l, are held.

[176:A] Peckard's Life of Ferrar--a work which throws much light on the
early history of Virginia.

[177:A] Belknap.

[177:B] Hening's Statutes, i. 119, 129.

CHAPTER XIX.

1624-1632.

Charles the First commissions Sir Thomas Wyat, Governor--
Assemblies not allowed--Royal Government virtually established
in Virginia--Other Colonies on Atlantic Coast--Wyat returns to
Ireland--Succeeded by Yeardley--Yeardley succeeded by West--
Letter of Charles the First directing an Assembly to meet--
Assembly's Reply--John Pott, Governor--Condition of Colony--
Statistics--Diet--Pott superseded by Harvey--Dr. John Pott
Convicted of Stealing Cattle--Sir John Harvey--Lord Baltimore
visits Virginia--Refuses to take the Oaths tendered to him--
Procures from Charles the First a Grant of Territory--Acts
relative to Ministers, Agriculture, Indians, etc.

IN August, 1624, King Charles the First granted a commission appointing
Sir Thomas Wyat Governor, with a council during pleasure, and omitting
all mention of an assembly, thinking so "popular a course" the chief
source of the recent troubles and misfortunes. The eleven members of the
council were, Francis West, Sir George Yeardley, George Sandys, Roger
Smith, Ralph Hamor, who had been of the former council, with the
addition of John Martin, John Harvey, Samuel Matthews, Abraham Percy,
Isaac Madison, and William Clayborne. Several of these were then, or
became afterwards, men of note in the colony. This is the first mention
of William Clayborne, who was destined to play an important part in the
future annals of Virginia.

Thus in effect a royal government was now established in Virginia;
hitherto she had been subject to a complex threefold government of the
company, the crown, and her own president or governor and
council.[179:A]

From 1624 to 1628 there is no mention in the statute-book of Virginia,
or in the journal of the Virginia Company, of any assembly having been
held in the colony, and in 1628 appeals were made to the governor and
council; whereas had there been an assembly, it would have been the
appellate court.

The French had established themselves as early as 1625 in Canada; the
Dutch were now colonizing the New Netherlands; a Danish colony had been
planted in New Jersey; the English were extending their confines in New
England (where New Plymouth numbered thirty-two houses and one hundred
a