he errs a little in
the date by an inference from Rolfe's narrative, which the words do not
warrant.

The prosperity of Virginia begins with the day when it received, as "a
commonwealth," the freedom to make laws for itself. In a solemn address
to King James, which was made during the government of Sir Francis
Wyatt, and bears the signature of the Governor, Council, and apparently
every member of the Assembly, a contrast is drawn between the former
"miserable bondage," and "this just and gentle authoritye which hath
cherished us of late by more worthy magistrates. And we, our wives and
poor children shall ever pray to God, as our bounden duty is, to give
you in this worlde all increase of happines, and to crowne you in the
worlde to come w^{th} immortall glorye."[H]

A desire has long existed to recover the record of the proceedings of
the Assembly which inaugurated so happy a revolution. Stith was unable
to find it; no traces of it were met by Jefferson; and Hening,[I] and
those who followed Hening, believed it no longer extant. Indeed, it was
given up as hopelessly lost.

Having, during a long period of years, instituted a very thorough
research among the papers relating to America in the British State Paper
Office, partly in person and partly with the assistance of able and
intelligent men employed in that Department, I have at last been so
fortunate as to obtain the "Proceedings of the First Assembly of
Virginia."[5] the document is in the form of "a reporte" from the
Speaker; and is more fall and circumstantial than any subsequent
journal of early legislation in the Ancient Dominion.

Many things are noticeable. The Governor and Council sat with the
Burgesses; and took part in motions and debates. The Secretary of the
Colony was chosen Speaker, and I am not sure that he was a Burgess.[6]
This first American Assembly set the precedent of beginning legislation
with prayer. It is evident that Virginia was then as thoroughly a Church
of England colony, as Connecticut afterwards was a Calvinistic one. The
inauguration of legislative power in the Ancient Dominion preceded the
existence of negro slavery, which we will believe it is destined also to
survive. The earliest Assembly in the oldest of the original thirteen
States, at its first session, took measures "towards the erecting of" a
"University and Colledge." Care was also taken for the education of
Indian children. Extravagance in dress was not prohibited, but t