He had for the populace the greatest contempt. To him they seemed a mere rabble, whose sole function in life was to toil and whose chief duty was to obey strictly the mandates of their rulers. He discouraged education because it bred a spirit of disobedience. "I thank God," he wrote, "there are no free schools and printing (in Virginia) and I hope we shall not have these hundred years; for learning has brought disobedience, and heresy, and sects into the world, and printing has divulged them, and libels against the best governments."[206] That the common people should have a share in the government seemed to him, even more than it had seemed to Charles I, a thing absurd and preposterous. After the Restoration, therefore, he resolved to free himself as far as practicable from all restraint, and to assume an arbitrary and almost absolute power. Berkeley was far better qualified for this task than had been his royal masters the Stuarts. He possessed remarkable vigor and determination, and despite his quick temper was not lacking in tact and diplomacy. With a discrimination and care that marked him as a master in the art of corruption, he tried to make the Assembly dependent upon himself, by bribing the members of both houses. Selecting men that he thought he could most easily manage, he gave to them places of honor and emolument in the colony, some being made collectors, some sheriffs, some justices.[207] The House of Burgesses was entirely corrupted, and so far from seeking to defend the rights of the people they represented, they proved willing instruments to the governor in his attempt to establish absolute power.[208] Nor could the colony correct this evil by returning to the Assembly new burgesses, for Berkeley would not permit an election, and having once won over the House, continued to prorogue it from year to year.[209] For nine years before Bacon's Rebellion there had been no election of burgesses. "In this way," complained the commons of Charles City county, "Berkeley hath soe fortifyed his power over us, as himselfe without respect to our laws, to doe what soever he best pleased."[210]