"Bound Away: Virginia and the Western Movement"; David Fischer and James C.
Kelly (2000), page 103:

"In the Berkeley era Virginia had been a closed society. Freedom of Speech,
press, and religion were narrowly constrained. The repressive spirit of its
government was captured  in Sir William Berkeley's immortal diatribe: "I
thank God, there are no free schools nor printing, and I hope we shall not
have these hundred years; for learning has brought disobedience, and heresy,
and sects into the world, and printing has divulged them, the libels against
the best government. God keep us from both!"

"Berkeley's outburst was not a private prejudice. It became an official
policy in the colony, actively shared by other governors and enforced for
many years. In 1682, for example, Berkeley's successor, Thomas Culpeper,
second Baron of Thoresway, and his council severely chastised a printer
named John Buckner, who had appeared in the colony and published the
colony's laws. Buckner was forbidden to print anything at all. Not for
another 50 years would the laws of the colony appear in print. The next
governor, Lord Howard of Effingham, was given instructions that bound him to
allow no person  to use a printing press "on any occasion whatsoever".

"The growth of a closed society in an open environment was not unique to
Virginia. In most colonies American conditions caused European leaders to
become more repressive, not less so....The Puritans, for example, became
cruelly intolerant on the New England frontier, while Puritans in Old
England were moving in the opposite direction."

William Milam

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