"However, they owned that, according to
his Majesty's Institution, their Government had some Show of a democratical
Form; which was nevertheless, in that Case, the most just and profitable,
and most conducive to the Ends and Effects aimed at thereby . . . . Lastly,
they observed that the opposite Faction cried out loudly against Democracy,
and yet called for Oligarchy; which would, as they conceived, make the
Government neither of better Form, nor more monarchical."
But the dissolution of the Virginia Company was at hand. In October, 1623,
the Privy Council stated that the King had "taken into his princely
Consideration the distressed State of the Colony of Virginia, occasioned,
as it seemed, by the Ill Government of the Company." The remedy for the
ill-management lay in the reduction of the Government into fewer hands. His
Majesty had resolved therefore upon the withdrawal of the Company's charter
and the substitution, "with due regard for continuing and preserving the
Interest of all Adventurers and private persons whatsoever," of a new order
of things. The new order proved, on examination, to be the old order of
rule by the Crown. Would the Company surrender the old charter and accept a
new one so modeled?
The Company, through the country party, strove to gain time. They met with
a succession of arbitrary measures and were finally forced to a decision.
They would not surrender their charter. Then a writ of quo warranto was
issued; trial before the King's Bench followed; and judgment was rendered
against the Company in the spring term of 1624.
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