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 the ministers were to profit by a tax on excess in apparel. On the whole, the record of these Proceedings will justify the opinion of Sir Edward Sandys, that "they were very well and judiciously carried." The different functions of government may have been confounded and the laws were not framed according to any speculative theory; but a perpetual interest attaches to the first elective body representing the people of Virginia, more than a year before the Mayflower, with the Pilgrims, left the harbor of Southampton, and while Virginia was still the oldest British Colony on the whole Continent of America. GEORGE BANCROFT. NEW YORK, _October 3, 1856_. [A] "A Briefe Declaration of the Plantation of Virginia during the first twelve yeares, when Sir Thomas Smyth was Governor, of the Companie, and downe to this present tyme. By the Ancient Planters now remaining alive in Virginia."--_MS. in my possession._[2] [B] "A Briefe Declaration," &c. [C] "A Briefe Declaration," &c. [D] "Proceedings of the first Assembly," now first printed in this volume. [1] "Henrico, now Richmond," is a grievous error. "Henrico, or Henricus, was situated ten miles below the present site of Richmond, on the main land, to which the peninsula known as Farrar's Island was joined." See footnote Q.--ED. [2] This document is the third in this collection. It is printed from the copy obtained by Col. McDonald.--ED. [E] Smith's Generall Historie of Virginia, Richmond edition, Vol. ii. pp. 38, 39. [F] See Beverley's History of Virginia, p. 37 of the first edition, and p. 35 of the second.[3] [G] Stith's History of Virginia p. 160, Williamsburg edition.[4] [H] MS. Copy of Address of Sir Francis Wyatt, &c., &c., to King James I., signed by Sir Francis Wyatt and 32 others. [I] Hening's Statutes at Large, I., p. 119. refers to the acts of 1623-'4 as "the earliest now extant." [3] "These Burgesses met the Governor and Council at Jamestown in 1620, and sat in consultation in the same house with them as the method of the Scots Parliament is." "This was the first Generall Assembly that ever was held there."--Beverley.--ED.