UPON THE RESTORATION OF CHARLES II. PART I. the Assem our courts is utterly unable to collect out of its vast Action of volumes, though some times perhaps for the difference bly, 1661. of our and their condition varying in small things, but far from the presumption of contradicting any thing therein contained: And, because it is impossible to honour the king as we should unless we serve and fear God as we ought, and that they might show their equal care of church and state, they have set down certain Union of rules to be observed in the government of the church, church and until God shall please to turn his majesty's pious thoughts towards us, and provide a better supply of ministers amongst us. state. laws. "Be it therefore enacted by the governour, councel and Style of the burgesses of this grand assembly, that all the following laws continued or made by this assembly shall hereafter be reputed the laws of this country, by which all courts of judicature are to proceed in giving of sentence, and to which all persons are strictly required to yield all due obedience; and that all other acts not in All others this collection mentioned be to all intents and purposes repealed. utterly abrogated and repealed, unless suit for any thing done be commenced when a law now repealed was in force, in which case the producing that law shall excuse any person for doing any thing according to the ning, 41 tenour thereof."* Without any of those open demonstrations of loyalty erroneously attributed to her by different historians, it is evident nevertheless that the colony of Virginia easily and readily passed into a position of allegiance to the regal power now again established over the parent nation, and became again, in all her sympathies, her aims, her enactments, and her appliances of government and administration, a royal colony-The proceedings of her general assembly evince the alacrity with which she flew to the embraces of monarchy, with all the eagerness of a long wandering child coming back to its dependence on the tender care and endearing protection of a venerated parent: She volunteers *2 Hen The gov- to give to her chief executive officer a style which ernment crown: surrenders imports that he holds his place in subjection to the itself back to royalty. She dates the sessions of her assembly in the Royal style year of the king instead of the year of the commonof the gov- wealth, reckoning his reign as if no such usurpation ernor re vived. Other marks of loyalty. had ever existed: She refers to the years of its existence as years of painful uncertainty and suffering, wherein she was forced to deviate from the path of duty and learned the bitter experience of an infant orphanage. An experience, by the way, which for her and for those who were thereafter to inherit and enjoy the government and institutions of which she was thus laying the foundation, fruitful of important events and oracular developments. But she still further hallows her loyalty in the revised code of laws established at this session of her assembly. She deprecates her "late surrender and submission to the execrable power that so bloodily massacred the late king Charles the first, of ever blessed and glorious memory," as making her a guilty participant in its crimes, and "to show her serious and hearty repentance and detestation of that barbarous act," she enacts "that the thirtieth day of January, the day the said king was beheaded, be annually solemnized with fasting and prayers, that our sorrows may expiate our crimes, and our tears wash away our guilt." Allegiance She further consecrates her allegiance by acts of II. gratulation to Charles II., and expresses her "thank to Charles *2 Hen ning, 49. fulness and joy" at his restoration, by enacting "that the twenty-ninth day of May, the day of his majesty's birth and happy restitution, be annually celebrated as an holyday; "* while she provides that the oaths of supremacy and allegiance should thereafter be administered to all her higher officers, to her inferior magistrates, and to her ministers of religion. From this period onward, the whole fabric of government and administration in the colony, whether execu DURING THE REIGN OF CHARLES II. PART I. tive, legislative, or judicial; whether in its civil or Her charecclesiastical polity, was but a miniature exhibition of acteristic qualities the constitutional forms of the mother country. The and policy of governprovisions besides those I have already alluded to, ment. which developed her characteristic qualities in contrast, if I may so say, with those of New England, had reference more particularly to her religious establishment. Her clergy were required to receive ordination Herclergy. at the hands of an English bishop, and none but those thus consecrated to the sacred office were permitted to exercise its functions in the colony. She provided by law for the establishment of parishes, the erection of churches, and the ordination, induction, support, and suspension of ministers. She visited with fines and banishment all those of any other order, origin, or Church ordenomination, who attempted to preach within her dinances. precincts without permission. She enforced the hallowing of the sabbath and the observance of holydays; she regulated by statutory provisions the preaching of the gospel, and prescribed and limited the times for administering and receiving the holy eucharist and the rite of baptism. She also enacted that "It is Religious thought fitt that upon every Sunday the mynister shall, teaching. halfe an houre or more before evenenge prayer, examine, catechize, and instruct the youth and ignorant persons of his parish, in the ten commandments, the articles of the beliefe, and in the Lord's prayer: and shall diligentlie heere, instruct, and teach the catechisme sett forthe in the booke of common prayer: And all fathers, mothers, maysters and misstrisses shall Duties of cause their children, servants, or apprentizes, which parents have not learned the catechisme, to come to the church ters in ref at the tyme appointed, obedientlie to heare, and to be ordered by the mynister untill they have learned the same. And yf any of the sayd ffathers, mothers, maysters and misstrisses, children, servants, or apprentizes, shall neglect theire duties, as the one sorte in not causing them to come, and the other in refusinge to mas erence to. PART I. qualities VIRGINIA, Her char- learne as aforesayd, they shall be censured by the corts acteristic in those places holden." These duties were also and policy enforced by pecuniary penalties inflicted upon both of govern- ministers, parents, and masters, in case of neglect or ment. * Henning's Statutes at large. 1 and con ration. omission "without sufficient cause be shown to the contrarie." The governor and all the councill and burgesses of the assembly were ordered, upon the penalty of one shilling for neglect, "to be present at divine service in the morning."* In a word, the established church of England, with its canons and its ordinances, its doctrines and its discipline and forms of worship, its fast and festival observances, was the established church of the colony of Virginia. Non-conformists were obliged to quit the country. Marriages were required to be celebrated by a regularly ordained priest in the parish church, upon publication of the bans and according to the ceremonial prescribed in the book of common prayer. Those otherwise celebrated were declared null and void, the issue of them pronounced illegitimate, and the parties punished as guilty of fornication. The clergy were provided for by glebes and tithes, non-residence was prohibited, and a personal, strict, and regular performance of all parochial duties was insisted upon. The laws also which regulated the descent and distribution of estates were conformable with the same in England. Population The peaceful and prosperous rule of Sir William dition at Berkeley continued, with occasional absences in Engthe resto- land, down to the year 1677, making in the whole thirty-six years from the time of his first appointment in 1641. In the mean while the population of the colony had increased with a singular rapidity, and at the time of the restoration it numbered more than thirty thousand inhabitants. The restrictions to which they were afterwards subject by the parent government were but few, and were not regarded with hostility, being principally of a nature to secure their relations and allegiance to, and to regulate their trade with, the DURING THE REIGN OF CHARLES II. northern colonies and the mother country. Industry and frugality were successful in all the occupations of life, while her commercial relations were so defined as to encourage trade, to promote naval enterprise, to give security and the prospect of an improving revenue to the mercantile interests, and to encourage the mechanic arts. PART I. Report in In the year 1670, a series of enquiries were pro-Gov'r pounded to Sir William Berkeley, by The Lords com-Berkeley's missioners of foreign plantations, which were returned 1671. to England, with the answers of the governor appended to each interrogatory, in the following year. This document, emanating from a man so capable, from his long residence in and familiarity with all the affairs of the colony, to give the desired information, and illustrating, as it does, the condition of the colony at its date, becomes peculiarly valuable as a portion of her governmental history. I give the questions with the answers. "Enquiries of the Governor of Virginia, Assemblies 1. What councils, assemblies, and courts of judi-Councils, cature, are within your government, and of what and Courts. nature and kind? Answer. There is a governour and sixteen counsellors, who have from his sacred majesty, a commission of oyer and terminer, who judge and determine all causes that are above fifteen pounds sterling; for what is under, there are particular courts in every county, which are twenty in number. Every year, at least, the assembly is called, before whom lye appeals, and this assembly is composed of two burgesses out of every county. These lay the necessary taxes, as the necessity of the war with the Indians, or their exigencies, require. 2. What courts of judicature are within your gov-Admiralty. ernment, relating to the admiralty? Answer. In twenty-eight years there has never been one prize |