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‘ The Privilege of Making Laws ’; The Board of Trade, the Virginia Assembly and Legislative Review, 1748–1754

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2009

Gwenda Morgan
Gwenda Morgan
Affiliation:
The College of Charleston, South Carolina
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Extract

Far and away the most important activity of the Virginia assembly of 1748–9 was a wholesale revision of the colony's laws. The result of two years' hard labour by a special committee of leading members of the Council and House of Burgesses, this revision was the first in more than forty years and many laws were obsolete, inadequate or contradictory. Indeed, there had not been a printed edition of the laws for some sixteen years and the newer and more remote counties lacked copies of them. At the end of the session Lieutenant Governor Sir William Gooch congratulated the assembly on its accomplishment of a laborious but worthwhile task and submitted the revision to the Board of Trade in a routine fashion. The response of the home government was anything but routine, and the resulting series of events was to inaugurate the process by which, over the next quarter century, Virginia's confidence in the home government to deal sympathetically and responsibly with its problems was slowly eroded.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of American Studies , Volume 10 , Issue 1 , April 1976 , pp. 1 - 15
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1976

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References

1 Journals of the House of Burgesses of Virginia, 1619–1776, eds. Kennedy, J. P. and Mcllwaine, H. R. (13 vols., Richmond, 1905–1915), 1742–9Google Scholar, Assembly of 1748–9 passim.

2 Statutes at Large, ed. Hening, William W. (13 vols., Richmond and Philadelphia), vol. v, 321–4Google Scholar. The members of the House were William Beverley. Thomas Nelson, Richard Randolph, John Robinson, Jr, Benjamin Waller, Beverley Whiting. John Robinson, Sr, John Blair and William Nelson were appointed from the Council.

3 Gooch to the Board of Trade, 4 July 1746, C.O.5/1326, fos. 205–6.

4 JHB, 1742–1749, p. 406.

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12 Acts of the Privy Council of England, Colonial Series, ed. Grant, W. L. et al. (6 vols., Hereford, 1908–1912), vol. iv, pp. 131–41Google Scholar; hereafter APC; Journals of the Commissioners of Trade and Plantations, 1704–82 (14 vols., London, 1920–1938), vol. v, 1749–53, pp. 198–202Google Scholar; hereafter BTJ. Two of the 89 acts had expired by the time the home government's opinion was known; two others were private acts which were dealt with by the Board of Trade at a later date.

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14 Board of Trade to Dinwiddie, 29 November 1752, C.O.5/1366, fos. 264–5.

15 Representation of the Board of Trade to the King in Council, 6 August 1751, C.O.5/1366, fos. 251–2.

16 Gooch to Board of Trade, 1749, CO.5/1327, fo. 73; Lamb to Board of Trade, 31 January 1750/51, fo. 140.

17 Ibid., fo. 147.

18 Representation of the Board of Trade to the King in Council, 6 August 1751, CO.5/1366, fo. 241.

19 Ibid., fos. 240–52, APC, vol. iv, pp. 131–8.

20 Jack P. Greene, ‘An Uneasy Connection’, pp. 65–74.

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23 Representation of the Board of Trade to the King in Council, 6 August 1751, C.O.5/1366, fo. 240.

24 APC, vol. iv, p. 153.

25 C.O./324/15, fos. 289–94.

26 BTJ, 1749–1753, pp. 286–289.

27 C.O./323/13, fos. 147–8.

28 C.O./324/15, fos. 314–7.

29 Ibid., fos. 318–21. One student of royal government in America has pointed to 1752 and the projected revision of instructions as the last date at which some realistic adjustment between Great Britain and her American colonies was possible. Labaree, , Royal Government in America, p. 67Google Scholar.

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36 Many Virginians never did receive a copy of the revision or the additions, JHB, 1758–1761, pp. 136, 137, 147, 153.

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39 Representation of the Board of Trade to the King in Council, 6 August 1751, CO.5/1366, fos. 251–2.

40 JHB, 1752–1758, pp. 78–9.

41 Ibid., p. 80; Diary of Landon Carter, ed. Greene, , vol. 1, pp. 96–7Google Scholar.

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45 Ibid., p. 101.

46 Ibid., p. 104.

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48 C.O.5/1328, fos. 62–4.

49 BTJ, 1749–1753, pp. 230–233.

50 ‘An Examination of the Acts of Parliament relating to Trade and Government of the American Colonies’, May 1752. Shelburne Papers, vol. 47.

51 Dinwiddie to Board of Trade, 5 June 1752, C.O.5/1327, fo. 210; Dinwiddie to Bishop of London, 5 June 1752; Fulham Papers, Virginia, vol. xiii, fo. 63, Lambeth Palace, London; Hening, vol. vi, pp. 88–90; Hening, vol. v, pp. 526–40. The power of presentment had been in the hands of the vestries since 1643 at least and rarely challenged. Moreover, William Dawson, the Commissary of the Bishop of London in Virginia had specifically requested the Bishop to promote the Act for the Better Support of the Clergy and the revision itself before the Board of Trade. Seiler, W. H., ‘The Anglican Parish in Virginia’, in Seventeenth Century America, ed. Smith, J. M. (Chapel Hill, 1959), p. 133Google Scholar; William Dawson to Bishop of London, 15 July 1751) Fulham Papers, Virginia, vol. xiii, to. 46.

52 Board of Trade to Committee of the Privy Council for Plantation Affairs, 14 February 1753, CO.5/1367, fos. 7–10.

53 Chalmers, , Opinions of Eminent Lawyers (Burlington, 1858), p. 292Google Scholar.

54 Russell, , Review of American Colonial Legislation, pp. 95–6Google Scholar.

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56 Ibid., pp. 417, 418–.

57 Greene, , The Quest for Power, p. 18Google Scholar.

58 Knollenberg, , Origin of the American Revolution, p. 51Google Scholar.

59 Greene, Jack P., ‘The Attempt to Separate the Offices of Speaker and Treasurer in Virginia, 1758–1766’, Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, 71 (1963), 11–18Google Scholar; Greene, , The Quest for Power, pp. 63–4Google Scholar.

60 Board of Trade to Dinwiddie, 3 July 1754, C.O.5/1367, fo. 51.