Then they had achieved their main point. The representatives, in the colony, of the psalm-singing fanatics of England with their nasal cant and hateful dissent would go now. Silk, and lace, and curling hair would be once more the fashion; the close-cropped wretches in black coats and round hats would fade into the background; and the good old Cavaliers, like the King, would have their own again.

There is no doubt that in Virginia the feeling of joy at the Restoration was enormous. The King's-men suddenly became prominent again. The plantations resounded with revelry. Men, women, and children hailed the new era with immense joy; and Berkeley waiting at Greenspring, as Charles II. had waited at the Hague, returned in triumph, by a vote of the Burgesses, to his place of Governor.

The events of this time have much exercised the historians. Some maintain that the Virginians were good Commonwealth's-men, who submitted to the new régime with reluctant growls. Others will have it that they were all King's-men and "proclaimed " the royal darling of their hearts two years before the English Restoration. Neither statement has any foundation. The great body of the Virginia population was unquestionably Cavalier, and the restoration of the royal authority in England was accompanied by its restoration in Virginia; but the latter did not precede the former. There is no doubt whatever that if the Virginians could have restored the King earlier they would have done so; and Berkeley, who is known to have been in close communication and consultation with the leading Cavaliers, had sent word to Charles II. in Holland, toward the end of the Commonwealth, that he would raise his flag in Vir

ginia if there was a prospect of success. This incident has been called in question. It is testified to by William Lee, Sheriff of London, and a cousin of Richard Lee, Berkeley's emissary, as a fact within his knowledge. Charles declined the offer, but was always grateful to the Virginians. The country is said to have derived from the incident its name of the "Old Dominion," where the King was King, or might have been, before he was King in England; and the motto of the old Virginia shield, "En dat Virginia quartam," in allusion to England, Scotland, Ireland, and Virginia, is supposed to have also originated at this time.

As to the "proclamation," in any sense, of the King about 1658, that is not established and is improbable. Berkeley did not even "proclaim" him when he returned to power in March, 1660. The facts are clearly shown by the records and may be briefly stated.

Cromwell died in September, 1658, and Richard Cromwell, his successor, resigned the government in April of the next year. There was thus an interregnum during which no settled authority of any description existed in England; and Governor Matthews having died in the same year (1659), there was none in Virginia. During this period of suspense and quasi chaos, the General Assembly was the only depositary of authority. This was recognized and prompt action taken. There was

nothing to do but elect a Governor, and the only question was, a Commonwealth's Governor or a royal Governor? There was no Commonwealth, or it had no head; the Cavalier sentiment in Virginia was overpowering; and the Virginians did what might have been expected: they elected Berkeley, who, in 1650, had received a new commission as Governor from Charles II., then at Breda.

It is only necessary to glance at the old records to see the whole process of the business. In March, 1660, the planters assemble at Jamestown, and their first Act defines the whole situation: "Whereas by reason of the late distractions (which God in his mercy putt a suddaine period to), there being in England noe resident absolute and gen'll confessed power, be it enacted and confirmed: That the supreame power of the Government of this country shall be resident in the Assembly, and that all writts issue in the name of the Grand Assembly of Virginia until such a command or commission come out of England, as shall be by the Assembly adjudged lawfull." And the second act declares," that the honourable Sir William Berkeley bee Governour and Captain Gen'll of Virginia." He is to govern according to English and Virginia law; to call an Assembly once in two years, or oftener if he sees cause; is not to dissolve the Assembly without the consent of a majority of the members; and all writs are to issue "in the name of the Grand Assembly of Virginia," not in the King's. Thus Berkeley resumed office, as what he called himself, "the servant of the Assembly." In the absence of orders from some "resident absolute and general confessed power" in England, the Assembly was the only source of authority. Berkeley therefore accepted his authority from it, not from the King; and said in his address before the House: "I do therefore in the presence of God and you, make this safe protestation for us all, that if any supreme settled power appears I will immediately lay down my commission; but will live most. submissively obedient to any power God shall set over me, as the experience of eight years has showed I have done."

All this would seem to be quite plain that Berkeley was invested with power as "Governor and Captain General of Virginia" by the Burgesses of Virginia, and held his office from them. It is true that it was

nearly the same as holding it from the King. The Assembly was full Cavalier, and a single word in their assertion of authority revealed their thought. They assumed the government of Virginia in the absence of any "resident" confessed power in England. The non-resident confessed power was Charles II., then on the Continent, and they thus acknowledged him. When he came to his throne again in May following this March, he sent Berkeley a new commission; and in October of the same year (1660), the ruler of Virginia is again "the Right Honourable Sir William Berkeley, his Majesties Governor."

So the exile of Greenspring, after all his ups and downs, comes back to his Jamestown "State House," and will remain there in peace until Bacon marches to thrust him out, and put the torch to it.

XI.

VIRGINIA ON THE EVE OF THE REBELLION.

VIRGINIA had thus come back to the royal fold, not suspecting that she was about to be fleeced. As yet, however, there were no heart-burnings, and the only event which disturbed the harmony of the time was without significance.

This was the "Oliverian Plot," as it was called at the time, in September, 1663. A number of indented servants conspired to "anticipate the period of their

freedom," and made an appointment to assemble at Poplar Spring in Gloucester, with what precise designs it is now impossible to discover. They were betrayed by one of their number; and Berkeley promptly arrested all who had assembled, four of whom were duly hanged. No men of any consideration were engaged in the plot, and its only result was that the Burgesses ordered that thenceforth twenty guardsmen and an officer should attend upon the House and the Governor (1663).

The stigma of the time was the merciless intolerance towards the Friends, or Quakers. Here as elsewhere in America they were treated with a harshness which disgraces the epoch. They were denounced as "turbulent people teaching lies, miracles, false visions and prophecies," as disorganizers and enemies of society. They were to be fined for non-attendance on the services of the Established Church. They were not to attend their own conventicles, and no ship-master was to bring them into the colony. No person was to receive them into his house; and Mr. John Porter, Burgess from Lower Norfolk, charged with being "loving to the Quakers," was dismissed from the Assembly as one unworthy to sit in it. The poor Quakers were to go out of Virginia and no more were to come in. If they insisted on returning they were to be treated as felons.

There were other classes of people, also, who were looked upon with the same evil eye; among them the new sect of Baptists, "schismatical persons so averse to the established religion, and so filled with the newfangled conceits of their heretical inventions as to refuse to have their children baptized." Their own ceremony was, of course, a mockery, and all refusing "in contempt of the divine sacrament of baptism to carry