Page:Notes on the State of Virginia (1853).djvu/137

Rh these laws should have no force till ratified in a general quarter court of the company in England, and returned under their common seal; and declaring that, after the government of the colony should be well framed and settled, no orders of the council in England should bind the colony unless ratified in the said General Assembly. The King and company quarrelled, and, by a mixture of law and force, the latter were ousted of all their rights, without retribution, after having expended £100,000 in establishing the colony, without the smallest aid from Government. King James suspended their powers by proclamation of July 15, 1624, and Charles I. took the Government into his own hands. Both sides had their partizans in the colony; but, in truth, the people of the colony in general thought themselves little concerned in the dispute. There being three parties interested in these several charters, what passed between the first and second it was thought could not affect the third. If the King seized on the powers of the company, they only passed into other hands, without increase or diminution, while the rights of the people remained as they were. But they did not remain so long. The Northern parts of their country were granted away to the Lords Baltimore and Fairfax, the first of these obtaining also the rights of separate jurisdiction and government. And in 1650 the Parliament, considering itself as standing in the place of their deposed King, and as having succeeded to all his powers, without as well as within the realm, began to assume a right over the colonies, passing an act for inhibiting their trade with foreign nations. This succession to the exercise of the kingly authority gave the first color for parliamentary interference with the colonies, and produced that fatal precedent which they continued to follow after they had retired, in other respects, within their proper functions. When this colony, therefore, which still maintained its opposition to Cromwell and the Parliament, was induced in 1651 to lay down their arms, they previously secured their most essential rights, by a solemn convention, which having never seen in print, I will here insert literally from the records: