COLONISATION OF VIRGINIA.
At the commencement of the seventeenth century a considerable revolution
had taken place in the objects of American enterprise and discovery. As
the greatness and the immense resources of the new world opened before
the European mind, the grasp of mind itself and of human interests
widened in proportion. The vain hope of the new passage to the East
Indies, which prompted Columbus and others to sail first westward, was
now becoming a secondary motive. To this had succeeded the desire for
the acquisition of gold, a rabid appetite, whether a more bitter curse
to the aborigines or the European it is hard to say; the islands and
equatorial regions had also ministered to the luxury and indulgence of
the conqueror by all their affluence of tropical productions.
Selfishness and aggrandisement had prevailed; but gradually, as morning
will succeed to night, a nobler and better purpose had begun to operate,
and these new-found realms were regarded as a wide field on which to
found states and establish Christian colonies; they had already become
the refuge of the oppressed, they might be still more so: they had
already given an impulse to commercial enterprise, they would do so
still more.
England, of all European nations, was perhaps most fitted to profit by
this enlarged sphere of operation. She had even then, apparently, an
excess of population, and “the timid character of king James having
thrown out of employment the gallant men who had served under Elizabeth,
both by sea and land, no other choice was left to them but either to
engage in the quarrels of other nations, or incur the hazards of seeking
a new world.” The expeditions sent out by the intelligence of Sir Walter
Raleigh, had turned the public mind to Virginia. Gosnold, a bold seaman,
whose ship first sailed directly across the Atlantic, and who
entertained the highest opinion of the capabilities of the New World for
colonisation, had long endeavoured to persuade his friends to make trial
of it for that purpose. Schemes of this kind were revolving in the minds
of various people at the same time. Sir Ferdinand Gorges, who had
learned much regarding America from George Weymouth, entertained the
most favourable ideas on the subject; Sir John Popham, the lord chief
justice of England; the assignees of Sir Walter Raleigh, and Richard
Hakluyt, the historian of maritime adventure, all favoured the
establishment of a colony in the New World.
Gosnold at length induced three persons to engage with him in the
enterprise, Edward Maria Wingfield, a merchant of the west of England,
Robert Hunt, a clergyman, and the brave and energetic John Smith, a man
of singular perseverance, indomitable courage, and possessed of every
quality necessary for the successful adventurer. These, assisted by the
influence of Popham and Gorges, succeeded, in 1606, in obtaining from
James I. a patent for the establishment of a colony in Virginia.
The English monarch claimed the whole of that portion of North America
lying between the 34th and 45th degrees of north latitude, from Cape
Fear on the coast of North Carolina to Halifax in Nova Scotia. This
territory was now divided into two portions, North Virginia, extending
from the 41st to the 45th degree, and South Virginia, from the 34th to
the 38th degree.
The first was granted to a company of “knights, gentlemen and merchants
of the west of England, incorporated as the Plymouth Company;” the
second to a company of “noblemen, gentlemen and merchants, mostly
resident in London,” and which was called the London Company. The
intermediate district, included in neither patent, was open to both
companies, yet neither were permitted to extend their settlement within
a hundred miles of the other.
The conditions of the charter were homage and rent, the rent being
one-fifth of the net produce of gold and silver, and of copper
one-fifteenth. The supreme government was vested in a council residing
in England; local government alone was permitted to the colonists
themselves. The members of the supreme council were nominated by the
king, and even over the colonial councils the king preserved a control,
being able to nominate and remove according to his royal pleasure. In
all respects the king was the supreme head; the legislative and
executive power lay in his hands; the colonists had no power of
self-government. This first charter granted to an English-American
colony was merely a simple charter for commercial purposes. The English
government cherished through the whole scheme the hope of a considerable
revenue from its colonies in Virginia; a duty to be levied on vessels
trading to the harbours was to be applied to the use of the colony for
one and twenty years, after which time it should lapse to the king. The
code of laws also for the colony was drawn up by the king; religion was
strictly enjoined to be according to the teachings of the English
church; no emigrant might withdraw his allegiance from the king nor
dissent from the royal creed. Dangerous tumults and seditions were
punishable by death, as well as murder, manslaughter, and adultery. All
civil causes involving corporal punishment, fine or imprisonment, were
to be determined by the president and council, who were appointed by the
king. There was not an element of popular liberty in the whole
stipulated form of government. It was, however, worthy of the peddling,
narrow policy and kingcraft of the British Solomon. The only element of
enlightenment which it contained was the injunction of kindness to the
savage, and the employment of all proper means for his conversion.
The Plymouth company, on receiving their grant, despatched a vessel of
discovery, which, however, was taken by the Spaniards. A second went
out, and returning, made the most favourable report of the country; the
following year, therefore, 1607, a hundred colonists were despatched
under the command of George Popham. They landed at the mouth of Kennebec
River, west of the Penobscot, and about one hundred and thirty miles
north-east of where Boston now stands. Here they erected a few rude
huts, threw up slight fortifications, and built a storehouse. The
settlement was called St. George. They had landed in the autumn, and the
winter was intensely severe; their sufferings were extreme, not only
from the severity of the climate and the season, but from want of
provisions, their storehouse having been destroyed by fire. Their
president also died; and in the following year, disheartened by so
disastrous a beginning, they returned to England. This terminated the
efforts of the Plymouth company.
The London company despatched a little squadron of three ships, on the
19th of December, 1606, one hundred and nine years after the discovery
of this northern portion of the New World by Cabot. The largest vessel
did not exceed one hundred tons burden; and the number of colonists was
one hundred and five men. England was as yet new to the subject of
colonisation, and the party sent out were injudiciously selected; out of
the hundred and five persons emigrating to a wilderness where were no
homes and no cultivated land, there were only twelve labourers, very few
mechanics, and only four carpenters, the rest were gentlemen of fortune,
persons with no occupation, many of them of dissolute habits, who had
joined the expedition in the hope of gain. Neither were there any men
with families. King James had also commanded the names and instructions
of the future councillors of the government to be sealed up in a tin
box, to be opened only on their arrival in Virginia; none, therefore, on
the voyage were possessed of authority—envy and jealousy arose among
them, which produced dissension. Besides this, the voyage was long and
tedious, owing to Newport, the commander, adhering to the old route by
the Canaries and West India islands. The voyage was as long as a slow
voyage to Australia in these days. The intention of the colonists had
been to establish themselves at the old settlement of Raleigh, but a
severe storm fortunately prevented the execution of this design, and
drove them into the magnificent Bay of Chesapeake. The headlands at the
entrance of the bay were named Cape Henry and Cape Charles, after the
sons of the king, which appellation they still retain; and the ships
soon afterwards coming into deep water “put the emigrants,” says Smith’s
narrative, “into good comfort,” and that name was bestowed on the
northern point of a broad river near the estuary of which they lay. The
emigrants were greatly pleased by the aspect of the country around them.
“Heaven and earth,” says Smith, “seemed never to have agreed better to
frame a place for man’s commodious and delightful habitation.” They
entered the noble river, which they called after King James, and spent
seventeen days in exploring the banks, during which time they
encountered a company of hostile natives, and two of their number were
wounded. With another tribe of Indians they smoked the calumet of peace.
A fine situation, fifty miles above the mouth of the river, was selected
for their settlement, the place receiving the name of Jamestown. Here
was formed the first permanent English settlement in the New World.
The important sealed-box was opened, and the names of Wingfield,
Newport, Gosnold, Smith, and three others, were found nominated to the
council. But the dissensions and jealousies which had broken out on the
voyage here assumed a more determined aspect. Smith, almost the only man
amongst them of superior character and powers of mind, had become an
object of jealousy to his fellows, and the council having elected
Wingfield as their president, proceeded to exclude Smith from their
council, under pretence of his harbouring a design to murder the
council, and establish himself as king of Virginia. Smith, however, who
had a sincere friend in Robert Hunt, the clergyman, insisted on trial by
jury, which he had a right to demand, and was not only acquitted, but
restored to his station.
Whilst timber was being felled, wherewith to freight the ships for their
homeward voyage, Newport, Smith, and some others, ascended the river to
the falls, and were well received by Powhatan, the great Indian
chieftain, called “the emperor of the country,” whose residence, a
village of twelve wigwams, was near the present city of Richmond, the
capital of the present State of Virginia. Powhatan, “a tall, sour, and
athletic man, about sixty years old,” was from the first disposed to
favour the English. When his people murmured at the intrusion of the
strangers, he replied, “they hurt you not; they take but a little waste
land.” Powhatan evidently did not possess the prophetic gift of the wise
Indians who, twenty years before, on the very same shores, foretold that
“there were more of the English generation yet to come, to kill theirs
and take their places!”
Newport set sail for England in June, carrying with him a favourable
report; but scarcely was he gone, when a change came over the aspect of
all things. Disease broke out among the settlers; their provisions were
not abundant, the water was bad: the glorious country around them, in
the beauty of which they had at first rejoiced, became an appalling
wilderness; the rank luxuriance of the soil needed clearance before new
harvests could be expected, but the colonists were unused to and
disinclined for labour; discontent gave place to despair; distress of
mind added to disease of body, and within a fortnight after the
departure of the ships, it is related that scarcely ten men out of the
whole number were able to stand; the fortifications could scarcely be
completed, and no ground tilled. The fort by autumn was filled with the
groans of the sick, whose outcries night and day for six weeks rent the
hearts of those who could afford no relief. Frequently three or four
died in a night. Fifty had perished before the close of the autumn, and
among these the brave and excellent Bartholomew Gosnold, the projector
of the enterprise, and one of the few whose influence had preserved some
degree of concord in the council.
To add to the misery of the time, Wingfield, their president, a selfish,
unprincipled man, was found to have appropriated the best stores to his
own use, himself living luxuriously, whilst the others were starving. On
his detection, he attempted to escape to the West Indies, in a bark
which had been left for the use of the colonists, but was prevented and
expelled from the council. A new president was appointed, but one wholly
inadequate to the exigencies of the colony, and by a sort of law of
necessity, rather than by general consent, the management of all fell
into the hands of Smith, the only man whose wisdom and energy were
sufficient to retrieve their desperate affairs.
Smith was possessed of a spirit of heroic daring. He had set out on
brave adventures when a boy, and though not yet thirty, had been a
champion in the service of humanity and Christianity. In his youth he
had fought for the independence of the Batavian republic, in the wars of
the Low Countries. He had travelled through France, had visited Egypt,
and returned by Italy. Again, eager for action and glory, he had fought
against the followers of Mahomet on the borders of Hungary, and during
these combats had distinguished himself, both with the Christians and
infidels, by his magnanimity and bravery. His extraordinary courage had
attracted the notice and gained for him the favour of the unfortunate
Sigismund Bathori, Prince of Transylvania. At length, being overcome in
a sudden skirmish among the wild valleys of Wallachia, he was left on
the field of battle severely wounded. Being now taken captive he was
sold as a slave in Constantinople. But here his romantic fortune by no
means deserted him. A Turkish lady had compassion on his youth and
sufferings, and wishing to befriend him sent him to a fortress in the
Crimea. The intentions of his protectress were, however, defeated for
some time; he fell into the hands of a savage taskmaster, whom however
he killed, and then seizing a horse, gallopped away to freedom on the
confines of Russia. Here again, the kindness of woman aided him in his
extreme need; and thence, travelling across the country to Transylvania,
he bade farewell to his brothers in arms, resolving to return “to his
own country.” On his way home, however, tidings of civil war in northern
Africa drew his steps aside, and he had many a perilous adventure in the
realms of Morocco.
Reaching England, he heard of the projected colonisation of North
America, a scheme so entirely consonant with his nature, that he entered
into it at once, with all the energy and enthusiasm of his character.
And now here he was, as we have seen, in the autumn of 1607, the sole
hope and support of the infant colony of Virginia, which, without his
integrity and force of character, his cheerful temperament and sagacity,
must have miserably perished.
Smith was equal to the difficulties of his position; his was a mind
fruitful in resources, and his high principle rendered him not only
strict in the fulfilment of his own arduous duties, but enabled him to
enforce the fulfilment of duty in others. Under the former governors the
natives had become unfriendly, he, on the contrary, conciliated them;
“he was more anxious,” says the record of the colony, “to gather
provisions than to find gold;” and before the winter commenced, the
Indians brought in voluntary supplies. The colonists also, influenced by
his spirit, now laboured earnestly to complete their fortifications and
erect huts for the winter.
As soon as the new spirit of activity and hope had given a brighter
aspect to the affairs of the colony, Smith set out to accomplish one of
the strictly-enjoined purposes of the colonists; that, namely, of
seeking for a communication with the South Sea, by ascending some river
which flowed from the north-west. A little above Jamestown, a river
called Chickahominy, and which flowed into the James river, seemed to
answer this purpose, it being supposed that the continent of America was
narrow, and that some river unquestionably would be found to serve as a
connexion between the two seas. Smith, who was not as ignorant as his
employers, and who entertained no expectation of reaching the Pacific
Ocean by any such means, nevertheless was well pleased, having left the
colony in a comparative state of comfort and prosperity, with abundant
provisions for the winter, to diversify his life by new adventures.
Advancing therefore up the river Chickahominy, accompanied by two
Englishmen and two Indian guides, as far as was practicable by boat, he
struck into the interior with a single Indian guide, leaving the boat
under the guardianship of the two Englishmen. Scarcely, however, had he
set forth when the English, disregarding some of his injunctions, were
attacked and killed by the Indians, and he himself suddenly assailed by
a large party. Binding his Indian guide to his arm as a buckler, he
fought manfully, killing three of his assailants; unfortunately,
however, in stepping backwards, he found himself on the edge of a
morass; his feet sank, and he was taken prisoner. Accustomed to the
views and sentiments of savage hordes in his captivity in southern
Russia, he now availed himself of that knowledge, and acted in
accordance with it. He neither begged for his life from the Indians, nor
appeared cast down. They carried him away captive, but his
self-possession never forsook him; marching through the forest he took
out his pocket-compass and explained to them its use, and then from the
globe-like figure of that instrument, as he himself relates, instructed
them regarding the roundness of the earth, and how “the sun did chase
the night about the earth continually.” His captivity among this tribe
of Indians was a more wonderful and interesting event than any other
preserved in their traditions. He wrote to the colony at Jamestown, and
his letter increased the wonder of the savages at the miraculous power
which existed within him; he seemed to them to convey a magical
intelligence to the paper. His fame spread through all the kindred
tribes, and he was conveyed as an object of curiosity from the Indian
settlements on the Chickahominy, to those on the Rappahannock and the
Potomac, and so on to the residence of Opechancanough at Pamunky. Here,
for three days, the Indian priests or sorcerers practised incantations
and mystical ceremonies to ascertain the designs and character of their
extraordinary prisoner. He remained perfectly calm, as if regardless of
his fate or assured of his safety. The Indians were amazed and
confounded; they had never, unless among their bravest men, seen a
courage and equanimity equal to this, they treated him with hospitality
and reverence, as if to propitiate the superior powers that dwelt within
him.
[Illustration: POCAHONTAS INTERCEDING FOR JOHN SMITH.]
The decision of his fate was referred to Powhatan, then residing at some
little distance, and thither he was removed. The grim warriors of the
forest, arrayed in all the pomp of savage attire, received him in solemn
council. They deliberated and consulted among themselves, and feeling
him to be a superior, as well as overcome by their fears, doomed him to
death. His execution, however, was not immediate, and in the meantime he
employed himself in making hatchets and stringing beads, which he gave
to Pocahontas, the daughter of Powhatan, a girl of ten or twelve years
of age, who for beauty of countenance and spirit, combined with
gentleness, so far excelled all the maidens of her people that she was
called “the nonpareil of the country.” At length the day of his doom was
fixed; he was to die by the blows of the hatchet; the hour was come; he
knelt on the place of execution, and already the uplifted hatchet was
raised, but at the same moment Pocahontas, obeying an impulse of mercy,
sprang to his side, threw her arms round his neck, and laying her head
upon his, interposed herself between him and death. Her devotion and
entreaties spared his life. The Indians, whom his superiority had so
long awed, now resolved to make of him a friend and adopt him into their
nation. They offered him every temptation which lay in their power to
induce him to join them in attacking the white men who had settled at
Jamestown. His firmness in resisting their offers inspired them with
still higher respect, and they dismissed him with promises of
friendship. His captivity was of great advantage to the colony; he not
only had become acquainted with the country considerably inland, but
with the Indian language and character, and was the means of
establishing a friendly intercourse between the English colony and the
tribes of Powhatan.
Returned to the colony, he found its numbers reduced to forty, and all
disheartened and disunited, and the ablest among them so wearied by the
hardships of colonial life that they were about to desert in the
pinnace. Smith, at the hazard of his life, prevented this; by reason and
firmness he once more established order, and the wants of the colony
were relieved by the generous Pocahontas, who not satisfied with having
saved the great chief from death, came now every few days with her
companions, to bring baskets of corn for him and his people.
Newport was re-despatched, almost immediately on his return to the
colony, with supplies and one hundred and thirty fresh emigrants in two
vessels. The hope of the old colonists, which had revived at the sight
of their new associates, soon died away again; for this reinforcement
was only a repetition of the old disastrous elements. The new-comers
were vagabond gentlemen, refiners of gold, goldsmiths, and jewellers.
Smith, for the first time, was almost disheartened himself. They would
neither build nor cultivate, but fancying that they should discover
grains of gold in the micacious sands of a stream near Jamestown, they
set to work, and, as Smith himself records, “there was now no talk, no
hope, no work, but dig gold, wash gold, refine gold, load gold.” The
whole colony was mad about gold; and Newport having remained fourteen
weeks in harbour, idling away his time and consuming with his crew the
provisions of the colony, which were already considerably diminished by
the accidental burning of the storehouse, sailed away, having laden his
ship with the glittering earth, and, contrary to the assertions of
Smith, believing that he was conveying home vast treasures. Wingfield
and some of his partisans sailed with him. The other ship was, by the
strenuous advice of Smith, laden with cedar, skins and furs, and
furnished the first valuable remittance from Virginia to the
mother-country.
Disgusted at the folly of the colonists, upon whom his better reason had
no influence, Smith left them for awhile to their own devices, and with
a few companions made two voyages during the summer months in an open
boat to explore the Bay of Chesapeake and its affluents: and in this
manner he accomplished about three thousand miles. He surveyed the Bay
of Chesapeake to the Susquehanna. He was the first to make known to the
English the fame of the Mohawks, who dwelt upon the great water, and had
many boats and many men, and who, according to the feebler Algonquin
tribes, made war upon the whole world. He discovered and explored the
Patapsco, and probably entered the harbour of Baltimore. He entered the
mighty Potomac, which at its outlet is seven miles broad, which he
ascended beyond the present Mount Vernon and Washington, as far as its
falls above Georgetown. Nor did he content himself with merely exploring
rivers; he penetrated into the country, and established friendly
relationships with various tribes of powerful Indians, many of them in
perpetual warfare one with another. On his second expedition he brought
back with him to Jamestown a cargo of corn. He prepared an account of
his voyage, with descriptions of the country and the natives,
accompanied by a map, which remains extant to this time, and which is
singularly correct.
Shortly after his return, Smith was made president of the colony.
Subordination and industry now began to prevail. The first corn of their
own planting was reaped. Again Newport arrived with fresh emigrants, two
of whom were women. There came also a few Poles and Germans to teach the
art of making pitch, tar, potash and glass. The company in London wrote
by this vessel in a very angry strain. They were greatly dissatisfied
that their heavy outlays produced no return, for, of course, the shining
earth which Newport carried back with him on his voyage was found to be
utterly worthless. They now required a lump of gold; the positive
discovery of a direct passage to the South Sea, or some of the lost
company planted on Roanoke! “If,” said they, “the colonists do not send
back valuable commodities to defray the expenses of the voyage,
amounting to £2,000, they shall henceforth be left to manage for
themselves, as banished men.”
Smith very justly wrote back, “I entreat you send me but thirty
carpenters, husbandmen, gardeners, fishermen, blacksmiths, masons, and
diggers up of the roots of trees, well provided, rather than a thousand
of such as we now have.”
But for the wisdom and efficiency of this brave man, the colony must
have perished. Making the best of such as he had, the gentlemen, whom
necessity had taught the use of the axe, were employed in cutting down
timber to freight his ship. He obliged them to work six hours a day; “he
who will not work, shall not eat” was his law. Jamestown, by the close
of autumn, assumed a more habitable appearance, but as yet only between
thirty and forty acres of land had been brought into cultivation. Food
was still so scanty that they were obliged to seek for supplies from the
Indians. Smith went himself to Powhatan for this purpose, but found the
old chief unfriendly; nay, a scheme was even laid to take his life, and
again he was saved by Pocahontas, who came through a midnight storm to
warn him of his danger. Newport was despatched with a cargo of timber,
and specimens of tar, pitch, and potash, prepared by the Germans.
The corporate company in London boasted of the success of the
enterprise, spite of their angry letter and threats to the colony
itself, and powerful men became its adherents; among these was Cecil,
the inveterate enemy of Raleigh, who had first called public attention
to the colonisation of these very shores, and who now, at this time, was
a prisoner in the Tower of London. This body having thus become more
important at home, without any knowledge or sanction of the colony
itself, entirely changed its constitution. The territory was also
extended by a grant of all lands on the sea-coast, within the limits of
two hundred miles north, and two hundred miles south of old Point
Comfort.
A new charter was obtained, which transferred the power formerly vested
in the king to the company. The shareholders at home were now the
legislators. A governor, in whom was vested uncontrolled power, was to
be appointed by them. The lives, liberties, fortunes of the colonists
were to be all placed in the hands of this one man; to the colonists
themselves not a single privilege was conceded.
Lord De la Ware was appointed governor, with a lieutenant-governor,
admiral, vice-admiral, high-marshal, and other officers, with
high-sounding titles under him, all of whom were appointed for life. A
general enthusiasm was awakened at home towards this Virginian colony,
and 500 emigrants offered themselves and were accepted. Lord De la Ware,
not being able immediately to take possession of his new government,
Newport, now admiral, set sail in June, 1609, with a fleet of nine
vessels, Sir Thomas Gates and Sir George Somers being sent out to
administer the government till Lord De la Ware’s arrival. The admiral
and the two deputy-governors sailing in the same vessel, disagreed on
the important subject of precedence, and in a violent storm off the
Bermudas were stranded on the rocks, and one vessel being lost, seven
only reached Virginia.
Smith found himself now in a difficult position. The old charter under
which he held authority was at an end; there was now, in the absence of
the stranded vessel, which had on board all the officials, no one in the
colony who could legally assume the government. The new emigrants were,
if possible, worse than any who had hitherto arrived. “Dissolute
gallants,” says the chronicle, “packed off to escape worse destinies at
home, broken tradesmen, rakes and libertines, men fitter to breed a riot
than form a colony.” “It was not the will of God,” says Bancroft
beautifully, “that the new state should be formed of these
materials—that such men should be the fathers of a progeny born on the
American soil, who were one day to assert American liberties by their
eloquence, and defend it by their valour.”
Smith, however, with his incomparable power of organisation and rule,
contrived for some little time to bring these turbulent elements under
control, and by devising new expeditions and settlements to give them
employment. At last the explosion of a bag of gunpowder in his boat
deprived the colony of his valuable services. He was severely injured;
and as the colony furnished no surgical aid, he was compelled to return
to England to seek it in one of the latelyarrived vessels, after having
delegated his authority to Percy, brother of the Earl of Northumberland.
He left about 500 persons in Virginia, well supplied with arms,
provisions, and goods for Indian traffic. There were about sixty
dwelling-houses in the town, besides a fort, a church, and a storehouse;
there was a good stock of goats, of hogs, sheep, and poultry, together
with a few horses; with about forty acres of land brought into
cultivation. He had weathered the storm of the early days of the colony;
in all the difficulties of his situation he had exhibited a courage and
perseverance, a coolness of judgment, a patience and wisdom, which have
scarcely ever been equalled. “He was,” says the historian, “accustomed
to lead, not to send his men into danger; he would suffer rather than
borrow, starve rather than not pay. He had nothing counterfeit in his
nature; but was open, honest, and sincere.” We have dwelt long on the
deeds and character of this brave, true man, because it is ever a
pleasure to find such an one.
No sooner was Smith gone than subordination, and industry were at an
end. The colonists abandoned themselves to idleness and indulgence; the
store of provisions was consumed. Percy, to whom Smith had delegated his
authority, had not the power to enforce it; no one regarded him. The
unoffending Indians being attacked and murdered by the settlers, now
became hostile, and refused to contribute any further supplies. The
horrors of absolute famine faced them; a company of thirty seized a
small vessel belonging to the colony, and sailed away as pirates. In the
traditions of Virginia this horrible season of winter, famine, and
crime, is known as the _starving time_. By the spring of the following
year, of the 490 persons whom Smith had left in health and comparative
comfort, only sixty remained, and these so reduced and dispirited that a
few days longer would have terminated their sufferings.
This terrible time, like the flood in the days of Noah, was one of the
wise judgments of God, sent to sweep away those who were unfit to live.
It was not the will of God that the state should be formed of such base
materials; we repeat the words, as true.
A few days would have ended the lives of the remnant that was left, but
help came within the time. The ship that had been wrecked on the
Bermudas arrived without loss of life. For nine months the shipwrecked
men had remained on an uninhabited but fertile island, where they had
been well sustained. From the wreck of their own ship and timber which
they felled, they constructed two vessels, and in these safely reached
their destination. They came expecting to be received by a prosperous
and happy colony; far different was the scene which presented itself—the
extremity of distress, death by starvation even for themselves if they
remained, was that which they found. Gates resolved at once to sail for
Newfoundland, and seek safety among the fishermen there. Four pinnaces
lay in the river belonging to the colonists, and in these they all
determined to embark; the colonists were anxious to leave for ever the
scene of their misery, determining, as a last act, to burn the town in
which they had suffered so much; this, however, Gates, who was the last
to leave the shore, prevented. They fell down the stream with the tide,
and “none,” says the chronicle, “dropped a tear, for none had enjoyed
there one day of happiness.” As they approached the mouth of the stream,
a boat was seen advancing towards them. It was the long-boat of Lord De
la Ware, now put off to land from one of the three ships with which he
had come from England, bringing new colonists and provisions! The hand
of God surely was in this. The disheartened fugitives bore up the helm,
and with a favouring wind entered once more the harbour of Jamestown. It
was well for them now that there were houses left to receive them.
It was on the 11th of June, and with solemn services of thanksgiving to
Heaven, the restored colonists took possession of their former place. A
deep sense of the infinite mercies of God now, for the first time,
impressed its character upon the colony. The remnant of the original
colonists who had been saved from famine, the remnant of the former
emigrants who had been saved from shipwreck, were now restored and
provided for as by a miracle, whilst they, the new-comers, who had
expected joy and prosperity, and found instead misery and want, were
evidently the angels of God’s providence. This was an occasion which
could not but deeply impress all. “It is,” said they, “the arm of the
Lord of Hosts, who would have his people pass the Red Sea and the
wilderness before they could possess the promised land.”
After solemn religious service, Lord De la Ware read his commission. A
consultation was held for the good of the colony; government was
organised with mildness but decision. The terrible crisis through which
the colony had passed, like the effect of severe fever on the human
frame, had left it at first weak perhaps, but renovated as by a new
principle of life; the disease—the moral disease—was gone from the
colony. The colonists now performed, with obedience and alacrity, their
duties in truth and piety, assembling every morning before commencing
the labours of the day in the little church, which was kept neatly
trimmed with the wild flowers of the country, after which they returned
home and received their allowance of food. Labour went on with
cheerfulness; the houses were made warm and home-like. Comfort and
prosperity returned to the colony.
In the dawn of this better day the health of the excellent Lord De la
Ware declined. His mild virtues had been as efficient in the milder
elements now composing the colony, as the higher character of Smith had
been on its more turbulent elements; and his loss at this time was very
great. He returned to England within less than a year of his arrival,
leaving Percy, as Smith had done before him, as his deputy. The colony
now consisted of 200 men, and the departure of their beloved governor
cast a gloom on all hearts.
Fortunately Sir Thomas Dale, a worthy and experienced soldier in the Low
Countries, had been already despatched from England with supplies; and
he arriving in the colony very soon after Lord De la Ware’s departure,
assumed the government, which he administered well, though with
severity, and more according to martial than civil law. Dale,
nevertheless, was a judicious governor; he saw the wants of the colony,
and he strenuously endeavoured to remedy them. As regarded the small
number and ill-provided condition of the colonists, he wrote home
entreating that these things should be cared for, assuring the company
that their purses and their endeavours would never open nor travel in a
more meritorious enterprise. “Take four of the best kingdoms of
Christendom,” says he, “and put all together, they may in no way compare
with this country, either for commodities or goodness of soil.” And Lord
De la Ware in England testified to the same effect. In consequence of
these representations, really efficient aid came. Sir Thomas Gates, now
appointed governor, conducted six ships to Virginia, with 300 emigrants,
100 head of cattle, and other liberal supplies. And as “to oblige
quickly is to oblige twice,” this aid was doubly welcome, because it was
promptly given. Dale wrote his letter in May, and on the last day of
August Sir Thomas Gates and his ships were seen advancing towards
Jamestown. The colonists, who least of all expected so ready a response
to their wishes, seeing what appeared a large fleet advancing, dreaded
that an enemy might be at hand. This was a new terror, a new misfortune.
As the fleet approached, however, they perceived, with unspeakable joy,
that they were friends.
Sir Thomas Gates assumed his government with an act of solemn
thanksgiving; and so deep was the sentiment of gratitude in the hearts
of the colonists for this real, and, as it seemed, generous aid, that
for a long time the morning and evening prayer of the colonists was,
“Lord, bless England, our sweet native country!”
The colony now numbered 700. New settlements were formed, one situated
up the river, called Henrico, after Prince Henry; and here, on the
frontiers of the Indians, Alexander Whitaker, the “Apostle of Virginia,”
preached the word of God to the natives. But perhaps the most efficient
change which occurred in the colony had reference to the now established
law of private property. To each man was allotted a few acres of land
for a garden and orchard. Hitherto the land had all been worked in
common, and the produce deposited in public stores. The excellent
results of the new arrangement were soon apparent in the increased
industry of all. To this shortly followed larger assignments of land,
and before long the mode of common labour in the common field, to fill
the public stores, was wholly abandoned. From this time the sanctity of
private property, at least as regarded the colonists, was recognised.
The colonists themselves still made free with the possessions of the
Indians; as regarded them, _might_, which was strong in their hands, was
_right_, as is too often the case where the civilised man deals with the
savage.
In March, 1612, a new charter was obtained by the London company for
Virginia, which produced an important change in the constitution of the
colony, and through which the first seed of democracy was introduced
into the government of Anglo-America. Hitherto, as we have seen, all
power had been vested in the council, which under the first charter was
appointed by the king; now the control of the company’s affairs was
removed from the council, and placed in the hands of the stockholders
themselves, who were empowered to convene meetings for the transaction
of the lesser business, whilst a great and general court was held once a
quarter for important business. This charter also allowed the company to
raise money by means of lotteries; but this liberty, after a few years,
was withdrawn as a public evil.
The powers of the company were increased by the new charter, and the
affairs of the colony assumed an aspect of stable prosperity. As in the
days of Smith, the Indians entered into treaties of alliance, nay, even
went beyond it, declaring themselves tributaries of the English.
A marriage now took place in the colony, which forms an important event
in its annals, and the details of which we must give somewhat at length.
Captain Argall, an adventurer, who had come to Virginia in a trading
ship, being on one occasion sent up the Potomac to trade for corn, fell
in with the young Indian girl, Pocahontas, who had at that time been
absent from the colony of Jamestown for two years. Aided by a chief of
the district, whom Argall had bribed with a brass kettle, Pocahontas was
induced to go on board his ship, when he carried her off to Jamestown.
Powhatan demanded the restoration of his daughter, which Argall refused
without ransom. The naturally indignant chief prepared for war, when a
deliverer appeared for the young Indian girl in the person of John
Rolfe, an honest and discreet young Englishman. I will give the
narrative in the words of Bancroft. “Rolfe was an amiable enthusiast,
who had emigrated to the forests of Virginia, daily, hourly, and as it
were in his very sleep, hearing a voice crying in his ears that he
should strive to make Pocahontas a Christian. With the solicitude of a
troubled soul, he reflected on the true end of his being. ‘The Holy
Spirit,’ such are his own expressions, ‘demanded of me why I was
created? and conscience whispered, that, rising above the censure of the
low-minded, I should lead the blind in the right paths.’ After a great
struggle of mind, and daily and believing prayers, he resolved to labour
for the conversion of the unregenerated maiden, and winning the favour
of Pocahontas herself, he desired her in marriage. Quick of
comprehension, the Indian girl received instruction readily, and soon,
in the little church of Jamestown, which rested on rough pine columns,
fresh from the forest, and was in a style of rugged architecture as
wild, if not as frail, as an Indian wigwam, she stood before the font
which had been hollowed from the trunk of a tree, and, renouncing her
country’s idolatry, professed the faith of Jesus Christ, and was
baptized.” The gaining of this one soul, the first-fruits of Virginian
conversion, was followed by her nuptials with Rolfe. In April, 1613, to
the joy of Sir Thomas Dale, with the approbation of her father and her
friends, Opachisco, her uncle, gave the bride away; and she stammered
before the altar her marriage-vows according to the rites of the English
church.
Every historian of Virginia commemorates the marriage of Rolfe to the
Indian Pocahontas with approbation. In the year 1616, the Indian wife,
instructed in the English language, and bearing the English name of
Rebecca, the very first Christian of her nation, in company with Dale,
who had resigned his office of governor, sailed with her husband for
England. The daughter of the wilderness possessed the mild elements of
female loveliness, rendered still more beautiful by the child-like
simplicity with which her education in the savannahs of the New World
had invested her. In London she had the pleasure of meeting with her old
friend, John Smith, and by him she was recommended to the notice of the
Queen. She was caressed at court, and admired in the city. Nevertheless,
so absurd were the prevailing notions at that time regarding royalty in
England, that Rolfe narrowly escaped being called to account, because
he, a commoner, had married a princess!
“As a wife and a young mother, Pocahontas was exemplary; she had been
able to contrast the magnificence of European life with the freedom of
the western forest, and now, as she was preparing to return to America,
at the age of twenty-two, she fell a victim to the English climate,
saved, as by the hand of mercy, from beholding the extermination of the
tribes whence she sprung; leaving a spotless name, and surviving in
memory under the form of perpetual youth.” The Bollands and the
Randolphs, two of the most distinguished families of Virginia, are proud
to trace their descent from this marriage.
The portrait of Pocahontas, which is still preserved among her
descendants, represents her in the costume which was worn by the higher
class of English in the time of Elizabeth; but the stiff Indian plaits
of hair which hang down her cheeks from beneath her head-dress betray
her descent. The countenance has an affecting expression of child-like
goodness and innocence, and the eyes have a melancholy charm. The
portrait was taken in 1616, and bears the inscription, _Matoakeals.
Rebecca potentiss. Princ. Powhatan Imp. Virginæ._
The consequence of this alliance was peace with the Indians, not alone
with the Powhatans, but with the powerful Chickahominies. The Indians
wished the two nations to blend in one, and proposed more general
intermarriage, but the English, who despised the Indians as savages, and
abhorred them as heathens, would not promote such union, and by degrees
the old animosities were revived.
The same year that Pocahontas was married, her bold abductor, Captain
Samuel Argall, who had the spirit of a pirate, sailing up the eastern
coast in an armed vessel, discovered that the French had established a
little settlement called St. Savieur, near Penobscot, on Mount Desert
Island. At once he cannonaded the intrenchments and speedily gained
possession. The poor settlers clung to the cross in the middle of the
village, while their houses, and their ship lying peacefully in harbour,
were pillaged; some of the colonists he sent off to France, others he
carried to Jamestown, and among these one of their Jesuit priests, the
other being killed.
The colonists of Virginia, jealous of any French settlement on their
coasts, despatched Argall again to the north, with the Jesuit prisoner
as his pilot; and on this expedition he dispersed the settlement at Port
Royal; the place itself, he burned, and the settlers took shelter in the
woods. On his return, he entered the harbour now called New York, and
compelled the Dutch settlement on the island of Manhattan to acknowledge
the English supremacy, and this, although England was then at peace with
France and Holland. No sooner, however, was Argall gone, than the French
returned to Port Royal, and the Dutch hoisted again their flag on
Manhattan.
The prosperity and the anticipated glories of Virginia were now themes
of exultation in England; and the theatre, which had formerly made the
colony a subject of derision, rang with its praises, and lauded King
James as the patron of colonies.
In 1614, Sir Thomas Gates left the colony, appointing Sir Thomas Dale
his successor. A few words must now be said regarding the land-law of
Virginia. The original grant had allowed all persons coming to Virginia,
or sending others, one hundred acres of land for each person so arriving
in the colony. This allowance was now reduced to fifty, and so it
remained as long as Virginia was a British colony; two shillings for
each hundred acres being paid annually as quit-rent. Such emigrants as
were sent out at the expense of the company were its servants, bound by
indenture to labour for the company, receiving three acres of land each,
and being allowed one month’s service for themselves, with a small
allowance of two bushels of corn from the public store; the rest of
their labour belonged to their employers. This class gradually wore out.
Others were tenants of the company, and paid two barrels and a half of
corn as an annual contribution to the public store, and gave one month’s
labour in the twelve to the public service; but this, however, neither
in seed time nor harvest. Other lands were granted as rewards of real or
pretended merit, none, however, to exceed two thousand acres to one
person. And here it may be mentioned, that to John Smith, the greatest
benefactor of the infant colony, not a single acre of land was ever
awarded, and he, whose unselfishness was only equal to his merit, never
demanded it. To the governor was appointed a plantation to be cultivated
for him by the company’s servants; and the other colonial officers were
remunerated in the same manner. Twelve pounds ten shillings paid into
the company’s treasury, gave a title also to one hundred acres, with a
reserved claim for as much more.
Such were the earliest land-laws of Virginia; and imperfect and unequal
as they were, they yet enabled the cultivator to become the proprietor
of the soil. The cultivation of corn in a few years had become so great,
that the colonists, from buyers of corn, had become sellers to the
Indians. Tobacco also was cultivated with great success; potash, soap,
glass, tar, all gave place now to tobacco. Seeking for gold was happily
at an end; fields and gardens, nay, even the public squares and streets
of Jamestown, grew tobacco. Tobacco, which was the life of Virginian
industry, became its staple produce and finally its currency.
In the midst of all this growing prosperity, the discontents of the
colony were justly raised by evils incident to their position under a
corporate body, through whom interested parties obtained posts for which
they were wholly unfitted, without the colony having a voice in the
appointment. Hence, in 1616, Sir Thomas Dale, an able though stern
governor, having returned to England, leaving George Yeardley
deputy-governor, the notorious Captain Samuel Argall, through the
influence of Lord Rich, afterwards Earl of Warwick, was sent out, not
only as deputy-governor, but admiral. A more unfit man could not have
been selected. Martial law was again the law of the colony. The return
of Lord De la Ware was petitioned for, and that excellent man embarked
to resume his office, but died on the voyage. Unlimited power was in the
rapacious hands of Argall; the labour of the colonists was enforced for
his benefit; even life itself was insecure against his capricious
passions. The colony appealed to the company on behalf of an innocent
man, who for merely speaking freely against his tyranny, was condemned
by him to death. Fortunately for the colony, Argall had also defrauded
the company; he was therefore deposed, and George Yeardley, a mild and
popular man, was appointed captain-general; Argall in the meantime,
disappeared from the colony, having fled with the fruits of his
peculation to the West Indies, and thence to England, where, strange to
say, his partisans, of whom he had many in the company, prevented his
being called to account.
Under the administration of Yeardley, who was now knighted, the colony
prospered greatly; martial law was abolished; the planters were released
from further service to the colony, and the first colonial assembly ever
held in Virginia took place at Jamestown, in June, 1619. The exactions
and abuses of Argall had led to the concession of law and justice by the
company. A great step was gained. This was the dawn of legislative
liberty in America. “The colonists, now become willing to regard
Virginia as their future home,” says the old chronicler, “fell to
building houses and planting corn.”
Fortunately, also, the treasurer of the company in London, Sir Edwin
Sandys, a man of great judgment and firmness, investigated the affairs
of the colony, and carried out the reform of many abuses. It was now
twelve years since the foundation of Jamestown, yet the colony consisted
but of six hundred persons, men, women, and children; and in this
present year of 1620, Sir Edward Sandys sent out twelve hundred and
sixty-one persons. The character of his emigration is also worthy of
consideration. Hitherto but few persons going to the colony had done so
with the intention of settling; their purpose had been to make money and
then return home; few women, therefore, had ventured across the
ocean;—now, however, everything was changed for the better; Virginia
offered a desirable home for families, therefore “ninety agreeable young
women, of incorrupt lives,” through the influence of Sandys, were sent
out at the expense of the company, sure of a cordial welcome in the
colony, but only to be married to men well able to support them, and who
would willingly pay the cost of their passage. This adventure answered
so well in every respect, that the next year sixty more “maids of
virtuous education, young, handsome, and well recommended,” went out;
and so great was the demand for them, that their price rose from one
hundred and twenty pounds weight of tobacco, to one hundred and fifty
each; and so much was the worth of a man increased by his being married,
that the company gave employment by preference to men with wives. The
result of this new element in the colony was great, but not more so than
was natural. Now commenced the existence of domestic life, and with it
virtuous sentiments and habits of thrift. Within three years, so greatly
had emigration increased under these circumstances, that 3,500 persons
landed in the colony, amongst whom were many Puritan refugees.
[Illustration: FIRST MEETING OF THE ASSEMBLY IN VIRGINIA.]
In 1621, Sir George Yeardley was succeeded as governor by Sir Edward
Wyatt, who carried out with him a _written constitution_, ratifying in
the main the form of government established by Yeardley. The form of
constitution prescribed was similar to that of England, and remained to
be the model of all other Anglo-American governments. Its purport was
declared to be “the greatest comfort and benefit to the people, and the
prevention of injustice, grievances, and oppression.” A more sound basis
than this for any government could not have been devised. A governor and
permanent council were to be appointed by the company; a general
assembly was to meet yearly, consisting of the members of the council,
and delegates chosen by the people as their representatives, two for
each borough, the colony being divided into eleven boroughs. All
enactments of the General Assembly, however, required, to become valid,
the ratification of the company in England. It was further ordained—and
this gave the greatest satisfaction perhaps of all—that after the
government of the colony had once become established, no orders of the
company in London should be valid unless ratified by the General
Assembly of the colony. The courts of justice were to be constituted
according to the laws and mode of trial established in England.
Representative government and trial by jury were established in America;
and the colonists, no longer depending on a commercial corporation, now
became enfranchised citizens. “Henceforth,” says Bancroft, “the supreme
power was held to reside in the hands of the colonial parliament, and of
the king, as king of Virginia. This ordinance was the basis on which
Virginia erected the superstructure of her liberties. Its influences
were wide and enduring, and can be traced through all following years of
the history of the colony. It constituted, in its infancy, a university
of freemen; and succeeding generations learned to cherish institutions
which were as old as the first period of the prosperity of their
fathers. The privileges which were now conceded could never be wrested
from the Virginians, and as new colonies arose at the south, their
proprietaries could hope to win emigrants only by bestowing franchises
as large as those enjoyed by their older rival.”
In the month of August, 1620, fourteen months before the sitting of the
first representative assembly in Virginia, about four months before the
landing of the pilgrim fathers in America, a century after the last
hereditary serfdom had been abolished in England, and six years after
the commons of France had petitioned for the emancipation of every serf
in any fief, a Dutch man-of-war entered James River, bringing in twenty
negroes for sale. The necessity for labourers seems to have been the
first cause of the introduction of negro slaves into Virginia, and the
Dutch were for many years the principal slave traders. The cultivation
of silk and of the vine had been introduced, but scarcity of labourers
caused these branches of cultivation to languish; cotton, on the other
hand, soon engaged attention. In 1621, the first seeds were sown as an
experiment, and their “plentiful coming up” promised the most successful
results.
Wyatt found the colony in a high degree of prosperity. The English had
extended their plantations considerably inland, along the banks of the
James River and the Potomac; wherever rich ground invited, there they
established themselves, no longer fearing the solitude of the forest,
because they no longer dreaded the power of the Indians. The Indians
were regarded with contempt or pity; a single mastiff would put many to
flight; seven hundred armed savages had on one occasion been routed by
fifteen armed men; no care was taken to conciliate their good will,
although in many cases their condition was improved by the introduction
of some of the arts of civilised life. Their simple, child-like state
may be exhibited by one small circumstance. A house had been built for
the great chief Opechancanough, successor of Powhatan, according to the
English style, and so delighted was he with the lock on the door, that
he locked and unlocked it a hundred times a day, and regarded it as a
triumph of skill.
So peaceful were all things, and so amicable appeared the relationship
with the natives, on the arrival of Wyatt, that the emigrants needed
fire-arms apparently merely for the destruction of game; and the old law
of the colony which had made it death to teach an Indian the use of
fire-arms, was now so much disregarded, that the Indians were employed
by the whites as their huntsmen. Enmity, however, was not extinct in the
heart of the savage. Powhatan, the father of Pocahontas, the firm friend
of the English, was dead, and his younger brother, his successor,
entertained different sentiments towards the strangers, whose rapidly
increasing numbers and widely extending settlements might justly awake
the fear and the jealousy of the primeval possessors of the soil. A deep
plan of extermination was laid. In open battle the Indian knew that he
had no chance, but by cunning and guile he could accomplish much. A
general attack was determined on by the Indians, but all preparations
concealed by impenetrable secrecy. The Indians appeared as amicably
disposed as heretofore. They visited the settlements of the English,
borrowed their boats, sat at their tables, and made professions of
friendship; “sooner,” said they, “shall the sky fall than our friendship
be broken by us!” and this on the very morning of the day which was to
destroy the whole race.
At mid-day on the 22nd of March, at one and the same moment, the Indians
fell upon the whole white population scattered in distant villages, one
hundred and forty miles along each side of the river! No suspicion of
such an intention had been excited;—men, women, and children, the
missionary who had taught them and laboured among them with unwearying
kindness; those from whom the Indian never received anything but
benefits, all were murdered, with every appalling circumstance of Indian
barbarity, and so great was their fury, that they even attacked the
dead, as if to murder them anew.
In one hour three hundred and forty-seven persons were destroyed. And
the whole of Virginia might have slept in one bloody grave, had not a
converted Indian, the night before the massacre, revealed the plot to an
Englishman, to whom he was much attached, and whose life he wished to
save. By this means Jamestown and the nearer settlements were fully
prepared. The larger portion of the colony was saved, but so universal
was the terror which this bloody massacre occasioned, that all public
works were interrupted, and the more remote settlements abandoned. The
cultivation of the land was almost at once given up, and of the eighty
flourishing, happy settlements which had so lately existed, now there
remained but eight. Some of the colonists fled in their terror to
England, and sickness broke out amongst those who remained.
The colonists rose up for vengeance, and in England so great was the
sympathy and compassion excited, that new supplies and arms were
immediately sent out; King James, for his part, ordering a quantity of
arms which had been thrown into the Tower as good for nothing to be sent
over, as they might be useful against the Indians! The city of London
and many private persons generously contributed aid; and the brave John
Smith, then in London, volunteered his services to defend the colonists
and chastise the Indians; but the company declared it had no funds, and
he was not rich enough to go out at his own cost.
A deep cloud rested on Virginia, which nothing but vengeance on the
Indians would dispel. The Indians, not having fully accomplished their
scheme, and now justly dreading a tenfold retaliation, fled far into the
forest. But their land was seized upon, their open fields and villages,
all planted on the pleasantest and most fertile sites, were soon in
secure possession of the English. To pursue the natives to the
fastnesses of the wilderness was impossible, therefore the English in
their turn practised guile. They assumed an aspect of forgiveness; the
savages, by degrees losing their fear, ventured forth again, and even
approaching their old haunts, resettled themselves in the neighbourhood
of their enemies. The aspect of peace and forbearance was, however, only
vengeance deferred.
In July of the following year, the Indians were attacked by an army
under commissioned officers; a similar attack was repeated the next
year, and for several years, it being now a colonial principle that no
peace should be concluded with the Indians.
Meantime great changes as regarded the relationships of the colony to
the mother-country were taking place. The colony of Virginia had not
been a lucrative enterprise for the London company; the shares at the
present time were as unproductive stock of little value; the holders
were numerous, and the meetings of the company in London had, instead of
being mere meetings of business, become scenes of political debate, in
which the supporters of liberty were arrayed against the supporters of
royal prerogative. Liberal opinions here found free play. The king was
displeased by this freedom of debate. Gondemar, the Spanish envoy,
warned James that “these Virginian courts were only a seminary to a
seditious parliament.” James, who abhorred freedom of opinion,
determined to nip it in the bud, by putting an end to the hot-bed which
fostered it. His first endeavour was to control the election of officers
by overawing their assemblies; and failing of that, he determined to
sequestrate their patent, and recover to himself the authority which he
had conceded to the company. Commissioners in the interest of the king
were appointed to examine into the affairs of the corporation, although
former charges against them had been satisfactorily answered, the
records were seized; the deputy-treasurer imprisoned, and private
letters from Virginia intercepted and examined. Smith was examined, and
his straightforward, honest answers exposed the bad management of the
company, and showed that the withdrawal of the charter would be a boon
to the colony. This surprised all; commissioners, who had been appointed
to examine the affairs of the corporation and the colony itself,
reported in favour of a change. The king did not hesitate; the London
company was dissolved, and Virginia once more became a royal government,
as under its first charter.
Whilst these things were going on in England, the Virginians were not
indifferent. When the commissioners arrived in the colony, the prayer of
the colonists was that the governors might not have absolute power; that
the liberty of popular assemblies might not be retrenched, “for
nothing,” said they, “can conduce more to public satisfaction and public
utility, than the free discussion of our own affairs.” That this subject
might be efficiently urged, an agent was sent for that purpose to
England, a tax of four pounds weight of the best tobacco being levied on
each male above the age of sixteen, and who had been a twelvemonth in
the colony, to defray the expenses. But this agent unfortunately died on
his voyage.
The spirit of liberty, however, had taken deep root on the Virginian
soil. Intimidation and promised advantage could not induce the colony to
pray for a repeal of the charter under which their first constitutional
liberty had been granted. On the contrary, the assembly met, and laid
down laws for itself. The governor said, “they shall not lay any taxes
or impositions on the colony, its lands or commodities, other way than
by the authority of the General Assembly, to be levied and employed as
the said assembly shall appoint.” Virginia, the Old Dominion, as it is
called, was the first to set an example of just and wise legislation as
regarded the use of the public money. Others imitated the example in due
time. Various governors had endeavoured by penal enactments to compel
the culture of corn; now it was said, “for the encouragement of men to
plant store of corn, the price shall not be stinted, but it shall be
free for any man to sell it as dear as he can.” Through the whole of
this disturbed period the Virginians showed themselves admirably capable
of popular government, proving how truly, with the aid of free
discussion, men become good legislators in their own concerns; wise
legislation being the enacting of proper laws at proper times, and no
criterion being so nearly infallible as the fair representation of the
interests to be affected. Among the laws which were at this time framed,
and which reflect the manners and spirit of the age, we may mention the
following. It was enacted “that there should be a room or house set
apart in every plantation for the worship of God, sequestered and set
apart for that purpose only;” also a place of burial “sequestered and
paled in.” Absence from public worship without allowable excuse, was
punished by the fine of a pound weight of tobacco, or fifty pounds
weight, if absence continued a month. Divine service was according to
the canons of the English church. The 22nd of March was added to the
church festivals, in commemoration of the escape from the Indian
massacre. Any minister absent from his parish above two months annually
forfeited half his salary. The falsely disparaging of a minister
rendered the offender liable to a fine of five hundred pounds weight of
tobacco, and publicly to ask pardon of the minister. Ministers’ salaries
were to be paid out of the first-gathered and best tobacco and corn.
Drunkenness and swearing were punishable offences. Three sufficient men
were to be sworn in each parish to see that every man cultivated corn
sufficient for his family. Every settler was to fence in a garden for
himself of one acre, for the planting of vines, roots, herbs, and
mulberry trees. Weights and measures were to be sealed. Every house was
to be palisadoed for defence, and people were not to go out in such
numbers as might leave their houses undefended and liable to attack.
Delinquent persons of quality, not fit to undergo corporal punishment,
might be imprisoned at discretion, or fined by the monthly courts. “At
the beginning of July, the inhabitants of every plantation were to fall
upon their neighbouring savages, as they did last year.” Every person
wounded in this service was to be cured at the public expense, and if
permanently lamed would have maintenance for life suitable to his
quality.
The London company was at an end. “It had,” says Bancroft, “fulfilled
its high destinies; it had confirmed the colonisation of Virginia, and
had conceded a liberal form of government to Englishmen in America. It
could accomplish no more.”
The term of five years was fixed as that of the period of representative
government. Sir Thomas Wyatt was confirmed in office for that term; and
the king himself was about to frame a code of fundamental laws for the
colony, when death fortunately put an end to his attempt.
Charles I. succeeded his father, March 27, 1625. As regarded Virginia,
he had no more interest in it than as the country producing tobacco, and
from which he hoped to derive a large revenue. His first act with
reference to the colony was an endeavour to obtain for himself the sole
monopoly of this trade. As to its constitutions and political rights, he
did not trouble himself about them, and they became established by his
very indifference.
In 1626, Wyatt having returned to Europe, Sir George Yeardley was
appointed his successor. The colony prospered; in 1627, one thousand
emigrants arrived in the country. The following year Yeardley died,
leaving behind him a memory cherished by the colony as the first
governor who had convened a representative assembly.
Again, the king offered to contract for the whole crop of tobacco,
desiring that an assembly might be called to consider his proposal. The
assembly returned a firm negative to the royal monopolist.
On the death of Yeardley, John Harvey, who had been for several years a
member of the council, and an extremely unpopular man, was nominated
governor by the king; but as he was not then in the colony, some time
elapsed before he appeared to assume his authority.
It was at this period that Lord Baltimore visited Virginia. He fled
hither as a persecuted man, and was hospitably received; nor must it be
forgotten that, as regarded the pilgrims of Plymouth rock, they were
invited to leave that sterile and inhospitable region, and plant
themselves in the milder regions of Delaware Bay. Puritanism was
evidently at that time not persecuted in Virginia, though “needless
novelties” in worship had been prohibited by law for some years.
In the autumn of 1629, Harvey, the new governor, arrived. He was
unwelcome from various causes; he belonged to the faction to which
Virginia ascribed her earliest sorrows; he had rendered himself
extremely unpopular as a member of the council; besides which, it had
been well pleasing to the colony that King James, on assuming supreme
authority, had entrusted the government to impartial agents; but now the
appointment of Harvey indicated a change of policy. His arrival among
them was naturally cause neither of satisfaction nor of rejoicing, nor
does he appear to have conciliated their favour. The older historians
charge him with arbitrary and tyrannical conduct; yet it may be
questionable whether he was quite deserving of the ill-will with which
he was regarded, as the revised code of laws, which was published with
consent of the governor and the council, neither abrogated nor abridged
any of the civil rights of the colonists.
His administration, however, was disturbed by disputes respecting
land-titles under the royal grants, and principally in consequence of
the grant of Maryland to Lord Baltimore, which caused the first European
blood to be shed by Europeans on the banks of the Chesapeake. Harvey not
seconding the claims of Virginia against the royal grant, was considered
by the colonists to have betrayed their interests; and full of
indignation against him, they “thrust him out of his government,” says
the old chronicle, and “appointed Captain John West governor in his
stead till the king’s pleasure should be known.” Harvey consented to go
to England to meet his accusers there, but, as might have been expected,
no accusations would be received there against the man who had been
merely acting according to royal instructions. The commission of
accusation could not even obtain a hearing. Harvey returned to occupy
his former post, and remained in office till 1639, when Sir Francis
Wyatt succeeded him. Two years afterwards, Sir William Berkeley was
appointed governor. The civil condition of Virginia was greatly
improved; the laws and customs of England still further introduced;
cruel punishments were abolished; old controversies adjusted; a more
equitable system of taxation was introduced; taxes being assessed not in
proportion to numbers, but “to men’s abilities and estates;” the rights
of property and the freedom of industry were secured, so that Virginia
enjoyed all the civil liberties which a more free form of government
could have conferred. The Virginians seem early to have understood the
true elements of political economy. In a petition addressed to England,
in 1642, they asserted the necessity of the freedom of trade, “for
freedom of trade,” say they, “is the blood and life of a commonwealth.”
And as regarded self-government, they argued with the force of truth,
“there is more likelihood that such as are acquainted with the clime and
its accidents may, upon better grounds, prescribe our advantages, than
such as sit at the helm in England.”
Spite of the liberality which had been exhibited in the colony towards
diversities of religious opinion, which had led the excellent Whitaker
to say, “let neither surplice nor subscription be spoken of here;” which
had caused an invitation to the pilgrims of New Hampshire to remove
within the precincts of Virginia; a spirit of intolerance was now
manifested by the legislative assembly, and it was ordained that “no
minister preach or teach except in conformity to the Church of England.”
Whilst puritanism and republicanism were working together for the
downfall of monarchy in England, Virginia showed the strongest
attachment to the cause of episcopacy and royalty.
The hostility of the settlers against the natives remained year by year
unabated. Twenty-one years after the massacre, it was enacted in the
assembly that no terms of peace should be entertained with the Indians.
Now, therefore, the Indians, hearing that troubles and dissensions were
arising in England, resolved once more on a general massacre, hoping,
that by destroying the corn-fields and cattle, they might cause any
remnant who remained to perish by famine. The eighteenth of April was
fixed upon as the fatal day; the attack commenced on the border
frontiers; but the Indians themselves, filled as it were by a
consciousness of their own weakness and dread of the consequences, had
scarcely begun to shed blood when they fled. The number of victims was
again about three hundred. The colonists roused themselves at once, and
war commenced again vigorously against the Indians. The aged
Opechancanough, the successor of Powhatan, was soon taken prisoner, and
with his death peace was secured to the English.
This fierce warrior, and implacable enemy of the whites, was now nearly
one hundred years of age, and his once stately form was wasted with the
fatigues of war and bent with the weight of years. Unable to walk, says
the historian of Virginia, he was carried from place to place by his
followers. His flesh was almost wasted away from his bones, and his
eyelids were so powerless, that he could only see when they were lifted
by his followers.
After a long and rapid march, Sir William Berkeley, with a party of
horse, surprised the aged warrior at some distance from his residence,
and took him prisoner to Jamestown, where he was exhibited as an object
of curiosity and of triumph to the victor. The old monarch of the
forest, retaining a spirit unbroken by the decrepitude of the body, bore
his calamities of fortune with a proud though melancholy mien. Hearing
footsteps in the room where he lay, he requested his eyelids to be
raised, when perceiving a crowd of spectators, he called for the
governor, and upon his appearance said with calm dignity, “Had it been
my fortune to have taken Sir William Berkeley prisoner, I would have
scorned to have made a show of _him_.”
About a fortnight after the noble old chiefs capture, one of his guards,
from private revenge, shot him in the back, and after languishing for
some time of his wound, the old man died.
The Indians were completely subdued, and a cession of land was the terms
on which peace was granted to the original possessors of the soil. The
red man began to pass away from the precincts of the white. Within a
short period, comparatively speaking, but few memorials of their former
existence remained, saving the euphonious or sonorous names of rivers
and mountains, the great imperishable features of nature, which thus
became their monuments.
Whilst civil war and political convulsions were agitating England to the
very centre of her being, peace and prosperity, security and quiet,
equal laws and general contentment, were at home in Virginia. The
population of the colony amounted to twenty thousand, and was still
increasing; the houses were filled with children, as the ports were with
ships and emigrants. At Christmas, 1648, two ships from London traded
with Virginia, two from Bristol, twelve from Holland, and seven from New
England.
The Virginians adhered faithfully to the royal cause, nor would they,
after the execution of the monarch, recognise the Commonwealth, but
still acknowledged Charles II. to be monarch, while yet a fugitive.
Virginia soon became filled with cavaliers, fugitives like their
sovereign. “Men of consideration among the nobility, gentry, and clergy,
struck with horror and despair at the execution of the king, and
desiring no reconciliation with the unrelenting rebels, made their way
to the shores of the Chesapeake, where every house was for them a
hostelry, and every planter a friend.” In the hospitable homes of
Virginia they often met to talk over their own and their country’s
sorrows, and to nourish loyalty and hope.
The Parliament, extremely displeased that this colony should thus become
the asylum and nursery of monarchical principles, sent, in 1652, a naval
force to reduce them to submission. Already, in 1650, foreign ships had
been forbidden to trade with the contumacious colony, and in 1651 the
celebrated Navigation Act was passed, which, having for its object the
protection of British shipping, and the acquisition to England of the
trade of the world, greatly shackled and restricted the commercial
prosperity of her colonies.
In March, 1652, the republican party in the mother-country determined on
obtaining the concession of obedience from Virginia. Commissioners
chosen from among the planters themselves were empowered to act as
pacificators with their country, the submission of which, if their
efforts failed, would be enforced by the severities of war. It was the
reconciliation of parent and child; the offended parent assumed an
attitude of displeasure and resentment; obedient submission was that
which was demanded, and which, if needful, would be enforced by
violence; yet, would but the child submit, the parent would concede
much; and the child, seeing the parent in earnest, yielded at once, and
obtained the offered concession. No sooner, therefore, had the
war-frigate of the Commonwealth anchored in the Chesapeake, than all
thoughts of resistance were laid aside. The colonists, however loyal
might be their inclinations, were more disposed to establish the freedom
of their own institutions than to assume a hostile attitude against the
mother-country, even on behalf of an exiled monarch.
There is something noble in the position which Virginia now assumed. It
was not to force that she surrendered, but by “a voluntary deed and
mutual compact; and in return she obtained, that her people should
possess all the liberties of free-born people of England; should manage
their business as formerly in their own assembly, and should have as
free-trade as the people of England. No taxes nor customs were to be
levied except by her own representatives, no forts erected nor garrisons
maintained but by her consent.”
These conditions, so favourable to liberty, worthy to be granted by the
champions of political and civil liberty in England, were a cause of
great satisfaction to Virginia; and so earnest was the spirit of her
submission and her desire to establish an amicable understanding with
the mother-country, that Richard Bennett, one of the commissioners of
the Parliament, a merchant and a Roundhead, was unanimously elected
governor in the place of Sir William Berkeley.
The spirit of democratic liberty, like a strong young tree, grew with
every change of season. Hitherto the governor and the council had sat in
the General Assembly; the propriety of this was now questioned, and only
retained by a concession which made the house of burgesses, a convention
of the people, virtually possessed of supreme authority. Nor were these
privileges at all interfered with by Cromwell. When Bennett two years
afterwards retired from office, Edward Diggs, a steadfast Commonwealth’s
man, was elected his successor, and after him the “worthy old Samuel
Matthews, a planter of forty years, a most deserving republican, who
kept a good house, lived bravely, and was a true lover of Virginia.”
Under his governorship a single instance of the determined spirit of
democracy occurred which still more strengthened and established it. The
governor and his council having come to issue with the burgesses on a
question of prerogative, the governor yielded, reserving a right of
appeal to Cromwell. The members of the Assembly, fearing through this an
infringement of their liberty, asserted their own sovereign authority,
and deposed the governor and council; re-electing Matthews, however, and
investing him “with all the just rights and privileges as governor and
captain-general of Virginia,” and Matthews submitted, as Virginia
herself had done in her quarrel with England, that by submission he
might conquer. He acknowledged the right of the burgesses to depose and
re-elect; took the oath; and thus was popular liberty still further
strengthened in the Old Dominion—an example to all other newer states.
In March, 1660, the very time when the resignation of Richard Cromwell
left England without a ruler, good old Samuel Matthews died, and
Virginia was in the same predicament. But the burgesses of Virginia,
unlike the people of England, stood fast by democratic principles, and,
enacting that the supreme power should still reside in the General
Assembly until there should arrive from England a commission, which the
Assembly itself should adjudge to be lawful, proceeded to elect Sir
William Berkeley as their governor; and he in his turn acknowledged the
validity of this act of the Assembly by assuming office, “for I am,”
said he, “but a servant of the Assembly.”
Virginia, in this case, however, it must be observed, recognised
covertly another authority higher than that of her own Assembly,
retaining, amid her spirit of democracy, a firm sentiment of loyalty.
She hoped at this time for the restoration of the Stuarts.
Virginia was composed of separate boroughs, and the government organised
on the basis of universal suffrage. Every freeman was possessed of a
vote. On an attempt to limit the right of voting to householders, it was
declared to be “hard and unagreeable to reason that every person shall
pay equal taxes and yet have no vote in the elections.”
During the Commonwealth, Virginia not only enjoyed the utmost political
liberty, but unlimited freedom of commerce also, while her own internal
state was that of peace and prosperity. “Tobacco, the great staple
product of the country, was the medium of exchange. Theft was hardly
known, and the spirit and administration of the criminal law was mild
and merciful; the cultivation of land was carried on very successfully;
and as regarded commerce, the navigation laws were a mere dead letter.
Virginia even traded with the Dutch during the period when the Protector
and Holland were desperately contesting the sovereignty of the seas. The
Virginians were the early advocates of free trade, and invited the Dutch
and all foreigners to trade with them on the payment of no higher duty
than that which was levied on such English vessels as were bound for a
foreign port.” Proposals of peace were discussed between New
Netherlands, the Dutch colony on the North American shore, and Virginia.
During this period, also, considerable advance was made in religious
liberty, although the Quakers were banished from the colony.
At the period of the Restoration, Virginia possessed, among the
privileges which she had won for herself, freedom of commerce with the
whole world, and the universal elective franchise. The population
amounted now to 30,000, and it was esteemed an honour to be a born
Virginian. Numbers of the emigrants of late years had been, as we have
seen, royalist officers, men of family and education, and these, though
they still retained their loyalty, offered no impediment to the free
exercise of independent principles in Virginia, and finally the
newly-adopted country superseded the old, and the interests and
liberties of Virginia became to them dearer even than the monarchical
principles of which they had been the supporters in England, and for
their adherence to which they had been exiles.
“God Almighty,” says their statute-book of this time, “hath vouchsafed
myriads of children to this colony.” Young Virginians were growing up
throughout the length and breadth of the land. Virginia was becoming the
home of patriots.
“Labour,” adds Bancroft, summing up the advantages and prosperity of the
colony, “was valuable; land was cheap; competence promptly followed
industry. There was no need of a scramble; abundance gushed from the
earth for all. It was the best poor man’s country in the world. Yet, as
the shadow-side of this bright picture, it must be conceded that plenty
encouraged indolence; everything was imported from England. The chief
branch of industry, for the purpose of exchanges, was tobacco planting,
and the spirit of invention was enfeebled by the uniformity of pursuit.”