Harvey, thrust out, took first ship for England, and there also sailed
commissioners from the Virginia Assembly with a declaration of wrongs for
the King's ear. But when they came to England, they found that the King's
ear was for the Governor whom he had given to the Virginians and whom they,
with audacious disobedience, had deposed. Back should go Sir John Harvey,
still governing Virginia; back without audience the so-called
commissioners, happy to escape a merited hanging! Again to Jamestown sailed
Harvey. In silence Virginia received him, and while he remained Governor no
Assembly sat.
But having asserted his authority, the King in a few years' time was
willing to recall his unwelcome representative. So in 1639 Governor Harvey
vanishes from the scene, and in comes the well-liked Sir Francis Wyatt as
Governor for the second time. For two years he remains, and is then
superseded by Sir William Berkeley, a notable figure in Virginia for many
years to come. The population was now perhaps ten thousand, both English
born and Virginians born of English parents. A few hundred negroes moved in
the tobacco fields. More would be brought in and yet more. And now above a
million pounds of tobacco were going annually to England.
The century was predominantly one of inner and outer religious conflict.
What went on at home in England reechoed in Virginia. The new Governor was
a dyed-in-the-wool Cavalier, utterly stubborn for King and Church. The
Assemblies likewise leaned that way, as presumably did the mass of the
people.
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