f the best known members of the Council of State
served their apprenticeship in the Burgesses. But whatever the social
status of the Burgess, he felt always that he was the representative of
the poor planter, the defender of his interests, and seldom indeed did
he betray his trust.[6-33] This no doubt was with him in part a matter
of honor, but it also was the result of a consciousness that unless he
obeyed the behests of his constituency he would be defeated if he came
up for re-election.

The House of Burgesses, even in the days when the colony was but an
infant settlement stretching along the banks of the James, did not
hesitate to oppose the wishes of the King himself. In 1627 Charles I
sent instructions for an election of Burgesses that he might gain the
assent of the planters through their representatives to an offer which
he made to buy their tobacco.[6-34] Although the Assembly must have
realized that its very existence might depend upon its compliance with
the King's wishes, it refused to accept his proposal.[6-35] In 1634
Charles again made an offer for the tobacco, but again he encountered
stubborn opposition. The Secretary of the colony forwarded a report in
which he frankly told the British Government that in his opinion the
matter would never go through if it depended upon the yielding of the
Assembly.[6-36]

In 1635 the people again showed their independent spirit by ejecting Sir
John Harvey from the Government and sending him back to England. It is
true that the Council members took the lead in this bold step, but they
would hardly have gone to such lengths had they not been supported by
the mass of small planters.[6-37] In fact, one of the chief grievances
against the Governor was his refusal to send to the King a petition of
the Burgesses, which he considered offensive because they had made it "a
popular business, by subscribing a multitude of hands thereto." And some
days before the actual expulsion Dr. John Pott, Harvey's chief enemy,
was going from plantation to plantation, inciting the people to
resistance and securing their signatures to a paper demanding a redress
of grievances.[6-38]

The attitude of the small planters during the English civil war and
Commonwealth period is equally instructive. Certain writers have
maintained that the people of Virginia were a unit for the King, that
upon the execution of Charles I his son was proclaimed with the
unanimous consent of the planters, that the co