which he was held by the people. In March 1651 they met to
consider the Parliamentary threat to their beliefs and to their
livelihood. Sir William Berkeley spoke to them on the subject of
Parliament's claim to speak for the English nation. Said the Governor:

If the whole current of their reasoning were not as ridiculous, as
their actions have been tyrannicall and bloudy, we might wonder with
what browes they could sustaine such impertinent assertions: For if
you looke into it, the strength of their argument runs onely thus:
we have laid violent hands on your land-lord, possessed his manner
house where you used to pay your rents, therfore now tender your
respects to the same house you once reverenced.... They talke indeed
of money laid out on this country in its infancy: I will not say how
little, nor how centuply repaid, but will onely aske, was it
theirs?... Surely Gentlemen we are more slaves by nature, then their
power can make us if we suffer our selves to be shaken with these
paper bulletts, and those on my life are the heaviest they either
can or will send us.

Berkeley was confident that if Virginia put up a determined resistance,
the new English rulers would beg the colony to trade with them. He
compared the state of England with the state of Virginia, to the
disadvantage of the former. The Parliamentary government of England, he
asserted, did not represent the will of the people who would not endure
their "slavery, if the sword at their throats did not compell them to
languish under the misery they howrely suffer." As for Virginia, "there
is not here an arbitrary hand that dares to touch the substance of
either poore or rich." Berkeley called on the Burgesses to support his
stand against the act, asking:

What is it can be hoped for in a change, which we have not allready?
Is it liberty? The sun looks not on a people more free then we are
from all oppression. Is it wealth? Hundreds of examples shew us that
industry and thrift in a short time may bring us to as high a degree
of it, as the country and our conditions are yet capable of: Is it
securely to enjoy this wealth when gotten? With out blushing I will
speake it, I am confident theare lives not that person can accuse me
of attempting the least act against any mans property. Is it peace?
The Indians, God be blessed round about us are subdued; we can onely
feare th