While Captain Smith was engaged in the life-and-death struggle for food
with the Indian Emperor, Newport was arriving in England and unloading,
along with his clapboards and soap-ashes, a large budget of news adverse
to the President of the Virginia colony. Wingfield, Archer, Martin,
Nelson, Ratcliffe, and Newport were willing contributors.
The "Governors and Councillors established for the Plantation of Virginia"
were apprised of sundry errors which it was necessary to rectify, besides
"outrages and follies" committed by the President of the Council of
Virginia. The managers of the enterprise, "perceivinge that the plantation
went backwards rather than forwards," held special meetings at the
Earl of Exeter's house and elsewhere in London, and after consultation
with Hakluyt, Hariot, and others, "of all the inconveniences in the
three supplies (1606, 1607, 1608), and finding them to arise out of two
rootes--_the forme of government_, and length and danger of the passage
by the southerly course of the Indys, they determined to petition the King
for a special charter,"[54] etc.
Accordingly a new charter was drawn up by Sir Edwin Sandys, then leader
of the independent party in Parliament. The twenty-first article of this
charter was, in view of future events, most significant. It inserted these
words in italics: "_and every of their children which shall happen to be
born within any of their Limits ... shall have and enjoy all Liberties,
Franchises and Immunities of free Denizens and natural subjects with
any of our other Dominions, to all intents and purposes as if they had
been abiding and born within this Realm of England or any other of our
Dominions_." To this chartered right--"the unalienable rights of freeborn
Englishmen," our forefathers appealed when they protested against the
royal form of government in America.
The special charter was promptly granted by James the First, but it had
to go through a long routine before it could be signed and sealed by the
King.
By the new charter, the limits of the colony were extended two hundred
miles north and two hundred miles south of the mouth of James River;
the western boundary, the undiscovered ocean. The members of the London
Council were to be chosen by the Company, not appointed by the King;
Virginia was to be ruled by a Governor, Lieutenant-Governor, and Admiral,
who were empowered, in case of necessity, to declare martial law. These
officers were now appointed: Sir Thomas, Lord Delaware, was to be Governor
and Captain-General; Sir Thomas Gates, Lieutenant-Governor; Sir George
Somers, Admiral. These were men of rank and high character. It was
supposed that Wingfield, Ratcliffe, and Smith had been too obscure for
their position. A fleet of nine vessels and five hundred settlers, men,
women, and children, were to be sent out to do the work which the little
trio, _Susan Constant_, _Discovery_, and _Goodspeed_, had undertaken when
they dropped down the Thames in 1606.
By the provisions of the new charter the Virginia colony became indeed
more independent and republican, but under the new system the Governor
was endued with arbitrary power and authorized to declare martial law;
and the condition of the colonists was infinitely worse than before.
This they found to their bitter cost a few years later, when the hapless
sojourners at Jamestown fled from their homes and hid among friendly
Indians to escape the brutality of one of their governors. The sudden
repeal of the old charter evinced a cold ingratitude for the services of
Captain Smith and his associates, who had endured the toil, privations,
and dangers of the first settlement. These "true men" were not consulted.
They were utterly ignored, or branded as injurious to the interests of
the plantation. They will always live in history, which honours their
memory, as the real founders of this nation; while the motley multitude
sent to supersede them perished and came to naught within a very few short
months.[55]
Remembering the King's jealousy of his own honour and rights, one is
naturally surprised at his prompt acquiescence in the new charter. Those
around him knew him well. It was explained to his satisfaction that he was
now relieved of embarrassment in his relations to the Spanish government;
and that under the company's charter he could "owne it at his pleasure or
disavowe it as might be best for his honour and service."
"If it take not success, it is done of ther owne heddes. It is but
the attempt of private gentlemen: the State suffers noe losse, noe
disreputation.
"If it takes success, they are your subjects, they doe it for your
service, they will lay all at your Majesty's feet, and interess your
Majesty therein."[56]
This suited James exactly. He had much to interest him at home without
being bothered about colonial matters. He could always divide his time
"between his inkstand, his bottle, and his hunting." If he had a mind
for politics, there was plenty across the Channel, in the negotiations
between the Hollanders, Spain, France, and last and _least_ himself.
The Hague Treaty was signed this year (March 29, 1609), and James,
although distinctly snubbed by the Powers, regarded himself a mediator
and peacemaker. Besides, he had much ado to maintain himself,--this
heaven-descended pauper King,--a ruler of whom his subjects complained
that his hands were always in their pockets, and if they did not look
out he would keep them there. Often he could neither pay his servants nor
decently supply his own table.
Early in March, the Virginia Council in London addressed a letter to
the Mayor and Aldermen, beseeching them to take an active interest in
Virginia, as "an action concerning God and the advancement of Religion,
as well as the honour of the Kingdom." The Lord Mayor responded by sending
copies of their letter to the several city companies, asking them to "make
some adventure in so good and honourable an undertaking." The clergy of
the Church of England now evinced the warmest interest in the movement.
Sermons and tracts were written and sent broadcast throughout the country.
Among the prominent bishops, deans, and reverends who earnestly pleaded
for the conversion of the savages, we find our "Docteur of Divinitie,"
Rev. William Symondes.
The enthusiasm for Virginia caused by these efforts of the clergy, the
change in the charter, and the news of the decay of the plantation are
thus described by Strachey, in the elaborate style of the day:--
"Not a yeare of a romain-jubilee, noe, nor the Ethnick Queene of Ephesus,
can be said to have bene followed with more heate and zeale; the discourse
and visitation of it took up all meetings, times, termes, all degrees,
all purses, and such throngs and concourse of personal undertakers, as
the aire seemed not to have more Lights than that holie cause imflamed
Spirits to partake with it." Zuñiga was almost beside himself. He wrote
to his King, entreating him in the most earnest manner to "give orders to
have those insolent people in Virginia quickly annihilated."
On May 11 Edward Reed wrote from London to Mr. Coke of Wedgnocke: "The
sickness increaseth. The Virginians go forward next week." The expedition
of nine vessels, carrying men, provisions, and the plague, sailed from
Plymouth toward the end of May, 1609.[57] Gates and Somers were each
severally authorized, whichever might happen first to reach Jamestown,
to supersede the existing administration until the arrival of Lord
Delaware, who was not to embark for several months, and did not reach
Virginia until more than a year after the fleet sailed. Newport, Gates,
and Somers, finding it impossible to adjust the point of precedence among
themselves, embarked together by way of compromise, in the same vessel,
the _Sea Venture_. In the same ship John Rolfe and his first wife sailed
(the second was Pocahontas), also George Sandys, Strachey the historian,
and the Rev. Mr. Bucke; also Namontack and Matchumps (Machumps?), two of
Powhatan's Indians who were, it appears, in England in May, 1609.
The fleet, contrary to directions, followed the old circuitous route,
_via_ the Canaries and West Indies, and, of course, as always, were
"caught in the tail of a hurricane." Some of the vessels lost their masts,
some their sails from the sea breaking over the ships. One small vessel
was lost and never heard from again, and the _Sea Venture_, with Governor,
Lieutenant-Governor, Admiral, charter, and all, was separated from the
other ships of the fleet. The other vessels, badly shattered by the storm,
their stores spoiled with sea water, and many of their passengers dead or
dying with the plague, arrived at Jamestown in August, 1609.
They brought back the early agitators, Martin, Archer, and Ratcliffe,
together with "sundry other captains, divers gentlemen of good means
and high birth, and about three hundred settlers; the greater part of
them profligate youths, packed off from home to escape ill destinies,
broken-down gentlemen, bankrupt tradesmen, and the like, decayed tapsters,
and ostlers, trade-fallen; 'the cankers of a calm world and long peace.'"
Among the "youths"--we hope only a wild youth and not "profligate,"--was
the Henry Spelman, son of Sir Henry Spelman, of literary fame, whom we
remember as a fine fellow and good nurse. He came over in the _Unity_, and
had a career of adventure second to none in the colony. He was rescued
once from massacre by Pocahontas, was a valiant soldier and expert
interpreter, and fell at last, in 1623, under the tomahawk of the Indian.
The story of the _Sea Venture_ is a thrilling one. Who can read unmoved
of Sir George Somers, the brave old Admiral, who scarce took leisure
to eat or sleep day or night, but stood at the helm and kept his ship
upright until she was jammed between the ledges of two rocks on one of
the Bermudas! His crew had given themselves up as lost, and some having
"comfortable waters" on board, drank themselves into oblivion after
pumping vainly night and day. "Neither living or dying are we the better
for being drunk," said the old Admiral.
They found themselves castaways on the "Isles of Devils," as the Bermudas
had been named by the buccaneers who had visited them. This was the
wreck which is said to have suggested Shakespeare's "Tempest." The author
had evidently read Strachey's "True Repertory," and followed it in his
descriptions of the "vexed Bermoothes": the cries of the mariners, the
trembling star, flaming among the shrouds, which had appeared to the
excited imagination of the weary and fasting Admiral at the helm. "On this
strand at moonlight, the hag-born Caliban might roll and growl: Sycorax,
the blue-eyed witch, might hover in the cloud wracks: and the voices of
the winds whisper strange secrets."
The shipwrecked voyagers found an earthly paradise; and long afterward
Andrew Marvel immortalized, in a lovely poem, the boat song of the exiles
while they dreamed away the long months before they could reach the haven
to which they were bound. May I, too, be allowed to dream awhile, pausing
in my story of misery, cold, ingratitude, war, famine, and pestilence?
Perhaps some of my readers may have forgotten the poem, and will forgive
me for recalling part of it:--
"Where the remote Bermudas ride
In the ocean's bosom unespied,
From a small boat that rowed along
The listening winds received this song:
"'What should we do but sing His praise
That led us through the watery maze
Unto an isle so long unknown
And yet far kinder than our own?
Where He the huge sea-monsters wracks
That lift the deep upon their backs;
He lands us on a grassy stage
Safe from the storms and prelate's rage.
He gave us this eternal spring
Which here enamels everything.
He hangs in shades the orange bright--
Like golden lamps in a green night;
And does, in the pomegranites close
Jewels more rich than Ormus shewes.
He makes the figs our mouths to meet,
And throws the melons at our feet:
And makes the hollow seas that roar
Proclaim the ambergrease on shore.
He cast (of which we needs must boast)
The Gospel's pearl upon our coast;
And in these rocks, for us, did frame
A temple where to sound His name.
O let our voice His praise exalt
Till it arrive at heaven's vault;
Which then perhaps resounding may
Echo beyond the Mexique bay!'
"Thus sang they in the English boat
A holy and a cheerful note,
And all the way, to guide their chime
With falling oars they kept the time."
The brave old Christian Admiral immediately set about the building of a
cedar ship in which to return to his duty. From the wreck of the _Sea
Venture_ he brought a bell ashore, hung it on a tree, and rung it for
morning and evening prayers and for Sunday services. There was one "merry
English marriage" on the island and two births--a boy and a girl, to whom
the names "Bermudas" and "Bermuda" were given. The latter was the daughter
of John Rolfe. And here too was found the largest piece of ambergris in
the then known world, weighing eighty pounds. Ambergris, so highly prized
and so costly, was long "a beauty and a mystery" to its admirers. Was
it the solidified foam of the sea or the tears of the mermaid? Science
declares that the whale's intestines, irritated by starfish, evolves the
gum.
They are an interesting party, these sea adventurers on the lovely
island--these finders of treasure; but our stage is set on an island of
a far different character, where the actors neither smile nor sing, nor
build boats for escape, but are chained by inexorable fate to a hard lot.
Our place in this story is with them.
And so we leave the grand old Admiral, settling his differences with the
Lieutenant-Governor in the best way,--by dwelling apart from him on the
island (each to build his own ship); and while they hew the fragrant cedar
trees, and prepare for their return to Virginia, we will go thither and
watch over the storm-rocked "Cradle of the Republic"--Jamestown.