In the meanwhile, the people of Virginia awaited anxiously. Would the King abolish the Assembly? Would another Dale or Argall be sent over for a new reign of terror? They had opposed the dissolution of the Company because they feared it might lead to the abolishing of representative government. Now that the Company no longer existed they pleaded earnestly to be permitted to keep the Assembly. In June, 1625, the Governor and Council wrote the Privy Council asking that the "liberty, of General Assembleys" be continued in order "to avoid the oppressions of Governors." This letter they entrusted to Sir George Yeardley, who sailed with it for England and laid it before the Privy Council.[25] This body hastened to assure the Virginians that the King "doth take all the country and people into his royal protection and government," and that they were to enjoy all their former privileges. Still they made no promise that the people should have a voice in the government. And the King, because of "many other urgent occasions," still delayed making a permanent settlement of Virginia affairs. At last, in March, 1626, he appointed Yeardley to succeed Wyatt, with orders to "continue the same means that was formerly thought fit for the maintenance of the said colony." Wyatt and Yeardley were men of a different stamp from Dale and Argall. Had they chosen to do so, they could have ruled the colony with no restraint save from the Council. But they preferred to keep alive the spark of representative government. So they called together unofficial gatherings of leading citizens to sit with the Governor and the Council instead of the House of Burgesses. This body they called the "Governor, Council, and the colony of Virginia assembled together."[26] The Assembly of 1624 was automatically dissolved by the death of James I. So there must have been a new election, since the unofficial House of Burgesses, had they been appointed by the Governor and Council, would not have presumed to tax the people for the funds necessary for carrying on the government. As there was no legal authority for the gatherings their acts were translated into proclamations.[27] Legal authority came in an unexpected way. With the demonstration by John Rolfe, the man who married Pocahontas, that tobacco could be raised in Virginia, the Indian weed had become more and more the staple of the colony. Had it been assured of a monopoly of the English market by the exclusion of foreign tobacco and the prohibition of tobacco planting in England, and not hampered by high custom duties, it would have brought prosperity and rapid growth.[28] But both James and Charles were constantly in need of money, and the revenue from the duty on Spanish tobacco had been important to them. So in excluding all foreign leaf they sought to make good their losses from Virginia tobacco.