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

[252] it came to the knowledge of Jeffries, who

Chap. XIV.}

delighted in a fair opportunity to rant. Finding that the aldermen, justices, and the mayor himself, were concerned in this kidnapping, he turned to the mayor, who was sitting on the bench, bravely arrayed in scarlet and furs, and gave him every ill name which scolding eloquence could devise. Nor would he desist till he made the scarlet chief magistrate of the city go down to the criminal's post at the bar, and plead for himself as a common rogue would have done. The prosecutions depended till the revolution, which made an amnesty; and the judicial kidnappers, retaining their gains, suffered nothing beyond disgrace and terror.¹

Meantime Virginia ceased for a season to be the favorite resort of voluntary emigrants. Men were attracted to the New World by the spirit of enterprise and the love of freedom. In Virginia, industry was depressed and the royal authority severe. The presence of a frigate had sharpened the zeal of the royal officers in enforcing the acts of navigation. The new tax in England, on the consumption of tobacco,

685.

was injurious to the producer. Culpepper and his council had arraigned a printer for publishing the laws, and

1683. Feb. 23.

ordered him to print nothing till the king's pleasure was known. And Effingham was the bearer of the royal pleasure. The best proof which Charles ii. had given of his interest in Virginia, was the express instruction to allow no printing-press on any pretence whatever.² The rule was continued under James ii. The methods of despotism are monotonous To perfect the system, Effingham established a