We will pay no more

What happened

By 1673 Governor Berkeley's clique ran Virginia's county courts. The justices met in secret to set the county levy, and the levy fell hardest on the poor. On 12 December fourteen men of Surry County met at Lawnes Creek Parish Church, on the south bank of the James, and declared that they would pay no more. Many of them were prominent landowners, some kin to burgesses and judges. On 3 January the county justices issued a writ to haul them into court for sedition, and that day, at a second gathering in a field, Roger Delke swore that "we will burn all before one shall suffer." Delke told the court they had met "by reason their taxes were so unjust, and they would not pay it." The court levied very heavy fines, the heaviest on Matthew Swan, the main leader, who was brought before the Council and General Court in April 1674. Then the resentment spread through the county, and in September Berkeley had to remit every fine. Rothbard calls the meeting "one of the first tax rebellions, or organized refusals to pay taxes, in America" (CiL, p. 83). The discontent had reached the governor's own class, and it did not go away. In 1676 Virginia rose behind Nathaniel Bacon.