In July, by a strange mutation of fortune, Pott, the late governor, was tried for cattle-stealing, and convicted. This was the first trial by jury in the colony. It was in 1630 that George Calvert, with his followers, arrived in the colonies; but the details of his experience here and of the disputes about jurisdiction arising out of the grant of the present territory of Maryland, made to him and confirmed to his son in 1632, are given in another chapter.[263] It was under successive grants from the governors in 1627, 1628, and 1629, and from Charles I. in 1631, that William Claiborne had established his trading-posts in the disputed territory, from which he was driven with bloodshed, and by the final decree of the King in 1639 despoiled of £6,000 of property. Harvey—actuated, it has been charged, by motives of private interest—sided with Maryland in the disputes, and rendered himself so obnoxious that an assembly was called for the 7th of May, 1635, to hear complaints against him. Before it met, however, he consented to go to England to answer the charges, and was “thrust out of his government” by the Council on the 28th of April, and Captain John West, a brother of Lord Delaware, was authorized to act as his successor until the King’s pleasure might be known. In 1634 the colony was divided into eight shires,[264] subject, as in England, to the government of a lieutenant.[265] The election of sheriffs, sergeants, and bailiffs was similarly provided for. The King, intolerant of opposition, reinstated the hated Harvey as governor, by commission dated April 2, 1636.[266] During his rule of three years thereafter, no assembly was held. Charles gradually relaxed his policy, and in November, 1639, displaced Harvey with Sir Francis Wyatt, who in turn was succeeded by Sir William Berkeley as governor in February, 1642. During the year three Congregational ministers came from Boston to Virginia to disseminate their doctrines. [Illustration]