reduced the price of their staple, tobacco, saddled with the additional burden of supporting a body of English soldiers, forbidden even to set up a printing press, the Virginians had to bear their trials as best they might, in hope that a day of redress would sooner or later arrive.
For a number of years subsequent the government of Virginia resembled much that of the mother country in the reckless profligacy and rapacity of those in authority. The grant of the colony to Arlington and Culpepper has been already mentioned. The latter nobleman had obtained the cession of his partner's share in 1680, and had been invested besides with the office of governor for life, as the successor of Berkeley. The spirit of sordid avarice which had infected the English court had alone dictated the request of these privileges, and in the same spirit was the administration of Culpepper conducted. Compelled to repair with reluctance from the delights of the court to the government of a distant province, his only indemnification was to make the best use of the period of his banishment. He carried out with him a general amnesty for the recent political offences, and an act for increasing the royal revenue by additional duties. He obtained a salary of $8,000, double that of Berkeley's, and still further contrived to swell his emoluments, and to satisfy his greediness, by means of perquisites and peculations. The pinch began to be severely felt even by the most ardent loyalists, and symptoms of opposition arose in the Assembly itself. The misery of the planters had led them to solicit the enforcement of a year's cessation from the planting of tobacco: the Assembly could but refer it to "the pleasure of the king," and in the mean time the exasperated sufferers proceeded to cut up the tobacco plants. These outrages, dictated by despair, led to several executions, and laws were passed for their future suppression. After thus conducting his administration for three years, he was glad to surrender his patent and take in its place a pension of about $2,400.
In 1684, Lord Howard, of Effingham. succeeded Culpepper as governor. He quite surpassed his predecessor in extorting money. New fees were multiplied, and, in 1687, a court of chancery was established, of which the governor declared himself the sole judge. Despotism was rapidly attaining its climax. A frigate was stationed to enforce the stricter observation of the navigation laws, and an additional excise duty in England on the import of tobacco still further discouraged trade. The conduct of the governor towards the Assembly became more and more arbitrary, until scarcely the shadow of popular liberty was left. Such was the condition of affairs in Virginia at the accession of the last of the Stuarts. Alarming symptoms of insubordination having appeared, not only among the body of the people, but even in the Assembly itself, who presumed to question the veto of the governor, that body, by order of the arbitrary monarch, was summarily dissolved. But the same spirit that was about to hurl James II. from the English throne was now fully awakened
