From this assembly, the royal commissioners endeavoured, in vain, to procure an address to the King, professing "their willingness to submit themselves to his princely pleasure, in revoking the ancient patents;" but a petition was agreed to and transmitted, acknowledging their satisfaction at his having taken the plantation into his more especial care, beseeching him to continue the then form of government, to confirm to Virginia and the Somers isles, the sole importation of tobacco, and soliciting that, if the promised aid of soldiers should be granted them, the governor and assembly might have a voice in directing their operations. Virginia having thus become a royal government, the King issued a special commission, appointing a governor and twelve councillors, to whom the entire direction of the affairs of the province was committed. No assembly was mentioned, nor was it intended to permit the continuance of that body, for, to the popular shape of the late system, James attributed the disasters of the colony. But some attention to their interests, was mingled with this subversion of political liberty. Yielding to the petitions of the English parliament and of the colonists, he issued a proclamation prohibiting the growth of tobacco in the kingdom, and the importation of it into England or Ireland, except from Virginia, or the Somers isles, and in vessels belonging to his subjects. His death prevented the completion of a legislative code for the colony, which he had commenced, and which he flattered himself, would remedy all the ills that had been experienced. [Sidenote: Charles I.] [Sidenote: Arbitrary measures of the crown.] {1625} Charles I. adopted, in its full extent, the colonial system of his father. He committed to Sir George Yeardly, whom he appointed governor of Virginia, and to his council, the whole legislative and executive powers of the colony, with instructions to conform exactly to orders which should be received from him. They were empowered to make laws and to execute them; to impose taxes, and to enforce the payment of them; to seize the property of the late company; and to apply it to the public use; and to transport the colonists to England, to be punished there for crimes committed in Virginia. To complete this hateful system, the crown exacted a monopoly of the tobacco trade, and appointed agents, to whose management that article was entirely committed.[38] [Footnote 38: Robertson. Chalmer. Stith.] {1629} [Sidenote: Sir John Harvey.] {1636}