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HISTORY
OF THE
COLONY AND ANCIENT DOMINION
OF
VIRGINIA.
BY
CHARLES CAMPBELL.
PHILADELPHIA:
J. B. LIPPINCOTT AND CO.
1860.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1859, by
CHARLES CAMPBELL,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the
Eastern District of Virginia.
PREFACE.
Although Virginia must be content with a secondary and unpretending rank
in the general department of history, yet in the abundance and the
interest of her historical materials, she may, without presumption,
claim pre-eminence among the Anglo-American colonies. While developing
the rich resources with which nature has so munificently endowed her,
she ought not to neglect her past, which teaches so many useful lessons,
and carries with it so many proud recollections. Her documentary
history, lying, much of it, scattered and fragmentary, in part
slumbering in the dusty oblivion of Transatlantic archives, ought to be
collected with pious care, and embalmed in the perpetuity of print.
The work now presented to the reader will be found to be written in
conformity with the following maxim of Lord Bacon: "It is the office of
history to represent the events themselves, together with the counsels,
and to leave the observations and conclusions thereupon, to the liberty
and faculty of every man's judgment."
I avail myself of this occasion to express my acknowledgments to Hugh B.
Grigsby, Esq., (who has contributed so much to the illustration of
Virginia history by his own writings,) for many valuable suggestions,
and for having undergone the trouble of revising a large part of the
manuscript of this work.
PETERSBURG, VA., _September 2d, 1859_.
SUMMARY OF CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.--Early Voyages of Discovery. Sir Walter Raleigh's
Colony of Virginia. 17
II.--Early Life and Adventures of Captain John Smith. 30
III.--Landing at Jamestown and Settlement of Virginia
proper. Wingfield, President of Council. Ratcliffe,
President. 35
IV.--Smith's Explorations. Smith, President. 55
V.--Smith's Adventures with the Indians. His Administration
of the Colony. His Departure. His Character and
Writings. 70
VI.--The Indians of Virginia. 85
VII.--Sufferings of the Colonists. Wreck of the Sea-Venture.
Miscellaneous Affairs. Percy, President. Lord
Delaware, Governor. Percy, Acting Governor. Sir
Thomas Dale, High Marshal. Sir Thomas Gates,
Governor. 92
VIII.--Pocahontas visits England. Her Death. Yeardley,
Deputy Governor. 112
IX.--Argall, Governor. His Administration. Powhatan's
Death. 124
X.--Sir Walter Raleigh. 132
XI.--First Assembly of Virginia. Powell, Deputy Governor.
Yeardley, Governor. 138
XII.--Negroes imported into Virginia. Yeardley, Governor. 143
XIII.--London Company. George Sandys, Treasurer. Wyat,
Governor. 149
XIV.--Tobacco. 153
XV.--East India School. 158
XVI.--Massacre of 1622. 160
XVII.--Extermination of Indians. 166
XVIII.--Dissolution of Charter of Virginia Company. Earl of
Southampton, Nicholas Ferrar, and Sir Edwin Sandys. 169
XIX.--Royal Government established in Virginia. Yeardley,
Governor. West, Governor. Pott, Governor. Sir John
Harvey, Governor. 179
XX.--Maryland settled. Contest between Clayborne and Lord
Baltimore. 187
XXI.--Virginia during Harvey's Administration. He is
recalled and succeeded by Wyatt. 193
XXII.--Virginia during the Civil War of England. Berkley,
Governor. Kemp, Governor. 199
XXIII.--Virginia during the Commonwealth of England. Bennet,
Governor. 210
XXIV.--Maryland during the Protectorate. 222
XXV.--Virginia during the Protectorate. Digges, Governor.
Matthews, Governor. 233
XXVI.--Virginia under Richard Cromwell and during the
Interregnum. Berkley, Governor. 240
XXVII.--Loyalty of Virginia. Miscellaneous Affairs. Morrison,
Governor. Berkley, Governor. 249
XXVIII.--Scarburgh's Report of his Proceedings in establishing
the Boundary Line between Virginia and Maryland. "The
Bear and the Cub," an extract from the Accomac
Records. 259
XXIX.--Miscellaneous Affairs. 263
XXX.--Berkley's Statistics of Virginia. 271
XXXI.--Threatened Revolt. 274
XXXII.--Rev. Morgan Godwyn's Account of the Condition of the
Church in Virginia. 277
XXXIII.--Indian Disturbances. Disaffection of Colonists. 280
XXXIV.--Bacon's Rebellion. 283
XXXV.--Bacon's Rebellion, continued. 293
XXXVI.--Bacon's Rebellion, continued. 308
XXXVII.--Closing Scenes of the Rebellion. 313
XXXVIII.--Punishment of the Rebels. Berkley's death. Succeeded
by Jeffreys. 319
XXXIX.--Chicheley, Governor. Culpepper, Governor. 326
XL.--Statistics of Virginia. 331
XLI.--Effingham, Governor. Death of Beverley. Effingham's
Corruption and Tyranny. 335
XLII.--William and Mary proclaimed. College chartered.
Andros, Governor. 343
XLIII.--Condition of Virginia. Powers of Governor. Courts and
State Officers. Revenue. 349
XLIV.--Administration of Andros. Nicholson again Governor. 356
XLV.--Assembly held in the College. Ceremony of Opening.
Governor's Speech. 364
XLVI.--Church Affairs. Nicholson recalled. Huguenots. 367
XLVII.--Rev. Francis Makemie. Dissenters. 371
XLVIII.--Nott, Lieutenant-Governor. Earl of Orkney,
Governor-in-chief. 375
XLIX.--Spotswood, Governor. 378
L.--Indian School. 384
LI.--Spotswood's Tramontane Expedition. 387
LII.--Virginia succours South Carolina. Disputes between
Spotswood and the Burgesses. Blackbeard. 391
LIII.--Spotswood's Administration reviewed. His subsequent
Career and Death. His Family. 398
LIV.--Drysdale, Governor. Robert Carter, President. 411
LV.--Gooch's Administration. Carthagena Expedition. 414
LVI.--Settlement of the Valley. John Lewis. 423
LVII.--Rev. James Blair. Governor Gooch and the Dissenters.
Morris. Davies. Whitefield. 433
LVIII.--Gooch resigns. Robinson, President. Lee, President.
Burwell, President. 444
LIX.--Dinwiddie, Governor. Davies and the Dissenters.
George Washington. Fairfax. 452
LX.--Hostilities with the French. Death of Jumonville.
Washington surrenders at Fort Necessity. 460
LXI.--Dinwiddie's Administration, continued. Braddock's
Expedition. 469
LXII.--Davies. Waddell. Washington. 482
LXIII.--Settlers of the Valley. Sandy Creek Expedition.
Dinwiddie succeeded by President Blair. 488
LXIV.--Fauquier, Governor. Forbes captures Fort Du Quesne. 500
LXV.--"The Parsons' Cause." Patrick Henry's Speech. 507
LXVI.--Patrick Henry. 519
LXVII.--Rev. Jonathan Boucher's Opinions on Slavery. Remarks. 526
LXVIII.--Disputes between Colonies and Mother Country. Stamp
Act. Speaker Robinson, Randolph, Bland, Pendleton,
Lee, Wythe. 530
LXIX.--Stamp Act opposed. Loan-Office Scheme. Robinson's
Defalcation. Stamp Act Repealed. Offices of Speaker
and Treasurer separated. Family of Robinson. 538
LXX.--Bland's Inquiry. Death of Fauquier. Persecution of
Baptists. Blair's tolerant Spirit. 549
LXXI.--Botetourt, Governor. Parliamentary Measures resisted.
Death of Botetourt. Nelson, President. American
Episcopate. 550
LXXII.--Rev. Devereux Jarratt. 563
LXXIII.--Duty on Tea. Dunmore, Governor. Revolutionary
Proceedings. 568
LXXIV.--Dunmore's Administration. Revolutionary Proceedings. 572
LXXV.--Richard Henry Lee. Congress at Philadelphia. Patrick
Henry. Washington. 577
LXXVI.--Battle of Point Pleasant. General Andrew Lewis.
Cornstalk. 582
LXXVII.--Logan. Kenton. Girty. Dunmore's ambiguous Conduct. 590
LXXVIII.--Daniel Boone. 595
LXXIX.--Second Virginia Convention. Henry's Resolutions and
Speech. 599
LXXX.--Thomas Jefferson. 603
LXXXI.--Dunmore removes the Gunpowder. Revolutionary
Commotions. Patrick Henry extorts Compensation for
the Powder from the Governor. 607
LXXXII.--The Mecklenburg Declaration. 615
LXXXIII.--Dunmore retires from Williamsburg. Washington made
Commander-in-chief. 618
LXXXIV.--Committee of Safety. Carrington, Read, Cabell. Death
of Peyton Randolph. The Randolphs of Virginia. 624
LXXXV.--Dunmore's War. Battle of Great Bridge. Committee of
Safety and Colonel Henry. 632
LXXXVI.--Dunmore's War, continued. Colonel Henry resigns. 639
LXXXVII.--Convention at Williamsburg. Declaration of Rights and
Constitution of Virginia. Patrick Henry, Governor.
George Mason. 644
LXXXVIII.--Declaration of Independence. George Wythe. Benjamin
Harrison, Jr., of Berkley. Thomas Nelson. 652
LXXXIX.--Richard Henry Lee. Francis Lightfoot Lee. Carter
Braxton. 659
XC.--Dunmore retires from Virginia. Events of the War in
the North. Death of General Hugh Mercer. 664
XCI.--Death of Richard Bland. The Bland Genealogy.
Petitions concerning Church Establishment. Scheme
of Dictator. Hampden Sidney College. The Virginia
Navy. 670
XCII.--Examination of Charges against Richard Henry Lee.
His Honorable Acquittal. 681
XCIII.--Events of the War in the North. General Clark's
Expedition to the Northwest. 685
XCIV.--Convention Troops removed to Charlottesville. Church
Establishment abolished. Events of the War in the
South. Battle of King's Mountain. Jefferson,
Governor. 693
XCV.--Arthur Lee. Silas Deane. Dr. Franklin. James
Madison. 701
XCVI.--Logan. Leslie's Invasion. Removal of Convention
Troops. 706
XCVII.--Arnold's Invasion. 710
XCVIII.--Battle of the Cowpens and of Guilford. Phillips and
Arnold invade Virginia. 715
XCIX.--Cornwallis and La Fayette in Virginia. Nelson,
Governor. 726
C.--Capture of the Patriot. The Barrens and Captain
Starlins. Battle of the Barges. 738
CI.--Washington in the North. Cornwallis occupies
Yorktown. Battle of Eutaw Springs. Henry Lee.
Washington invests Yorktown. Cornwallis
surrenders. 742
HISTORY OF THE COLONY
AND
ANCIENT DOMINION OF VIRGINIA.
CHAPTER I.
1492-1591.
Early Voyages of Discovery--Sir Humphrey Gilbert--Walter
Raleigh--Expedition of Amadas and Barlow--They land on
Wocokon Island--Return to England--The New Country named
Virginia--Grenville's Expedition--Colony of Roanoke--Lane,
Governor--The Colony abandoned--Tobacco--Grenville returns to
Virginia--Leaves a small Colony at Roanoke--Sir Walter Raleigh
sends out another Expedition--City of Raleigh chartered--White,
Governor--Roanoke found deserted--Virginia Dare, first Child
born in the Colony--White returns for Supplies--The Armada--
Raleigh assigns the Colony to a Company--White returns to
Virginia--Finds the Colony extinct--Death of Sir Richard
Grenville--Gosnold's Voyage to New England.
THE discoveries attributed by legendary story to Madoc, the Welsh
prince, have afforded a theme for the creations of poetry; those of the
Northmen of Iceland, better authenticated, still engage the dim
researches of antiquarian curiosity. To Columbus belongs the glory of
having made the first certain discovery of the New World, in the year
1492; but it was the good fortune of the Cabots to be the first who
actually reached the main land. In 1497, John Cabot, a Venetian
merchant, who had become a resident of Bristol in England, with his son
Sebastian, a native of that city, having obtained a patent from Henry
the Seventh, sailed under his flag and discovered the main continent of
America, amid the inhospitable rigors of the wintry North. It was
subsequent to this that Columbus, in his third voyage, set his foot on
the main land of the South. In the following year, Sebastian Cabot
again crossed the Atlantic, and coasted from the fifty-eighth degree of
north latitude, along the shores of the United States, perhaps as far as
to the southern boundary of Maryland. Portuguese, French, and Spanish
navigators now visited North America.
Dreadful circumstances attended the foundation of the ancient St.
Augustine. The blood of six hundred French Protestant refugees has
sanctified the ground at the mouth of St. John's River, where they were
murdered "not as Frenchmen, but as heretics," by the ruthless Adelantado
of Florida, Pedro Menendez, in the year 1565.
In the summer of the ensuing year he sent a captain, with thirty
soldiers and two Dominican monks, "to the bay of Santa Maria, which is
in the latitude of thirty-seven degrees," together with the Indian
brother of the cacique, or chief of Axacan, (who had been taken thence
by the Dominicans, and baptized at Mexico, by the name of the Viceroy
Don Luis de Velasco,) to settle there, and undertake the conversion of
the natives. But this expedition sailed to Spain instead of landing.
This region of Axacan comprised the lower part of the present State of
North Carolina. The Spanish sound of the word is very near that of
Wocokon, the name of the place, according to its English pronunciation,
where the colony sent out by Raleigh subsequently landed.[18:A]
In the year 1570 Father Segura and other Jesuit missionaries,
accompanied by Don Luis, visited Axacan, but were treacherously cut off
by him. In the same year, or the following, the Spaniards repaired to
the place of their murder and avenged their death.[18:B]
In 1573 Pedro Menendez Morquez, Governor of Florida, explored the Bay of
Santa Maria, "which is three leagues wide, and is entered toward the
northwest. In the bay are many rivers and harbors on both sides, in
which vessels may anchor. Within its entrance on the south the depth is
from nine to thirteen fathoms, (about five feet nine inches English,)
and on the north side from five to seven; at two leagues from it in the
sea, the depth is the same on the north and the south, but there is more
sand within. In the channel there are from nine to thirteen fathoms; in
the bay fifteen, ten, and six fathoms; and in some places the bottom
cannot be reached with the lead." Barcia describes the voyage of Morquez
from Santa Helena "to the Bay of Santa Maria, in the latitude of
thirty-seven degrees and a half,"[19:A] and makes particular mention of
the shoal running out from what is now Cape Lookout, and that near Cape
Hatteras, the latitude and distances given leaving no doubt but that the
Bay of Santa Maria is the same with the Chesapeake.[19:B] Ten years will
probably include the period of these early Spanish visits to Axacan and
the Chesapeake; and these explorations appear to have been unknown to
the English, and Spain made no claim on account of them. Had she set
forth any title to Virginia, Gondomar would not have failed to urge it,
and James the First would have been, probably, ready to recognize it.
In the year 1578 Sir Humphrey Gilbert obtained from Queen Elizabeth
letters patent, authorizing him to discover and colonize remote heathen
countries unpossessed by any Christian prince. After one or two
unsuccessful expeditions, Sir Humphrey again set sail in 1583, from
Plymouth, with a fleet of five small vessels. The largest of these, the
bark Raleigh, was compelled in two days to abandon the expedition, on
account of an infectious disease that broke out among the crew.
After Cabot's discovery, for many years the vessels of various flags had
frequented the northern part of America for the purpose of fishing, and
when Sir Humphrey reached St. John's Harbor, the thirty-six fishing
vessels found there at first refused him admittance; but upon his
exhibiting the queen's commission they submitted. He then entered the
harbor, landed, and took formal possession of the country for the crown
of England.
As far as time would admit, some survey of the country was made, the
principal object of which was the discovery of mines and minerals; and
the admiral listened with credulity to the promises of silver. The
company being dispersed abroad, some were taken sick and died; some hid
themselves in the woods, and others cut one of the vessels out of the
harbor and carried her off. At length the admiral, having collected as
many of his men as could be found, and ordered one of his vessels to
remain and take off the sick, set sail with three vessels, intending to
visit Cape Breton and the Isle of Sable; but one of his vessels being
lost on a sand-bank, he determined to return to England. The Squirrel,
in which he had embarked for the survey of the coast, was very small and
heavily laden, yet this intrepid navigator persisted in remaining on
board of her, notwithstanding the urgent entreaties of his friends in
the other and larger vessel, the Hind; in reply to which, he declared,
that he would not desert his little crew on the homeward voyage, after
having with them passed through so many storms and perils. And after
proceeding three hundred leagues, the little bark, with the admiral and
all her crew, was lost in a storm. When last seen by the company of the
Hind, Sir Humphrey, although surrounded by imminent perils, was seated
composedly on the deck with a book in his hand, and as often as they
approached within hearing was heard to exclaim: "Be of good cheer, my
friends; it is as near to heaven by sea as by land." At midnight the
lights of the little vessel suddenly disappeared, and she was seen no
more. Sir Humphrey Gilbert was descended from an ancient family in
Devonshire; his father was Otho Gilbert, Esq., of Greenway, and his
mother, Catharine, daughter of Sir Philip Champernon, of Modbury. He was
educated at Oxford, and became distinguished for courage, learning, and
enterprise. Appointed colonel in Ireland, he displayed singular energy
and address. In the year 1571 he was a member of the House of Commons
from Compton, his native place. He strenuously defended the queen's
prerogative against the charge of monopoly, alleged by a Puritan member
against an exclusive grant made to some merchants. He was the author of
several publications on cosmography and navigation. Having attracted the
attention of the queen in his boyhood, she at length knighted him, and
gave him one of her maids of honor in marriage. When he was preparing
for his voyage she sent him a golden anchor with a large pearl at the
peak, which he ever after prized as a singular honor. Raleigh
accompanied this present, which was sent through his hands with this
letter: "I have sent you a token from her majesty--an anchor guided by a
lady, as you see; and farther, her highness willed me to send you word
that she wished you as great hap and safety to your ship as if herself
were there in person, desiring you to have care of yourself as of that
which she tendereth. Farther, she commandeth that you leave your picture
with me."
Not daunted by the fate of his heroic kinsman, Raleigh adhered to the
design of effecting a settlement in America, and being now high in the
queen's favor, obtained letters patent for that purpose, dated March,
1584. Aided by some gentlemen and merchants, particularly by his gallant
kinsman Sir Richard Grenville, and Mr. William Sanderson, who had
married his niece, Raleigh succeeded in providing two small vessels.
These were put under the command of Captains Philip Amadas and Arthur
Barlow. Barlow had already served with distinction under Raleigh in
Ireland. The two vessels left the Thames in April, 1584, and pursuing
the old circuitous route by the Canaries, reached the West Indies. After
a short stay there they sailed north, and early in July, as they
approached the coast of Florida, the mariners were regaled with the
odors of flowers wafted from the fragrant shore. Amadas and Barlow,
proceeding one hundred and twenty miles farther, landed on the Island of
Wocokon, in the stormy region of Cape Hatteras, one of a long series of
narrow, low, sandy islands--breakwaters apparently designed by nature to
defend the mainland from the fury of the ocean. The English took
possession of the country in the queen's name. The valleys were wooded
with tall cedars, overrun with vines hung in graceful festoons, the
grapes clustering in rich profusion on the ground and trailing in the
murmuring surges of the sea. For two days no inhabitant was seen; on
the third a canoe with three men approached, one of whom was readily
persuaded to come on board, and some presents gained his confidence.
Going away, he began to fish, and having loaded his canoe, returned, and
dividing his cargo into two parts, signified that one was for the ship,
the other for the pinnace. On the next day they were visited by some
canoes, in which were forty or fifty men, among whom was Granganameo,
the king's brother. The king Wingina himself lay at his chief town, six
miles distant, confined by wounds received in a recent battle. At this
town the English were hospitably entertained by Granganameo's wife. She
was small, pretty, and bashful, clothed in a leathern mantle with the
fur turned in; her long dark hair restrained by a band of white coral;
strings of beads hung from her ears and reached to her waist. The
manners of the natives were composed; their disposition seemed gentle;
presents and traffic soon conciliated their good will. The country was
called Wingandacoa.[22:A] The soil was productive; the air mild and
salubrious; the forests abounded with a variety of sweet-smelling trees,
and oaks superior in size to those of England. Fruits, melons, nuts, and
esculent roots were observed; the woods were stocked with game, and the
waters with innumerable fish and wild-fowl.
After having discovered the Island of Roanoke on Albemarle Sound, and
explored as much of the interior as their time would permit, Amadas and
Barlow sailed homeward, accompanied by two of the natives, Manteo and
Wanchese. Queen Elizabeth, charmed with the glowing descriptions of the
new country, which the enthusiastic adventurers gave her on their
return, named it, in allusion to her own state of life, VIRGINIA. As
hitherto all of North America as far as discovered was called Florida,
so henceforth all that part of it lying between thirty-four and
forty-five degrees of north latitude came to be styled Virginia, till
gradually by different settlements it acquired different names.[22:B]
Raleigh was shortly after returned to Parliament from the County of
Devon, and about the same time knighted. The queen granted him a patent
to license the vending of wines throughout the kingdom. Such a monopoly
was part of the arbitrary system of that day. Nor was Sir Walter
unconscious of its injustice, for when, some years afterwards, a spirit
of resistance to it showed itself in the House of Commons and a member
was warmly inveighing against it, Sir Walter was observed to blush. He
voted afterwards for the abolition of such monopolies, and no one could
have made a more munificent use of such emoluments than he did in his
efforts to effect the discovery and colonization of Virginia. He fitted
out, in 1585, a fleet for that purpose, and entrusted the command to his
relative, Sir Richard Grenville. This gallant officer, like Cervantes,
shared in the famous battle of Lepanto, and after distinguishing himself
by his conduct during the Irish rebellion, had become a conspicuous
member of Parliament. He was accompanied by Thomas Cavendish, afterwards
renowned as a circumnavigator of the globe; Thomas Hariot, a friend of
Raleigh and a profound mathematician; and John Withe, an artist, whose
pencil supplied materials for the illustration of the works of De Bry
and Beverley. Late in June the fleet anchored at Wocokon, but that
situation being too much exposed to the dangers of the sea, they
proceeded through Ocracock Inlet to the Island of Roanoke, (at the mouth
of Albemarle Sound,) which they selected as the seat of the colony. The
colonists, one hundred and eight in number, were landed there. Manteo,
who had returned with them, had already been sent from Wocokon to
announce their arrival to his king, Wingina. Grenville, accompanied by
Lane, Hariot, Cavendish and others, explored the coast for eighty miles
southward, to the town of Secotan, in the present County of Craven,
North Carolina. During this excursion the Indians, at a village called
Aquascogoc, stole a silver cup, and a boat being dispatched to reclaim
it, the terrified inhabitants fled to the woods, and the English,
regardless alike of prudence and humanity, burned the town and destroyed
the standing corn. Grenville in a short time re-embarked for England
with a valuable cargo of furs, and on his voyage captured a rich Spanish
prize.
Lane extended his discoveries to the northward, as far as the town of
Chesapeakes, on Elizabeth River, near where Norfolk stands, and about
one hundred and thirty miles from the Island of Roanoke. The Chowan
River was also explored, and the Roanoke, then known below the falls as
the Moratoc. Lane, although a good soldier, seems to have wanted some of
the qualities indispensable in the founder of a new plantation. The
Indians grew more hostile; conspiracies were entered into for the
destruction of the whites, and the rash and bloody measures employed to
defeat their machinations aggravated the mischief. The colonists, filled
with alarm, became impatient to escape from a scene of so many
privations and so much danger. Owing to a scarcity of provisions, Lane
distributed the colonists at several places. At length Captain Stafford,
who was stationed at Croatan, near Cape Lookout, descried twenty-three
sail, which proved to be Sir Francis Drake's fleet. He was returning
from a long cruise--belligerent, privateering, and exploratory--and, in
obedience to the queen's orders, now visited the Colony of Virginia to
render any necessary succor. Upon learning the condition of affairs, he
agreed to furnish Lane with vessels and supplies sufficient to complete
the discovery of the country and to insure a safe return home, should
that alternative be found necessary. Just at this time a violent storm,
raging for four days, dispersed and shattered the fleet, and drove out
to sea the vessels that had been assigned to Lane. The tempest at length
subsiding, Drake generously offered Lane another vessel with supplies.
But the harbor not being of sufficient depth to admit the vessel, the
governor, acquiescing in the unanimous desire of the colonists,
requested permission for them all to embark in the fleet, and return to
England. The request was granted; and thus ended the first actual
settlement of the English in America.
During the year which the colony had passed at Roanoke, Withe had made
drawings from nature illustrative of the appearance and habits of the
natives; and Hariot had accurately observed the soil and productions of
the country, and the manners and customs of the natives, an account of
which he afterwards published, entitled, "A briefe and true report of
the new found land of Virginia." He (Lane) and some others of the
colonists learned from the Indians the use of a narcotic plant called by
them uppowoc; by the English tobacco. The natives smoked it; sprinkled
the dust of it on their fishing weirs, to make them fortunate; burned it
in sacrifices to appease the anger of the gods, and scattered it in the
air and on the water to allay the fury of the tempest. Lane carried some
tobacco to England, supposed by Camden to have been the first ever
introduced into that kingdom. Sir Walter Raleigh, by his example, soon
rendered the use of this seductive leaf fashionable at court; and his
tobacco-box and pipes were long preserved by the curiosity of
antiquaries. It is related, that having offered Queen Elizabeth some
tobacco to smoke, after two or three whiffs she was seized with a
nausea, upon observing which some of the Earl of Leicester's faction
whispered that Sir Walter had certainly poisoned her. But her majesty in
a short while recovering, made the Countess of Nottingham and all her
maids smoke a whole pipe out among them. It is also said that Sir Walter
made a wager with the queen, that he could calculate the weight of the
smoke evaporated from a pipeful of tobacco. This he easily won by
weighing first the tobacco, and then the ashes, when the queen
acknowledged that the difference must have gone off in smoke. Upon
paying the wager, she gayly remarked, that "she had heard of many
workers in the fire who had turned their gold into smoke, but that Sir
Walter was the first that had turned his smoke into gold." Another
familiar anecdote is, that a country servant of Raleigh's, bringing him
a tankard of ale and nutmeg into his study as he was intently reading
and smoking, was so alarmed at seeing clouds of smoke issuing from his
master's mouth, that, throwing the ale into his face, he ran down stairs
crying out that Sir Walter was on fire.
Sir Walter Raleigh never visited Virginia himself, although it has been
so represented by several writers. Hariot's "Report of the new found
land" was translated by a Frenchman[25:A] into Latin, and this
translation refers to those "qui generosum D. Walterum Raleigh in eam
regionem comitati sunt." The error of the translator in employing the
words "comitati sunt," has been pointed out by Stith, and that error
probably gave rise to the mistake which has been handed down from age to
age, and is still prevalent. A few days after Drake's departure, a
vessel arrived at Roanoke with supplies for the colony; but finding it
abandoned, she set sail for England. Within a fortnight afterwards, Sir
Richard Grenville, with three relief vessels fitted out principally by
Raleigh, arrived off Virginia; and, unwilling that the English should
lose possession of the country, he left fifteen men on the island, with
provisions for two years. These repeated disappointments did not abate
Raleigh's indomitable resolution. During the ensuing year he sent out a
new expedition of three vessels to establish a colony chartered by the
title of "The Governor and Assistants of the City of Raleigh in
Virginia." John White was sent out as governor with twelve counsellors,
and they were directed to plant themselves at the town of Chesapeakes,
on Elizabeth River. Reaching Roanoke near the end of July, White found
the colony deserted, the bones of a man scattered on the beach, the fort
razed, and deer couching in the desolate houses or feeding on the rank
vegetation which had overgrown the floor and crept up the walls.
Raleigh's judicious order, instructing White to establish himself on the
banks of Elizabeth River, was not carried into effect, owing to the
refusal of Ferdinando, the naval-officer, to co-operate in exploring the
country for that purpose.
One of the English having been slain by the savages, a party was
dispatched to avenge his death, and by mistake unfortunately killed
several of a friendly tribe. Manteo, by Raleigh's direction, was
christened, and created Lord of Roanoke and Dassamonpeake. On the
eighteenth of August, the governor's daughter, Eleanor, wife to Ananias
Dare, one of the council, gave birth to a daughter, the first Christian
child born in the country, and hence named _Virginia_. Dissensions soon
arose among the settlers; and, although not in want of stores, some,
disappointed in not finding the new country a paradise of indolent
felicity, as they had fondly anticipated, demanded permission to return
home; others vehemently opposed; at length all joined in requesting
White to sail for England, and to return thence with supplies. To this
he reluctantly consented; and setting sail in August, 1587, from
Roanoke, where he left eighty-nine men, seventeen women, and eleven
children, he arrived in England on the fifth of November.
He found the kingdom wholly engrossed in taking measures of defence
against the threatened invasion of the Spanish Armada, and Raleigh,
Grenville, and Lane assisting Elizabeth in her council of war--a
conjuncture most unpropitious to the interests of the infant colony.
Raleigh, nevertheless, found time even in this portentous crisis of
public affairs to dispatch White with supplies in two vessels. But
these, running after prizes, encountered privateers, and, after a bloody
engagement, one of them was so disabled and plundered that White was
compelled to put back to England, while it was impossible to refit,
owing to the urgency of more important matters. But, even after the
destruction of the Armada, Sir Walter Raleigh found it impracticable to
prosecute any further his favorite design of establishing a colony in
Virginia; and in 1589 he formed a company of merchants and adventurers,
and assigned to it his proprietary rights. This corporation included
among its members Thomas Smith, a wealthy London merchant, afterwards
knighted; and Richard Hakluyt, dean of Westminster, the compiler of a
celebrated collection of voyages. He is said to have visited Virginia,
and Stith gives it as his opinion that he must have come over in one of
the last-mentioned abortive expeditions. Raleigh, at the time of making
this assignment, gave a hundred pounds for propagating Christianity
among the natives of Virginia. After experiencing a long series of
vexations, difficulties, and disappointments, he had expended forty
thousand pounds in fruitless efforts for planting a colony in Virginia.
At length, disengaged from this enterprise, he indulged his martial
genius, and bent all his energies against the colossal ambition of
Spain, who now aspired to overshadow the world.
More than another year was suffered to elapse before White returned to
search for the long-neglected colony. He had now been absent from it for
three years, and felt the solicitude not only of a governor, but also of
a parent. Upon his departure from Roanoke it had been concerted between
him and the settlers, that if they should abandon that island for
another seat, they should carve the name of the place to which they
should remove on some conspicuous object; and if they should go away in
distress, a cross should be carved above the name. Upon his arrival at
Roanoke, White found not one of the colonists; the houses had been
dismantled and a fort erected; goods had been buried in the earth, and
in part disinterred and scattered; on a post within the fort the word
CROATAN was carved, without a cross above it. The weather proving
stormy, some of White's company were lost by the capsizing of a boat;
the stock of provisions grew scanty; and no further search was then
made. Raleigh, indeed, sent out parties in quest of them at five
different times, the last in 1602, at his own charge; but not one of
them made any search for the unfortunate colonists. None of them were
ever found; and whether they perished by famine, or the Indian tomahawk,
was left a subject of sad conjecture. The site of the colony was
unfortunate, being difficult of access, and near the stormy Cape
Hatteras, whose very name is synonymous with peril and shipwreck. Thus,
after many nobly planned but unhappily executed expeditions, and
enormous expense of treasure and life, the first plantation of Virginia
became extinct.
In the year 1591 Sir Richard Grenville fell, in a bloody action with a
Spanish fleet near the Azores. Mortally wounded, he was removed on board
one of the enemy's ships, and in two days died. In the hour of his death
he said, in the Spanish language, to those around him: "Here I, Richard
Grenville, die with a joyous and quiet mind, for that I have ended my
life as a true soldier ought to do, fighting for his country, queen,
religion, and honor, my soul willingly departing from this body, leaving
behind the lasting fame of having behaved as every valiant soldier is in
his duty bound to do." His dying words may recall to mind the familiar
verses of Campbell's Lochiel:--
"And leaving in death no blot on my name,
Look proudly to heaven for a death-bed of fame."
Sir Richard Grenville was, next to his kinsman, Sir Walter Raleigh, the
principal person concerned in the first settlement of Virginia.
In 1602, the forty-third and last year of the reign of Queen Elizabeth,
Captain Bartholomew Gosnold, deviating from the usual oblique route by
the Canaries and the West Indies, made a direct voyage in a small bark
across the Atlantic, and in seven weeks reached Massachusetts Bay. It
was on this occasion that Englishmen, for the first time, landed on the
soil of New England. Gosnold returned to England in a short passage of
five weeks. In these early voyages the heroism of the navigators is the
more admirable when we advert to the extremely diminutive size of their
vessels and the comparative imperfection of nautical science at that
day. Encouraged by Gosnold's success, the mayor, aldermen, and merchants
of Bristol sent out an expedition under Captain Pring, in the same
direction, in 1603, the year of the accession of James I. to the throne.
During the same year a bark was dispatched from London under Captain
Bartholomew Gilbert, who fell in with the coast in latitude 37 deg., and, as
some authors say, ran up into the Chesapeake Bay, where the captain and
four of his men were slain by the Indians.
In 1605 Captain Weymouth came over under the auspices of Henry, Earl of
Southampton, and Lord Thomas Arundel.
FOOTNOTES:
[18:A] Memoir on the first discovery of the Chesapeake Bay. Communicated
by Robert Greenhow, Esq., to the Virginia Historical Society, May, 1848,
in Early Voyages to America, (edited by Conway Robinson, Esq., and
published by the Society,) p. 486. Mr. Greenhow cites for authority the
Ensayo Chronologico Para la Historia de la Florida of Barcia,
(Cardenas.)
[18:B] MS. letter of John Gilmary Shea, Esq., author of "History of the
Catholic Missions among the Indian Tribes of the United States," citing
Barcia and Alegambe.
[19:A] "A 37 grados y medio." Alegambe says: "Axaca ab aequatore in
Boream erecta 37 deg.."
[19:B] In a map found in a rare work, in French, dated 1676, entitled
"Tourbe Ardante," shown me by Townsend Ward, Esq., Librarian of
Pennsylvania Hist. Society, the Chesapeake is called St. Mary's Bay.
[22:A] Wingan signifies "good."
[22:B] Smith's History of Virginia, i. 79. Stith's History of Virginia,
11.
[25:A] De Bry.
CHAPTER II.
1579-1604.
Early Life and Adventures of Captain John Smith--Born at
Willoughby--At Thirteen Years of Age undertakes to go to Sea--
At Fifteen Apprentice to a Merchant--Visits France--Studies
the Military Art--Serves in the Low Countries--Repairs to
Scotland--Returns to Willoughby--Studies and Exercises--
Adventures in France--Embarks for Italy--Thrown into the Sea--
His Escape--Joins the Austrians in the Wars with the Turks--His
Gallantry--Combat with Three Turks--Made Prisoner at
Rottenton--His Sufferings and Escape--Voyages and Travels--
Returns to England.
IN 1606 measures were taken in England for planting another colony; but
preliminary to a relation of the settlement of Virginia proper, it is
necessary to give some history of Captain John Smith, "the father of the
colony." He was born at Willoughby, in Lincolnshire, England, in 1579,
being descended on his father's side from an ancient family of Crudley,
in Lancashire; on his mother's, from the Rickands at Great Heck, in
Yorkshire. After having been some time a scholar at the free schools of
Alford and Louth, when aged thirteen, his mind being bent upon bold
adventures, he sold his satchel, books, and all he had, intending to go
privately to sea; but his father's death occurring just then prevented
the execution of that scheme. Having some time before lost his mother,
he was now left an orphan, with a competent hereditary estate, which,
being too young to receive, he little regarded. At fifteen he was bound
apprentice to Thomas Sendall, of Lynn, the greatest merchant of all
those parts; but in a short time, disgusted with the monotony of that
life, he quit it, and accompanied a son of Lord Willoughby to France.
Within a month or six weeks, he was dismissed, his service being
needless, with an allowance of money to take him back to England; but he
determined not to return. At Paris, meeting with a Scottish gentleman,
David Hume, he received from him an additional supply of money and
letters, which might recommend him to the favor of James the Sixth of
Scotland. Young Smith, proceeding to Rouen, and finding his money
nearly all gone, made his way to Havre de Grace, and there began to
learn the military art, during the reign of the warlike Henry the
Fourth. From France the adventurer went to the Low Countries, where he
served for four years under the standard of the patriot army against
Spain, in the war that eventuated in their independence. Embarking
thence for Scotland, with the letters of recommendation previously given
to him, and after suffering shipwreck and illness, Smith at length
reached Scotland, where he was hospitably entertained "by those honest
Scots at Kipweth and Broxmouth," but finding himself without money or
means to make himself a courtier, he returned to his native place,
Willoughby. Here he soon grew weary of much company; and indulging a
romantic taste, retired into a forest, and in its recesses, near a
pretty brook, he built for himself a pavilion of boughs, where he
studied Machiavel's Art of War, and Marcus Aurelius, and amused his
leisure by riding, throwing the lance, and hunting. His principal food
was venison, which he thus provided for himself, like Shakespeare, with
but little regard for the game-laws; and whatever else he needed was
brought to him by his servant. The country people wondered at the
hermit; and his friends persuaded an Italian gentleman, rider to the
Earl of Lincoln, to visit him in his retreat; and thus he was induced to
return to the world, and after spending a short time with this new
acquaintance at Tattersall's, Smith now repaired a second time to the
Low Countries. Having made himself sufficiently master of horsemanship,
and the use of arms and the rudiments of war, he resolved to go and try
his fortunes against the Turks, having long witnessed with pain the
spectacle of so many Christians engaged in slaughtering one another.
Proceeding to St. Valery, in France, by collusion between the master of
the vessel and some French gallants, his trunks were plundered there in
the night, and he was forced to sell his cloak to pay for his passage.
The other passengers expressed their indignation against this villany,
and one of them, a French soldier, generously supplied his immediate
necessities, and invited Smith to accompany him to his home in Normandy.
Here he was kindly welcomed by his companion and the Prior of the
ancient abbey of St. Stephen, (where repose the remains of William the
Conqueror,) and others; and the story of his misfortunes reaching the
ears of some noble lords and ladies, they replenished his purse; and he
might have enjoyed their hospitality as long as he pleased, but this
suited not his restless, energetic and independent spirit. Wandering now
from port to port in quest of a man-of-war, he experienced some
extraordinary turns of fortune. Passing one day through a forest, his
money being spent, worn out with distress of mind, and cold, he threw
himself on the ground, at the side of a fountain of water, under a tree,
scarce hoping ever to rise again. A farmer finding him in this
condition, relieved his necessities, and enabled him to pursue his
journey. Not long afterwards, meeting in a grove one of the gallants who
had robbed him, without a word on either side, they drew their swords,
and fought in view of the inmates of a neighboring antique ruinous
tower. In a short while the Frenchman fell, and, making confessions and
excuses, Smith, although himself wounded, spared his life. Directing his
course now to the residence of "the Earl of Ployer," with whom he had
become acquainted while in the French service, he was by him better
refurnished than ever.
After visiting many parts of France and Navarre, he came to Marseilles,
where he embarked for Italy, in a vessel carrying a motley crowd of
pilgrims of divers nations, bound for Rome. The winds proving
unfavorable, the vessel was obliged to put in at Toulon, and sailing
thence the weather grew so stormy that they anchored close to the Isle
of St. Mary, opposite Nice, in Savoy. Here the unfeeling provincials and
superstitious pilgrims showered imprecations on Smith's head,
stigmatizing him as a Huguenot, and his nation as all pirates, and Queen
Elizabeth as a heretic; and, protesting that they should never have fair
weather as long as _he_ was on board, they cast him into the sea to
propitiate heaven. However, he swam to the Islet of St. Mary, which he
found inhabited by a few cattle and goats. On the next day he was taken
up by a privateering French ship, the captain of which, named La Roche,
proving to be a neighbor and friend of the Earl of Ployer, entertained
him kindly. With him, Smith visited Alexandria in Egypt, Scanderoon, the
Archipelago, and coast of Greece. At the mouth of the Adriatic Sea, a
Venetian argosy, richly laden, was captured and plundered, after a
desperate action, in which Smith appears to have participated. He landed
in Piedmont with five hundred sequins and a box of jewels, worth about
as much more--his share of the prize. Embarking for Leghorn, he
travelled in Italy, and here met with his friends, Lord Willoughby and
his brother, both severely wounded in a recent bloody fray. Going to
Rome, Smith surveyed the wonders of the Imperial City, and saw the Pope,
with the cardinals, ascend the holy staircase, and say mass in the
Church of St. John de Lateran. Leaving Rome, he made the tour of Italy,
and embarking at Venice, crossed over to the wild regions of Albania and
Dalmatia. Passing through sterile Sclavonia, he found his way to Gratz,
in Styria, the residence of the Archduke Ferdinand, afterwards Emperor
of Germany. Here he met with an Englishman and an Irish Jesuit, by whose
assistance he was enabled to join a regiment of artillery, commanded by
Count Meldritch, whom he accompanied to Vienna, and thence to the seat
of war. At this time, 1601, there was a bloody war going on between
Germany and the Turks, and the latter had gained many signal advantages,
and the Crescent, flushed with victory, was rapidly encroaching upon the
confines of Christendom. Canissia having just fallen, it was at the
siege of Olympach, beleaguered by the Turks, that Smith first had an
opportunity of displaying the resources of his military genius, for
which he was put in command of two hundred and fifty horse.
That siege being raised, after some interval of suspended hostilities,
the Christian forces, in their turn, besieged Stowle Wessenburg, which
soon fell into their hands. Mahomet the Third, hearing of this disaster,
dispatched a formidable army to retrieve or avenge it; and in the bloody
battle that ensued on the plains of Girke, Smith had a horse shot under
him, and was badly wounded. At the siege of Regal he encountered and
slew, in a tournament, three several Turkish champions, Turbashaw,
Grualgo, and Bonny Mulgro. For these exploits he was honored with a
triumphal procession, in which the three Turks' heads were borne on
lances. A horse richly caparisoned was presented to him, with a cimeter
and belt worth three hundred ducats; and he was promoted to the rank of
major.
In the bloody battle of Rottenton, he was wounded and made prisoner.
With such of the prisoners as escaped massacre, he was sold into slavery
at Axiopolis, and fell into the hands of the Bashaw Bogall, who sent
him, by way of Adrianople, to Constantinople, a present to his youthful
mistress, Charatza Tragabigzanda. Captivated with her prisoner, she
treated him tenderly; and to prevent his being sold again, sent him to
remain for a time with her brother, the Tymour Bashaw of Nalbritz, in
Tartary, who occupied a stone castle near the Sea of Azof. Immediately
on Smith's arrival, his head was shaved, an iron collar riveted on his
neck, and he was clothed in hair-cloth. Here long he suffered cruel
bondage; at length one day, while threshing in a barn, the Bashaw having
beaten and reviled him, he turned and slew him on the spot, with the
threshing bat; then put on his clothes, hid his body in the straw,
filled a sack with corn, closed the doors, mounted the Bashaw's horse,
and rode off. After wandering for some days, he fell in with a highway,
and observing that the roads leading toward Russia were indicated by a
cross, he followed that sign, and in sixteen days reached Ecopolis, a
Russian frontier post on the Don. The governor there took off his irons,
and he was kindly treated by him and his wife, the lady Callamata.
Traversing Russia and Poland, he returned to Transylvania in December,
1603, where he met many friends, and enjoyed so much happiness that
nothing less than his desire to revisit his native country could have
torn him away.
Proceeding through Hungary, Moravia, and Bohemia, he went to Leipsic,
where he found Prince Sigismund, who gave him fifteen hundred golden
ducats to repair his losses. Travelling through Germany, France, and
Spain, from Gibraltar he sailed for Tangier, in Africa, and to the City
of Morocco. Taking passage in a French man-of-war, he was present in a
terrible sea-fight with two Spanish ships; and after touching at Santa
Cruz, Cape Goa, and Mogadore, he finally returned to England in
1604.[34:A]
FOOTNOTES:
[34:A] "The True Travels, Adventures, and Observations of Captain John
Smith," in his History of Virginia. Hillard's Life of Smith, in Sparks'
American Biography. Simms' Life of Smith.
CHAPTER III.
1606-1608.
Gosnold, Smith, and others set on foot another Expedition--
James I. issues Letters Patent--Instructions for Government of
the Colony--Charter granted to London Company for First Colony
of Virginia--Sir Thomas Smith, Treasurer--Government of the
Colony--Three Vessels under Newport sail for Virginia--The
Voyage--Enter Chesapeake Bay--Ascend the James River--The
English entertained by the Chief of the Quiqoughcohanocks--
Landing at Jamestown--Wingfield, President--Smith excluded
from the Council--Newport and Smith explore the James to the
Falls--Powhatan--Jamestown assaulted by Indians--Smith's
Voyages up the Chickahominy--Murmurs against him--Again
explores the Chickahominy--Made prisoner--Carried captive
through the country--Taken to Werowocomoco--Rescued by
Pocahontas--Returns to Jamestown--Fire there--Rev. Mr. Hunt--
Rage for Gold-hunting--Newport visits Powhatan--Newport's
Departure--Affairs at Jamestown.
BARTHOLOMEW GOSNOLD was the prime mover, and Captain John Smith the
chief actor, in the settlement of Virginia. Gosnold, who had already, in
1602, made a voyage to the northern parts of Virginia, afterwards called
New England, for many years fruitlessly labored to set on foot an
expedition for effecting an actual settlement. At length he was
reinforced in his efforts by Captain Smith; Edward Maria Wingfield, a
merchant; Robert Hunt, a clergyman, and others; and by their united
exertions certain of the nobility, gentry, and merchants, became
interested in the project, and King James the First, who, as has been
before mentioned, had, in 1603, succeeded Elizabeth, was induced to lend
it his countenance. April 10th, 1606, letters patent were issued,
authorizing the establishment of two colonies in Virginia and other
parts of America. All the country from 34 deg. to 45 deg. of north latitude,
then known as Virginia, was divided into two colonies, the First or
Southern, and the Second or Northern.
The plantation of the Southern colony was intrusted to Sir Thomas Gates
and Sir George Somers, knights; Richard Hackluyt, clerk, prebendary of
Westminster; Edward Maria Wingfield, and others, mostly resident in
London. This company was authorized to plant a colony wherever they
might choose between 34 deg. and 41 deg. of north latitude; and the king vested
in them a right of property in the land extending along the sea-coast
fifty statute miles on each side of the place of their first plantation,
and reaching into the interior one hundred miles from the sea-coast,
together with all islands within one hundred miles of their shores. The
Second, or Northern colony of Virginia, was in like manner intrusted to
Thomas Hanham, and others, mostly residents of Bristol, Exeter, and
Plymouth. These were authorized to plant a colony wherever they might
choose between 38 deg. and 45 deg. of north latitude, and he gave to them a
territory of similar limits and extent to that given to the first
colony. He provided, however, that the plantation of whichever of the
said two colonies should be last effected, should not be within one
hundred miles of the other that might be first established. The company
of the Southern colony came to be distinguished as the London company,
and the other as the Plymouth company. But eventually these names were
dropped; and the name of Virginia, which had been at first common to the
two colonies, was appropriated to the Southern colony only; while the
Northern colony was now called New England.[36:A]
In the charter granted to Sir Thomas Gates and his associates, it was
provided that the colony should have a council of its own, subject to a
superior council in England. The subordinate council was authorized to
search for and dig mines, coin money, carry over adventurers, and repel
intruders. The president and council were authorized to levy duties on
foreign commodities; the colonists were invested with all the rights and
privileges of English subjects, and the lands granted to settlers in
free and common soccage.[36:B]
On the 20th of November, 1606, instructions were given by the crown for
the government of the two colonies, directing that the council in
England should be appointed by the crown; the local council by the
superior one in England; the local one to choose a president annually
from its own body; the Christian religion to be preached; lands to
descend as in England; trial by jury secured in criminal causes; and the
council empowered to determine all civil actions; all produce and goods
imported to be stored in magazines; a clerk and treasurer, or
cape-merchant, to be appointed for the colony. The stockholders, styled
adventurers, were authorized to organize a company for the management of
the business of the colony, and to superintend the proceedings of the
local council. The colonists were enjoined to treat the natives kindly,
and to endeavor by all means to convert them to Christianity.[37:A] Sir
Thomas Smith was appointed treasurer of the company, and the chief
management of their affairs intrusted to him. He was an eminent London
merchant; had been chief of Sir Walter Raleigh's assignees; was about
this time governor of the East India Company, and had been ambassador to
Russia.[37:B]
The frame of government thus provided for the new colony was cumbrous
and complicated, the legislative and administrative powers being so
distributed between the local council, the crown, and the company, as to
involve the danger of delays, uncertainty, conflict, and
irresponsibility. By the words of the charter the colonists were
invested with the rights of Englishmen; yet, as far as political rights
were concerned, there being no security provided by which they could be
vindicated, they might often prove to be of no more real value than the
parchment on which they were written. However, the government of such an
infant colony must, of necessity, have been for the most part arbitrary;
the political rights of the colonists must, for a time, have lain in
abeyance. Their civil rights were protected in criminal causes by the
trial by jury, and lands were to be held by a free tenure.
At length three vessels were fitted out for the expedition, one of
twenty tons, one of forty, the third of one hundred tons, and they were
put under the command of Captain Christopher Newport, a navigator
experienced in voyages to the New World. Orders being put on board
inclosed in a sealed box, not to be opened until their arrival in
Virginia, they set sail from Blackwall on the 19th of December, 1606.
For six weeks they were detained by headwinds and stormy weather in the
Downs, within view of the English coast, and during this interval,
disorder, threatening a mutiny, prevailed among the adventurers.
However, it was suppressed by the interposition of the clergyman, Robert
Hunt. The winds at length proving favorable, the little fleet proceeded
along the old route by the Canaries, which they reached about the
twenty-first of April, and on the twenty-sixth sailed for the West
Indies, upon arriving at which it appears that Captain Smith was
actually in command of the expedition, for,[38:A] writing afterwards in
1629, he says: "Because I have ranged and lived among those islands,
what my authors cannot tell me, I think it no great error in helping
them to tell it myself. In this little Isle of Mevis, more than twenty
years ago, I have remained a good time together, to wood and water, and
refresh _my men_." This isle was, on this occasion, the scene of a
remarkable incident in his life, and one which appears to have escaped
the notice of our historians. "Such factions here we had as commonly
attend such voyages, that a pair of gallows was made; but Captain Smith,
for whom they were intended, could not be persuaded to use them. But not
any of the inventors but their lives by justice fell into his power to
determine of at his pleasure, whom, with much mercy, he favored, that
most basely and unjustly would have betrayed him."
After passing three weeks in the West Indies they sailed in quest of
Roanoke Island, and having exceeded their reckoning three days without
finding land, the crew grew impatient, and Ratcliffe, captain of the
pinnace, proposed to steer back for England.
At this conjuncture a violent storm, compelling them to scud all night
under bare poles, providentially drove them into the mouth of Chesapeake
Bay. The first land that they came in sight of, April 26th, 1607, they
called Cape Henry, in honor of the Prince of Wales, eldest son of King
James, as the opposite point, Cape Charles, was named after the king's
second son, then Duke of York, afterwards Charles the First. A party of
twenty or thirty, with Newport, landing here, found a variety of pretty
flowers and goodly trees. While recreating themselves on the shore they
were attacked by five of the savages, who came creeping upon all-fours
from the hills like bears, and with their arrows wounded two, but
retired at the discharge of muskets.[39:A]
That night the sealed box was opened, when it appeared that the members
of council appointed were--Bartholomew Gosnold, John Smith, Edward Maria
Wingfield, Christopher Newport, John Ratcliffe, John Martin and George
Kendall. They were instructed to elect, out of their own number, a
president for one year; he and the council together were invested with
the government; affairs of moment were to be examined by a jury, but
determined by the council.
Seventeen days were spent in quest of a place for the settlement. A
point on the western side of the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay they named
Point Comfort, because they found a good harbor there, which, after the
recent storm, put them in good comfort. Landing there, April 30th, they
saw five Indians, who were at first alarmed; but seeing the captain lay
his hand upon his heart, they came boldly up and invited the strangers
to Kecoughtan, now Hampton, their town, where they were entertained with
corn-bread, tobacco and pipes, and a dance. May 4th, the explorers were
kindly received by the Paspaheghs. The chief of a neighboring tribe sent
a guide to conduct the English strangers to his habitation. Percy calls
them the Rappahannas; but as no such tribe is mentioned by Smith as
being near the James River, they were probably the Quiqoughcohanocks,
who dwelled on the north side of the river, about ten miles above
Jamestown.[39:B] Upon the arrival of the English this chief stood on the
bank of the river to meet them, when they landed, "with all his train,"
says Percy, "as goodly men as any I have seen of savages, or Christians,
the Werowance [chief] coming before them, playing on a flute made of a
reed, with a crown of deer's hair, colored red, in fashion of a rose,
fastened about his knot of hair, and a great plate of copper on the
other side of his head, with two long feathers, in fashion of a pair of
horns, placed in the midst of his crown. His body was painted all with
crimson, with a chain of beads about his neck; his face painted blue,
besprinkled with silver ore, as we thought; his ears all behung with
bracelets of pearl, and in either ear a bird's claw through it, beset
with fine copper or gold. He entertained us in so modest a proud
fashion, as though he had been a prince of civil government, holding his
countenance without laughter, or any such ill behavior. He caused his
mat to be spread on the ground, where he sate down with a great majesty,
taking a pipe of tobacco, the rest of his company standing about him.
After he had rested awhile he rose, and made signs to us to come to his
town: he went foremost, and all the rest of his people and ourselves
followed him up a steep hill, where his palace was settled. We passed
through the woods in fine paths having most pleasant springs, which
issued from the mountains [hills.] We also went through the goodliest
corn-fields that ever were seen in any country. When we came to
Rappohanna town, he entertained us in good humanity." While this
hospitable, unsophisticated chief was piping a welcome to the English
strangers, how little did he anticipate the tragic scenes of war and
blood which were so soon to ensue!
On the 8th of May the English went farther up the river to the country
of the Appomattocks, who came forth to meet them in a most warlike
manner, with bows and arrows, and formidable war-clubs; but the whites,
making signs of peace, were suffered to land unmolested.[40:A] At length
they selected for the site of the colony a peninsula lying on the north
side of the James River, and about forty miles from its mouth. The
western end of this peninsula, where it is connected by a little isthmus
with the main land, was the spot pitched upon for the erection of a
town, which was named, in honor of the king, Jamestown. Some contention
occurred between Wingfield and Gosnold in regard to the selection of
this place, Gosnold objecting to it. Smith conceived it a fit place for
a great city. Gosnold exhibited in this matter the better judgment. The
situation, eligible in some points, was extremely unhealthy, being low
and exposed to the malaria of extensive marshes covered with water at
high-tide. The bank of the river there is marked by no striking or
picturesque feature. According to the terms of the charter, the
territory now appropriated to the colony comprised a square of a base of
one hundred miles, and including an area of ten thousand square miles,
of which Jamestown was the centre, so to speak.
The settlers landed at Jamestown on the 13th day of May, 1607. This was
the first permanent settlement effected by the English in North America,
after the lapse of one hundred and ten years from the discovery of the
continent by the Cabots, and twenty-two years after the first attempt to
colonize it, made under the auspices of Walter Raleigh. Upon landing,
the council took the oath of office; Edward Maria Wingfield was elected
president, and Thomas Studley, cape-merchant or treasurer of the
colony.[41:A] Smith was excluded from the council upon some false
pretences. Dean Swift says: "When a great genius appears in the world,
the dunces are all in confederacy against him."
All hands now fell to work, the council planning a fort, the rest
clearing ground for pitching tents, preparing clapboard for freighting
the vessels, laying off gardens, and making fishing-nets. The Indians
frequently visited them in a friendly way. The president's overweening
jealousy would allow no military exercise or fortification, save the
boughs of trees thrown together in a semicircle by the energy of Captain
Kendall.
On the fourth of June, Newport, Smith, and twenty others were dispatched
to discover the head of the river on which they were seated, called by
the Indians, Powhatan, and by the English, the James. The natives
everywhere received them kindly, dancing, and feasting them with bread,
fish, strawberries, and mulberries, for which Newport requited them with
bells, pins, needles, and looking-glasses, which so pleased them that
they followed the strangers from place to place. In six days they
reached a town called Powhatan, one of the seats of the great chief of
that name, whom they found there. It consisted of twelve wigwams,
pleasantly situated on a bold range of hills overlooking the river, with
three islets in front, and many corn-fields around. This picturesque
spot lies on the north bank of the river, about a mile below the falls,
and still retains the same name.
On the day of their arrival, the tenth of June, the party visited the
falls, and again on the day following, Whitsunday, when they erected a
cross there to indicate the farthest point of discovery. Newport, in
return for Powhatan's hospitality, presented him with a gown and a
hatchet. Upon their return, the Indians first gave occasion for distrust
at Weyanoke, within twenty miles of Jamestown. Arriving there on the
next day, June the twentieth, they found that a boy had been killed, and
seventeen men, including the greater part of the council, had been
wounded by the savages; that during the assault a cross-bar shot from
one of the vessels had struck down a bough of a tree among them and made
them retire, but for which all the settlers there would probably have
been massacred, as they were at the time of the attack planting corn in
security, and without arms. Wingfield now consented that the fort should
be palisaded, cannon mounted, and the men armed and exercised. The
attacks and ambuscades of the natives were frequent, and the English, by
their careless straggling, were often wounded, while the fleet-footed
savages easily escaped.
Thus the colonists endured continual hardships, guarding the workmen by
day and keeping watch by night. Six weeks being passed in this way,
Newport was now about to return to England. Ever since their departure
from the Canaries, save for a while in the West Indies, Smith had been
in a sort of duress upon the false and scandalous charges of some of the
principal men in the expedition, who, envying his superiority, gave out
that he intended to usurp the command, murder the council, and make
himself king; that his confederates were distributed in the three
vessels; and that divers of them, who had revealed it, would confirm it.
Upon these accusations Smith had been arrested, and had now lain for
several months under the cloud of these suspicions. Upon the eve of
Newport's departure, Smith's accusers affecting through pity to refer
his case to the council in England, rather than overwhelm him on the
spot by an exposure of his criminal designs, he defied their malice,
defeated their base machinations, and so bore himself throughout the
whole affair, that all saw his innocence and the malignity of his
enemies. The very witnesses suborned to accuse him charged his enemies
with subornation of perjury. Kendall, the ringleader of them, was
adjudged to pay him two hundred pounds in damages, which Smith
contributed to the common stock of the colony. During these disputes
Hunt, the chaplain, used his exertions to reconcile the parties, and at
his instance Smith was admitted into the council on the twentieth day of
June, and on the next day they all received the communion. The Indians
now sued for peace, and two days after Newport weighed anchor, leaving
at Jamestown one hundred settlers, with provisions sufficient, as was
supposed, for more than three months.[43:A]
Not long after his departure a fatal sickness began to prevail at
Jamestown, engendered by the insalubrity of the place, the exposure of
the settlers, and the scarcity and bad quality of their food. Hitherto
they had procured provisions from the vessels, but now, for some time,
the daily allowance of each man was a pint of damaged wheat or barley.
"Our drink was water, and our lodgings castles in the air." By September
fifty of them, being one-half of the colony, died; the rest made out to
subsist upon sturgeon and crabs. Among the victims of disease was
Bartholomew Gosnold, the projector of the expedition, whose name is well
worthy to be ranked with Smith and Raleigh. The sick, during this
calamitous season, received the faithful attentions of Thomas Wotton,
surgeon-general.
Wingfield, the president, after engrossing, as it was alleged, the
public store of provisions to his own use, attempted to escape from the
colony in the pinnace, and return to England. This baseness roused the
indignation even of the emaciated survivors, and they deposed him, and
appointed Captain John Ratcliffe in his place, and displaced Kendall, a
confederate of Wingfield, from the council.
In a manuscript journal of these early incidents, written by Wingfield
himself, and preserved in the Lambeth Library, he undertakes to
exculpate himself from the charge of engrossing the common store in the
following terms: "As I understand, by report, I am much charged with
starving the colony; I did always give every man his allowance
faithfully, both of corn, oil, aquavitae, etc., as was by the council
proportioned; neither was it bettered after my time, until toward the
end of March a biscuit was allowed to every workingman for his
breakfast, by means of the provision brought us by Captain Newport, as
will appear hereafter. It is further said I did much banquet and riot; I
never had but one squirrel roasted, whereof I gave a part to Mr.
Ratcliffe, then sick; yet was that squirrel given me. I did never heat a
flesh-pot but when the common-pot was so used likewise; yet how often
Mr. Presidents and the councillors have, night and day, been endangered
to break their backs, so laden with swans, geese, ducks, etc. How many
times their flesh-pots have swelled, many hungry eyes did behold, to
their great longing; and what great thieves and thieving there hath been
in common store since my time, I doubt not but is already made known to
his majesty's council for Virginia."
At length their stores were almost exhausted, the small quantity of wine
remaining being reserved for the communion-table; the sturgeon gone, all
further effort abandoned in despair, and an attack from the savages each
moment expected. At this hopeless conjuncture, a benignant Providence
put it into the hearts of the Indians to supply the famished sufferers
with an abundance of fruits and provision. Mankind, in trying scenes,
render an involuntary homage to superior genius. Ratcliffe, the new
president, and Martin, finding themselves incompetent and unpopular,
intrusted the helm of affairs to Smith, who, acting as cape-merchant,
set the colonists to work, some to mow, others to build houses and
thatch them, he himself always performing the heaviest task. In a short
time habitations were provided for the greater part of the survivors,
and a church was built. Smith next embarked in a shallop to go in quest
of supplies. Ignorance of the Indian language, the want of sails for
the boat, and of clothing for the men and their small force, were
discouraging impediments, but they did not dishearten him. With a crew
of six or seven he went down the river to Kecoughtan, a town of eighteen
cabins. Here he replied to a scornful defiance, by a volley of musketry
and capturing their okee--an idol stuffed with moss, and painted and
adorned with copper chains--so terrified them, that they quickly brought
him a supply of venison, wild-fowl, and bread. Having procured a supply
of corn, on his return he discovered the town and county of
Warrasqueake, where he procured a further supply. After this, in several
journeys, he explored the borders of the Chickahominy River. During his
absence, Wingfield and Kendall, leaguing with the sailors and others,
seized the pinnace in order to escape to England; but Smith, returning
unexpectedly, opened so hot a fire upon them as compelled them to stay
or sink. For this offence Kendall was tried by a jury, convicted, and
shot.[45:A] Not long after, Ratcliffe and Captain Gabriel Archer made a
similar attempt, and it was foiled by Smith's vigilance and resolution.
At the approach of winter the rivers of Virginia abounded with
wild-fowl, and the English now were well supplied with bread, peas,
persimmons, fish, and game. But this plenty did not last long; for what
Smith carefully provided the colonists carelessly wasted. The idlers at
Jamestown, including some of the council, now began to mutter complaints
against Smith for not having discovered the source of the Chickahominy,
it being supposed that the South Sea or Pacific Ocean lay not far
distant, and that a communication with it would be found by some river
running from the northwest. The Chickahominy flowed in that direction,
and hence the solicitude of these Jamestown cosmographers to trace that
river to its head. To allay this dissatisfaction of the council, Smith
made another voyage up that river, and proceeded until it became
necessary, in order to pass, to cut away a large tree which had fallen
across the stream. When at last the barge could advance no farther, he
returned eight miles and moored her in a wide bay out of danger, and
leaving orders to his men not to venture on shore until his return,
accompanied by two of his men and two Indian guides, and leaving seven
men in the barge, he went still higher up in a canoe to the distance of
twenty miles. In a short time after he had parted from the barge the men
left in her went ashore, and one of them, George Cassen, was surprised
and killed. Smith, in the mean while, not suspecting this disaster,
reached the marshy ground toward the head of the river, "the slashes,"
and went out with his gun to provide food for the party, and took with
him one of the Indians. During his excursion his two men, Robinson and
Emry, were slain; and he himself was attacked by a numerous party of
Indians, two of whom he killed with a pistol. He protected himself from
their arrows by making a shield of his guide, binding him fast by the
arm with one of his garters. Many arrows pierced his clothes, and some
slightly wounded him. Endeavoring to reach the canoe, and walking
backward with his eye still fixed on his pursuers, he sunk to his waist
in an oozy creek, and his savage with him. Nevertheless the Indians were
afraid to approach, until, being now half-dead with cold, he threw away
his arms, when they drew him forth, and led him to the fire where his
two companions were lying dead. Here the Indians chafed his benumbed
limbs, and having restored the vital heat, Smith inquired for their
chief, and they pointed him to Opechancanough, the great chief of
Pamunkey. Smith presented him a mariner's compass; the vibrations of the
mysterious needle astonished the untutored sons of the forest. In a
short time they bound the prisoner to a tree, and were about to shoot
him to death, when Opechancanough holding up the compass, they all laid
down their bows and arrows. Then marching in Indian file they led the
captive guarded, by fifteen men, about six miles, to Orapakes, a hunting
town in the upper part of the Chickahominy swamp, and about twelve miles
northeast from the falls of James River (Richmond.) At this town,
consisting of thirty or forty houses, built like arbors and covered with
mats, the women and children came forth to meet them, staring in
amazement at Smith. Opechancanough and his followers performed their
military exercises, and joined in the war-dance. Smith was confined in a
long house under a guard, and an enormous quantity of bread and venison
was set before him, as if to fatten him for sacrifice, or because they
supposed that a superior being required a proportionately larger supply
of food. An Indian who had received some toys from Smith at Jamestown,
now, in return, brought him a warm garment of fur--a pleasing instance
of gratitude, a sentiment often found even in the breast of a savage.
Another Indian, whose son had been mortally wounded by Smith, made an
attempt to kill him in revenge, and was only prevented by the
interposition of his guards.
Opechancanough meditating an assault upon Jamestown, undertook to entice
Smith to join him by offers of life, liberty, land, and women. Being
allowed to send a message to Jamestown, he wrote a note on a leaf of a
book, giving information of the intended assault, and directing what
means should be employed to strike terror into the messengers, and what
presents should be sent back by them. Three men dispatched with the note
returned with an answer and the presents, in three days, notwithstanding
the rigor of the season; it being the midst of the winter of 1607,
remarkable for its extraordinary severity, and the ground being covered
with snow. Opechancanough and his people looked upon their captive as
some supernatural being, and were filled with new wonder on seeing how
the "paper could speak." Abandoning the design of attacking Jamestown,
they conducted Smith through the country of the Youghtanunds,
Mattapanients, Payanketanks, Nantaughtacunds, and Onawmanients, on the
banks of the Rappahannock, and Potomac. Thence he was taken to
Pamaunkee, at the junction of the Matapony and Pamunkey--the residence
of Opechancanough. Here, for three days, they engaged in their horrid
orgies and incantations, with a view to divine their prisoner's secret
designs whether friendly or hostile. They also showed him a bag of
gunpowder, which they were reserving till the next spring, when they
intended to sow it in the ground, as they were desirous of propagating
so useful an article.
Smith was hospitably entertained by Opitchapan, (Opechancanough's
brother,) who dwelt a little above, on the Pamunkey. Finally, the
captive was taken to Werowocomoco, probably signifying chief place of
council, a favorite seat of Powhatan, on the York River, then called the
Pamaunkee or Pamunkey. They found this chief in his rude palace,
reclining before the fire, on a sort of throne, resembling a bedstead,
covered with mats, his head adorned with feathers and his neck with
beads, and wearing a long robe of raccoon skins. At his head sate a
young female, and another at his feet; while, on each side of the
wigwam, sate the men in rows, on mats; and behind them as many young
women, their heads and shoulders painted red, some with their heads
decorated with the snowy down of birds, and all with strings of white
beads falling over their shoulders. On Smith's entrance they all raised
a terrific yell; the queen of Appomattock brought him water to wash, and
another, a bunch of feathers for a towel. After feasting him, a long
consultation was held. That ended, two large stones were brought, and
the one laid upon the other, before Powhatan; then as many as could lay
hold, seizing Smith, dragged him to the stones, and laying his head on
them, snatched up their war-clubs, and, brandishing them in the air,
were about to slay him, when Pocahontas, Powhatan's favorite daughter, a
girl of only twelve or thirteen years of age,[48:A] finding all her
entreaties unavailing, flew, and, at the hazard of her life, clasped the
captive's head in her arms, and laid her own upon his. The stern heart
of Powhatan was touched--he relented, and consented that Smith might
live.
Werowocomoco, the scene of this celebrated rescue, lies on the north
side of York River, in the County of Gloucester, about twenty-five miles
below the fork of the river, and on a bay into which three creeks
empty.[48:B] This is Timber-neck Bay, on the east bank of which stands a
remarkable old stone chimney, traditionally known as "Powhatan's
chimney," and its site corresponds exactly with the royal house of that
chief, as laid down on Smith's Map of Virginia. Werowocomoco is only a
few miles distant from the historic field of Yorktown, which is lower
down the river, and on the opposite side. The lapse of time will
continually heighten the interesting associations of Werowocomoco, and
in ages of the distant future the pensive traveller will linger at the
spot graced with the lovely charms of nature, and endeared by
recollections of the tender heroism of Pocahontas.
Within two days after Smith's rescue, Powhatan suffered him to return to
Jamestown, on condition of sending him two great guns and a grindstone,
for which he promised to give him the country of Capahowosick, and
forever esteem him as his own favorite son Nantaquoud. Smith,
accompanied by Indian guides, quartered at night in some old hunting
cabins of Paspahegh, and reached Jamestown on the next morning about
sunrise. During the journey, as ever since his capture, he had expected
at almost every moment to be put to death. Returning, after an absence
of seven weeks, he was joyfully welcomed back by all except Archer and
two or three of his confederates. Archer, who had been illegally
admitted into the council, had the insolent audacity to indict Smith,
upon a chapter of Leviticus, for the death of his two men slain by the
Indians on the Chickahominy. He was tried on the day of his return, and
sentenced to be hanged on the next day, or the day after the next, when
Newport's opportune arrival on the very night after Smith's return,
providentially saved him from this ignominious fate. Wingfield
attributes the saving of _his_ life likewise to Newport, who released
him from the pinnace, where he was in duress.[49:A]
Smith now treated his Indian guides kindly, and showing Rawhunt, a
favorite servant of Powhatan, two pieces of cannon and a grindstone,
gave him leave to carry them home to his master. A cannon was then
loaded with stones, and discharged among the boughs of a tree hung with
icicles, when the Indians fled in terror, but upon being persuaded to
return, they received presents for Powhatan, his wives and children, and
departed.
At the time of Smith's return to Jamestown, he found the number of the
colonists reduced to forty. Of the one hundred original settlers,[49:B]
seventy-eight are classified as follows: fifty-four gentlemen, four
carpenters, twelve laborers, a blacksmith, a sailor, a barber, a
bricklayer, a mason, a tailor, a drummer, and a "chirurgeon." Of the
gentlemen, the greater part were indolent, dissolute reprobates, of good
families; and they found themselves not in a golden El Dorado, as they
had fondly anticipated, but in a remote wilderness, encompassed by want,
exposure, fatigue, disease, and danger.
The return of Smith, and his report of the plenty that he had witnessed
at Werowocomoco, and of the generous clemency of Powhatan, and
especially of the love of Pocahontas, revived the drooping hopes of the
survivors at Jamestown. The arrival of Newport at the same juncture with
stores and a number of additional settlers, being part of the first
supply sent out from England by the treasurer and council, was joyfully
welcomed. Pocahontas too, with her tawny train of attendants, frequently
visited Jamestown, with presents of bread, and venison, and raccoons,
sent by Powhatan for Smith and Newport. However, the improvident traffic
allowed between Newport's mariners and the natives, soon extremely
enhanced the price of provisions, and the too protracted detention of
his vessel made great inroads upon the public store. Newport, not long
after his arrival, accompanied by Smith, Scrivener, newly arrived, and
made one of the council, and thirty or forty picked men, visited
Powhatan at Werowocomoco. Upon their arrival, Smith landed with a party
of men, and after crossing several creeks on bridges of poles and bark,
(for it appears that he had mistaken the right landing place, having
probably passed up a little beyond the mouth of Timberneck Bay,) they
were met and escorted to the town by Opechancanough, Nantaquaus,
Powhatan's son, and two hundred warriors. Powhatan was found seated on
his bedstead throne of mats, with his buckskin pillow or cushion,
embroidered with beads. More than forty trays of bread stood without, in
rows on each side of the door. Four or five hundred Indians were
present. Newport landed on the next day, and some days were past in
feasting, and dancing, and trading, in which last Powhatan exhibited a
curious mixture of huckstering cunning, and regal pride. Smith gave him
a suit of red cloth, a white greyhound, and a hat. Charmed with some
blue beads, for one or two pounds of them he gave in exchange two or
three hundred bushels of corn. Newport presented him a boy named Thomas
Salvage, in return for an Indian named Namontack. Smith acted as
interpreter.
The English next visited Opechancanough, at his seat, Pamunkey. The blue
beads came to be in great request, and none dared to wear them save the
chiefs and their families. Having procured a further supply of corn at
this place, Newport and his party returned to Jamestown, which was now
destroyed by an accidental fire. Originating in the public storehouse,
the flames spread rapidly over the cabins, thatched with reeds,
consuming even the palisades, some eight or ten yards distant. Arms,
apparel, bedding, and much of their private provision, were consumed, as
was also a temporary church, which had been erected. "The minister,
Hunt, lost all his library, and all that he had but the clothes on his
back; yet none ever heard him repine at his loss. Upon any alarm he was
as ready for defence as any, and till he could not speak, he never
ceased to his utmost to animate us constantly to persist; whose soul,
questionless, is with God."[51:A] As no further mention is made of him
at Jamestown, it is probable that he did not live long after this fire.
Dr. Hawks, however, conjectures that he survived long enough to
officiate in the first marriage in Virginia, which took place in the
year 1608.[51:B] He appears to have resided in the County of Kent,
England, where, in January, 1594, he was appointed to the vicarage of
Reculver, which he resigned in 1602. But he probably still continued to
reside there, or to consider that his home, until he embarked for
Virginia, because when in the Downs, which are opposite to Kent, he was
only twenty miles "from his habitation." Of his appointment as chaplain
to the expedition, Wingfield, in his journal referred to before, gives
the following account: "For my first work, (which was to make a right
choice of a spiritual pastor,) I appeal to the remembrance of my Lord of
Canterbury's Grace, who gave me very gracious audience in my request.
And the world knoweth whom I took with me, truly a man, in my opinion,
not any way to be touched with the rebellious humor of a papist spirit,
nor blemished with the least suspicion of a factious schismatic." My
Lord of Canterbury was that persecuting prelate, Archbishop Bancroft,
who persecuted the Puritan dissenters till they desired to come over to
Virginia to get out of his reach, and which they were prohibited from
doing by a royal proclamation, issued at his instance. Rev. Robert Hunt,
by all the notices of him that are given, appears to have been a pious,
disinterested, resolute, and exemplary man.
When the English first settled at Jamestown, their place of worship
consisted of an awning, or old sail, suspended between three or four
trees, to protect them from the sun; the area covered by it was inclosed
by wooden rails; the seats were unhewed trees, till plank was cut; the
pulpit was a wooden crosspiece nailed to two neighboring trees. In
inclement weather an old decayed tent served for the place of worship.
After awhile, by the zeal of the minister Hunt, and the assistance of
Newport's seamen, a homely structure like a barn was erected, "set upon
crachets, covered with rafts, sedge, and earth," as likewise were the
sides, the best of the houses being constructed after the same fashion,
and the greater part of them worse than the church, so that they were
but a poor defence against wind or rain. Nevertheless, the service was
read daily, morning and evening, and on Sunday two sermons were
preached, and the communion celebrated every three months, till the Rev.
Mr. Hunt died. After which prayers were still said daily, and a homily
read on Sunday, and so it continued until the arrival of other preachers
some two or three years afterwards. The salary allowed Mr. Hunt appears
to have been L500 a year, appropriated by the council of the Virginia
Company in England, consented to by the council in Virginia, and
confirmed by the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1605, to Richard Hackluyt,
Prebend of Westminster, who, by his authority, sent out Mr. Hunt, "an
honest, religious, and courageous divine, during whose life our factions
were oft qualified, our wants and greatest extremities so comforted,
that they seemed easy in comparison of what we endured after his
memorable death."[52:A]
The stock of provisions running low, the colonists at Jamestown were
reduced to a diet of meal and water, and this, together with their
exposure to cold, after the loss of their habitations, cut off upwards
of one-half of them. Their condition was made still worse by a rage for
gold that now seized them. "There was no talk, no hope, no work, but dig
gold, wash gold, refine gold, load gold." Smith, not indulging in these
empty dreams of imaginary wealth, laughed at their infatuation in
loading "such a drunken ship with gilded dust."
Captain Newport, after a delay of three months and a half, being now
ready to sail for England, and the planters having no use for
parliaments, places, petitions, admirals, recorders, interpreters,
chronologers, courts of plea, nor justices of the peace, sent Master
Wingfield and Captain Archer home with him, so that they, who had
ingrossed all those titles to themselves, might seek some better place
of employment. Newport carried with him twenty turkeys, which had been
presented to him by Powhatan, who had demanded and received twenty
swords in return for them. This fowl, peculiar to America, had been many
years before carried to England by some of the early discoverers of
North America.[53:A]
After Newport's departure, Ratcliffe, the president, lived in ease,
peculating on the public store. The spring now approaching, Smith and
Scrivener undertook to rebuild Jamestown, repair the palisades, fell
trees, prepare the fields, plant and erect another church. While thus
engaged they were joyfully surprised by the arrival of the Phoenix,
commanded by Captain Nelson, who had left England with Newport, about
the end of the year 1607, and after coming within sight of Cape Henry,
had been driven off to the West Indies. He brought with him the
remainder of the first supply, which comprised one hundred and twenty
settlers. Having found provisions in the West Indies, and having
economically husbanded his own, he imparted them generously to the
colony, so that now there was accumulated a store sufficient for half a
year.
Powhatan having effected so advantageous an exchange with Newport,
afterwards sent Smith twenty turkeys, but receiving no swords in return,
he was highly offended, and ordered his people to take them by fraud or
force, and they accordingly attempted to seize them at the gates of
Jamestown. The president and Martin, who now ruled, remained inactive,
under pretence of orders from England not to offend the natives; but
some of them happening to meddle with Smith, he handled them so roughly,
by whipping and imprisonment, as to repress their insolence.
Pocahontas, in beauty of feature, expression, and form, far surpassed
any of the natives; and in intelligence and spirit "was the nonpareil of
her country." Powhatan, hearing that some of his people were kept
prisoners at Jamestown, sent her, with Rawhunt, (who was as remarkable
for his personal deformity, but shrewd and crafty,) with presents of a
deer and some bread to sue for their ransom. Smith released the
prisoners, and Pocahontas was dismissed with presents. Thus the scheme
of Powhatan to destroy the English with their own swords, was happily
frustrated.
The Phoenix was freighted with a cargo of cedar, and the unserviceable,
gold-hunting Captain Martin, concluded to return with her to England. Of
the 120 settlers brought by Newport and Nelson, there were 33 gentlemen,
21 laborers, (some of them only footmen,) 6 tailors, 2 apothecaries, 2
jewellers, 2 gold-refiners, 2 goldsmiths, a gunsmith, a perfumer, a
surgeon, a cooper, a tobacco-pipe maker, and a blacksmith.[54:A]
FOOTNOTES:
[36:A] See charter in Stith's Hist. of Va., Appendix; "Notes as to the
Limits of Virginia," by Littleton Waller Tazewell, in Va. Hist.
Register, No. 1.
[36:B] Hening's Statutes at Large, i. 57.
[37:A] Hen. 67; Stith, 36, and in Appendix.
[37:B] Stith, 42.
[38:A] Smith's Hist. of Va., ii. 276.
[39:A] Narrative (in Purchas' Pilgrims, iv. 1685,) by George Percy,
brother of the Earl of Northumberland, and one of the first expedition.
See Hillard's Life of Smith in Sparks' Amer. Biog., 211 and 214 in note.
(Hillard in the main follows Stith.) Smith's Newes from Virginia.
[39:B] Smith, i. 140-41.
[40:A] Percy's Narrative.
[41:A] Stith, 46.
[43:A] Smith, i. 153; Newes from Virginia; Anderson's History of the
Colonial Church, i. 217.
[45:A] Newes from Va., 7.
[48:A] Smith, ii. 30. In Newes from Va., Smith calls her "a child of ten
years old." This was a mistake.
[48:B] Stith, 53; Newes from Virginia, 11.
[49:A] Anderson's History of the Colonial Church, i. 221, referring to
Wingfield's MS. Journal.
[49:B] List of the first planters, Smith, i. 153.
[51:A] Purchas, iv. 1710, cited in Anderson's History Col. Church, i.
222.
[51:B] Hawks' Contributions, 22.
[52:A] Captain John Smith's "Advertisements for the Unexperienced
Planters of New England, or anywhere," etc. A rare pamphlet, written at
the house of Sir Humphrey Mildmay, in the Parish of Danbery, Essex
County, England, dedicated to the excellent Archbishop Abbot, and
published in 1631. Cited in Anderson's History of Col. Church, ii. 747.
[53:A] Grahame's Col. Hist. U. S., Amer. ed., i. 28, in note.
[54:A] Smith, i. 170.
CHAPTER IV.
1608.
Smith's First Exploring Voyage up the Chesapeake Bay--Smith's
Isles--Accomac--Tangier Islands--Wighcocomoco--Watkins'
Point--Keale's Hill--Point Ployer--Watts' Islands--Cuskarawaok
River--The Patapsco--Potomac--Quiyough--Stingray Island--Smith
returns to Jamestown--His Second Voyage up Chesapeake Bay--
The Massawomeks--The Indians on the River Tockwogh--
Sasquesahannocks--Peregrine's Mount--Willoughby River--The
Patuxent--The Rappahannock--The Pianketank--Elizabeth River--
Nansemond River--Return to Jamestown--The Hudson River
Discovered--Smith, President--Affairs at Jamestown--Newport
arrives with Second Supply--His Instructions--The First
English Women in Virginia--Smith visits Werowocomoco--
Entertained by Pocahontas--His Interview with Powhatan--
Coronation of Powhatan--Newport Explores the Monacan Country--
Smith's Discipline--Affairs at Jamestown--Newport's Return--
Smith's Letter to the Council--The First Marriage in Virginia--
Smith again visits Powhatan.
ON the second day of June, 1608, Smith, with a company of fourteen,
consisting of seven gentlemen (including Dr. Walter Russel, who had
recently arrived,) and seven soldiers, left Jamestown, for the purpose
of exploring the Chesapeake Bay. The party embarked in an open barge of
less than three tons, and dropping down the James River, parted with the
Phoenix off Cape Henry, and crossing over thence to the Eastern Shore,
discovered and named, after their commander, "Smith's Isles." At Cape
Charles they met some grim, athletic savages, with bone-headed spears in
their hands, who directed them to the dwelling-place of the Werowance of
Accomac, who was found courteous and friendly, and the handsomest native
that they had yet seen. His country pleasant, fertile, and intersected
by creeks, affording good harbors for small craft. The people spoke the
language of Powhatan. Smith pursuing his voyage, came upon some
uninhabited isles, which were then named after Dr. Russel, surgeon of
the party, but now are known as the Tangier Islands. Searching there for
fresh water, they fell in with the River Wighcomoco, now called
Pocomoke; the northern point was named Watkins' Point, and a hill on
the south side of Pocomoke Bay, Keale's Hill, after two of the soldiers
in the barge. Leaving that river they came to a high promontory called
Point Ployer, in honor of a French nobleman, the former friend of Smith.
There they discovered a pond of hot water. In a thunder-storm the
barge's mast and sail were blown overboard, and the explorers, narrowly
escaping from the fury of the elements, found it necessary to remain for
two days on an island, which they named Limbo, but it is now known as
one of Watts' Islands. Repairing the sails with their shirts, they
visited a river on the Eastern Shore called Cuskarawaok, and now, by a
singular transposition of names, called Wighcocomoco. Here the Indians
ran along the banks in wild amazement, some climbing to the tops of
trees and shooting their arrows at the strangers. On the following day a
volley of musquetry dispersed the savages, and the English found some
cabins, in which they left pieces of copper, beads, bells and
looking-glasses. On the ensuing day a great number of Indians, men,
women, and children, thronged around Smith and his companions with many
expressions of friendship. These savages were of the tribes Nause,
Sarapinagh, Arseek, and Nantaquak, of all others the most expert in
trade. They were of small stature like the people of Wighcocomoco; wore
the finest furs, and manufactured a great deal of Roenoke, or Indian
money, made out of shells. The Eastern Shore of the bay was found low
and well wooded; the Western well watered, but hilly and barren; the
valleys fruitful, thickly wooded, and abounding in deer, wolves, bears,
and other wild animals. A navigable stream was called Bolus, from a
parti-colored gum-like clay found on its banks, it is now known as the
Patapsco.
The party having been about a fortnight voyaging in an open boat,
fatigued at the oar, and subsisting on mouldy bread, now importuned
Smith to return to Jamestown. He at first refused, but shortly after,
the sickness of his men, and the unfavorable weather, compelled him
reluctantly to turn back, where the bay was about nine miles wide and
nine or ten fathoms deep. On the sixteenth of June they fell in with the
mouth of the Patawomeke, or Potomac, where it appeared to be seven miles
wide; and the tranquil magnificence of that majestic river reanimated
their drooping spirits, and the sick having now recovered, they agreed
to explore it.
About thirty miles above the mouth, near the future birth-place of
Washington, two Indians conducted them up a small creek, toward Nominy,
where the banks swarmed with thousands of the natives, who, with their
painted bodies and hideous yells, seemed so many infernal demons. Their
noisy threats were soon silenced by the glancing of the English bullets
on the water and the report of the muskets re-echoing in the forests,
and the astonished red men dropped their bows and arrows, and, hostages
being exchanged, received the whites kindly. Toward the head of the
river they met some canoes laden with bear, deer, and other game, which
the Indians shared with the English.
On their return down the river, Japazaws, chief of Potomac, having
furnished them with guides to conduct them up the River Quiyough, at the
mouth of which he lived, (supposed by Stith[57:A] to be Potomac Creek,)
in quest of Matchqueon, a mine, which they had heard of, the party left
the Indian hostages in the barge, secured by a small chain, which they
were to have for their reward. The mine turned out to be worthless,
containing only a sort of antimony, used by the natives to paint
themselves and their idols, and which gave them the appearance of
blackamoors powdered with silver-dust. The credulous Newport had taken
some bags of it to England as containing silver. The wild animals
observed were the beaver, otter, mink, marten, and bear; of fish they
met with great numbers, sometimes lying in such schools near the surface
that, in absence of nets, they undertook to catch them with a
frying-pan; but, plenty as they were, they were not to be caught with
frying-pans. The barge running aground at the mouth of the Rappahannock,
Smith amused himself "spearing" them with his sword, and in taking one
from its point it stung him in the wrist. In a little while the symptoms
proved so alarming that his companions concluded his death to be at
hand, and sorrowfully prepared his grave in a neighboring island by his
directions. But by Dr. Russel's judicious treatment the patient quickly
recovered, and supped that evening upon the offending fish. This
incident gave its name to Stingray Island. The fish was of the ray
species, much like a thornback, but with a long tail like a horse-whip,
containing a poisoned sting with a serrate edge.
The party returned to Jamestown late in July, and found sickness and
discontent still prevalent there. Ratcliffe, the president, was deposed
in favor of Smith, who, of the council, was next entitled to succeed;
but Smith substituted Scrivener in his stead, and embarked again to
complete his discoveries.
On the twenty-fourth of July he set out for the Chesapeake Bay, his
company consisting of six gentlemen, including Anthony Bagnall, surgeon,
and six soldiers. Detained some days at Kecoughtan, (Hampton,) they were
hospitably entertained by the Indians there, who were astonished by some
rockets thrown up in the evening. Reaching the head of the bay, the
explorers met some canoes manned by Massawomeks, who, after their first
alarm being propitiated by the present of two bells, presented Smith
with bear's meat, venison, fish, bows, arrows, targets, and bear-skins.
Stith supposed this nation to be the same with the Iroquois, or Five
Nations.[58:A]
On the River Tockwogh (now Sassafras) Smith came to an Indian town,
fortified with a palisade and breastworks, and here men, women, and
children, came forth to welcome the whites with songs and dances,
offering them fruits, furs, and whatever they had, spreading mats for
them to sit on, and in every way expressing their friendship. They had
tomahawks, knives, and pieces of iron and copper, which, as they
alleged, they had procured from the Sasquesahannocks, a mighty people
dwelling two days' journey distant on the borders of the Susquehanna.
Suckahanna, in the Powhatan language, signifies "water."[58:B]
Two interpreters being dispatched to invite the Sasquesahannocks to
visit the English, in three or four days sixty of that gigantic people
arrived, with presents of venison, tobacco-pipes three feet long,
baskets, targets, bows and arrows. Five of their chiefs embarked in the
barge to cross the bay. It being Smith's custom daily to have prayers
with a psalm, the savages were filled with wonder at it, and in their
turn performed a sort of adoration, holding their hands up to the sun,
and chanting a wild unearthly song. They then embraced Captain Smith,
adoring him in the like manner, apparently looking upon him as some
celestial visitant, and overwhelming him with a profusion of presents
and abject homage.
The highest mountain seen by the voyagers to the northward they named
Peregrine's Mount; and Willoughby River derived its name from Smith's
native town. At the extreme limits of discovery crosses were carved in
the bark of trees, or brass crosses were left. The tribes on the
Patuxent were found very tractable, and more civil than any others. On
the banks of the picturesque Rappahannock, Smith and his party were
kindly treated by the Moraughtacunds; and here they met with Mosco, one
of the Wighcocomocoes, who was remarkable for a bushy black beard,
whereas the natives in general had little or none. He proved to be of
great service to the English in exploring the Rappahannock. Mr. Richard
Fetherstone, a gentleman of the company, died during this part of the
voyage, and was buried on the sequestered banks of this river, where a
bay was named after him. The river was explored to the falls, (near
Fredericksburg,) where a skirmish took place with the Rappahannocks.
Smith next explored the Pianketank, where the inhabitants were, for the
most part, absent on a hunting excursion, only a few women, children,
and old men being left to tend the corn. Returning thence the barge
encountered a tremendous thunder-storm in Gosnold's Bay, and running
before the wind, the voyagers could only catch fitful glimpses of the
land, by the flashes of lightning, which saved them from dashing to
pieces on the shore, and directed them to Point Comfort. They next
visited Chesapeake, now Elizabeth River, (on which Norfolk is situated,)
six or seven miles from the mouth of which they came upon two or three
cultivated patches and some cabins. After this they sailed seven or
eight miles up the Nansemond, and found its banks consisting mainly of
oyster-shells. Skirmishing here with the Chesapeakes and Nansemonds,
Smith procured as much corn as he could carry away. September the 7th,
1608, the party arrived at Jamestown, after an absence of upwards of
three months, and found some of the colonists recovered, others still
sick, many dead, Ratcliffe, the late president, under arrest for mutiny,
the harvest gathered, but the stock of provisions damaged by rain.
During that summer, Smith, with a few men, in a small barge, in his
several voyages of discovery traversed a distance of not less than three
thousand miles.[60:A] He had been at Jamestown only three days in three
months, and had, during this interval, explored the whole of Chesapeake
Bay and of the country lying on its shores, and made a map of them.
In the year 1607 the Plymouth Company, under the direction of Lord Chief
Justice Popham, dispatched a vessel to inspect their territory of North
Virginia. That vessel being captured by the Spaniards, Sir John Popham,
at his own expense, sent out another, which, having returned with a
favorable report of the country, he was enabled to equip an expedition
for the purpose of effecting a settlement there. Under the command of
his brother, Henry Popham, and of Raleigh Gilbert, a nephew of Sir
Humphrey Gilbert, a hundred emigrants, embarking May, 1607, in two
vessels, repaired to North Virginia, and seated themselves at the mouth
of the River Sagahadock, where they erected Fort St. George. However,
after enduring a great deal of sickness and hardship, and losing several
of their number, including their president, Henry Popham, and hearing by
a supply-vessel of the death of their chief patrons, Sir John Popham,
and Sir John Gilbert, (brother of Raleigh Gilbert,) they gladly
abandoned the colony, and returned to England in the spring of 1608.
It was in this year that Henry Hudson, an Englishman, employed by the
Dutch East India Company, after entering the Chesapeake, and remarking
the infant settlement of the English, discovered the beautiful river
which still retains the name of that distinguished navigator. The Dutch
afterwards erected near its mouth, and on the Island of Manhattan, the
fort and cabins of New Amsterdam, the germ of New York.
Smith had hitherto declined, but now consented, September, 1608, to
undertake the office of president. Ratcliffe was under arrest for
mutiny; and the building of the fine house which he had commenced for
himself in the woods, was discontinued. The church was repaired, the
storehouse newly covered, magazines for supplies erected, the fort
reduced to a pentagon figure, the watch renewed, troops trained; and the
whole company mustered every Saturday in the plain by the west bulwark,
called "Smithfield." There, sometimes, more than a hundred dark-eyed and
dark-haired tawny Indians would stand in amazement to see a file of
soldiers batter a tree, where a target was set up to shoot at.
Newport arrived with a second supply, and brought out also presents for
Powhatan, a basin and ewer, bedstead and suit of scarlet clothes.
Newport, upon this voyage, had procured a private commission in which he
stood pledged to perform one of three impossibilities; for he engaged
not to return to England without either a lump of gold, a certainty of
the South Sea, or one of Sir Walter Raleigh's lost colonists. Newport
brought also orders to discover the Manakin (originally Monacan)
country, and a barge constructed so as to be taken to pieces, which they
were to carry beyond the falls, so as to convey them down by some river
running westward to the South Sea or Pacific Ocean. Vasco Nunez, in
1513, crossing the Isthmus of Darien, from the summit of a mountain
discovered, beyond the other side of the continent, an ocean, which,
from the direction in which he saw it, took the name of the "South Sea."
The cost of this last supply brought out by Newport was two thousand
pounds, and the company ordered that the vessels should be sent back
freighted with cargoes of corresponding value, and threatened, in case
of a failure, that the colonists should be left in Virginia as banished
men. It appears that the Virginia Company had been deeply incensed by a
letter received by Lord Salisbury, (Sir Robert Cecil,) Secretary of
State, reporting that the planters intended to divide the country among
themselves. It is altogether improbable that they had conceived any
design of appropriating a country which so few of them were willing to
cultivate, and from which so many of them were anxious to escape. The
folly of the instructions was only surpassed by the inhumanity of the
threat, and this folly and inhumanity were justly exposed by Smith's
letter in reply.[61:A]
Newport brought over with him Captains Peter Wynne and Richard Waldo,
two veteran soldiers and valiant gentlemen; Francis West, brother of
Lord Delaware; Raleigh Crashaw; Thomas Forest with Mrs. Forest, and Anne
Burras, her maid; the first Englishwomen that landed at Jamestown.[62:A]
Some Poles and Germans were sent out to make pitch, tar, glass, soap,
ashes, and erect mills. Waldo and Wynne were admitted into the council;
and Ratcliffe was restored to his seat.
The time appointed for Powhatan's coronation now drawing near, Smith,
accompanied by Captain Waldo, and three others, went overland to a point
on the Pamaunkee (York) River, opposite Werowocomoco, to which they
crossed over in an Indian canoe. Upon reaching Werowocomoco, Powhatan
being found absent, was sent for, and, in the mean time, Smith and his
comrades were being entertained by Pocahontas and her companions. They
made a fire in an open field, and Smith being seated on a mat before it,
presently a hideous noise and shrieking being heard in the adjoining
woods, the English snatched up their arms, and seized two or three aged
Indians; but Pocahontas immediately came, and protested to Smith that he
might slay her if any surprise was intended, and he was quickly
satisfied that his apprehensions were groundless. Then thirty young
women emerged from the woods, all naked, save a cincture of green
leaves, their bodies being painted; Pocahontas wearing on her head a
beautiful pair of buck's horns, an otter's skin at her girdle and
another on her arm; a quiver hung on her shoulder, and she held a bow
and arrow in her hand. Of the other nymphs, one held a sword, another a
club, a third a pot-stick, with the antlers of the deer on their heads,
and a variety of other savage ornaments. Bursting from the forest, like
so many fiends, with unearthly shrieks, they circled around the fire
singing and dancing, and thus continued for an hour, when they again
retired to the woods. Returning, they invited Smith to their
habitations, where, as soon as he entered, they all crowded around,
hanging about him with cries of "Love you not me? love you not me?" They
then feasted their guest; some serving, others singing and dancing, till
at last, with blazing torches of light-wood, they escorted him to his
lodging.
On the next day, Powhatan having arrived, Smith informed him of the
presents that had been sent out for him; restored to him Namontack, who
had been taken to England, and invited the chief to visit Jamestown to
accept the presents, and with Newport's aid to revenge himself upon his
enemies, the Monacans. Powhatan, in reply, refused to visit Jamestown,
saying that he, too, was a king; but he consented to wait eight days to
receive presents; as for the Monacans, he was able to avenge his
grievances himself. In regard to the salt water beyond the mountains, of
which Smith had spoken, Powhatan denied that there was any such, and
drew lines of those regions on the ground. Smith returned to Jamestown,
and the presents being sent round to Werowocomoco by water, near a
hundred miles, Newport and Smith, with fifty men, proceeded thither by
the direct route across the neck of land that separates the James from
the York.
All being assembled at Werowocomoco, the ensuing day was set for the
coronation, when the presents were delivered to Powhatan--a basin, ewer,
bed, and furniture ready set up. A scarlet cloak and suit of apparel
were with difficulty put upon him, Namontack, meanwhile, insisting that
it would not hurt him. Still more strenuous efforts were found necessary
to make him kneel to receive the crown, till, at last, by dint of urgent
persuasions, and pressing hard upon his shoulders, he was induced,
reluctantly, to stoop a little, when three of the English placed the
crown upon his head. At an appointed signal a volley of musketry was
fired from the boats, and Powhatan started up from his seat in alarm,
from which, however, he was in a few moments relieved. As if, by way of
befitting satire upon so ridiculous a ceremony, Powhatan graciously
presented his old moccasins and mantle to Newport, and some corn; but
refused to allow him any guides except Namontack. The English having
purchased, in the town, a small additional supply of corn, left
Werowocomoco, and returned to Jamestown.
Shortly afterwards Newport, contrary to Smith's advice, undertook to
explore the Monacan country, on the borders of the upper James River,
with one hundred and twenty picked men, commanded by Captain Waldo,
Lieutenant Percy, Captain Wynne, Mr. West, and Mr. Scrivener. Smith,
with eighty or ninety men, some sick, some feeble, being left at
Jamestown; Newport and his party, embarking in the pinnace and boats,
went up to the falls of the river, where, landing, they marched forty
miles beyond on the south side in two days and a half, and returned by
the same route, discovering two towns of the Monacans--Massinacak, and
Mowchemenchouch. The natives, "the Stoics of the woods," evinced neither
friendship nor enmity; and the English, out of abundant caution, took
one of their chiefs, and led him bound at once a hostage and a guide.
Having failed to procure any corn from the Indians, Newport's party
returned from the exploration of this picturesque, fertile, well-watered
region, more than half of them sick or lame, and disheartened with
fatigue, stinted rations, and disappointed hopes of finding gold.
Smith, the president, now set the colonists to work; some to make glass,
others to prepare tar, pitch, and soap-ashes; while he, in person,
conducted thirty of them five miles below the fort to cut down trees and
saw plank. Two of this lumber-party happened to be young gentlemen, who
had arrived in the last supply. Smith sharing labor and hardship in
common with the rest, these woodmen, at first, became apparently
reconciled to the novel task, and seemed to listen with pleasure to the
crashing thunder of the falling trees; but when the axes began to
blister their unaccustomed hands, they grew profane, and their frequent
loud oaths echoed in the woods. Smith taking measures to have the oaths
of each one numbered, in the evening, for each offence, poured a can of
water down the offender's sleeve; and this curious discipline, or
water-cure, was so effectual, that after it was administered, an oath
would scarcely be heard in a week. Smith found that thirty or forty
gentlemen who volunteered to work, could do more in a day than one
hundred that worked by compulsion; but, he adds, that twenty good
workmen would have been better than the whole of them put together.
Smith finding so much time wasted, and no provisions obtained, and
Newport's vessel lying idle at heavy charge, embarked in the discovery
barge, taking with him eighteen men and another boat, and leaving orders
for Lieutenant Percy to follow after him, went up the Chickahominy.
Being overtaken by Percy, he procured a supply of corn. Upon his return
to Jamestown, Newport and Ratcliffe, instigated by jealousy, attempted
to depose Smith from the presidency, but he defeated their schemes. The
colony suffered much loss at this time by an illicit trade carried on
between the sailors of Newport's vessel, dishonest settlers, and the
Indians. Smith threatened to send away the vessel and to oblige Newport
to remain a year in the colony, so that he might learn to judge of
affairs by his own experience, but Newport submitting, and acknowledging
himself in the wrong, the threat was not executed. Scrivener visiting
Werowocomoco, by the said of Namontack procured another supply of corn
and some puccoons, a root which it was supposed would make an excellent
dye, as the Indians used its red juice to stain their faces.
Newport at last sailed for England, leaving at Jamestown two hundred
souls, carrying a cargo of such pitch, tar, glass, and soap-ashes as the
colonists had been able to get ready. Ratcliffe, whose real name was
discovered to be Sicklemore, was sent back at the same time. Smith in
his letter to the council in England, exhibited, in caustic terms, the
preposterous folly of expecting a present profitable return from
Virginia. He sent them also his map of the country, drawn with so much
accuracy, that it has been taken as the groundwork of all succeeding
maps of Virginia.
Not long after Newport's departure, Anne Burras was married at Jamestown
to John Laydon, the first marriage in Virginia. Smith finding the
provisions running low, made a voyage to Nansemond, and afterwards went
up the James, and discovered the river and people of Appomattock, who
gave part of their scanty store of corn in exchange for copper and toys.
About this time Powhatan sent an invitation to Smith to visit him, and a
request that he would send men to build him a house, and give him a
grindstone, fifty swords, some guns, a cock and hen, with much copper,
and many beads, in return for which he promised to load his vessel with
corn. Having dispatched by land a party of Englishmen and four Dutchmen
to build the house, Smith, accompanied by the brave Waldo, set out for
Werowocomoco on the twenty-ninth of December, with the pinnace and two
barges manned with forty-six men. Smith went in a barge with six
gentlemen and as many soldiers, while in the pinnace were Lieutenant
Percy and Francis West, with a number of gentlemen and soldiers. The
little fleet dropping down the James arrived on the first night at
Warrasqueake, from which place Sicklemore, a veteran soldier, was
dispatched with two Indian guides in quest of Sir Walter Raleigh's lost
company, and of silk grass. Smith left Samuel Collier, his page, at
Warrasqueake to learn the language. The party being detained, by
inclement weather, a week at Kecoughtan, spent the holidays there among
the natives, feasting on oysters, venison, wild-fowl, and good bread,
enjoying also excellent fires in the dry, smoky cabins. While here Smith
and two others killed one hundred and forty-eight wild-fowl in three
shots.
At Kiskiack, (now Chescake, pronounced Cheese-cake,) the severity of the
cold again compelled the English to take shelter in the Indian wigwams.
On the twelfth day of January they reached Werowocomoco. The York River
being frozen over near half a mile from the shore, Smith, to lose no
time, undertook to break his way through the ice; but the tide ebbing,
left the barge aground on a shoal. In this dilemma, although the cold
was extreme, Smith jumping into the icy river, set the example to his
men of wading near waist deep to the shore, where, quartering in the
first cabins that they reached, they sent to Powhatan for provisions. On
the following day he supplied them abundantly with bread, wild turkeys,
and venison. Like Nestor of old, he told Smith somewhat extravagantly,
that he had seen the death of all of his people thrice; that he was now
old and must ere long die; that his brothers, Opitchapan,
Opechancanough, and Kekataugh, his two sisters, and their two daughters,
were to be his successors. He deprecated war, and declared that when he
and his people, forced to fly by fear of the English, lay in the woods,
exposed to cold and hunger, if a twig but broke, every one cried out,
"There comes Captain Smith." At length, after a long dialogue, Powhatan
still obstinately insisting that the English should lay aside their
arms, Smith gave orders privately to his people in the boat to approach
and capture him. Discovering their design he fled with his women and
children, while his warriors beset the cabin where Smith was. With
pistol, sword, and target, he rushed out among them and fired; some fell
one over another, the rest escaped.
Powhatan, finding himself in Smith's power, to make his peace sent him,
by an aged orator, a large bracelet and a string of beads, and in the
mean while the savages, goodly, well-formed fellows, but grim-looking,
carried the corn on their backs down to the boats. The barges of the
English being left aground by the ebb-tide, they were obliged to wait
till the next high-water; and they returned ashore to lodge in some
Indian wigwams.
Powhatan, and the treacherous Dutchmen who had been sent to build him a
house, and who were attracted by the abundant good cheer that they
enjoyed at Werowocomoco, now together plotted Smith's destruction. But
Pocahontas, the chieftain's dearest jewel, in that dark night, passing
through the gloomy woods, told Smith that great cheer would soon be sent
to him, but that her father with all his force would quickly come and
kill him and all the English, with their own weapons, while at supper;
that therefore, if he would live, she wished him to go at once. Smith
would have given her such toys as she delighted in; but, with tears
streaming down her cheeks, she said that she would not dare to be seen
to have them, for if her father should know it she would die; and so she
ran away by herself as she had come. The attempt to surprise Smith was
accordingly soon after made; but, forewarned, he readily defeated the
design.
Upon the return of the tide, Smith and his party embarked for Pamaunkee,
at the head of the river, leaving with Powhatan Edward Boynton, to kill
fowl for him, and the Dutchmen, whose treachery was not as yet
suspected, to finish his house. As the party sent forward to build the
house had been there about two weeks, and as the chimney is erected
after the house, it may be probably inferred that "Powhatan's Chimney"
was built by the Dutchmen. It indeed looks like a chimney of one of
those Dutch houses described by Irving in his inimitable "Legend of
Sleepy Hollow." It is the oldest relic of construction now extant in
Virginia, and is associated with the most interesting incident in our
early history. This chimney is built of stone found on the banks of
Timberneck Bay, and easily quarried; it is eighteen and a half feet
high, ten and a half wide at the base, and has a double flue. The
fire-place is eight feet wide, with an oaken beam across. The chimney
stands on an eminence, and is conspicuous from every quarter of the bay;
and itself a monumental evidence of no inconsiderable import. That the
colonists would construct for Powhatan's house a durable and massive
chimney there is every reason to believe, and here is such a one still
extant, and still retaining, through all the mutations of time, the
traditional name of "Powhatan's Chimney." There is no other such chimney
in all that region, nor the remains of such a one. At the foot of the
yard, and at a short distance from the chimney, which is still in use,
being attached to a modern farm-house, is a fine spring, formerly shaded
by a venerable umbrageous red-oak, of late years blown down. In the
rivulet that steals along a ravine from the spring, Pocahontas sported
in her childhood. Her name, according to Heckwelder, signifies "a
rivulet between two hills," but this is denied by others.
In the early annals of Virginia, Werowocomoco is second only to
Jamestown in historical and romantic interest; as Jamestown was the seat
of the English settlers, so Werowocomoco was the favorite residence of
the Indian monarch Powhatan. It was here that, when Smith was about to
meet his fate,
"An angel knelt in woman's form
And breathed a prayer for him."
It was here that Powhatan was crowned by the conceited Newport; here
that supplies for the colony were frequently procured; here that
occurred so many interviews and rencontres between the red men and the
whites. Here, two centuries and a half ago, dwelt the famous old
Powhatan, tall, erect, stern, apparently beardless, his hair a little
frosted with gray. Here he beheld, with barbarous satisfaction, the
scalps of his enemies recently massacred, suspended on a line between
two trees, and waving in the breeze; here he listened to recitals of
hunting and blood, and in the red glare of the council-fire planned
schemes of perfidy and revenge; here he sate and smoked, sometimes
observing Pocahontas at play, sometimes watching the fleet canoe coming
in from the Pamaunkee. Werowocomoco was a befitting seat of the great
chief, overlooking the bay, with its bold, picturesque, wood-crowned
banks, and in view of the wide majestic flood of the river, empurpled by
transient cloud-shadows, or tinged with the rosy splendor of a summer
sunset.
FOOTNOTES:
[57:A] Stith, 65.
[58:A] Stith, 67.
[58:B] Smith, i. 147.
[60:A] Smith, i. 191.
[61:A] Stith, 82; Smith, 200.
[62:A] Smith, i. 193.
CHAPTER V.
1608-1609.
Smith visits Pamaunkee--Seizes Opechancanough--Goes back to
Werowocomoco--Procures Supplies--Returns to Jamestown--Smith's
Rencontre with Chief of Paspahegh--Fort built--"The Old Stone
House"--Colonists dispersed to procure Subsistence--
Tuckahoe-root--Smith's Discipline--New Charter--Lord Delaware
appointed Governor--Fleet dispatched for Virginia--Sea-Venture;
cast away on Island of Bermuda--Seven Vessels reach Virginia--
Disorders that ensued--Smith's Efforts to quell them--He
Embarks for England--His Character, Life, and Writings.
SMITH and his party had no sooner set sail from Werowocomoco, up the
river, than Powhatan returned, and dispatched two of the Dutchmen to
Jamestown. The two emissaries, by false pretences and the assistance of
some of the colonists, who confederated with them, succeeded in
procuring a supply of arms and ammunition, which were conveyed to
Powhatan by some of his people who were at hand for that purpose. In the
mean time the other Dutchman, who had been retained by Powhatan as a
hostage, provided him with three hundred stone tomahawks. Edward Boynton
and Thomas Savage, discovering the treachery, attempted to make their
escape back to Jamestown, but were apprehended and taken back, and
expected every moment to be put to death.
During this interval, Smith having arrived at Pamunkey, at the junction
of the Pamunkey and the Matapony, landed with Lieutenant Percy and
others, to the number of fifteen, and proceeded to Opechancanough's
residence, a quarter of a mile back from the river. The town was found
deserted by all, except a lame man and a boy, and the cabins stripped of
everything. In a short time the chief of the warlike Pamunkies returned,
accompanied by some of his people, armed with bows and arrows. After
some conference, Smith finding himself deceived as to the supply of corn
which had been promised, reproached the chief for his treachery.
Opechancanough, to veil his designs, agreed to sell what scanty
commodities he then had, at Smith's own price, and promised to bring on
the morrow a larger supply. On the next day Smith, with the same party,
marched again up to Opechancanough's residence, where they found four or
five Indians, who had just arrived, each carrying a large basket. Soon
after the chief made his appearance, and with an air of frankness began
to tell what pains he had been at to fulfil his promise, when Mr. Russel
brought word that several hundred of the Indians had surrounded the
house where the English were. Smith, perceiving that some of his party
were terrified, exhorted them "to fight like men and not die like
sheep." Reproaching Opechancanough for his murderous designs, he
challenged him to decide the dispute in single combat on a neighboring
island. The wily chief declining that mode of settlement, endeavored to
inveigle Smith into an ambuscade, when his treachery being manifest, the
president seized him by the forelock, and with a cocked pistol at his
breast, led him, trembling, in the midst of his own people. Overcome
with terror, Opechancanough surrendered his vambrace, bow, and arrows;
and his dismayed followers threw down their arms. Men, women, and
children, now brought in their commodities to trade with the English.
Smith, overcome with fatigue, retired into a cabin to rest; and while he
was asleep, a party of the Indians, armed with swords and tomahawks,
made an attempt to surprise him, but starting up at the noise, he, with
the help of some of his comrades, soon put the intruders to flight.
During this time, Scrivener, misled by letters received from England,
began to grow ambitious of supplanting Smith, who was cordially attached
to him; and setting out from Jamestown for Hog Island, on a stormy day,
in company of Captain Waldo, Anthony Gosnold, and eight others, the boat
was sunk and all were lost. When no one else could be found willing to
convey this intelligence to Smith, Richard Wyffin volunteered to
undertake it. At Werowocomoco he was shielded from danger by Pocahontas,
who, in every emergency, still proved herself the tutelary angel of the
colony. Wyffin having overtaken Smith at Pamunkey, he concealed the news
of the recent disaster from his party, and, releasing Opechancanough,
returned down the river. On the following morning, a little after
sunrise, the bank of the river swarmed with Indians, unarmed, carrying
baskets, to tempt Smith ashore, under pretence of trade. Smith, landing
with Percy and two others, was received by Powhatan at the head of two
or three hundred warriors formed in two crescents; some twenty men and a
number of women carrying painted baskets. Smith attempted to inveigle
Powhatan into an ambuscade, but the savages, on a nearer approach,
discovering the English with arms in their hands, fled. However, the
natives, some days afterwards, from all parts of the country, within a
circuit of ten or twelve miles, in the snow brought, on their naked
backs, corn for Smith's party.
Smith next went up the Youghtanund (now Pamunkey) and the Matapony. On
the banks of this little river the poor Indians gave up their scanty
store of corn with such tears and lamentations of women and children as
touched the hearts of the English with compassion.[72:A]
Returning, he descended the York as far as Werowocomoco, intending to
surprise Powhatan there, and thus secure a further supply of corn; but
Powhatan had abandoned his new house, and had carried away all his corn
and provisions; and Smith, with his party, returned to Jamestown. In
this expedition, with twenty-five pounds of copper and fifty pounds of
iron, and some beads, he procured, in exchange, two hundred pounds of
deer suet, and delivered to the Cape-merchant four hundred and
seventy-nine bushels of corn.
At Jamestown the provision of the public store had been spoiled by
exposure to the rain of the previous summer, or eaten by rats and worms.
The colonists had been living there in indolence, and a large part of
their implements and arms had been trafficked away to the Indians. Smith
undertook to remedy these disorders by discipline and labor, relieved by
pastimes and recreations; and he established it as a rule, that he who
would not work, should not eat. The whole government of the colony was
now, in effect, devolved upon him--Captain Wynne being the only other
surviving councillor, and the president having two votes. Shortly after
Smith's return, he met the Chief of Paspahegh near Jamestown, and had a
rencontre with him. This athletic savage attempting to shoot him, he
closed and grappled, when, by main strength, the chief forced him into
the river to drown him. They struggled long in the water, until Smith,
grasping the savage by the throat, well-nigh strangled him, and, drawing
his sword, was about to cut off his head, when he begged for his life so
piteously that Smith spared him, and led him prisoner to Jamestown,
where he put him in chains. He was daily visited by his wives, and
children, and people, who brought presents to ransom him. At last he
made his escape. Captain Wynne and Lieutenant Percy were dispatched,
with a party of fifty, to recapture him, failing in which they burned
the chief's cabin, and carried away his canoes. Smith now going out to
"try his conclusions" with "the salvages," slew some, and made some
prisoners, burned their cabins, and took their canoes and fishing weirs.
Shortly afterwards the president, passing through Paspahegh, on his way
to the Chickahominy, was assaulted by the Indians; but, upon his firing,
and their discovering who he was, they threw down their arms, and sued
for peace. Okaning, a young warrior, who spoke in their behalf, in
justifying the escape of their chief from imprisonment at Jamestown,
said: "The fishes swim, the fowls fly, and the very beasts strive to
escape the snare, and live." Smith's vigorous measures, together with
some accidental circumstances, dismayed the savages, that from this time
to the end of his administration, they gave no further trouble.
A block-house was now built in the neck of the Jamestown Peninsula; and
it was guarded by a garrison, who alone were authorized to trade with
the Indians; and neither Indians nor whites were suffered to pass in or
out without the president's leave. Thirty or forty acres of land were
planted with corn; twenty additional houses were built; the hogs were
kept at Hog Island, and increased rapidly; and poultry was raised
without the necessity of feeding. A block-house was garrisoned at Hog
Island for the purpose of telegraphing shipping arrived in the river.
Captain Wynne, sole surviving councillor, dying, the whole government
devolved upon Smith. He built a fort, as a place of refuge in case of
being compelled to retreat from Jamestown, on a convenient river, upon a
high commanding hill, very hard to be assaulted, and easy of defence.
But the scarcity of provisions prevented its completion.[74:A] This is,
no doubt, the diminutive structure known as "the Old Stone House," in
James City County, on Ware Creek, a tributary of York River. It stands
about five miles from the mouth of the creek, and twenty-two from
Jamestown. It is built of sandstone found on the bank of the creek, and
without mortar. The walls and chimney still remain. This miniature
fortress is eighteen and a half feet by fifteen in size, and consists of
a basement under ground, and one story above. On one side is a doorway,
six feet wide, giving entrance to both apartments. The walls are pierced
with loop-holes, and the masonry is exact. This little fort stands in a
wilderness, on a high, steep bluff, at the foot of which Ware Creek
meanders. The Old Stone House is approached only by a long, narrow
ridge, surrounded by gloomy forests and dark ravines overgrown with ivy.
It is the oldest house in Virginia; and its age and sequestered
situation have connected with it fanciful stories of Smith and
Pocahontas, and the hidden treasures of the pirate Blackbeard.
The store of provisions at Jamestown was so wasted by rats, introduced
by the vessels, that all the works of the colonists were brought to an
end, and they were employed only in procuring food. Two Indians that had
been some time before captured by Smith, had been until the present time
kept fettered prisoners, but made to perform double tasks, and to
instruct the settlers in the cultivation of corn. The prisoners were
released for want of provision, but were so well satisfied as to remain.
For upwards of two weeks the Indians from the surrounding country
supplied the colony daily with squirrels, turkeys, deer, and other game,
while the rivers afforded an abundance of wild-fowl. Smith also bought
from Powhatan half of his stock of corn. But, nevertheless, it was found
necessary to distribute the settlers in different parts of the country
to procure subsistence. Sergeant Laxon, with sixty or eighty of them,
was sent down the river to live upon oysters; Lieutenant Percy with
twenty, to find fish at Point Comfort; West, brother of Lord Delaware,
with an equal number, repaired to the falls, where, however, nothing
edible was found but a few acorns. Hitherto the whole body of the
colonists had been provided for by the courage and industry of some
thirty or forty.
The main article of their diet was, for a time, sturgeon, an abundant
supply of which was procured during the season. It not only served for
meat, but when dried and pounded, and mixed with herbs, supplied the
place of bread. Of the spontaneous productions of the soil, the
principal article of sustenance was the tuckahoe-root, of which one man
could gather enough in a day to supply him with bread for a week. The
tockawhoughe, as it is called by Smith, was, in the summer, a principal
article of diet among the natives. It grows in marshes like a flag, and
resembles, somewhat, the potato in size and flavor. Raw it is no better
than poison, so that the Indians were accustomed to roast it, and eat it
mixed with sorel and corn-meal.[75:A] There is another root found in
Virginia called tuckahoe, and confounded with the flag-like root
described above, and erroneously supposed by many to grow without stem
or leaf. It appears to be of the convolvulus species, and is entirely
unlike the root eaten by the Jamestown settlers.[75:B]
Such was the indolence of the greater number of the colonists, that it
seemed as if they would sooner starve than take the trouble of procuring
food; and at length their mutinous discontents arose to such a pitch
that Smith arrested the ringleader of the malecontents, and ordered that
whoever failed to provide daily as much food as he should consume,
should be banished from Jamestown as a drone. Of the two hundred
settlers, many were billeted among the Indians, and thus became familiar
with their habits and manner of life.
Sicklemore, who had been dispatched to Chowanock, returned, after a
fruitless search for Sir Walter Raleigh's people. He found the Chowan
River not large; the country generally overgrown with pines; pemminaw,
or silk-grass growing here and there. Two other messengers, sent to the
country of the Mangoags in quest of the lost settlers, learned that they
were all dead. Guides had been supplied by the hospitable chief of the
Quiyoughcohannocks to convoy the messengers. This chief was of all
others most friendly to the whites; although a superstitious worshipper
of his own gods, yet he acknowledged that they were as inferior to the
English God in power as the bow and arrow were inferior to the English
gun; and he often sent presents to Smith, begging him "to pray to the
English God for rain, else his corn would perish, for his gods were
angry."
The Virginia Company in England, mainly intent on pecuniary gain and
quick returns, were discouraged by the disasters that had befallen the
colony, and disappointed in their visionary hopes of the discovery of
gold mines, and of a passage to the South Sea. They therefore took
measures to procure from King James a new charter, abrogating the
existing one, and investing them with ampler powers. Having associated
with themselves a numerous body of additional stockholders, or
adventurers, as they were then styled, including many persons of rank,
and wealth, and influence, they succeeded in obtaining from the king a
new charter, dated May 23d, 1609, transferring to the Company several
important powers before reserved to the crown. By this charter the
extent of Virginia was much enlarged, the eastern boundary being a line
extending two hundred miles north of Point Comfort, and two hundred
miles south of it, the northern and southern boundaries being parallels
drawn through the extremities of the eastern boundary back to the South
Sea or Pacific--the western boundary being the Pacific.
By the provisions of the new charter the Virginia Company became indeed
apparently more independent and republican, but under the new system the
governor of the colony was indued with arbitrary power, and authorized
to declare martial-law; and the condition of the colonists became even
worse than before. This sudden repeal of the former charter evinced an
ingratitude for the services of Smith and his associates, who, under
it, had endured the toil, and privations, and dangers of the first
settlement.
The Supreme Council in England, now chosen by the stockholders
themselves, appointed Sir Thomas West, Lord Delaware, Governor and
Captain-General of Virginia. He was the third Lord Delaware, and the
present (1843) Earl Delaware, John George West, is his lineal
descendant. Sir Thomas Gates was appointed Lieutenant-Governor, and Sir
George Somers, Admiral. Sir George was a member of Parliament, but upon
being appointed to a colonial post his seat was declared vacant.
Nine vessels were speedily fitted out, with supplies of men and women,
five hundred in number, and provisions and other stores for the colony.
Newport, who was entrusted with the command of the fleet, and Gates and
Somers, were each severally authorized, whichever might happen first
to reach Jamestown, to supersede the existing administration there
until the arrival of Lord Delaware, who was not to embark for several
months, and who did not reach Virginia until the lapse of more than a
year. This abundant caution defeated itself, for Newport, and the
lieutenant-governor, and the admiral, finding it impossible to adjust
the point of precedence among themselves, embarked together by way of
compromise, in the same vessel, the Sea-Venture.[77:A]
The expedition sailed from Plymouth toward the end of May, 1609, and
going, contrary to instructions, by the old circuitous route, via the
Canaries and the West Indies, late in July, when in latitude thirty
degrees north, and, as was supposed, within eight days' sail of
Virginia, they were caught "in the tail of a hurricane," blowing from
the northeast, accompanied by an appalling darkness, that continued for
forty-four hours. Some of the vessels lost their masts, some their sails
blown from the yards, the sea breaking over the ships.
"When rattling thunder ran along the clouds,
Did not the sailors poor and masters proud
A terror feel, as struck with fear of God?"[78:A]
A small vessel was lost, July twenty-fourth, and the Sea-Venture, with
Newport, Gates, Somers, and one hundred and fifty settlers, destined for
Virginia, was separated from the other vessels of the expedition. The
other vessels, shattered by the storm, and having suffered the loss of
the greater portion of their supplies, and many of their number by
sickness, at length reached Jamestown in August, 1609. They brought back
Ratcliffe, or Sicklemore, who had been remanded to England on account of
his mutinous conduct, also Martin and Archer, together with sundry other
captains, and 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."
Upon the appearance of this fleet near Jamestown, Smith, not expecting
such a supply, took them to be Spaniards, and prepared to encounter
them, and the Indians readily offered their assistance. The colony had
already, before the arrival of the fleet, been threatened with anarchy,
owing to intelligence of the premature repeal of the charter, brought
out by Captain Argall, and the new settlers had now no sooner landed
than they gave rise to new confusion and disorder. The factious leaders,
although they brought no commission with them, insisted on the
abrogation of the existing charter, rejected the authority of Smith,
whom they hated and feared, and undertook to usurp the government. Their
capricious folly equalled their insolence; to-day the old commission
must rule, to-morrow the new, the next day neither--thus, by continual
change, plunging all things into anarchy.
Smith, filled with disgust, would cheerfully have embarked for England,
but seeing little prospect of the arrival of the new commission, (which
was in the possession of Gates on the Island of Bermudas,) he resolved
to put an end to these incessant plots and machinations. The
ringleaders, Ratcliffe, Archer, and others, he arrested; to cut off
another source of disturbance, he gave permission to Percy, who was in
feeble health, to embark for England, of which, however, he did not
avail himself. West, with one hundred and twenty picked men, was
detached to the falls of James River, and Martin, with nearly the same
number, to Nansemond. Smith's presidency having expired about this time,
he had been succeeded by Martin, who, conscious of his incompetency, had
immediately resigned it to Smith. Martin, at Nansemond, seized the
chief, and, capturing the town, occupied it with his detachment; but
owing to want of judgment, or of vigilance, he suffered himself to be
surprised by the savages, who slew many of his party, rescued the chief,
and carried off their corn. Martin not long after returned to Jamestown,
leaving his detachment to shift for themselves.
Smith going up the river to West's settlement at the falls, found the
English planted in a place not only subject to the river's inundation,
but "surrounded by many intolerable inconveniences." To remedy these, by
a messenger he proposed to purchase from Powhatan his seat of that name,
a little lower down the river. The settlers scornfully rejected the
scheme, and became so mutinous that Smith landed among them and arrested
the chief malcontents. But overpowered by numbers, being supported by
only five men, he was forced to retire on board of a vessel lying in the
river. The Indians daily supplied him with provisions, in requital for
which the English plundered their corn, robbed their cultivated ground,
beat them, broke into their cabins, and made them prisoners. They
complained to Captain Smith that the men whom he had sent there as their
protectors, "were worse than their old enemies, the Monacans." Smith
embarking, had no sooner set sail for Jamestown than many of West's
party were slain by the savages.
It so happened, that before Smith's vessel had dropped a mile and a half
down the river, she ran aground, whereupon, making a virtue of
necessity, he summoned the mutineers to a parley, and they, now seized
with a panic, on account of the assault of a mere handful of Indians,
submitted themselves to his mercy. He again arrested the ringleaders,
and established the rest of the party at Powhatan, in the Indian
palisade fort, which was so well fortified by poles and bark as to defy
all the savages in Virginia. Dry cabins were also found there, and
nearly two hundred acres of ground ready to be planted, and it was
called Nonsuch, as being at once the strongest and most delightful place
in the country. Nonsuch was the name of a royal residence in England.
When Smith was now on the eve of his departure, the arrival of West
again threw all things aback into confusion. Nonsuch was abandoned, and
all hands returned to the falls, and Smith, finding all his efforts
abortive, embarked in a boat for Jamestown. During the voyage he was
terribly wounded while asleep, by the accidental explosion of a bag of
gunpowder, and in the paroxysm of pain he leapt into the river, and was
well-nigh drowned before his companions could rescue him. Arriving at
Jamestown in this helpless condition, he was again assailed by faction
and mutiny, and one of his enemies even presented a cocked pistol at him
in his bed; but the hand wanted the nerve to execute what the heart was
base enough to design.
Ratcliffe, Archer, and their confederates, laid plans to usurp the
government of the colony, whereupon Smith's faithful soldiers, fired
with indignation at conduct so infamous, begged for permission to strike
off their heads; but this he refused. He refused also to surrender the
presidency to Percy. For this, Smith is censured by the historian Stith,
who yet acknowledges that Percy was in too feeble health to control a
mutinous colony. Anarchy being triumphant, Smith probably deemed it
useless to appoint a governor over a mob. He at last, about Michaelmas,
1609, embarked for England, after a stay of a little more than two years
in Virginia,[80:A] to which he never returned.
Here, then, closes the career of Captain John Smith in Virginia, "the
father of the colony," and a hero like Bayard, "without fear and without
reproach." One of his comrades, in deploring his departure, describes
him as one who, in all his actions, made justice and prudence his
guides, abhorring baseness, idleness, pride, and injustice; that in no
danger would he send others where he would not lead them himself; that
would never see his men want what he had, or could by any means procure;
that would rather want than borrow, and rather starve than not pay; that
loved action more than words, and hated falsehood and avarice worse than
death; "whose adventures were our lives, and whose loss our deaths."
Another of his soldiers said of him:--
"I never knew a warrior but thee,
From wine, tobacco, debts, dice, oaths, so free."
From the time of Smith's departure from Virginia to the year 1614,
little is known of him. In that year he made his first voyage to New
England. In the following year, after many disappointments, sailing
again in a small vessel for that country, after a running fight with,
and narrow escape from, two French privateers, near Fayal, he was
captured, near Flores, by a half-piratical French squadron. After long
detention he was carried to Rochelle, in France, and there charged with
having burned Port Royal, in New France, which act had been committed by
Captain Argall. Smith, at length, at the utmost hazard, escaped from his
captors, and being assisted by several of the inhabitants of Rochelle,
especially by Madame Chanoyes, he was enabled to return to England. The
protective sympathy exhibited toward him, at several critical
conjunctures, is thus mentioned in some complimentary verses prefixed to
his History of Virginia:--
"Tragabigzanda, Callamata's love,
Deare Pocahontas, Madam Shanoi's too,
Who did what love with modesty could do."
In 1616 Smith published his "Description of New England," composed while
he was a prisoner on board of the French piratical vessel, in order, as
he says, to keep his perplexed thoughts from too much meditation on his
miserable condition. The Plymouth Company now conferred upon him the
title of Admiral of New England. It was during this year that Pocahontas
visited England. After this time, Smith never again visited America.
When, in 1622, the news of the massacre reached England, he proposed to
come over to Virginia with a proper force to reduce the savages to
subjection, but his proposal was not accepted. Captain Smith received
little or no recompense for his colonial discoveries, labors, and
sacrifices; and after having spent five years, and more than five
hundred pounds, in the service of Virginia and New England, he complains
that in neither of those countries has he one foot of land, nor even the
house that he built, nor the ground that he cultivated with his own
hands, nor even any content or satisfaction at all, while he beheld
those countries bestowed upon men who neither could have them, nor even
know of them but by his descriptions. It is remarkable that in his
"Newes from Virginia," published in 1608, no allusion is made to his
rescue by Pocahontas. In 1612 appeared his work entitled "A Map of
Virginia, with a Description of the Country, Commodities, People,
Government, and Religion, etc.," and in 1620, "New England Trials." In
1626 was published his "General History of Virginia, New England, and
the Summer Isles," the greater part of which had already been published
in 1625, by Purchas, in his "Pilgrim." The second and sixth books of
this history were composed by Smith himself; the third was compiled by
Rev. William Simons, Doctor of Divinity, and the rest by Smith from the
letters and journals of about thirty different writers. During the year
1625 he published "An Accidence, or the Pathway to Experience necessary
for all young Seamen," and in 1627 "A Sea Grammar." In 1630 he gave to
the public "The True Travels, Adventures, and Observations of Captain
John Smith, in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, from 1593 to 1629."
This work, together with "The General History," was republished by Rev.
Dr. John H. Rice, in 1819, at Richmond, Virginia. The copy is exact and
complete, except some maps and engravings of but little value. The
obsolete orthography and typography of the work confines it to a limited
circle of readers. It is now out of print and rare. In 1631 Smith
published "Advertisements for the unexperienced planters of New England,
or anywhere," etc., said to be the most elaborate of his productions.
The learned, judicious, and accurate historian, Grahame, considers
Smith's writings on colonization, superior to those of Lord Bacon. At
the time of his death, Smith was engaged in composing a "History of the
Sea." So famous was he in his own day, that he complains of some
extraordinary incidents in his life having been _mis_represented on the
stage. He was gifted by nature with a person and address of singular
fascination. He married, and the author of a recent interesting English
book of travels, a lineal descendant, refers with just pride to his
distinguished ancestor: "On the upper waters of the Alt, near the
celebrated Rothen Thurm, (or Red Tower,) several severe engagements
ushered in the seventeenth century. It was at this time that the wave of
Mohammedan conquest rolled on, and broke over Hungary, Transylvania, and
Wallachia, and, whether advancing or retiring, swept those unfortunate
lands with equal severity. Sigismund Bathori, after holding his own for
awhile in Transylvania against the emperor, was obliged to succumb; the
Voyvode of Wallachia, appointed by the Porte, aroused, by his cruelties,
an insurrection against him, and the moment appeared favorable for
thrusting back the Turkish power beyond the Danube. The Austrian party
not only appointed a new Voyvode, but marched a large army, chiefly
Hungarian, into the country, and were at first victorious, in a
well-contested battle. But, at length, between the river and the heights
of the Rothen Thurm range, the Christian army was attacked with
impetuosity by a far greater number, composed principally of Tartars,
and was entirely cut to pieces. In this catastrophe several English
officers, serving with the Hungarian army, were slain; and _an ancestor
of the author's_, who was left for dead on the field, after describing
this 'dismall battell,' gives their names, and observes that 'they did
what men could do, and when they could do no more, left there their
bodies in testimony of their mind.'"[83:A]
Captain John Smith died at London, 1631, in the fifty-second year of his
age. He was buried in St. Sepulchre's Church, Skinner Street, London;
and from Stowe's Survey of London, printed in 1633, it appears there was
a tablet erected to his memory in that church, inscribed with his motto,
"Vincere est vivere," and the following epitaph:--
Here lies one conquered that hath conquered kings,
Subdued large territories, and done things
Which, to the world, impossible would seem,
But that the truth is held in more esteem.
Shall I report his former service done
In honor of God and Christendom,
How that he did divide from pagans three
Their heads and lives, types of his chivalry;
For which great service, in that climate done,
Brave Sigismundus, (King of Hungarion,)
Did give him a coat of arms to wear,
Those conquered heads got by his sword and spear?
Or shall I tell of his adventures since
Done in Virginia, that large continent,
How that he subdued kings unto his yoke,
And made those heathens fly as wind doth smoke,
And made their land, being of so large a station,
A habitation for our Christian nation,
Where God is glorified, their wants supplied,
Which else for necessaries might have died?
But what avails his conquest? now he lies
Interred in earth, a prey for worms and flies.
O may his soul in sweet Elysium sleep
Until the Keeper, that all souls doth keep,
Return to judgment, and that after thence
With angels he may have his recompense.
The tablet was destroyed by the great fire in the year 1666, and all now
remaining to the memory of Captain Smith is a large flat stone, in front
of the communion-table, engraved with his coat of arms, upon which the
three Turks' heads are still distinguishable.[84:A] The historian
Grahame concludes a notice of him in these words: "But Smith's renown
will break forth again, and once more be commensurate with his desert.
It will grow with the growth of men and letters in America, and whole
nations of its admirers have yet to be born." A complete edition of his
works would be a valuable addition to American historical literature.
The sculptor's art ought to present a fitting memorial of him and of
Pocahontas, in the metropolis of Virginia.
FOOTNOTES:
[72:A] The word Matapony is said to signify "no bread at all." The four
confluents of this river, on modern maps, are whimsically named Ma, Ta,
Po, and Ny, being the four component syllables of the word. Captain
Smith calls it the Matapanient.
[74:A] Smith, i. 227.
[75:A] Smith, i. 123; Beverley's Hist. of Va., iii. 15. I refer to the
first edition of 1705, which does not differ materially from the second
edition of 1722.
[75:B] Farmer's Register for April, 1839, ix. 3; Jefferson's Notes on
Va., 33; Rees' Cyclopaedia, art. Tuckahoe; Fremont's Report, 135, 160.
[77:A] The following is a list of the vessels and their commanders: the
Sea-Adventure, or Sea-Venture, Admiral Sir George Somers, with Sir
Thomas Gates and Captain Christopher Newport; the Diamond, Captain
Ratcliffe and Captain King; the Falcon, Captain Martin and Master
Nelson; the Blessing, Gabriel Archer and Captain Adams; the Unity,
Captain Wood and Master Pett; the Lion, Captain Webb; the Swallow,
Captain Moon and Master Somers. There were also in company two smaller
craft, a ketch and a pinnace.
[78:A] Smith's Hist of Va.
[80:A] Smith, i. 239.
[83:A] A Year with the Turks, by Warington W. Smyth, A.M., 27.
[84:A] Godwin's Churches of London, i. 9.
CHAPTER VI.
The Indians of Virginia--Their Form and Features--Mode of
wearing their Hair--Clothing--Ornaments--Manner of Living--
Diet--Towns and Cabins--Arms and Implements--Religion--
Medicine--The Seasons--Hunting--Sham-fights--Music--Indian
Character.
THE mounds--monuments of a primitive race, found scattered over
many parts of North America, especially in the valley of the
Mississippi--have long attracted the attention of men curious in such
speculations. These heir-looms of dim, oblivious centuries, seem to
whisper mysteriously of a shadowy race, populous, nomadic, not
altogether uncivilized, idolatrous, worshipping "in high places." The
Anglo-Saxon ploughshare is busy in obliterating these memorials, but
many yet survive, and many, perhaps, remain yet to be discovered.
Whether they were the work of the progenitors of the Indians, or of a
race long since extinct, is a question for such as have taste and
leisure for such abstruse inquiries. The general absence of written
language and of architectural remains, indicates a low grade of
civilization, and yet the relics that have been disinterred, and the
enormous extent of some of their earth-works, would argue a degree of
art, and of collective industry, to which the Indians are entire
strangers. We may, at the least, conclude that either they, in the lapse
of ages, have greatly degenerated, or that the mound-makers were a
distinct and superior race. Some of these mounds are found in Virginia.
The most remarkable of these is the Mammoth Mound, in the County of
Marshall. Mr. Jefferson[85:A] was of opinion that there is nothing
extant in Virginia deserving the name of an Indian monument, as he would
not dignify with that name their stone arrow-points, tomahawks, pipes,
and rude images. Of labor on a large scale there is no remain, unless it
be the barrows, or mounds, of which many are found all over this
country.
They are of different sizes; some of them constructed of earth, and
some of loose stones. That they were repositories of the dead is
obvious, but on what occasion they were constructed is a matter of
doubt. Mr. Jefferson opened one of them near Monticello, and found it
filled with human bones. The Mammoth Mound in Marshall County is 69 feet
high, 900 in circumference at the base; in shape the frustrum of a cone,
with a flat top 50 feet in diameter. An oak standing on the top has been
estimated to be five hundred years old. In the interior have been
discovered vaults, with pieces of timber, human skeletons, ivory beads,
and other ivory ornaments, sea-shells, copper bracelets around the
wrists of skeletons, with laminated mica, and a stone with hieroglyphic
characters inscribed on it, in the opinion of some, of African origin.
The whole mass of the mound is studded with blue spots, supposed to have
been occasioned by deposites of the remains of human bodies consumed by
fire. Seven lesser mounds are connected with the main one by low
entrenchments. Some rude towers of stone, greatly dilapidated, are also
found in the neighborhood. Porcelain beads are picked up, and a stone
idol has been found, as also tubes of lead, blue steatite, syphon-like,
drilled, twelve inches long, and finely polished.
The places of habitation of the Indians may yet be identified along the
banks of rivers, by the deposites of shells of oysters and muscles,
which they subsisted upon, as also of ashes and charred wood,
arrow-points, fragments of pottery, pipes, tomahawks, mortars, etc.
Vestiges may be traced of their moving back their cabins when urged by
the accumulation of shells and ashes. Standing on such a spot one's
fancy may almost repeople it with the shadowy forms of the aborigines,
and imagine the flames of the council-fire projecting its red glare upon
the face of the York or the James, and hear their wild cries mingling
with the dash of waves and the roar of the forest. Here they rejoice
over their victories, plan new enterprises of blood, and celebrate the
war-dance by the rude music of the drum and the rattle, commingled with
their own discordant yells.
The Indians of Virginia were tall, erect, and well-proportioned, with
prominent cheek-bones; eyes dark and brilliant, with an animal
expression, and a sort of squint; their hair dark and straight. The
chiefs were distinguished by a long pendant lock. The Indians had little
or no beard, and the women served as barbers, eradicating the beard, and
grating away the hair with two shells. Like all savages, they were fond
of toys and tawdry ornaments. The principal garment was a mantle, in
winter dressed with the fur in, in summer with it out; but the common
sort had scarce anything to hide their nakedness, save grass or leaves,
and in summer they all went nearly naked. The females always wore a
cincture around the middle. Some covered themselves with a mantle of
curiously interwoven turkey feathers, pretty and comfortable. The
greater part went barefoot; some wore moccasins, a rude sandal of
buckskin. Some of the women tattooed their skins with grotesque figures.
They adorned the ear with pendants of copper, or a small living snake,
yellow or green, or a dead rat, and the head with a bird's wing, a
feather, the rattle of a rattlesnake, or the hand of an enemy. They
stained the head and shoulder red with the juice of the puccoon.
The red men dwelt for the most part on the banks of rivers. They spent
the time in fishing, hunting, war, or indolence, despising domestic
labor, and assigning it to the women. These made mats, baskets, pottery,
hollowed out stone-mortars, pounded the corn in them, made bread,
cooked, planted corn, gathered it, carried burdens, etc. Infants were
inured to hardship and exposure. The Indians kindled a fire quickly "by
chafing a dry pointed stick in a hole of a little square piece of wood,
which, taking fire, sets fire to moss, leaves, or any such dry thing."
They subsisted upon fish, game, the natural fruits of the earth, and
corn, which they planted. The tuckahoe-root, during the summer, was an
important article of diet in marshy places. Their cookery was not less
rude than their other habits, yet _pone_ and _hominy_ have been borrowed
from them, as also, it is said, the mode of _barbecuing_ meat. _Pone_,
according to the historian Beverley, is derived "not from the Latin
panis, but from oppone," an Indian word; according to Smith, _ponap_
signifies meal-dumplings. The natives did not refuse to eat grubs,
snakes, and the insect locust. Their bread was sometimes made of wild
oats, or the seed of the sunflower, but mostly of corn. Their salt was
only such as could be procured from ashes. They were fond of roasting
ears of corn, and they welcomed the crop with the festival of the
green-corn dance. From walnuts and hickory-nuts, pounded in a mortar,
they expressed a liquid called pawcohiccora. The hickory-tree is
indigenous in America. Beverley has fallen into a curious mistake in
saying that the peach-tree is a native of this country. Indian-corn and
tobacco, although called indigenous, appear to have grown only when
cultivated. They are never found of wild spontaneous growth. In their
journeys the Indians were in the habit of providing themselves with
rockahominy, or corn parched and reduced to a powder.
They dwelt in towns, the cabins being constructed of saplings bent over
at the top and tied together, and thatched with reeds, or covered with
mats or bark, the smoke escaping through an aperture at the apex. The
door, if any, consisted of a pendant mat. They sate on the ground, the
better sort on matchcoats or mats. Their fortifications consisted of
palisades ten or twelve feet high, sometimes encompassing an entire
town, sometimes a part. Within these enclosures they preserved, with
pious care, their idols and relics, and the remains of their chiefs. In
hunting and war they used the bow and arrow--the bow usually of locust,
the arrow of reed, or a wand. The Indian notched his arrow with a
beaver's tooth set in a stick, which he used in the place of a file. The
arrow was winged with a turkey-feather, fastened with a sort of glue
extracted from the velvet horns of the deer. The arrow was headed with
an arrow-point of stone, often made of white quartz, and exquisitely
formed, some barbed, some with a serrate edge. These are yet to be found
in every part of the country. For knives the red men made use of
sharpened reeds, or shells, or stone; and for hatchets, tomahawks of
stone, sharpened at one end or both. Those sharpened only at one end, at
the other were either curved to a tapering point, or spheroidally
rounded off, so as to serve the purpose of a hammer for breaking or
pounding. In the middle a circular indenture was made, to secure the
tomahawk to the handle. They soon, however, procured iron hatchets from
the English. Trees the Indians felled by fire; canoes were made by dint
of burning and scraping with shells and tomahawks. Some of their canoes
were not less than forty or fifty feet long. Canoe is a West Indian
word, the Powhatan word is quintan, or aquintan.[89:A] The women
manufactured a thread, or string of bark, or of a kind of grass called
pemminaw, or of the sinews of the deer. A large pipe, adorned with the
wings of a bird, or with beads, was the symbol of friendship, called the
pipe of peace. A war-chief was styled werowance, and a war-council,
matchacomoco. In war, like all savages, they relied mainly on surprise,
treachery, and ambuscade; in the open field they were timid; and their
cruelty, as usual, was proportionate to their cowardice.
The Virginia Indians were of course idolatrous, and their chief idol,
called Okee, represented the spirit of evil, to appease whom they burnt
sacrifices. They were greatly under the influence and control of their
priests and conjurors, who wore a grotesque dress, performed a variety
of divinations, conjurations, and enchantments, called powwowings, after
the manner of wizards, and by their superior cunning and shrewdness, and
some scanty knowledge of medicine, contrived to render themselves
objects of veneration, and to live upon the labor of others. The
superstition of the savages was commensurate with their ignorance. Near
the falls of the James River, about a mile back from the river, there
were some impressions on a rock like the footsteps of a giant, being
about five feet apart, which the Indians averred to be the footprints of
their god. They submitted with Spartan fortitude to cruel tortures
imposed by their idolatry, especially in the mysterious and horrid
ordeal of huskanawing. The avowed object of this ordeal was to
obliterate forever from the memory of the youths subjected to it all
recollection of their previous lives. The house in which they kept the
Okee was called Quioccasan, and was surrounded by posts, with human
faces rudely carved and painted on them. Altars on which sacrifices were
offered, were held in great veneration.
The diseases of the Indians were not numerous; their remedies few and
simple, their physic consisting mainly of the bark and roots of trees.
Sweating was a favorite remedy, and every town was provided with a
sweat-house. The patient, issuing from the heated atmosphere, plunged
himself in cold water, after the manner of the Russian bath.
The Indians celebrated certain festivals by pastimes, games, and songs.
The year they divided into five seasons, Cattapeak, the budding time of
spring; Messinough, roasting ear time; Cohattayough, summer; Taquitock,
the fall of the leaf; and Popanow, winter, sometimes called Cohonk,
after the cry of the migratory wild-geese. Engaged from their childhood
in fishing and hunting, they became expert and familiar with the haunts
of game and fish. The luggage of hunting parties was carried by the
women. Deer were taken by surrounding them, and kindling fires enclosing
them in a circle, till they were killed; sometimes they were driven into
the water, and there captured. The Indian, hunting alone, would stalk
behind the skin of a deer. Game being abundant in the mountain country,
hunting parties repaired to the heads of the rivers at the proper
season, and this probably engendered the continual hostilities that
existed between the Powhatans of the tide-water region and the Monacans,
on the upper waters of the James, and the Mannahoacks, at the head of
the Rappahannock. The savages were in the habit of exercising themselves
in sham-fights. Upon the first discharge of arrows they burst forth in
horrid shrieks and the war-whoop, so that as many infernal hell-hounds
could not have been more terrific. "All their actions, cries, and
gestures, in charging and retreating," says Captain Smith, "were so
strained to the height of their quality and nature, that the strangeness
thereof made it seem very delightful." For their music they used a thick
cane, on which they piped as on a recorder. They had also a rude sort of
drum, and rattles of gourds or pumpkins. The chastity of their women was
not held in much value, but wives were careful not to be suspected
without the consent of their husbands.
The Indians were hospitable, in their manners exhibiting that
imperturbable equanimity and uniform self-possession and repose which
distinguish the refined society of a high civilization. Extremes meet.
Yet the Indians were in everything wayward and inconstant, unless where
restrained by fear; cunning, quick of apprehension, and ingenious; some
were brave; most of them timorous and cautious; all savage. Not
ungrateful for benefits, they seldom forgave an injury. They rarely
stole from each other, lest their conjurors should reveal the offence,
and they should be punished.[91:A]
FOOTNOTES:
[85:A] Notes on Va., 104, ed. 1853.
[89:A] Strachey's Virginia Britannica.
[91:A] Smith, ii. 129, 137; Beverley, B. iii.; Drake's Book of the
Indians; Thatcher's Lives of the Indians; Bancroft's History of U. S.,
vol. iii. cap. xxii.
CHAPTER VII.
1609-1614.
Condition of the Colony at the time of Smith's Departure--
Assaults of Indians--"The Starving Time"--The Sea-Venture--
Situation of the English on the Island of Bermuda--They Embark
for Virginia--Arrive at Jamestown--Jamestown abandoned--
Colonists meet Lord Delaware's Fleet--Return to Jamestown--
Delaware's Discipline--The Church at Jamestown--Sir George
Somers--Delaware returns to England--Percy, Governor--New
Charter--Sir Thomas Dale, Governor--Martial Laws--Henrico
Founded--Plantations and Hundreds settled--Argall makes
Pocahontas a Prisoner--Dale's expedition up York River--Rolfe
visits Powhatan--Dale returns to Jamestown--Rolfe marries
Pocahontas--The Chickahominies enter into Treaty of Peace--
Community of Goods abolished--Argall's Expeditions against the
French in Acadia--Captures Fort at New Amsterdam.
CAPTAIN SMITH, upon embarking for England, left at Jamestown three
ships, seven boats, a sufficient stock of provision, four hundred and
ninety odd settlers, twenty pieces of cannon, three hundred muskets,
with other guns, pikes, swords, and ammunition, and one hundred soldiers
acquainted with the Indian language, and the nature of the
country.[92:A] The settlers were, for the most part, poor gentlemen,
serving-men, libertines; and with such materials the wonder is, not that
the settlement was retarded by many disasters, but that it was effected
at all. Lord Bacon says: "It is a shameful and unblessed thing to take
the scum of people, wicked, condemned men, with whom you plant; and not
only so, but it spoileth the plantation, for they will ever live like
rogues, and not fall to work, but be lazy and do mischief; spend
victuals and be quickly weary."[92:B] Immediately upon Smith's
departure the Indians renewed their attacks. Percy, the Earl of
Northumberland's brother, for a time administered the government; but it
soon fell into the hands of the seditious malecontents. Provisions
growing scarce, West and Ratcliffe embarked in small vessels to procure
corn. Ratcliffe, inveigled by Powhatan, was slain with thirty of his
companions, two only escaping, of whom one, a boy, Henry Spilman, a
young gentleman well descended, was rescued by Pocahontas, and he
afterwards lived for many years among the Patawomekes, acquired their
language, and often proved serviceable as an interpreter for his
countrymen. He was slain by the savages, on the banks of the Potomac, in
1622. The loss of Captain Smith was soon felt by the colonists: they
were now continually exposed to the arrow and the tomahawk; the common
store was consumed by the commanders and the savages; swords and guns
were bartered with the Indians for food; and within six months after
Smith's departure the number of English in Virginia was reduced from
five hundred to sixty men, women, and children. These found themselves
in a starving condition, subsisting on roots, herbs, acorns, walnuts,
berries, and fish. Starch became an article of diet, and even dogs,
cats, rats, snakes, toadstools, and the skins of horses. The body of an
Indian was disinterred and eaten; nay, at last, the colonists preyed on
the dead bodies of each other. It was even alleged that a husband
murdered his wife for a cannibal repast; upon his trial, however, it
appeared that the cannibalism was feigned, to palliate the murder. He
was put to death--being burned according to law. This was long
afterwards remembered as "the starving time." Sir Thomas Smith,
treasurer of the Virginia Company, was bitterly denounced by the
sufferers for neglecting to send out the necessary supplies. The
happiest day that many of them expected ever to see, was when the
Indians had killed a mare, the people wishing, while the carcass was
boiling, "that Sir Thomas was upon her back in the kettle." It seemed to
them as if the Earl of Salisbury's threat of abandoning the colony to
its fate, was now to be actually carried into effect; but it is to be
recollected that a large portion of ample supplies, that had been sent
out from England for the colony, had been lost by storm and shipwreck.
It has before been mentioned, that toward the end of July, 1609, in a
violent tempest, the Sea-Venture, with Newport, Gates, and Somers, and
one hundred and fifty souls, had been separated from the rest of the
fleet. Racked by the fury of the sea, she sprang a leak, and the water
soon rose in her hold above two tiers of hogsheads that stood over the
ballast, and the crew had to stand up to their waists in the water, and
bail out with buckets, baricos, and kettles. They continued bailing and
pumping for three days and nights without intermission, yet the water
appeared rather to gain upon them than decrease; so that all hands,
being at length utterly exhausted, came to the desperate resolution to
shut down the hatches and resign themselves to their fate; and some
having "good and comfortable waters fetched them, and drank to one
another as taking their last farewell." During all this time the aged
Sir George Somers, sitting upon the quarter-deck, scarce taking time to
eat or sleep, bearing the helm so as to keep the ship as upright as
possible, but for which she must have foundered,--at last descried land.
At this time many of the unhappy crew were asleep, and when the voice of
Sir George was heard announcing "land," it seemed as if it was a voice
from heaven, and they hurried up above the hatches to look for what they
could scarcely credit. On finding the intelligence true, and that they
were, indeed, in sight of land,--although it was a coast that all men
usually tried to avoid,--yet they now spread all sail to reach it. Soon
the ship struck upon a rock, till a surge of the sea dashed her off from
thence, and so from one to another till, at length, fortunately, she
lodged (July twenty-eighth) upright between two rocks, as if she was
laid up in a natural dry-dock. Till this, at every lurch they had
expected instant death; but now, all at once, the storm gave place to a
calm, and the billows, which at each successive dash had threatened
destruction, were stilled; and, quickly taking to their boats, they
reached the shore, distant upwards of a league, without the loss of a
single man out of upwards of one hundred and fifty. Their joy at an
escape so unexpected and almost miraculous, arose to the pitch of
amazement. Yet their escape was not more wonderful in their eyes than
their preservation after they had landed on the island; for the
Spaniards had always looked upon it as more frightful than purgatory
itself; and all seamen had reckoned it no better than an enchanted den
of Furies and devils--the most dangerous, desolate, and forlorn place in
the whole world; instead of which it turned out to be healthful,
fertile, and charming.
The Bermudas are a cluster of islands lying in the Atlantic Ocean, at
the distance of six hundred miles from the American Continent,
extending, in crescent form, from east to west; in length, twenty miles;
in breadth, two and a half. On the coast of the principal of these
islands, Bermuda, the Sea-Venture was wrecked; and, on landing, the
English found, instead of those gloomy horrors with which a
superstitious fancy had invested it, a terrestrial paradise blessed with
all the charms of exquisite scenery, luxuriant vegetation, and a
voluptuous atmosphere, which have since been celebrated in the verse of
a modern poet. Here they remained for nearly a year. Fish, fowl, turtle,
and wild hogs supplied the English with abundant food; the palmetto leaf
furnished a cover for their cabins. They had daily morning and evening
prayers, and on Sunday divine service was performed and two sermons
preached by the chaplain, the Rev. Mr. Bucke. He was a graduate of
Oxford, and received the appointment of chaplain to the Virginia
expedition upon the recommendation of Dr. Ravis, Bishop of London. Mr.
Bucke was the second minister sent out from England to Virginia, being
successor to Rev. Robert Hunt. The company of the Sea-Venture were
summoned to worship by the sound of the church-going bell, and the roll
was called, and absentees were duly punished. The clergyman performed
the ceremony of marriage once during the sojourn on the island, the
parties being Sir George Somers' cook and a maid-servant, (of one Mrs.
Mary Horton,) named Elizabeth Persons. The communion was once
celebrated. The infant child of one John Rolfe--a daughter, born on the
island--was christened, February eleventh, by the name of Bermuda,
Captain Newport, the Rev. Mr. Bucke, and Mrs. Horton being witnesses. It
would seem from this, that John Rolfe was a widower when he afterwards
married Pocahontas. Another infant, born on the island, a boy, was
christened by the name of Bermudas. Six of the company, including the
wife of Sir Thomas Gates, died there. Living in the midst of peace and
plenty in this sequestered and delightful place of abode, after escaping
from the yawning perils of the deep, many of the English lost all desire
ever to leave the island, and some were even mutinously determined to
remain there. Gates, however, having decked the long-boat of the
Sea-Venture with the hatches, dispatched the mate, Master Raven, an
expert mariner, with eight men, to Virginia for succor; but the boat was
never more heard of. Discord and insubordination found a place among the
exiles of the Bermudas; and even the leaders, Gates and Somers, lived
for awhile asunder. At length, while Somers was engaged in surveying the
islands, Gates completed a vessel of about eighty tons, constructed
somewhat after the manner of Robinson Crusoe, partly from the timber of
the Sea-Venture, and the rest of cedar. A small bark was also built
under the direction of Sir George Somers, of cedar, without the use of
any iron, save a bolt in her keel. These two vessels were named, the one
the "Patience," the other the "Deliverance." Finally, on the 10th day of
May, 1610, after the lapse of nine months spent on the island, and
nearly a year since their departure from England, harmony being
restored, and the leaders reconciled, they embarked in these cedar
vessels for Virginia.
The name of Sir Thomas West, afterwards Lord la Ware, or De la War, or
Delaware, appears in the commission appointed in the year of James the
First, for inquiring into the case of all such persons as should be
found openly opposing the doctrines of the Church of England. Such was
the spirit of that age, by which standard the men of that age ought to
be judged. Lord Delaware was, nevertheless, distinguished for his
virtues and his generous devotion to the welfare of the infant colony of
Virginia--a man of approved courage, temper, and experience. The Rev.
William Crashaw, father of the poet of that name, at the period of Lord
Delaware's appointment to the place of Governor of Virginia, was
preacher at the Temple; and he delivered a sermon before his lordship,
and others of his majesty's council for the Colony of Virginia, and the
rest of the adventurers or stockholders in that plantation, upon
occasion of his lordship's embarkation for Virginia, on the 21st day of
February, 1609-10. The text was from Daniel, xii. 3: "They that turn
many to righteousness shall shine as the stars forever and ever." This
sermon was printed by William Welby, and sold in Paul's Churchyard, at
the sign of the Swan, 1610, and is the first missionary sermon preached
in England to any of her sons embarking for Virginia. Crashaw, in this
discourse, urges it warmly upon his countrymen to aid the enterprise of
planting the colony; rejects, with indignant scorn, the more sordid
motives of mere lucre, and appeals to loftier principles, and the more
elevated motives of Christian beneficence. But although he rejects
motives of mere profit, he tells his auditors that if they will pursue
their object, animated by these enlarged views, they will probably find
the plantation eventually a source of pecuniary profit, the soil being
good, the commodities numerous and necessary for England, the distance
not great, and the voyage easy, so that God's blessing was alone wanting
to make it gainful. In his peroration, the preacher, apostrophizing Lord
Delaware, excites his generous emulation by a personal appeal, reminding
him of the gallant exploit of his ancestor, Sir Roger la Warr, who,
assisted by John de Pelham, captured the King of France at the battle of
Poictiers. In memory of which exploit, Sir Roger la Warr--Lord la Warr
according to Froissart--had the crampet or chape of his sword for a
badge of that honor. Crashaw bitterly denounces the Papists, and the
Brownists, and factious separatists, and exhorts the Virginia Company
not to suffer such to have any place in the new colony. Rome and Geneva
were the Scylla and Charybdis of the Church of England.[97:A] Lord
Delaware sailed in February for Virginia.
Gates and Somers, after leaving the Bermudas in May, in fourteen days
reached Jamestown, where they found only sixty miserable colonists
surviving. Sir Thomas Gates, Lieutenant-Governor, landing on the
twenty-fourth of May, caused the church-bell to be rung; and such as
were able repaired thither, and the Rev. Mr. Bucke delivered an earnest
and sorrowful prayer upon their finding so unexpectedly all things so
full of misery and misgovernment. At the conclusion of the religious
service the new commission of Gates was read; Percy, the acting
president, scarcely able to stand, surrendered up the former charter
and his commission. The palisades of the fort were found torn down; the
ports open; the gates distorted from the hinges; the houses of those who
had died, broken up and burned for firewood, and their store of
provision exhausted. Gates reluctantly resolved to abandon the
plantation, and to return to England by way of Newfoundland, where he
expected to receive succor from English fishing vessels. June seventh,
they buried their ordnance and armor at the gate of the fort, and, at
the beat of drum, embarked in four pinnaces. Some of the people were,
with difficulty, restrained from setting fire to the town; but Sir
Thomas Gates, with a select party, remained on shore until the others
had embarked, and he was the last man that stepped into the boat. They
fired a farewell volley; but not a tear was shed at their departure from
a spot associated with so much misery. How often is the hour of despair
but the deeper darkness that immediately precedes the dawn! At noon they
reached Hog Island, and on the next morning, while anchored off Mulberry
Island, they were met by a long-boat with dispatches from Lord Delaware,
who had arrived with three vessels, after a voyage of three months and a
half from England.[98:A] Upon this intelligence Gates, with his company,
returned up the river to Jamestown on the same day. Lord Delaware
arrived there with his three vessels on the ninth, and on the morning of
the following day (Sunday) he landed at the south gate of the fort, and
although the Lieutenant-Governor, Sir Thomas Gates, with his company,
were drawn up to meet him, he fell on his knees, and remained for some
time in silent prayer. After this he repaired to the church, and heard a
sermon delivered by the Rev. Mr. Bucke. A council was then called, and
the governor delivered an address to the colonists. The hand of a
superintending and benignant Providence was plainly manifested in all
these circumstances. The arrival of Sir Thomas Gates rescued the colony
from the jaws of famine; his prudence preserved the fort at Jamestown,
which the unhappy colonists, upon abandoning the place, wished to
destroy, so as to cut off all possibility of a return; had their return
been longer delayed, the savages might have destroyed the fort; had
they set sail sooner, they would probably have missed Lord Delaware's
fleet, as they had intended to sail by way of Newfoundland, in a
direction contrary to that by which Lord Delaware approached.[99:A]
Lord Delaware, Governor and Captain-General, was accompanied by Sir
Ferdinand Waynman, Master of the Horse, who died shortly afterwards;
Captain Holcroft; Captain Lawson; and other gentlemen. Lord Delaware
was the first executive officer of Virginia with the title of Governor;
and the titles of Governor and Captain-General were ever after given to
the colonial chief magistrates of Virginia. Under Lord Delaware's
discreet and energetic management, discipline and industry were speedily
restored, the hours of labor being set from six o'clock in the morning
to ten, and from two to four in the afternoon. The store of provisions
that he had brought over with him was sufficient to supply four hundred
men for twelve months. He gave orders for repairing the church. Its
length was sixty feet, and its breadth twenty-four, and it was to have a
chancel of cedar and a communion-table of black-walnut, and the pews of
cedar, with handsome wide windows, to shut and open according to the
weather, made of the same wood; as also a pulpit with a font hewed out
hollow like a canoe, with two bells at the west end. The building was so
constructed as to be very light within; and the Lord Governor and
Captain-General caused it to be kept passing sweet, and trimmed up with
divers flowers. There was also a sexton belonging to it. Every Sunday
there were two sermons delivered, and every Thursday one--there being
two preachers who took their weekly turns. In the morning of every day,
at the ringing of the bell at ten o'clock, the people attended prayers;
and also again at four in the afternoon, before supper. On Sunday, when
the Governor went to church, he was accompanied by the councillors,
officers, and all the gentlemen, with a guard of halberdiers in his
lordship's livery, handsome red cloaks, to the number of fifty on each
side, and behind him. In the church his lordship had his seat in the
choir, in a green velvet chair, with a cloth, and also a velvet cushion
laid on the table before him on which he knelt. The council and officers
sate on each side of him, and when he returned to his house he was
escorted back in the same manner. The newly appointed council consisted
of Sir Thomas Gates, whose title was changed from that of
Lieutenant-Governor to that of Lieutenant-General; Sir George Somers,
Admiral; Captain George Percy; Sir Ferdinando Wayman, Master of the
Ordnance; Captain Newport, Vice-Admiral; and Mr. Strachey, Secretary and
Recorder. Strachey, who appears to have been a scholar, published an
interesting account of the colony at this period. Some of the houses at
Jamestown were covered with boards; some with Indian mats. They were
comfortable, and securely protected from the savages by the forts. Lord
Delaware was a generous friend of the colony; but it was as yet quite
too poor and too much in its infancy to maintain the state suitable to
him and his splendid retinue. The fashions of a court were preposterous
in a wilderness. On the ninth of June, Sir George Somers was dispatched,
in compliance with his own suggestion, in his cedar vessel to the
Bermudas, accompanied by Argall in another vessel, to procure further
supplies for the colony. Captain Argall, in consequence of adverse winds
and heavy fogs, returned to Jamestown. Sir George Somers, after much
difficulty, reached his destination, where he shortly after died, at a
spot on which the town of St. George commemorates his name. The islands
themselves received the designation of his surname, and were afterwards
called the Summer Islands. It is said that the Bermudas were at first
named in England "Virginiola," but shortly after the "Summer Islands,"
partly in allusion to their temperature, and partly in honor of Sir
George.[102:A] It was remarked of him that he was "a lamb upon land; a
lion at sea." As his life had been divided between the Old World and
the New, so after his death his remains were buried, part at Bermuda,
part at Whitchurch, Dorsetshire, in England.
Lord Delaware dispatched Captain Argall to the Potomac for corn, which
he succeeded in procuring by the aid of the youthful prisoner, Henry
Spilman. His lordship erected two forts, called Henry and Charles, after
the king's sons. These forts were built on a level tract bordering
Southampton River, and it was intended that settlers arriving from
England should first land there, to refresh themselves after the
confinement of the voyage. Sir Thomas Gates, who had before sent his
daughters back to England, now returned there himself, in order to
render to the council an account of all that had happened. Captain Percy
was dispatched with a party to chastise the Paspaheghs, for some
depredations; they fled before the English, who burnt their cabins,
captured their queen and her children, and shortly after barbarously
slew them. Lord Delaware, visiting the falls with a party of soldiers,
was attacked by the Indians, who killed some of his men.
His lordship having suffered much sickness, and finding himself in a
state of extreme debility, embarked,[103:A] in company of Dr. Bohun and
Captain Argall, and about fifty others, for the Island of Mevis, in the
West Indies. Contrary winds drove them to the north, and having put in
at the mouth of a large river, then called Chickohocki, it hence derived
its name of the Delaware.
Lord Delaware upon leaving the colony, committed the charge of it to
Captain George Percy, an honorable and resolute gentleman, but in infirm
health, and deficient in energy. The number of colonists was at this
period about two hundred; the stock of provisions sufficient for ten
months, and the Indians peaceable and friendly. Before Lord Delaware
reached England, the Virginia Council, discouraged by so many disasters
and disappointments, were at a loss to decide whether they should use
any further efforts to sustain the ill-fated colony, or should abandon
the enterprise, and recall the settlers from Virginia. But Sir Thomas
Gates made so strenuous an appeal in favor of sustaining the plantation,
that Sir Thomas Dale was dispatched with three vessels, cattle, hogs,
and other supplies. The title given to Dale was that of High Marshal of
Virginia, indicative of the martial authority with which he was
invested. He was a military man, and had served in the Low Countries,
and he brought over with him an extraordinary code of "laws divine,
moral, and martial," compiled by William Strachey, secretary of the
colony, for Sir Thomas Smith, from the military laws observed during the
wars in the Low Countries. This code was sent over by Sir Thomas Smith,
treasurer or governor of the Virginia Company, without the company's
sanction, as it has been alleged; but since the company in no way
interposed its authority in contravention to the new code, their
sanction of it may be presumed. Several of these laws were barbarous,
inhuman, written in blood.
Arriving in Virginia in the month of May, 1611, Dale touched at
Kiquotan, and set all hands there to planting corn. Reaching Jamestown
on the tenth of May, he found the settlers busily engaged in their usual
occupation, playing at bowls in the streets. He set them to work felling
trees, repairing houses, and providing materials for enclosing the new
town, which he proposed to build. To find a site for it he surveyed the
Nansemond River and the James as far as the falls, and finally pitched
upon a high ground, with steep banks, on the north side of the river,
near Arrohattock, and about twelve miles below the falls of the river.
The site was on a peninsula, known as Farrar's Island, in Varina Neck.
Sir Thomas was prevented for a time from founding the new town by the
disturbances that prevailed in the colony, and to restore order he
enforced martial law with rigor. Eight of the colonists appear to have
been convicted of treasonable plots and conspiracies, and executed by
cruel and unusual modes, before midsummer. Among these was Jeffrey
Abbot, who had served long in the army in Ireland and in the
Netherlands; had been a sergeant of Captain John Smith's company in
Virginia, who avers that he never knew there a better soldier or more
loyal friend of the colony. It must be acknowledged that rigorous
measures were necessary, and it was fortunate for the colony that the
cruel and despotic code of laws, to which it was now subjected, was
administered by so discreet and upright a governor as Dale.
Early in August, 1611, Sir Thomas Gates, commissioned to take charge of
the government of the colony, came over with six vessels, three hundred
men, and abundant supplies. He was accompanied by the Rev. Mr. Glover,
an approved preacher in Bedford and Huntingdonshire, a graduate of
Cambridge, in easy circumstances, and somewhat advanced in years.
Arriving at Jamestown early in August, during the sickly season, he soon
after died.
Dale, relieved from the cares of the chief post, cheerfully occupied a
subordinate position, and now turned his attention to the establishment
of new settlements on the banks of the James, at some distance above
Jamestown. Furnished by Gates with three hundred and fifty men, he
sailed up the river early in September, and on the spot selected before,
he founded the town of Henrico, so called in honor of the heir-apparent,
Prince Henry, eldest son of James the First. The peninsula on which it
was built is formed by a remarkable bend, styled the "Dutch Gap," where
the river, after sweeping a circuit of seven miles, returns within one
hundred and twenty yards from the point of departure. The site commands
an extensive and picturesque view of the winding river, which in this
part of it is called the "Corkscrew." The fertile tract of land there
produced tobacco nearly resembling the Spanish Varinas, and hence
received the appellation of Varina, the name of a well-known plantation.
This was afterwards the residence of the Rev. William Stith, the best of
our early historians, who dates the preface of his History of Virginia
there, in 1746.
The peninsula, surrounded on three sides by the river, was impaled
across the isthmus from water to water. There were three streets of
well-framed houses, a handsome church of wood completed, and the
foundation laid of a better one to be built of brick, besides
store-houses, watch-houses, etc. Upon the river edge there were five
houses, in which lived "the honester sort of people," as farmers in
England, and they kept continual watch for the town's security. About
two miles back from the town was a second palisade, near two miles in
length, from river to river, guarded by several commanders, with a good
quantity of corn-ground impaled, and sufficiently secured.
The breastwork thrown up by Sir Thomas Dale is still to be traced, and
vestiges of the town are indicated by scattered bricks, showing the
positions of the houses.[106:A] Burk[106:B] and Keith[106:C] have fallen
into singular mistakes as to the situation of this town.
On the south side of the river a plantation was established, called Hope
in Faith and Coxendale, with forts, named, respectively, Charity,
Elizabeth, Patience, and Mount Malady, and a guest-house for sick
people, on the spot where afterwards, in Stith's time, Jefferson's
church stood. On the same side of the river the Rev. Alexander Whitaker,
sometimes styled the "Apostle of Virginia," established his parsonage, a
well-framed house and one hundred acres of land, called Rock
Hall.[106:D]
The work of William Strachey, already referred to, entitled "The History
of Travel into Virginia Britannia," etc., appears to have been written
before 1616, and two manuscripts of it exist, one in the British Museum,
the other in the Ashmolean manuscripts at Oxford.[106:E]
Sir Thomas Dale, when he came over to Virginia, was accompanied by Rev.
Alexander Whitaker, the son of Dr. William Whitaker, Master of St.
John's College, Cambridge, and also Regius Professor of Divinity there.
The doctor distinguished himself by his controversial writings against
the Church of Rome, and took a leading part in framing and maintaining
the Lambeth Articles, which were Calvinistic, and had they been
established, might have gone far toward healing the divisions between
the Church of England and the Presbyterians. Rev. Alexander Whitaker,
when he reached Virginia, had been a graduate of Cambridge some five or
six years, and had been seated in the North of England, where he was
held in great esteem. He had property of his own and excellent prospects
of promotion; but, animated by a missionary spirit, he came over to
Virginia. The voyage is described as speedy and safe, "being scarce
eight weeks long."
The Appomattox Indians having committed some depredations, Sir Thomas
Dale, about Christmas, 1611, captured their town, near the mouth of the
Appomattox River where it empties into the James. The town was five
miles distant from Henrico. Sir Thomas, pleased with the situation,
established a plantation there, and called it Bermudas, the third town
erected in Virginia, now known as Bermuda Hundred, the port of Richmond
for ships of heavy burden. He laid out several plantations there, the
Upper and Lower Rochdale, West Shirley, and Digges' Hundred. In
conformity with the code of martial law each hundred was subjected to
the control of a captain. The Nether Hundred was enclosed with a
palisade two miles long, running from river to river, and here, within a
half mile of each other, were many neat houses already built. Rochdale,
or Rock's Dale, enclosed by a palisade four miles in length, was dotted
with houses along the enclosure; here the hogs and cattle enjoyed a
range of twenty miles to graze in securely. About fifty miles below
these settlements stood Jamestown, on a fertile peninsula, with two rows
of framed houses, some of them with two stores and a garret, and three
large store-houses. The town was well enclosed, and it and the
neighboring region were well peopled. Forty miles below Jamestown, at
Kiquotan, the settlers enjoyed an abundance of fish, fowl, and
venison.[107:A]
Captain Argall now arriving from England, in a vessel with forty men,
was sent to the Potomac to trade for corn, and he contrived to
ingratiate himself with Japazaws, a friendly chief, and from him learned
that Pocahontas was there. She had never visited Jamestown since Smith's
departure, and on the remote banks of the Potomac she thought herself
unknown. Japazaws, easily bribed, betrayed the artless and unsuspecting
girl into Argall's hands. When she discovered the treachery she burst
into tears. Argall, having sent a messenger to inform Powhatan that his
favorite daughter was a prisoner, and must be ransomed with the men and
arms, conveyed her to Jamestown. Three months thereafter Powhatan
restored seven English prisoners and some unserviceable muskets, and
sent word that if his daughter was released he would make restitution
for all injuries, and give the English five hundred bushels of corn, and
forever remain in peace and amity.[108:A] They refused to surrender
Pocahontas until full satisfaction was rendered.
Powhatan was deeply offended, and nothing more was heard from him for a
long time. At length Governor Dale, with Argall's vessel and some
others, manned with one hundred and fifty men, went up the York River,
taking the young captive with him, to Werowocomoco. Here, meeting with a
scornful defiance, the English landed, burnt the cabins, and destroyed
everything. On the next day Dale, proceeding up the river, concluded a
truce with the savages. He then sailed up to Matchot, another residence
of Powhatan, on the south side of the Pamunkey, where it unites with the
Matapony. Matchot is supposed to be identical with Eltham, the old seat
of the Bassets, in the County of New Kent, and which borrows its name
from an English seat in the County of Kent. At this place, where several
hundred warriors were found, the English landed, and the savages
demanded a truce till Powhatan could be heard from, which being granted,
two of Powhatan's sons went on board the vessel to see their sister
Pocahontas. Finding her well, contrary to what they had heard, they were
delighted, and promised to persuade their father to make peace, and
forever be friends with the English.
John Rolfe, and another of the Englishmen named Sparks, were dispatched
to let Powhatan know these proceedings. He entertained them hospitably,
but would not admit them into his presence; they, however, saw his
brother Opechancanough, who engaged to use his influence with Powhatan
in favor of peace. It now being April, the season for planting corn, Sir
Thomas Dale returned to Jamestown, intending not to renew hostilities
until the next crop was made.
March 12th, 1612, another charter was granted to the Virginia Company,
extending the boundaries of the colony, so as to include all islands
lying within three hundred leagues of the continent. The object of this
extension was to embrace the Bermudas, or Summer Islands; but the
Virginia Company shortly afterwards sold them to one hundred and twenty
of its own members, who became incorporated into a distinct
company.[109:A]
On the 4th of November, 1612, died Henry, Prince of Wales, a gallant and
generous spirit, the friend of Raleigh, and the idol of the nation; and
his premature death was deplored like that of the Black Prince before,
and the Princess Charlotte in more modern times. He appears to have been
a warm friend of the infant plantation of Virginia, and Sir Thomas Dale
speaks of him "as his glorious master, who would have enamelled with his
favors the labors which were undertaken for God's cause," and laments
that the "whole frame of the enterprise seemed fallen into his grave."
Mr. John Rolfe, a worthy gentleman, who appears to have been a widower,
had been for some time in love with Pocahontas, and she with him; and,
agitated by the conflicting emotions of this singular and romantic
attachment, in a letter he requested the advice of Sir Thomas Dale, who
readily gave his assent to the proposed union. Pocahontas likewise
communicated the affair to her brother; so that the report of the
marriage soon reached Powhatan, and it proved likewise acceptable to
him. Accordingly, within ten days he sent Opachisco, an aged uncle of
Pocahontas, and her two brothers, to attend the wedding, and fill his
place at the ceremony. The marriage took place early in April, 1613, at
Jamestown, and the rites were no doubt performed by the Rev. Mr.
Whitaker.[109:B]
This remarkable union became a happy link of peace and harmony between
the red man and the white; and the warlike Chickahominies now came to
propose a treaty of peace.[110:A] This fierce and numerous tribe,
dwelling on the borders of the Chickahominy River, and near neighbors to
the English, had long maintained their independence, and refused to
acknowledge the sceptre of Powhatan. They now sent two runners to
Governor Dale with presents, apologizing for all former injuries, and
offering to submit themselves to King James, and to relinquish the name
of Chickahominies, and be called Tassautessus (English.) They desired,
nevertheless, still to be governed by their own laws, under the
authority of eight of their own chiefs. Governor Dale, with Captain
Argall and fifty men, on the banks of the Chickahominy, concluded a
treaty of peace with them, and they ratified it by acclamation. An aged
warrior then arose and explained the treaty, addressing himself
successively to the old men, the young, and the women and children. The
Chickahominies, apprehensive of being reduced under the despotism of
Powhatan, sheltered themselves under the protection of the whites--a
striking proof of the atrocious barbarity of a race whose imaginary
virtues have been so often celebrated by poets, orators, and historians,
and who have been described as renewing the golden age of innocent
felicity.
The system of working in common, and of being provided for out of the
public store, although unavoidable at first, had hitherto tended to
paralyze industry, and to retard the growth of the colony. An important
alteration in this particular was now effected; Sir Thomas Dale allotted
to each man three acres of cleared ground, from which he was only
obliged to contribute to the public store two and a half barrels of
corn. These regulations, raising the colonists above the condition of
absolute dependence, and creating a new incentive to exertion, proved
very acceptable and beneficial.[110:B]
Early in the year 1614 Sir Thomas Gates returned again to England, and
Sir Thomas Dale reassumed the government of the colony. The French
settlers of Acadia had, as early as 1605, built the town of Port Royal,
on the Bay of Fundy; St. Croix was afterwards erected on the other side
of the bay. Dale, looking upon these settlements as an encroachment upon
the territory of Virginia, which extended to the forty-fifth degree of
latitude, dispatched his kinsman, Argall, an enterprising and
unscrupulous man, with a small force, to dislodge the intruders. The
French colony was found situated on Mount Desert Island, near the
Penobscot River, and within the bounds of the present State of Maine.
The French, surprised while dispersed in the woods, soon yielded to
superior force, and Argall, as some accounts say, furnished the
prisoners with a fishing vessel, in which they returned to France,
except fifteen, including a Jesuit missionary, who were brought to
Jamestown. According to other accounts, their vessels were captured, but
the colonists escaped, and went to live among the Indians. On his
return, Argall visited the Dutch settlement near the site of Albany, on
the Hudson, and compelled the governor there to surrender the place; but
it was reclaimed by the Dutch not long afterwards, and during the next
year they erected a fort on Manhattan Island, on which is now seated the
commercial metropolis of the United States.
FOOTNOTES:
[92:A] The colony was provided with fishing-nets, working tools,
apparel, six mares and a horse, five or six hundred swine, with some
goats and sheep. Jamestown was strongly fortified with palisades, and
contained fifty or sixty houses. There were, besides, five or six other
forts and plantations. There was only one carpenter in the colony; three
others were learning that trade. There were two blacksmiths and two
sailors.
[92:B] Bacon's Essays, 123.
[97:A] Anderson's Hist. of Col. Church, i. 232.
[98:A] Anderson's Hist. of Col. Church, i. 263.
[99:A] The wreck of the Sea-Venture appears to have suggested to
Shakespeare the groundwork for the plot of "The Tempest," several
incidents and passages being evidently taken from the contemporary
accounts of that disaster, as narrated by Jordan and the Council of the
Virginia Company.
"Boatswain, down with the top-mast, yare
Lower, lower; bring her to try with the main course."
Captain Smith, in his Sea-Grammar, published 1627, under the article how
to handle a ship in a storm, says: "Let us lie as try with our main
course--that is, to haul the tack aboard, the sheet close aft, the
boling set up, and the helm tied close aboard." Again, the boatswain
says: "Lay her a-hold, a-hold; set her two courses." The two courses are
the mainsail and the foresail; and to lay a ship a-hold is to bring her
to lie as near the wind as she can. These, and other nautical orders,
are such as the brave old Somers probably gave when trying to keep the
ship as upright as possible.
"We are merely cheated of our lives by drunkards."
This was suggested to the poet by the recorded incident of part of the
crew of the Sea-Venture having undertaken to drown their despair in
drunkenness.
"Farewell, my wife and children!
Farewell, brother!
_Ant._ Let's all sink with the king.
_Seb._ Let's take leave of him."
These answer to the leave-taking of the Sea-Venture's crew. Jordan, in
his narrative, says: "It is reported that this land of Bermudas, with
the islands about it, are enchanted and kept by evil and wicked
spirits," etc. Shakespeare accordingly employs Prospero, Ariel, and
Caliban to personate this fabled enchantment of the island. Ariel's task
is, at Prospero's bidding--
"To fly,
To swim, to dive into the fire, to ride
On the curled clouds."
The tempest, in which the ship was wrecked, is thus described by
Ariel:--
"I boarded the king's ship; now on the beak,
Now in the waist, the deck, in every cabin,
I flamed amazement: sometimes I'd divide,
And burn in many places; on the top-mast,
The yards, and bowsprit, would I flame distinctly,
Then meet and join; Jove's lightnings, the precursors
O' the dreadful thunder-claps, more momentary
And sight-outrunning were not; the fire, and cracks
Of sulphurous roaring, the most mighty Neptune
Seemed to besiege, and make his bold waves tremble."
Again:--
"Not a soul
But felt a fever of the mad and played
Some tricks of desperation."
The almost miraculous escape of all from the very jaws of impending
death, is thus alluded to by Ariel in her report to Prospero:--
"Not a hair perished;
On their sustaining garments not a blemish,
But fresher than before: and as thou bad'st me,
In troops I have dispersed them 'bout the isle."
The particular circumstances of the wreck are given quite exactly in the
familiar verses:--
"Safely in harbor
Is the king's ship; in the deep nook, where once
Thou call'st me up at midnight to fetch dew
From the still-vexed Bermoothes, there she's hid."
Bermoothes, the Spanish pronunciation of Bermudas, or Bermudez, the
original name of the island, taken, as is said, from that of a Spanish
captain wrecked there. Another real incident is referred to in the
following verses, the time only being transposed:--
"The mariners all under hatches stowed;
Whom, with a charm joined to their suffered labor,
I have left asleep."
The return of the other seven vessels of the fleet is described with a
change, however, of the sea in which they sailed, and in their place of
destination:--
"And for the rest of the fleet,
Which I dispersed, they all have met again;
And are upon the Mediterranean flote,
Bound sadly home for Naples;
Supposing that they saw the king's ship wrecked
And his great person perish."
For nearly a year after the Sea-Venture's separation from the fleet, it
was believed, in Virginia and in England, that she and her company were
lost. Smith and Pocahontas may have suggested some materials for the
characters of Ferdinand and Miranda.
Shakespeare, after abandoning the stage, in 1607 or 1608, about the time
of the first landing at Jamestown, remained in London for some four or
five years. Smith, and the early colonists of Virginia, had many of them
probably witnessed the theatrical performances at the Globe or Black
Fryars; Beggars' Bush, now Jordan's Point, an early plantation on the
James River, derived its name from a comedy of Fletcher's. Shakespeare
was, no doubt, quite familiar with the more remarkable incidents of the
first settlement of the colony: the early voyages; the first discovery;
the landing; Smith's rencontres with the Indians; his rescue by
Pocahontas; the starving time, etc. Smith, indeed, as has been before
mentioned, complained of his exploits and adventures having been
misrepresented on the stage, in London. That Shakespeare makes few or no
allusions to these incidents, is because they occurred after nearly all
his plays had been composed. "The Tempest," however, was written several
years after the landing at Jamestown, being one of his latest
productions--a creation of his maturest intellect.
[102:A] Court and Times of James the First, 160.
[103:A] March 28th, 1611.
[106:A] Va. Hist. Reg., i. 161.
[106:B] Hist. of Va., i. 166.
[106:C] Hist. of Va., 124.
[106:D] Stith, 124; Keith, 124; Beverley, i. 25; South. Lit. Messr. for
June, 1845; Hawks' Narrative, 29.
[106:E] It has been of late years printed for the first time by the
Hakluyt Society in England. The work is illustrated by etchings,
comprising fac-similes of signatures, Captain Smith's map, and several
engravings from De Bry. It contains also a copious glossary of Indian
words. The first book comprises the geography of the country, with a
full and admirable account of the manners and customs of Powhatan and
his people. It is an important authority, but as it was printed only for
the use of the members of the Hakluyt Society, it is but little known in
this country. The second book treats of Columbus, Vespucius, Cabot,
Raleigh, and Drake, with notices of the early efforts to colonize
Northern Virginia, or New England. The period to which Strachey's
History of Virginia relates includes 1610, 1611, and 1612. The same
author published a map of Virginia at Oxford, in 1612. Mr. Peter Force
has a MS. copy of it.
[107:A] Smith, ii. 13.
[108:A] Court and Times of James the First, i. 262.
[109:A] Hen. Stat., i. 98; Stith, 126, and Appendix No. 3.
[109:B] A letter was written by Dale on the occasion, dated in June,
1614, and addressed to a friend in London; another of Rolfe to Dale,
before mentioned, was published in London, 1615, by Ralph Hamor, in his
work entitled, "A True Discourse of the Present State of Virginia,"
etc.; Rev. Alexander Whitaker addressed a letter on the same subject to
a cousin in London. These letters were republished in this country in
1842, in a pamphlet explanatory of Chapman's picture of the Baptism of
Pocahontas.
[110:A] Stith, 131.
[110:B] Chalmers, Introduction, i. 10; Grahame's Colonial Hist. U. S.,
i. 64. Compare Belknap's Amer. Biog., ii. 151.
CHAPTER VIII.
1614-1617.
Hamor visits Powhatan--Richard Hakluyt--Pocahontas Baptized--
Fixed Property in the Soil established--Dale Embarks for
England accompanied by Pocahontas--Yeardley, Deputy Governor--
Culture of Tobacco introduced--Pocahontas in England--
Tomocomo--Death of Pocahontas--John and Thomas Rolfe--Smith
and Pocahontas.
RALPH HAMOR[112:A] having obtained permission from Sir Thomas Dale to
visit Powhatan, and taking with him Thomas Savage, as interpreter, and
two Indian guides, started from Bermuda (Hundred) in the morning, and
reached Matchot (Eltham) on the evening of the next day. Powhatan
recognizing the boy Thomas Savage, said to him: "My child, I gave you
leave, being my boy, to go see your friends; and these four years I have
not seen you nor heard of my own man, Namontack, I sent to England,
though many ships have been returned from thence." Turning then to
Hamor, he demanded the chain of beads which he had sent to Sir Thomas
Dale at his first arrival, with the understanding that whenever he
should send a messenger, he should wear that chain about his neck;
otherwise he was to be bound, and sent home. Sir Thomas _had_ made such
an arrangement, and on this occasion had directed his page to give the
necklace to Hamor; but the page had forgotten it. However, Hamor being
accompanied by two of Powhatan's own people, he was satisfied, and
conducted him to the royal cabin, where a guard of two hundred bowmen
stood always in attendance. He offered his guest a pipe of tobacco, and
then inquired after his brother, Sir Thomas Dale, and his daughter,
Pocahontas, and his unknown son-in-law, Rolfe, and "how they lived and
loved." Being answered that Pocahontas was so well satisfied, that she
would never live with him again, he laughed, and demanded the object of
his visit. Hamor gave him to understand that his message was private, to
be made known only to him and to Papaschicher, one of the guides who was
in the secret. Forthwith Powhatan ordered out all his people, except his
two queens "that always sit by him," and bade Hamor deliver his message.
He then, by his interpreter, let him know that Sir Thomas Dale had sent
him pieces of copper, strings of white and blue beads, wooden combs,
fish-hooks, and a pair of knives, and would give him a grindstone, when
he would send for it; that his brother Dale, hearing of the charms of
his younger daughter, desired that he would send her to Jamestown, as
well because he intended to marry her, as on account of the desire of
Pocahontas to see her, and he believed that there could be no better
bond of peace and friendship than such a union. While Hamor was
speaking, Powhatan repeatedly interrupted him, and when he had ended,
the old chief replied: "I gladly accept your salute of love and peace
which, while I live, I shall exactly keep. His pledges thereof I receive
with no less thanks, although they are not so great as I have received
before. But, for my daughter, I have sold her within these few days to a
great werowance, three days journey from me, for two bushels of
rawrenoke." Hamor: "I know your highness, by returning the rawrenoke,
might call her back again, to gratify your brother, Sir Thomas Dale, and
the rather because she is but twelve years old. Besides its forming a
bond of peace, you shall have in return for her, three times the value
of the rawrenoke, in beads, copper, and hatchets." Powhatan: "I love my
daughter as my life, and though I have many children, I delight in none
so much as her, and if I should not often see her I could not possibly
live, and if she lived at Jamestown I could not see her, having resolved
on no terms to put myself into your hands, or go among you. Therefore, I
desire you to urge me no further, but return my brother this answer: I
desire no firmer assurance of his friendship than the promise he hath
made. From me he _has_ a pledge, one of my daughters, which, so long as
she lives, shall be sufficient; when _she_ dies, he shall have another.
I hold it not a brotherly part to desire to bereave me of my two
children at once. Further, tell him that though he had no pledge at all,
he need not fear any injury from me or my people; there have been too
many of his men and mine slain; and, by my provocation, there never
shall be any more, (I who have power to perform it, have said it,) even
if I should have just cause, for I am now old, and would gladly end my
days in peace; if you offer me injury, my country is large enough for me
to go from you. This, I hope, will satisfy my brother. Now, since you
are weary and I sleepy, we will here end." So Hamor and his companions
lodged at Matchot that night. While there they saw William Parker, who
had been captured three years before at Fort Henry. He had grown so like
an Indian in complexion and manner, that his fellow-countrymen
recognized him only by his language. He begged them to intercede for his
release, but upon their undertaking it, Powhatan replied: "You have one
of my daughters, and I am satisfied; but you cannot see one of your men
with me, but you must have him away, or break friendship; but if you
must needs have him, you shall go home without guides, and if any evil
befall you, thank yourselves." They answered him that if any harm befell
them he must expect revenge from his brother Dale. At this Powhatan, in
a passion, left them; but returning to supper, he entertained them with
a pleasant countenance. About midnight he awoke them, and promised to
let them return in the morning with Parker, and charged them to remind
his brother Dale to send him ten large pieces of copper, a
shaving-knife, a frowl, a grindstone, a net, fish-hooks, and other such
presents. Lest they might forget, he made them write down the list of
articles in a blank book that he had. They requesting him to give them
the book, he declined doing so, saying, "it did him much good to show it
to strangers."[114:A]
During the year 1614 Sir Walter Raleigh published his "History of the
World;" Captain John Smith made a voyage to North Virginia, and gave it
the name of New England; and the Dutch, as already mentioned, effected a
settlement near the site of Albany, on the Hudson River. Sir Thomas
Gates, upon his return to England, reported that the plantation of
Virginia would fall to the ground unless soon reinforced with
supplies.[114:B] Martin, a lawyer, employed by the Virginia Company to
recommend some measure to the House of Commons, having spoken
disparagingly of that body, was arraigned at the bar of the House; but,
upon making due acknowledgment upon his knees, was pardoned.[115:A]
During this year died Richard Hakluyt, the compiler of a celebrated
collection of voyages and discoveries. He was of an ancient family in
Herefordshire, and, after passing some time at Westminster School, was
elected to a studentship at Oxford, where he contracted a friendship
with Sir Philip Sydney, to whom he inscribed his first collection of
Voyages and Discoveries printed in 1582. Having imbibed a taste for the
study of geography and cosmography from a cousin of the same name, a
student of law at the Temple, he applied himself to that department of
learning with diligence, and was at length appointed to lecture at the
University on that subject. He contributed valuable aid in fitting out
Sir Humphrey Gilbert's expedition. Soon after, taking holy orders, he
proceeded to Paris as chaplain to Sir Edward Stafford, the English
Ambassador. During his absence he was appointed to a prebendal stall at
Bristol, and upon his return to England he frequently resided there. He
was afterwards preferred to the rectory of Witheringset, in Suffolk. In
1615 he was appointed a prebendary of Westminster, and became a member
of the council of the Virginia Company. He continued to watch over the
affairs of the colony until his death. He was buried in Westminster
Abbey. Hakluyt's Voyages consist of five volumes, folio.
Pocahontas was now carefully instructed in the Christian religion, and
such was the change wrought in her, that after some time she lost all
desire to return to her father, and retained no longer any fondness for
the rude society of her own people. She had already, before her
marriage, openly renounced the idolatry of her country, confessed the
faith of Christ, and had been baptized. Master Whitaker, the preacher,
in a letter dated June 18th, 1614, expresses his surprise that so few of
the English ministers, "that were so hot against the surplice and
subscription," came over to Virginia, where neither was spoken of. At
the end of June Captain Argall returned to England with tidings of the
more auspicious state of affairs. The Virginia Company now proceeded to
draw the lottery, which had been made up to promote the interests of the
colony, and twenty-nine thousand pounds were thus contributed; but
Parliament shortly after prohibited this pernicious practice. It has
been said that this is the first instance of raising money in England by
lottery;[116:A] but this is erroneous, for there had been a lottery
drawn for the purpose of repairing the harbors of the kingdom as far
back as 1569.[116:B]
The year 1615 is remarkable in Virginia history for the first
establishment of a fixed property in the soil, fifty acres of land being
granted by the company to every freeman in absolute right.[116:C] This
salutary reform was brought about mainly by the influence of Sir Thomas
Dale, one of the best of the early governors. Sir Thomas having now,
after a stay of five years in Virginia, established good order at
Jamestown, appointed George Yeardley to be deputy governor in his
absence, and embarked for England, accompanied by John Rolfe and his
wife, the Princess Pocahontas, and other Indians of both sexes. They
arrived at Plymouth on the 12th of June, 1616, about six weeks after the
death of Shakespeare, who died on the twenty-third of April. The arrival
is thus noticed in a news-letter: "Sir Thomas Dale is arrived from
Virginia, and brought with him some ten or twelve old and young of that
country, among whom is Pocahontas, daughter of Powhatan, a king or
cacique of that country, married to one Rolfe, an Englishman. I hear not
of any other riches or matter of worth, but only some quantity of
sassafras, tobacco, pitch, tar, and clapboard--things of no great value,
unless there were plenty and nearer hand. All I can hear of it is, that
the country is good to live in, if it were stored with people, and might
in time become commodious. But there is no present profit to be
expected."[116:D]
Reverting to the condition of affairs in the colony, it is to be
observed, that the oligarchical government of the president and council,
with all its odious features, had long before this come to an end; order
and diligence had now taken the place of confusion and idleness; peace
with the Indians had given rise to a free trade with them, and the
English acquired their commodities by lawful purchase instead of
extorting them by force of arms. The places inhabited by the whites, at
this time, were Henrico and the limits, Bermuda Nether Hundred, West and
Shirley Hundred, Jamestown, Kiquotan, and Dale's Gift. At Henrico there
were thirty-eight men and boys, of whom twenty-two were farmers. The
Rev. William Wickham was the minister of this place. It was the seat of
the college established for the education of the natives; they had
already brought hither some of their children, of both sexes, to be
taught. At Bermuda Nether Hundred (Presquile) the number of inhabitants
was one hundred and nineteen. Captain Yeardley, deputy governor, lived
here for the most part. The minister here was Master Alexander Whitaker.
At West and Shirley Hundred there were twenty-five men under Captain
Madison. At Jamestown fifty, under Captain Francis West; the Rev. Mr.
Bucke minister. At Kiquotan Captain Webb commanded; Rev. Mr. Mease the
minister. Dale's Gift, on the sea-coast, near Cape Charles, was occupied
by seventeen men under Lieutenant Cradock. The total population of the
colony, at this time, was three hundred and fifty-one.[117:A] Yeardley
directed the attention of the colony to tobacco, as the most saleable
commodity that they could raise, and its cultivation was introduced into
Virginia in this year, 1616, for the first time. The English now found
the climate to suit their constitutions so well, that fewer people died
here in proportion than in England. The Chickahominies refusing to pay
the tribute of corn agreed upon by the treaty, Yeardley went up their
river with one hundred men, and, after killing some and making some
prisoners, brought off much of their corn. On his return he met
Opechancanough at Ozinies, about twelve miles above the mouth of the
Chickahominy. In this expedition Henry Spilman, who had been rescued
from death by Pocahontas, now a captain, acted as interpreter.
In the mean time Pocahontas was kindly received in London; by the care
of her husband and friends she was, by this time, taught to speak
English intelligibly; her manners received the softening influence of
English refinement, and her mind was enlightened by the truths of
religion. Having given birth to a son, the Virginia Company provided for
the maintenance of them both, and many persons of quality were very kind
to her. Before she reached London, Captain Smith, who was well
acquainted at court, and in especial favor with Prince Charles, in
requital for her former preservation of his life, had prepared an
account of her in a small book, and he presented it to Queen Anne. But,
at this time, being about to embark for New England, he could not pay
her such attentions as he desired and she well deserved. Nevertheless,
learning that she was staying at Brentford, where she had repaired in
order to avoid the smoke of the city, he went, accompanied by several
friends, to see her. After a modest salutation, without uttering a word,
she turned away, and hid her face, as if offended. In that posture she
remained for two or three hours, her husband and Smith and the rest of
the company having, in the mean while, gone out of the room, and Smith
now regretting that he had written to the queen that Pocahontas could
speak English. At length she began to talk, and she reminded Captain
Smith of the kindness she had shown him in her own country, saying: "You
did promise Powhatan what was yours should be his, and he the like to
you; you called him father, being in his land a stranger, and for the
same reason so I must call you." But Smith, on account of the king's
overweening and preposterous jealousy of the royal prerogative, felt
constrained to decline the appellation of "father," for she was "a
king's daughter." She then exclaimed, with a firm look: "Were you not
afraid to come into my father's country, and cause fear in him and all
his people (but me,) and fear you here that I should call you father? I
tell you then I will, and you shall call me child, and I will be forever
and ever your countrywoman. They did tell us always you were dead, and I
knew no other till I came to Plymouth; yet Powhatan did command
Uttomattomakkin to seek you, and know the truth, because your countrymen
will lie much." It is remarkable that Rolfe, her husband, must have been
privy to the deception thus practised on her; are we to attribute this
to his secret apprehension that she would never marry him until she
believed that Smith was dead?
Tomocomo, or Uttamattomakkin, or Uttamaccomack, husband of Matachanna,
one of Powhatan's daughters, being a priest, and esteemed a wise and
knowing one among his people, Powhatan, or, as Sir Thomas Dale supposed,
Opechancanough, had sent him out to England, in company of Pocahontas,
to number the people there, and bring back to him an account of that
country. Upon landing at Plymouth he provided himself, according to his
instructions, with a long stick, and undertook, by notching it, to keep
a tally of all the men he could see; but he soon grew weary of the task,
and gave it out in despair. Meeting with Captain Smith in London,
Uttamattomakkin told him that Powhatan had ordered him to seek him out,
that he might show him the English God, the king, queen, and prince.
Being informed that he had already seen the king, he denied it; but on
being convinced of it, he said: "You gave Powhatan a white dog, which
Powhatan fed as himself; but your king gave me nothing, and I am better
than your white dog." On his return to Virginia, when Powhatan
interrogated him as to the number of people in England, he is said to
have replied: "Count the stars in the heavens, the leaves on the trees,
the sands on the sea-shore." Whether this and other such figurative
expressions attributed to the Indians, were actually uttered by them, or
whether they have received some poetical embellishment in the course of
interpretation, the judicious reader may determine for himself.
During Smith's brief stay in London, many courtiers and others of his
acquaintance daily called upon him for the purpose of being introduced
to Pocahontas, and they expressed themselves satisfied that the hand of
Providence was manifest in her conversion, and declared that they had
seen many English ladies worse favored, proportioned, and behaviored.
She was presented at Court by Lady Delaware, attended by the lord her
husband, and other persons of quality, and was graciously received. Her
modest, dignified, and graceful deportment, excited the admiration of
all, and she received the particular attentions of the king and queen.
It is said, upon the authority of a well-established tradition, that
King James was at first greatly offended at Rolfe for having presumed to
marry a princess without his consent; but that upon a fuller
representation of the matter, his majesty was pleased to express himself
satisfied. There is hardly any folly so foolish but that it may have
been committed by "the wisest fool in Christendom."
"The Virginia woman, Pocahontas, with her father counsellor, have been
with the king, and graciously used, and both she and her assistant well
placed at the masque."[120:A] She was styled the "Lady Pocahontas," and
carried herself "as the daughter of a king." Lady Delaware and other
noble persons waited on her to masquerades, balls, plays, and other
public entertainments. Purchas, the compiler of Voyages and Travels, was
present at an entertainment given in honor of her by the Bishop of
London, Doctor King, which exceeded in pomp and splendor any other
entertainment of the kind that the author of "The Pilgrim" had ever
witnessed there.
Sir Walter Raleigh, after thirteen years' confinement in the Tower, had
been released on the seventeenth of March preceding, and, upon gaining
his liberty, he went about the city looking at the changes that had
occurred since his imprisonment. It is not improbable that he may have
seen Pocahontas.
Early in 1617 John Rolfe prepared to embark for Virginia, with his wife
and child, in Captain Argall's vessel, the George. Pocahontas was
reluctant to return. On the eve of her embarkation it pleased God to
take her unexpectedly from the world. She died at Gravesend, on the
Thames, in the latter part of March. As her life had been sweet and
lovely, so her death was serene, and crowned with the hopes of religion.
"The Virginia woman, whose picture I sent you, died this last week at
Gravesend, as she was returning home."[120:B] The parish register of
burials at Gravesend, in the County of Kent, contains the following
entry: "1616, March 21, Rebecca Wrothe, wyffe of Thomas Wrothe, Gent. A
Virginia Lady borne, was buried in the Chancell." The date, 1616,
corresponds with the historical year 1617. It appears that there was
formerly a family of the name of Wrothe resident near Gravesend. This
name might therefore easily be confounded with that of Rolfe, the sound
being similar. Nor is the mistake of Thomas for John at all improbable.
Gravesend Church, in which Pocahontas was buried, was destroyed by fire
in 1727, and no monument to her memory remains, if any ever
existed.[121:A]
According to Strachey, a good authority, the Indians had several
different names given them at different times, and Powhatan called his
favorite daughter when quite young, Pocahontas, that is, "Little
Wanton," but at a riper age she was called Amonate. According to
Stith,[121:B] her real name was Matoax, which the people of her nation
concealed from the English, and changed it to Pocahontas from a
superstitious fear, lest, knowing her true name, they should do her some
injury. Others suppose Matoax to have been her individual name,
Pocahontas her title. After her conversion she was baptized by the name
of Rebecca, and she was sometimes styled the "Lady Rebecca." The
ceremony of her baptism has been made the subject of a picture, (by
Chapman,) exhibited in the rotundo of the Capitol at Washington.
Of the brothers of Pocahontas, Nantaquaus, or Nantaquoud, is especially
distinguished for having shown Captain Smith "exceeding great courtesy,"
interceding with his father, Powhatan, in behalf of the captive, and he
was the "manliest, comeliest, boldest spirit," Smith ever saw in a
savage.
Of the sisters of Pocahontas two are particularly mentioned, Cleopatre
and Matachanna. Strachey has recorded the names of the numerous wives
and children of Powhatan, the greater part of which are harsh and
guttural, and apparently almost incapable of being pronounced by the
vocal organs of civilized man.
Smith says that Pocahontas, "with her wild train, visited Jamestown as
freely as her father's habitation." In these visits she had to cross
the York River, some two miles wide, in a canoe, ("quintan" in the
Powhatan language,) and then walk some ten or twelve miles across to
Jamestown. She is described as "being of a great spirit, however her
stature;" from which it may be inferred that she was below the middle
height.[122:A] She died at the age of twenty-two, having been born about
the year 1595. Her infant son, Thomas Rolfe, was left for a time at
Plymouth, under the care of Sir Lewis Stukely, Vice-Admiral of Devon,
who afterwards, by his base treachery toward Sir Walter Raleigh, covered
himself with infamy, and by dishonest and criminal practices reduced
himself to beggary. The son of Pocahontas was subsequently removed to
London, where he was educated under the care of his uncle, Henry Rolfe,
a merchant.[122:B]
Thomas Rolfe came to Virginia and became a person of fortune and note in
the colony. It has been said that he married in England a Miss Poyers;
however that may have been, he left an only daughter, Jane Rolfe, who
married Colonel Robert Bolling. He lies buried at Farmingdale, in the
County of Prince George.[122:C] This Colonel Robert Bolling was the son
of John and Mary Bolling, of Alhallows, Barkin Parish, Tower Street,
London. He was born in December, 1646, and came to Virginia in October,
1660, and died in July, 1709, aged sixty-two years. Colonel Robert
Bolling, and Jane Rolfe, his wife, left an only son, Major John Bolling,
father of Colonel John Bolling and several daughters, who married
respectively, Col. Richard Randolph, Colonel John Fleming, Doctor
William Gay, Mr. Thomas Eldridge, and Mr. James Murray.
Censure is sometimes cast upon Captain Smith for having failed to marry
Pocahontas; but history no where gives any just ground for such a
reproach. The rescue of Smith took place in the winter of 1607, when he
was twenty-eight years of age, and she only twelve or thirteen.[123:A]
Smith left Virginia early in 1609, and never returned. Pocahontas was
then about fourteen years of age; but if she had been older, it would
have been impossible for him to marry her unless by kidnapping her, as
was done by the unscrupulous Argall some years afterwards--a measure
which, if it had been adopted in 1609, when the colony was so feeble,
and so rent by faction, would probably have provoked the vengeance of
Powhatan, and overwhelmed the plantation in premature ruin. It was in
1612 that Argall captured Pocahontas on the banks of the Potomac, and
from the departure of Smith until this time she never had been seen at
Jamestown, but had lived on the distant banks of the Potomac. In the
spring of 1613 it is stated, that long before that time "Mr. John Rolfe
had been in love with Pocahontas, and she with him." This attachment
must, therefore, have been formed immediately after her capture, if it
did not exist before; and the marriage took place in April, 1613. It is
true that Pocahontas had been led to believe that Smith was dead, and in
practising this deception upon her, Rolfe must have been a party; but
Smith was in no manner whatever privy to it; he cherished for her a
friendship animated by the deepest emotions of gratitude; and
friendship, according to Spenser, a cotemporary poet, is a more exalted
sentiment than love.
Pocahontas appears to have regarded Smith with a sort of filial
affection, and she accordingly said to him, in the interview at
Brentford, "I tell you then, I _will_ call you father, and you _shall_
call me child." The delusion practised on her relative to Smith's death
would, indeed, seem to argue an apprehension on the part of Rolfe and
his friends that she would not marry another while Smith was alive, and
the particular circumstances of the interview at Brentford would seem to
confirm the existence of such an apprehension. Yet, however that may
have been, the honor and integrity of Smith remain untarnished.
FOOTNOTES:
[112:A] Smith, ii. 19. There appears to be a mistake in affixing William
Parker's name to the account of this visit, for it was evidently written
by Hamor.
[114:A] Smith, ii. 21.
[114:B] Court and Times of James the First, i. 311.
[115:A] Court and Times of James the First, i. 317.
[116:A] Chalmers' Annals, 33.
[116:B] Anderson's Hist. Col. Church, i. 27, in note.
[116:C] Chalmers' Introduc., i. 10.
[116:D] Court and Times of James the First, i. 415.
[117:A] Sir Thomas Dale, at one haul with a seine, had caught five
thousand fish, three hundred of which were as large as cod, and the
smallest of the others a kind of salmon-trout, two feet long. He durst
not adventure on the main school, for fear it would destroy his nets.
[120:A] Court and Times of James the First, i. 388.
[120:B] Letter of John Chamberlain to Sir Dudley Carleton, dated at
London, March, 1617, in Court and Times of James the First, ii. 3.
[121:A] Letter of C. W. Martin, Leeds Castle, England, to Conway
Robinson, Esq., in Va. Hist. Reg, ii. 187.
[121:B] Stith, 136 and 285.
[122:A] Smith, ii. 31; Beverley, B. i. 27.
[122:B] Stith, 144; Beverley, B. i. 34.
[122:C] Of Farmingdale, or Farmingdell, John Randolph of Roanoke said,
in a letter dated 1832: "But the true name is Kippax, called after the
village of Kippax and Kippax Park, adjacent thereto, the seat of my
maternal ancestors, the Blands, of the West Riding of York." Bland, of
Kippax, County York, anciently seated at Bland's Gill, in that county,
was raised to the degree of baronet in 1642. The present representative
(1854) is Thomas Davison Bland, of Kippax Park, Esq. Gill signifies dell
or valley.
[123:A] Inscription of date on Smith's likeness, prefixed to his
history; Stith, 55, 127.
CHAPTER IX.
1617-1618.
Argall, Governor--Condition of Jamestown--Death of Lord
Delaware--Name of Delaware River--Argall's Martial Law--
Brewster's Case--Argall leaves Virginia--His Character--
Powhatan's Death--His Name, Personal Appearance, Dominions,
Manner of Life, Character--Succeeded by Opitchapan.
LORD RICH, an unscrupulous and corrupt head of a faction in the Virginia
Company, having entered into partnership with Captain Samuel Argall, (a
relative of Sir Thomas Smith, the Treasurer or Governor of the Company,)
by his intrigues contrived to have him elected Deputy-Governor of
Virginia and Admiral of that country and the seas adjoining. He sailed
for Virginia early in 1617, accompanied by Ralph Hamor, his
vice-admiral, and arrived at Jamestown in May. Argall was welcomed by
Captain Yeardley and his company, the right file of which was led by an
Indian. At Jamestown were found but five or six habitable houses, the
church fallen, the palisades broken, the bridge foundrous, the well
spoiled, the storehouse used for a church; the market-place, streets,
and other vacant ground planted with tobacco; the savages as frequent in
the houses as the English, who were dispersed about as each man could
find a convenient place for planting corn and tobacco. Tomocomo, who
(together with the other Indians that had gone out to England in the
suite of Pocahontas, as may be presumed, although the fact is not
expressly mentioned,) had returned with Argall, was immediately, upon
his arrival, sent to Opechancanough, who came to Jamestown, and received
a present with great joy and thankfulness. But Tomocomo denounced
England and the English in bitter terms, especially Sir Thomas Dale.
Powhatan having some time before this resigned the cares of government
into the hands of Opechancanough, went about from place to place, still
continuing in friendship with the English, but greatly lamenting the
death of Pocahontas. He rejoiced, nevertheless, that her child was
living, and he and Opechancanough both expressed much desire to see him.
During this year a Mr. Lambert introduced the method of curing tobacco
on lines instead of in heaps, as had been the former practice.[125:A]
Argall's energetic measures procured from the Indians, by trade, a
supply of corn. The whole number of colonists now was about four
hundred, with numerous cattle, goats, and swine. The corn contributed to
the public store was about four hundred and fifty bushels, and from the
tributary Indians seven hundred and fifty, being considerably less than
the usual quantity. Of the "Company's company" there remained not more
than fifty-four, including men, women, and children. Drought, and a
storm that poured down hailstones eight or nine inches in circumference,
greatly damaged the crops of corn and tobacco.
The following is found among the early records:--
"BY THE ADMIRAL, ETC.
"To all to whom these presents shall come, I, Samuel Argall,
Esq., admiral, and for the time present principal Governor of
Virginia, send greeting in our Lord God everlasting, si'thence
in all places of wars and garrison towns, it is most expedient
and necessary to have an honest and careful provost marshall,
to whose charge and safe custody all delinquents and prisoners
of what nature or quality soever their offences be, are to be
committed; now know ye that for the honesty, sufficiency, and
carefulness in the execution and discharge of the said office,
which I conceived of William Cradock, I do by these presents
nominate, constitute, ordain, and appoint the said William
Cradock to be provost marshall of the Bermuda City, and of all
the Hundred thereto belonging, giving and granting unto the
said William Cradock, all power and authority to execute all
such offices, duties, and commands belonging to the said place
of provost marshall; with all privileges, rights, and
preeminences thereunto belonging, and in all cases which
require his speedy execution of his said office, by virtue of
these presents, he shall require all captains, officers,
soldiers, or any other members of this colony, to be aiding
and assisting to him, to oppose all mutinies, factions,
rebellions, and all other discords contrary to the quiet and
peaceable government of this Commonwealth, as they will answer
the contrary at their peril.
"Given at Bermuda City this twentieth of February, in the 15th
year of the reign of our Sovereign Lord James, by the Grace of
God, King of England, and of Scotland the 51st, and in the
11th year of this Plantation. Anno Domini, 1617.
"Extract and recorded per John Rolf, Sec'y and Recorder Genl.
["Copia. Test. R. Hickman, Ck. Secy's office."]
To reinforce the colony the Company sent out a vessel of two hundred and
fifty tons, well stored, with two hundred and fifty people, under
command of Lord Delaware. They set sail in April, 1618; during the
voyage thirty died, and among them Lord Delaware, a generous friend of
the colony. The intelligence of his death reached London October fifth.
Stith[126:A] says: "And I think I have somewhere seen that he died about
the mouth of Delaware Bay, which thence took its name from him." Stith
fell into a mistake on this point, and Belknap, equally distinguished
for his general accuracy, has followed him.[126:B] Delaware Bay (the
mouth of the river called by the Indians Chihohocki) and River were
named as early as 1611, when Lord Delaware put in there, during his
homeward voyage.[126:C] According to Strachey, the bay was discovered in
1610, by Captain Argall, and he named Cape Delaware, "where he caught
halibut, cod, and ling fish, and brought some of them to Jamestown."
His lordship's family name was West, and persons descended from the same
stock are yet found in Virginia bearing the name. West-Point, at the
head of York, derived its name from the same source, and it was at first
called Delaware. Lord Delaware married, in 1602, the daughter of Sir
Thomas Shirley, of Whiston; and, perhaps, the name of Shirley, the
ancient seat on James River, may be traced to this source.
Martial law had already been established in Virginia by Dale; Argall
came over invested with powers to make the government still more
arbitrary and despotic, and bent upon acquiring gain by all possible
means of extortion and oppression. He decreed that goods should be sold
at an advance of twenty-five per cent., and tobacco rated at the
Procrustean value of three shillings--the penalty for rating it either
higher or lower being three years slavery to the colony; that there
should be no trade or intercourse with the Indians, and that none of
them should be taught the use of fire-arms; the penalty for violating
which ordinance was death to teacher and learner. Yet it has been
contended by some, that the use of fire-arms by the savages hastened
their extermination, because they thus became dependent on the whites
for arms and ammunition; when their guns came to be out of order they
became useless to them, for they wanted the skill to repair them; and,
lastly, fire-arms in their hands when effective, were employed by
hostile tribes in mutual destruction.
"The white faith of history cannot show
That e'er a musket yet could beat a bow."[127:A]
Argall also issued edicts that no one should hunt deer or hogs without
his leave; that no man should fire a gun before a new supply of
ammunition, except in self-defence, on pain of a year's slavery; absence
from church on Sundays or holidays, was punished by confinement for the
night and one week's slavery to the colony; for the second offence the
offender should be a slave for a month; and for the third, for a year
and a day. Several of these regulations were highly judicious, but the
penalties of some of them were excessive and barbarous, and the vigorous
enforcement of these, and his oppressive proceedings, rendered Argall
odious to the colony, and a report of his tyranny and extortions having
reached England, Sir Thomas Smith, Alderman Johnson, deputy treasurer,
Sir Lionel Cranfield, and others of the council, addressed a letter
dated August 23, 1618, to him, in which they recapitulated a series of
charges against him of dishonesty, corruption, and oppression. At the
same time a letter, of the same purport, was written to Lord Delaware,
and he was told, that such was the indignation felt by the stockholders
in the Virginia Company against Argall that they could hardly be
restrained from going to the king, although on a distant progress, and
procuring his majesty's command for recalling him as a malefactor. The
letter contained further instructions to Lord Delaware to seize upon all
the goods and property in Argall's possession. These letters, by Lord
Delaware's death, fell into Argall's hands, and finding his sand running
low, he determined to make the best of his remaining time, and so he
multiplied his exactions, and grew more tyrannical than ever. The case
of Edward Brewster was a remarkable instance of this. A person of good
repute in the colony, he had the management of Lord Delaware's estate.
Argall, without any rightful authority, removed the servants from his
lordship's land, and employed them on his own. Brewster endeavored to
make them return, and upon this being flatly refused by one of them,
threatened him with the consequences of his contumacy. Brewster was
immediately arrested by Argall's order, charged with sedition and
mutiny, and condemned to death by a court-martial. The members of the
court, however, and some of the clergy, shocked at such a conviction,
interceded earnestly for his pardon, and Argall reluctantly granted it
on condition that Brewster should depart from Virginia, with an oath
never to return, and never to say or do anything to the disparagement of
the deputy governor. Brewster, nevertheless, upon his return to England,
discarding the obligation of an oath extorted under duress, appealed to
the Company against the tyranny of the deputy governor, and the inhuman
sentence was reversed. John Rolfe, a friend of Argall, made light of the
affair.[128:A]
During this year, 1618, a ship called the Treasurer was sent out from
England by Lord Rich, who had now become Earl of Warwick, a person of
great note afterwards in the civil wars, and commander of the fleet
against the king. This ship was manned with recruits from the colony,
and dispatched on a semi-piratical cruise in the West Indies, where she
committed some depredations on the Spanish possessions.
Upon receiving intelligence of the death of Lord Delaware, the Virginia
Company appointed Captain George Yeardley, who was knighted upon this
occasion, Governor and Captain-General of Virginia. Before his arrival
in the colony Argall embarked for England, in a vessel laden with his
effects, and being a relation of Sir Thomas Smith, and a partner in
trade of the profligate Earl of Warwick, he escaped with impunity. In
1620 Argall commanded a ship-of-war in an expedition fitted out against
the Algerines, and in 1623 was knighted by King James. Argall's
character has been variously represented; he appears to have been an
expert mariner of talents, courage, enterprise, and energy, but selfish,
avaricious, unscrupulous, arbitrary and cruel.
In April, 1618, Powhatan died, being upwards of seventy years of age. He
was, perhaps, so called from one of his places of residence;[129:A] he
was also sometimes styled Ottaniack, and sometimes Mamanatowick,[129:B]
but his proper name was Wahunsonacock. The country subject to him was
called Powhatan, as was likewise the chief river, and his subjects were
called Powhatans. His hereditary domain consisted only of Powhatan,
Arrohattox, Appamatuck, Youghtanund, Pamunkey, and Matapony, together
with Werowocomoco and Kiskiack. All the rest were his conquests, and
they consisted of the country on the James River and its branches, from
its mouth to the falls, and thence across the country to the north,
nearly as high as the falls of all the great rivers over the Potomac, as
far as to the Patuxent in Maryland. Some nations on the Eastern Shore
also owned subjection to this mighty werowance. In each of his several
hereditary dominions he had houses built like arbors, thirty or forty
feet long, and whenever he was about to visit one of these, it was
supplied beforehand with provision for his entertainment. The English
first met with him at a place of his own name, (which it still retains,)
a short distance below the falls of James River, where now stands the
picturesque City of Richmond.[129:C] His favorite residence was
Werowocomoco, on the east bank of what is now known as Timberneck Bay,
on York River, in the County of Gloucester; but in his latter years,
disrelishing the increasing proximity of the English, he withdrew
himself to Orapakes, a hunting-town in the "desert," as it was called,
more properly the wilderness, between the Chickahominy and the Pamunkey.
It is not improbable that he died and was buried there, for a mile from
Orapakes, in the midst of the woods, he had a house where he kept his
treasure of furs, copper, pearl, and beads, "which he storeth up against
the time of his death and burial."[130:A] This place is about twelve
miles northeast from Richmond.
At the time of the first settlement of the colony, Powhatan was usually
attended, especially when asleep, by a body-guard of fifty tall
warriors; he afterwards augmented the number to about two hundred. He
had as many wives as he pleased, and when tired of any one of them, he
bestowed her on some favorite. In the year 1608, by treachery, he
surprised the Payanketanks, his own subjects, while asleep in their
cabins, massacred twenty-four men, and made prisoners their werowance
with the women and children, who were reduced to slavery. Captain Smith,
himself a prisoner, saw at Werowocomoco the scalps of the slain
suspended on a line between two trees. Powhatan caused certain
malefactors to be bound hand and foot, then a great quantity of burning
coals to be collected from a number of fires, and raked round in the
form of a cock-pit, and the victims of his barbarity thrown in the midst
and burnt to death.[130:B] He was not entirely destitute of some better
qualities; in him some touches of princely magnanimity are curiously
blended with huckstering cunning, and the tenderness of a doating father
with the cruelty of an unrelenting despot.
Powhatan was succeeded by his second brother, Opitchapan, sometimes
called Itopatin, or Oeatan, who, upon his accession, again changed his
name to Sasawpen; as Opechancanough, upon the like occasion, changed
his to Mangopeomen. Opitchapan being decrepid in body and inert in mind,
was in a short time practically superseded in the government by his
younger, bolder, and more ambitious brother, the famous Opechancanough;
though for a time he was content to be styled the Werowance of
Chickahominy. Both renewed the assurances of continued friendship with
the English.
FOOTNOTES:
[125:A] Stith, 147.
[126:A] Stith, 147.
[126:B] Belknap, ii. 115.
[126:C] Anderson's Hist. of Col. Church, i. 271-311.
[127:A] Cited in Logan's Scottish Gael, 223.
[128:A] Smith, ii. 37.
[129:A] Stith, 53.
[129:B] Strachey.
[129:C] In an act, dated 1705, found in the old "Laws of Virginia,"
mention is made of a ferry from Powhatantown to the landing at
Swineherd's. The site of this Powhatantown is on the upper part of
Flower de Hundred Plantation. Numerous Indian relics have been found
there, and earthworks, evidently thrown up for fortification, are still
extant. The name of Powhatantown was given to this spot by the whites.
Near Jamestown is the extensive Powhatan Swamp.
[130:A] Smith, i. 143.
[130:B] Smith, i. 144.
CHAPTER X.
Sir Walter Raleigh--His Birth and Parentage--Student at
Oxford--Enlists in Service of Queen of Navarre--His stay in
France--Returns to England--At the Middle Temple--Serves in
Netherlands and Ireland--Returns to England--His Gallantry--
Undertakes Colonization of Virginia--Member of Parliament--
Knighted--In Portuguese Expedition--Loses Favor at Court--
Retires to Ireland--Spenser--Sir Walter in the Tower--His
Flattery of the Queen--She grants him the Manor of Sherborne--
His Expedition to Guiana--Joins Expedition against Cadiz--
Wounded--Makes another Voyage to Guiana--Restored to Queen's
Favor--Contributes to Defeat of Treason of Essex--Raleigh made
Governor of Jersey--His Liberal Sentiments--Elizabeth's Death--
Accession of James the First--Raleigh confined in the Tower--
Found guilty of High Treason--Reprieved--Still a Prisoner in
the Tower--Devotes himself to Study--His Companions--His
"History of the World"--Lady Raleigh's Petition--Raleigh
Released--His Last Expedition to Guiana--Its Failure--His
Son killed--Sir Walter's Return to England--His Arrest,
Condemnation, Execution, Character.
DURING the same year, 1618, died the founder of Virginia colonization,
the famous Sir Walter Raleigh. He was born at Hayes, a farm in the
Parish of Budley, Devonshire, 1552, being the fourth son of Walter
Raleigh, Esq., of Fardel, near Plymouth, and Catharine, daughter of Sir
Philip Champernon, and widow of Otho Gilbert, of Compton, Devonshire.
After passing some time at Oriel College, Oxford, about the year 1568,
where he distinguished himself by his genius and attainments, at the age
of seventeen he joined a volunteer company of gentlemen, under Henry
Champernon, in an expedition to assist the Protestant Queen of Navarre.
He remained in France five years, and while in Paris, under the
protection of the English embassy, he witnessed the massacre of St.
Bartholomew's day. On returning to England he was for a while in the
Middle Temple; but whether as a student is uncertain. His leisure hours
were devoted to poetry. In the year 1578 he accompanied Sir John Norris
to the Netherlands. In the following year he joined in Sir Humphrey
Gilbert's first and unsuccessful voyage. Now, when at the age of
twenty-seven, it is said that of the twenty-four hours he allotted four
to study and only five to sleep; but this is rather improbable, for so
much activity of employment as always characterized him, demanded a
proportionate degree of repose. In 1580 he served in Ireland as captain
of horse, under Lord Grey, and became familiar with the dangers and
atrocities of civil war. In 1581, the following year, he became
acquainted with the poet Spenser, then resident at Kilcolman. Disgusted
with a painful service, Raleigh returned to England during this year,
and it was at this period that he exhibited a famous piece of gallantry
to the queen. She, in a walk, coming to a "plashy place," hesitated to
proceed, when he "cast and spread his new plush cloak on the ground" for
her to tread on. By his graceful wit and fascinating manners, he rose
rapidly in Elizabeth's favor, and "she took him for a kind of oracle."
His munificent and persevering efforts in the colonization of Virginia
ought to have moderated the too sweeping charge of levity and fickleness
brought against him by Hume.
During the year 1583 Raleigh became member of Parliament for Devonshire;
was knighted, and made Seneschal of Cornwall and Warden of the
Stanneries. Engaged in the expedition whose object was to place Don
Antonio on the throne of Portugal, Sir Walter for his good conduct
received a gold chain from the queen. The rivalship of the Earl of Essex
having driven Raleigh into temporary exile in Ireland, he there renewed
his acquaintance with the author of the "Faery Queen," who accompanied
him on his return to England.
Sir Walter was arrested in 1592, and confined in the Tower, on account
of a criminal intrigue with one of the maids of honor, who was
imprisoned at the same time; and this incident is alluded to in Sir
Walter Scott's "Fortunes of Nigel." The lady was Elizabeth, daughter of
Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, and a celebrated beauty, whom Raleigh
afterwards married. In a letter written from the Tower, and addressed to
Sir Robert Cecil, Raleigh indulged in a vein of extravagant flattery of
the queen: "I that was wont to behold her riding like Alexander, hunting
like Diana, walking like Venus--the gentle wind blowing her fair hair
about her pure cheeks like a nymph; sometime sitting in the shade like a
goddess; sometime singing like an angel; sometime playing like
Orpheus." Elizabeth was at this time about sixty years old.
In 1593 she granted him the Manor of Sherborne, in Dorsetshire. About
this period he distinguished himself in the House of Commons. In 1595 he
commanded an expedition to Guiana, in quest of the golden El Dorado, and
another in the following year. In an expedition against Cadiz he led the
van in action, and received a severe wound in the leg. Upon his return
to England he embarked in his third voyage to Guiana. In 1597 he was
restored to his place of captain of the guard, and entirely reinstated
in the queen's favor.
Essex having engaged in a rash treasonable conspiracy, the object of
which was to seize upon the queen's person, so as thereby to control the
government, Raleigh aided in defeating his designs. But after the
execution of his popular rival, Raleigh's fortune began to wane.
Nevertheless, in 1600 he was made Governor of the Isle of Jersey. In the
following year, in a speech made in Parliament on an act for sowing
hemp, Sir Walter said: "For my part, I do not like this constraining of
men to manure or use their grounds at our wills, but rather let every
man use his ground to that which it is most fit for, and therein use his
discretion." Queen Elizabeth died in 1603, and Raleigh's happiness ended
with her life.
James the First came to the throne of Great Britain prejudiced against
Raleigh. He was also at this time extremely unpopular, and especially
odious to the friends of the highly gifted, but rash and unfortunate
Earl of Essex. In three months after the arrival of King James in
England, Sir Walter was arrested on a charge of high treason, in
conspiring with the Lords Cobham and Grey to place the Lady Arabella
Stuart on the throne. Arraigned on charges frivolous and contradictory,
tried under circumstances of insult and oppression, he was found guilty
without any sufficient evidence. By their conduct on this occasion, Sir
Edward Coke, Lord Chief Justice Popham, and Sir Robert Cecil proved
themselves fit tools for the abject and heartless James. Raleigh, though
reprieved, remained a prisoner in the Tower at the king's mercy.
Lady Raleigh and her son were not excluded from the Tower, and Carew,
the youngest, was born there. During his long confinement, Sir Walter
devoted himself to literature and science, and enjoyed the society of a
few friends, among them Hariot and the Earl of Northumberland, who was
likewise a State prisoner. Sir Walter was also frequently visited by
Prince Henry, the heir-apparent, who was devotedly attached to him, and
who said that "none but his father would keep such a bird in a cage."
Prince Charles, on the contrary, appears to have entertained a strong
dislike to him. In the Tower Raleigh composed his great work, the
"History of the World," the first volume of which appeared in the year
1614; it extended from the creation to the close of the Macedonian war,
and embraced a period of about four thousand years. It was dedicated to
Prince Henry. Raleigh intended to compose two other volumes, but owing
to the untimely death of that prince, and to the suppression of it by
King James, on the ground that it censured princes too freely, and
perhaps to the magnitude of the task, he proceeded no further than the
first volume. Oliver Cromwell recommended this work to his son.
During his confinement the king gave away Raleigh's estate of Sherborne
to his favorite, Sir Robert Carr, afterwards the infamous Viscount
Rochester and Earl of Somerset, who swayed the influence at Court from
1611 to 1615, when he was supplanted by the equally corrupt George
Villiers, Duke of Buckingham.
When Lady Raleigh, with her children around her, kneeling in tears,
besought James to restore this estate, the only answer she received was,
"I maun have the land, I maun have it for Carr." At length, owing in
part to the death of some of his enemies, and in part to the influence
of money, Sir Walter Raleigh was released from the Tower for the purpose
of making another voyage to Guiana. The expedition failed in its object,
and Sir Walter, after losing his son in an action with the Spaniards,
returned to England, where he was arrested.
James was now wholly bent on effecting a match between his son, Prince
Charles, afterwards Charles the First, and the Spanish Infanta, and to
gratify the Court of Spain and his own malignity, he resolved to
sacrifice Raleigh. He was condemned, after a most eloquent defence,
under the old conviction of 1603, notwithstanding that he had been
recently commissioned commander of a fleet and Governor of Guiana,
which had unquestionably annulled that conviction. "He was condemned
(said his son Carew) for being a friend of the Spaniards, and lost his
life for being their bitter enemy."
Queen Anne, then in declining health, interceded for him, not long
before his execution, in the following note, addressed to the Marquis of
Buckingham:--
"MY KIND DOG:--
"If I have any power or credit with you, in dealing sincerely
and earnestly with the king, that Sir Walter Raleigh's life
may not be called in question. If you do it so that the
success answer my expectation, assure yourself that I will
take it extraordinarily kindly at your hands, and rest one
that wisheth you well, and desires you to continue still (as
you have been) a true servant to your master.
"ANNE R."[136:A]
Sir Walter Raleigh was executed on the twenty-ninth day of October,
1618, in the Old Palace Yard. He died with Christian heroism.
Distinguished as a navigator and discoverer, a naval and military
commander, an author in prose and verse, a wit, a courtier, a statesman
and philosopher, there is perhaps in English history no name associated
with such lofty and versatile genius, so much glorious action, and so
much wise reflection. He was indeed proud, fond of splendor, of a
restless and fiery ambition, sometimes unscrupulous. An ardent
imagination, excited by the enthusiasm of an extraordinary age, infused
an extravagance and marvellousness into some of his relations of his
voyages and discoveries, that gave some occasion for distrust. The ardor
of his temperament and an over-excited imagination involved him in
several projects that terminated unhappily. But with his weaknesses and
his faults he united noble virtues, and Virginia will ever be proud of
so illustrious a founder.[136:B]
The Queen Anne, of Denmark, who had in vain employed her kind offices
in his behalf, did not long survive him; she died in March, 1619.
Without any extraordinary qualities, she was accomplished, distinguished
for the easy elegance of her manners, amiable, and the generous friend
of the oppressed and unfortunate.
FOOTNOTES:
[136:A] Miss Strickland's Lives of Queens of England, vii. 357.
[136:B] Oldy's Life of Raleigh, 74; Belknap, i. art. Raleigh, 289, 370;
"A Brief Relation of Sir Walter Raleigh's Troubles," Harleian Mis., No.
100. There are also lives of Raleigh by Birch, Cayley, Southey, and Mrs.
Thompson.
CHAPTER XI.
1619.
Sir Edwin Sandys, Treasurer of London Company--Powell, Deputy
Governor--Sir George Yeardley, Governor--First Assembly
meets--Its Proceedings.
SIR THOMAS SMITH, Treasurer or Governor of the Virginia Company, was
displaced in 1618, and succeeded by Sir Edwin Sandys.[138:A] 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 afterwards travelled in foreign countries, and
published his observations in a work entitled "Europae 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 ascendant. His name is spelt sometimes Sandis,
sometimes Sands. Sir Thomas Smith was shortly after reappointed, by the
Virginia Company, President of the Somers Islands.
When Argall, in April, stole away from Virginia, he left for his deputy,
Captain Nathaniel Powell,[138:B] 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
his office only about ten days, when Sir George Yeardley, recently
knighted, arrived as Governor-General, bringing with him new charters
for the colony. He added to the council Captain Francis West, Captain
Nathaniel Powell, John Rolfe, William Wickham, and Samuel
Macock.[139:A] John Rolfe, who had been secretary, now lost his place,
probably owing to his connivance at Argall's malepractices, 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 for
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 legislative assembly that
ever met in America. It assembled at James City or Jamestown, on Friday,
the 30th of July, 1619, upwards 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.[139:B]
John Pory, Secretary of the Colony, was chosen Speaker, and John Twine,
Clerk. The Assembly sate 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. Objection was 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 of the
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 catechise 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 the
fourth of August, to prorogue the Assembly till the first of
March.[142:A] 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.
FOOTNOTES:
[138:A] Court and Times of James the First, i. 161.
[138:B] A Welsh name.
[139:A] Macocks, the seat on James River, opposite to Berkley, was
called after this planter, who was the first proprietor.
[139:B] This interesting document, discovered by Mr. Bancroft, was
published by the New York Historical Society in 1857, and a number of
copies were sent to Richmond by George Henry Moore, Esq., Secretary of
that Society, for distribution among the members of the Assembly. The
attention of Virginians was first drawn to the existence of this
document by Conway Robinson, Esq., Chairman of the Executive Committee
of the Virginia Historical Society.
The number of burgesses was twenty-two. For James City, Captain William
Powell, Ensign William Spense; for Charles City, Samuel Sharpe and
Samuel Jordan; for the City of Henricus, Thomas Dowse, John Polentine;
for Kiccowtan, Captain William Tucker, William Capp; for Martin-Brandon,
Captain John Martin's Plantation, Mr. Thomas Davis, Mr. Robert Stacy;
for Smythe's Hundred, Captain Thomas Graves, Mr. Walter Shelley; for
Martin's Hundred, Mr. John Boys, John Jackson; for Argall's Gift, Mr.
Pawlett, Mr. Gourgainy; for Flowerdieu Hundred, Ensign Rossingham, Mr.
Jefferson; for Captain Lawne's Plantation, Captain Christopher Lawne,
Ensign Washer; for Captain Ward's Plantation, Captain Ward, Lieutenant
Gibbes.
[142:A] Proceedings of the First Assembly of Virginia, in 1619.
CHAPTER XII.
1619-1621.
The New Laws--Yeardley, Governor--Affairs of the Colony--
Landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth--Negroes Imported into
Virginia--Supplies sent out from England--Wives for the
Colonists--The Bishops directed to take up Collections for aid
of the Colony in erecting Churches and Schools--England claims
a Monopoly of Virginia Tobacco--Charitable Donations.
THUS after eleven years of suffering, peril, discord, and tyranny,
intermingled with romantic adventure, bold enterprise, the dignity of
danger, virtuous fortitude, and generous heroism, were at length
established a local legislature and a regular administration of right.
The Virginia planters expressed their gratitude to the company, and
begged them to reduce into a compend, with his majesty's approbation,
such of the laws of England as were applicable to Virginia, with
suitable additions, "because it was not fit that his subjects should be
governed by any other rules than such as received their influence from
him." The acts of the Assembly were transmitted to England for the
approval of the treasurer and company. They were thought to have been
very judiciously framed, but the company's committee found them
"exceeding intricate and full of labor." There was granted to the old
planters an exemption from all compulsive service to the colony, with a
confirmation of their estates, which were to be holden as by English
subjects.
It is remarkable, that from about 1614, for some seven years, James the
First had governed England without a parliament; and the Virginia
Company was during this period a rallying point for the friends of civil
and religious freedom, and the colony enjoyed the privilege, denied to
the mother country, of holding a legislative assembly.
Yeardley finding a scarcity of corn, undertook to promote the
cultivation of it, and this year was blessed with abundant crops of
grain. But an extraordinary mortality carried off not less than three
hundred of the people. Three thousand acres of land were allotted to the
governor, and twelve thousand to the company. The Margaret, of Bristol,
arrived with some settlers, and "also many devout gifts." The Trial
brought a cargo of corn and cattle. The expenditure of the Virginia
Company at this period, on account of the colony, was estimated at
between four and five thousand pounds a year.
A body of English Puritans, persecuted on account of their
nonconformity, had, in 1608, sought an asylum in Holland. In 1617 they
conceived the design of removing to America, and in 1619 they obtained
from the Virginia Company, by the influence of Sir Edward Sandys, the
treasurer, "a large patent," authorizing them to settle in Virginia.
They embarked in the latter part of the year 1620, in the Mayflower,
intending to settle somewhere near the Hudson River, which lay within
the Virginia Company's territory. The Pilgrims were, however, conducted
to the bleak and barren coast of Massachusetts, where they landed on the
twenty-second day of December, (new style,) 1620, on the rock of
Plymouth. Thus, thirteen years after the settlement of Jamestown, was
laid the foundation of the New England States. The place of their
landing was beyond the limits of the Virginia Company.
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 sent out, at the expense of the
Earl of Warwick, on a "filibustering" cruise to the West Indies, a ship
called the Treasurer, manned "with the ablest men in the colony," under
an old commission from the Duke of Savoy against the Spanish dominions
in the western hemisphere. 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.[144:A]
It is probable that the planters who purchased the negroes from the
Dutch man-of-war 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.[145:A]
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 their native country. This first purchase
was probably not looked upon as a matter of much consequence, and for
several ages 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.[145:B] 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 slave-holder, 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.[146:A]
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 and twenty pounds of tobacco, and it was ordered that this debt
should have precedence of all others. The price of a wife afterwards
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.[146:B]
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.[147:A]
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.[147:B]
Two persons unknown presented plate and ornaments for the
communion-table at the college, and at Mrs. Mary Robinson's Church, so
called because she had contributed two hundred pounds toward the
founding of it. Another person unknown gave five hundred and fifty
pounds for the education of Indian children in Christianity; he
subscribed himself "Dust and Ashes;" and was afterwards discovered to be
Mr. Gabriel Barber, a member of the company.
FOOTNOTES:
[144:A] Belknap, art. Argall, citing Declaration of Va. Council, 1623,
and Burk's Hist. of Va., i. 319; Smith, ii. 39, where Rolfe gives the
true date, 1619; Stith, 171; Beverley, B. i. 37; Chalmers' Annals, 49;
Burk, i. 211, and Hening, i. 146, all (as Bancroft, i. 177, remarks,)
rely on Beverley. It may be added, that they were all misled by him in
making the date 1620. I was enabled to rectify this date by an
intimation from the Rev. Dr. Wm. H. Foote, author of "Sketches of
Virginia."
[145:A] Burk, i. 211.
[145:B] Bancroft, iii. 402.
[146:A] They were disposed of in the following way: eighty tenants for
the governor's land, one hundred and thirty for the company's land, one
hundred for the college, fifty for the glebe, ninety young women of good
character for wives, fifty servants, fifty whose labors were to support
thirty Indian children; the rest were distributed among private
plantations.
[146:B] The following is a copy of the letter addressed by the king on
this occasion to the archbishops, authorizing them to invite the members
of the church throughout the kingdom to assist in the establishment of
the college, and such works of piety. The exact date of the letter has
not been ascertained; but it was about the year 1620. It has never been
published until recently, and is the first document of the kind ever
issued in England for the benefit of the colonies. It is as follows:--
"Most reverend father in God, right, trusty, and well-beloved
counsellor, we greet you well. You have heard ere this time of
the attempt of divers worthy men, our subjects, to plant in
Virginia, (under the warrant of our letters patents,) people
of this kingdom as well as for the enlarging of our dominions,
as for the propagation of the gospel amongst infidels: wherein
there is good progress made and hope of further increase; so
as the undertakers of that plantation are now in hand with the
erecting of some churches and schools for the education of the
children of those barbarians, which cannot but be to them a
very great charge and above the expense which, for the civil
plantation, doth come to them. In which we doubt not but that
you and all others who wish well to the increase of Christian
religion, will be willing to give all assistance and
furtherance, you may, and therein to make experience of the
zeal and devotion of our well-minded subjects, especially
those of the clergy. Wherefore we do require you, and hereby
authorize you to write your letters to the several bishops of
the dioceses in your province, that they do give order to the
ministers and other zealous men of their dioceses, both by
their own example in contribution and by exhortation to others
to move our people within their several charges to contribute
to so good a work, in as liberal a manner as they may; for the
better advancing whereof our pleasure is, that those
collections be made in all the particular parishes, four
several times within these two years next coming; and that the
several accounts of each parish, together with the moneys
collected, be returned from time to time to the bishops of the
dioceses, and by them be transmitted half yearly to you; and
so to be delivered to the treasurer of that plantation to be
employed for the godly purposes intended, and no other."
(_Anderson's Hist. of Col. Church_, i. 315; _Stith's Hist. of
Va._, 159.)
[147:A] Mr. Jefferson appears to have fallen into a mistake as to the
period of time when malefactors were first shipped over to this country
from England, for he says: "It was at a late period of their history
that the practice began." (_Writings of Jefferson_, i. 405.)
[147:B] Chalmers' Introduc., i. 15. The following letter accompanied a
shipment of marriageable females sent out from England to Virginia:--
"LONDON, _August 21, 1621_.
"We send you a shipment, one widow and eleven maids, for wives
of the people of Virginia: there hath been especial care had
in the choice of them, for there hath not one of them been
received but upon good commendations.
"In case they cannot be presently married, we desire that they
may be put with several householders that have wives, until
they can be provided with husbands. There are nearly fifty
more that are shortly to come, and are sent by our honorable
lord and treasurer, the Earl of Southampton, and certain
worthy gentlemen, who, taking into consideration that the
plantation can never flourish till families be planted, and
the respect of wives and children for their people on the
soil, therefore having given this fair beginning; reimbursing
of whose charges it is ordered that every man that marries
them, give one hundred and twenty pounds of best leaf tobacco
for each of them.
"We desire that the marriage be free according to nature, and
we would not have those maids deceived and married to
servants, but only to such freemen or tenants as have means to
maintain them. We pray you, therefore, to be fathers of them
in this business, not enforcing them to marry against their
wills." (_Hubbard's note in Belknap_, art. ARGALL.)
CHAPTER XIII.
Proceedings in London of Virginia Company--Lord Southampton
elected Treasurer--Sir Francis Wyat appointed Governor--New
frame of Government--Instructions for Governor and Council--
George Sandys, Treasurer in Virginia--Notice of his Life and
published Works--Productions of the Colony.
SIR EDWIN SANDYS held the office of treasurer of the company but for one
year, being excluded from a re-election by the arbitrary interference of
the king. The election was by ballot. The day for it having arrived, the
company met, consisting of twenty peers of the realm, near one hundred
knights, together with as many more of gallant officers and grave
lawyers, and a large number of worthy citizens--an imposing array of
rank, and wealth, and talents, and influence. Sir Edwin Sandys being
first nominated as a candidate, a lord of the bedchamber and another
courtier announced that it was the king's pleasure not to have Sir Edwin
Sandys chosen; and because he was unwilling to infringe their right of
election, he (the king) would nominate three persons, and permit the
company to choose one of them. The company, nevertheless, voted to
proceed to an election, as they had a right to do under the charter. Sir
Edwin Sandys withdrew his name from nomination, and, at his suggestion
it was finally agreed that the king's messengers should name two
candidates, and the company one. Upon counting the ballots, it was
ascertained that one of the royal candidates received only one vote, and
the other only two. The Earl of Southampton received all the rest.
The Virginia Company was divided into two parties, the minority enjoying
the favor of the king, and headed by the Earl of Warwick; the other, the
liberal, or opposition, or reform party, headed by the Earl of
Southampton. The Warwick faction were greatly embittered against
Yeardley, and their virulence was increased by his having intercepted a
packet from his own secretary, Pory, containing proofs of Argall's
misconduct, to be used against him at his trial, which the secretary
had been bribed by his friend, the Earl of Warwick, to convey to him.
The mild and gentle Yeardley, overcome by these annoyances, at length
requested leave to retire from the cares of office. His commission
expired in November, 1621; but he continued in the colony, was a member
of the council, and enjoyed the respect and esteem of the people. During
his short administration, many new settlements were made on the James
and York rivers; and the planters, being now 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 the 24th, 1621, establishing a council of State and a general
assembly--vesting the governor with a negative upon the acts of the
assembly; this body to be convoked by him in general once a year, and to
consist of the council of State and of two burgesses from every town,
hundred, or plantation; the trial by jury secured; no act of the
assembly to be valid unless ratified by the company in England; and, on
the other hand, no order of the company to be obligatory upon the colony
without the consent of the assembly. This last feature displays that
spirit of constitutional freedom which then pervaded the Virginia
Company. A commission bearing the same date with the new frame of
government recognized Sir Francis Wyat as the first governor under it;
and this famous ordinance became the model of every subsequent
provincial form of government in the Anglo-American colonies.[150:A]
Wyat brought with him also a body of instructions intended for the
permanent guidance of the governor and council. He was to provide for
the service of God in conformity with the Church of England as near as
may be; to be obedient to the king, and to administer justice according
to the laws of England; not to injure the natives, and to forget old
quarrels now buried; to be industrious, and to suppress drunkenness,
gaming, and excess in clothes; not to permit any but the council and
heads of hundreds to wear gold in their clothes, or to wear silk, till
they make it themselves; not to offend any foreign prince; to punish
pirates; to build forts; to endeavor to convert the heathen; and each
town to teach some of the Indian children fit for the college which was
to be built; to cultivate corn, wine, and silk; to search for minerals,
dyes, gums, and medicinal drugs, and to draw off the people from the
excessive planting of tobacco; to take a census of the colony; to put
'prentices 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.
Wyat, entering on the duties of his office on the eighteenth of
November, dispatched Mr. Thorpe to renew the treaties of peace and
friendship with Opechancanough, who was found apparently well affected
and ready to confirm the pledges of harmony. A vessel from Ireland
brought in eighty immigrants, who planted themselves at Newport's News.
The company sent out during this year twenty-one vessels, navigated with
upwards of four hundred sailors, and bringing over thirteen hundred men,
women, and children. The aggregate number of settlers that arrived
during 1621 and 1622 was three thousand five hundred.
With Sir Francis Wyat came over George Sandys, treasurer in Virginia,
brother of Sir Edwin Sandys, treasurer of the company in England. George
Sandys, who was born in 1577, after passing some time at Oxford, in
1610, travelled over Europe to Turkey, and visited Palestine and Egypt.
He published his travels, at Oxford, in 1615, and they were received
with great favor. The first poetical production in Anglo-American
literature was composed by him, while secretary of the colony; and in
the midst of the confusion which followed the massacre of 1622,--"by
that imperfect light which was snatched from the hours of night and
repose,"--he translated the Metamorphoses of Ovid and the First Book of
Virgil's AEneid, which was published in 1626, and dedicated to King
Charles the First. He also published several other works, and enjoyed
the favor of the literary men of the day. Dryden pronounced Sandys the
best versifier of his age. Pope declared that English poetry owed much
of its beauty to his translations; and Montgomery, the poet, renders his
meed of praise to the beauty of the Psalms translated by him. Having
lived chiefly in retirement, he died in 1643, at the house of Sir
Francis Wyat, in Bexley, Kent. A fine copy of the translation of Ovid
and Virgil, printed in 1632, in folio, elegantly illustrated, once the
property of the Duke of Sussex, is now in the library of Mr. Grigsby.
Mr. Thomas H. Wynne, of Richmond, also has a copy of this rare work.
FOOTNOTES:
[150:A] Chalmers' Introduc., i. 13-16; Belknap, art. SIR FRANCIS WYAT.
Belknap is an excellent authority, as accurate as Stith without his
diffuseness; and Hubbard's notes are worthy of the text. The ordinance
and commission may be seen in Hening's Statutes at Large, i. 110-113.
CHAPTER XIV.
Use of Tobacco in England--Raleigh's Habits of Smoking--His
Tobacco-box--Anecdotes of Smoking--King James, his Counterblast
--Denunciations against Tobacco--Amount of Tobacco Imported.
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 the First 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 it 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.[154:A]
Although Sir Walter 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 smokes was called the Kemble pipe.
The writer of a pamphlet, supposed to have been Milton's father,
describes many of the play-books 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 caudle 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 chamber 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 Sir Walter Raleigh that he used 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.
As early as the year 1610 tobacco was in general use in England. The
manner of using it was partly to inhale the smoke and blow it out
through the nostrils, and this was called "drinking tobacco," and this
practice continued until the latter part of the reign of James the
First. In 1614 the number of tobacco-houses in or near London was
estimated at seven thousand. In 1620 was chartered the Society of
Tobacco-pipe Makers of London; they bore on their shield a tobacco-plant
in full blossom.
The "Counterblast against Tobacco," attributed to James the First, if in
some parts absurd and puerile, yet is not without a good deal of just
reasoning and good sense; some fair hits are made in it, and those who
have ridiculed that production might find it not easy to controvert some
of its views. King James, in his Counterblast, does not omit the
opportunity of expressing his hatred toward Sir Walter Raleigh, in terms
worthy of that despicable monarch. He continued his opposition to
tobacco as long as he lived, and in his ordinary conversation oftentimes
argued and inveighed against it.
The Virginia tobacco in early times was imported into England in the
leaf, in bundles, as at present; the Spanish or West Indian tobacco in
balls. Molasses or other liquid preparation was used in preparing those
balls. Tobacco was then, as now, adulterated in various ways. The nice
retailer kept it in what were called lily-pots, that is, white jars. The
tobacco was cut on a maple block; juniper-wood, which retains fire well,
was used for lighting pipes, and among the rich silver tongs were
employed for taking up a coal of it. Tobacco was sometimes called the
American Silver Weed.
The Turkish Vizier thrust pipes through the noses of smokers; and the
Shah of Persia cropped the ears and slit the noses of those who made use
of the fascinating leaf. The Counterblast says of it: "And for the
vanity committed in this filthy custom, is it not both great vanity and
uncleanness, that at the table--a place of respect of cleanliness, of
modesty--men should not be ashamed to sit tossing of tobacco-pipes and
puffing of smoke, one at another, making the filthy smoke and stink
thereof to exhale athwart the dishes, and infect the air, when very
often men who abhor it are at their repast? Surely smoke becomes a
kitchen far better than a dining-chamber; and yet it makes the kitchen
oftentimes in the inward parts of man, soiling and infecting them with
an unctuous and oily kind of soot, as hath been found in some great
tobacco-takers that after their deaths were opened."
"A Counterblast to Tobacco," by James the First, King of England, was
first printed in quarto, without name or date, at London, 1616. In the
frontispiece was engraved the tobacco-smoker's coat of arms, consisting
of a blackamoor's head, cross-pipes, cross-bones, death's-head, etc. It
is not improbable that it was intended to foment the popular prejudice
against Sir Walter Raleigh, who first introduced the use of tobacco into
England, and who was put to death in the same year, 1616. King James
alludes to the introduction of the use of tobacco and of Raleigh as
follows: "It is not so long since the first entry of this abuse among us
here, as that this present age cannot very well remember both the first
author and the form of the first introduction of it among us. It was
neither brought in by king, great conqueror, nor learned doctor of
physic. With the report of a great discovery for a conquest, some two or
three savage men were brought in together with this savage custom; but
the pity is, the poor wild barbarous men died, but that vile barbarous
custom is still alive, yea, in fresh vigor; so as it seems a miracle to
me how a custom springing from so vile a ground, and brought in by a
father so generally hated, should be welcomed upon so slender a
warrant."
The king thus reasons against the Virginia staple: "Secondly, it is, as
you use or rather abuse it, a branch of the sin of drunkenness, which is
the root of all sins,[156:A] for as the only delight that drunkards love
any weak or sweet drink, so are not those (I mean the strong heat and
fume) the only qualities that make tobacco so delectable to all the
lovers of it? And as no man loves strong heavy drinks the first day,
(because nemo repente fuit turpissimus,) but by custom is piece and
piece allured, while in the end a drunkard will have as great a thirst
to be drunk as a sober man to quench his thirst with a draught when he
hath need of it; so is not this the true case of all the great takers of
tobacco, which therefore they themselves do attribute to a bewitching
quality in it? Thirdly, is it not the greatest sin of all that you, the
people of all sorts of this kingdom, who are created and ordained by God
to bestow both your persons and goods for the maintenance both of the
honor and safety of your king and commonwealth, should disable yourself
to this shameful imbecility, that you are not able to ride or walk the
journey of a Jew's Sabbath but you must have a reeky coal brought you
from the next poor-house to kindle your tobacco with? whereas he cannot
be thought able for any service in the wars that cannot endure oftimes
the want of meat, drink, and sleep; much more then must he endure the
want of tobacco." A curious tractate on tobacco, by Dr. Tobias Venner,
was published at London in 1621. The author was a graduate of Oxford,
and a physician at Bath, and is mentioned in the Oxoniae
Athenienses.[157:A]
The amount of tobacco imported in 1619 into England, from Virginia,
being the entire crop of the preceding year, was twenty thousand pounds.
At the end of seventy years there were annually imported into England
more than fifteen millions of pounds of it, from which was derived a
revenue of upwards of L100,000.[157:B]
In April, 1621, the House of Commons debated whether it was expedient to
prohibit the importation of tobacco entirely; and they determined to
exclude all save from Virginia and the Somer Isles. It was estimated
that the consumption of England amounted to one thousand pounds per
diem. This seductive narcotic leaf, which soothes the mind and quiets
its perturbations, has found its way into all parts of the habitable
globe, from the sunny tropics to the snowy regions of the frozen pole.
Its fragrant smoke ascends alike to the blackened rafters of the lowly
hut, and the gilded ceilings of luxurious wealth.
FOOTNOTES:
[154:A] Introduction to "A Counterblast to Tobacco, by James the First,
King of England," published at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 1843.
[156:A] And one from which the king himself was not free.
[157:A] A copy of this rare pamphlet was lent me by N. S. Walker, Esq.,
of Richmond.
[157:B] Chalmers, Introduc. to Hist. of Revolt of Amer. Colonies, i. 13.
CHAPTER XV.
1621-1622.
Silk in Virginia--Endowment of East India School--Ministers in
Virginia--Sermon at Bow Church--Corporation of Henrico.
IN November and December, 1621, at an assembly held at James City, acts
were passed for encouraging the planting of mulberry-trees, and the
making of silk; but this enterprise, so early commenced in Virginia, and
so earnestly revived of late years, is still unsuccessful; and it may be
concluded that the climate of Virginia is unpropitious to that sort of
production.
The Rev. Mr. Copeland, Chaplain on board of the Royal James, East
Indiaman, on the return voyage from the East Indies, prevailed upon the
officers and crew of that ship to contribute seventy pounds toward the
establishment of a church and school in Virginia, and Charles City
County was selected as the site of it, and it was to be called the East
India School, and to be dependent upon the college at Henrico. The
Virginia Company allotted one thousand acres of land for the maintenance
of the master and usher, and presented three hundred acres to Mr.
Copeland. Workmen were accordingly sent out early in 1622, to begin the
building. The clergymen in Virginia at this time were Messrs. Whitaker,
Mease, Wickham, Stockham, and Bargrave.[158:A]
Early in 1622 very favorable intelligence from Virginia reached
England, and upon this occasion, on the seventeenth of April, the Rev.
Mr. Copeland, by appointment, preached before the Virginia Company, at
Bow Church. He was shortly afterwards appointed a member of the Virginia
Council and rector of the college established for the conversion of the
Indians; but all these benevolent purposes and hopeful anticipations
were suddenly darkened and defeated by the news of a catastrophe which
had, in a few hours, blasted the labors of so many years.
FOOTNOTES:
[158:A] The following is found in the early records:--
THE CORPORATION OF HENRICO.
On the northerly ridge of James River, from the falls down to
Henrico, containing ten miles in length, are the public lands,
surveyed and laid out; whereof, ten thousand acres for the
university lands, three thousand acres for the company's
lands, with other lands belonging to the college. The common
land for that corporation, fifteen hundred acres.
On the southerly side, beginning from the falls, there are
there patented, viz.:--
Acres.
John Petterson 100
Anthony Edwards 100
Nathaniel Norton 100
John Proctor 200
Thomas Tracy 100
John Vithard 100
Francis Weston 300
Phettiplace Close 100
John Price 150
Peter Nemenart 110
William Perry 100
John Plower 100
Surveyed for the use of the iron-work.
Edward Hudson 100
Thomas Morgan 150
Thomas Sheffield 150
Cosendale, within the Corporation of Henrico:--
Acres.
Lieut. Edward Barckley 112
Richard Poulton 100
Robert Analand 200
John Griffin 50
Peter Nemenart 40
Thomas Tindall 100
Thomas Reed 100
John Laydon 200
CHAPTER XVI.
1622.
The Massacre--Its Origin, Nemattanow--Opechancanough--Security
of Colonists--Perfidy of the Indians--Particulars of Massacre--
Its Consequences--Brave Defence of some--Supplies sent from
England--Captain Smith's Offer.
ON the twenty-second day of March, 1622, there occurred in the colony a
memorable massacre, which originated, as was believed, in the following
circumstances: There was among the Indians a famous chief, named
Nemattanow, or "Jack of the Feather," as he was styled by the English,
from his fashion of decking his hair. He was reckoned by his own people
invulnerable to the arms of the English. This Nemattanow coming to the
store of one of the settlers named Morgan, persuaded him to go to
Pamunkey to trade, and murdered him by the way. Nemattanow, in two or
three days, returned to Morgan's house, and finding there two young men,
Morgan's servants, who inquired for their master, answered them that he
was dead. The young men, seeing their master's cap on the Indian's head,
suspected the murder, and undertook to conduct him to Mr. Thorpe, who
then lived at Berkley, on the James River, since well known as a seat of
the Harrisons, and originally called "Brickley." Nemattanow so
exasperated the young men on the way that they shot him, and he falling,
they put him into a boat and conveyed him to the governor at Jamestown,
distant seven or eight miles. The wounded chief in a short time died.
Feeling the approaches of death, he entreated the young men not to
disclose that he had been mortally wounded by a bullet: so strong is the
desire for posthumous fame even in the breast of a wild, untutored
savage!
Opechancanough, the ferocious Indian chief, agitated with mingled
emotions of grief and indignation at the loss of his favorite
Nemattanow, at first muttered threats of revenge; but the retorted
defiance of the English made him for a time smother his resentment and
dissemble his dark designs under the guise of friendship. Accordingly,
upon Sir Francis Wyat's arrival, all suspicion of Indian treachery had
died away; the colonists, in delusive security, were in general
destitute of arms; the plantations lay dispersed, as caprice suggested,
or a rich vein of land allured, as for as the Potomac River;[161:A]
their houses everywhere open to the Indians, who fed at their tables and
lodged under their roofs. About the middle of March, a messenger being
sent upon some occasion to Opechancanough, he entertained him kindly,
and protested that he held the peace so firm that "the sky should fall
before he broke it." On the twentieth of the same month, the Indians
guided some of the English safely through the forest, and the more
completely to lull all suspicion, they sent one Brown, who was
sojourning among them for the purpose of learning their language, back
home to his master. They even borrowed boats from the whites to cross
the river when about holding a council on the meditated attack. The
massacre took place on Friday, the twenty-second of March, 1622. On the
evening before, and on that very morning, the Indians, as usual, came
unarmed into the houses of the unsuspecting colonists, with fruits,
fish, turkeys, and venison for sale: in some places they actually sate
down to breakfast with the English. At about the hour of noon the
savages, rising suddenly and everywhere at the same time, butchered the
colonists with their own implements, sparing neither age, nor sex, nor
condition; and thus fell in a few hours three hundred and forty-nine
men, women, and children. The infuriated savages wreaked their vengeance
even on the dead, dragging and mangling the lifeless bodies, smearing
their hands in blood, and bearing off the torn and yet palpitating limbs
as trophies of a brutal triumph.
Among their victims was Mr. George Thorpe, (a kinsman of Sir Thomas
Dale,) who had been of the king's bedchamber, deputy to the college
lands, and one of the principal men of the colony--a pious gentleman,
who had labored zealously for the conversion of the Indians, and had
treated them with uniform kindness. As an instance of this, they having
at one time expressed their fears of the English mastiff dogs, he had
caused some of them to be put to death, to the great displeasure of
their owners. Opechancanough inhabiting a paltry cabin, Mr. Thorpe had
built him a handsome house after the English manner.[162:A] But the
savage miscreants, equally deaf to the voice of humanity and the
emotions of gratitude, murdered their benefactor with every circumstance
of remorseless cruelty. He had been forewarned of his danger by a
servant, but making no effort to escape, fell a victim to his misplaced
confidence. With him ten other persons were slain at Berkley.
Another of the victims was Captain Nathaniel Powell, one of the first
settlers, a brave soldier, and who had for a brief interval filled the
place of governor of the colony. His family fell with him. Nathaniel
Causie, another of Captain Smith's old soldiers, when severely wounded
and surrounded by the Indians, slew one of them with an axe, and put the
rest to flight. At Warrasqueake a colonist named Baldwin, by repeatedly
firing his gun, saved himself and family, and divers others. The savages
at the same time made an attempt upon the house of a planter named
Harrison, (near Baldwin's,) where were Thomas Hamor with some men, and a
number of women and children. The Indians tried to inveigle Hamor out of
the house, by pretending that Opechancanough was hunting in the
neighboring woods and desired to have his company; but he not coming
out, they set fire to a tobacco-house; the men ran toward the fire, and
were pursued by the Indians, who pierced them with arrows and beat out
their brains. Hamor having finished a letter that he was writing, and
suspecting no treachery, went out to see what was the matter, when,
being wounded in the back with an arrow, he returned to the house and
barricaded it. Meanwhile Harrison's boy, finding his master's gun
loaded, fired it at random, and the Indians fled. Baldwin still
continuing to discharge his gun, Hamor, with twenty-two others, withdrew
to his house, leaving their own in flames. Hamor next retired to a new
house that he was building, and there defending himself with spades,
axes, and brickbats, escaped the fury of the savages. The master of a
vessel lying in the James River sent a file of musqueteers ashore, who
recaptured from the enemy the Merchant's store-house. In the
neighborhood of Martin's Hundred seventy-three persons were butchered;
yet a small family there escaped, and heard nothing of the massacre
until two days after.
Thus fell in so short a space of time one-twelfth part of the colonists
of Virginia, including six members of the council. The destruction might
have been universal but for the disclosure of a converted Indian, named
Chanco, who, during the night preceding the massacre, revealed the plot
to one Richard Pace, with whom he lived. Pace, upon receiving this
intelligence, after fortifying his own house, repaired before day to
Jamestown, and gave the alarm to Sir Francis Wyat, the Governor; his
vigilance saved a large part of the colony from destruction.[163:A]
Eleven were killed at Berkley, fifty at Edward Bonit's plantation, two
at Westover, five at Macocks, four on Appomattox River, six at
Flower-de-Hundred, twenty-one of Sir George Yeardley's people at
Weyanoke, and seventy-three at Martin's Hundred, seven miles from
Jamestown.
The horrors of famine threatened to follow in the train of massacre, and
the consternation of the survivors was such that twenty or thirty days
elapsed before any plan of defence was concerted. Many were urgent to
abandon the James River, and take refuge on the eastern shore, where
some newly settled plantations had escaped. At length it was determined
to abandon the weaker plantations, and to concentrate their surviving
population in five or six well fortified places, Shirley,
Flower-de-Hundred, Jamestown, with Paspahey, and the plantations
opposite to Kiquotan, and Southampton Hundred. In consequence a large
part of the cattle and effects of the planters fell a prey to the enemy.
Nevertheless, a planter, "Master Gookins," at Newport's News, refused to
abandon his plantation, and with thirty-five men resolutely held it.
The family of Gookins is ancient, and appears to have been found
originally at Canterbury, in Kent, England. The name has undergone
successive changes--Colkin, Cockin, Cockayn, Cocyn, Cokain, Cokin,
Gockin, Gokin, Gookin, Gookins, Gooking, and others. The early New
England chroniclers spelled it "Goggin."[164:A] Daniel Gookin removed to
County Cork, in Ireland, and thence to Virginia, arriving in November,
1621, with fifty men of his own and thirty passengers, exceedingly well
furnished with all sorts of provision and cattle, and planted himself at
Newport's News. In the massacre he held out with a force of thirty-five
men against the savages, disregarding the order to retire. It is
probable that he affected to make a settlement independent of the civil
power of the colony, and it appears to have been styled by his son a
"lordship." It was above Newport's News, and was called "Mary's
Mount."[164:B]
To return to the incidents of the massacre. Samuel Jordan, with the aid
of a few refugees, maintained his ground at Beggar's Bush;[164:C] as
also did Mr. Edward Hill, at Elizabeth City. "Mrs. Proctor, a proper,
civil, modest gentlewoman," defended herself and family for a month
after the massacre, until at last constrained to retire by the English
officers, who threatened, if she refused, to burn her house down; which
was done by the Indians shortly after her withdrawal. Captain Newce, of
Elizabeth City, and his wife, distinguished themselves by their
liberality to the sufferers. Several families escaped to the country
afterwards known as North Carolina, and settled there.[164:D]
When intelligence of this event reached England, the king granted the
Virginia Company some unserviceable arms out of the Tower, and "_lent_
them twenty barrels of powder;" Lord St. John of Basing gave sixty coats
of mail; the privy council sent out supplies, and the City of London
dispatched one hundred settlers.[165:A]
One effect of the massacre was the ruin of the iron-works at Falling
Creek, on the south side of the James River, (near Ampthill in the
present County of Chesterfield,) where, of twenty-four people, only a
boy and girl escaped by hiding themselves.[165:B] Lead was found near
these iron-works. King James promised to send over four hundred soldiers
for the protection of the colony; but he never could be induced to
fulfil his promise. Captain John Smith offered, if the company would
send him to Virginia, with a small force, to reduce the savages to
subjection, and protect the colony from future assaults. His project
failed on account of the dissensions of the company, and the niggardly
terms proposed by the few members that were found to act on the matter.
The Rev. Jonas Stockham, in May, 1621, previous to the massacre, had
expressed the opinion that it was utterly in vain to undertake the
conversion of the savages, until their priests and "ancients" were put
to the sword. Captain Smith held the same opinion, and he states that
the massacre drove all to believe that Mr. Stockham was right in his
view on this point.[165:C] The event justified the policy of Argall in
prohibiting intercourse with the natives, and had that measure been
enforced, the massacre would probably have been prevented. The violence
and corruption of such rulers as Argall serve to disgrace and defeat
even good measures; while the virtues of the good are sometimes
perverted to canonize the most pernicious.
FOOTNOTES:
[161:A] Beverley, 39.
[162:A] The chief was so charmed with it, especially with the lock and
key, that he locked and unlocked the door a hundred times a day.
[163:A] Purchas, his Pilgrim, iv. 1788; Smith, ii. 65: a list of the
slain may be found on page 70.
[164:A] ARMS. Quarterly: First, gules, a chevron ermine between three
cocks or, two in chief, one in base, Gookin. Second and third, sable, a
cross crosslet, ermine. Fourth, or, a lion rampant, gules between six
crosses fitchee. CREST. On a mural crown, gules, a cock or, beaked and
legged azure, combed and wattled gu.
[164:B] Article by J. Wingate Thornton, Esq., of Boston, in Mass. Gen.
and Antiq. Register, vol. for 1847, page 345, referring, among other
authorities, to Records of General Court of Virginia.
[164:C] Afterwards called and still known as Jordan's Point, in the
County of Prince George, the seat of the revolutionary patriot Richard
Bland. Beggar's Bush, as already mentioned, was the title of one of
Fletcher's comedies then in vogue in England. (_Hallam's Hist. of
Literature_, ii. 210.)
[164:D] Martin's Hist. of North Carolina, i. 87.
[165:A] Smith, ii. 79; Chalmers' Introduction, i. 19; Belknap, art.
WYAT.
[165:B] Beverley, 43.
[165:C] Anderson's Hist. of Col. Church, i. 343; Smith, 139; Stith, 233.
CHAPTER XVII.
1622.
Crashaw and Opechancanough--Captain Madison massacres a
Party of the Natives--Yeardley invades the Nansemonds and
the Pamunkies--They are driven back--Reflections on their
Extermination.
DURING these calamitous events that had befallen the colony, Captain
Raleigh Crashaw had been engaged in a trading cruise up the Potomac.
While he was there, Opechancanough sent two baskets of beads to
Japazaws, the chief of the Potomacs, to bribe him to slay Crashaw and
his party, giving at the same time tidings of the massacre, with an
assurance that "before the end of two moons" there should not be an
Englishman left in all the country. Japazaws communicated the message to
Crashaw, and he thereupon sent Opechancanough word "that he would
nakedly fight him, or any of his, with their own swords." The challenge
was declined. Not long afterwards Captain Madison, who occupied a fort
on the Potomac River, suspecting treachery on the part of the tribe
there, rashly killed thirty or forty men, women, and children, and
carried off the werowance and his son, and two of his people, prisoners
to Jamestown. The captives were in a short time ransomed.
When the corn was ripe, Sir George Yeardley, with three hundred men,
invaded the country of the Nansemonds, who, setting fire to their
cabins, and destroying whatever they could not carry away, fled;
whereupon the English seized their corn, and completed the work of
devastation. Sailing next to Opechancanough's seat, at the head of York
River, Yeardley inflicted the same chastisement on the Pamunkies. In New
England it was said: "Since the news of the massacre in Virginia, though
the Indians continue their wonted friendship, yet are we more wary of
them than before, for their hands have been embrued in much English
blood, only by too much confidence, but not by force."[166:A]
The red men of Virginia were driven back, like hunted wolves, from
their ancient haunts. While their fate cannot fail to excite
commiseration, it may reasonably be concluded that the perpetual
possession of this country by the aborigines would have been
incompatible with the designs of Providence in promoting the welfare of
mankind. A productive soil could make little return to a people so
destitute of the art and of the implements of agriculture, and
habitually indolent. Navigable rivers, the natural channels of commerce,
would have failed in their purpose had they borne no freight but that of
the rude canoe; primeval forests would have slept in gloomy inutility,
where the axe was unknown; and the mineral and metallic treasures of the
earth would have remained forever entombed. In Virginia, since the
aboriginal population was only about one to the square mile, they could
not be justly held occupants of the soil. However well-founded their
title to those narrow portions which they actually occupied, yet it was
found impossible to take possession of the open country, to which the
savages had no just claim, without also exterminating them from those
particular spots that rightfully belonged to them. This inevitable
necessity actuated the pious Puritans of Plymouth as well as the less
scrupulous settlers of Jamestown; and force was resorted to in all the
Anglo-American settlements except in that effected, at a later day, by
the gentle and sagacious Penn. The unrelenting hostility of the savages,
their perfidy and vindictive implacability, made sanguinary measures
necessary. In Virginia, the first settlers, a small company, in an
unknown wilderness, were repeatedly assaulted, so that resistance and
retaliation were demanded by the natural law of self-defence. Nor were
these settlers voluntary immigrants; the bulk of them had been sent
over, without regard to their choice, by the king or the Virginia
Company. Nor did the king or the company authorize any injustice or
cruelty to be exercised toward the natives; on the contrary, the
colonists, however unfit, were enjoined to introduce the Christian
religion among them, and to propitiate their good will by a humane and
lenient treatment. Smith and his comrades, so far from being encouraged
to maltreat the Indians, were often hampered in making a necessary
self-defence, by a fear of offending an arbitrary government at home.
It has been remarked by Mr. Jefferson,[168:A] that it is not so general
a truth, as has been supposed, that the lands of Virginia were taken
from the natives by conquest, far the greater portion having been
purchased by treaty. It may be objected, that the consideration was
often inadequate; but a small consideration may have been sufficient to
compensate for a title which, for the most part, had but little
validity; besides, a larger compensation would oftentimes have been
thrown away upon men so ignorant and indolent. Groping in the dim
twilight of nature, and slaves of a gross idolatry, their lives were
circumscribed within a narrow uniform circle of animal instincts and the
necessities of a precarious subsistence. Cunning, bloody, and
revengeful, engaged in frequent wars, they were strangers to that
Arcadian innocence and the Elysian scenes of a golden age of which
youthful poets so fondly dream. If an occasional exception occurs, it is
but a solitary ray of light shooting across the surrounding gloom. Yet
we cannot be insensible to the many injuries they have suffered, and
cannot but regret that their race could not be united with our own. The
Indian has long since disappeared from Virginia; his cry no longer
echoes in the woods, nor is the dip of his paddle heard on the water.
The exterminating wave still urges them onward to the setting sun, and
their tribes are fading one by one forever from the map of existence.
Geology shows that in the scale of animal life, left impressed on the
earth's strata, the inferior species has still given place to the
superior: so likewise is it with the races of men.
FOOTNOTES:
[166:A] Purchas, iv. 1840.
[168:A] Notes on Va., 102.
CHAPTER XVIII.
1622-1625.
James the First jealous of Virginia Company--Gondomar--The
King takes Measures to annul the Charter--Commissioners
appointed--Assembly Petitions the King--Disputes between
Commissioners and Assembly--Butler's Account of the Colony--
Nicholas Ferrar--Treachery of Sharpless, and his Punishment--
The Charter of Virginia Company dissolved--Causes of this
Proceeding--Character of the Company--Records of the Company--
Death of James the First--Charles the First succeeds him--The
Virginia Company--Earl of Southampton--Sir Edwin Sandys and
Nicholas Ferrar--The Rev. Jonas Stockham's Letter--Injustice
of the Dissolution of the Charter--Beneficial Results--
Assembly of 1624.
THE Court of James the First, already jealous of the growing power
and republican spirit of the Virginia Company, was rendered still
more inimical by the malign influence of Count Gondomar, the Spanish
ambassador, who was jealous of any encroachment on the Spanish
colony of Florida. He remarked to King James, of the Virginia Company,
that "they were deep politicians, and had further designs than a
tobacco-plantation; that as soon as they should get to be more numerous,
they intended to step beyond their limits, and, for aught he knew, they
might visit his master's mines." The massacre afforded an occasion to
the enemies of the company to attribute all the calamities of the colony
to its mismanagement and neglect, and thus to frame a plausible pretext
for dissolving the charter.
Captain Nathaniel Butler, a dependent of the Earl of Warwick, had, by
his influence, been sent out Governor of Bermudas for three years, where
he exercised the same oppression and extortion as Argall had exhibited
in Virginia. Upon finding himself compelled to leave those islands, he
came to Virginia, in the midst of the winter succeeding the massacre. He
was hospitably entertained by Governor Wyat, which kindness he proved
himself wholly unworthy of, his conduct being profligate and disorderly.
He demanded a seat in the council, to which he was in no way entitled.
He went up the James as far as to the mouth of the Chickahominy, where
"he plundered Lady Dale's cattle;" and after a three months' stay, he
set sail for England. Upon his return, Butler was introduced to the
king, and published "The Unmasked Face of our Colony in Virginia, as it
was in the Winter of 1622," in which he took advantage of the
misfortunes of the colony, and exaggerated its deplorable condition. The
Rev. William Mease, (who had been for ten years resident in the colony,)
with several others, replied to this defamatory pamphlet.[170:A]
The company was divided into two parties, the one headed by the Earl of
Southampton, Lord Cavendish, Sir Edward Sackville, Sir John Ogle, Sir
Edwin Sandys, with several others of less note; on the other side, the
leaders were the Earl of Warwick, Sir Thomas Smith, Sir Nathaniel Rich,
Sir Henry Mildmay, Alderman Johnson, etc. They appeared before the king,
the Earl of Warwick's faction presenting their accusations against the
company, and the other side defending it; and Sir Edward Sackville used
such freedom of language that "the king was fain to take him down
soundly and roundly." However, by the lord treasurer's intervention, the
matter was reconciled on the next day.[170:B]
In May, 1623, a commission was issued authorizing Sir William Jones, a
justice of the common pleas, Sir Nicholas Fortescue, Sir Francis Goston,
Sir Richard Sutton, Sir William Pitt, Sir Henry Bourchier, and Sir Henry
Spilman,[170:C] to inquire into the affairs of the colony. By an order
of the privy council the records of the company were seized, and the
deputy treasurer, Nicholas Ferrar, imprisoned, and on the arrival of a
ship from Virginia, her packets were seized and laid before the privy
council.
Nicholas Ferrar, Jr., was born in London in 1592, educated at Cambridge,
where he was noted for his talents, acquirements, and piety.[171:A]
Upon leaving the university he made the tour of Europe, winning the
esteem of the learned, passing through many adventures and perils with
Christian heroism, and maintaining everywhere an unsullied character.
Upon his return to England, in 1618, he was appointed king's counsel for
the Virginia Plantation. In the year 1622 he was chosen deputy treasurer
of the Virginia Company, (which office his brother John also filled for
some years,) and so remained till its dissolution. In the House of
Commons he distinguished himself by his opposition to the political
corruption of that day, and abandoned public life when little upwards of
thirty years of age, "in obedience to a religious fancy he had long
entertained," and formed of his family and relations a sort of little
half-popish convent, in which he passed the remainder of his
life.[171:B]
Carlyle[171:C] thus describes this singular place of retirement:
"Crossing Huntingdonshire in his way northward, his majesty[171:D] had
visited the establishment of Nicholas Ferrar, at Little Gidding, on the
western border of that county. A surprising establishment now in full
flower, wherein above fourscore persons, including domestics, with
Ferrar and his brother, and aged mother at the head of them, had devoted
themselves to a kind of Protestant monachism, and were getting much
talked of in those times. They followed celibacy and merely religious
duties; employed themselves in binding of prayer-books, embroidering of
hassocks, in almsgiving also, and what charitable work was possible in
that desert region; above all, they kept up, night and day, a continual
repetition of the English liturgy, being divided into relays and
watches, one watch relieving another, as on shipboard, and never
allowing at any hour the sacred fire to go out."
In October, 1623, the king declared his intention to grant a new charter
modelled after that of 1606. This astounding order was read three
times, at a meeting of the company, before they could credit their own
ears; then, by an overwhelming vote, they refused to relinquish their
charter, and expressed their determination to defend it.
The king, in order to procure additional evidence to be used against the
company, appointed five commissioners to make inquiries in Virginia into
the state and condition of the colony. In November, 1623, when two of
these commissioners had just sailed for Virginia, the king ordered a
writ of _quo warranto_ to be issued against the Virginia Company.
In the colony, hitherto, the proclamations of the governors, which had
formed the rule of action, were now enacted into laws; and it was
declared that the governor should no more impose taxes on the colonists
without the consent of the Assembly, and that he should not withdraw the
inhabitants from their private labor to any service of his; and further,
that the burgesses should be free from arrest during the session of the
Assembly. These acts of the legislature of the infant colony, while
under the control of the Virginia Company, render it certain that there
was more of constitutional and well-regulated freedom in Virginia then,
than in the mother country.
Of the commissioners appointed to make inquiries in Virginia, John
Harvey and John Pory arrived there early in 1624; Samuel Matthews and
Abraham Percy were planters resident in the colony, and the latter a
member of the House of Burgesses; John Jefferson, the other
commissioner, did not come over to Virginia, nor did he take any part in
the matter, being a hearty friend to the company.[172:A] Thomas
Jefferson, in his memoir of himself,[172:B] says that one of his name
was secretary to the Virginia Company. The Virginia planters at first
looking on it as a dispute between the crown and the company, in which
they were not essentially interested, paid little attention to it; but
two petitions, defamatory of the colony and laudatory of Sir Thomas
Smith's arbitrary rule, having come to the knowledge of the Assembly, in
February, 1624, that body prepared spirited replies, and drafted a
petition to the king, which, with a letter to the privy council, and
other papers, were entrusted to Mr. John Pountis, a member of the
council.[173:A] He died during the voyage to England. The letter
addressed to the privy council prayed "that the governors may not have
absolute power, that they might still retain the liberty of popular
assemblies, than which nothing could more conduce to the public
satisfaction and public utility." At the same time the Virginia Company,
in England, presented a petition to the House of Commons against the
arbitrary proceedings of the king; but although favorably received, it
was withdrawn as soon as the king's disapprobation was announced.
In Virginia the commissioners refused to exhibit their commission and
instructions, and the Assembly therefore refused to give them access to
their records. Pory, one of the commissioners, who had formerly lost his
place of secretary of the colony by betraying its secrets to the Earl of
Warwick, suborned Edward Sharpless, clerk of the council, to expose to
him copies of the journal of that body, and of the House of Burgesses.
Sharpless being convicted of this misdemeanor was sentenced to the
pillory, with the loss of his ears.[173:B] Only a part of one ear was
actually cut off.
The commissioners, having failed to obtain from the Assembly a
declaration of their willingness to submit to the king's purpose of
revoking the charter, made a report against the company's management of
the colony and the government of it, as too popular, that is,
democratic, under the present charter. The king, by a proclamation
issued in July, suppressed the meetings of the company, and ordered for
the present a committee of the privy council, and others, to sit every
Thursday, at the house of Sir Thomas Smith, in Philpot Lane, for
conducting the affairs of the colony. Viscount Mandeville was at the
head of this committee: Sir George Calvert, Sir Ferdinando Gorges, Sir
Samuel Argall, John Pory, Sir John Wolstenholme, and others, were
members. At the instance of the attorney-general, to enable the company
to make a defence, their books were restored and the deputy treasurer
released. In Trinity term, 1624, the writ of _quo warranto_ was tried
in the Court of King's Bench, and the charter of the Virginia Company
was annulled. The case was determined only upon a technicality in the
pleadings.
In one of the hearings against the company, before the privy council,
the Marquis of Hamilton said of the letters and instructions of the
company, written by Nicholas Ferrar, Jr.: "They are papers as admirably
well penned as any I ever heard." And the Earl of Pembroke remarked:
"They all deserve the highest commendation: containing advices far more
excellent than I could have expected to have met with in the letters of
a trading company. For they abound with soundness of good matter and
profitable instruction, with respect both to religion and policy; and
they possess uncommon elegance of language."[174:A]
The company had been long obnoxious to the king's ill will for several
reasons; it had become a nursery for rearing and training leaders of the
opposition, many of its members being likewise members of parliament. It
was a sort of reform club. The king, in a speech, swore that "the
Virginia Company was a seminary for a seditious parliament." The company
had chosen a treasurer in disregard of the king's nomination; and in
electing Carew Raleigh, a member, they had made allusions to his father,
Sir Walter Raleigh, which were doubtless unpalatable to the author of
his judicial murder. The king was greedy of power and of money, which he
wanted the sense and the virtue to make a good use of; and he hoped to
find in Virginia a new field for extortion. Fortunately for the history
of the colony, copies of the company's records were made by the
precaution of Nicholas Ferrar: these being deposited in the hands of the
Earl of Southampton, after his death, which took place in 1624,
descended to his son. After his death, in 1667, they were purchased from
his executors, for sixty guineas, by the first Colonel William Byrd,
then in England. From these two folio volumes, in possession of Sir John
Randolph, and from the records of the colony, Stith compiled much of his
History of Virginia, which comes down to the year 1624.[174:B]
On the sixth day of April, 1625, died King James the First, aged
fifty-nine, after a reign of twenty years. By his consort, Anne of
Denmark, he had issue, Henry and Robert, who died young, Charles, his
successor, and Elizabeth, who married Frederic the Fifth, elector
Palatine. Charles the First succeeding to the crown and the principles
of his father, took the government of Virginia into his own hands.
The company thus dissolved, had expended one hundred and fifty thousand
pounds in establishing the colony, and had transported nine thousand
settlers without the aid of government. The number of stockholders was
about one thousand; and the annual value of exports from Virginia was,
at the period of the dissolution of the charter, only twenty thousand
pounds.
The company embraced much of the rank, wealth, and talents of the
kingdom--near fifty noblemen, several hundred knights, and many
gentlemen, merchants, and citizens. Among the leaders in its courts were
Lord Cavendish, afterwards Earl of Devonshire; Sir Edwin Sandys; and Sir
Edward Sackville, afterwards the celebrated Earl of Dorset; and, above
all, the Earl of Southampton, the friend of Essex, and the patron of
Shakespeare. Henry Wriothesley, third Earl of Southampton, in 1601, was
implicated with the Earl of Essex in his hair-brained and abortive
conspiracy to seize the person of Queen Elizabeth. Essex lost his life.
Southampton was convicted, attainted and imprisoned during the queen's
life. Upon the accession of James the First he was liberated, and
restored in 1603. He was afterwards made Captain of the Isle of Wight
and Governor of Carisbroke Castle; and in 1618 a member of the privy
council. Brave and generous, but haughty and impetuous, he was by no
means adapted to the court and cabinet of James, where fawning servility
and base intrigue were the ordinary stepping-stones of political
advancement.
About the year 1619, the Earl of Southampton was imprisoned through the
influence of Buckingham, "whom he rebuked with some passion for speaking
often to the same thing in the house, and out of order." In 1620 he was
chosen Treasurer, or Governor of the Virginia Company, contrary to the
king's wishes; but he, nevertheless, continued in that office until the
charter was dissolved, and at its meetings, and in parliament, opposed
the measures of a feeble and corrupt court. He and Sir Edwin Sandys, the
leaders, together with the bulk of the members of the company, shared
largely in the spirit of civil and religious freedom, which was then
manifesting itself so strongly in England. In the hostile course pursued
against the company, the attacks were especially directed against the
earl and his associates Sir Edwin Sandys and Nicholas Ferrar. These
three were celebrated: Lord Southampton for wisdom, eloquence, and sweet
deportment; Sir Edwin Sandys for great knowledge and integrity; and
Nicholas Ferrar for wonderful abilities, unwearied diligence, and the
strictest virtue.[176:A] The earl and Sir Edwin were particular objects
of the king's hatred. Sir Edwin, a member of the House of Commons, was
arbitrarily imprisoned in 1621, during the session of parliament; and
the earl was arrested after its dissolution. Spain had, at this time,
acquired the ascendancy in the English Court, and this malign influence
was skilfully maintained by the intrigues of her crafty ambassador,
Count Gondomar. It was believed by many that James was even willing to
sacrifice the interests of the English colonies for the benefit of those
of Spain. The Rev. Jonas Stockham, a minister in Virginia, in a letter
dated in May, 1621, and addressed to the Council of the Virginia
Company, said: "There be many Italianated and Spaniolized Englishmen
envies our prosperities, and by all their ignominious scandals they can
devise, seeks to dishearten what they can those that are willing to
further this glorious enterprise. To such I wish, according to the
decree of Darius, that whosoever is an enemy to our peace, and seeketh
either by getting monipolical patents, or by forging unjust tales to
hinder our welfare--that his house were pulled down, and a pair of
gallows made of the wood, and he hanged on them in the place."
The Earl of Southampton was grandson of Wriothesley, the famous
Chancellor of Edward the Sixth, father to the excellent and noble
Treasurer Southampton, grandfather to Rachel Lady Russel. In his later
years he commanded an English regiment in the Dutch service, and died in
the Netherlands, 1624. Shakespeare dedicated some of his minor poems to
him; the County of Southampton, in Virginia, probably also took its name
from him. Captain Smith, who had been unjustly displaced by the company,
approved of the dissolution of their charter. Yet, as no compensation
was rendered for the enormous expenditure incurred, it can be looked
upon as little better than confiscation effected by chicane and tyranny.
A parliamentary committee, of which Sir Edwin Sandys was a member, in
the same year, 1624, drew up articles of impeachment against Lord
Treasurer Cranfield for his agency in bringing about the dissolution of
the charter.[177:A] Nevertheless, the result was undoubtedly favorable
to the colony, as is candidly acknowledged by that honest chronicler,
Stith, although no one could be more strenuously opposed to the
arbitrary means employed.
An Assembly had been held in March, 1624, and its acts are preserved:
they are brief and simple, coming directly to the point, without the
redundancy of modern statutes; and refer mainly to agriculture, the
church establishment, and defence against the Indians.[177:B] The
following is a list of the members of this early Assembly:--
Sir Francis Wyat, Knt., Governor, etc.
Captain Francis West, | John Pott,
Sir George Yeardley, | Captain Roger Smith,
George Sandys, Treasurer, | Captain Ralph Hamor,
And John Pountis, _of the Council_.
BURGESSES. | BURGESSES.
William Tucker, | Nathaniel Bass,
Jabez Whitakers, | John Willcox,
William Peeine, | Nicolas Marten,
Raleigh Crashaw, | Clement Dilke,
Richard Kingsmell, | Isaac Chaplin,
Edward Blany, | John Chew,
Luke Boyse, | John Utie,
John Pollington, | John Southerne,
Nathaniel Causey, | Richard Bigge,
Robert Adams, | Henry Watkins,
Thomas Harris, | Gabriel Holland,
Richard Stephens, | Thomas Morlatt,
R. Hickman, _Clerk_.
FOOTNOTES:
[170:A] Stith, 243, 268.
[170:B] Court and Times of James the First, ii. 389.
[170:C] Stith calls him Spilman; Burk, Spiller. (See _Belknap_, art.
WYAT.)
[171:A] His father, of the same name, a London merchant, was one of the
leading stockholders in the Virginia Company. Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir
John Hawkins, Sir Francis Drake, Sir Edwin Sandys, and the like, were
frequent guests at his table.
[171:B] Belknap, art. WYAT, in note; Foster's Miscellanies, 368.
[171:C] Letters and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell, i. 69.
[171:D] Charles the First.
[172:A] Stith, 297.
[172:B] Writings of Jefferson, i. 1.
[173:A] Hening, i. 120.
[173:B] Stith, 315.
[174:A] Hist. Mag., ii. 34.
[174:B] It has been said that these folios were sent back to England by
John Randolph of Roanoke, (_Belknap_, art. WYAT;) but it appears that
they came into possession of Congress as part of Mr. Jefferson's
library, and are now in the Law Library at Washington. There is to be
found there also a volume of papers and records of the Virginia Company,
from 1621 to 1625. (See article by J. Wingate Thornton, Esq., of Boston,
in Hist. Mag., ii. 33, recommending that these documents should be
published by Congress.) There are also valuable MS. historical materials
in Richmond which ought to be published. The recent destruction of the
library of William and Mary College shows the precarious tenure by which
the collections of the Virginia Historical Society, and the records
preserved in the State Capitol, are held.
[176:A] Peckard's Life of Ferrar--a work which throws much light on the
early history of Virginia.
[177:A] Belknap.
[177:B] Hening's Statutes, i. 119, 129.
CHAPTER XIX.
1624-1632.
Charles the First commissions Sir Thomas Wyat, Governor--
Assemblies not allowed--Royal Government virtually established
in Virginia--Other Colonies on Atlantic Coast--Wyat returns to
Ireland--Succeeded by Yeardley--Yeardley succeeded by West--
Letter of Charles the First directing an Assembly to meet--
Assembly's Reply--John Pott, Governor--Condition of Colony--
Statistics--Diet--Pott superseded by Harvey--Dr. John Pott
Convicted of Stealing Cattle--Sir John Harvey--Lord Baltimore
visits Virginia--Refuses to take the Oaths tendered to him--
Procures from Charles the First a Grant of Territory--Acts
relative to Ministers, Agriculture, Indians, etc.
IN August, 1624, King Charles the First granted a commission appointing
Sir Thomas Wyat Governor, with a council during pleasure, and omitting
all mention of an assembly, thinking so "popular a course" the chief
source of the recent troubles and misfortunes. The eleven members of the
council were, Francis West, Sir George Yeardley, George Sandys, Roger
Smith, Ralph Hamor, who had been of the former council, with the
addition of John Martin, John Harvey, Samuel Matthews, Abraham Percy,
Isaac Madison, and William Clayborne. Several of these were then, or
became afterwards, men of note in the colony. This is the first mention
of William Clayborne, who was destined to play an important part in the
future annals of Virginia.
Thus in effect a royal government was now established in Virginia;
hitherto she had been subject to a complex threefold government of the
company, the crown, and her own president or governor and
council.[179:A]
From 1624 to 1628 there is no mention in the statute-book of Virginia,
or in the journal of the Virginia Company, of any assembly having been
held in the colony, and in 1628 appeals were made to the governor and
council; whereas had there been an assembly, it would have been the
appellate court.
The French had established themselves as early as 1625 in Canada; the
Dutch were now colonizing the New Netherlands; a Danish colony had been
planted in New Jersey; the English were extending their confines in New
England (where New Plymouth numbered thirty-two houses and one hundred
and eighty settlers) and Virginia; while the Spaniards, the first
settlers of the coast, still held some feeble posts in Florida.
Sir Thomas Wyat, the governor of the colony of Virginia, on the death of
his father, Sir George Wyat, returning, in 1626, to Ireland, to attend
to his private affairs there, was succeeded by Sir George Yeardley. He,
during the same year, by proclamation, which now again usurped the place
of law, prohibited the selling of corn to the Indians; made some
commercial regulations, and directed houses to be palisaded. Yeardley
dying, was succeeded in November, 1627, by Francis West, elected by the
council. He was a younger brother of Lord Delaware.[180:A]
At a court held at James City, November the sixteenth, Lady Temperance
Yeardley came and confirmed the conveyance made by her late husband, Sir
George Yeardley, knight, late governor, to Abraham Percy, Esq., for the
lands of Flowerdieu Hundred, being one thousand acres, and of Weanoke,
on the opposite side of the water, being two thousand two hundred acres.
This lady's Christian name is Puritanical; another such was Obedience
Robins, a burgess of Accomac in 1630.
James the First had extorted a revenue from the tobacco of Virginia by
an arbitrary resort to his prerogative, and in violation of the charter.
Charles the First, in a letter dated June, 1628, proposed that a
monopoly of the tobacco trade should be granted to him, and recommended
the culture of several new products, and desired that an assembly
should be called to take these matters into consideration. The ensuing
assembly replied, demanding a higher price and more favorable terms than
his majesty was disposed to yield. As to the introduction of new
staples, they explained why, in their opinion, that was impracticable.
This letter was signed by Francis West, Governor, five members of the
council, and thirty-one members of the House of Burgesses.
Sir George Yeardley, the late governor, with two or three of the
council, had resided for the most part at Jamestown; the rest of the
council repaired there as occasion required. There was a general meeting
of the governor and council once in every three months. The population
of the colony was estimated at not less than fifteen hundred; they
inhabited seventeen or eighteen plantations, of these the greater part,
lying toward the falls of the James River, were well fortified against
the Indians by means of palisades. The planters dwelling above
Jamestown, found means to procure an abundant supply of fish. On the
banks of that river the red men themselves were now seldom seen, but
their fires were occasionally observed in the woods.[181:A]
There was no family in the colony so poor as not to have a sufficient
stock of tame hogs. Poultry was equally abundant; bread plenty and good.
For drink the colonists made use of a home-made ale; but the better sort
of people were well supplied with sack, aqua-vitae, and good English
beer. The common diet of the servants was milk-hominy, that is, bruised
Indian-corn, pounded and boiled thick, and eaten with milk. This dish
was also in esteem with the better sort. Hominy, according to Strachey,
is an Indian word; Lord Bacon calls it "the cream of maize," and
commends it as a nutritious diet. The planters were generally provided
with arms and armor, and on every holiday each plantation exercised its
men in the use of arms, by which means, together with hunting and
fowling, the greater part of them became excellent marksmen. Tobacco was
the only staple cultivated for sale. The health of the country was
greatly improved by clearing the land, so that the sun had power to
exhale up the humid vapors. Captain Francis West continued governor till
March, 1628, and he then being about to embark for England, John Pott
was elected governor by the council.
In the year 1629 most of the land about Jamestown was cleared; little
corn planted; but all the ground converted into pasture and gardens,
"wherein doth grow all manners of English herbs and roots and very good
grass." Such is the cotemporaneous statement, but after the lapse of
more than two centuries Eastern Virginia depends largely on the Northern
States for her supply of hay. The greater portion of the cattle of the
colony was kept near Jamestown, the owners being dispersed about on
plantations, and visiting Jamestown as inclination prompted, or, at the
arrival of shipping, come to trade. In this year the population of
Virginia amounted to five thousand, and the cattle had increased in the
like proportion. The colony's stock of provisions was sufficient to feed
four hundred more than its own number of inhabitants. Vessels procured
supplies in Virginia; the number of arrivals in 1629 was twenty-three.
Salt fish was brought from New England; Kecoughtan supplied peaches.
Mrs. Pearce, an honest industrious woman, after passing twenty years in
Virginia, on her return to England reported that she had a garden at
Jamestown, containing three or four acres, where in one year she had
gathered a hundred bushels of excellent figs, and that of her own
provision she could keep a better house in Virginia, than in London for
three or four hundred pounds a year, although she had gone there with
little or nothing. The planters found the Indian-corn so much better for
bread than wheat, that they began to quit sowing it.
An assembly met at Jamestown in October, 1629; it consisted of John
Pott, Governor, four councillors, and forty-six burgesses, returned from
twenty-three plantations. Pott was superseded in the same year by Sir
John Harvey, at some time between October and March. In March, the
quarter court ordered an assembly to be called, to meet Sir John Harvey
on the twenty-fourth of that month; and nothing was done in Pott's name
after October, so far as can be found in the records.
The late governor was, during the ensuing year, Rob-Roy-like, convicted
of stealing cattle. The trial commenced on the ninth of July, 1630; the
number of jurors was thirteen, of whom three were members of the
council. The first day was wholly spent in pleading, the next in
unnecessary disputations, Dr. John Pott endeavoring to prove Mr.
Kingsmell, one of the witnesses against him, a hypocrite by the story of
"Gusman of Alfrach, the Rogue." Pott was found guilty, but in
consideration of his rank and station, judgment was suspended until the
king's pleasure should be known; and all the council became his
security.
Sir John Harvey, the new governor, had been one of the commissioners
sent out by King James to Virginia, in 1623, for the purpose of
investigating the state and condition of the colony, and of procuring
evidence which might serve to justify the dissolution of the charter of
the Virginia Company. Harvey had also been a member of the provisional
government in the year 1625. Returning now to Virginia, no doubt with
embittered recollections of the collisions with the assembly in which he
had been formerly involved, he did not fail to imitate the arbitrary
rule that prevailed "at home," and to render himself odious to the
inhabitants of the colony.
Sir George Calvert, the first Lord Baltimore, descended from a noble
family in Flanders, born at Kipling, in Yorkshire, England, was educated
partly at Trinity College, Oxford, and partly on the continent. Sir
Robert Cecil, lord treasurer, employed him as his secretary, and he was
promoted to the clerkship of the council. In 1618 he was knighted, and
in the succeeding year he was made a secretary of state, and one of the
committee of trade and plantations, with a pension of one thousand
pounds. Through the influence of Sir Thomas Wentworth, afterwards Earl
of Strafford, he was chosen a member of Parliament. Receiving a patent
for the southeastern peninsula of Newfoundland, he undertook to
establish, in 1621, the plantation of Ferryland, which he called the
Province of Avalon--a name derived from some mediaeval legend. In 1624 he
professed the Romish faith, and resigned his place of secretary of
state; but James the First still retained this strenuous defender of
royal prerogative as a member of his privy council, and created
him[183:A] Baron of Baltimore, in the County of Longford, in Ireland,
he being at this time the representative of the University of Oxford in
the House of Commons. Still bent upon establishing a colony in America,
for the promotion of his private interests, and to provide an asylum for
the unmolested exercise of his religion, embarking in a ship lent him by
King Charles the First, he came over to Virginia in the year 1629.
Virginia was founded by men devoted to the principles of the
Reformation, amid vivid recollections of the persecutions of Mary, the
Spanish armada, and the recent gunpowder plot, and when horror of
papists was at its height. The charter of the colony expressly required
that the oaths of allegiance and supremacy should be taken for the
purpose of guarding against "the superstitions of the Church of
Rome."[184:A]
The assembly being in session at the time of Lord Baltimore's arrival,
proposed these oaths to him and those with him. He declined complying
with the requisition, submitting, however, a form which he was ready to
accept, whereupon the assembly determined to refer the matter to the
privy council. The virtues of this able and estimable nobleman did not
secure him from personal indignity. In the old records is found this
entry: "March 25th, 1630, Thomas Tindall to be pilloried two hours for
giving my Lord Baltimore the lie, and threatening to knock him
down."[184:B]
Finding the Virginians unanimously averse to the very name of papist, he
proceeded to the head of Chesapeake Bay, and observing an attractive
territory on the north side of the Potomac River unoccupied, returned to
England, and, in violation of the territorial rights of Virginia,
obtained from Charles the First a grant of the country, afterwards
called Maryland,[184:C] but before the sealing of his patent.
During the session of 1629-30 ministers were ordered to conform
themselves in all things "according to the canons of the Church of
England." It would appear that Puritanism had begun to develope itself
among the clergy as well as the laity of the colony. Measures were
adopted for erecting a fort at Point Comfort; new-comers were exempted
from military service during the first five years after their arrival;
engrossing and forestalling were prohibited. For the furtherance of the
production of potashes and saltpetre, experiments were ordered to be
made; to prevent a scarcity of corn, it was enacted that two acres of
land, or near thereabouts, be planted for every head that works in the
ground; regulations were established for the improvement of the staple
of tobacco. An act provided that the war commenced against the Indians
be effectually prosecuted, and that no peace be concluded with
them.[185:A]
The first act of the session of February, 1632, provides that there be a
uniformity throughout this colony, both in substance and circumstance,
to the canons and constitution of the Church of England, as near as may
be, and that every person yield ready obedience to them, upon penalty of
the pains and forfeitures in that case appointed. Another act directs
that ministers shall not give themselves to excess in drinking, or riot,
spending their time idly, by day or night, playing at dice, cards, or
any other unlawful game. Another order was, that all the council and
burgesses of the assembly shall in the morning be present at divine
service, in the room where they sit, at the third beating of the drum,
an hour after sunrise. No person was suffered to "tend" above fourteen
leaves of the tobacco-plant, nor to gather more than nine leaves, nor to
tend any slips of old stalks of tobacco, or any of the second crop; and
it was ordained that all tobacco should be taken down before the end of
November. No person was permitted to speak or parley with the Indians,
either in the woods or on any plantation, "if he can possibly avoid it
by any means." The planters, however, were required to observe all terms
of amity with them, taking care, nevertheless, to keep upon their guard.
The spirit of constitutional freedom exhibited itself in an act
declaring that the governor and council shall not lay any taxes or
impositions upon the colony, their land, or commodities, otherwise than
by authority of the grand assembly, to be levied and employed as by the
assembly shall be appointed.
Act XL. provides, that the governor shall not withdraw the inhabitants
from their private labors to service of his own, upon any color
whatsoever. In case of emergency, the levying of men shall be ordered by
the governor, with the consent of the whole body of the council. For the
encouragement of men to plant a plenty of corn, it was enacted, that the
price shall not be restricted, but it shall be free for every man to
sell it as dear as he can. Men were not allowed to work in the grounds
without their arms, and a sentinel on guard; due watch to be kept at
night when necessary; no commander of any plantation shall either
himself spend, or suffer others to spend, powder unnecessarily, that is
to say, in drinking or entertainments. All men fit to bear arms were
required to bring their pieces to the church on occasion of public
worship. No person within the colony, upon any rumor of supposed change
and alteration, was to presume to be disobedient to the present
government, nor servants to their private officers, masters, and
overseers, at their uttermost peril. No boats were permitted to go and
trade to Canada or elsewhere that be not of the burthen of ten tons, and
have a flush deck, or fitted with a grating and a tarpauling, excepting
such as be permitted for discovery by a special license from the
governor.[186:A]
FOOTNOTES:
[179:A] Chalmers' Introduction, i. 22. Beverley, B. i. 47, says
expressly that an assembly was allowed. Burk, ii. 15, asserts that
"assemblies convened and deliberated in the usual form, unchecked and
uninterrupted by royal interference, from the dissolution of the
proprietary government to the period when a regular constitution was
sent over with Sir W. Berkeley in 1639." For authority reference is made
to a document in the Appendix, which document, however, is not to be
found there. The opinions of Chalmers--who, as clerk of the privy
council, had access to the archives in England--and Hening, confirmed by
a corresponding hiatus in the records, appear conclusive against the
unsupported statements of Beverley and Burk.
[180:A] Belknap, art. WYAT, errs in making Sir John Harvey the
successor.
[181:A] The number of cattle amounted to several thousand head; the
stock of goats was large, and their increase rapid; the forests abounded
with wild hogs, which were killed and eaten by the savages.
[183:A] 1625.
[184:A] Burk, ii. 25; Hen., i. 73, 97.
[184:B] 1 Hen., 552.
[184:C] Belknap, iii. 206; Allen's Biog. Dic., art. CALVERT.
[185:A] 1 Hening, 149.
[186:A] 1 Hening, 155, 175.
CHAPTER XX.
1632-1635.
Charles the First appoints Council of Superintendence for
Virginia--Acts of Assembly--William Clayborne authorized by
the Crown to make Discoveries and Trade--George Lord Baltimore
dies--The Patent of Territory granted is confirmed to his Son
Cecilius, Lord Baltimore--Virginia remonstrates against the
grant to Baltimore--Lord Baltimore employs his Brother,
Leonard Calvert, to found the Colony of Maryland--St. Mary's
Settled--Harvey visits Calvert--Clayborne's Opposition to the
New Colony--Character of Baltimore's Patent--Contest between
Clayborne and the Marylanders--He is convicted of High
Crimes--Escapes to Virginia--Goes to England for trial of the
Case.
IN the year 1632 King Charles issued a commission appointing a Council
of Superintendence over Virginia, empowering them to ascertain the state
and condition of the colony. The commissioners were Edward, Earl of
Dorset, Henry, Earl of Derby, Dudley, Viscount Dorchester, Sir John
Coke, Sir John Davers, Sir Robert Killegrew, Sir Thomas Rowe, Sir Robert
Heath, Sir Kineage Tench, Sir Dudley Diggs, Sir John Holstenholm, Sir
Francis Wyat, Sir John Brooks, Sir Kenelm Digby, Sir John Tench, John
Banks, Esq., Thomas Gibbs, Esq., Samuel Rott, Esq., George Sands, Esq.,
John Wolstenholm, Esq., Nicholas Ferrar, Esq., Gabriel Barber, and John
Ferrar, Esquires.[187:A]
Elaborate acts passed by the Colonial Legislature at this period, for
improving the staple of tobacco and regulating the trade in it, evince
the increasing importance of that crop. Tithes were imposed of tobacco
and corn; and the twentieth "calfe, kidd of goates and pigge" granted
unto the minister. During the year 1633 every fortieth man in the neck
of land between the James River and the York, (then called the Charles,)
was directed to repair to the plantation of Dr. John Pott, to be
employed in building of houses and securing that tract of land lying
between Queen's Creek, emptying into Charles River, and Archer's Hope
Creek, emptying into James River. This was Middle Plantation, (now
Williamsburg,) so called as being midway between the James River and the
York. Each person settling there was entitled to fifty acres of land and
exemption from general taxes. All new-comers were ordered to pay
sixty-four pounds of tobacco toward the maintenance of the fort at Point
Comfort.[188:A] Thus far, under Harvey's administration, the Assembly
had met regularly, and several judicious and wholesome acts had been
passed.
The Chesapeake Bay is supposed to have been discovered by the Spaniards
as early as the year 1566 or before, being called by them the Bay of
Santa Maria.[188:B] It was discovered by the English in 1585, when Ralph
Lane was Governor of the first Colony of Virginia. In 1620 John Pory
made a voyage of discovery in the Chesapeake Bay, and found one hundred
English happily settled on its borders, (in what particular place is not
known,) animated with the hope of a very good trade in furs.[188:C]
During the years 1627, 1628, and 1629 the governors of Virginia gave
authority to William Clayborne, "Secretary of State of this Kingdom," as
the Ancient Dominion was then styled, to discover the source of the bay,
or any part of that government from the thirty-fourth to the forty-first
degree of north latitude.[188:D] In May, 1631, Charles the First granted
a license to "our trusty and well-beloved William Clayborne," one of the
council and Secretary of State for the colony, authorizing him to make
discoveries, and to trade. This license was, by the royal instructions,
confirmed by Governor Harvey; and Clayborne shortly afterwards
established a trading post on Kent Island, in the Chesapeake Bay, not
far from the present capital of Maryland, Annapolis; and subsequently
another at the mouth of the Susquehanna River. In the year 1632 a
burgess was returned from the Isle of Kent to the Assembly at
Jamestown.[189:A] In 1633 a warehouse was established in Southampton
River for the inhabitants of Mary's Mount, Elizabeth City, Accomac, and
the Isle of Kent.
In the mean time, George, the elder Lord Baltimore, dying on the
fifteenth of April, 1632, aged fifty, at London, before his patent was
issued, it was confirmed June twentieth of this year, to his son
Cecilius, Baron of Baltimore. The new province was named Maryland in
honor of Henrietta Maria, Queen Consort of Charles the First of England,
and daughter of Henry the Fourth of France. For eighteen months from the
signing of the Maryland charter, the expedition to the new colony was
delayed by the strenuous opposition made to the proceeding. The
Virginians felt no little aggrieved at this infraction of their
chartered territory; and they remonstrated to the king in council in
1633, against the grant to Lord Baltimore, alleging that "it will be a
general disheartening to them, if they shall be divided into several
governments." Future events were about to strengthen their sense of the
justice of their cause. In July of this year the case was decided in the
Star Chamber, the privy council, influenced by Laud, Archbishop of
Canterbury, and the Earl of Strafford, deeming it fit to leave Lord
Baltimore to his patent and the complainants to the course of law
"according to their desire," recommending, at the same time, a spirit of
amity and good correspondence between the planters of the two colonies.
So futile a decision could not terminate the contest, and Clayborne
continued to claim Kent Island, and to abnegate the authority of the
proprietary of Maryland.
At length, Lord Baltimore having engaged the services of his brother,
Leonard Calvert, for founding the colony, he with two others, one of
them probably being another brother, were appointed commissioners. The
expedition consisted of some twenty gentlemen of fortune, and two or
three hundred of the laboring class, nearly all of them Roman
Catholics. Imploring the intercession of the Blessed Virgin, St.
Ignatius, and all the guardian angels of Maryland, they set sail from
Cowes, in the Isle of Wight, in November, 1633, St. Cecilia's day. The
canonized founder of the order of the Jesuits, Ignatius Loyola, was the
patron saint of the infant Maryland. February twenty-seventh, 1634, they
reached Point Comfort, filled with apprehensions of the hostility of the
Virginians to their colonial enterprise. Letters from King Charles and
the chancellor of the exchequer conciliated Governor Harvey, who hoped,
by his kindness to the Maryland colonists, to insure the recovery of a
large sum of money due him from the royal treasury. The Virginians were
at this time all under arms expecting the approach of a hostile Spanish
fleet. Calvert, after a hospitable entertainment, embarked on the third
of March for Maryland. Clayborne, who had accompanied Harvey to Point
Comfort to see the strangers, did not fail to intimidate them by
accounts of the hostile spirit which they would have to encounter in the
Indians of that part of the country to which they were destined.
Calvert, on arriving in Maryland, was accompanied in his explorations of
the country by Captain Henry Fleet, an early Virginia pioneer, who was
familiar with the settlements and language of the savages, and in much
favor with them; and it was under his guidance and direction that the
site of St. Mary's, the ancient capital of Maryland, was
selected.[190:A] White, a Jesuit missionary, says of Fleet: "At the
first he was very friendly to us; afterwards, seduced by the evil
counsels of a certain Clayborne, who entertained the most hostile
disposition, he stirred up the minds of the natives against us."[190:B]
White mentions that the Island of Monserrat, in the West Indies, where
they touched, was inhabited by Irishmen who had been expelled by the
English of Virginia "on account of their profession of the Catholic
faith."
In a short time after the landing of Leonard Calvert in Maryland, Sir
John Harvey, Governor of Virginia, visited him at St. Mary's. His
arrival attracted to the same place the Indian chief of Patuxent, who
said: "When I heard that a great werowance of the English was come to
Yoacomoco, I had a great desire to see him; but when I heard the
werowance of Pasbie-haye was come thither also to see him, I presently
start up, and without further counsel came to see them both."[191:A]
In March, 1634, at a meeting of the governor and council, Clayborne
inquired of them how he should demean himself toward Lord Baltimore and
his deputies in Maryland, who claimed jurisdiction over the colony at
Kent Isle. The governor and council replied that the right of his
lordship's patent being yet undetermined in England, they were bound in
duty and by their oaths to maintain the rights and privileges of the
colony of Virginia. Nevertheless, in all humble submission to his
majesty's pleasure, they resolved to keep and observe all good
correspondence with the Maryland new-comers.[191:B]
The Maryland patent conferred upon Lord Baltimore, a popish recusant,
the entire government of the colony, including the patronage and
advowson of all churches, the same to be dedicated and consecrated
according to the ecclesiastical law. This charter was illegal, inasmuch
as it granted powers which the king himself did not possess; the grantee
being a papist could not conform to the ecclesiastical laws of England;
and, therefore, the provisions of this extraordinary instrument could
not be, and were not designed to be, executed according to the plain and
obvious meaning. Such was the character of the instrument by which King
Charles the First despoiled Virginia of so large a portion of her
territory. It is true, indeed, that the Virginia charter had been
annulled, but this was done upon the condition explicitly and
repeatedly declared by the royal government, that vested rights should
receive no prejudice thereby.[192:A]
Clayborne, rejecting the authority of the new plantation, Lord Baltimore
gave orders to seize him if he should not submit himself to the
proprietary government of Maryland. The Indians beginning to exhibit
some indications of hostility toward the settlers, they attributed it to
the machinations of Clayborne, alleging that it was he who stirred up
the jealousy of the savages, persuading them that the new-comers were
Spaniards and enemies to the Virginians, and that he had also infused
his own spirit of insubordination into the inhabitants of Kent Island. A
trading vessel called the Longtail, employed by Clayborne in the Indian
trade in the Chesapeake Bay, was captured by the Marylanders. He
thereupon fitted out an armed pinnace with a crew of fourteen men under
one of his adherents, Lieutenant Warren, to rescue the vessel. Two armed
pinnaces were sent out by Calvert under Captain Cornwallis; and in an
engagement that ensued in the Potomac, or, as some accounts have it, the
Pocomoke River, one of the Marylanders fell, and three of the
Virginians, including Lieutenant Warren. The rest were carried prisoners
to St. Mary's. Clayborne was indicted although not arrested, and
convicted of murder and piracy, constructive crimes inferred from his
opposition. The chief of Patuxent was interrogated as to Clayborne's
intrigues among the Indians.[192:B]
Harvey, either from fear of the popular indignation, or from some better
motive, refused to surrender the fugitive Clayborne to the Maryland
commissioners, and according to one authority[192:C] sent him to
England, accompanied by the witnesses. Chalmers, good authority on the
subject, makes no allusion to the circumstance, and it appears more
probable that Clayborne having appealed to the king, went voluntarily to
England.[192:D] It is certain that he was not brought to trial there.
FOOTNOTES:
[187:A] 2 Burk's Hist. of Va., 35.
[188:A] 1 Hening, 188, 190, 199, 208, 222. The pay of the officers at
Point Comfort was at this time:--
Lbs. Tobacco. Bbls. Corn.
To the captain of the fort 2000 10
To the gunner 1000 6
To the drummer and porter 1000 6
For four other men, each of them 500
pounds of tobacco, 4 bbls. corn 2000 16
---- ----
Total 6000 38
[188:B] Early Voyages to America, 483.
[188:C] Chalmers' Polit. Annals, 206.
[188:D] Chalmers' Annals, 227.
[189:A] 1 Hening, 154.
[190:A] White's Relation, 4; Force's Hist. Tracts.
[190:B] White's Relation of the Colony of the Lord Baron of Baltimore in
Maryland, near Virginia, and a Narrative of the Voyage to Maryland, was
copied from the archives of the Jesuit's College at Rome, by Rev.
William McSherry, of Georgetown College, and translated from the Latin.
An abstract of it may be found in chapter first of History of Maryland,
by James McSherry. The first part of the Relation is a description of
the country, and appears to have been written at London previous to the
departure of Calvert; the remainder details the incidents of the voyage
and the first settlement of the colony, especially of the proceedings of
the Jesuit missionaries down to the year 1677.
[191:A] Anderson's Hist. of Col. Church, ii. 120, referring to "Relation
of the successful beginnings of the Lord Baltimore's Plantation, in
Maryland," signed by Captain Wintour, and others, adventurers in the
expedition, and published in 1634.
[191:B] Chalmers' Annals. Chalmers is the more full and satisfactory in
his account of Maryland, because he had resided there for many years.
[192:A] Force's Hist. Tracts, ii.; Virginia and Maryland, 7 et seq.; and
Anderson's Hist. of Col. Church, ii. 113.
[192:B] McSherry's Maryland, 40; Chalmers' Annals, 211, 232; Force's
Historical Tracts, ii. 13.
[192:C] Burk's Hist. of Va., ii. 41, referring to "Ancient Records" of
the London Company.
[192:D] Force's Hist. Tracts, ii.; Maryland and Virginia, 22.
CHAPTER XXI.
1635-1639.
Eight Shires--Harvey's Grants of Territory--His Corrupt
and Tyrannical Administration--The Crown guarantees to
the Virginians the Rights which they enjoyed before the
Dissolution of the Charter--Burk's Opinion of Clayborne--
Governor Harvey deposed--Returns to England--Charles the
First reinstates him--Disturbances in Kent Island--Charles
reprimands Lord Baltimore for his Maltreatment of Clayborne--
The Lords Commissioners decide in favor of Baltimore--
Threatening State of Affairs in England--Harvey recalled--
Succeeded by Sir Francis Wyat.
IN the year 1634 Virginia was divided into eight shires: James City,
Henrico, Charles City, Elizabeth City, Warrasqueake, Charles River, and
Accomac. The original name of Pamaunkee, or Pamunkey, had then been
superseded by Charles River, which afterwards gave way to the present
name of York. Pamunkey, at first the name of the whole river, is now
restricted to one of its branches. The word Pamaunkee is said to signify
"where we took a sweat."
The grant of Maryland to Lord Baltimore opened the way for similar
grants to other court-favorites, of lands lying to the north and to the
south of the settled portion of the Ancient Colony and Dominion of
Virginia. While Charles the First was lavishing vast tracts of her
territory upon his favorites, Sir John Harvey, a worthy pacha of such a
sultan, in collusion with the royal commissioners, imitated the royal
munificence by giving away large bodies not only of the public, or crown
lands, but even of such as belonged to private planters.[193:A] In the
contests between Clayborne and the proprietary of Maryland, while the
people of Virginia warmly espoused their countryman's cause, Harvey
sided with Baltimore, and proved himself altogether a fit instrument of
the administration then tyrannizing in England. He was extortionate,
proud, unjust, and arbitrary; he issued proclamations in derogation of
the legislative powers of the assembly; assessed, levied, held, and
disbursed the colonial revenue, without check or responsibility;
transplanted into Virginia exotic English statutes; multiplied penalties
and exactions, and appropriated fines to his own use; he added the
decrees of the court of high commission of England to the ecclesiastical
constitutions of Virginia. The assembly, nevertheless, met regularly;
and the legislation of the colony expanded itself in accordance with the
exigencies of an increasing population. Tobacco was subjected, by royal
ordinances, to an oppressive monopoly; and in those days of prerogative,
a remonstrance to the Commons for redress proved fruitless.
At length, in July, 1634, the council's committee for the colonies,
either from policy or from compassion, transmitted instructions to the
governor and council, saying: "That it is not intended that interests
which men have settled when you were a corporation, should be impeached;
that for the present they may enjoy their estates with the same freedom
and privilege as they did before the recalling of their patents," and
authorizing the appropriation of lands to the planters, as had been the
former custom.[194:A]
Whether these concessions were inadequate in themselves, or were not
carried into effect by Harvey, upon the petition of many of the
inhabitants, an assembly was called to meet on the 7th of May, 1635, to
hear complaints against that obnoxious functionary. There is hardly any
point on which a people are more sensitive than in regard to their
territory, and it may therefore be concluded, that one of Harvey's chief
offences was his having sided with Lord Baltimore in his infraction of
the Virginia territory.
Burk, in his History of Virginia, has stigmatized Clayborne as "an
unprincipled incendiary" and "execrable villain;" other writers have
applied similar epithets to him. It appears to have been only his
resolute defence of his own rights and those of Virginia that subjected
him to this severe denunciation. He was long a member of the council;
long filled the office of secretary; was held in great esteem by the
people, and was for many years a leading spirit of the colony.
Burk[195:A] denounces Sir John Harvey for refusing to surrender the
fugitive Clayborne to the demand of the Maryland Commissioners, and
adds: "But the time was at hand when this rapacious and tyrannical
prefect (Harvey) would experience how vain and ineffectual are the
projects of tyranny when opposed to the indignation of freemen." Thus
the governor, who excited the indignation of the Virginians by his
collusion with the Marylanders, was afterwards reprobated by historians
for sympathizing with Clayborne in his defence of the rights of
Virginia, and opposition to the Marylanders. If Harvey, in violation of
the royal license granted to Clayborne in 1631, had surrendered him to
the Maryland Commissioners, he would have exposed himself to the royal
resentment; and nothing could have more inflamed the indignation of
freemen than such treatment of the intrepid vindicator of their
territorial rights.
Before the assembly (called to hear complaints against the governor)
met, Harvey, having consented to go to England to answer them, was
"thrust out of the government" by the council on the 28th of April,
1635, and Captain John West was authorized to act as governor until the
king's pleasure should be known. The assembly having collected the
evidence, deputed two members of the council to go out with Harvey to
prefer the charges against him. It was also ordered that during the
vacancy in the office of governor, the secretary (Clayborne) should sign
commissions and passes, and manage the affairs of the Indians.[195:B]
King Charles the First, offended at the presumption of the council and
assembly, reinstated Sir John, and he resumed his place, in or before
the month of January, 1636. Chalmers[195:C] says that he returned in
April, 1637. Thus the first open resistance to tyranny, and vindication
of constitutional right, took place in the colony of Virginia; and the
deposition of Harvey foreshadowed the downfall of Charles the First. The
laws that had been enacted by the first assembly of Maryland, having
been sent over to England for his approval, he rejected them, on the
ground that the right of framing them was vested in himself; and he
directed an assembly to be summoned to meet in January, 1638, to have
his dissent announced to them.
Early in 1637 a court was established by the Maryland authorities, in
Kent Island, and toward the close of that year Captain George Evelin was
appointed commander of the island. Many of Clayborne's adherents there
refused to submit to the jurisdiction of Lord Baltimore's colony, and
the governor, Leonard Calvert, found it necessary to repair there in
March, 1638, in person, with a military force, to reduce to submission
these Virginia malecontents. The Maryland legislature, convened in
compliance with Lord Baltimore's orders, refused to acquiesce in his
claim of the legislative power, and in the event they gained their
point, his lordship being satisfied with a controlling influence in the
choice of the delegates, and his veto.
The Virginians captured by Cornwallis in his engagement with Warren, had
been detained prisoners without being brought to trial, there being no
competent tribunal in the colony. At length Thomas Smith, second in
command to Warren, was brought to trial for the murder of William
Ashmore, (who had been killed in the skirmish,) and was found guilty,
and sentenced to death; but it is not certain that he was executed.
Clayborne was attainted, and his property confiscated; and these
proceedings probably produced those disturbances in Kent Island which
required the governor's presence.
Harvey, after his restoration, continued to be governor of Virginia for
about three years, during which period there appears to have been no
meeting of the assembly, and of this part of his administration no
record is left.
In July, 1638, Charles the First addressed a letter to Lord Baltimore,
referring to his former letters to "Our Governor and Council of
Virginia, and to others, our officers and subjects in these parts, (in
which) we signified our pleasure that William Clayborne, David Morehead,
and other planters in the island near Virginia, which they have
nominated Kentish Island, should in no sort be interrupted by you or any
other in your right, but rather be encouraged to proceed in so good a
work." The king complains to Baltimore that his agents, in spite of the
royal instructions, had "slain three of our subjects there, and by force
possessed themselves by night of that island, and seized and carried
away both the persons and estates of the said planters." His majesty
concludes by enjoining a strict compliance with his former
orders.[197:A]
In 1639 Father John Gravener, a Jesuit missionary, resided at Kent
Island. In April of this year the Lords Commissioners of Plantations,
with Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury, at their head, held a meeting at
Whitehall, and determined the controversy between Clayborne and Lord
Baltimore. This decision was made in consequence of a petition presented
in 1637 by Clayborne to the king, claiming, by virtue of discovery and
settlement, Kent Island and another plantation at the mouth of the
Susquehanna River, and complaining of the attempts of Lord Baltimore's
agents there to dispossess him and his associates, and of outrages
committed upon them. The decision was now absolute in favor of
Baltimore; and Clayborne, despairing of any peaceable redress, returned
to Virginia, and having in vain prayed for the restoration of his
property, awaited some future opportunity to vindicate his rights, and
to recover property amounting in value to six thousand pounds, of which
he had been despoiled.[197:B]
The Governor of Maryland, engaged in hostilities with the Indians,
obtained a supply of arms, ammunition, and provision from the Governor
of Virginia.
Charles the First, bred in all the arts of corrupt and arbitrary
government, had now for many years governed England by prerogative,
without a parliament, until at length his necessities constrained him to
convene one; and his apprehensions of that body, and the revolt of the
Scotch, and other alarming ebullitions of discontent, admonished him and
his advisers to mitigate the high-handed measures of administration. The
severity of colonial rule was also relaxed, and in November, 1639, the
unpopular Sir John Harvey was displaced, and succeeded by Sir Francis
Wyat.[198:A] But Harvey remained in Virginia, and continued to be a
member of the council. About this time mention is made of the
exportation of cattle from Virginia to New England.
FOOTNOTES:
[193:A] Beverley, B. i. 50.
[194:A] By the words "for the present," was probably intended "at
present," "now," otherwise their interests might be impeached at a
future day, although not immediately. Chalmers, Hist. of Revolt of Amer.
Colonies, 36, so interprets the expression.
[195:A] Hist. of Va., ii. 40.
[195:B] Hen., i. 223.
[195:C] Hist. of Revolt of Amer. Colonies, i. 36.
[197:A] Chalmers' Annals, 232.
[197:B] Clayborne is the same name with Claiborne; it is found sometimes
spelt Claiborn, and sometimes Cleyborne.
[198:A] 1 Hening's Stat. at Large, 4. Burk, Hist. of Va., ii. 46,
erroneously makes Sir William Berkley succeed Harvey.
CHAPTER XXII.
1640-1644.
Alarming State of Affairs in England--The Long Parliament
summoned--In Virginia Stephen Reekes pilloried--Sir William
Berkley made Governor--Assembly declare against Restoration of
Virginia Company--The King's Letter--Puritans in Virginia--Act
against Non-conformists--Massacre of 1644--Opechancanough
captured--His Death--Civil War in England--Sir William Berkley
visits England--Clayborne expels Calvert from Maryland, and
seizes the Government--Treaty with Necotowance--Statistics of
the Colony.
THE spirit of constitutional freedom awakened by the Reformation, and
which had been long gradually gaining strength, began to develope itself
with new energy in England. The arbitrary temper of Charles the First
excited so great dissatisfaction in the people, and such a strenuous
opposition in parliament, as to exact at length his assent to the
"Petition of Right." The public indignation was carried to a high pitch
by the forced levying of ship-money, that is, of money for the building
of ships-of-war, and John Hampden stood forth in a personal resistance
to this unconstitutional mode of raising money. The Puritans found
within the pale of the Established Church, as well as without, were
arrayed against the despotic rule of the crown and the hierarchy; and
Scotland was not less offended against the king, who undertook to
obtrude the Episcopal liturgy upon the Presbyterian land of his birth.
In the year 1640 Charles the First found himself compelled to call
together the Long Parliament. Virginia meantime remained loyal; the
decrees of the courts of high commission were the rule of conduct, and
the authority of Archbishop Laud was as absolute in the colony as in the
fatherland. Stephen Reekes was pilloried for two hours, with a label on
his back signifying his offence, fined fifty pounds, and imprisoned
during pleasure, for saying "that his majesty was at confession with the
Lord of Canterbury," that is, Archbishop Laud.
In May, 1641, the Earl of Strafford was executed, and Archbishop Laud
sent to the Tower, where he was destined to remain until he suffered
the same fate. The massacre of the Protestants in Ireland occurring in
the latter part of this year, rendered still more portentous the
threatening storm. January tenth, the king left London, to which he was
not destined to return till brought back a prisoner.
In February, 1642, Sir Francis Wyat gave way to Sir William Berkley,
whose destiny it was to hold the office of governor for a period longer
than any other governor, and to undergo extraordinary vicissitudes of
fortune. His commission and instructions declared that it was intended
to give due encouragement to the plantation of Virginia, and that
ecclesiastical as well as temporal matters should be regulated according
to the laws of England; provision was also made for securing to England
a monopoly of the trade of the colony. By some salutary measures which
Sir William Berkley introduced shortly after his arrival, and by his
prepossessing manners, he soon rendered himself very acceptable to the
Virginians.
In April, 1642, the assembly made a declaration against the restoration
of the Virginia Company then proposed, denouncing the company as having
been the source of intolerable calamities to the colony by its illegal
proceedings, barbarous punishments, and monopolizing policy. They
insisted that its restoration would cause them to degenerate from the
condition of their birthright, and convert them from subjects of a
monarchy to the creatures of a popular and tumultuary government, to
which they would be obliged to resign their lands held from the crown;
which they intimate, if necessary, would be more fitly resigned to a
branch of the royal family than to a corporation. They averred that the
revival of the company would prove a deathblow to freedom of trade, "the
life-blood of a commonwealth." Finally, the assembly protested against
the restoration of the company, and decreed severe penalties against any
who should countenance the scheme.[200:A]
At a court holden at James City, June the 29th, 1642, present Sir
William Berkley, knight, governor, etc., Captain John West, Mr. Rich.
Kemp, Captain William Brocas, Captain Christopher Wormley, Captain
Humphrey Higginson. The commission for the monthly court of Upper
Norfolk was renewed, and the commissioners appointed were, Captain
Daniel Gookin, commander, Mr. Francis Hough, Captain Thomas Burbage, Mr.
John Hill, Mr. Oliver Spry, Mr. Thomas Den, Mr. Randall Crew, Mr. Robert
Bennett, Mr. Philip Bennett. The captains of trained bands: Captain
Daniel Gookin, Captain Thomas Burbage.[201:A]
Among the converts made by one of the New England missionaries, named
Thompson, was Daniel Gookin (son of the early settler of that name.) He
removed to Boston in May, 1644, being probably one of those who were
driven away from Virginia for non-conformity. He went away with his
family in a ship bought by him from the governor, and was received with
distinction at Boston. He soon became eminent in New England, and
afterwards enjoyed the confidence of Cromwell, of whom he was a devoted
adherent. He was author of several historical works. He died in March,
1686-7[201:B].
The alarming crisis in the affairs of Charles the First strongly
dictated the necessity of a conciliatory course; and the remonstrance,
together with a petition, being communicated to him, then at York, just
on the eve of the "Grand Rebellion," he replied to it, firmly engaging
never to restore the Virginia Company.
The following is a copy of the king's letter:--
"C. R.
"Trusty and well-beloved, we greet you all. Whereas, we have
received a petition from you, our governor, council and
burgesses of the grand assembly in Virginia, together with a
declaration and protestation of the first of April, against a
petition presented in your names to our House of Commons in
this our kingdom, for restoring of the letters patent for the
incorporation of the late treasurer and council, contrary to
our intent and meaning, and against all such as shall go about
to alienate you from our immediate protection. And whereas,
you desire by your petition that we should confirm this your
declaration and protestation under our royal signet, and
transmit the same to that our colony; these are to signify,
that your acknowledgments of our great bounty and favors
toward you, and your so earnest desire to continue under our
immediate protection, are very acceptable to us; and that as
we had not before the least intention to consent to the
introduction of any company over that our colony; so we are by
it much confirmed in our former resolutions, as thinking it
unfit to change a form of government wherein (besides many
other reasons given, and to be given,) our subjects there
(having had so long experience of it) receive so much content
and satisfaction. And this our approbation of your petition
and protestation we have thought fit to transmit unto you
under our royal signet.
"Given at our Court, at York, the 5th of July, 1642.
"To our trusty and well-beloved our Governor, Council, and
Burgesses of the Grand Assembly of Virginia."[202:A]
It was in this year that the name of Charles City County was changed
into York.
As early as 1619 a small party of English Puritans had come over to
Virginia; and a larger number would have followed them, but they were
prevented by a royal proclamation issued at the instance of Bancroft,
the persecuting Archbishop of Canterbury. In 1642 a deputation was sent
from some Virginia dissenters to Boston, soliciting a supply of pastors
from the New England churches; three clergymen were accordingly sent,
with letters recommending them to the governor, Sir William Berkley. On
their arrival in Virginia they began to preach in various parts of the
country, and the people flocked eagerly to hear them. The following year
the assembly passed the following act: "For the preservation of the
purity of doctrine and unity of the church, it is enacted, that all
ministers whatsoever, which shall reside in the colony, are to be
conformable to the orders and constitutions of the Church of England and
the laws therein established; and not otherwise to be admitted to teach
or preach, publickly or privately; and that the governor and council do
take care, that all non-conformists, upon notice of them, shall be
compelled to depart the colony with all convenience."[203:A] Sir William
Berkley, equally averse to the religious tenets and political principles
of the Puritan preachers, issued a proclamation in consonance with this
exclusive act. Mather says of the three New England missionaries: "They
had little encouragement from the rulers of the place, but they had a
kind entertainment with the people;" and Winthrop: "Though the State did
silence the ministers, because they would not conform to the order of
England, yet the people resorted to them in private houses to hear
them." In a short time the preachers returned to their own country.
The Indians, whose hatred to the whites, although dissembled, had never
been abated, headed by Opechancanough, committed a second massacre on
the 18th day of April, 1644. It was attributed to the encroachments made
upon them by some of Sir John Harvey's grants; but it was suspected by
some that Opechancanough was instigated to this massacre by certain of
the colonists themselves, who informed him of the civil war then raging
in England, and of the dissensions that disturbed the colony, and told
him, that now was his time or never, to root out all of the English.
This is improbable. Had the Indians followed up the first blow, the
colonists must have all been cut off; but after their first treacherous
onslaught, their courage failed them, and they fled many miles from the
settlements. The colonists availed themselves of this opportunity to
gather together, call an assembly, secure their cattle, and to devise
some plan of defence and attack.
Opechancanough, the fierce and implacable enemy of the whites, was now
nearly a hundred years old, and the commanding form, which had so often
shone conspicuous in scenes of blood, was worn down by the fatigues of
war, and bending under the weight of years. No longer able to walk, he
was carried from place to place by his warriors in a litter. His body
was emaciated, and he could only see when his eyelids were opened by his
attendants. Sir William Berkley at length moving rapidly with a party of
horse, surprised the superannuated chief at some distance from his
residence, and he was carried a prisoner to Jamestown, and there kindly
treated. He retained a spirit unconquered by decrepitude of body or
reverse of fortune. Hearing one day footsteps in the room where he lay,
he requested his eyelids to be raised, when, perceiving a crowd of
persons attracted there by a curiosity to see the famous chief, he
called for the governor, and upon his appearance, said to him: "Had it
been my fortune to take Sir William Berkley prisoner, I would have
disdained to make a show of him." He, however, had made a show of
Captain Smith when he was a prisoner. About a fortnight after
Opechancanough's capture, one of his guards, for some private revenge,
basely shot him in the back. Languishing awhile of the wound, he died at
Jamestown, and was probably buried there. His death brought about a
peace with the Indian savages, which endured for many years without
interruption.
Sir William Berkley left Virginia for England in June, 1644, and
returned in June, 1645, his place being filled during his absence by
Richard Kemp.
The spirit of freedom long gaining ground, like a smothered fire, began
now to flame up and burst forth in England. Charles the First,
incomparably superior to his father in manners, habits, and tastes--a
model of kingly grace and dignity, yet was a more determined and
dangerous enemy to the rights of the people. On the 19th of March, 1642,
having escaped from insurgent London, he reached the ancient capital,
York, and on the twenty-fifth day of August raised his standard, under
inauspicious omens, at Nottingham. The royal forces under Prince Rupert
suffered a disastrous defeat at Marston Moor, July 2d, 1644; and while
Sir William Berkley was crossing the Atlantic, the king was overthrown
at Naseby, on the 4th of June, 1645. In this eventful year, and so
disastrous to the king, of whom the Berkleys were such staunch
supporters, Gloucester, the chief city of the county where they resided,
and which had been ravaged and plundered by Rupert, was now in the hands
of the parliamentary forces, and Cromwell had been early in the year
convoying ammunition thither.[204:A] A sad time for the visit of the
loyal Berkley!
During the troubles in England the correspondence of the colony was
interrupted, supplies reduced, trade obstructed; and the planters looked
forward with solicitude to the issue of such alarming events.
In the mean while Lord Baltimore, taking advantage of the weakness of
the crown, had shown some contempt for its authority, and had drawn upon
himself the threat of a _quo warranto_.
Early in 1645, Clayborne, profiting by the distractions of the mother
country, and animated by an indomitable, or, as his enemies alleged, a
turbulent spirit, and by a sense of wrongs long unavenged, at the head
of a band of insurgents, expelled Leonard Calvert, deputy governor, from
Maryland, and seized the reins of government. In the month of August,
1646, Calvert, who had taken refuge in Virginia, regained command of
Maryland. Nevertheless, Clayborne and his confederates, with but few
exceptions, emerged in impunity from this singular contest.
Opechancanough was succeeded by Necotowance, styled "King of the
Indians," and in October, 1646, a treaty was effected with him, by which
he agreed to hold his authority from the King of England, (who was now
bereft of his own,) while the assembly engaged to protect him from his
enemies; in acknowledgment whereof, he was to deliver to the governor
a yearly tribute of twenty beaver skins at the departure of the
wild-geese.[205:A] By this treaty it was further agreed, that the
Indians were to occupy the country on the north side of York River, and
to cede to the English all the country between the York and the James,
from the falls to Kiquotan; death for an Indian to be found within this
territory, unless sent in as a messenger; messengers to be admitted into
the colony by means of badges of striped cloth; and felony for a white
man to be found on the Indian hunting-ground, which was to extend from
the head of Yapin, the Blackwater, to the old Mannakin town, on the
James River; badges to be received at Fort Royal and Fort Henry, alias
Appomattox. Fort Henry had been established not long before this, at the
falls of the Appomattox, now site of Petersburg; Fort Charles at the
falls of the James; Fort James on the Chickahominy. This one was under
command of Lieutenant Thomas Rolfe, son of Pocahontas.[206:A] Fort Royal
was on the Pamunkey.
The colony bore a natural resemblance to the mother country, no little
modified by new circumstances, and followed her, yet not with equal
step. The government and the people were apparently, in the main, loyal,
but there was a growing Puritan party, and William Clayborne appears to
have been at the head of it. In 1647 certain ministers, refusing to read
the Common Prayer on the Sabbath, were declared not entitled to tythes.
Two years before, mercenary attorneys had been, by law, expelled from
the courts, and now attorneys were prohibited from receiving any
compensation for their services, and the courts were directed not to
allow any professional attorneys to appear in civil causes. In case
there appeared danger of a party suffering in his suit by reason of his
weakness, the court was directed to appoint some suitable person in his
behalf from the people. It has been suggested in modern times, as an
improvement in the administration of justice, to allow the parties to
make their own statements.
There were in Virginia, in 1648, about fifteen thousand English, and of
negroes that had been imported, three hundred good servants. Of cows,
oxen, bulls, and calves, "twenty thousand, large and good;" and the
colonists made plenty of butter and good cheese. The number of horses
and mares, of good breed, was two hundred; of asses fifty. The sheep
numbered three thousand, producing good wool; there were five thousand
goats. Hogs, tame and wild, innumerable, and the bacon excellent;
poultry equally abundant. Wheat was successfully cultivated. The
abundant crop of barley supplied malt, and there were public
brew-houses, and most of the planters brewed a good and strong beer for
themselves. Hops were found to thrive well. The price-current of beef
was two pence halfpenny (about five cents) a pound, pork six cents.
Cattle bore about the same price as in England; most of the vessels
arriving laid in their stores here. Thirty different sorts of river and
sea fish were caught. Thirty species of birds and fowls had been
observed, and twenty kinds of quadrupeds; deer abundant. The varieties
of fruit were estimated at fifteen, and they were comparable to those of
Italy. Twenty-five different kinds of trees were noticed, suitable for
building ships, houses, etc. The vegetables were potatoes, asparagus,
carrots, parsnips, onions, artichokes, peas, beans, and turnips, with a
variety of garden herbs and medicinal flowers. Virginia (or Indian) corn
yielded five hundred fold; it was planted like garden-peas; it made good
bread and furmity, and malt for beer, and was found to keep for seven
years. It was planted in April or May, and ripened in five months. Bees,
wild and domestic, supplied plenty of honey and wax. Indigo was made
from the leaves of a small tree, and great hopes were entertained that
Virginia would in time come to supply all Christendom with the commodity
which was then procured "from the Mogul's country." The Virginia tobacco
was in high esteem, yet the crop raised was so large that the price was
only about three pence, or six cents, a pound. A man could plant enough
to make two thousand pounds, and also sufficient corn and vegetables for
his own support. The culture of hemp and flax had been commenced. Good
iron-ore was found, and there were sanguine anticipations of the profits
to be derived from that source. There were wind-mills and water-mills,
horse-mills and hand-mills: a saw-mill was greatly needed, it being
considered equivalent to the labor of twenty men. There came yearly to
trade above thirty vessels, navigated by seven or eight hundred men.
They brought linens, woollens, stockings, shoes, etc. They cleared in
March, with return cargoes of tobacco, staves, and lumber. Many of the
masters and chief mariners of these vessels had plantations, houses, and
servants, in the colony. Pinnaces, boats, and barges were numerous, the
most of the plantations being situated on the banks of the rivers. Pitch
and tar were made. Mulberry-trees abounded, and it was confidently
believed that silk could be raised in Virginia as well as in France.
Hopeful anticipations of making wine from the native grape were
entertained, but have never been realized. Virginia was now considered
healthy; the colonists being so amply provided with the necessaries and
comforts of life, the number of deaths was believed to be less,
proportionally, than in England. The voyage from England to Virginia
occupied about six weeks; the outward-bound voyage averaging about
twenty-five days.
At this time a thousand colonists were seated upon the Accomac shore,
near Cape Charles, where Captain Yeardley was chief commander. The
settlement was then called Northampton; the name of Accomac having been
changed in 1643 to Northampton, but the original name was afterwards
restored. Lime was found abundant in Virginia; bricks were made, and
already some houses built of them. Mechanics found profitable
employment, such as turners, potters, coopers, sawyers, carpenters,
tilemakers, boatwrights, tailors, shoemakers, tanners, fishermen, and
the like. There were at this time twelve counties. The number of
churches was twenty, each provided with a minister, and the doctrine and
orders after the Church of England. The ministers' livings were worth
one hundred pounds, or five hundred dollars, per annum, paid in tobacco
and corn. The colonists all lived in peace and love, happily exempt by
distance from the horrors of civil war that convulsed the mother
country. The Virginia planters were intending to make further
discoveries to the south and west. A colony of Swedes had made a
settlement on the banks of the Delaware River, within the limits of
Virginia, and were carrying on a profitable traffic in furs. The Dutch
had also planted a colony on the Hudson River, within the Virginia
territory, and their trade in furs amounted to ten thousand pounds per
annum. Cape Cod was then looked upon as the point of demarcation between
Virginia and New England. Cattle, corn, and other commodities were
shipped from Virginia to New England. Sir William Berkley had made an
experiment in the cultivation of rice, and found that it produced thirty
fold, the soil and climate being well adapted to it, as the negroes
affirmed, who, in Africa, had subsisted mostly on that grain. There were
now many thousands of acres of cleared land in Virginia, and about one
hundred and fifty ploughs at work. Captain Brocas of the council, a
great traveller, had planted a vineyard, and made excellent wine.
At Christmas, 1647, there were in the James River ten vessels from
London, two from Bristol, twelve from Holland, and seven from New
England. Mr. Richard Bennet expressed twenty butts of excellent cider
from apples of his own orchard. They began now to engraft on the
crab-apple tree, which was found indigenous. Another planter had for
several years made, from pears of his own raising, forty or fifty butts
of perry. The governor, Sir William Berkley, in his new orchard, had
fifteen hundred fruit trees, besides his apricots, peaches, mellicotons,
quinces, wardens, and the like.
Captain Matthews, an old planter, of above thirty years' standing, one
of the council, and "a most deserving commonwealth man," had a fine
house, sowed much hemp and flax, and had it spun; he kept weavers, and
had a tannery, where leather was dressed; and had eight shoemakers at
work; had forty negro servants, whom he brought up to mechanical trades;
he sowed large crops of wheat and barley. The wheat he sold at four
shillings (about a dollar) a bushel. He also supplied vessels trading in
Virginia, with beef. He had a plenty of cows, a fine dairy, a large
number of hogs and poultry. Captain Matthews married a daughter of Sir
Thomas Hinton, and "kept a good house, lived bravely, and was a true
lover of Virginia."
There was a free school, with two hundred acres of land appurtenant, a
good house, forty milch cows, and other accommodations. It was endowed
by Mr. Benjamin Symms. There were, besides, some small schools in the
colony, probably such as are now known as "old-field schools."[209:A]
FOOTNOTES:
[200:A] 1 Hening, 230; Burk, ii. 68.
[201:A] Art. by J. Wingate Thornton, Esq., in Mass Gen. and Antiq.
Register for 1847, page 348.
[201:B] Ibid., 352.
[202:A] Chalmers' Annals, 133.
[203:A] 1 Hening, 277.
[204:A] Carlyle's Cromwell, i. 144.
[205:A] Cohonk, the cry of the wild-geese, was an Indian term for
winter.
[206:A] Toward the end of 1641 he had petitioned the governor for
permission to visit his kinsman, Opechancanough, and Cleopatre, his
aunt.
[209:A] Hening, i. 252.
CHAPTER XXIII.
1648-1659.
Beauchamp Plantagenet visits Virginia--Settlement of other
Colonies--Dissenters persecuted and banished from Virginia--
Some take refuge in Carolina; some in Maryland--Charles the
First executed--Commonwealth of England--Virginia Assembly
denounces the Authors of the King's Death--Colonel Norwood's
Voyage to Virginia--The Virginia Dissenters in Maryland--The
Long Parliament prohibits Trade with Virginia--A Naval Force
sent to reduce the Colony, Bennet and Clayborne being two of
the Commissioners--Captain Dennis demands surrender of
Virginia--Sir William Berkley constrained to yield--Articles
of Capitulation.
DURING the year 1648 Beauchamp Plantagenet, a royalist with a high-flown
name, flying from the fury of the grand rebellion, visited America in
behalf of a company of adventurers, in quest of a place of settlement,
and in the course of his explorations came to Virginia. At Newport's
News he was hospitably entertained by Captain Matthews, Mr. Fantleroy,
and others, finding free quarter everywhere. The Indian war was now
ended by the courage of Captain Marshall and the valiant Stillwell, and
by the resolute march of Sir William Berkley, who had made the veteran
Opechancanough prisoner. The explorer went to Chicaoen, on the Potomac,
and found Maryland involved in war with the Sasquesahannocks and other
Indians, and at the same time in a civil war. Kent Island appeared to be
too wet, and the water was bad.[210:A]
In the month of March, 1648, Nickotowance, the Indian chief, visited
Governor Berkley, at Jamestown, accompanied by five other chiefs, and
presented twenty beaver skins to be sent to King Charles as tribute.
About this time the Indians reported to Sir William Berkley that within
five days' journey to the southwest there was a high mountain, and at
the foot of it great rivers that run into a great sea; that men came
hither in ships, (but not the same as the English;) that they wore
apparel, and had red caps on their heads, and rode on beasts like
horses, but with much longer ears. These people were probably the
Spaniards. Sir William Berkley prepared to make an exploration with
fifty horse and as many foot,[211:A] but he was disappointed in this
enterprise.
At this period the settlement of all the New England States had been
commenced; the Dutch possessed the present States of New York, New
Jersey, and part of Connecticut, and they had already pushed their
settlements above Albany; the Swedes occupied the shores of Pennsylvania
and Delaware; Maryland was still in her infancy; Virginia was
prosperous; the country now known as the Carolinas belonged to the
assignees of Sir Robert Heath, but as yet no advances had been made
toward the occupation of it.[211:B]
Upon complaint of the necessities of the people, occasioned by barren
and over-wrought land, and want of range for cattle and hogs, permission
was granted them to remove during the following year to the north side
of Charles (York) and Rappahannock rivers.[211:C]
The congregation of dissenters collected by the three missionaries
before mentioned from Massachusetts, amounted in 1648 to one hundred and
eighteen members. They encountered the continual opposition of the
colonial authorities. Mr. Durand, their elder, had already been banished
by the governor; and in the course of this year their pastor, Harrison,
being ordered to depart, retired to New England. On his arrival there he
represented that many of the Virginia council were favorably disposed
toward the introduction of Puritanism, and that "one thousand of the
people, by conjecture, were of a similar mind."[211:D] The members
of the council at that time were Captain John West, Richard Kempe,
secretary, Captain William Brocas, Captain Thomas Pettus, Captain
William Bernard, Captain Henry Browne, and Mr. George Ludlow. When the
prevalence of Puritanism in the mother country is considered, and the
numerous ties of interest and consanguinity that connected it with the
colony, the estimate of the number favorably disposed toward Puritanism
does not appear improbable. John Hammond afterwards gave an account of
the proceedings against the Puritans in Virginia.[212:A] According to
him, during the reign of Charles the First, Virginia "was wholly for
monarchy." A congregation of people calling themselves Independents
having organized a church, (probably in Nansemond County,) and daily
increasing, several consultations were held by the authorities of the
colony how to suppress and extinguish them. At first their pastor was
banished, next their other teachers, then many were confined in prison;
next they were generally disarmed, which was a very harsh measure in
such a country, where they were surrounded by the Indian savages;
lastly, the non-conformists were put in a condition of banishment, so
that they knew not how in those straits to dispose of themselves. The
leader in this persecution, according to Hammond, was Colonel Samuel
Matthews, member of the council in 1643, and subsequently agent for
Virginia to the parliament. A number of these dissenters having gained
the consent of Lord Baltimore and his deputy governor of Maryland,
retired to that colony, and settled there. Among these, one of the
principal was Richard Bennet, a merchant and a Roundhead. For a time
these refugees prospered and remained apparently content with their new
place of abode; and others, induced by their example, likewise removed
thither.
King Charles the First, after having been a prisoner for several years,
was beheaded in front of Whitehall Palace, on the 30th day of January,
1648. He died with heroic firmness and dignity.[212:B] The Commonwealth
of England now commenced, and continued till the restoration of Charles
the Second, in 1660. Upon the dissolution of the monarchy in England,
there were not wanting those in Virginia who held that the colonial
government, being derived from the crown, was itself now extinct; but
the assembly, by an act of October of the same year, declared that
whoever should defend the late traitorous proceedings against the king,
should be adjudged an accessory after the fact, to his death, and be
proceeded against accordingly; to asperse the late most pious king's
memory was made an offence punishable at the discretion of the governor
and council; to express a doubt of the right of succession of Charles
the Second, or to propose a change of government, or to derogate from
the full power of the government of the colony, was declared to be high
treason.[213:A] The principle, however, that the authority of the
colonial government ceased with the king's death, was expressly
recognized at the surrender of the colony to the parliamentary naval
force in 1651.
Colonel Norwood, a loyal refugee in Holland, having formed a plan with
two comrades, Major Francis Morrison and Major Richard Fox, to seek
their fortunes in Virginia, they met in London, August, 1649, for the
purpose of embarking. At the time when they had first concerted their
scheme, Charles the First was a prisoner at Carisbrook Castle, in the
Isle of Wight. He had since been executed; the royalists, thunderstruck
at this catastrophe, saw their last gleam of hope extinguished; and
Norwood and his friends were eager to escape from the scene of their
disasters. At the Royal Exchange, whose name was now for a time to be
altered to the "Great Exchange," the three forlorn cavaliers engaged a
passage to Virginia in the "Virginia Merchant," burden three hundred
tons, mounting thirty guns or more. The charge for the passage was six
pounds a head, for themselves and servants. The colony of Virginia they
deemed preferable for them in their straitened pecuniary circumstances;
and they brought over some goods with them for the purpose of mercantile
adventure. September the 23d, 1649, they embarked in the "Virginia
Merchant," having on board three hundred and thirty souls. Touching at
Fayal, Norwood and his companions met with a Portuguese lady of rank
with her family returning, in an English ship, the "John," from the
Brazils to her own country. With her they drank the healths of their
kings, amid thundering peals of cannon. The English gentlemen
discovered a striking resemblance between the lady's son and their own
prince, Charles, which filled them with fond admiration, and flattered
the vanity of the beautiful Portuguese. Passing within view of the
charming Bermuda, the "Virginia Merchant" sailing for Virginia, struck
upon a breaker early in November, near the stormy Cape Hatteras.
Narrowly escaping from that peril, she was soon overtaken by a storm,
and tossed by mountainous towering northwest seas. Amid the horrors of
the evening prospect, Norwood observed innumerable ill-omened porpoises
that seemed to cover the surface of the sea as far as the eye could
reach. The ship at length losing forecastle and mainmast, became a mere
hulk, drifting at the mercy of the winds and waves. Some of the
passengers were swept overboard by the billows that broke over her; the
rest suffered the tortures of terror and famine. At last the tempest
subsiding, the ship drifted near the coast of the Eastern Shore. Here
Norwood and a party landing on an island, were abandoned by the Virginia
Merchant. After enduring the extremities of cold and hunger, of which
some died, Norwood and the survivors in the midst of the snow were
rescued by a party of friendly Indians. In the mean while the ship
having arrived in the James River, a messenger was dispatched by
Governor Berkley in quest of Norwood and his party. Conducted to the
nearest plantation, they were everywhere entertained with the utmost
kindness. Stephen Charlton (afterwards, in 1652, burgess from
Northampton County,) would have the Colonel to put on a good farmer-like
suit of his own. After visiting Captain Yeardley, (son of Sir George
Yeardley, the former governor,) the principal person in that quarter of
the colony, Norwood crossed the Chesapeake Bay in a sloop, and landed at
'Squire Ludlow's plantation on York River. Next he proceeded to the
neighboring plantation of Captain Ralph Wormley, at that time burgess
from York County, and member of his majesty's council. At Captain
Wormley's he found some of his friends, who had likewise recently
arrived from England, feasting and carousing. The cavaliers had changed
their clime but not their habits. These guests were Sir Thomas
Lundsford, Sir Henry Chicheley, (pronounced Chickley,) Sir Philip
Honeywood, and Colonel Hammond. Sir Thomas Lundsford lies buried in the
churchyard of Williamsburg. At Jamestown Norwood was cordially welcomed
by Sir William Berkley, who took him to his house at Greenspring, where
he remained for some months. Sir William, on many occasions, showed
great respect to all the royal party who made that colony their refuge;
and his house and purse were open to all such. To Major Fox, who had no
other friend in the colony to look to for aid, he exhibited signal
kindness; to Major Morrison he gave command of the fort at Point
Comfort, and by his interest afterwards advanced him to be governor of
the colony. In 1650 Governor Berkley dispatched Norwood to Holland to
find the fugitive king, and to solicit for the place of treasurer of
Virginia, which Sir William took to be void by "the delinquency" of
William Clayborne, the incumbent, who had long held that place. The
governor furnished Norwood with money to defray the charge of the
solicitation, which was effectual, although Prince Charles was not found
in Holland, he having gone to Scotland. Charles the Second was crowned
by the Scotch at Scone, in 1651.[215:A]
Bennet and other dissenting Virginians, who had settled in Maryland,
were not long there before they became dissatisfied with the proprietary
government. The authority of Papists was irksome to Puritans, and they
began to avow their aversion to the oath of allegiance imposed upon
them; for by the terms of it Lord Baltimore affected to usurp almost
royal authority, concluding his commissions and writs with "We," "us,"
and "given under our hand and greater seal of arms, in such a year of
our dominion." The Protestants of Maryland, no doubt saw, in the
political character of the Commonwealth of England, a fair prospect of
the speedy subversion of Baltimore's power; nor were they disappointed
in this hope.
In October, 1650, the Long Parliament passed an ordinance prohibiting
trade with Barbadoes, Virginia, Bermuda, and Antigua. The act recited
that these colonies were, and of right ought to be, subject to the
authority of Parliament; that divers acts of rebellion had been
committed by many persons inhabiting Virginia, whereby they have most
traitorously usurped a power of government, and set themselves in
opposition to this commonwealth. It therefore declared such persons
notorious robbers and traitors; forbade all correspondence or commerce
with them, and appointed commissioners, and dispatched Sir George
Ayscue, with a powerful fleet and army, to reduce Barbadoes, Bermuda,
and Antigua to submission.
Charles the Second having invaded England at the head of a Scottish
army, was utterly defeated and overthrown by Cromwell, at Worcester,
September the 3d, 1651. Charles himself, not long after, with difficulty
and in disguise, escaped to France. In September of the same year the
council of state, of which Bradshaw was president, issued instructions
for Captain Robert Dennis, Mr. Richard Bennet, Mr. Thomas Steg,[216:A]
and Captain William Clayborne, appointed commissioners, for the
reducement of Virginia and the inhabitants thereof, to their due
obedience to the Commonwealth of Virginia. A fleet was put under command
of Captain Dennis, and the commissioners embarked in the Guinea frigate.
They were empowered to assure pardon and indemnity to all the
inhabitants of the said plantations that shall submit unto the present
government and authority, as it is established in the Commonwealth of
England. In case they shall not submit by fair ways and means, the
commissioners were to use all acts of hostility that lay in their power
to enforce them; and if they should find the people so to stand out as
that they could by no other ways or means reduce them to their due
obedience, they, or any two or more of them, whereof Captain Robert
Dennis was to be one, had the power to appoint captains and other
officers, and to raise forces within each of the aforesaid plantations,
for the furtherance of the service; and such persons as should come in
and serve as soldiers, if their masters should stand in opposition to
the government of the English Commonwealth, might be discharged and set
free from their masters, by the commissioners. A similar measure was
adopted by Lord Dunmore in 1776. In case of the death of Captain
Dennis, his place was to be filled by Captain Edmund Curtis, commander
of the Guinea frigate.[217:A] It is a mistake to suppose that the
members of the Long Parliament were all of them, or a majority of them,
Puritans, in the religious sense of the term; but they were so in
political principles.
In March, 1652, Captain Dennis arrived at Jamestown, and demanded a
surrender of the colony. It is said by some historians that Sir William
Berkley, either with a hope of repelling them, or of commanding better
terms, prepared for a gallant resistance, and undertook to strengthen
himself by making use of several Dutch ships,[217:B] which happened to
be there engaged in a contraband trade, and which he hired for the
occasion; that there chanced to be on board of the parliament's fleet
some goods belonging to two members of the Virginia council, and that
Dennis sent them word that their goods should be forfeited if the colony
was not immediately surrendered; and that the threat kindled dissensions
in the council, and the governor found himself constrained to yield on
condition of a general amnesty.[217:C]
Such is the account of several chroniclers, but it appears to be based
only on a loose and erroneous tradition. It would have been a mere empty
gasconade for Sir William Berkley to oppose the English naval force, and
the truth appears to be, that as soon as the parliamentary squadron
entered the Chesapeake Bay, all thoughts of resistance were laid aside.
If the story of the preparation for resistance were credited, it must at
the same time be believed that this chivalry and loyalty suddenly
evaporated under the more potent influence of pecuniary interest.[217:D]
The capitulation was ratified on the 12th of March, 1652, by which it
was agreed that the Colony of Virginia should be subject to the
Commonwealth of England; that the submission should be considered
voluntary, not forced nor constrained by a conquest upon the country;
and that "they shall have and enjoy such freedoms and privileges as
belong to the free-born people of England;" the assembly to meet as
formerly, and transact the affairs of the colony, but nothing to be done
contrary to the government of the Commonwealth of England; full
indemnity granted for all offences against the Parliament of England;
Virginia to have and enjoy the ancient bounds and limits granted by the
charters of former kings; "and that we shall seek a new charter from the
Parliament to that purpose, against any that have entrenched upon the
rights thereof," alluding no doubt to Lord Baltimore's intrusion into
Maryland; that the privilege of having fifty acres of land for every
person transported to the colony, shall continue as formerly granted;
that the people of Virginia shall have free trade, as the people of
England do enjoy, to all places, and with all nations, according to the
laws of that Commonwealth; and that Virginia shall enjoy all privileges
equally with any English plantation in America.
The navigation act had been passed in the preceding October, forbidding
any goods, wares, or merchandise, to be imported into England, except
either in English ships, or in ships of the country where the
commodities were produced--a blow aimed at the carrying-trade of the
Dutch. It was further agreed by the articles of surrender, that Virginia
was to be free from all taxes, customs, and impositions whatsoever, and
none to be imposed on them without consent of the grand assembly; and so
that neither forts nor castles be erected, or garrisons maintained,
without their consent: no charge to be made upon Virginia on account of
this present fleet; the engagement or oath of allegiance to be tendered
to all the inhabitants of Virginia; recusants to have a year's time to
remove themselves and their effects out of Virginia, and in the mean
time, during the said year, to have equal justice as formerly; the use
of the Book of Common Prayer to be permitted for one year, with the
consent of a majority of a parish, provided that those things which
relate to kingship, or that government, be not used publicly; and
ministers to be continued in their places, they not misdemeaning
themselves; public ammunition, powder and arms, to be given up,
security being given to make satisfaction for them; goods already
brought hither by the Dutch to remain unmolested; the quit-rents granted
by the late king to the planters of Virginia for seven years, to be
confirmed; finally, the parliamentary commissioners engage themselves
and the honor of the Parliament for the full performance of the
articles, the governor and council and burgesses making the same pledge
for the colony.[219:A]
On the same day some other articles were ratified by the commissioners
and the governor and council, exempting the governor and council from
taking the oath of allegiance for a year, and providing that they should
not be censured for praying for, or speaking well of the king, for one
whole year in their private houses, or "neighboring conference;" Sir
William Berkley was permitted to send an agent to give an account to his
majesty of the surrender of the country; Sir William and the members of
the council were permitted to dispose of their estates, and transport
themselves "whither they please." Protection of liberty and property
were guaranteed to Sir William Berkley.
Major Fox, (comrade of Norwood,) commander of the fort, at Point
Comfort, was allowed compensation for the building of his house on Fort
Island. A general amnesty was granted to the inhabitants, and it was
agreed that in case Sir William or his councillors should go to London,
or any other place in England, that they should be free from trouble or
hindrance of arrests, or such like, and that they may prosecute their
business there for six months. It would seem that some important
articles of surrender were not ratified by the Long Parliament.
The Fourth Article was, "That Virginia shall have and enjoy the ancient
bounds and limits granted by the charters of the former kings, and that
we shall seek a new charter from the Parliament to that purpose, against
any that entrenched against the rights thereof." This article was
referred in August, 1652, to the committee of the navy, to consider what
patent was fit to be granted to the inhabitants of Virginia.
The Seventh Article was, "That the people of Virginia have free trade,
as the people of England do enjoy, to all places and with all nations,
according to the laws of that commonwealth; and that Virginia shall
enjoy all privileges equal with any English plantations in America." The
latter clause was referred to the same committee.
The Eighth Article was, "That Virginia shall be free from all taxes,
customs, and impositions, whatsoever, and none to be imposed on them
without consent of the grand assembly, and so that neither forts nor
castles be erected, or garrisons maintained, without their consent."
This was also referred to the navy committee, together with several
papers relative to the disputes between Virginia and Maryland. The
committee made a report in December, which seems merely confined to the
Fourth Article, relative to the question of boundary and the contest
with Lord Baltimore. In the ensuing July the Long Parliament was
dissolved.[220:A]
The articles of surrender were subscribed by Richard Bennet, William
Clayborne, and Edmund Curtis, commissioners in behalf of the Parliament.
Bennet, a merchant and Roundhead, driven from Virginia by the
persecution of Sir William Berkley's administration, had taken refuge in
Maryland. Having gone thence to England, his Puritanical principles and
his knowledge of the colonies of Virginia and Maryland, had recommended
him for the place of commissioner. Clayborne, too, who had formerly been
obliged to fly to England, and whose office of treasurer of Virginia Sir
William Berkley had held to be forfeited by delinquency, and which the
fugitive Charles had bestowed on Colonel Norwood--this impetuous and
indomitable Clayborne was another of the commissioners sent to reduce
the colonies within the Chesapeake Bay.
A new era was now opening in these two colonies; and the prominent parts
which Bennet and Clayborne were destined to perform in this novel scene,
exhibit a signal example of the vicissitudes of human fortune. The drama
that was enacted in the mother country was repeated on a miniature
theatre in the colonies.
FOOTNOTES:
[210:A] Description of New Albion, in Force's Hist. Tracts, ii.
[211:A] Hening, i. 353.
[211:B] Martin's History of North Carolina, i. 105-6. This is a valuable
work, but marred, especially in the first volume, by the unparalleled
misprinting, the engagements of the author not permitting him to correct
the proofs.
[211:C] Force's Hist. Tracts, ii., "A New Description of Va."
[211:D] Hawks' Narrative, 57, citing Savage's Winthrop, ii. 334.
[212:A] Leah and Rachel, in Force's Hist. Tracts, iii., Leah and Rachel
representing the two sisters, Virginia and Maryland.
[212:B] In the same year the Netherlands became independent.
[213:A] Hening, i. 360.
[215:A] Force's Hist. Tracts, iii.; Churchill's Voyages. A Major Norwood
is mentioned in Pepys' Diary, i. 46.
[216:A] A Mr. Thomas Stagg was a resident planter of Virginia in 1652.
Hening, i. 375.
[217:A] Virginia and Maryland, 18; Force's Hist. Tracts, ii.
[217:B] Only one ship appears to have been confiscated. Hening, i. 382.
[217:C] Chalmers' Annals, 123; Beverley, B. i. 54.
[217:D] Bancroft, Hist. of U. S., i. 223, citing Clarendon, B. xiii.
466, and other authorities, says that the fleet was sent over by
Cromwell, and came to Virginia after having reduced the West India
Islands. Cromwell, however, although at this time the master-spirit of
England, had not yet assumed dictatorial powers.
[219:A] Hening, i. 363.
[220:A] "Virginia and Maryland," Force's Hist. Tracts, ii. 20, in note.
Mr. Force, whose researches have brought to light such a magazine of
curious and instructive historical materials, appears to have been the
first to mention the non-ratification of some of the articles of
surrender. He says: "Three of the articles were not confirmed," and
therefore did not receive the last formal and final and definitive
ratification which Burk [Hist. of Va., ii. 92,] supposes they did. But
it appears that Burk referred only to the ratification by the parties at
Jamestown, and had no reference to the ulterior confirmation by the
Parliament.
CHAPTER XXIV.
1652-1656.
Bennet and Clayborne reduce Maryland--Cromwell's Letter--
Provisional Government organized in Virginia--Bennet made
Governor--William Clayborne Secretary of State--The Assembly--
Counties represented--Cromwell dissolves the Long Parliament,
and becomes Lord Protector--Sir William Berkley--Francis
Yeardley's Letter to John Ferrar--Discovery in Carolina--
Roanoke Indians visit Yeardley--He purchases a large Territory
--William Hatcher--Stone, Deputy Governor of Maryland, defies
the Authority of the Commissioners Bennet and Clayborne--They
seize the Government and entrust it to Commissioners--Battle
ensues--The Adherents of Baltimore defeated--Several prisoners
executed--Cromwell's Letters--The Protestants attack the
Papists on the Birth-day of St. Ignatius.
NOT long after the surrender of the Ancient Dominion of Virginia, Bennet
and Clayborne, commissioners, embarking in the Guinea frigate, proceeded
to reduce Maryland. After effecting a reduction of the infant province,
they, with singular moderation, agreed to a compromise with those who
held the proprietary government under Lord Baltimore. Stone, the
governor, and the council, part of them Papists, none well affected to
the Commonwealth of England, were allowed, until further instructions
should be received, to retain their places, on condition of issuing all
writs in the name of the Keepers of the Liberty of England.[222:A] Sir
William Berkley, upon the surrender of the colony, betook himself into
retirement in Virginia, where he remained free from molestation; and his
house continued to be a hospitable place of resort for refugee
cavaliers. There was, no doubt, before the surrender, a considerable
party in Virginia, who either secretly or openly sympathized with the
parliamentary party in England; and upon the reduction of the colony
these adherents of the Commonwealth found their influence much
augmented.
On the 30th of April, 1652, Bennet and Clayborne, commissioners,
together with the burgesses of Virginia, organized a provisional
government, subject to the control of the Commonwealth of England.
Richard Bennet, who had been member of the council in 1646, nephew of an
eminent London merchant largely engaged in the Virginia trade,[223:A]
was made governor, April 30, 1652; and William Clayborne, secretary of
state for the colony. The council appointed consisted of Captain John
West, Colonel Samuel Matthews, Colonel Nathaniel Littleton, Colonel
Argal Yeardley, Colonel Thomas Pettus, Colonel Humphrey Higginson,
Colonel George Ludlow, Colonel William Barnett,[223:B] Captain Bridges
Freeman, Captain Thomas Harwood, Major William Taylor, Captain Francis
Eppes, and Lieutenant-Colonel John Cheesman. The governor, secretary,
and council were to have such power and authorities to act from time to
time as should be appointed and granted by the grand assembly.[223:C]
The government of the mother country was entitled "the States," as the
United States are now styled in Canada. The act organizing the
provisional government concludes with: "God save the Commonwealth of
England, and this country of Virginia." The governor and councillors
were allowed to be, ex-officio, members of the assembly. On the fifth
day of May, this body, while claiming the right to appoint all officers
for the colony, yet for the present, in token of their implicit
confidence in the commissioners, referred all the appointments not
already made to the governor and them. The administration of Virginia
was now, for the first time, Puritan and Republican. The act authorizing
the governor and council to appoint the colonial officers was renewed in
the following year. The oath administered to the burgesses was: "You and
every of you shall swear upon the holy Evangelist, and in the sight of
God, to deliver your opinions faithfully and honestly, according to your
best understanding and conscience, for the general good and prosperity
of the country, and every particular member thereof, and to do your
utmost endeavor to prosecute that without mingling with it any
particular interest of any person or persons whatsoever."
The governor and members of the council were declared to be entitled to
seats in the assembly, and were required to take the same oath. This
assembly, which met on the 20th of April, 1652, appears to have sat
about ten days. There were thirty-five burgesses present from twelve
counties, namely: Henrico, Charles City, James City, Isle of Wight,
Nansemond, (originally called Nansimum,) Lower Norfolk, Elizabeth City,
Warwick, York, Northampton, Northumberland, and Gloucester--Lancaster
not being represented.[224:A] Rappahannock County was formed from the
upper part of Lancaster in 1656.
At the commencement of the ensuing session of the assembly, which met in
October, 1652, Mr. John Hammond, returned a burgess from Isle of Wight
County, was expelled from the assembly as being notoriously a scandalous
person, and a frequent disturber of the peace of the country by libel
and other illegal practices. He had passed nineteen years in Virginia,
and now retired to Maryland; he was the author of the pamphlet entitled
"Leah and Rachel."[224:B] Mr. James Pyland, another burgess, returned
from the same county, was expelled, and committed to answer such charges
as should be brought against him as an abettor of Mr. Thomas Woodward,
in his mutinous and rebellious declaration, and concerning his the said
Mr. Pyland's blasphemous catechism. These offenders appear to have been
of the royalist party.
In the year 1653 there were fourteen counties in Virginia, Surry being
now mentioned for the first time, and the number of burgesses was
thirty-four. The people living on the borders of the Appomattox River
were authorized to hold courts, and to treat with the Indians. Colonel
William Clayborne, Captain Henry Fleet, and Major Abram Wood were
empowered to make discoveries to the west and south. In July, some
difference occurred between the governor and council on the one side,
and the house of burgesses on the other, relative to the election of
speaker. The affair was amicably arranged, the governor's views being
assented to. Bennet appears to have enjoyed the confidence of the
Virginians. He was too generous to retaliate upon Sir William Berkley
and the royalists who had formerly persecuted him. Some malecontents
were punished for speaking disrespectfully of him, and refusing to pay
the castle duties. From the charges brought against one of these, it
appears that the Virginians considered themselves, under the articles of
surrender, entitled to free trade with all the world, the navigation act
to the contrary notwithstanding; and that act does not appear to have
been enforced against Virginia during the Commonwealth of
England.[225:A] By the articles of surrender the use of the prayer-book
was permitted, with the consent of a majority of the people of the
parish, for one year; so that it would seem that its use was prohibited
after March 12th, 1653; but the prohibition was not enforced, and public
worship continued as before without interruption.[225:B] In April, 1653,
Oliver Cromwell dissolved the Long Parliament, and in December, in the
same year, assumed the office of Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of
England, Scotland, and Ireland. Owing to the war with Holland, Sir
William Berkley's departure from Virginia was delayed, and, in
conformity with the articles of convention of 1651, he now became
subject to arrest. But the assembly passed an act, stating that as the
war between England and Holland had prevented the confirmation of the
convention of 1651, in England, or the coming of a ship out of Holland,
and Sir William Berkley desiring a longer time, namely, eight months
further, to procure a ship out of Flanders, in respect of the war with
Holland, and that he should be exempted from impost duty on such tobacco
as he should lade in her; "it is condescended that his request shall be
granted." Some seditious disturbances having taken place in Northampton
County, on the Eastern Shore, in which Edmund Scarburgh was a
ringleader, it was found necessary for Governor Bennet, Secretary
Clayborne, and a party of gentlemen, to repair thither for the purpose
of restoring order. Roger Green, and others, living on the Nansemond
River, received a grant of land on condition of their settling the
country bordering on the Moratuck or Roanoke River,[226:A] and on the
south side of the Chowan. Divers gentlemen requesting permission, were
authorized, in 1653, to explore the mountains. The ship Leopoldus, of
Dunkirk, was confiscated for the use of the Commonwealth of England, for
violating the navigation act; and the proceeds, amounting to four
hundred pounds sterling, were given to Colonel Samuel Matthews, agent
for Virginia at the court of the Protector, Colonel William Clayborne,
secretary, and other officers, in return for their services in the
matter of the forfeited ship.
Captain Francis Yeardley, who has been mentioned before, was a son of
Sir George Yeardley, some time governor of Virginia, and Lady
Temperance, his wife, and was born in Virginia. A letter dated in May,
1654, was addressed by him to John Ferrar, at Little Gidding, in
Huntingdonshire, brother to Nicholas Ferrar, whose name is so honorably
connected with the early annals of Virginia. The younger Yeardley
describes the country as very fertile, flourishing in all the exuberance
of nature, abounding especially in the rich mulberry and vine, with a
serene air and temperate clime, and rich in precious minerals. A young
man engaged in the beaver trade having been accidentally separated from
his own sloop, had obtained a small boat and provisions from Yeardley,
and had gone with his party to Roanoke, at which island he hoped to find
his vessel. He there fell in with a hunting party of Indians, and
persuaded them and some of the other tribes, both in the island and on
the mainland, to go back with him and make peace with the English. He
brought some of these Indians with the great man, or chief of Roanoke,
to Yeardley's house, which was probably on the Eastern Shore, where his
father had lived before him. The Indians passed a week at Yeardley's.
While there, the "great man" observing Yeardley's children reading and
writing, inquired of him whether he would take his only son, and teach
him "to speak out of the book, and make a writing." Yeardley assured him
that he would willingly do so; and the chief at his departure expressing
his strong desire to serve the God of the Englishmen, and his hope that
his child might be brought up in the knowledge of the same, promised to
bring him back again in four months. In the mean time Yeardley had been
called away to Maryland; and the planters of the Eastern Shore
suspecting, from the frequent visits and inquiries of the Indian, that
Yeardley was carrying on some scheme for his own private advantage, were
disposed to maltreat the chief. Upon one occasion, when Yeardley's wife
had brought him to church with her, some over-busy justices of the
peace, after sermon, threatened to whip him, and send him away. The
"great man" being terrified, the lady taking him by the hand, resolutely
stood forth in his defence, and pledged her whole property, as a
guarantee, that no harm to the settlement was intended, or was likely to
arise from the Indian's alliance. Upon Yeardley's return from Maryland,
he dispatched, with his brother's assistance, a boat with six men, one
being a carpenter, to build the great man an English house; and two
hundred pounds for the purchase of Indian territory. The terms of the
purchase were soon agreed upon, and Yeardley's people "paid for three
great rivers and also all such others as they should like of,
southerly." In due form they took possession of the country in the name
of the Commonwealth of England, receiving as a symbol of its surrender,
a turf of earth with an arrow shot into it. The territory thus given up
by the Indians was a considerable part of what afterwards became the
province of North Carolina. As soon as the natives had withdrawn from it
to a region farther south, Yeardley built the great commander a handsome
house, which he promised to fit up with English utensils and furniture.
Yeardley's people were introduced to the chief of the Tuscaroras, who
received them courteously, and invited them to visit his country, of
which he gave an attractive account; but his offer could not be
accepted, owing to the illness of their interpreter. Upon the
completion of his house, the Roanoke chief came, with the Tuscarora
chief and forty-five others, to Yeardley's house, presented his wife and
son and himself for baptism, and offered again the same symbol of the
surrender of his whole country to Yeardley; and he in his turn tendering
the same to the Commonwealth of England, prayed only "that his own
property and pains might not be forgotten." The Indian child was
presented to the minister before the congregation, and having been
baptized in their presence, was left with Yeardley to be bred a
Christian, "which God grant him grace (he prays) to become." The charges
incurred by Yeardley in purchasing and taking possession of the country,
had already amounted to three hundred pounds.[228:A]
At the meeting of the assembly in November, 1654, William Hatcher being
convicted of having stigmatized Colonel Edward Hill, speaker of the
house, as an atheist and blasphemer, (from which charges he had been
before acquitted by the quarterly court,) was compelled to make
acknowledgment of his offence, upon his knees, before Colonel Hill and
the assembly. This Hatcher appears to have been a burgess of Henrico
County in 1652. More than twenty years afterwards, in his old age, he
was fined eight thousand pounds of pork, for the use of the king's
soldiers, on account of alleged mutinous words uttered shortly after
Bacon's rebellion.
Upon the dissolution of the Long Parliament and the establishment of the
Protectorate, Lord Baltimore took measures to recover the absolute
control of Maryland; and Stone, (who since June, 1652, had continued in
the place of governor of Maryland,) in obedience to instructions
received from his lordship, violated the terms of the agreement, which
had been arranged with Bennet and Clayborne, acting in behalf of the
Parliament, and set them at defiance. These commissioners having
addressed a letter to Stone proposing an interview, he refused to accede
to it, and gave it as his opinion, that they were "wolves in sheep's
clothing." Bennet and Clayborne, claiming authority derived from his
Highness the Lord Protector, seized the government of the province, and
entrusted it to a board of ten commissioners.[229:A]
When Lord Baltimore received intelligence of this proceeding, he wrote
to his deputy, (Stone,) reproaching him with cowardice, and peremptorily
commanded him to recover the colony by force of arms. Stone and the
Marylanders now accordingly fell to arms, and disarmed and plundered
those that would not accept the oath of allegiance to Baltimore. The
province contained, as has been mentioned before, among its inhabitants
a good many emigrants from Virginia of Puritan principles, and these
dwelt mainly on the banks of the Severn and the Patuxent, and on the
Isle of Kent. They were disaffected to the proprietary government, and
protested that they had removed to Maryland, under the express
engagement with Governor Stone, that they should enjoy freedom of
conscience, and be exempt from the obnoxious oath. These recusants now
took up arms to defend themselves, and civil war raged in infant
Maryland. Stone, to reduce the malecontents, embarking for Providence
with his men, landed on the neck, at the mouth of the Severn. Here, on
the 25th of March, 1654, he was attacked by the Protestant adherents of
Bennet and Clayborne, and utterly defeated; the prisoners being nearly
double of the number of the victors, twenty killed, many wounded, and
"all the place strewed with Papist beads where they fled."
During the action, a New England vessel seized the boats, provision, and
ammunition of the governor and his party. Among the prisoners was this
functionary, who had been "shot in many places." Several of the
prisoners were condemned to death by a court-martial; and four of the
principal, one of them a councillor, were executed on the spot. Captain
William Stone, likewise sentenced, owed his escape to the intercession
of some women, and of some of Bennet and Clayborne's people.[229:B] John
Hammond, (the same who had been, two years before, expelled from the
Virginia Assembly,) also one of the condemned, fled in disguise, and
escaped to England in the ship Crescent. The master of this vessel was
afterwards heavily fined by the Virginia assembly for carrying off
Hammond without a pass. Of the four that were shot, three were
Romanists; and the Jesuit fathers, hotly pursued, escaped to Virginia,
where they inhabited a mean low hut.[230:A]
Thus Maryland became subject to the Protectorate. The administration of
the Puritan commissioners was rigorous, and the Maryland assembly
excluded Papists from the pale of religious freedom. Such were even
Milton's views of toleration;[230:B] but Cromwell, the master-spirit of
his age, soared higher, and commanded the commissioners "not to busy
themselves about religion, but to settle the civil government." He
addressed the following letter, dated at Whitehall, in January, 1654, to
Richard Bennet, Esq., Governor of Virginia:--
"SIR:--Whereas, the differences between the Lord Baltimore and
the inhabitants of Virginia, concerning the bounds by them
respectively claimed, are depending before our council and yet
undetermined; and whereas, we are credibly informed you have,
notwithstanding, gone into his plantation in Maryland, and
countenanced some people there in opposing the Lord
Baltimore's officers; whereby and with other forces from
Virginia, you have much disturbed that colony and people, to
the engendering of tumults and much bloodshed there, if not
timely prevented:
"We, therefore, at the request of the Lord Baltimore and
divers other persons of quality here, who are engaged by great
adventures in his interest, do, for preventing of disturbances
or tumults there, will and require you, and all others
deriving any authority from you, to forbear disturbing the
Lord Baltimore, or his officers, or people in Maryland, and to
permit all things to remain as they were before any
disturbance or alteration made by you, or by any other, upon
pretence of authority from you, till the said differences,
above mentioned, be determined by us here, and we give farther
order herein.
"We rest, your loving friend,
"OLIVER, P."
Cromwell was now endeavoring to heal the wounds of civil war, to allay
animosities, and to strengthen his power by a generous and conciliatory
policy, blended with irresistible energy of action. In return for Lord
Baltimore's ready submission to his authority, the Protector apparently
recognized his proprietary rights in Maryland, yet at the same time, he
sustained and protected his commissioners, only curbing the violent
contest that had arisen between Virginia and Maryland respecting their
boundary. His policy as to the internal government of these colonies was
one of a masterly inactivity.
"_To the Commissioners of Maryland._
"WHITEHALL, 26th September, 1655.
"SIRS:--It seems to us, by yours of the twenty-ninth of June,
and by the relation we received by Colonel Bennet, that some
mistake or scruple hath arisen concerning the sense of our
letters of the twelfth of January last; as if by our letters
we had intimated that we should have a stop put to the
proceedings of those commissioners who were authorized to
settle the civil government of Maryland. Which was not at all
intended by us; nor so much as proposed to us by those who
made addresses to us to obtain our said letter. But our
intention (as our said letter doth plainly import) was only to
prevent and forbid any force or violence to be offered by
either of the plantations of Virginia or Maryland, from one to
the other, upon the differences concerning their bounds, the
said differences being then under the consideration of ourself
and council here. Which, for your more full satisfaction, we
have thought fit to signify to you, and rest
"Your loving friend,
"OLIVER, P."[231:A]
Remembering, however, Lord Baltimore's ready submission to his
authority, he nominally, at the least, restored him to his control over
the province.
It was the custom of the Maryland Romanists to celebrate, by a salute of
cannon, the thirty-first of July, the birth-day of St.
Ignatius, (Loyola,) Maryland's patron saint. On the 1st of August,
1656, the day following the anniversary, a number of Protestant
soldiers, aroused by the nocturnal report of the cannon, issued from
their fort, five miles distant, rushed upon the habitations of the
Papists, broke into them, and plundered whatever there was found of arms
or powder.
FOOTNOTES:
[222:A] "Virginia and Maryland," 11, 34; Force's Hist. Tracts, ii.;
Chalmers' Annals, 221.
[223:A] Stith's Hist. of Va., 199.
[223:B] Properly Bernard: see Hening, i. 408.
[223:C] Hening, i. 372.
[224:A] Gloucester and Lancaster Counties are now named for the first
time; when or how they were formed, does not appear. Sir William Berkley
was of Gloucestershire, England. The name of Warrasqueake was changed to
Isle of Wight in 1637, and first represented in 1642. In that year
Charles River was changed to York, and Warwick River to Warwick. The
boundaries of Upper and Lower Norfolk were fixed in 1642; and Upper
Norfolk was changed to Nansimum (afterwards Nansemond) in 1646.
Northumberland is first mentioned in 1645; Westmoreland in 1653; Surry,
Gloucester, and Lancaster in 1652. New Kent was first represented in
1654, being taken from the upper part of York County. (_McSherry's Hist.
of Maryland._)
[224:B] Force's Hist. Tracts, iii.
[225:A] Burk, ii. 97
[225:B] Virginia's Cure, p. 19, in Force's Hist. Tracts, iii.
[226:A] Called Moratuck or Moratoc above the falls, and Roanoke below.
Roanoke signifies "shell:" Roanoke and Wampumpeake were terms for Indian
shell-money.
[228:A] Anderson's Hist. of Col. Church, ii. 506. The letter is
preserved in Thurloe's State Papers, xi. 273.
[229:A] "Virginia and Maryland," Force's Hist. Tracts, ii.
[229:B] "Leah and Rachel," Force's Hist. Tracts, iii.; Chalmer's Annals,
222.
[230:A] White's Relation, 44, in Force's Hist. Tracts, iv.
[230:B] Milton's Prose Works, ii. 346.
[231:A] Carlyle's Cromwell, ii. 182.
CHAPTER XXV.
1655-1658.
Digges elected Governor--Bennet goes to England the Colony's
Agent--Colonel Edward Hill defeated by the Ricahecrians--
Totopotomoi, with many Warriors, slain--Miscellaneous
matters--Matthews Elected Governor--Letter to the Protector--
Acts of Assembly--Magna Charta recognized as in force--
Governor and Council excluded from Assembly--Matthews declares
a Dissolution--The House resists--Dispute referred to the
Protector--Declaration of Sovereignty--Matthews re-elected--
Council newly reorganized--Edward Hill elected Speaker--Rules
of the House.
IN March, 1655, Edward Digges was elected by the assembly governor of
the colony of Virginia. He was of an ancient and distinguished family,
and had been made a member of the council in November, 1654, "he having
given a signal testimony of his fidelity to this colony and Commonwealth
of England." He succeeded Bennet, who had held the office since April,
1652, and who was now appointed the colony's agent at London.
In the year 1656, six or seven hundred Ricahecrian Indians having come
down from the mountains, and seated themselves near the falls of the
James River, Colonel Edward Hill, the elder, was put in command of a
body of men, and ordered to dislodge them. He was reinforced by
Totopotomoi, chief of Pamunkey, with one hundred of his tribe. A creek
enclosing a peninsula in Hanover County, retains the name of
Totopotomoy; and Butler, in Hudibras, alludes to this chief:--
"The mighty Tottipotimoy
Sent to our elders an envoy,
Complaining sorely of the breach
Of league held forth by brother Patch."
Hill was disgracefully defeated, and the brave Totopotomoi, with the
greater part of his warriors, slain. It appears probable that Bloody
Run, near Richmond, derived its name from this sanguinary battle. The
action in which so many Indians were afterwards massacred by Bacon and
his men, and with which a loose tradition has identified Bloody Run, did
not occur near the falls of the James River. Hill, in consequence of his
bad conduct in this affair, was subsequently, by unanimous vote of the
council and the house of burgesses, condemned to pay the expenses of
effecting a peace with the Indians, and was disfranchised.[234:A] During
this year an act was passed allowing all free men the right of voting
for burgesses, on the ground that "it is something hard and unagreeable
to reason that any persons shall pay equal taxes, and yet have no votes
in elections." So republican was the elective franchise in Virginia,
under the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell two centuries ago! In this
year, 1656, Colonel Thomas Dew, of Nansemond, sometime before speaker of
the house of burgesses, and others, were authorized to explore the
country between Cape Hatteras and Cape Fear. The County of Nansemond had
long abounded with non-conformists.
The salary of the governor, as ordered at this time, consisted of
twenty-five thousand pounds of tobacco, worth two hundred and fifty
pounds sterling, together with certain duties levied from masters of
vessels, called castle duties, and marriage license fees. A reward of
twenty pounds was offered to any one who should import a minister;
ministers, with six servants each, were exempted from taxes, it being
provided that they should be examined by Mr. Philip Mallory and Mr. John
Green, and should be recommended by them to the governor and council,
who were invested with discretionary control of the matter.[234:B]
Letters were sent to Matthews, Virginia's agent at the Protector's
court, directing him to suspend for the present the further prosecution
of the long and fruitless controversy with Lord Baltimore respecting the
disputed boundary.[234:C] Matthews, returning from England, was elected
by the assembly to succeed Digges in the office of governor, who was now
employed as agent. Colonel Francis Morrison, speaker, was desired by the
assembly to write a letter to the Protector, and another to the
secretary of state, which was as follows:--
"MAY IT PLEASE YOUR HIGHNESS,--
"We could not find a fitter means to represent the condition
of this country to your highness, than this worthy person, Mr.
Digges, our late governor, whose occasions calling him into
England, we have instructed him with the state of this place
as he left it; we shall beseech your highness to give credit
to his relations, which we assure ourselves shall be faithful,
having had many experiences of his candor in the time of his
government, which he hath managed under your highness, with so
much moderation, prudence, and justice, that we should be much
larger in expressing this truth, but that we fear to have
already too much trespassed, by interrupting your highness'
most serious thoughts in greater affairs than what can concern
your highness' most humble, most devoted servants.
"Dated from the Assembly of Virginia, 15th December, 1656."
Superscribed, for his "Highness, the Lord Protector."
The letter to the secretary of state was as follows:--
"RIGHT HONORABLE,--
"Though we are persons so remote from you, we have heard so
honorable a character of your worth, that we cannot make a
second choice without erring, of one so fit and proper as
yourself to make our addresses to his Highness, the Lord
Protector. Our desires we have intrusted to that worthy
gentleman, Mr. Digges, our late governor; we shall desire you
would please to give him access to you and by your highness.
And as we promise you will find nothing but worth in him, so
we are confident he will undertake for us that we are a people
not altogether ungrateful, but will find shortly a nearer way
than by saying so, to express really how much we esteem the
honor of your patronage, which is both the hopes and ambition
of your very humble and then obliged servants.
"From the Assembly of Virginia, 15th December, 1656."
Superscribed, to the "Right Honorable John Thurlow, Secretary
of State."
The allusion in the close of the letter appears to be to a douceur which
it was intended to present to the secretary.
Digges was instructed to unite with Matthews and Bennet, in London, and
to treat with the leading merchants in the Virginia trade, and to let
them know how much the assembly had endeavored to diminish the quantity,
and improve the quality of the tobacco; and to see what the merchants,
on their part, would be willing to do in giving a better price; for if
the planters should find that the bad brought as high a price as the
good, they would of course raise that which could be raised the most
easily.[236:A] It appears that Digges was appointed agent conjointly
with Bennet. Matthews was elected by the assembly to succeed Digges as
governor; but the latter was requested to hold the office as long as he
should remain in Virginia. Digges departing for England toward the close
of 1655, would appear to have co-operated for a short while with both
Matthews and Bennet. By a singular coincidence, Digges, Matthews, and
Bennet, who were the first three governors of Virginia under the
Commonwealth of England, were transferred from the miniature metropolis,
Jamestown, and found themselves together near the court of his Highness
the Lord Protector, Oliver Cromwell.
Digges was succeeded as governor by Matthews, early in the year 1656.
The laws of the colony were revised, and reduced into one volume,
comprising one hundred and thirty-one acts, well adapted to the wants of
the people and the condition of the country. Of the transactions from
1656 to 1660, the year of the restoration, Burk says there is an entire
chasm in the records; Hening, on the contrary, declares that, "in no
portion of the colonial records under the Commonwealth, are the
materials so copious as from 1656 to 1660." The editor of the Statutes
at Large is the better authority on this point.
The church government was settled by giving the people the entire
control of the vestry; while the appointment of ministers and church
wardens, the care of the poor, and parochial matters, were entrusted to
the people of each parish. An act was passed for the keeping holy the
Sabbath, and another against divulgers of false news. The ordinary
weight of a hogshead of tobacco at this time did not exceed three
hundred and fifty pounds, and its dimensions by law were forty-three
inches long and twenty-six wide. Letters, superscribed "For the Public
Service," were ordered to be conveyed from one plantation to another,
to the place of destination. A remedy was provided for servants
complaining of harsh usage, or of insufficient food or raiment. The
penalty for selling arms or ammunition to the Indians was the forfeiture
of the offender's whole estate. It was enacted that no sheriff, or
deputy sheriff, then called under-sheriff, should hold his office longer
than one year in any one county. The penalty of being reduced to
servitude was abolished. The twenty-second day of March and the
eighteenth of April were still kept as holy days, in commemoration of
the deliverance of the colonists from the bloody Indian massacres of
1622 and 1644. The planters were prohibited from encroaching upon the
lands of the Indians. The vessels of all nations were admitted into the
ports of Virginia; and an impost duty of ten shillings a hogshead was
laid on all tobacco exported, except that laden in English vessels, and
bound directly for England; from the payment of which duty vessels
belonging to Virginians were afterwards exempted. An act was passed to
prohibit the kidnapping of Indian children.
In the year 1656 all acts against mercenary attorneys were repealed; but
two years afterwards attorneys were again expelled from the
courts,[237:A] and no one was suffered to receive any compensation for
serving in that capacity. The governor and council made serious
opposition to this act, and the following communication was made to the
house of burgesses: "The governor and council will consent to this
proposition so far as shall be agreeable to Magna Charta. WM.
CLAYBORNE." The burgesses replied, that they could not see any such
prohibition contained in Magna Charta; that two former assemblies had
passed such a law, and that it had stood in force upwards of ten years.
It thus appears that Magna Charta was held to be in force in the colony.
The ground leaves of tobacco, or lugs, were declared to be not
merchantable; and it was ordered that no tobacco should be planted after
the tenth day of July, under the penalty of a fine of ten thousand
pounds of that staple. The exportation of hides, wool, and old iron, was
forbidden. The salary of the governor, derived from the impost duty on
tobacco exported, was fixed at sixteen hundred pounds sterling.
The burgesses having rescinded the order admitting the governor and
council as members of the house, and having voted an adjournment,
Matthews, on the 1st of April, 1658, declared a dissolution of the
assembly. The house resisted, and declared that any burgess who should
depart at this conjuncture, should be censured as betraying the trust
reposed in him by his country; and an oath of secrecy was administered
to the members. The governor, upon receiving an assurance that the
business of the house would be speedily and satisfactorily concluded,
revoked the order of dissolution, referring the question in dispute, as
to the dissolving power, to his Highness the Lord Protector. The
burgesses, still unsatisfied, appointed a committee, of which Colonel
John Carter, of Lancaster County, was chairman, to draw up a resolution
asserting their powers; and in consonance with their report the
burgesses made a declaration of popular sovereignty: that they had in
themselves the full power of appointing all officers, until they should
receive an order to the contrary from England; that the house was not
dissolvable by any power yet extant in Virginia but their own; that all
former elections of governor and council should be void; that the power
of governor for the future should be conferred on Colonel Samuel
Matthews, who by them was invested with all the rights and privileges
belonging to the governor and captain-general of Virginia; and that a
council should be appointed by the burgesses then convened, with the
advice of the governor.
The legislative records do not disclose the particular ground on which
the previous elections of governor and appointments of councillors under
the provisional government were annulled; but from the exclusion of the
governor and council from the house, it might be inferred that it was
owing to a jealousy of these functionaries being members of the body
that elected them. Yet Bennet, the first of the three governors, and his
council, were, in 1652, expressly allowed to be _ex officio_ members of
the assembly. An order was also made, April 2d, 1758, by the assembly,
in the name of his Highness the Lord Protector, to the sheriff of James
City, and sergeant-at-arms, to obey no warrant but those signed by the
speaker of the house; and William Clayborne, secretary of state, (under
Bennet, Digges, and Matthews,) was directed to deliver the records to
the assembly. The oath of office was administered to Governor Matthews
by the committee before mentioned, and the members of the council
nominated by the governor and approved by the house, took the same
oath.[239:A]
The number of burgesses present at the session commencing in March,
1659, was thirty. Colonel Edward Hill, who had been disfranchised,
was now unanimously elected speaker. Colonel Moore Fantleroy, of
Rappahannock County, not being present at the election, "moved against
him, as if clandestinely elected, and taxed the house of unwarrantable
proceedings therein." He was suspended until the next day, when,
acknowledging his error, he was readmitted.
Any member absent from the house was subject to a penalty of twenty
pounds of tobacco. A member "disguised with overmuch drink" forfeited
one hundred pounds of tobacco. A burgess was required to rise from his
seat, and to remain uncovered, while speaking. The oath was administered
to the burgesses by a committee of three sent from the council.
FOOTNOTES:
[234:A] Hening, i. 402, 422; Burk's Hist. of Va., ii. 107.
[234:B] Hening, i. 424.
[234:C] Burk's Hist. of Va., ii. 116. An Armenian was imported by Digges
for the purpose of making silk.
[236:A] Burk's Hist. of Va., ii. 116.
[237:A] Hening, i. 434, 482.
[239:A] The governor and council were as follows: Colonel Samuel
Matthews, Governor and Captain-general of Virginia, Richard Bennet,
Colonel William Clayborne, Secretary of State, Colonel John West,
Colonel Thomas Pettus, Colonel Edward Hill, Colonel Thomas Dew, Colonel
William Bernard, Colonel Obedience Robins, Lieutenant-Colonel John
Walker, Colonel George Reade, Colonel Abraham Wood, Colonel John Carter,
Mr. Warham Horsmenden, Lieutenant-Colonel Anthony Elliott.
CHAPTER XXVI.
1659-1661.
Death of Oliver Cromwell--Succeeded by his Son Richard--
Assembly acknowledge his Authority--Character of Government
of Virginia under the Commonwealth of England--Matthews dies--
Richard Cromwell resigns the Protectorate--Supreme Power
claimed now by the Assembly--Sir William Berkley elected
Governor--Act for suppressing Quakers--Free Trade established--
Stuyvesant's Letter--Charles the Second restored--Sends a new
Commissioner to Berkley--His Reply--Grant of Northern Neck--
The Navigation Act.
ON the 8th of March, 1660, the house of burgesses having sent a
committee to notify the governor that they attended his pleasure, he
presented the following letter:--
"GENTLEMEN,--His late Highness, the Lord Protector, from that
general respect which he had to the good and safety of all the
people of his dominion, whether in these nations, or in the
English plantations abroad, did extend his care to his colony
in Virginia, the present condition and affairs whereof
appearing under some unsettledness through the looseness of
the government, the supplying of that defect hath been taken
into serious consideration, and some resolutions passed in
order thereunto, which we suppose would have been brought into
act by this time, if the Lord had continued life and health to
his said highness. But it hath pleased the Lord, on Friday,
the third of this month, to take him out of the world, his
said highness having in his lifetime, according to the humble
petition and advice, appointed and declared the most noble and
illustrious lord, the Lord Richard, eldest son to his late
highness, to be his successor, who hath been accordingly, with
general consent and applause of all, proclaimed Protector of
this Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland, and the
dominions and territories thereunto belonging. And, therefore,
we have thought fit to signify the same unto you, whom we
require, according to your duty, that you cause his said
Highness, Richard, Lord Protector, forthwith to be proclaimed
in all parts of your colony. And his highness' council have
thought fit hereby to assure you, that the settlement of that
colony is not neglected; and to let you know, that you may
expect shortly to receive a more express testimony of his
highness' care in that behalf; till the further perfecting
whereof, their lordships do, will, and require you, the
present governor and council there, to apply yourselves with
all seriousness, faithfulness, and circumspection, to the
peaceable and orderly management of the affairs of that
colony, according to such good laws and customs (not repugnant
to the laws of England) as have been heretofore used and
exercised among you, improving your best endeavors as for
maintaining the civil peace, so for promoting the interest of
religion, wherein you will receive from hence all just
countenance and encouragement. And if any person shall
presume, by any undue ways, to interrupt the quiet or hazard
the safety of his highness' people there, order will be taken,
upon the representation of such proceedings, to make further
provision for securing of your peace in such a way as shall be
found meet and necessary, and for calling those to a strict
account who shall endeavor to disturb it.
"Signed in the name and by the order of the council.
"H. LAWRENCE, _President_.
"Whitehall, 7th September, 1658."
Superscription, to the "Governor and Council of his Highness'
Colony of Virginia."
Upon the reading of this letter, the governor and council withdrew from
the assembly; and the house of burgesses unanimously acknowledged their
obedience to his Highness, Richard, Lord Protector, and fully recognized
his power.[241:A] So much truth is there in Mr. Jefferson's
remark,[241:B] that in the contest with the house of Stuart, Virginia
accompanied the footsteps of the mother country. The government of
Virginia under the Commonwealth of England was wholly provisional. By
the convention of March the 12th, 1652, Virginia secured to herself her
ancient limits, and was entitled to reclaim that part of her chartered
territory which had been unjustly and illegally given away to Lord
Baltimore. In this, however, owing to the perplexed condition of affairs
in England, Virginia was disappointed; but she secured, by the articles
of convention, free trade, exemption from taxation, save by her own
assembly, and exclusion of military force from her borders. Yet all
these rights were violated by subsequent kings and parliaments.[242:A]
The administration of the colonial government, under the Commonwealth of
England, was judicious and beneficent; the people were free, harmonious,
and prosperous; and while Cromwell's sceptre commanded the respect of
the world, he exhibited toward the infant and loyal colony a generous
and politic lenity; and during this interval she enjoyed free trade,
legislative independence, civil and religious freedom, republican
institutions, and internal peace. The Governors Bennet, Digges, and
Matthews, by their patriotic virtues, enjoyed the confidence, and
affection, and respect of the people; no extravagance, rapacity,
corruption, or extortion was charged against their administration;
intolerance and persecution were unknown. But rapine, corruption,
extortion, intolerance, and persecution were all soon to be revived
under the restored dynasty of the Stuarts.
Richard Cromwell resigned the Protectorate on the 22d day of April,
1659. Matthews, the governor, had died in the preceding January. England
was without a monarch; Virginia without a governor. It was during this
interval that public opinion in England was in suspense, the result of
affairs depending upon the line of conduct which might be pursued by
General Monk. The Virginia assembly, convening on the 13th day of March,
1660, declared by their first act that as there was then in England no
resident, absolute, and generally acknowledged power, therefore the
supreme government of the colony should rest in the assembly; and writs
previously issued in the name of his Highness, the Lord Protector, now
issued in the name of the Grand Assembly of Virginia. By the second act,
Sir William Berkley was elected governor; he was required to call a
grand assembly once in two years at the least, and was restricted from
dissolving the assembly without its consent. The circumstances of
this reappointment of Sir William Berkley have been frequently
misrepresented; historians from age to age following each other in
fabulous tradition, erroneous conjecture, or wilful perversion, have
asserted that Sir William was hurried from retirement by a torrent of
popular enthusiasm, and made governor by acclamation, and that Charles
the Second was boldly proclaimed in Virginia, and his standard reared
several months, some say sixteen, before the restoration; and thus the
Virginians, as they had been the last of the king's subjects who
renounced their allegiance, so they were the first who returned to
it![243:A]
Error in history is like a flock of sheep jumping over a bridge; if one
goes, the rest all follow. Sir William Berkley, as has been before
mentioned, was not elected by a tumultuary assemblage of the people, but
by the assembly; the royal standard was not raised upon the occasion,
nor was the king proclaimed. The bulk of the Virginia planters
undoubtedly retained their habitual attachment to monarchy and to the
Established Church; and some royalist refugees had been driven hither
by the civil war. Yet, as the colonists had formerly been greatly
dissatisfied with some acts of the government during the reign of
Charles the First, they certainly had much reason to approve of the
wise, and liberal, and magnanimous policy of Cromwell. Besides this, a
good many republicans and Puritans had found their way to Virginia. The
predominant feeling, however, in Virginia as in England, was in favor of
the restoration of Charles the Second. Sir William Berkley, in his
speech addressed to the assembly on their proffer of the place of
governor, said: "I do, therefore, in the presence of God and you, make
this safe protestation for us all, that if any supreme settled power
appears, I will immediately lay down my commission, but will live most
submissively obedient to any power God shall set over me, as the
experience of eight years has shewed I have done." In his address to the
house of burgesses, he alludes to the late king, as "my most gracious
master, King Charles, of ever blessed memory," and as "my ever honored
master, who was put to a violent death." The Berkleys were staunch
adherents of Charles the First, and extreme royalists. Referring in his
address to the surrender of the colony, Sir William said, that the
parliament "sent a small power to force my submission, which, finding me
defenceless, was quietly (God pardon me) effected." Of the several
parliaments and the protectorate he remarked: "And I believe, Mr.
Speaker, (Theodorick Bland,) you think, if my voice had been prevalent
in most of their elections, I would not voluntarily have made choice of
them for my supremes. But, Mr. Speaker, all this I have said, is only to
make this truth apparent to you, that in and under all these mutable
governments of divers natures and constitutions, I have lived most
resignedly submissive. But, Mr. Speaker, it is one duty to live obedient
to a government, and another of a very different nature, to command
under it." It thus appears that Sir William accepted the place hoping
for the restoration of Charles the Second; but with an explicit pledge,
that he would resign in case that event should not occur.[244:A] This
speech was made March the nineteenth, and on the twenty-first the
council unanimously concurred in his election. The members were Richard
Bennet, (late Puritan Governor,) William Bernard, John Walker, George
Reade, Thomas Pettus, William Clayborne, Edward Hill, Thomas Dew, Edward
Carter, Thomas Swan, and Augustine Warner. Nearly all of these were
colonels. The title of colonel and member of the council appears to have
been a sort of order of nobility in Virginia. Sir William Berkley was
elected two months before the restoration of Charles the Second, which
took place on the 20th of May, 1660, that being his birth-day. Yet the
word "king" or "majesty" nowhere occurs in the legislative records, from
the commencement of the Commonwealth of England until the 11th day of
October, 1660, more than four months after the restoration.[244:B]
Virginia was indeed loyal, but she was too feeble to avow her loyalty.
An act was passed, entitled an act for the suppressing the Quakers; the
preamble of which describes them as an unreasonable and turbulent sort
of people, who daily gather together unlawful assemblies of people,
teaching lies, miracles, false visions, prophecies, and doctrines
tending to disturb the peace, disorganize society, and destroy all law,
and government, and religion. Masters of vessels were prohibited from
bringing in any of that sect, under the penalty of one hundred pounds of
tobacco; all of them to be apprehended and committed, until they should
give security that they would leave the colony; if they should return,
they should be punished, and returning the third time should be
proceeded against as felons. No person should entertain any Quakers that
had been questioned by the governor and council; nor permit any assembly
of them in or near his house, under the penalty of one hundred pounds
sterling; and no person to publish their books, pamphlets, and
libels.[245:A] This act was passed in March, 1660, shortly after the
election of Sir William Berkley.
Of late years, certain masters of vessels trading to Virginia, in
violation of the laws and of the articles of surrender granting the
privilege of free trade, had "molested, troubled, and seized divers
ships, sloops, and vessels, coming to trade with us." The assembly
therefore required every master to give bond not to molest any person
trading under the protection of the laws.
Act XVI. establishes free trade: "Whereas, the restriction of trade hath
appeared to be the greatest impediment to the advance of the estimation
and value of our present only commodity, tobacco, _be it enacted and
confirmed_, That the Dutch, and all strangers of what Christian nation
soever, in amity with the people of England, shall have free liberty to
trade with us for all allowable commodities." And it was provided, "That
if the said Dutch, or other foreigners, shall import any negro slaves,
they, the said Dutch, or others, shall, for the tobacco really produced
by the sale of the said negro, pay only the impost of two shillings per
hogshead, the like being paid by our own nation." The regular impost
being ten shillings, this exemption was a bounty of eight shillings per
hogshead for the encouragement of the importation of negroes.[245:B]
When Argall, in 1614, returning from his half-piratical excursion
against the French at Port Royal, entered what is now New York Bay, he
found three or four huts erected there by Dutch mariners and fishermen,
on the Island of Manhattan. Near half a century had since elapsed, and
the colony planted there had grown to an importance that justified
something of diplomatic correspondence. In the spring of 1660 Nicholas
Varleth and Brian Newton were sent by Governor Stuyvesant, celebrated by
Knickerbocker, from Fort Amsterdam to Virginia, for the purpose of
forming a league acknowledging the Dutch title to New York. Sir William
Berkley evaded the proposition in the following letter:--
"SIR,--I have received the letter you were pleased to send me
by Mr. Mills his vessel, and shall be ever ready to comply
with you in all acts of neighborly friendship and amity; but
truly, sir, you desire me to do that concerning your letter
and claims to land in the northern part of America which I am
incapable to do, for I am but a servant of the assembly's;
neither do they arrogate any power to themselves further than
the miserable distractions of England force them to. For when
God shall be pleased in His mercy to take away and dissipate
the unnatural divisions of their native country, they will
immediately return to their own professed obedience. What then
they should do in matters of contract, donation, and
confession of right, would have little strength or
signification; much more presumptive and impertinent would it
be in me to do it, without their knowledge or assent. We shall
very shortly meet again, and then, if to them you signify your
desires, I shall labor all I can to get you a satisfactory
answer.
"I am, sir, your humble servant,
"WILLIAM BERKLEY.
"Virginia, August 20th, 1660."
Peter Stuyvesant, the last of the Dutch governors of New Amsterdam,
within a few years was dispossessed by a small English squadron, and the
captured colony was retained. Sir William Berkley's letter was written
nearly three months after the actual restoration, and yet, not having
received intelligence of it, he alludes to the English government as in
a state of interregnum, and writes not one word in present recognition
of his majesty Charles the Second; on the contrary, he expressly avows
himself a servant of the assembly.
Tea was introduced into England about this time; the East India Company
made the king a formal present of two pounds and two ounces.[247:A]
The address of the Parliament and General Monk to Charles the Second,
then at Breda, in Holland, was carried over by Lord Berkley, of Berkley
Castle. On the eighth of May Charles was proclaimed in England king, and
he returned in triumph to London on the twenty-ninth of that month,
being his birth-day. The restored monarch transmitted a new commission,
dated July the 31st, 1660, at Westminster, to his faithful adherent Sir
William Berkley. He had remained in Virginia during the Commonwealth of
England under various pretexts, and it is probable that he kept up a
secret correspondence with refugee royalists, and it is said that he
even invited Charles to come over to Virginia. This tradition, however,
is without proof or plausibility; had the exiled Charles sought refuge
in Virginia, an English frigate would have found it easy to make him a
prisoner. Virginia would have presented few attractions to the royal
profligate; and it could have hardly been a matter of regret to the
Virginians that he never came here. Sir William Berkley's letter of
acknowledgment, written in March, 1661, is extravagantly loyal. He
apologizes for having accepted office from the assembly thus: "It was no
more, may it please your majesty, than to leap over the fold to save
your majesty's flock, when your majesty's enemies of that fold had
barred up the lawful entrance into it, and enclosed the wolves of schism
and rebellion, ready to devour all within it," etc. By "the wolves of
schism and rebellion" he probably meant the Puritan and Republican party
in Virginia, and he appears to have looked upon them as formidable
enemies.
Charles the Second, in the first year of his reign, that is, in the
first year after the death of his father, for he was considered or
imagined to have reigned all the while, had granted all the tract of
land lying between the Rappahannock and the Potomac, known as the
Northern Neck, to Lord Hopton, the Earl of St. Albans, Lord Culpepper,
and others, to hold the same forever, paying yearly six pounds thirteen
shillings and four pence to the crown.
The Anglo-American colonies now established, Virginia, New England, and
Maryland, contained eighty-five thousand inhabitants. The navigation act
had not been recognized by Virginia as obligatory on her; had been
opposed by Massachusetts as an invasion of her rights; and had been
evaded by Maryland. James the First, Charles the First, and the
Commonwealth, had expressly exempted the colonies from direct taxation,
but the Restoration parliament extended the customs of tonnage and
poundage to every part of the dominion of the crown; and the colonists
did not for years resist the collection of those imposts.[248:A]
FOOTNOTES:
[241:A] Hening, i. 509.
[241:B] Preface to T. M.'s Account of Bacon's Rebellion, in Kercheval's
History of Valley of Va., 21. The clause quoted from Mr. Jefferson is
omitted in the copy of the same introduction found in Force's Hist.
Tracts, i.
[242:A] Jefferson's Notes, 125.
[243:A] Robertson's Hist. of America, iv. 230; Beverley's Hist. of Va.,
B. i. 55; Chalmers' Annals, 124; Burk's Hist. of Va., ii. 120; Grahame's
Colonial Hist. of U. S., i. 89; Hawks' Prot. Episcopal Church in Va.,
63. See, also, Hening's Statutes at Large of Va., i. 126. Hening first
corrected these errors.
[244:A] Southern Lit. Messenger for January, 1845.
[244:B] Hening, ii. 9, in note.
[245:A] Hening, i. 532.
[245:B] Hening, i. 535.
[247:A] Pepys' Diary, i. 110. Pepys was pronounced _Peeps_.
[248:A] Chalmers' Revolt of Amer. Colonies, 99.