George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 2, 17th edition.

[195] assessed and collected them, and superintended their

Chap XIV.}

disbursement; so that military, judicial, legislative, and executive powers were often deposited in the hands of men, who, as owners of large estates, masters of many indented servants, and lords of slaves, already began to exhibit the first indications of an established aristocracy.

Thus, at the period of the restoration, two elements

1660

were contending for the mastery in the political life of Virginia; on the one hand, there was in the Old Dominion a people; on the other, a rising aristocracy. The present decision of the contest would depend on the side to which the sovereign of the country would incline. During the few years of the interruption of monarchy in England, that sovereign had been the people of Virginia; and its mild and beneficent legislation, careless of theory, and unconscious of obeying impulses which were controlling the common advancement of humanity, had begun to loosen the cords of religious bigotry, to confirm equality of franchises, to foster colonial industry by freedom of traffic with the world. The restoration of monarchy changed the course of events, took from the people of Virginia the power which was not to be recovered for more than a century, and gave to the forming aristocracy a powerful ally in the royal government and its officers. The early history of Virginia not only illustrates the humane and ameliorating influences of popular freedom, but also presents a picture of the confusion, discontent, and carnage, which are the natural consequences of selfish legislation and a retrograde movement in the cause of popular liberty.

The emigrant royalists had hitherto not acted as a political party, but took advantage of peace to establish