general use, and become one of the most
considerable staples of America.[30]

[Footnote 30: Robertson.]

{1616}

[Sidenote: Yeardly.]

In the spring of the following year, Sir Thomas Dale sailed for
England, leaving the government in the hands of Mr. George Yeardly,
who, after a lax administration of one year, was succeeded by captain
Argal.

{1617}

[Sidenote: Argal.]

Argal was a man of talents and energy, but selfish, haughty, and
tyrannical. He continued martial law during a season of peace; and a
Mr. Brewster, who was tried under this arbitrary system, for
contemptuous words spoken of the governor, was sentenced to suffer
death. He obtained with difficulty an appeal to the treasurer and
company in England, by whom the sentence was reversed.[31]

[Footnote 31: Robertson. Chalmer. Stith.]

[Sidenote: Mr. Yeardly.]

While martial law was, according to Stith, the common law of the land,
the governor seems to have been the sole legislator. His general
edicts mark the severity of his rule. He ordered that merchandise
should be sold at an advance of twenty-five _per centum_, and tobacco
taken in payment at the rate of three shillings per pound, under the
penalty of three years' servitude to the company; that no person
should traffic privately with the Indians, or teach them the use of
fire arms, under pain of death; that no person should hunt deer or
hogs without the governor's permission; that no man should shoot,
unless in his own necessary defence, until a new supply of ammunition
should arrive, on pain of a year's personal service; that none should
go on board the ships at Jamestown, without the governor's leave; that
every person should go to church on Sundays and holidays, under the
penalty of slavery during the following week for the first offence,
during a month for the second, and during a year and a day for the
third. The rigour of this administration necessarily exciting much
discontent, the complaints of the Virginians at length made their way
to the company. Lord Delawar being dead, Mr. Yeardly was appointed
captain-general, with instructions to examine the wrongs of the
colonists, and to redress them.[32]

[Footnote 32: Robertson. Chalmer. Stith.]

{1619}

The new governor arrived in April, and soon after, to the
inexpressible joy of the inhabitants, declared his determination to
convoke a colonial assembly.

This is an important era in the history of Virginia. Heretofore,