embly's tone altered--Act for ducking "Brabbling Women"--
Power of Taxation vested in Governor and Council for three
years--Miscellaneous Affairs--Act relating to Indians--Persons
trespassing on the Indians, punished--Sir William Berkley
returns from England--Instructions relative to the Church--
Acts against Schismatics and Separatists--Berkley superintends
establishment of a Colony on Albemarle Sound.

THE settlements of Virginia now included the territory lying between the
Potomac and the Chowan, and embraced, besides, the isolated Accomac.
There were fifty parishes. The plantations lay dispersed along the banks
of rivers and creeks, those on the James stretching westward, above a
hundred miles into the interior. Each parish extended many miles in
length along the river-side, but in breadth ran back only a mile. This
was the average breadth of the plantations, their length varying from
half a mile to three miles or more. The fifty parishes comprehending an
area supposed to be equal to one-half of England, it was inevitable that
many of the inhabitants lived very remote from the parish church. Many
parishes, indeed, were as yet destitute of churches and glebes; and not
more than ten parishes were supplied with ministers. Hammond[249:A]
says: "They then began to provide, and send home for gospel ministers,
and largely contributed for their maintenance; but Virginia savoring not
handsomely in England, very few of good conversation would adventure
thither, (as thinking it a place wherein surely the fear of God was
not,) yet many came, such as wore black coats, and could babble in a
pulpit, roar in a tavern, exact from their parishioners, and rather by
their dissoluteness destroy than feed their flocks." Hammond's
statements are not to be unreservedly received. Where there were
ministers, worship was usually held once on Sunday; but the remote
parishioners seldom attended. The planters, either from indifference or
from the want of means, were remiss in the building of churches and the
maintenance of ministers. Through the licentious lives of many of them,
the Christian religion was dishonored, and the name of God blasphemed
among the heathen natives, (who were near them and often among them,)
and thus their conversion hindered.[250:A]

In 1661 the Rev. Philip Mallory was sent over to England as Virginia's
agent to solicit the cause of the church. The general want of schools,
likewise owing