of money were voted to reward the most active of Berkeley's
supporters. All that had held command among the rebels, even Ingram and
Walkelett, were made forever "incapable of any office civil or military
in Virginia". To speak ill of the Governor and Council or of the
justices of the peace, was declared a high crime, punishable by
whipping. If the people, to the number of six, assembled in arms, they
were to be considered mutineers and rebels. And the Burgesses showed
great reluctance to reduce their own salaries, which the people
considered so excessive. The Governor feared to insist upon it, "least
perhaps he might thereby disoblige and thwart his own ends and interest
in the Assembly", and only the positive commands of the King, delivered
to them by the commissioners, could induce them to make any reduction at
all.[781]

They passed resolutions praising the wisdom, the bravery, the justice
and integrity of the Governor, and exonerating him for all blame for the
outbreak of the Rebellion.[782] "The distempered humor predominant in
the Common people", which had occasioned the insurrection, they declared
the result of false rumors "inspired by ill affected persons, provoking
an itching desire in them to pry into the secrets of the grand
assembly".[783] They snubbed the King's commissioners, replying to their
request for assistance in discovering the common grievances that the
Assembly alone was the proper body to correct the people's wrongs.[784]
Yet when the commons did come to the Burgesses with their complaints
they were repulsed with harsh reproofs and even severe punishment.
Certain grievances from Isle of Wight county were denounced as
"libellous, Scandalous and rebellious" and "the chiefe persons in the
Subscriptions" were to be punished "to the merits of their Crymes".[785]
A petition from Gloucester county was declared to savor so strongly of
the "old leaven of rebellion" that it must be expunged from the records.
When the people of Nansemond appealed for a more just method of
taxation, they were answered briefly, "It is conceived the pole is the
equallest way."[786]

One is inclined to wonder why the people, thus finding the Assembly but
an instrument of oppression in the Governor's hands, did not turn
eagerly for support and relief to the King's commissioners. These men
had invited them to bring in all their pressures, without restraint or
fear of punishment. His Majesty, they announced, was anxious to know