e Assembly; assessed, levied, held, and
disbursed the colonial revenue without check or responsibility;
transplanted into Virginia exotic English statutes; multiplied penalties
and exactions and appropriated fines to his own use; he added the
decrees of the court of high commission of England to the ecclesiastical
constitutions of Virginia." Could we have a more perfect description of
a despot?

It remains to point out a few errors which crept into the original
manuscript. On page 21 "the falls of the Appomattox" should be "the
first bend of the Appomattox"; on page 75 "John Pott" should be "Francis
Pott"; on page 82 "Matthew Kemp" should be "Richard Kemp".

_Princeton, New Jersey_ Thomas J. Wertenbaker
_August, 1957_

CONTENTS

ABBREVIATIONS USED IN NOTES xi

CHAPTER I--The Founding of Virginia 1

CHAPTER II--The Establishment of Representative Government 29

CHAPTER III--The Expulsion of Sir John Harvey 60

CHAPTER IV--Governor Berkeley and the Commonwealth 85

CHAPTER V--The Causes of Bacon's Rebellion 115

CHAPTER VI--Bacon's Rebellion 146

CHAPTER VII--The Period of Confusion 195

CHAPTER VIII--The Critical Period 225

INDEX 261

ABBREVIATIONS USED IN NOTES

Arb. Smith, _Works of Captain John Smith_, Edward Arber.
Scobell, _Scobell's Collection of Acts and Ordinances of General Use_.
F. R., _The First Republic in America_, Alexander Brown.
Gen., _The Genesis of the United States_, Alexander Brown.
Force, _Tracts and Other Papers Relating to the Colonies in North
America_, Peter Force.
Nar. of Va., _Narratives of Early Virginia_, Lyon G. Tyler.
Va. Car., _Virginia Carolorum_, E. D. Neill.
Hen., _The Statutes at Large_, W. W. Hening.
Proceedings of Va. Co., _Proceedings of the Virginia Company of London_.
Cradle of Rep., _The Cradle of the Republic_, Lyon G. Tyler.
Bruce, Inst. Hist., _Institutional History of Virginia in the Seventeenth
Century_, P. A. Bruce.
Bruce, EC. Hist., _Economic History of Virginia in the Seventeenth
Century_, P. A. Bruce.
Miller, _The Legislature of the Province of Virginia_, E. I. Miller.
P. R. O., British Public Record O