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of the crown.
In every colony where Puritanism
prevailed, there was a uniform disposition to refuse a fixed salary to the royal governor.
Virginia, at a time when the
chief magistrate was elected by its own citizens, had voted a fixed salary for that magistrate; but the measure, even then, was so little agreeable to the people, that its next assembly
repealed the law.
1 The royalist legislature, for the 1662.
purpose of well paying his majesty's officers, established a perpetual revenue by a permanent imposition on all exported tobacco; and the royal officers of
Virginia, requiring no further action of an assembly for granting taxes, were placed above the influence of colonial legislation.
2 They depended on the province neither for their appointment nor their salary, and the country was governed according to royal instructions,
3 which did, indeed, recognize the existence of colonial 1662 assemblies, but offered no guaranty for their continuance.
The permanent salary of the governor of
Virginia, increased by a special grant from the colonial
legislature, exceeded the whole annual expenditure of
Connecticut; but
Berkeley was dissatisfied.
A thousand pounds a year would not, he used to say, ‘maintain the port of his place; no government of ten years standing but has thrice as much allowed him. But I am supported by my hopes, that his gracious majesty will one day consider me.’
4 Such was a royal governor; how unlike the spirit that prevailed, where the magistrates were elected by the people!
Winthrop of
Massachusetts expended all his state for the commonwealth;
Berkeley was dissatisfled
