rkeley,
the Council, and the Burgesses joined in a declaration which reveals the
extent to which the colony relied on Dutch traders. It noted that
"absolute necessities" had caused earlier Assemblies to invite the Dutch
to trade with the inhabitants of Virginia, "which now for some few
yeares they have injoyed with such content, comfort and releife that
they esteeme the continuance thereof, of noe lesse consequence then as a
relative to theire being and subsistence." Rumors had been raised, the
declaration went on, that by a recent ordinance of Parliament, all
foreigners were prohibited from trading with any of the English
plantations "which wee conceive to bee the invention of some English
merchants on purpose to affright and expell the Dutch, and make way for
themselves to monopolize not onely our labours and fortunes, but even
our persons." The declaration noted the baneful effects on the colony of
the greed of the English merchants and pointed out that by ancient
charter and right the inhabitants of Virginia were allowed to trade with
any nation in amity with the King. It would be inconceivable that
Parliament would abridge this right "especially without hearing of the
parties principally interested, which infringeth noe lesse the libertye
of the Collony and a right of deare esteeme to free borne persons:
_viz._, that no lawe should bee established within the kingdome of
England concerninge us without the consent of a grand Assembly here."
But since they had heard nothing officially concerning the rumored act,
"wee can interprett noe other thing from the report, then a forgerye of
avaritious persons, whose sickle hath bin ever long in our harvest
allreadye." To provide for Virginia's subsistence the Governor, Council,
and Burgesses ordered that the right of the Dutch nation to trade with
Virginia be reiterated and preserved, and her traders given every
protection.

Virginia's other great problem, that of unregulated expansion, was dealt
with by the Grand Assembly of November 1647 in an extraordinary way. The
Governor, Council, and Burgesses ordered that persons inhabiting
Northumberland and "other remote and straying plantations on the south
side of Patomeck River, Wicokomoko, Rappahannock and Fleets Bay" be
displanted and removed. They justified this act on the basis of frequent
instructions from the King to Berkeley and the Council directing that
the planters not be allowed to scatter themselves too widely, and al