Our First General Assembly.
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land, and then, " there remaining no farther according to their degrees and rankes. And scruple in the minds of the Assembly touch to the Provost Marshall of James Citty for ing the said Great Charter, the Speaker put his attendance upon the said General Assem the same to the question, and it passed with bly. . . . The gathering of the said tax to the general assent and applause of the whole begin on the 24th (O. S.) of February nexte" (March 5, 1620). Assembly." On Sunday, August 11, Mr. Walter Shelley On August 14, before dissolving, the Bur (possibly of the same family as the poet, gesses make " their last humble suite to Bysshe Shelley), a member for Smythes the Counsell and Company in England, that they would be pleased, so soon as they shall hundred, died. Monday, August 12, was largely devoted finde it convenient, to make good their prom to considering "which of the Instructions ise sett down at the conclusion of their comight conveniently putt on the habite of mission for establishing the Counsel of State Lawes;" and Tuesday to "such lawes as and General Assembly, — namely, that they might issue out of every man's private con- will give us power to allowe or disallowe of their orders of Courte, as his Majesty hath ceipte." Each class of laws being first consid ered by committees before being submitted given them power to allo1ve or to reject our lawes." to the General Assembly. A good many laws of sundry sorts were And then " being constrained thereto by passed, namely : relative to the Indians, re the intemperature of the weather and the garding the treatment of them, trading with falling sick of diverse of the Burgesses," them, their education, conversion, etc.; to the " Governor prorogued the said General the affairs of the church; to the planting of Assembly till the firste of Marche, following, corn, mulberry trees, silk-flax, English-flax, and in the mean season dissolved the same." aniseseeds, vines, tobacco, etc.; to landThe proceedings of this Assembly were patents, landlords, tradesmen, mechanics, probably sent to England by " The George," tenants, servants, etc.; to " The Magazin," which vessel left Virginia in November, trading, etc.; to the general conduct of 1619, and arrived there in March, 1620. At affairs, private and public, in the Colony; any rate, so far as I have been able to find and " against Idlenes, Gaming, drunkeness, out, the first Acts of the first General As and excesse in appareil." sembly convened within the present bounds Rents, taxes, etc., " were not to be exacted of the United States were first mentioned in money of us (whereof we have none at all, at " An extraordinary Court " of the London as we have no minte), but the true value of Company for Virginia, held on the 3<?th of the rent in comodity." To this intent the March, 1620. As these Acts had to be price of tobacco was fixed by law, — " the approved in " A Great and General Court of best at three shillings, and the second at the Company," before they could have the eighteen pence the pounde. . . . And any force of Laws, — this court having the power tobacco whatsoever which shall not prove to allow or to reject them, — they were sub vendible at the second price shall be imme mitted at such a court, on April 18, 1620, diately burnt before the owner's face." for inspection, revision, etc., to " a select In order to pay its officers, the General committee of choice me»,"" which committee, Assembly passed a law that " every man and i when finally completed, was composed of Sir manservant in the colony of above 16 yeares John Danvers (afterwards one of the Regi of age shall pay one pound of the best to cides). Sir Thomas Wroth (who on Jan. 3, bacco; the whole bulke whereof, to be dis 1648, made the celebrated motion in Parlia tributed to the Speaker and likewise to the ment " to lay the King by and to settle the Clerke and Sargeant of the Assembly, Kingdom without him"), Sir Henry Rains
