and Council excluded from Assembly--Matthews declares
a Dissolution--The House resists--Dispute referred to the
Protector--Declaration of Sovereignty--Matthews re-elected--
Council newly reorganized--Edward Hill elected Speaker--Rules
of the House.

IN March, 1655, Edward Digges was elected by the assembly governor of
the colony of Virginia. He was of an ancient and distinguished family,
and had been made a member of the council in November, 1654, "he having
given a signal testimony of his fidelity to this colony and Commonwealth
of England." He succeeded Bennet, who had held the office since April,
1652, and who was now appointed the colony's agent at London.

In the year 1656, six or seven hundred Ricahecrian Indians having come
down from the mountains, and seated themselves near the falls of the
James River, Colonel Edward Hill, the elder, was put in command of a
body of men, and ordered to dislodge them. He was reinforced by
Totopotomoi, chief of Pamunkey, with one hundred of his tribe. A creek
enclosing a peninsula in Hanover County, retains the name of
Totopotomoy; and Butler, in Hudibras, alludes to this chief:--

"The mighty Tottipotimoy
Sent to our elders an envoy,
Complaining sorely of the breach
Of league held forth by brother Patch."

Hill was disgracefully defeated, and the brave Totopotomoi, with the
greater part of his warriors, slain. It appears probable that Bloody
Run, near Richmond, derived its name from this sanguinary battle. The
action in which so many Indians were afterwards massacred by Bacon and
his men, and with which a loose tradition has identified Bloody Run, did
not occur near the falls of the James River. Hill, in consequence of his
bad conduct in this affair, was subsequently, by unanimous vote of the
council and the house of burgesses, condemned to pay the expenses of
effecting a peace with the Indians, and was disfranchised.[234:A] During
this year an act was passed allowing all free men the right of voting
for burgesses, on the ground that "it is something hard and unagreeable
to reason that any persons shall pay equal taxes, and yet have no votes
in elections." So republican was the elective franchise in Virginia,
under the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell two centuries ago! In this
year, 1656, Colonel Thomas Dew, of Nansemond, sometime before speaker of
the house of burgesses, and others, were authorized to explore the
country between