o contracted was made of
higher dignity than any other.]

[Sidenote: and of convicts.]

About the same time the company received orders from the King to
convey to Virginia one hundred idle and dissolute persons, then in
custody of the knight marshal. These were the first convicts
transported to America. The policy which dictated this measure was
soon perceived to be not less wise than it was humane. Men who, in
Europe, were the pests of the body politic, made an acceptable
addition to the stock of labour in the colony; and, in a new world,
where the temptations to crime seldom presented themselves, many of
them became useful members of society.

{1621}

[Sidenote: African slaves.]

Heretofore the commerce of Virginia had been engrossed by the
corporation. In the year 1620, this distressing and unprofitable
monopoly was given up, and the trade was open to all. The free
competition produced by this change of system was of essential
advantage to the colony, but was the immediate cause of introducing a
species of population which has had vast influence on the past, and
may affect the future destinies of America, to an extent which human
wisdom can neither foresee nor control. A Dutch vessel, availing
itself of this commercial liberty, brought into James river twenty
Africans, who were immediately purchased as slaves.[35]

[Footnote 35: Robertson. Chalmer. Stith.]

[Sidenote: Two councils established.]

In July, the company passed an ordinance establishing a frame of
government for the colony. This instrument provided that there should
be two supreme councils in Virginia, the one to be called the Council
of State, to be appointed and displaced by the treasurer and company,
and to assist the governor with advice on executive subjects; the
other to be denominated the General Assembly, and to consist of the
governor, the council of state, and burgesses; to be chosen for the
present, by the inhabitants of every town, hundred, or settlement, in
the colony, two for each. The assembly was empowered to enact general
laws for the government of the colony, reserving a negative to the
governor. Its acts were not to be in force until confirmed by the
general court in England, and the ratification returned under its
seal. On the other hand, no order of the general court was to bind the
colony until assented to by the assembly.

{1622}

A controversy concerning the importation of tobacco into the European
dominion