more fighting. He withdrew his troops into Bohemia, and it is hard to
say what purposes simmered in his dark and inscrutable brain. He
certainly was no longer loyal to the Emperor; probably the Emperor
plotted against him. Wallenstein seems to have contemplated making
himself king of an independent Bohemian kingdom. At any rate, he broke
openly with his sovereign, and at a great banquet persuaded his leading
officers to sign an oath that they would stand by him in whatever he
did. Some of the more timid among them warned the Emperor, and with his
approval formed a trap for Wallenstein. The general's chief lieutenants
were suddenly set upon and slain; then the murderers rushed to
Wallenstein's own apartments. Hearing them coming, he stood up
dauntlessly, threw wide his arms to their blows, and died as silent and
mysterious as he had lived. His slayers were richly rewarded by
Ferdinand.
All Germany was weary of the war. The contending parties had fought each
other to a standstill; and, had Germany alone been concerned, peace
would certainly have followed. But the Swedes, abandoning Gustavus'
higher policy, continued the war for what increase of territory they
could get; and France helped herself to what German cities she could in
Alsace and Lorraine. So the war went on, the German princes taking
sides now with this one, now the other, and nobody apparently ever
thinking of the poor peasantry.
The spirit of the brutal soldiery grew ever more atrocious. Their
captives were tortured to death for punishment or for ransom, or, it is
to be feared, for the mere amusement of the bestial captors. The open
country became everywhere a wilderness. The soldiers themselves began
starving in the dismal desert.
The Emperor, Ferdinand II, the cause of all this destruction, died in
1637, and was succeeded by his son, Ferdinand III (1637-1657). The war
still continued, though in a feeble, listless way, with no decisive
victories on either side, until the peace of Westphalia, in 1648. This
peace placed Protestants and Catholics on an equal footing of toleration
throughout the empire. It gave Sweden what territory she wanted in the
north, and France what she asked toward the Rhine. Switzerland and
Holland were acknowledged as independent lands. The importance of the
smaller princes was increased, they, too, becoming practically
independent, and the power of the emperors was all but destroyed. From
this time the importance of the Hapsburgs rested solely on their
personal possessions in Austria, Hungary, and Bohemia. The title of
emperor remained little better than a name.
Indeed, Germany itself had become scarcely more than a name. During
those terrible thirty years the population of the land is said to have
dwindled from fifteen millions to less than five millions. In the
Palatinate less than fifty thousand people remained, where there had
been five hundred thousand. Whole districts everywhere lay utterly
waste, wild, and uninhabited. Men killed themselves to escape
starvation, or slew their brothers for a fragment of bread. A full
description of the horrors of that awful time will never be written;
much has been mercifully obliterated. The material progress of Germany,
its students say, was retarded by two centuries' growth. To this day the
land has not fully recovered from the exhaustion of that awful war.
FOOTNOTES:
[32] From _The Story of the Greatest Nations_, by permission
of F. R. Niglutsch.
FIRST AMERICAN LEGISLATURE
A.D. 1619
CHARLES CAMPBELL
As a distinctly American event the beginning of formal
legislation in this country has special interest, no less for
the general reader than for students of legal history. None of
the early institutions of the fathers is more important than
that which developed into the State legislature.
At the opening of 1609 the Virginia colony, which was not then
in a flourishing condition, asked and obtained from King James
I a new charter. The territory was now greatly enlarged, the
powers of local government increased, and Virginia soon entered
upon its permanent career.
In 1617 "a party of greedy and unprincipled adventurers" in
England succeeded in having an agent of their own appointed
deputy governor. This was Samuel Argall. Lord Delaware, the
Governor, dying in 1618, Argall became virtual dictator, and
under his arbitrary and self-seeking rule the people suffered.
Meanwhile others, in England, were at work in the interest of
the Virginia Company, under whose auspices, from the granting
of the new charter, the colony had existed. Sir Edwin Sandys,
in 1618, was made treasurer and actual governor of the Virginia
Company. Through the efforts of Sandys and others in England,
Sir George Yeardley, who had governed Virginia in 1616, was
sent in 1619 to supersede Argall.
This year "was remarkable in the annals of the colony. It is
hardly an exaggeration to say that it witnessed the creation of
Virginia as an independent community." From that year Sandys
and his followers maintained their ascendency, and a high
degree of energy and statesmanlike wisdom marked the
administration of the colonial government. The calling of the
first assembly was one of the principal acts of Yeardley's
administration.
Sir Thomas Smith, treasurer or governor of the Virginia Company, was
displaced in 1618, and succeeded by Sir Edwin Sandys. This enlightened
statesman and exemplary man was born in Worcestershire in 1561, being
the second son of the Archbishop of York. Educated at Oxford under the
care of "the judicious Hooker," he obtained a prebend in the church of
York. He afterward travelled in foreign countries, and published his
observations in a work entitled _Europæ Speculum; or,_ _A View of the
State of Religion in the Western World_. He resigned his prebend in
1602, was subsequently knighted by James, in 1603, and employed in
diplomatic trusts. His appointment as treasurer gave great satisfaction
to the colony; for free principles were now, under his auspices, in the
ascendent. His name is spelled sometimes "Sandis," sometimes "Sands."
When Argall, in April, 1619, stole away from Virginia, he left for his
deputy Captain Nathaniel Powell, who had come over with Captain Smith in
1607, and had evinced courage and discretion. He was one of the writers
from whose narratives Smith compiled his _General History_. Powell held
this office only about ten days, when Sir George Yeardley, recently
knighted, arrived as Governor-General, bringing with him new charters
for the colony. John Rolfe, who had been secretary, now lost his place,
probably owing to his connivance at Argall's malpractices, and was
succeeded by John Pory. He was educated at Cambridge, where he took the
degree of master of arts in April, 1610. It is supposed that he was a
member of the House of Commons. He was much of a traveller, and was at
Venice in 1613, at Amsterdam in 1617, and shortly after at Paris. By the
Earl of Warwick's influence he now procured the place of secretary of
the colony of Virginia, having come over in April, 1619, with Sir George
Yeardley, who appointed him one of his council.
In June Governor Yeardley summoned the first legislature that ever met
in America. It assembled at James City or Jamestown on Friday, July 30,
1619, upward of a year before the Mayflower left England with the
Pilgrims. A record of the proceedings is preserved in the London State
Paper Office, in the form of a report from the speaker, John Pory.
John Pory, secretary of the colony, was chosen speaker, and John Twine,
clerk. The Assembly sat in the choir of the church, the members of the
council sitting on either side of the Governor, and the speaker right
before him, the clerk next the speaker, and Thomas Pierse, the sergeant,
standing at the bar. Before commencing business, prayer was said by Mr.
Bucke, the minister.
Each burgess then, as called on, took the oath of supremacy. When the
name of Captain Ward was called, the speaker objected to him as having
seated himself on land without authority. Objections were also made to
the burgesses appearing to represent Captain Martin's patent, because
they were, by its terms, exempted from any obligation to obey the laws
of the colony. Complaint was made by Opochancano that corn had been
forcibly taken from some of his people in the Chesapeake by Ensign
Harrison, commanding a shallop belonging to this Captain John Martin,
"master of the Ordinance."
The speaker read the commission for establishing the council of state
and the General Assembly, and also the charter brought out by Sir Thomas
Yeardley. This last was referred to several committees for examination,
so that if they should find anything "not perfectly squaring with the
state of the colony, or any law pressing or binding too hard," they
might by petition seek to have it redressed, "especially because this
great charter is to bind us and our heirs forever." Mr. Abraham Persey
was the Cape merchant. The price at which he was to receive tobacco,
"either for commodities or upon bills," was fixed at three shillings for
the best and eighteen pence for the second-rate.
After inquiry the burgesses from Martin's patent were excluded, and the
Assembly "humbly demanded" of the Virginia Company an explanation of
that clause in his patent entitling him to enjoy his lands as amply as
any lord of a manor in England, adding, "the least the Assembly can
allege against this clause is that it is obscure and that it is a thing
impossible for us here to know the prerogatives of all the manors in
England." And they prayed that the clause in the charter guaranteeing
equal liberties and immunities to grantees, might not be violated, so as
to "divert out of the true course the free and public current of
justice." Thus did the first Assembly of Virginia insist upon the
principle of the Declaration of Rights of 1776, that "no man or set of
men are entitled to exclusive or separate emoluments or privileges from
the community, but in consideration of public services."
Certain instructions sent out from England were "drawn into laws" for
protection of the Indians from injury, and regulating intercourse with
them, and educating their children, and preparing some of the most
promising boys "for the college intended for them; that from thence they
may be sent to that work of conversion"; for regulating agriculture,
tobacco, and sassafras, then the chief merchantable commodities raised.
Upon Captain Powell's petition, "a lewd and treacherous servant of his"
was sentenced to stand for four days with his ears nailed to the
pillory, and be whipped each day. John Rolfe complained that Captain
Martin had made unjust charges against him, and cast "some aspersion
upon the present government, which is the most temperate and just that
ever was in this country--too mild, indeed, for many of this colony,
whom unwonted liberty hath made insolent, and not to know themselves."
On the last day of the session were enacted such laws as issued "out of
every man's private conceit." "It shall be free for every man to trade
with the Indians, servants only excepted upon pain of whipping, unless
the master will redeem it off with the payment of an angel." "No man to
sell or give any of the greater hoes to the Indians, or any English dog
of quality, as a mastiff, greyhound, bloodhound, land or water spaniel."
"Any man selling arms or ammunition to the Indians, to be hanged so soon
as the fact is proved." All ministers shall duly "read divine service,
and exercise their ministerial function according to the ecclesiastical
laws and orders of the Church of England, and every Sunday, in the
afternoon, shall catechize such as are not ripe to come to the
communion." All persons going up or down the James River were to touch
at James City, "to know whether the Governor will command them any
service." "All persons whatsoever, upon the Sabbath days, shall frequent
divine service and sermons, both forenoon and afternoon; and all such as
bear arms shall bring their pieces, swords, powder, and shot."
Captain Henry Spellman, charged by Robert Poole, interpreter, with
speaking ill of the Governor "at Opochancano's court," was degraded from
his rank of captain, and condemned to serve the colony for seven years
as interpreter to the Governor. Paspaheigh, embracing three hundred
acres of land, was also called Argallstown, and was part of the tract
appropriated to the Governor. To compensate the speaker, clerk,
sergeant, and provost-marshal, a pound of the best tobacco was levied
from every male above sixteen years of age.
The Assembly prayed that the treasurer, council, and company would not
"take it in ill part if these laws, which we have now brought to light,
do pass current, and be of force till such time as we may know their
further pleasure out of England; for otherwise this people (who now at
length have got their reins of former servitude into their own swindge)
would, in short time, grow so insolent as they would shake off all
government, and there would be no living among them." They also prayed
the company to "give us power to allow or disallow of their orders of
court, as his majesty hath given them power to allow or reject _our_
laws." So early did it appear that, from the necessity of the case, the
colony must in large part legislate for itself, and so early did a
spirit of independence manifest itself.
Owing to the heat of the weather several of the burgesses fell sick and
one died, and thus the Governor was obliged abruptly, on August 4th, to
prorogue the Assembly till March 1st. There being as yet no counties
laid off, the representatives were elected from the several towns,
plantations, and hundreds, styled boroughs, and hence they were called
burgesses.
INTRODUCTION OF NEGROES INTO VIRGINIA
SPREAD OF SLAVERY AND THE CULTIVATION OF TOBACCO
A.D. 1619
CHARLES CAMPBELL JOHN M. LUDLOW
It was not till one hundred twenty years after the beginning of
negro slavery in Spanish America that it was introduced in any
part of the present United States. From its first introduction
in Virginia (1619) the system grew and spread until it became
one of the most prominent features of American society. The
comprehensive view of its growth and decline presented by Mr.
Ludlow, a well-known English writer, has therefore a special
value here. From him and from the Virginia historian Mr.
Campbell we get two widely diverging views upon the subject.
Along with the adoption and increase of slavery in Virginia
went rapid progress in the cultivation there of tobacco, which
had begun in 1612. Tobacco proved to be a staple of the first
importance. It was destined to exert a controlling influence on
the growth and prosperity of the colony. It was not long before
this industry, by reason of the great profits which it
returned, overshadowed every other.
CHARLES CAMPBELL
In the month of August, 1619, a Dutch man-of-war visited Jamestown and
sold the settlers twenty negroes, the first introduced into Virginia.
Some time before this, Captain Argall, the deputy governor of Virginia,
sent out on a "filibustering" cruise to the West Indies a ship called
the Treasurer, manned "with the ablest men in the colony." She returned
to Virginia, after some ten months, with her booty, which consisted of
captured negroes, who were not left in Virginia, because Captain Argall
had gone back to England, but were put on the Earl of Warwick's
plantation in the Somer Islands.
It is probable that the planters who first purchased negroes reasoned
but little on the morality of the act, or, if any scruples of conscience
presented themselves, they could be readily silenced by reflecting that
the negroes were heathens, descendants of Ham, and consigned by divine
appointment to perpetual bondage. The planters may, if they reasoned at
all on the subject, have supposed that they were even performing a
humane act in releasing these Africans from the noisome hold of the
ship. They might well believe that the condition of the negro slave
would be less degraded and wretched in Virginia than it had been in his
native country. This first purchase was not probably looked upon as a
matter of much consequence, and for several years the increase of the
blacks in Virginia was so inconsiderable as not to attract any special
attention. The condition of the white servants of the colony, many of
them convicts, was so abject that men accustomed to see their own race
in bondage could look with more indifference at the worse condition of
the slaves.
The negroes purchased by the slavers on the coast of Africa were brought
from the interior, convicts sold into slavery, children sold by heathen
parents destitute of natural affection, kidnapped villagers, and
captives taken in war, the greater part of them born in hereditary
bondage. The circumstances under which they were consigned to the
slave-ship evince the wretchedness of their condition in their native
country, where they were the victims of idolatry, barbarism, and war.
The negroes imported were usually between the ages of fourteen and
thirty, two-thirds of them being males. The new negro, just transferred
from the wilds of a distant continent, was indolent, ignorant of the
modes and implements of labor, and of the language of his master and,
perhaps, of his fellow-laborers. To tame and domesticate, to instruct in
the modes of industry, and to reduce to subordination and usefulness a
barbarian, gross, obtuse, perverse, must have demanded persevering
efforts and severe discipline.
While the cruel slave trade was prompted by a remorseless cupidity, an
inscrutable Providence turned the wickedness of men into the means of
bringing about beneficent results. The system of slavery doubtless
entailed many evils on slave and slaveholder, and, perhaps, the greater
on the latter. These evils are the tax paid for the elevation of the
negro from his aboriginal condition.
Among the vessels that came over to Virginia from England about this
time is mentioned a bark of five tons. A fleet sent out by the Virginia
Company brought over, in 1619, more than twelve hundred settlers. The
planters at length enjoyed the blessings of property in the soil and the
society of women. The wives were sold to the colonists for one hundred
twenty pounds of tobacco, and it was ordered that this debt should have
precedence of all others. The price of a wife afterward became higher.
The bishops in England, by the King's orders, collected nearly fifteen
hundred pounds to build a college or university at Henrico, intended in
part for the education of Indian children.
In July, 1620, the population of the colony was estimated at four
thousand. One hundred "disorderly persons" or convicts sent over during
the previous year by the King's order were employed as servants. For a
brief interval the Virginia Company had enjoyed freedom of trade with
the Low Countries, where they sold their tobacco; but in October, 1621,
this was prohibited by an order in council; and from this time England
claimed a monopoly of the trade of her plantations, and this principle
was gradually adopted by all the European powers as they acquired
transatlantic settlements.
Many new settlements were now made on the James and York rivers; and the
planters, being supplied with wives and servants, began to be more
content, and to take more pleasure in cultivating their lands. The brief
interval of free trade with Holland had enlarged the demand for tobacco,
and it was cultivated more extensively.
Sir George Yeardley's term of office having expired, the Company's
council, upon the recommendation of the Earl of Southampton, appointed
Sir Francis Wyat governor, a young gentleman of Ireland, whose
education, family, fortune, and integrity well qualified him for the
place. He arrived in October, 1621, with a fleet of nine sail, and
brought over a new frame of government constituted by the company, and
dated July 24, 1621, establishing a council of state and a general
assembly.
Wyat brought with him also a body of instructions intended for the
permanent guidance of the governor and council. Among other things he
was to cultivate corn, wine, and silk; to search for minerals, dyes,
gums, and medical drugs, and to draw off the people from the excessive
planting of tobacco; to take a census of the colony; to put apprentices
to trades and not let them forsake them for planting tobacco or any such
useless commodity; to build water-mills, to make salt, pitch, tar, soap
and ashes; to make oil of walnuts, and employ apothecaries in distilling
lees of beer; to make small quantity of tobacco, and that very good.
In 1615 twelve different commodities had been shipped from Virginia;
sassafras and tobacco were now the only exports. During the year 1619
the company in England imported twenty thousand pounds of tobacco, the
entire crop of the preceding year. James I endeavored to draw a
"prerogative" revenue from what he termed a pernicious weed, and against
which he had published his _Counterblast_; but he was restrained from
this illegal measure by a resolution of the House of Commons. In 1607 he
sent a letter forbidding the use of tobacco at St. Mary's College,
Cambridge.
Smoking was the first mode of using tobacco in England, and when Sir
Walter Raleigh first introduced the custom among people of fashion, in
order to escape observation he smoked privately in his house (at
Islington); the remains of which were till of late years to be seen, as
an inn, long known as the Pied Bull. This was the first house in England
in which tobacco was smoked, and Raleigh had his arms emblazoned there,
with a tobacco-plant on the top. There existed also another tradition in
the parish of St. Matthew, Friday Street, London, that Raleigh was
accustomed to sit smoking at his door in company with Sir Hugh
Middleton. Sir Walter's guests were entertained with pipes, a mug of
ale, and a nutmeg, and on these occasions he made use of his
tobacco-box, which was of cylindrical form, seven inches in diameter and
thirteen inches long; the outside of gilt leather, and within a receiver
of glass or metal, which held about a pound of tobacco. A kind of collar
connected the receiver with the case, and on every side the box was
pierced with holes for the pipes. This relic was preserved in the museum
of Ralph Thoresby, of Leeds, in 1719, and about 1843 was added, by the
late Duke of Sussex, to his collection of the smoking-utensils of all
nations.
Although Raleigh first introduced the custom of smoking tobacco in
England, yet its use appears to have been not entirely unknown before,
for one Kemble, condemned for heresy in the time of Queen Mary the
Bloody, while walking to the stake smoked a pipe of tobacco. Hence the
last pipe that one smoked was called the Kemble pipe.
The writer of a pamphlet, supposed to have been Milton's father,
describes many of the playbooks and pamphlets of that day, 1609, as
"conceived over night by idle brains, impregnated with tobacco smoke and
mulled sack, and brought forth by the help of midwifery of a candle next
morning." At the theatres in Shakespeare's time the spectators were
allowed to sit on the stage, and to be attended by pages, who furnished
them with pipes and tobacco.
About the time of the settlement of Jamestown, in 1607, the
characteristics of a man of fashion were, to wear velvet breeches, with
panes or slashes of silk, an enormous starched ruff, a gilt-handled
sword, and a Spanish dagger: to play at cards or dice in the room of the
groom-porter, and to smoke tobacco in the tilt-yard, or at the
playhouse.
The peers engaged in the trial of the Earls of Essex and Southampton
smoked much while they deliberated on their verdict. It was alleged
against Raleigh that he smoked tobacco on the occasion of the execution
of the Earl of Essex, in contempt of him; and it was perhaps in allusion
to this circumstance that when Raleigh was passing through London to
Winchester, to stand his trial, he was followed by the execrations of
the populace, and pelted with tobacco-pipes, stones, and mud. On the
scaffold, however, he protested that during the execution of Essex he
had retired far off into the armory, where Essex could not see him,
although he saw Essex, and shed tears for him. Raleigh used tobacco on
the morning of his own execution.