THE RACE FOR EMPIRE
During the period upon which our story now enters, all of North America
was claimed by the three contestants for empire—Spain, England, and
France. The claims of the first covered the entire western world beyond
the line established by the treaty of Tordesillas; while those of the
other two are indicated, at least as to their minimum extent, by the
patents granted. Adrian Gilbert, in his application to Queen Elizabeth,
had asked leave to “inhabit and enjoy” all places discovered between the
equator and the North Pole;[78] and although these limits are nowhere
given in any single charter, those granted to various companies show
English claims extending from at least 10° to 52° North Latitude, or
from Panama to Labrador.[79] Following the difficulties of colonizing in
Maine and Nova Scotia, mentioned in the last chapter, the French King
granted to Madame de Guercheville all of the continent from Florida to
the St. Lawrence, thus overlapping the Spanish and English claims.[80]
Footnote 78:
W. R. Scott, _Constitutions and Finance of English and Irish
Joint-Stock Companies to 1720_ (Cambridge, 1910), vol. II, p. 244.
Footnote 79:
The southern limit was that of the Providence Company (Scott,
_Joint-Stock Companies_, vol. II, p. 327); and the northern that of
the Newfoundland Company, (D. W. Prowse, _History of Newfoundland_
[London, 1895], pp. 122-25).
Footnote 80:
F. Parkman, _Pioneers of France in the New World_ (Boston, 1909), p.
303.
The title to newly acquired lands, originally deriving validity from
Papal sanction, even in the eyes of Englishmen, had gradually come to
rest upon the right of discovery.[81] This theory was based upon the
principle of Roman Law that the finder could appropriate what belonged
to no one. A heathen was considered as _nullus_, hence his property had
no owner, and American soil could be appropriated by whoever first found
it. Although it was agreed by all that discovery must be consummated by
possession and use, there were two very difficult questions, as to which
the law was silent, in connection with the new situations now arising.
One of these was the length of time which might elapse between discovery
and taking possession, before the claim should become invalid through
failure to consummate the discovery; while the other was that of the
extent of territory involved by the above acts.[82] The claims of the
three contestants were preposterous, though no one more so than another,
perhaps; and, in the absence of any superior authority, it is difficult
to see how the matter could have been settled otherwise than by power of
the sword, which thus replaced the Pope as arbiter. At the time we are
now considering, it would seem as if, theoretically, England's claim to
any part of the New World were the least valid of the three. Although it
was necessarily based solely on the voyage of Cabot, she had made no
effort to colonize for nearly ninety years, and as yet had failed to do
so successfully. To the south, Spanish titles were, in part,
unassailable;[83] while in the north, French claims were being made good
by the struggling colony at Port Royal, and by scattered traders in
furs.
Footnote 81:
Henry II asked and obtained the Pope's consent to conquer Ireland. W.
B. Scaife, “The Development of International Law as to newly
discovered Territory,” in _American Historical Association Papers_,
vol. IV, p. 269.
Footnote 82:
_Cf._ B. A. Hinsdale, “The Right of Discovery,” in _Ohio Archeological
and Historical Quarterly_, vol. II, pp. 351-78; and Scaife,
“International Law,” pp. 269-93.
Footnote 83:
The number of colonists living in Spanish possessions varies greatly
in estimates. DeLannoy thinks that it may have been 152,000 by 1574
(DeLannoy and Van der Linden, _Histoire de l'Expansion Coloniale des
Peuples Européens_ [Paris, 1907], vol. I, p. 414); while
Leroy-Beaulieu puts it as low as 15,000 in 1550. _De la Colonisation
chez les peuples modernes_ (Paris, 1898), vol. I, p. 5.
The treaty of peace with Spain, in 1604, which followed almost
automatically upon the accession of James to the English throne, changed
the situation in important respects with reference to the success of
English colonization. Privateering, which, in spite of many brilliant
exploits, had become “a sordid and prosaic business,” and decreasingly
profitable, came to a legal end temporarily under the English flag. It
is true that certain of the larger venturers in the trade merely flew
the Dutch flag instead, and continued their depredations; but the
calling no longer offered its former opportunities, either for restless
spirits or for the employment of capital. The more legitimate commerce
with the Spanish possessions, such as the import of salt from Venezuela,
which had grown to large proportions during the war, was also ended by
the terms of the treaty, which completely surrendered English rights of
trade with the Indies.[84]
Footnote 84:
A. P. Newton, _The Colonising Activities of the English Puritans_
(Yale University Press, 1914), pp. 13-17.
Meanwhile, the amount of capital seeking investment had become large,
and owing to the enormous increase of bullion, the changed feeling in
regard to the taking of interest, and other causes, it was rapidly
growing larger.[85] It was also becoming more fluid, as was labor,
likewise. Contemporary, as well as many modern, authorities, have
considered England as suffering from over-population at this time; but
it is doubtful if this were so; and it is probable that the material for
colonization came rather from “the displacement and disturbance of
population” than from its growth.[86] Not only the substitution, to a
considerable extent, of sheep-grazing for farming, and the inclosure of
the common lands, but the gradual breaking up of the whole mediæval
system of trade and conditions of labor, had resulted in an
extraordinary amount of idleness and vagabondage for several
generations.[87] During the same period had occurred also the enormous
rise in prices, and in the cost of living, with results very similar to
those which we are now experiencing.[88] As to-day, they were severely
felt by people with approximately fixed incomes; and the country gentry
in particular, with their lands let on long leases, suffered greatly.
During the war, younger sons, and the more enterprising of all classes,
had had an opportunity to gain a living by embarking on a career in
privateering or other warlike pursuits; but with the coming of peace,
those openings were for the most part closed to them. On the other hand,
the scale of living had risen rapidly, and extravagance required a much
greater outlay than in former days. “In a time wherein all things are
grown to most excessive prices,” wrote Harrison as early as 1577, “we do
yet find the means to obtain and achieve such furniture as heretofore
hath been unpossible.”[89]
Footnote 85:
W. Cunningham, _English Industry_, vol. II, pp. 77 _ff._
Footnote 86:
E. P. Cheyney, “Some English Conditions surrounding the Settlement of
Virginia,” in _American Historical Review_, April, 1907, p. 526.
Footnote 87:
F. Aydelotte, _Elizabethan Rogues and Vagabonds_ (Oxford, 1913), pp.
3-20.
Footnote 88:
_A Discourse of the Commonweal of this realm of England_, 1581;
reprinted, Cambridge, England, 1893.
Footnote 89:
Harrison's Introduction to Holinshed's _Chronicle_, reprinted as
_Elizabethan England_ (London, n. d.), p. 118.
During the war, moreover, the older channels of legitimate trade had,
for the most part, been closed to the English merchant, who found
himself cut off “from Spain, Portugal, Barbary, the Levant, and, to a
considerable extent, from Poland, Denmark, and Germany.”[90] The
seventeen years prior to the death of Elizabeth had been years of
depressed business, now, in turn, to be followed by a like period of
prosperity, while trade continued fairly good until 1636.[91] Although
other elements entered into the problem, it may be noted that the
efforts to colonize, whether near home in Ireland, or far off in the new
world, had been failures when general business was poor, and successful
when it became good.[92] Neither in Ulster nor in Munster, in
Newfoundland, Virginia, nor Guiana, had the individuals or their
associates, who had obtained grants, been able, as yet, to plant any
permanent settlements.
Footnote 90:
Scott, _Joint-Stock Companies_, vol. I, p. 98.
Footnote 91:
_Ibid._, pp. 465 _ff._
Footnote 92:
_Cf._, however, Leroy-Beaulieu, who thinks that “la colonisation
anglaise eut donc pour origine une nécessité réelle, une crise
économique intense.” _Colonisation_, vol. I, p. 91.
The time, nevertheless, was evidently growing ripe for accomplishment.
Apart from any political or religious motives, America was as certain to
be colonized in the early part of the seventeenth century as it was to
be discovered by Columbus, or someone else, in the latter part of the
fifteenth. After the fall of Calais in 1557, England, though fearful of
the future, had turned her back definitely and forever upon continental
conquest and entanglements, and had embarked boldly upon those waves
which it was to become her pride to rule.[93] With the seas safe for
traffic, with a host of younger sons and other men suffering from the
economic conditions of the time, with the growing need in England of
many commodities found in the new world, with the great growth of
capital seeking investment, and with the trade of practically every
other portion of the earth already in the hands of corporate companies,
English merchants and adventurers could not fail to turn again, with
ampler resources and better methods, to the land where they had already
tried and failed. The Muscovy Company controlled all trade with Russia,
the Eastland that with the Baltic, the Levant that with Venice and the
East, while another controlled the African west coast, and the East
India Company held from the Straits of Magellan around to Africa
again.[94] Although these companies, which were almost wholly owned in
London, aroused the jealousy of Plymouth, Southampton, and the other
provincial ports, which found themselves limited to a little nearby
continental and coasting trade, they pointed the way to the corporate
form and joint-stock undertakings as the successful method of handling
large business enterprises, such as colonizing was now realized to be.
Footnote 93:
A. B. Hinds, _The Making of the England of Elizabeth_ (New York,
1895), p. 138.
Footnote 94:
S. R. Gardiner, _History of England_ (London, 1895), vol. I, p. 187.
This was clearly brought out by an unknown author, who, probably toward
the end of 1605, wrote the paper known as “Reasons for raising a
fund.”[95] The writer strongly advocated the raising of a “publique
stocke” for “the peopling and discovering of such contries as maye be
fownde most convenient for the supplie of those defects which the Realme
of England most requireth.” It is likely that this paper, which was
intended for Parliament, had considerable influence in the granting of
the Virginia charter, and it is, therefore, interesting to note that, at
the very beginning of successful colonization, one of the leading points
in future English colonial policy was thus touched upon. It is often
lost to sight that practically the sole value of her colonies to England
all through the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries was the
value of their trade, and the most important part of that trade, during
nearly all of the period, was in supplying her with such materials as
she lacked at home. In this respect, her West Indian colonies became
more important than her continental ones, though an exaggerated emphasis
has been laid upon the contemporary importance of the latter, in part
because they chanced to revolt, whereas the island colonies did not.
Footnote 95:
For discussion as to authorship and date, _vide_ Brown, _Genesis_, pp.
36-42, where the document is printed in full.
As one of the reasons for raising a public fund to assist in colonizing,
our unknown author went on to say that “private purces are cowld
compfortes to adventurers,” and pointed to the “marvelous matters in
traficque and navigacon” which the Hollanders had accomplished, in few
years, by a “maine backe or stocke.” Whether the paper was written in
order to obtain the Virginia charter, it is impossible to say; but
apparently it was, and, in any case, that charter was issued on the 10th
of April, 1606. The great revolution in foreign trade, which had been
going on for the past two centuries, was now complete, and the period of
chartered companies, foreshadowed by the formation, in the latter part
of the sixteenth century, of the few already noted, was well under
way.[96] With the addition of the East India Company, chartered in 1600,
the existing English companies covered practically all known parts of
the world except America; and during the next generation about the only
companies organized were for the new world—North and South Virginia in
1606, Guiana, 1609, Newfoundland, 1610, Northwest Passage, 1612,
Bermuda, 1615, New England, 1620, and Massachusetts, 1629.
Footnote 96:
_Cf._ P. Bonnassieux, _Les grandes Compagnies de Commerce_ (Paris,
1892), pp. 510 _ff._
There was a very close connection between many of these great companies.
The East India, for example, was practically an outgrowth of the
Levant;[97] while of the two hundred and three members of the Virginia
Company, one hundred and sixteen were members of the East India, and
thirteen of the Muscovy, ten were to become interested in the
Newfoundland, one hundred in the Northwest Passage, forty-six in the
Bermuda, and thirty-eight in the New England companies. Members of the
Virginia Company were also represented in the African, Levant, Guiana,
Guinea, Eastland, Providence, Irish Plantation, and other stock
enterprises.[98] To the noblemen and merchants thus brought into close
working relations, America was but one of the many irons which they had
in the fire, and by no means the most important. Their interest, as that
of their successors, was naturally in British trade as a whole, and not
in the success of any particular colony, much less in its religious
bickerings or political aspirations. From the very beginning, the trade
of the Empire was considered paramount to that of any unit, even in
England itself. At this very time, King James, in pressing for the union
with Scotland, expressed what was later to become the established
policy. “It may be,” he said, “that a merchant or two of Bristow or
Yarmouth may have a hundred pounds lesse in his packe; but if the Empire
gaine and become the greater, it is no matter.”[99]
Footnote 97:
W. W. Hunter, _History of British India_ (London, 1899), vol. I, p.
244.
Footnote 98:
Compiled from Brown, _Genesis_, pp. 811-1068.
Footnote 99:
Cited by Scott, _Joint-Stock Companies_, vol. I, p. 132.
These two points thus early made, namely, that the value of colonies lay
in their contributing to the empire products otherwise obtainable only
from foreigners, and that the interests of the empire as a whole were
paramount to those of any section, were well understood by those at the
head of colonizing enterprises, and must have been understood also by
the more intelligent of the early planters themselves. These views
naturally would continue to be held by those who remained at the centre
of the empire in England; while those who dwelt on its periphery, in
many scattered settlements, would as naturally, in time, tend to lose
sight of them, and to consider their own particular interests as greater
than those of the empire. The struggle between these centripetal and
centrifugal forces was bound to result in warping the imperial
structure, though in one case only was it to end in the breaking away of
a part of the system. Adjustments, continuing even to the present day,
were to save the rest intact; but it is interesting to note the germs of
conflict present from the very beginning. The forces which brought that
conflict about were operative, in varying degrees, not only in North
America, but throughout the entire empire, and extended back to its
unconscious inception.
The charter granted in 1606 provided for the formation of two colonizing
companies, one of which was authorized to plant anywhere on the American
coast between latitudes 34° and 41° North, and the other between 38° and
45°, provided that, should either, or both, choose to settle in the
overlapping strip of three degrees, they should not plant within one
hundred miles of each other.[100] The patentees of the first company
were residents of London, while those of the second were of Plymouth,
the companies thus becoming known as the London and Plymouth companies
respectively. Among the patentees of the latter, which embraced New
England, were Thomas Hanham, Raleigh Gilbert and George Popham, although
the names of the two who are thought to have been the prime movers in
the whole enterprise, Chief Justice Popham and Sir Ferdinando Gorges, do
not appear. Practically all those connected with it had seen service in
the Spanish war, and many had already been interested in attempts to
colonize in America and elsewhere. The charter, together with the
instructions issued by the King some months later,[101] reveals a mixed
organization, partly proprietary and partly royal. The patentees were to
provide the capital and colonists, and to have control of the trade,
which was to be carried on by means of “magazines,” or joint stock; but
the King, through the provision of a royal council appointed by himself,
retained in his own hands the government of the entire province from 34°
to 45°. Two local councils, one for each company's territory, were
appointed by the royal council, with power to govern the affairs of each
colony under the king's instructions. Land could not be granted to
individuals by the patentees, but only by the king, upon application in
their behalf by the local council for the colony in which it was
located.[102]
Footnote 100:
Hazard, _Historical Collections_ (Philadelphia, 1792), vol. I, pp.
50-58.
Footnote 101:
Brown, _Genesis_, pp. 64-75.
Footnote 102:
Osgood, _American Colonies_, vol. I, pp. 25-35.
Both companies at once took steps to plant their colonies, the Plymouth
being the first in the field, although to the London Company was to
accrue the earliest lasting success. The latter's expedition, including
in its members Bartholomew Gosnold, who had already been in New England,
and Captain John Smith, who later was to become a factor there, sailed
from London in three ships, on December 20, 1606. Arriving in Virginia
the following spring, they established themselves at Jamestown, and so
founded, what, in spite of many vicissitudes, was to be the first
permanent English settlement in America.
Meanwhile, the Plymouth Company, mainly by virtue of the activity of Sir
Ferdinando Gorges, who became indefatigable in his colonizing ardor, and
of Chief Justice Popham, had also commenced operations. In 1600 had
occurred Gorges's unfortunate connection with the revolt of Essex, which
had blasted his character in the eyes of the Puritans, and so served,
perhaps, to embitter his future relations with Massachusetts. He had
been for some time reinstated as Governor of Plymouth, when Weymouth
returned from his voyage in 1605; and from him Gorges obtained
possession of the three natives whom the captain had kidnaped on the
coast of Maine. Having learned much from them of the nature of the
country and its inhabitants, he despatched a vessel under Captain Henry
Challons, in August, four months after the granting of the charter, with
strict instructions to take the northern route to Cape Breton, and then
to follow the coast southward to the place the natives had
described.[103] Challons disobeyed the order, went southward by the West
Indies, and was captured by the Spaniards, some of the crew, with
himself and the two natives, being carried to Spain, and others, by
accident, to Bordeaux. The latter, after having filed claims with the
authorities of the port, and left a “Letter of a Turnye,” returned to
England, as did also, after some time and difficulty, Challons
himself.[104]
Footnote 103:
Gorges, “Briefe Narration,” _Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._, Series III, vol.
VI, pp. 51 _f._ Various members of the company were associated with
Gorges, but he seems to have been the leader in this venture, as
Popham was in the next. An account of the voyage, written by John
Stoneman, the pilot, is in Purchas, _Pilgrimes_, vol. XIX, pp. 284-96.
Footnote 104:
J. P. Baxter, _Sir Ferdinando Gorges_, vol. III, pp. 129-32, 168;
_Cal. State Pap., Col., 1675-76_, p. 53.
Although the little ship of fifty-five tons had carried only twenty-nine
Englishmen, it had been the intention to leave some of them for
settling, “if any good occasion were offered”; and the Chief Justice had
also dispatched a ship, under Captain Hanham, to meet and assist
Challons in the enterprise. This, of course, he was unable to do; but he
explored the shore, taking back with him to the company “the most exact
discovery of that coast that ever came into their hands.”[105] The
reports were considered so encouraging that a much more considerable
effort was next made by the adventurers.
Footnote 105:
Gorges, “Briefe Narration,” p. 53. No account of this voyage has been
preserved, although Purchas had one in his possession written by
Hanham. _Vide_ Purchas, _Pilgrimes_, vol. XIX, p. 296.
On May 31, 1607, two ships, the Gift of God and the Mary and John, were
dispatched from Plymouth under command of Raleigh Gilbert and George
Popham, a relative of Sir John.[106] The vessels became separated on
June 29, and did not meet again until August 7, among the St. George's
Islands, off the coast of Maine.[107] Having reached the mouth of the
Kennebec, then called the Sagadahoc, the colonists explored the stream,
and finally chose for their place of settlement a point at its mouth, on
the high ground of the peninsula of Sabino.[108] They landed on the
19th, when they had a sermon preached to them, and listened to the
reading of their patent and laws. The next day they began the building
of their fort, named St. George, followed by the dwellings and
storehouse and the first boat built in America.
Footnote 106:
Always stated to have been his brother, until Brown threw doubt upon
the point; _Genesis_, pp. 791, 968.
Footnote 107:
“Relation of a Voyage to Sagadahoc,” _Mass. Hist. Soc. Proceedings_,
vol. XVIII.
Footnote 108:
H. O. Thayer, _The Sagadahoc Colony_ (Gorges Society, Portland, 1892),
pp. 167-87.
Meanwhile, the Spaniards were by no means oblivious of what was going
on, both in North and South Virginia; and to the zeal of the Spanish
ambassador in London in keeping his master posted as to the
encroachments of the English upon his territories, we owe the
preservation of a drawing of the fort in the infant colony, which he
obtained from some one who had been there.[109] From the first
discussion of the Virginia charter, Zuñiga had written frequently to the
King, telling him of the plans and doings of the English, and advising
strong action to prevent their settling. For some years, Spanish spies
were kept at Jamestown, who regularly sent home word of what was going
on, by means of renegade English sailors, while evidently there was also
a traitor at Sagadahoc, as even in the Royal Council itself.[110] A
vessel was once dispatched by Spain to wipe out both the colonies; but
the crew proved faint-hearted, and no attack was made upon either, the
King, moreover, having some hope, apparently, that both would
conveniently prove failures of themselves.
Footnote 109:
Reproduced by Brown, _Genesis_, p. 190. _Cf._ also _Ibid._, pp. 183
_ff._
Footnote 110:
Correspondence in Brown, _Genesis_, p. 117 and _passim_; also _The
First Republic in America_ (Boston, 1898), p. 91. _Cf._ I. A. Wright,
“Spanish Policy toward Virginia,” in _American Historical Review_,
April, 1920, pp. 448 _ff._ and _Cal. State Pap., Col., 1675-76_, pp.
45 _ff._
At first, however, all went well at Sagadahoc, and early in October the
Mary and John was sent home to carry word of the colony.[111] The
account brought back so pleased Gorges that he wrote a letter, “late at
night,” to Sir Robert Cecil, to tell him of the “greate newes.” But he
was doomed to disappointment. A couple of days later he had evidently
heard more, and in a second letter wrote that the settlement was getting
into trouble because of “childish factions, ignorant, timerous and
ambitious persons.” Popham, who had been made president of the colony,
he described as “an honest man, but ould, and of an unwieldy body, and
timerously fearfull to offende, or contest with others that will or do
oppose him, but otherways a discreete, carefull man.” Gilbert was
declared, by hearsay, to be “desirous of supremacy, and rule, a loose
life prompte to sensuality, little zeale in Religion, humerouse,
headstronge and of small judgment and experience, other wayes valiant
inough.”[112] The next ship brought a letter from Popham to the King,
but no better news for the company than the first, in spite of the
president's enthusiastic belief in the presence of nutmegs, cinnamon,
and “other products of great importance,” in the imaginatively tropical
climate of Maine.[113]
Footnote 111:
_Cf._ note on the “Movement of the ships,” Thayer, _Sagadahoc_, pp.
192 _ff._
Footnote 112:
Baxter, _Sir F. Gorges_, vol. III, pp. 154 _f._
Footnote 113:
_Maine Historical Society Collections_, vol. V, pp. 357-60.
During the winter, which was unusually severe, the storehouse was
burned, with most of the provisions; and before the arrival of the two
supply ships sent out from England, Popham, the leader of the colony,
died. The ships carried yet more serious news to the colonists in the
death of the Chief Justice in England, which proved “such a corrosive to
all, as struck them with despair of future remedy.”[114] A later ship
brought word of the death of Sir John, Gilbert's elder brother, which
necessitated that leader's returning to England to look after his
affairs. The colonists, in view of all these circumstances, resolved to
quit the place, and return with Gilbert; and so all “former hopes were
frozen to death,” and, by October, the wilderness of Maine was abandoned
by the English, as, five years before, it had been by the French.[115]
Footnote 114:
Gorges, “Briefe Narration,” p. 55.
Footnote 115:
Attempts have been made to magnify the importance of the colony, and
even to insist upon its continued existence. Following the publication
of the uncritical _Popham Memorial_, Portland, 1863, 98 pamphlets and
articles appeared in six years. The literature is surveyed by Thayer,
_Sagadahoc_, pp. 87-156.
The character of the colonists, and, more particularly, the unusual
sequence of accidents, were enough to account for the failure of the
attempt, without invoking, with Gorges, “the mallice of the Divell” to
explain it. The company at home became thoroughly discouraged, and no
further efforts were made to plant a settlement, although Sir Francis
Popham, son of the late Chief Justice, continued to send over vessels
for some years for trade and fishing, and it is probable that no year
now passed without the temporary presence of Englishmen upon the
coast.[116] In connection with the obtaining of a new charter by the
South Virginia Company, in 1609, the adventurers in the Northern Company
were offered the opportunity to join with the Londoners on favorable
terms, and to form with them “one common and patient purse,” an
opportunity of which some of them availed themselves.[117]
Footnote 116:
Gorges, “Briefe Narration,” p. 56; “Briefe Relation,” Purchas,
_Pilgrimes_, vol. XIX, p. 271.
Footnote 117:
Brown, _Genesis_, pp. 238-40.
Although temporarily abandoned as a site for colonizing, the coast of
North Virginia was by no means deserted, and the events of the next few
years there were of great importance to the future history of the
territory. Hudson, an Englishman employed by the Dutch, coasted along
its shores during the famous voyage on which he explored the river which
bears his name;[118] and the following year, Argall and Somers,
attempting to sail from Jamestown to Bermuda, were blown out of their
course, and having made for the North Virginia coast, spent some time
along it, fishing for cod.[119] Upon Hudson's voyage was based the Dutch
claim to their portion of North America. The validity of such a claim to
the country immediately about the Hudson would depend upon the
interpretation of the two difficult points in connection with titles
noted at the beginning of this chapter.[120] Any such claim extended by
Holland to the coasts of the present eastern New England, however, could
have no standing whatever, as French and English explorations in that
exact locality had been both prior in date and far more thorough. The
only real dispute there lay between the English and French, which was
soon to be decided in the main by force. In fact, with three nations, to
say nothing of Spain, claiming the same territory, all basing their
claims upon discovery within a few miles of each other, even where
explorations did not actually overlap, the points raised were too fine,
in the then inchoate state of international law, to permit of any other
arbitrament.
Footnote 118:
G. M. Asher, _Henry Hudson the Navigator_ (Hakluyt Society, 1860), p.
63.
Footnote 119:
Purchas, _Pilgrimes_, vol. XIX, pp. 73, 84.
Footnote 120:
Leaving out of consideration the early coasting voyages, in which the
Dutch had no part whatever, they had recently been preceded to within
a reasonable distance of both the mouth and the source of the Hudson.
The English had made a detailed discovery as far as the entrance of
the Sound, while Champlain was within a few miles of the source of the
river some months before the Dutch ascended it. If rights of discovery
were to be limited only to the points actually visited, with no
extension thence in any direction, the country would have become a
veritable checker-board of warring nationalities. The Dutch themselves
held no such view, and claimed all the land from Cape Cod to Delaware
Bay, with indefinite limits toward the interior. Acknowledgment of any
such claim would have to be based upon a theory of extension which
would seem, therefore, equally to validate the claims of English and
French, arising in both cases from discovery prior to the Dutch.
When, owing to the annulling of De Monts's patent, the French colony at
Port Royal had been temporarily abandoned in 1607, de Poutrincourt, who
still retained his rights, intended to return speedily, and to continue
his settlement. Various delays, however, kept him in France for three
years, and it was not until the spring of 1610 that he again set sail.
The houses and their contents, untouched by the friendly Indians, were
found intact, and life at the little colony, which had thus been merely
interrupted, was resumed. In the following year, a certain Captain
Plastrier, who had been fishing near the Kennebec, complained to the
Sieur de Biencourt, Poutrincourt's son, that he had been attacked and
robbed by English, who claimed title to the coast.[121] These may have
been Captain Williams and his party, who were annually sent out by
Francis Popham, or Captains Harlow and Hobson, who were on the coast, in
1611, on a voyage of discovery and Indian-kidnaping, for the Earl of
Southampton.[122] Thus obscurely, off the New England coast, between a
French fisherman and English seamen, whose very names are unknown to us,
began that duel for empire between France and England, which was to last
a century and a half, and which was to decide the fate of the vast
continent of North America and the teeming millions of India. Clive and
Dupleix, Wolfe and Montcalm, were the successors of these humble
pioneers striving to assert the claims of their rival nations to the
empire of the world.
Footnote 121:
Brown, _Genesis_, p. 534.
Footnote 122:
The accounts of the latter voyage are slight. John Smith, in a page,
gives us all we know, and says nothing of Plastrier. _Works_ (ed.
Arber, Glasgow, 1910), vol. II, p. 696. Purchas had a full account,
which he did not print and which is now lost. _Pilgrimes_, vol. XIX,
p. 296.
The significance of the attack by the English was not lost upon the
young Biencourt, who “represented very earnestly” to his people how
important it was to “every good Frenchman” to prevent this usurpation by
the English of lands claimed by France, and occupied by her citizens
“who had taken real possession ... three and four years before ever the
English had set forth”—which was quite true in so far as related to
colonizing. In August, Biencourt made a trip along the shore of Maine,
stopping at St. Croix Island, where Plastrier had decided to spend the
winter, and thence down to the Kennebec, where he inspected the
abandoned site of the Popham colony, and made a careful examination of
the coast. At the island of Matinicus, where the attack on Plastrier had
taken place, he found some Englishmen fishing; but although he was urged
by some of his party to burn their ships, he would not do so, as they
were peaceful civilians, and contented himself with erecting a large
cross with the arms of France.[123]
Footnote 123:
Brown, _Genesis_, pp. 534 _f._
A couple of years later, under the more aggressive régime of Madame de
Guercheville and the Jesuits, an extension of French settlement toward
the south was attempted by the founding of a colony on Mt. Desert, which
was named St. Sauveur.[124] It was not, however, to remain undisturbed
for many weeks, for at a meeting of the Quarter Court of the Virginia
Company in London, in July, 1612, Captain Argall had been commissioned
to drive out foreign intruders from the country claimed under English
charters, and had sailed from England for that purpose.[125] After
wintering in Virginia, he proceeded northward the following summer, to
clear the territory as far as 45°, and promptly ran across the newly
established Jesuits on the Maine coast, being guided to them by Indians,
who were under the mistaken impression that the English were
friends.[126] The French, being taken wholly unaware, made practically
no resistance, the only one among their number who had presence of mind
enough even to fire their cannon, having forgotten to aim it. Argall
easily overcame such opposition, and having obtained possession of La
Saussaye's commission from the French King, proceeded to break up the
colony and dispose of his prisoners.[127] Fifteen of them, including
Biard and another of the Jesuit fathers, were taken back as captives to
Virginia, and the remaining thirty, in two small boats, allowed to take
their perilous way to rejoin their countrymen to the northward.
Footnote 124:
_Cf._ E. C. Cummings, “Father Biard's Relation of 1616”; paper read
before the Maine Historical Society, in 1893; _Proceedings_, pp.
11-18. Biard's account, from the Jesuit Relations, is reprinted by C.
H. Levermore, _Forerunners and Competitors of the Pilgrims and
Puritans_ (Brooklyn, 1912), vol. II, pp. 446, 522.
Footnote 125:
Brown, _First Republic_, p. 176; _Genesis_, pp. 709-23.
Footnote 126:
W. D. Williamson, _History of the State of Maine_ (Hallowell, 1832),
vol. I, p. 206, states, but without giving any authority, that there
had been Jesuits at Mt. Desert for five years.
Footnote 127:
The story of his having secretly rifled La Saussaye's trunks of his
papers, and then demanded them from him, seems hardly likely, in view
of other facts. It rests on the authority of Biard (“Relation,” in
Levermore, _Forerunners_, vol. II, p. 496). As to Biard's character
and credibility, _cf._ Biggar, _Trading Companies_, pp. 263-65.
Soon afterward, Argall, with three ships and the Jesuit Biard, who,
apparently out of personal rancor toward Biencourt, had turned traitor
to his former associates, again set sail from Virginia, for the purpose
of completely extirpating the French settlements. Revisiting St.
Sauveur, he burned the buildings, and tearing down the French cross,
erected another. Continuing his voyage, he put in at St. Croix, where he
likewise burned the buildings and confiscated the stores collected
there.[128] Arriving next at Port Royal, from which the inhabitants were
temporarily absent, a few miles off, after taking as booty even the
locks and nails from the buildings, as well as the food, ammunition, and
clothes of the unfortunate French, he burned the whole settlement to
ashes.[129] It is difficult to conceive of a more dastardly act than
thus to rob a peaceful colony of its stores, and then to render it
homeless on the approach of winter in a far northern country.
Footnote 128:
Biard, in Levermore, _Forerunners_, vol. II, p. 506. _Cf._ also the
English account in Purchas, _Pilgrimes_, vol. XIX, pp. 214-16, 271.
Footnote 129:
Biard and Purchas, _ubi supra_; also Biencourt's complaint, in Brown,
_Genesis_, pp. 725 _ff._ and _Cal. State Pap., Col., 1574-1660_, p.
15.
The action, however, if not the manner of it, fitted in with the English
temper of the time, which was becoming increasingly aggressive in
colonial matters. On the shores of India, as on those of North Virginia,
the cannon's mouth was announcing territorial decisions of vast import
for the future. Almost simultaneously with the operations of Argall in
Maine, Captain Best, off the Indian coast, was having a running fight,
lasting a month, with four Portuguese ships, attended by over a score of
galleys, against his own little fleet of only two vessels. As a result
of his brilliant victory against these overwhelming odds, the English
obtained their first permanent foothold in continental India.[130] The
glorious battle of Swally, and the petty raiding of Mt. Desert and Port
Royal, were alike mere incidents in the struggle of new forces let loose
by the age of discovery, and the transformation of the European nations
into world powers. The struggles between French and English in North
Virginia and India; between English and Portuguese in the Gulf of
Cambay; between Dutch and Spanish, or Dutch and Portuguese on many seas;
between English and Dutch in Guiana and on the Amazon and in the Spice
Islands of the East, must all be considered as but parts of one
stupendous drama. Everywhere along the edge of the world, traders and
settlers were being tossed on those stormy political waters, where met
the new tides of imperial ambition, fast flowing to the farthest
confines of the new-found seas.
Footnote 130:
Hunter, _British India_, vol. I, pp. 300-304.
In that portion of the drama with which we are particularly concerned, a
new figure now appears upon the scene, whose services to North Virginia
have been somewhat overrated by many, but whose personality remains a
matter of fascinating interest. Around few names in American history has
legend clustered more luxuriantly than around that of the South
Virginian hero Captain John Smith; and as to the real merits of few men
is opinion more diverse. Even though it must be frankly admitted that no
one will ever again think as highly of the Captain as he thought of
himself, yet much of the modern detraction from his character and
services is so evidently biased as to be critically of little value. The
main importance of his share in North Virginian colonization, unlike his
labors in the south, was in his capacity as author, and his efforts to
stimulate interest in the possibilities of the New World. He himself,
however, wished for and endeavored to achieve a more active part in the
settlement of the country to which he attached its present name of New
England.
He first saw its shores, on his only voyage thither, off the island of
Monhegan, in the spring of 1614, having been sent out by some London
merchants “to take Whales and make tryalls of a Myne of Gold and
Copper.”[131] If those failed, he wrote, “Fish and Furres was then our
refuge.” It was soon evident that the refuge was needed, and it proved,
fortunately, to be a goodly one, although along the New Hampshire and
Massachusetts coasts, he found that the French had recently preceded
him, and spoiled his market. While fishing for cod, and trading with the
Indians, he also explored a considerable part of the shore, and, as a
result of his observations, prepared a map, on which many of the names
still familiar to us appear for the first time.[132] In spite of all the
explorers who had preceded him, Smith asserted that the shore was “still
but even as a coast unknowne and undiscovered”; and historians formerly
dated the beginning of modern New England cartography from the
appearance of his chart. Without necessarily detracting from the
excellence of Smith's field-work, however, his claim to be the first
accurate cartographer of our coast has been dispelled by the discovery
of the excellent map transmitted by the Spanish ambassador in London to
King Philip in 1611, and found some years ago in the Archives at
Simancas.[133] This map, prepared for King James in 1610, shows that the
New England coast was well known, and had been well drawn, before ever
John Smith began his labors. It probably embodies the surveys made by
Gosnold, Archer, Pring, Weymouth, Champlain, and, perhaps, others, and
shows, for the first time, correctly drawn, such characteristic features
as the peculiar hook of Cape Cod. This very point had hitherto been
considered the distinguishing mark of excellence of Smith's map, drawn
six years later.
Footnote 131:
John Smith, _Works_, vol. I, p. 187.
Footnote 132:
For various states of the map, _vide_ J. Winsor, _Memorial History of
Boston_ (Boston, 1882), vol. I, pp. 52-56.
Footnote 133:
Printed for the first time by Brown, _Genesis_, p. 456.
However, if Smith's cartographical services cannot now be considered as
important as formerly, his work as a popularizer remains unimpaired.
Although the map of 1610, until published within the present generation,
continued in the form of a single manuscript copy, and was seen in its
day by few outside the inner circles of company promotion, Smith's was
published in a large edition, and, together with his _Description_,
which has not yet lost its charm, did much to spread a knowledge of New
England among the people. Many a man in disgrace with fortune must have
pondered his note for those “that have great spirits, and small meanes,”
and have read enviously of “the planters pleasures, and profits,” as set
forth by the plausible captain.
An act of cruelty, which occurred on Smith's voyage, was to bear
unforeseen results in the future. One of the captains, a rascal named
Hunt, kidnaped twenty-four savages, and sold them in Spain for slaves.
One of these, who was subsequently returned to his native land, was the
Squanto who so materially assisted the Pilgrims at Plymouth, as we shall
see later.
Of more immediate influence were the fish and furs with which Smith
reached London,—valued at £1500,—and which served to direct attention to
the possibilities of the region. It was, it is true, a trifle compared
with the £90,000 or more which the stockholders of the East India
Company were receiving from the annual voyages of their fleet; but
interest in colonizing as well as in trading was rapidly growing.[134]
In Ireland, where colonization ran a course curiously analogous to that
in America, settlement now proceeded rapidly.[135] In Newfoundland, two
colonies were founded, and in Bermuda people were said to be beginning
“to nestle and plant very handsomely.”[136] Little Englanders of an
early type, and opponents of chartered privilege, were not wanting,
indeed, to inveigh against the growing imperialism of the times. As “for
the Bermudas, we know not yet what they will do; and for Virginia, we
know not well what to do with it,” wrote one author; while Bacon
compared the visionary possibilities of America with the solid results
in Ireland.[137]
Footnote 134:
Hunter, _British India_, vol. I, p. 306.
Footnote 135:
Cheyney, “English Conditions,” pp. 514-21. For a report on a site for
a colony in Derry, which might be mistaken for an American
“prospectus” of the same period, _vide_ _Cal. State Papers, Ireland,
1608-1610_, p. 318. The items are curiously familiar: “the goodness of
the air and the fruitfulness of the land”; “the red deer, foxes,
conies, martins, otters”; “the great plenty of timber for shipping”;
“the commodious harbor”; “the infinite store of cods, herrings,” etc.;
“the sea-fowl in great abundance”; even the pearls.
Footnote 136:
_Cal. State Pap., Col., 1558-1660_, p. 15.
Footnote 137:
_The Trades Increase_, in _Harleian Miscellany_ (ed. 1809), vol. III,
p. 299; Brown, _Genesis_, p. 820.
While Smith had been ranging our coast, getting information, furs, and
fish, another expedition, despatched by Gorges, under Captain Hobson,
was seeking gold on Martha's Vineyard. Needless to say, he did not find
it, and, as Smith laconically remarks, he “spent his victuall and
returned with nothing.”[138] The tangible cash results of Smith's own
voyage pointed to him as the man whom the company needed, and by them he
was made Admiral of New England for life, and started on another voyage,
with two ships and Captain Thomas Dermer. He never again, however, saw
America. Owing to damages to his vessel, received in a storm only a few
days out, he was forced to return to Plymouth; and although Dermer went
on, we know nothing of his trip.[139] On Smith's next attempt, he was
taken prisoner by pirates; and on his fourth start, in 1617, for some
reason he never got out of Plymouth harbor.
Footnote 138:
Smith, _Works_, vol. I, p. 240.
Footnote 139:
_Ibid._, vol. II, pp. 731 _ff._
Voyages to New England now became frequent, however, and it is not
necessary to mention them all. In 1615, Sir Richard Hawkins was
exploring and trading for Gorges, whose agent, Richard Vines, probably
spent the following winter in Maine, bringing back with him the first
news of the great plague which was decimating the Indians, and which was
to simplify the question of settlement. As Gorges speaks of the “extreme
rates” at which he had to hire men to stay the winter quarter, it is
probable that he had other parties there, in this or other winters.
“This course I held some years together,” he wrote in his old age, “but
nothing to my private profit; for what I got one way I spent another; so
that I began to grow weary of that business, as not for my turn till
better times.”[140] The surprising part is, not that he grew weary, but
that he still continued the unprofitable business for a lifetime.
Footnote 140:
Gorges, “Briefe Narration,” pp. 57-62.
In 1618, he received a letter from Captain Dermer, in Newfoundland,
saying that he had there found Squanto, one of Gorges's savages, and
that the Indian's description of New England had made him desirous to
“follow his hopes that way.”[141] The next spring, therefore, the
indefatigable Gorges sent out Captain Rocroft to meet Dermer and
coöperate with him. Dermer, meanwhile, had returned to England; so
Rocroft failed to meet him, and after capturing a French barque off the
New England coast, sailed to Virginia, contrary to orders, and was there
killed in a quarrel. Gorges reimbursed the Frenchmen for the damages
suffered, and, in other respects, made a heavy loss on the voyage, from
which he recovered nothing.
Footnote 141:
Gorges, “Briefe Narration,” p. 62. He does not give the name of the
savage. The identity is established by Bradford, _History of Plymouth
Plantation_ (Boston, 1861), pp. 96 _f._
As soon as possible after Dermer's unexpected arrival in England, he was
again fitted out and sent to join Rocroft, who had meanwhile gone to
Virginia. Having missed his associate in the enterprise, whom he had
expected to find at Monhegan, Dermer sailed along the coast, making
observations, from Sagadahoc to Martha's Vineyard, and then on to
Virginia. Finding Rocroft dead, he wintered there, and went back to New
England in the spring.[142] Apparently on this visit, he returned
Squanto to his native Plymouth, where Dermer seems to have wished to
plant. “I would,” he wrote, “that the first plantation might hear be
seated, if ther come to the number of 50 persons, or upward”—a desire
which was to be fulfilled within a few months by the coming of the
Pilgrims.
Footnote 142:
This I take to be the explanation of the voyages, though he may have
returned to England between them. It seems certain that he was on the
coast in 1620. _Cf._ Dermer's letter in Purchas, _Pilgrimes_, vol.
XIX, pp. 129 _ff._; Gorges, “Briefe Narration,” pp. 61 _ff._; and
Bradford, Plymouth, pp. 95-98.
Meanwhile, the colony in South Virginia, at Jamestown, had been passing
through a long series of troubles, which on more than one occasion had
nearly ended its career. Those in its first years led the company to
publish _A True and Sincere Declaration_ as to the affairs of the
settlement, in which the form of government was given as one of the
roots of the evils which had “shaken so tender a body.”[143] As a result
of changes effected by the two subsequent charters, which they obtained
in 1609 and 1612, the London patentees were incorporated as a
joint-stock body, and their territory increased to a strip four hundred
miles wide, extending from coast to coast, which they were empowered to
grant to others.[144] The old Royal Council was replaced by one elected
by the members of the company, thus becoming subject, not to the king,
but to the fifty-six city companies, and to the six hundred and
fifty-nine individuals, who formed the membership of the enterprise at
the time of the 1612 charter. Governmental powers were also bestowed
upon it, and the colony thus became a proprietary province, with a
trading company as proprietor.[145]
Footnote 143:
Reprinted by Brown, _Genesis_, pp. 338-53.
Footnote 144:
Hazard, _Hist. Coll._, vol. I, pp. 58-81.
Footnote 145:
Osgood, _American Colonies_, vol. I, pp. 56 _ff._
The unfortunate results of the recent voyages in which Gorges had been
interested, so far from dampening his ardor, had made him more anxious
than ever to go on with his efforts. The governmental changes in the
charter for South Virginia, together, perhaps, with the enlargement of
its bounds, moved him to apply for a new charter for the northern
plantation.[146] A dispute in which he had become involved with the
southern company, regarding its rights to fish within the limits
assigned to the North Virginia patentees, which rights he denied, had
won for him the hostility of a part of the Virginia Company's
membership. As the new charter for which he had applied contained a
clause giving the New England Company a monopoly of the fishing along
their entire section of the coast, it was bitterly attacked by the
southerners, who had annually gone to the northern fishing-grounds for
an important part of their year's supplies. The dispute was taken into
Parliament, where Gorges defended himself with ability, and thence to
the King. The factional fight then in progress between Smythe and
Sandys, in the Virginia Company, led Smythe's party to support Gorges
against their opponents in their own company; and as Gorges had also
strengthened his cause by including among his associates many of the
influential nobles of the court, an order in council was finally issued
in his favor, on the 18th of June, 1621, for the delivery of the new
charter.[147]
Footnote 146:
Gorges, “Briefe Narration,” p. 64.
Footnote 147:
_Ibid._, pp. 64 _ff._; _Documents relating to the Colonial History of
State of New York_ (Albany, 1853), vol. III, p. 4; Thomas Pownall,
_The Administration of the British Colonies_ (London, 1777), vol. I,
p. 49.
Thus was originated the “Council established at Plymouth in the County
of Devon for the Planting, Ruling, and Governing of New England in
America,” which now became the proprietor of all the territory between
40° and 48° North Latitude, and extending from the Atlantic to the
Pacific, in utter disregard of the French claims in Nova Scotia and
Canada, and of the colonies planted there. The charter stated that there
were no subjects of any foreign power in possession of any part of the
territory, although Quebec had been settled for thirteen years, and
French fishermen and fur traders were constantly being met by the
English.[148] Upon the new company were bestowed rights of trading,
colonizing, and governing. The members were allowed to elect their own
officials in England, and to appoint those for ruling in the
settlements. The members of the Virginia Company numbered nearly a
thousand persons, who elected their council, and were responsible for
the administration of the colony; but under the Gorges charter, the
council was the whole company, limited to forty members, who were
self-perpetuating, and whose relation to the colonists was thus direct
and final.[149]
Footnote 148:
Charter in Hazard, _Hist. Coll._, vol. I, pp. 103 _ff._
Footnote 149:
_Cf._ Osgood, _American Colonies_, vol. I, pp. 98 _ff._
The new company was never either active or successful. The controversy
which had marked its slow birth tended to keep people from investing;
and from its narrow and monopolistic nature, it could make no appeal to
popular support. While the passage of the charter was still pending,
chance decreed that under it was to be made, even before its issue, the
first successful planting within its granted limits, and without efforts
of their own, the grantees, when they received the powers bestowed upon
them by the King, were to find the Pilgrim colony already established at
Plymouth.