All white males who are freemen were now privileged to vote, "together with the freeholders and housekeepers." A certain member wanted some detail of procedure retained because it was customary.

"Tis true it has been customary," answered another, "but if we have any bad customs amongst us, we are come here to mend 'em!" "Whereupon," says the contemporary narrator, "the house was set in a laughter." But after so considerable an amount of mending there threatened a standstill.

What was to come next?
Could men go further--as they had gone further in England not so many years ago?
Reform had come to an apparent impasse.

While it thus hesitated, the old party gained in life.
Bacon, now petitioning for his promised commission against the Indians, seems to have reached the conclusion that the Governor might promise but meant not to perform, and not only so, but that in Jamestown his very life was in danger.

He had "intimation that the Governor's generosity in pardoning him and restoring him to his place in the Council were no other than previous wheedles to amuse him." In Jamestown lived one whom a chronicler paints for us as "thoughtful Mr.Lawrence." This gentleman was an Oxford scholar, noted for "wit, learning, and sobriety...