t have asserted the doctrine of popular
responsibility and authority in a case--the celebrated "Parsons'
Cause"--involving the people's authority over the church.

An even more significant indication of the shift in power in the
government was the provision in one of the acts of the Assembly of 1643
that appeals from the General Court (composed of the Governor and
Council, all appointees of the Crown) should be made to the Grand
Assembly (composed of the representatives of the people plus the
Governor and Council).

Still another demonstration of the _de facto_ shift in power from the
Crown to the people was the third act of the 1643 Assembly which
declared that the Governor and Council "shall not lay any taxes or
impositions upon this collonie their lands or comodities otherwise then
by the authority of the Grand Assembly to be leavied and imployed as by
the Assembly shall be appointed." The first such law had been passed in
March 1624 and renewed in February 1632. The process of wresting control
of the purse strings from the representatives of the Crown was to be a
long-drawn-out process in America, as indeed it was in England. In
Virginia the battle was won without a fight either because the Governors
were unable to oppose the power of the Burgesses or because they
identified their interests with those of the people. In the case of the
rights won by the people of Virginia during Sir William Berkeley's
governorship, these seem to have been the results as much of the
Governor's benevolence as of the Burgesses' power.

The colony also took its economic welfare into its own hands in the
early years of Berkeley's administration. Dutch traders were encouraged
by an act which made it free and lawful for any Dutch merchant or
shipowner to bring merchandise into the colony and to take tobacco out
of it. Means were provided to ease the difficulty caused by the
requirement that the Dutch give security for payment of the King's
customs at the port of London.

THE GREAT MASSACRE AND INDIAN WAR, 1644-1646

On April 18, 1644, occurred the second great Indian massacre in
Virginia's history. Opechancanough, King of the Pamunkey Indian
confederation, planned and executed the massacre, which most historians
attribute to the steadily increasing pressure exerted by the English on
the Indians' lands. The white population had increased from 3,000 in
1630 to 8,000 in 1640, and more were pouring in yearly. Nearly four
hundred English