Digges was instructed to unite with Matthews and Bennet, in London, and to treat with the leading merchants in the Virginia trade, and to let them know how much the assembly had endeavored to diminish the quantity, and improve the quality of the tobacco; and to see what the merchants, on their part, would be willing to do in giving a better price; for if the planters should find that the bad brought as high a price as the good, they would of course raise that which could be raised the most easily.[236:A] It appears that Digges was appointed agent conjointly with Bennet. Matthews was elected by the assembly to succeed Digges as governor; but the latter was requested to hold the office as long as he should remain in Virginia. Digges departing for England toward the close of 1655, would appear to have co-operated for a short while with both Matthews and Bennet. By a singular coincidence, Digges, Matthews, and Bennet, who were the first three governors of Virginia under the Commonwealth of England, were transferred from the miniature metropolis, Jamestown, and found themselves together near the court of his Highness the Lord Protector, Oliver Cromwell. Digges was succeeded as governor by Matthews, early in the year 1656. The laws of the colony were revised, and reduced into one volume, comprising one hundred and thirty-one acts, well adapted to the wants of the people and the condition of the country. Of the transactions from 1656 to 1660, the year of the restoration, Burk says there is an entire chasm in the records; Hening, on the contrary, declares that, "in no portion of the colonial records under the Commonwealth, are the materials so copious as from 1656 to 1660." The editor of the Statutes at Large is the better authority on this point.