of towns, and for
other purposes, in addition to the usual expenses of maintaining the
government itself. On all sides the people protested with bitterness.
They declared the taxes excessive and unnecessary, and in more than
one instance the approach of the collectors precipitated a riot. The
fact that much of the money was appropriated, not to the purposes to
which it was intended, but to the private use of individuals, was
galling in the extreme to the poor people of the colony.[214] This
abuse was especially notorious in the fort bill of 1672. The people of
Charles City county declared after the Rebellion that large sums had
been levied "for building and erecting forts which were never finished
but suffered to go to ruine, the artillery buried in sand and spoyled
with rust and want of care, the ammunition imbezzled...." They
complained also of mismanagement and fraud in connection with the
bills passed for fostering manufacture in the colony. "Great
quantities of tobacco have been raised on us," they said, "for
building work houses and stoure houses and other houses for the
propogating and encouragement of handicraft and manufactury ... yet
for want of due care the said houses were never finished or made
useful ... and noe good ever effected ... save the particular profitt
of the undertakers, who (as is usually in such cases) were largely
rewarded for thus defrauding us."

The expense of maintaining the Assembly itself was very heavy. This
body not only added to the distress of the people by its corrupt and
unwise legislation, but drained their resources by frequent and
extended meetings, the cost of which was defrayed by taxation. The
people of Surry county stated "that ye last Assembly (before the
rebellion) continued many years and by their frequent meeting, being
once every yeare, hath been a continuall charge and burthen to the
poore inhabitants of this collony; and that the burgesses of the said
Assembly had 150lb tobacco p day for each member, they usually
continueing there three or 4 weeks togither, did arise to a great
some."

This taxation would have been oppressive at any time, but coming as it
did at a period when the colony was suffering severely from the
Navigation Acts, and when the price of tobacco was so low that the
smaller planters could hardly cultivate it with profit, the effect was
crushing. The middle class during this period lost greatly in material
prosperity. Many that had been well-to-d