History of Virginia :: :: University of Virginia Library

After Berkeley's departure, the commissioners pushed
with energy their inquiry into the causes of the rebellion and
the course of its events. They had refused to adopt his
advice that they should use the judges of the county courts
to sift out the popular complaints, since they were aware that
these men had been appointed by him, and were his heated
partisans. Instead, special agents to visit the several counties
and take down the grievances of the people were selected by
the commissioners; and they were instructed to say that all
who testified would be under the King's protection in speaking
the truth in regard to the late governor and his conduct. The
commissioners ordered Robert Beverley, the clerk of the
House of Burgesses, to deliver up all the records of that body
in his custody; but he refused to do this, in spite of the
authority of their commission, although willing to show all
the papers in his possession without parting with them. The
documents were seized without further discussion. This
action led to an indignant protest from the General Assembly
convening in the autumn (1677). It was a violation of their
privileges, the members of that body declared—such, indeed,
they said, as had no precedent in the history of the English
people; and they demanded a guarantee against its repetition.
When the protest was reported to the King and Privy Council,
they referred it to the Board of Trade and Plantations, who
pronounced it to be little short of rebellion, and recommended
that its authors should be punished for sedition. But this
extreme advice led to nothing more severe than an order that

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the record of the protest should be expunged from the Assembly's
minutes.

When Berry and Moryson, who had left Jeffreys in the
governorship of Virginia, delivered the commissioners'
report to the Privy Council, which was a calm but severe
arraignment of Berkeley's course in the rebellion, his
brother, Sir John Berkeley, endeavored to crush them by rude
words and boisterous manners. "You two," he cried out,
"have murdered my brother." "We did nothing," replied
Moryson, with great dignity, "but what we dare justify."
The palpable sincerity and honesty of the two men made such
a deep impression on the minds of the councillors that all, with
the exception of Sir John Berkeley, approved the contents
of the report. Secretary Coventry felt so much confidence in
the conclusions of Berry and Moryson that he followed their
advice in settling the disturbed affairs of the Colony. In
accord with that advice, Robert Beverley, Edward Hill, Philip
Ludwell, Bray, and Thomas Ballard, were dropped from the
council in Virginia, or from their collectorships, and Beverley
and Hill were declared to be ineligible to hold office in the
future.

This coterie, in consequence of their disgrace, became more
bitter than ever in their hostility to Jeffreys—they opposed
him, denounced him, slandered him, in order to shake his
hold on popular respect and loyalty. Unhappily, the governor
fell ill at this moment when his enemies were most venomous
and energetic, and they took advantage of his complete disablement
to revive, as far as practicable, the old spirit of
persecution and robbery. The council, in spite of its purging,
was still hostile to his person and policy, and through its members,
Beverley and Ludwell found themselves in a position
to gratify their feelings of animosity. The boldest act which
they, in association with this body, committed was to ignore
the instructions of the King directing that his original proclamation
of pardon should be put in force without the supplementary

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modification which Berkeley had outrageously
introduced.

Why did these men venture to show such audacity? Apparently
because, not having heard of his death, they were convinced
that, through his influence with the King, he would
soon be able to obtain the royal approval of all that had been
done by him and his partisans both during and after the
rebellion, and all that his friends in Virginia should do in the
immediate future.

The councillors and their outside associates defied the
indignant warnings of Jeffreys from his sick-bed, and went
on with the levying of fines and compositions as coolly and
systematically as if there had been no power on earth which
was able to interfere with their action. It was not until the
news of Berkeley's death was brought to Virginia that they
issued the proclamation of pardon, and sent out to the sheriffs
the writs for the election of a new Assembly. Both sheriffs
and justices of the county were now in sympathy with them,
as Jeffreys had failed to fill these offices with men who supported
his own policies. These policies received no support
from the members of the new body chosen under the influence
of his enemies. Their first measure was to appropriate a large
sum to compensate themselves for losses in the rebellion, and
to reward those persons who had given Berkeley special
assistance in suppressing it; their second, to punish the citizens
who had drafted and submitted to the English commissioners
the grievances of the several counties.

Jeffreys was now slowly recovering his health, and he soon
showed his hostility to the group of men who were responsible
for these sinister acts—particularly to Philip Ludwell, the
most cynical and insolent one of them all. "The governor,"
Ludwell said sneeringly, "is a hateful little fellow with a
periwig who was not worth a groat in England. He is a
worse rebel than Bacon, for he has broken the laws of Virginia."
He endeavored to escape the penalty of these libelous

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words by asserting to Jeffreys that, when he spoke them, he
was tipsy from drinking a flagon of cider. He was found
guilty, and his case was appealed to the English authorities.

Illness again incapacitated the governor; the administration
fell back into the hands of the hostile councillors; and the
former confiscations of the estates of the pardoned rebels
began once more. The animosity of his enemies, especially of
Beverley, Hill, Ludwell, and Ballard, and most insolent of
them all, Lady Berkeley, was so violent that, after his death
in 1678, they conspired to prevent the payment to his widow
of the arrears of his salary, although it was known to them
that, during the last months of his life, he had been compelled
to borrow the money to defray the expenses of his household;
and that his widow had been cast in jail because unable to
repay the amount. And not until she had returned to England
and appealed in person to Secretary Coventry was she able
successfully to combat the unspeakable meanness of this
contemptible faction in Virginia.

Such was the scant reward for the services of Jeffreys, a
man of excellent intentions, but lacking in a personality commanding
enough to overawe the selfish and domineering spirits
who were fighting his wise policies at every turn without
regard to scruple or justice, and practically with no respect at
all for the royal authority.

Jeffreys was succeeded by Sir Henry Chicheley under the
terms of a commission granted him in anticipation of just such
a vacancy as had now occurred. The new executive was far
gone in years, feeble in health, and at times thought to be
slightly crazy. But he had the good sense to act with far more
moderation than the men who had been opposing whatever
Jeffreys approved. He threw all the power of his position on
the side of those candidates for election to the new Assembly
(1679) whose opinions and conduct indicated that they were
in favor of shutting the door against the schemes of the factions
that had so long harassed the unhappy colony and of
beginning an era of peace and justice. The spirit of the new

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body was manifested in their passage of an act authorizing
each parish to select two representatives to be present at the
session of its county court whenever the tax levy was to be
laid. Other laws equally prudent and conciliatory were
adopted.