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loyalty and hope.
1 The faithfulness of the Virginians
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
colonies; and a memorable ordinance
5 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
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