The king, in order to procure additional evidence to be used against the company, appointed five commissioners to make inquiries in Virginia into the state and condition of the colony. In November, 1623, when two of these commissioners had just sailed for Virginia, the king ordered a writ of _quo warranto_ to be issued against the Virginia Company. In the colony, hitherto, the proclamations of the governors, which had formed the rule of action, were now enacted into laws; and it was declared that the governor should no more impose taxes on the colonists without the consent of the Assembly, and that he should not withdraw the inhabitants from their private labor to any service of his; and further, that the burgesses should be free from arrest during the session of the Assembly. These acts of the legislature of the infant colony, while under the control of the Virginia Company, render it certain that there was more of constitutional and well-regulated freedom in Virginia then, than in the mother country. Of the commissioners appointed to make inquiries in Virginia, John Harvey and John Pory arrived there early in 1624; Samuel Matthews and Abraham Percy were planters resident in the colony, and the latter a member of the House of Burgesses; John Jefferson, the other commissioner, did not come over to Virginia, nor did he take any part in the matter, being a hearty friend to the company.[172:A] Thomas Jefferson, in his memoir of himself,[172:B] says that one of his name was secretary to the Virginia Company. The Virginia planters at first looking on it as a dispute between the crown and the company, in which they were not essentially interested, paid little attention to it; but two petitions, defamatory of the colony and laudatory of Sir Thomas Smith's arbitrary rule, having come to the knowledge of the Assembly, in February, 1624, that body prepared spirited replies, and drafted a petition to the king, which, with a letter to the privy council, and other papers, were entrusted to Mr. John Pountis, a member of the council.[173:A] He died during the voyage to England. The letter addressed to the privy council prayed "that the governors may not have absolute power, that they might still retain the liberty of popular assemblies, than which nothing could more conduce to the public satisfaction and public utility." At the same time the Virginia Company, in England, presented a petition to the House of Commons against the arbitrary proceedings of the king; but although favorably received, it was withdrawn as soon as the king's disapprobation was announced.