further declared that it would give the King much satisfaction if the members of the Council and the leading citizens of the Colony should build houses at Jamestown and dwell there. A state-house was soon erected to accommodate the Burgesses, the Secretary, and the Clerk. A prison was also built.[1] The population of Virginia was now spread over such a wide area that the necessity of increasing the number of ports of entry as each successive statute for the encouragement of the growth of towns was enacted, was clearly recognized. It was impossible even for the English authorities, who had shown so much blindness in the past to the physical conditions of the country, to entertain the belief that Jamestown could still be made the only port of entry and that all efforts should be restricted to enlarging that place; they therefore recommended that a town should be built in the valley of each of the principal rivers. The need of this, in case ports of entry were to be established by law, had been known as early as 1662, and this need had only grown in force with the expansion in the volume of population and the extension of the area of the plantations.
Culpeper arrived in the Colony in May, 1650, and in the following month an elaborate measure for the encouragement of Cohabitation was passed by the General Assembly.[2] In this statute, no special preference was shown to Jamestown, as had been the case in all previous Acts relating to the subject. Virginia had not yet recovered from the confusion caused by the insurrection of
- ↑ See Address of Burgesses to Howard, Oct. 4, 1685. See order of same, British State Papers, Colonial Entry Book, Virginian Assembly No. 86; McDonald Papers, vol. VII, pp. 365, 367, Va. State Library.
- ↑ Hening’s Statutes, vol. II, pp. 471, 478. Fitzhugh, writing to Captain Francis Partis, July 1, 1680, said: “We are going to make towns; if you can meet with any tradesmen that will come in and live at the town, they may have large privileges and immunities.” Letters, July 1, 1680.
