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[211] loyalty and hope.1 The faithfulness of the Virginians
Chap VI.} 1650 June.
did not escape the attention of the royal exile; from his retreat in Breda he transmitted to Berkeley a new commission;2 he still controlled the distribution of offices, and, amidst his defeats in Scotland,3 still remembered with favor the faithful Cavaliers in the western world. Charles the Second, a fugitive from England, was still the sovereign of Virginia. ‘Virginia was whole for monarchy, and the last country, belonging to England, that submitted to obedience of the commonwealth.’4

But the parliament did not long permit its authority to be denied. Having, by the vigorous energy and fearless enthusiasm of republicanism, triumphed over all its enemies in Europe, it turned its attention to the

Oct. 3.
colonies; and a memorable ordinance5 at once empowered the council of state to reduce the rebellious colonies to obedience, and, at the same time, established it as a law, that foreign ships should not trade at any of the ports ‘in Barbadoes, Antigua, Bermudas, and Virginia.’ Maryland, which was not expressly included in the ordinance, had taken care to acknowledge the new order of things;6 and Massachusetts, alike unwilling to encounter the hostility of parliament, and jealous of the rights of independent
1651 May 7.
legislation, by its own enactment, prohibited all intercourse with Virginia, till the supremacy of the commonwealth should be established; although the order, when it was found to be injurious to commerce, was

1 Norwood, in Churchill, VI. 160—186. Hammond's Leah and Rachel, 16.

2 Chalmers, 122.

3 Norwood, in Ch., VI. 186.

4 Hammond's Leah and Rachel, 20; Ed. 1656.

5 Hazard, i. 637, 638. Parliamentary History, III. 1357. The commentary of Chalmers, p. 123, is that of a partisan lawyer.

6 Langford's Refutation, 6, 7.

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