tion of the movement towards the frontier is
shown in the report to the same Assembly by the sheriffs of Isle of
Wight County and Elizabeth City County, both at the mouth of the James
River, that their counties were overrated in the tax lists of "tithable"
persons by thirty-eight and thirty-two persons respectively. The
Assembly ordered that their tax allotments should be reduced accordingly
and laid upon Lancaster County "where they are increased since the last
year's list 152 persons." An act of the Assembly of March 1658 similarly
took note of the numbers of inhabitants who had "deserted their
plantations and receded into the bay of Chisapeake" without having
satisfied their creditors. It prescribed penalties for removing without
notice.

Bills guaranteeing the Indians their lands, justice, and personal
freedom continued to pass. The acts freely admitted that previous
guarantees to this effect had been ineffective and that "manie English
doe still intrench upon the said Indians' land," which the Assembly
conceived to be "contrary to justice, and the true intent of the English
plantation in this country." Nevertheless attempts to legislate justice
for the Indians continued. It could not be done. The power of the
Assembly's acts was not equal to the power of the frontiersmen's
muskets. However, the acts of the Assembly were not without effect, and
in many cases served their purpose. One of the most notable acts of this
Assembly provided that no grants of land should be made to any
Englishman in the future until the Indians had first been guaranteed
fifty acres for each bowman. The good intent of this act seems to have
been a direct consequence of the practice that had arisen in the
preceding years of granting patents to Englishmen for land occupied by
the Indians. It was an attempt to make sure that the Indians would not
be wholly dispossessed to satisfy the land hunger of the English.

[Illustration: National Portrait Gallery, London

OLIVER CROMWELL

Painting by Robert Walker]

PARLIAMENTARY GOVERNORS, 1652-1659

Early writers on Virginia history tended to overemphasize how completely
affairs in Virginia during the Commonwealth and Protectorate periods
were in the hands of the House of Burgesses. Still, the House did assume
to itself many of the powers of government in the period and asserted
its ultimate authority in all other matters. It took this position out
of necessity, and always with the proviso that