The people of Virginia were well aware that they were to share in this liberty. In an address to the King and Queen, the Assembly gave them heartfelt thanks for "so magnanimously exposing" their persons in rescuing them, their religion, laws, and liberties from the twin evils of slavery and popery. They begged them, while extending their justice and goodness over the English nation, not to forget their faithful subjects in Virginia. They, too, were "descended of Englishmen," and had the right to enjoy "the just and lawful liberties and privileges of free born" Englishmen.[1] In this they were not disappointed. During the next seventy-five years they advanced steadily along the road to liberty. From time to time they had to contend with despotically inclined Governors, but these men, prior to the reign of George III, in assailing the rights of the people acted on their own initiative rather than at the command of the King. By the middle of the eighteenth century Virginia had become in internal affairs practically a self-governing dominion. People began to say openly that final authority rested, not with the King, but with the people, and that governments derived their powers from the consent of the governed. This trend was noted early in the eighteenth century. As early as 1706 Colonel Quary warned the English government of what was coming. A few years later Governor Spotswood wrote: "If the ancient and legal rights of the Crown must give place to the later customs of an infant colony, especially if the practice and usage which ... men would introduce shall be of greater force, the prince's power and authority must daily lose ground here."[2] It was a slow, almost imperceptible process. But year after year the Burgesses whittled away at the powers of the Governor, until, after the passage of decades, the change became apparent to all. Berkeley, Culpeper, and Effingham had exercised almost dictatorial powers; Gooch, Fauquier, and Botetourt ate out of the hands of the Assembly. Whereas the Governors of the seventeenth century commanded and threatened, those of the mid-eighteenth century pleaded. On one occasion Governor Fauquier wrote the Lords of Trade that he had signed a bill, not because he approved of it, but because had he vetoed it he "must have despaired of ever gaining any influence either in the Council or House of Burgesses."