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YOUNG VIRGINIA.
The choice of Sir Edwyn Sandys as Treasurer of the Virginia Company in 1619 marks a turning-point in the history of both Company and colony.

At a moment when James I was aiming at absolute monarchy and was menacing Parliament, Sandys and his party--the Liberals of the day--turned the sessions of the Company into a parliament where momentous questions of state and colonial policy were freely debated.

The liberal spirit of Sandys cast a beam of light, too, across the Atlantic.

When Governor Yeardley stepped ashore at Jamestown in mid-April, he brought with him, as the first fruits of the new regime, no less a boon than the grant of a representative assembly.
There were to be in Virginia, subject to the Company, subject in its turn to the Crown, two "Supreme Councils," one of which was to consist of the Governor and his councilors chosen by the Company in England.
The other was to be elected by the colonists, two representatives or burgesses from each distinct settlement.