Harvey, Sir John, governor from March 24, 1630, to April 28, 1635, was a native of Lyme Regis, Dorsetshire; had been a captain of a ship in the East Indies. In 1624 he was one of the commissioners appointed to report to the king upon the conditions of the colony. He was appointed a member of the council in August, 1624, and in the commission to Sir George Yardley, March 4, 1625-26, Harvey was named his successor. He left Virginia, and commanded a ship in the expedition against Cadiz in 1627. He did not return till March 24, 1630. During his administration the first settlements were made on the York river and on Kent Island. In the dispute with Lord Baltimore he took sides against Claiborne, deposed him in 1634 from his position as secretary of state, and on April 28, 1635, was himself deposed from the government by the council, which action was confirmed by the assembly. Sent prisoner to England in the custody of two of the assembly, Francis Pott and Thomas Harwood, he had his guards arrested on their arrival, and brought the matter of his deposition up before the privy council. The king declared the transaction "an act of regal authority," and fearing the example, kept the two daring burgesses in prison, and sent orders for the arrest of the councillors who took part in Harvey's deposition. Meanwhile, to rebuke the dangerous precedent set in Virginia, he restored Harvey to his government. This second administration began with Harvey's arrival in the colony January 18, 1637, and was marked by measures taken by Harvey to build up Jamestown. Some twelve brick houses were erected, and steps taken to build a brick church and brick state house. But Harvey resumed his arbitrary behavior, and raised so many quarrels that the king in August, 1639, commissioned Sir Francis Wyatt, who had already figured once before as governor, to be his successor. On Wyatt's arrival, Harvey's property at York and Jamestown was seized to repay his numerous creditors, and the ex-governor died a bankrupt not long after.
