mathews insisted there was no precedent for this attempt to make men incriminate themselves unless it was that by a tyrant. Here he was alluding to the passage in Shakespeare'sKing RichardIII in which Richard asked Lord Hastings what should be done to the women who had bewitched him. Hastings replied that if they had done so they ought to die. "Talk'st thou to me of ifs," replied Richard, "thou art a traitor. Off with his head." Harvey evidently did not relish being compared to Richard, and so retorted with many "bitter languages."[29]
The Councillors were now determined to bring their dispute with the Governor to an issue. The next time he summoned them to meet, they brought with them fifty musketeers and concealed them near the house. Harvey asked them with a stern look what they thought was the reason for the petition against him. "The chief cause was the detaining of the letters to his Majesty," replied Mr. Menefie. This infuriated Harvey. Rising from his chair, he struck Menefie a resounding blow on the shoulder, saying: "I arrest you on suspicion of treason to his Majesty." But now he had gone too far. Utie and Mathews seized him, exclaiming: "And we you upon suspicion of treason to his Majesty."[30]
At this juncture Dr. Pott, who was standing near the door, held up his hand as a signal, and the musketeers came running up "with their pieces presented." "Stay here until there be use of you," Pott commanded. In the meanwhile, Mathews had forced Harvey down into a chair. "Sir, there is no harm intended against you only to acquaint you with the grievances of the inhabitants," he told him. So he poured out the recital of the wrongs done the colony and demanded that they be redressed. But the Governor, who was in no mood for making concessions, denied that any wrong had been done. After an ominous pause Mathews said: "Sir, the people's fury is up against you and to appease it is beyond our power, unless you please to go for England." Harvey replied that the King had sent him to Virginia to be Governor, and he would not leave until he ordered him to do so.
But he soon changed his mind. That night a courier came riding up with a letter to Harvey from Thomas Purifie, who seems to have been one of his few friends in the Council, giving an alarming report of the threatening attitude of the people. At first the Governor said he would defy them to do their worst. Would it not be better to remain, though he be cut in a thousand pieces, than to desert his charge? he asked Secretary Richard Kemp. Kemp replied that for him to remain might "hazard the King's service" by provoking the infuriated people to further acts of violence. So at last he yielded and promised to leave.[31]
The rebellious Councillors now took over the government.They released English, Martian, and Francis Pott, forcedHarveyto deliver his commission and instructions to Secretary Kemp, set an armed guard around him ostensibly to protect him from violence, posted armed men in "all ways and passages," called a General Assembly, and sent out a proclamation inviting the people to lay their grievances before it, and appointed their senior member, John West, a brother of Lord De la Warr, acting Governor.[32]
In the meanwhile, Harvey had left Jamestown to seek refuge in the house of Mr. William Brocas, "whose wife was generally suspected to have more familiarity with him than befitted a modest woman." Here he thought himself secure enough to dismiss his guard. And from here he wrote a threatening letter to the members of the Assembly, commanding them in the King's name to disperse. He also wrote Secretary Kemp demanding the return of his commission and instructions. The Councillors seized the first letter, refused to read it to the Burgesses, and the Assembly went on with the consideration of the grievances, "which were innumerable." As for the commission and the instructions, they had taken them from Kemp and turned them over to Menefie for safe keeping.[33]
The Assembly now passed resolutions accusing Harvey of misgovernment and injustice, and explaining why the people had been driven to the extreme expedient of sending him back to England. As their agent to deliver these papers to the King they appointed one of the Burgesses, Thomas Harwood. With him went Francis Pott to plead his case before the King. Since it would be several months before the tobacco ships sailed for England, there seems to have been only one vessel leaving at the time. So Harvey, as well as Pott and Harwood, had to embark on it.
As events turned out this was unfortunate. Not that Harvey's frowns and threats frightened Pott and Harwood, but that it gave him a chance to frustrate their plans when they landed at Plymouth. Hardly had the ship touched dock when he hastened to see the mayor of the city to tell him of the "late mutiny and rebellion" in Virginia. So the mayor put Pott under arrest "as a principal author and agent thereof," and seized the trunk containing the papers entrusted to Harwood.Pott was dragged off to London and locked up in the old debtors' prison called the Fleet.[34]
In the meanwhile, Harwood had set off post haste to get to London ahead of Harvey so as to make friends and tell of his misgovernment. He got a ride with the postman who was carrying the mail. At Exeter he stopped at the Sign of the Valiant Soldier, and drank a pint of wine with the proprietor. This seems to have loosened his tongue, for he poured out the story of Harvey's misdeeds to this stranger, told him of his mission, and added that if Harvey ever returned to Virginia "he would be pistolled or shot."[35]
We do not know whether Harwood or Harvey won the race to London. But it was the Governor who succeeded in gaining the support of the King and the Privy Council. It is possible that his accusation that Harwood "was one of the chief of the mutineer Burgesses that opposed his Majesty's service in the tobacco contract and in stirring up the country to this mutiny," may have landed him in prison. At all events, when the Privy Council met, the Governor had things his own way.
The King was greatly surprised that the Virginians had dared defy him by ousting their duly appointed Governor. He was determined to send Harvey back if but for one day, he said. And should he clear himself of the charges against him, he would keep him there longer than he had intended. As a further vindication of his authority, he gave orders that West, Mathews, Utie, and Pierce, the leaders of the mutiny, be brought to England "to answer their misdemeanors." He also directed the Attorney General to draw up a new commission for Harvey with an enlargement of his powers.[36]
Though Harvey may have been a bit nervous over the threat of "pistoling," he was too anxious to regain his confiscated property and get revenge on his enemies to hesitate to return to Virginia. He made no secret of his intention to confiscate the property of those who had so humiliated him. As for Samuel Mathews, whose estate consisted largely of cattle, he vowed he would leave him not worth a cow's tail.[37]Yet he thought it prudent to ask for one of the King's ships, explaining that this would "much abate the boldness of the offenders." So on October 2, 1636, he set forth proudly in theBlack George.But he did not get very far. TheBlack Georgeproved so leaky that for a while it seemed that it might prove a Godsend to Virginia by taking Sir John to the bottom. But it turned back and succeeded in reaching port. The Governor set sail again, this time on a merchant vessel.
When he reached Virginia, in January, 1637, Harvey could not wait for the ship to wend its way up to Jamestown before asserting his authority, but landed at Point Comfort and established a temporary capital at Elizabeth City. Here he began immediately to turn sheriffs and justices out of office and replace them with men more to his liking.[38]Messengers were sent to summon the Council to meet in the Elizabeth City church. It must have been with an air of triumph that he greeted the Councillors, for now the day of retribution had come.
One would think that Harvey's expulsion would have taught him a lesson. Instead, his desire for revenge drove him into new excesses. With the enlarged powers of his new commission, with the Council submissive to his will, with the courts manned by his favorites, with the prestige of the King's backing, he went to great extremes. The Reverend Anthony Panton accused him of "many arbitrary and illegal proceedings in judgment, tyranny, extortion." The "unjust whippings, cutting of ears, fining and confiscation of honest men's goods," must have brought back memories of Dale and Argall. The converting of fines to his "own profit and use," or to reward his henchmen, convinced the people that men were accused and sentenced, not because they were guilty of any crime, but merely to have an excuse for taking their property.[39]
In the meanwhile, West, Mathews, Utie, and Pierce had been sent as prisoners to England to answer the charge of mutiny, where a bill was exhibited against them in the Star Chamber. But here the matter hung fire. George Donne, Muster General of Virginia and a member of the Council, who had come to England to prosecute them, became ill. Harvey neglected to put up the money for necessary fees. The great cost of the voyage across the Atlantic prevented the sending over of witnesses.
But in the absence of the accused men, Sir John took ample revenge on them. They were informed by letters from Virginia that "divers of their goods, cattle, and servants" had been confiscated. So they complained to the Privy Council. Mathews assured them that Harvey was bent on ruining him, and that he had been heard to say that if one "stood, tother should fall, and if he swum, the other should sink." He seems to have convinced the Privy Council, for on May 25, 1637, they wrote Harvey ordering him to restore Mathews' property.[40]
But so reluctant was Harvey to be cheated out of his revenge that he postponed compliance in the hope that something might occur to give him an excuse for not obeying. This excuse he found in a letter from the Privy Council expressing satisfaction with his administration. It was his excuse, also, for further severities against Mathews. Kemp and others entered his house, broke open the doors of several rooms, ransacked his trunks, examined his papers, and carried off a part of his goods and eight of his servants.[41]
When word of this reached the Privy Council, the sub-committee to whom the case was referred gave it as their opinion that Mathews had been "very hardly dealt with." "We cannot but clearly discern somewhat of passion in the said proceedings," they reported. So the Privy Council wrote again to Harvey, commanding him once more to restore Mathews' property. This time the Governor complied, writing the Privy Council a long, but lame excuse for what he had done.[42]
Another victim of Harvey's malice was the Reverend Anthony Panton, minister of the parishes of York and Chiskiack. Panton had quarreled with the Governor's warm friend, Secretary Kemp, and had incurred his lasting enmity by calling him a "jackanapes," who was "unfit for the place of secretary," adding that "his hair-lock was tied up with ribbon as old as St. Paul's." So he was now brought to trial, charged with mutinous speeches and disobedience to the Governor, and with disrespect to the Archbishop of Canterbury. The farcical character of justice as administered by Harvey is shown by the fact that in the trial Kemp acted not only as prosecutor but as one of the judges. Panton's conviction was a matter of course. He wasfined £500, forced to make public submission, and was banished from Virginia and forbidden ever to return on pain of death, and authority was given "to any man whatsoever to execute him."[43]
Throughout Virginia colonial history the parties to any dispute who were in London to urge their side had a great advantage. So Mathews, Utie, Pierce, and Francis Pott, after they secured their liberty under bail, devoted their time to undermining Sir John at Court. The Governor charged that they planted spies in all parts of the city to invite persons who had just arrived from Virginia into taverns, treated them to wine to make them talkative, and got them to state their grievances. So they poured out the stories of Harvey's confiscations, extortions, whippings, and pressure on the courts of justice.[44]
As the evidence against Harvey piled up the exiles gained the support of the sub-committee of the Privy Council to whom colonial affairs were usually referred. Sir John wrote at length to refute what he called "the malicious untruths of such who by all means do go about and study to traduce us." But in vain, for the Privy Council decided to remove him.[45]
The shoe was now on the other foot. On January 11, 1639, Sir Francis Wyatt received a commission as Governor of Virginia. When this news reached the colony there was rejoicing, for Wyatt had shown himself a staunch defender of liberty during his previous administration. The people could be sure that he would redress their wrongs and see to it that justice was done all men. Nor were they disappointed. No sooner had Wyatt arrived than he summoned the General Court and brought Harvey before it to answer for his misdeeds.[46]
Kemp, who was retained as Secretary and Councillor by order of the Privy Council, was helpless to prevent his fellow judges from passing sentence on the deposed Governor. "They of the old commission have been persecuted with much malice," he wrote in March, 1640, "the weight whereof hath hitherto principally fallen on Sir John Harvey, whose estate is wholly sequestered at present, and at the next court now approaching will assuredly be swept away."[47]Harvey wrote that he groanedunder the oppression of his enemies, and that he was so closely watched that he hardly had privacy enough to write a letter. His enemies had now been advanced to be his judges, and were tearing his estate from him by inviting his creditors to clamor against him. Both Harvey and Kemp asked permission to go to England, but this was refused. Not only were they held to answer charges, but because the new administration had no desire to have them clamoring against them at Court.
"Sir John being ... laid flat," Wyatt next took up the case of Anthony Panton against Kemp.[48]This matter had been sifted out by the Privy Council, who reported that they could find no proof of the charges against the minister. It seemed strange to them that he should be accused of mutinous behavior throughout six or seven years, in view of the fact that ten months previously Harvey had presented him to a benefice. So they suspended the harsh sentence, and referred the matter to Governor Wyatt. The Virginia court promptly reversed the previous action, declared Panton guiltless, and restored his estate. So he returned in triumph and resumed his duties in his two parishes. To Kemp this was the crowning humiliation. "I am exceedingly injured, and shall suffer without guilt unless my friends now assist me," he wrote. "The Governor and Council aim at my ruin."[49]
The men employed to watch Harvey and Kemp must have relaxed their vigilance, for both escaped and made their way back to England. Thomas Stegg, who aided Kemp in getting away, had to pay dearly, for the Governor and Council fined him £50 and imprisoned him. In London, Harvey and Kemp sought influential friends, poured out their complaints to them, and tried to undermine Wyatt at Court. Kemp later returned to Virginia, where he resumed his place as Secretary, and his seat in the Council. Harvey seems to have given up politics as a bad business and returned to the sea as what he probably considered a less dangerous vocation. He died in 1650.
The thrusting out of Sir John Harvey is a landmark in the long struggle for self-government in Virginia. It showed that there was a point beyond which no Governor dared go in trampling upon the rights of the people. It was a daring thing for the Virginians to defy the King by deposing the man he hadsent as their Governor, and notifying him in effect that they wanted him to make a better selection. That Charles sent Harvey back and that he was as tyrannical after his return as he had been before, does not obscure the meaning of this uprising as a clash between the royal assertion of despotic right and the American devotion to liberty.
Harvey based his claims to supreme power on the theory that he was the King's substitute, and as such should have the unquestioning obedience of the people. The Virginians contended that his power was limited by law. Even had his rule been marked by justice and moderation, they would have denied his pretensions. But when he made them the basis for an odious tyranny, they took a step unique in American colonial history, by laying violent hands on him, and sending him back to his royal master.