to their discontents; but pressed, as he was, by severe embarrassments at home, he was content to adopt a policy, which would conciliate the colony and remove some of its just complaints. He accordingly soon afterwards appointed Sir William Berkeley governor, with powers and instructions, which breathed a far more benign spirit. He was authorized to proclaim, that in all its concerns, civil as well as ecclesiastical, the colony should be governed according to the laws of England. He was directed to issue writs for electing representatives of the people, who with the governor and council should form a general assembly clothed with supreme legislative authority; and to establish courts of justice, whose proceedings should be guided by the forms of the parent country. The rights of Englishmen were thus in a great measure secured to the colonists; and under the government of this excellent magistrate, with some short intervals of interruption, the colony flourished with a vigorous growth for almost forty years.[1] The revolution of 1688 found it, if not in the practical possession of liberty, at least with forms of government well calculated silently to cherish its spirit.
§ 50. The laws of Virginia, during its colonial state, do not exhibit as many marked deviations, in the general structure of its institutions and civil polity, from those of the parent country, as those in the northern colonies. The common law was recognised as the general basis of its jurisprudence; and the legislature, with some appearance of boast, stated, soon after the restoration of Charles the Second, that they had "endeav-- ↑ Robertson's America, B. 9; Marsh. Amer. Col. ch. 2, p. 65, 66, note. I have not thought it necessary to advert particularly to the state of things during the disturbed period of the commonwealth. Henning, Virg. Stat. Introduction, p. 13, 14.
