ost hot-headed and hard-hearted of
prelates," William Laud, became Bishop of London, and in 1633 Archbishop
of Canterbury. But the Puritan principles of duty and liberty already
planted in Virginia were not destined to be eradicated.

From the year 1619, a settlement at Nansemond, near Norfolk, had
prospered, and had been in relations of trade with New England. In 1642
Philip Bennett, of Nansemond, visiting Boston in his coasting vessel,
bore with him a letter to the Boston church, signed by seventy-four
names, stating the needs of their great county, now without a pastor,
and offering a maintenance to three good ministers if they could be
found. A little later William Durand, of the same county, wrote for
himself and his neighbors to John Davenport, of New Haven, to whom some
of them had listened gladly in London (perhaps it was when he preached
the first annual sermon before the Virginia Company in 1621), speaking
of "a revival of piety" among them, and urging the request that had been
sent to the church in Boston. As result of this correspondence, three
eminently learned and faithful ministers of New England came to
Virginia, bringing letters of commendation from Governor Winthrop. But
they found that Virginia, now become a royal colony, had no welcome for
them. The newly arrived royal governor, Sir William Berkeley, a man
after Laud's own heart, forbade their preaching; but the Catholic
governor of Maryland sent them a free invitation, and one of them,
removing to Annapolis with some of the Virginia Puritans, so labored in
the gospel as to draw forth the public thanks of the legislative
assembly.

The sequel of this story is a strange one. There must have been somewhat
in the character and bearing of these silenced and banished ministers
that touched the heart of Thomas Harrison, the governor's chaplain. He
made a confession of his insincere dealings toward them: that while he
had been showing them "a fair face" he had privately used his influence
to have them silenced. He himself began to preach in that earnest way of
righteousness, temperance, and judgment, which is fitted to make
governors tremble, until Berkeley cast him out as a Puritan, saying that
he did not wish so grave a chaplain; whereupon Harrison crossed the
river to Nansemond, became pastor of the church, and mightily built up
the cause which he had sought to destroy.

A few months later the Nansemond people had the opportunity of giving
succor and