The church government was settled by giving the people the entire control of the vestry; while the appointment of ministers and church wardens, the care of the poor, and parochial matters, were entrusted to the people of each parish. An act was passed for the keeping holy the Sabbath, and another against divulgers of false news. The ordinary weight of a hogshead of tobacco at this time did not exceed three hundred and fifty pounds, and its dimensions by law were forty-three inches long and twenty-six wide. Letters, superscribed "For the Public Service," were ordered to be conveyed from one plantation to another, to the place of destination. A remedy was provided for servants complaining of harsh usage, or of insufficient food or raiment. The penalty for selling arms or ammunition to the Indians was the forfeiture of the offender's whole estate. It was enacted that no sheriff, or deputy sheriff, then called under-sheriff, should hold his office longer than one year in any one county. The penalty of being reduced to servitude was abolished. The twenty-second day of March and the eighteenth of April were still kept as holy days, in commemoration of the deliverance of the colonists from the bloody Indian massacres of 1622 and 1644. The planters were prohibited from encroaching upon the lands of the Indians. The vessels of all nations were admitted into the ports of Virginia; and an impost duty of ten shillings a hogshead was laid on all tobacco exported, except that laden in English vessels, and bound directly for England; from the payment of which duty vessels belonging to Virginians were afterwards exempted. An act was passed to prohibit the kidnapping of Indian children. In the year 1656 all acts against mercenary attorneys were repealed; but two years afterwards attorneys were again expelled from the courts,[237:A] and no one was suffered to receive any compensation for serving in that capacity. The governor and council made serious opposition to this act, and the following communication was made to the house of burgesses: "The governor and council will consent to this proposition so far as shall be agreeable to Magna Charta. WM. CLAYBORNE." The burgesses replied, that they could not see any such prohibition contained in Magna Charta; that two former assemblies had passed such a law, and that it had stood in force upwards of ten years. It thus appears that Magna Charta was held to be in force in the colony. The ground leaves of tobacco, or lugs, were declared to be not merchantable; and it was ordered that no tobacco should be planted after the tenth day of July, under the penalty of a fine of ten thousand pounds of that staple. The exportation of hides, wool, and old iron, was forbidden. The salary of the governor, derived from the impost duty on tobacco exported, was fixed at sixteen hundred pounds sterling.