The Assembly assumed from the first that it was to be the Parliament of Virginia. But they realized that they must make no laws which contravened those of England, or the charter, or the instructions of the London Company. During the first session, acts were passed concerning the Church, Indian affairs, land patents, morality, prices, trade, etc. But by far the most important law was one ordering "that every man and man servant above sixteen years of age shall pay into the hands and custody of the Burgesses ... one pound of the best tobacco."[18] The control of taxation by the representatives of the people was to play a vital role in the development of self-government in America. It was based on the fact, universally recognized by Englishmen, that no power had the right to take a man's property without his own consent. A century after the first session of the Virginia Assembly the New York Assembly reminded Governor Robert Hunter that their inherent right "to dispose of the money of the freemen" did "not proceed from any commission, letters patent, or other grant from the Crown, but from the free choice and election of the people, who ought not to be divested of their property (nor justly can) without their consent." Similarly the Virginia House of Burgesses declared: "The rights of the subjects are so secured by law that they cannot be deprived of the least part of their property but by their own consent." The Virginia Assembly of 1619, when they assumed the right to tax the people, probably did not realize that they were laying the cornerstone of the structure of American liberty. Yet it was the control of taxation by the representatives of the people in all the colonies which made it possible to win victory after victory over the royal Governors. It is an old saying that one dare not quarrel with one's paymaster. Yet that was just what most of the Governors had to do. They needed money, money to cover their own salaries, money with which to pay other government officials, money to raise and equip men to fight the Indians, or the Dutch, or the French. The price they had to pay was a part of the royal prerogative. It is to be noted that the money raised by the levy of 1619 in Virginia was to be paid, not to the Governor or to a Treasurer appointed by the Governor, but to the Burgesses. The question of who was to receive the revenues and who to decide upon their use was second in importance only to who had the right to levy taxes. It was to give rise to many disputes between Governors and Burgesses. The people of Virginia in their happiness in the setting up of representative government seem to have overlooked the King's hostility. But they could not have expected him to assent meekly to the duplication in the infant colony of the Parliament, the body which was causing him so much trouble and vexation. They might have been warned of what was coming when James threw Sir Edwin Sandys in the Tower.