Give Me Liberty: The Struggle for Self-Government in VirginiaWertenbaker, Thomas Jefferson
History
Give Me Liberty: The Struggle for Self-Government in Virginia
Wertenbaker, Thomas Jefferson
Virginia -- Politics and government -- To 1775
The Privy Council answered by warning both sides to put an end to their
disputes and cooperate with each other in advancing the good of the
colony. So they drew up and signed a formal reconciliation. They
promised "to swallow up and bury" all complaints, and to turn their
"alienated and distempered" minds to thoughts of love and peace. The
Councillors vowed to give the Governor "all the service, honor, and due
respect which belongs to him as his Majesty's substitute."[19]
The reconciliation proved a sham. Harvey continued to be overbearing and
arbitrary; the Councillors were as bitter as ever. When one of them,
Thomas Hinton, in an outburst of anger gave Harvey some "ill words," he
ousted him from his seat. Love and peace were far indeed from the
Governor's mind when he responded to some "ill language" from Captain
Richard Stevens by landing a blow in his face with a cudgel and knocking
out some of his teeth.[20]
In 1634 a certain Captain Thomas Young arrived in Virginia with a
commission from the King authorizing him to discover and search the
unexplored parts of the colony. Needing two shallops, and hearing that
one of the planters had an indentured worker who was a skilled
shipwright, he seized him and put him to work. In this violation of
property rights he was supported by the Governor. But it aroused the
anger of the Council, and several of them came to Harvey to demand an
explanation.
Harvey may have had in mind the Forced Loans as a precedent for taking
the property of the subject, when he replied that his Majesty had given
Young "authority to make use of any persons he found there." Young
needed the shipwright "to prosecute with speed the King's service," he
said. Speaking for the others, Samuel Mathews retorted angrily that if
things were done in that fashion it would breed ill blood in Virginia.
Turning his back he whirled a truncheon he carried in his hand, and
lashed off the heads of some high weeds.[21] The Governor, ignoring
this, said: "Come, gentlemen, let us go to supper, and for the night
leave this discourse." But they were in no humor to be appeased. With
one accord they turned their backs and left "in a very irreverent
manner."
The Virginians were further embittered against Harvey for the aid he
gave to Lord Baltimore's settlers. It was on February 27, 1634, that the
_Ark_ and the _Dove_, with Leonard and George Calvert, twenty "gentlemen
adventurers," and three-hundred laborers, arrived at Point Comfort. They
bore a letter to the Governor from the King requiring him to treat them
with courtesy and respect, permit them to buy cattle and other
commodities, and do all he could to advance their settlement.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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