[6] The governor, the council, and the House of Burgesses constituted the
General Assembly. Any act of the Assembly might be vetoed by the governor,
and no law was valid till approved by the "general court" of the company
at London. Neither was any law made by the company for the colony valid
till approved by the Assembly. After 1660 the House of Burgesses consisted
of two delegates from each county, with one from Jamestown.

[7] For some years to come the slaves increased in numbers very slowly. So
late as 1671, when the population of Virginia was 40,000, there were but
2000 slaves, while the bond servants numbered 6000. Some of these
indentured servants, as they were called, were persons guilty of crime in
England, who were sent over to Virginia and sold for a term of years as a
punishment. Others--the "redemptioners"--were men who, in order to pay for
their passage to Virginia, agreed to serve the owner or the captain of the
ship for a certain time. On reaching Virginia the captain could sell them
to the planters for the time specified; at the end of the time they became
freemen.

[8] That is, the unoccupied land became royal domain again, and the king
appointed the governors and controlled the colony through a committee of
his privy council. One unhappy result of the downfall of the London
Company was the defeat of a plan for establishing schools in Virginia. As
early as 1621 some funds were raised for "a public free school," in
Charles City. A tract of land was also set apart in the city of Henricus
for a college, and a rector, or president, was sent out to start it. But
he was killed by the Indians in 1622, and before the company had found a
successor the charter was destroyed. Virginia's first college--William and
Mary--was established at Williamsburg in 1693.

[9] Read the description of early Virginia in J. E. Cooke's _Virginia_