It would be impossible to gain a faithful picture of the time without a knowledge of the nature of some of these grievances. Most of them were summed up in the melancholy and inharmonious cry of "hard times," which made itself heard throughout the broad land--a cry which in whatsoever country or time it be raised invariably gives rise to discontent with the existing government, and, in extreme cases, brings with it a readiness on the part of the distressed ones to catch at any measure, try any experiment that seems to hold out promise of relief. One cause of the poverty of the people of Virginia in 1676 was to be found in the low price of tobacco--the sole money product of the colony--through a long series of years. For this and the consequent suffering the government was, of course, not responsible. Indeed, it sought to find a remedy by attempting to bring about, for a time, a general cessation of tobacco culture in the colonies. A scheme to better the condition of the people by introducing diversified industries was also started, and with this end in view tanneries were established in each county, and an effort was made to build new towns in several places, but it soon became plain that they could not be maintained. These unhappy attempts became, by increasing the taxes, merely fresh causes of discontent. Yet, while they were blunders, they were well meant, and in accordance with the spirit of the times. Giving the government all honor due for taking even these misguided steps in behalf of the people, it must be confessed that there were other troubles greatly to its discredit. The heaviest of these were the long continued Assembly,--while the people clamored, justly, for a new election,--the oppressive taxes, and the Indian troubles. As early as 1624 the Virginia Assembly had declared that the Governor (for all he was his Majesty's representative) could not levy taxes against the will of the Burgesses, which, since the Burgesses were supposed to represent the people, was as much as to say against the will of the people. Governor Berkeley's Burgesses, however, did not represent the people. The Assembly chosen in 1862, and composed almost entirely of sympathizers with the Governor, was so much to the old man's mind that, saying that "men were more valuable in any calling, in proportion to their experience," he refused to permit a new election, and the consequence was that in the thirteen years before our story opens, during which this Assembly sat under Sir William's influence, he had brought it up to his hand, as it were, and it had ceased to represent anything but its own and the Governor's interests.