INTRODUCTORY NOTE.
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Virginia, for twelve years after its settlement, languished under the government of Sir Thomas Smith, Treasurer of the Virginia Company in England. The Colony was ruled during that period by laws written in blood; and its history shows how the narrow selfishness of despotic power could counteract the best efforts of benevolence. The colonists suffered an extremity of distress too horrible to be described.
In April, 1619, Sir George Yeardley arrived. Of the emigrants who had been sent over at great cost, not one in twenty then remained alive. "In James Citty were only those houses that Sir Thomas Gates built in the tyme of his government, with one wherein the Governor allwayes dwelt, and a church, built wholly at the charge of the inhabitants of that citye, of timber, being fifty foote in length and twenty foot in breadth." At Henrico, now Richmond, there were no more than "three old houses, a poor ruinated Church, with some few poore buildings in the Islande."[1] "For ministers to instruct the people, he founde only three authorized, two others who never received their orders." "The natives he founde uppon doubtfull termes;" so that when the twelve years of Sir Thomas Smith's government expired, Virginia, according to the "judgements" of those who were then members of the Colony, was "in a poore estate."[A]
From the moment of Yeardley's arrival dates the real life of Virginia. He brought with him "Commissions and instructions from the Company for the better establishinge of a Commonwealth heere."[B] He made proclamation, "that those cruell lawes by which we" (I use the words of the Ancient Planters themselves) "had soe longe been governed, were now abrogated, and that we were to be governed by those free lawes which his Majesties subjectes live under in Englande." Nor were these considerations made dependent on the good will of administrative officers.
"And that they might have a hande in the governinge of themselves," such are the words of the Planters, "yt was graunted that a generall Assemblie shoulde be helde yearly once, whereat were to be present the Govr and Counsell wth two Burgesses from each Plantation, freely to be elected by the Inhabitants thereof, this Assemblie to have power to make and ordaine whatsoever lawes and orders should by them be thought good and proffitable for our subsistance."[C]
In conformity with these instructions, Sir George Yeardley "sente his summons all over the country, as well to invite those of the Counsell of Estate that were absente, as also for the election of Burgesses;"[D] and on Friday, the 30th day of July, 1619, the first elective legislative body of this continent assembled at James City.
In the relation of Master John Rolfe, inserted by Captain John Smith in his History of Virginia,[E] there is this meagre notice of the Assembly: "The 25 of June came in the Triall with Corne and Cattell in all safety, which tooke from vs cleerely all feare of famine; then our gouernor and councell caused Burgesses to be chosen in all places and met at a generall Assembly, where all matters were debated thought expedient for the good of the Colony."
This account did not attract the attention of Beverley, the early historian of Virginia, who denies that there was any Assembly held there before May, 1620.[F]
The careful Stith, whose work is not to be corrected without a hearty recognition of his superior diligence and exemplary fidelity, gives an account[G] of this first legislative body, though he errs a little in the date by an inference from Rolfe's narrative, which the words do not warrant.
The prosperity of Virginia begins with the day when it received, as "a commonwealth," the freedom to make laws for itself. In a solemn address to King James, which was made during the government of Sir Francis Wyatt, and bears the signature of the Governor, Council, and apparently every member of the Assembly, a contrast is drawn between the former "miserable bondage," and "this just and gentle authoritye which hath cherished us of late by more worthy magistrates. And we, our wives and poor children shall ever pray to God, as our bounden duty is, to give you in this worlde all increase of happines, and to crowne you in the worlde to come wth immortall glorye."[H]
A desire has long existed to recover the record of the proceedings of the Assembly which inaugurated so happy a revolution. Stith was unable to find it; no traces of it were met by Jefferson; and Hening,[I] and those who followed Hening, believed it no longer extant. Indeed, it was given up as hopelessly lost.
Having, during a long period of years, instituted a very thorough research among the papers relating to America in the British State Paper Office, partly in person and partly with the assistance of able and intelligent men employed in that Department, I have at last been so fortunate as to obtain the "Proceedings of the First Assembly of Virginia."[5] the document is in the form of "a reporte" from the Speaker; and is more fall and circumstantial than any subsequent journal of early legislation in the Ancient Dominion.
Many things are noticeable. The Governor and Council sat with the Burgesses; and took part in motions and debates. The Secretary of the Colony was chosen Speaker, and I am not sure that he was a Burgess.[6] This first American Assembly set the precedent of beginning legislation with prayer. It is evident that Virginia was then as thoroughly a Church of England colony, as Connecticut afterwards was a Calvinistic one. The inauguration of legislative power in the Ancient Dominion preceded the existence of negro slavery, which we will believe it is destined also to survive. The earliest Assembly in the oldest of the original thirteen States, at its first session, took measures "towards the erecting of" a "University and Colledge." Care was also taken for the education of Indian children. Extravagance in dress was not prohibited, but the ministers were to profit by a tax on excess in apparel. On the whole, the record of these Proceedings will justify the opinion of Sir Edward Sandys, that "they were very well and judiciously carried." The different functions of government may have been confounded and the laws were not framed according to any speculative theory; but a perpetual interest attaches to the first elective body representing the people of Virginia, more than a year before the Mayflower, with the Pilgrims, left the harbor of Southampton, and while Virginia was still the oldest British Colony on the whole Continent of America.
GEORGE BANCROFT.
New York, October 3, 1856.
FOOTNOTES
Colonial Records of Virginia.
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