The country cried out in anger.

The Assembly hurried commissioners on board a ship in port and sent them to England to besiege the ear of the King.
Distress and discontent increased, with good reason, among the mass of the Virginians.

The King in England, his councilors, and Parliament, played an unfatherly role, while in Virginia economic hardships pressed ever harder and the administration became more and more oppressive.
By 1676 the gunpowder of popular indignation was laid right and left, awaiting the match..