Sir William Berkeley was elected governor by the General Assembly of Virginia two months before the Restoration, and, acknowledging himself as “the servant of the assembly,” he accepted the appointment from their hands. But Virginia, speaking from the heart of her faithful loyalist settlers, even then acknowledged a secret hope of a restored monarchy. The Restoration took place, and Virginia, like England, set no bounds to the expression of her joy. An address was sent to the king, “praying his pardon for their having yielded to a power they were unable to resist.” Forty-four thousand pounds of tobacco were given to the two deputies who conveyed the address. Charles transmitted a royal commission to “his faithful adherent,” Berkeley; and Berkeley, assuming authority under it, issued writs for the election of a new assembly, no longer as governor elected by the people, but as commissioner under the king. The loyal enthusiasm and aristocratic tendencies of the people elected for this new assembly only landholders and cavaliers. The democratic power of Virginia was at an end. Momentous changes had already begun, not alone in her constitution, but in the social condition of her people. Of this social condition a few words must be allowed us. There has always been in the character of the southern states “an instinctive aversion to too much government.” This showed itself early in Virginia by the isolated manner in which the country was colonised. Unlike the New England colonists, the spirit of whose life was organisation and government; who, naturally forming themselves into communities, established towns with corporate authorities; who regarded religions instruction as the first concern, and secular instruction as the second; who, while yet small as a people, branched out into colonies, and impelled by the spirit of commercial activity, traded to all parts of the world; unlike these determined, energetic, and expansive settlers, the people of Virginia showed from the first an aversion to congregate in towns, or to engage in commerce. They lived on their plantations, scattered over the colony, like the estates of the nobility in an old country, and were themselves influenced by the spirit of feudal institutions.