The sociology of Colonial Virginia

Virginia was first established a permanent English colony in our country, when, in 1619, Governor Yeardley organized representative government there, and so laid the foundations of a commonwealth. The tribe of gold-seekers had disappeared forever; but the unwholesome influences of a tribe of felons from the prisons of England, which the king had ordered to be sent to Virginia-a hundred in number-was yet felt in the scandal it had brought upon the colony, and in their demoralizing example.