The conflict between King and Parliament foreshadowed the conflict between the Governors and the people of the colonies. The provincial Assemblies were not less determined to resist any infringement on their rights than was Parliament. And the fortunes of the contending forces in the mother country affected profoundly those in the colonies. Echoes of the First Stuart Despotism, the Civil War and Commonwealth, the Restoration, the Second Stuart Despotism, the Glorious Revolution, the laissez-faire period, and the reaction under George III reverberated in the colonies. But the development of self-government in America was by no means entirely dependent upon events in England. There were forces in the New World which favored democracy. The wide spaces of the frontier made men self-reliant and resourceful and impatient of control by a distant monarch, ever ready to defend old rights, quick to demand new ones. "People remote from the seat of government are always remarkable for their disobedience," wrote Governor Gooch, in 1732.[3] As the historian Foote has pointed out, they and "their children were republicans; in England they would have been styled rebels." The creating of a vast middle class in the colonies also tended toward democracy. The men who turned their backs on the homes of their ancestors to start life over again in the tobacco fields of Virginia were, most of them, desperately poor. Many came under terms of indenture. But they had, prior to the introduction of slaves in large numbers, every opportunity to rise. As a result there emerged a vigorous, intelligent, freedom-loving yeomanry, who had a profound influence in winning self-government. But the victory at first seemed to be with the King. When James granted a charter to the Virginia Company of London, he took care that it should include no provision for representative government. Instead he kept the control of the proposed colony in his own hands. There was to be a Council resident in England appointed by him and responsible to him. This body was to name another Council which was to reside in Virginia and administer the "Articles, Instructions, and Orders" which the King drew up with his own hand. In practice this body assumed administrative, legislative, and judicial powers, and ruled the infant colony by their own arbitrary will.[4] Not only was this constitution undemocratic, but it proved inefficient. Had the Council in England made better selections for the Council in Virginia, the colony would have been saved much disorder and suffering. But never was there a more quarrelsome set of men. The fleet had been at sea but a few days when Captain John Smith was accused of plotting to overthrow the government and murder his associates, and was kept in prison below decks. Only some weeks after the landing at Jamestown was he released and permitted to take his seat on the Council.[5]