Not only did this admirable charter establish a representative form of government and do away with martial law, but it fairly launched the Virginians on the current of freedom and advancement by authorizing a liberal division of land to all those who had arrived before the departure of Sir Thomas Dale. The oldest land titles in Virginia are deduced from the authority of the Great Charter of 1618. Communism, pernicious everywhere, is at its worst in an infant settlement. "Every man sharked for his own bootie," says a writer on Virginia in 1609, "but was altogether careless of the succeeding penurie." The distribution of land abolished the common stock system of labor, and opened a pathway to the ambition of the diligent. [Sidenote: The good news in Virginia.] [Sidenote: Note 17.] [Sidenote: Tragicall Relation, 1623.] Tidings of the great change wrought in their condition and prospects by the new charter reached the dwellers on the James River in the spring of 1619, and the colonists were "ravished with so much joy" that they felt themselves "now fully satisfied for their long labors and as happy men as there were in the world." They valued their liberties as no man can who has not known the bitterness of bondage, and in 1623, when they had reason to fear the re-establishment of the old tyranny, the Virginia Assembly petitioned the king in these strong words: "Rather than be reduced to live under the like government, we desire his Majesty that commissioners may be sent over to hang us." We have here, perhaps, the very first of the many protests of colonial Legislatures against oppression from England. XVII. [Sidenote: The sending of wives to Virginia.] [Sidenote: Note 18.] [Sidenote: Note 19.]