England in America, 1580-1652 Part 6

[Footnote 34: Hamor, _True Discourse_, 29-31; Brown, _Genesis of the United States_, I., 501-508.]

[Footnote 35: _The Tragical Relation_, in Neill, _Virginia Company_, 407-411.]

[Footnote 36: Smith, _Works_ (Arber's ed.), 508.]

[Footnote 37: Hamor, _True Discourse_, 11.]

[Footnote 38: Brown, _Genesis of the United States_, I., 709-725.]

[Footnote 39: _A Description of the Province of New Albion_ (1648) (Force, _Tracts_, II., No. vii.).]

[Footnote 40: Brown, _Genesis of the United States_, I., 438.]

[Footnote 41: Hamor, _True Discourse_, 17; _Breife Declaration_.]

[Footnote 42: Brown, _Genesis of the United States_, II., 739, 740.]

[Footnote 43: Ibid., 657.]

[Footnote 44: Ibid., 760, 761.]

[Footnote 45: John Rolfe, _Relation_, in _Va. Historical Register_, I., 110.]

[Footnote 46: Virginia Company, _Proceedings_ (Va. Hist. Soc., _Collections_, new series, VII.), I., 65.]

[Footnote 47: Neill, _Virginia Company_, 98.]

[Footnote 48: Smith, _Works_ (Arber's ed.), 533.]

[Footnote 49: Rolfe, _Relation_, in _Va. Historical Register_, I., 108.]

[Footnote 50: _Breife Declaration_.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHART OF VIRGINIA SHOWING INDIAN AND EARLY ENGLISH SETTLEMENTS IN 1632]

CHAPTER V

TRANSITION OF VIRGINIA

(1617-1640)

During the period of Dale's administration the const.i.tution of the London Company underwent a change, because the stockholders grew restless under the powers of the treasurer and council and applied for a third charter, limiting all important business to a quarterly meeting of the whole body.

As they made the inclusion of the Bermuda Islands the ostensible object, the king without difficulty signed the paper, March 12, 1612; and thus the company at last became a self-governing body.[1] On the question of governing the colony it soon divided, however, into the court party, in favor of continuing martial law, at the head of which was Sir Robert Rich, afterwards earl of Warwick; and the "country," or "patriot party," in favor of ending the system of servitude. The latter party was led by Sir Thomas Smith, who had been treasurer ever since 1607, Sir Edwin Sandys, the earl of Southampton, Sir John Danvers, and John and Nicholas Ferrar.[2] Of the two, the country party was more numerous, and when the joint stock partnership expired, November 30, 1616, they appointed Captain Samuel Argall, a kinsman of Treasurer Smith, to be deputy governor of Virginia, with instructions to give every settler his own private dividend of fifty acres and to permit him to visit in England if he chose.[3]

Argall sailed to Virginia about the first part of April, 1617, taking with him Pocahontas's husband, John Rolfe, as secretary of state.

Pocahontas was to go with him, but she sickened and died, and was buried at Gravesend March 21, 1617. She left one son named Thomas, who afterwards resided in Virginia, where he has many descendants at this day.[4] Argall, though in a subordinate capacity he had been very useful to the settlers, proved wholly unscrupulous as deputy governor.

Instead of obeying his instructions he continued the common slavery under one pretence or another, and even plundered the company of all the servants and livestock belonging to the "common garden." He censured Yardley for permitting the settlers to grow tobacco, yet brought a commission for himself to establish a private tobacco plantation, "Argall's Gift," and laid off two other plantations of the same nature.

In April, 1618, the company, incensed at Argall's conduct, despatched the Lord Governor Delaware with orders to arrest him and send him to England, but Delaware died on the way over, and Argall continued his tyrannical government another year. He appropriated the servants on Lord Delaware's private estates, and when Captain Edward Brewster protested, tried him by martial law and sentenced him to death; but upon the pet.i.tions of the ministers resident in the colony commuted the punishment to perpetual banishment.[5]

Meanwhile, Sandys, who had a large share in draughting the second and third charters, was a.s.sociated with Sir Thomas Smith in preparing a doc.u.ment which has been called the "Magna Charta of America." November 13, 1618, the company granted to the residents of Virginia the "Great charter or commission of priviledges, orders, and laws"; and in January, 1619, Sir George Yardley was sent as "governor and captain-general," with full instructions to put the new government into operation. He had also orders to arrest Argall, but, warned by Lord Rich, Argall fled from the colony before Yardley arrived. Argall left within the jurisdiction of the London Company in Virginia, as the fruit of twelve years' labor and an expenditure of money representing $2,000,000, but four hundred settlers inhabiting some broken-down settlements. The plantations of the private a.s.sociations--Southampton Hundred, Martin Hundred, etc.--were in a flourishing condition, and the settlers upon them numbered upward of six hundred persons.[6]

Sir George Yardley arrived in Virginia April 19, 1619, and made known the intentions of the London Company that there was to be an end of martial law and communism. Every settler who had come at his own charge before the departure of Sir Thomas Dale in April, 1616, was to have one hundred acres "upon the first division," to be afterwards augmented by another hundred acres, and as much more for every share of stock (12 6s.) actually paid by him. Every one imported by the company within the same period was, after the expiration of his service, to have one hundred acres; while settlers who came at their own expense, after April, 1616, were to receive fifty acres apiece. In order to relieve the inhabitants from taxes "as much as may be," lands were to be laid out for the support of the governor and other officers, to be tilled by servants sent over for that purpose. Four corporations were to be created, with Kecoughtan, Jamestown, Charles City, and Henrico as capital cities in each, respectively; and it was announced that thereafter the people of the colony were to share with the company in the making of laws.[7]

Accordingly, July 30, 1619, the first legislative a.s.sembly that ever convened on the American continent met in the church at Jamestown. It consisted of the governor, six councillors, and twenty burgesses, two from each of ten plantations. The delegates from Brandon, Captain John Martin's plantation, were not seated, because of a particular clause in his patent exempting it from colonial authority. The a.s.sembly, after a prayer from Rev. Richard Buck, of Jamestown, sat six days and did a great deal of work. Pet.i.tions were addressed to the company in England for permission to change "the savage name of Kecoughtan," for workmen to erect a "university and college," and for granting the girls and boys of all the old planters a share of land each, "because that in a new plantation it is not known whether man or woman be the more necessary." Laws were made against idleness, drunkenness, gaming, and other misdemeanors, but the death penalty was prescribed only in case of such "traitors to the colony" as sold fire-arms to the Indians. To prevent extravagance in dress parish taxes were "cessed"

according to apparel--"if he be unmarried, according to his own apparel; if he be married, according to his own and his wife's or either of their apparel." Statutes were also pa.s.sed for encouraging agriculture and for settling church discipline according to the rules of the church of England.[8]

Another significant event during this memorable year was the introduction of negro slavery into Virginia. A Dutch ship arrived at Jamestown in August, 1619, with some negroes, of whom twenty were sold to the planters.[9]

A third event was the arrival of a ship from England with ninety "young maidens" to be sold to the settlers for wives, at the cost of their transportation--viz., one hundred and twenty pounds of tobacco (equivalent to $500 in present currency).[10] Cargoes of this interesting merchandise continued to arrive for many years.

It was fortunate that with the arrival of Yardley the supervision of Virginia affairs in England pa.s.sed into hands most interested in colonial welfare. Sir Thomas Smith had been treasurer or president of the company for twelve years; but as he was also president of four other companies some thought that he did not give the proper attention to Virginia matters. For this reason, and because he was considered responsible for the selection of Argall, the leaders of his party determined to elect a new treasurer; and a private quarrel between Smith and the head of the court party, Lord Rich, helped matters to this end. To gratify a temporary spleen against Smith, Lord Rich consented to vote for Sir Edwin Sandys, and April 28, 1619, he was accordingly elected treasurer with John Ferrar as his deputy. Smith was greatly piqued, abandoned his old friends, and soon after began to act with Rich in opposition to Sandys and his group of supporters.[11]

Sandys threw himself into his work with great ardor, and scarcely a month pa.s.sed that a ship did not leave England loaded with emigrants and cattle for Virginia. At the end of the year the company would have elected him again but for the interference of King James, who regarded him as the head of the party in Parliament opposed to his prerogative.

He sent word to "choose the devil if you will, but not Sir Edwin Sandys." Thereupon Sandys stepped aside and the earl of Southampton, who agreed with him in all his views, was appointed and kept in office till the company's dissolution; and for much of this time Nicholas Ferrar, brother of John, acted as deputy to the earl.[12] The king, however, was no better satisfied, and Count Gondomar, the Spanish minister, took advantage of the state of things to tell James that he had "better look to the Virginia courts which were kept at Ferrar's house, where too many of his n.o.bility and gentry resorted to accompany the popular Lord Southampton and the dangerous Sandys. He would find in the end these meetings would prove a _seminary for a seditious parliament_."[13] These words, it is said, made a deep impression upon the king, always jealous for his prerogatives.

For two years, however, the crown stayed its hand and the affairs of Virginia greatly improved. Swarms of emigrants went out and many new plantations sprang up in the Accomack Peninsula and on both sides of the James. The most striking feature of these settlements was the steady growth of the tobacco trade. In 1619 twenty thousand pounds were exported, and in 1622 sixty thousand pounds. This increasing importation excited the covetousness of the king, as well as the jealousy of the Spanish government, whose West India tobacco had hitherto monopolized the London market. Directly contrary to the provision of the charter which exempted tobacco from any duty except five per cent., the king in 1619 levied an exaction of one shilling a pound, equal to twenty per cent. The London Company submitted on condition that the raising of tobacco in England should be prohibited, which was granted. In 1620 a royal proclamation limited the importation of tobacco from Virginia and the Bermuda Islands to fifty-five thousand pounds, whereupon the whole of the Virginia crop for that year was transported to Flushing and sold in Holland. As this deprived the king of his revenue, the Privy Council issued an order in 1621 compelling the company to bring all their tobacco into England.[14]

Nevertheless, these disturbances did not interfere with the prosperity of the settlers. Large fortunes were acc.u.mulated in a year or two by scores of planters;[15] and soon in the place of the old log-cabins arose framed buildings better than many in England. Lands were laid out for a free school at Charles City (now City Point) and for a university and college at Henrico (Dutch Gap). Monthly courts were held in every settlement, and there were large crops of corn and great numbers of cattle, swine, and poultry. A contemporary writer states that "the plenty of those times, unlike the old days of death and confusion, was such that every man gave free entertainment to friends and strangers."[16]

This prosperity is marred by a story of heart-rending sickness and suffering. An extraordinary mortality due to imported epidemics, and diseases of the climate for which in these days we have found a remedy in quinine, slew the new-comers by hundreds. One thousand people were in Virginia at Easter, 1619, and to this number three thousand five hundred and seventy more were added during the next three years,[17]

yet only one thousand two hundred and forty were resident in the colony on Good Friday, March 22, 1622, a day when the horrors of an Indian ma.s.sacre reduced the number to eight hundred and ninety-four.[18]

Since 1614, when Pocahontas married John Rolfe, peace with the Indians continued uninterruptedly, except for a short time in 1617, when there was an outbreak of the Chickahominies, speedily suppressed by Deputy Governor Yardley. In April, 1618, Powhatan died,[19] and the chief power was wielded by a brother, Opechancanough, at whose instance the savages, at "the taking up of Powhatan's bones" in 1621, formed a plot for exterminating the English. Of this danger Yardley received some information, and he promptly fortified the plantations, but Opechancanough professed friendship. Under Sir Francis Wyatt for some months everything went on quietly; but about the middle of March, 1622, a noted Indian chief, called Nemmattanow, or Jack o' the Feather, slew a white man and was slain in retaliation. Wyatt was alarmed, but Opechancanough a.s.sured him that "he held the peace so firme that the sky should fall ere he dissolved it," so that the settlers again "fed the Indians at their tables and lodged them in their bedchambers."[20]

Then like lightning from a clear sky fell the ma.s.sacre upon the unsuspecting settlers. The blow was terrible to the colonists: the Indians, besides killing many of the inhabitants, burned many houses and destroyed a great quant.i.ty of stock. At first the settlers were panic-stricken, but rage succeeded fear. They divided into squads, and carried fire and sword into the Indian villages along the James and the York. In a little while the success of the English was so complete that they were able to give their time wholly to their crops and to rebuilding their houses.[21]

To the company the blow was a fatal one, though it did not manifest its results immediately. So far was the ma.s.sacre from affecting the confidence of the public in Southampton and his friends at the head of the company that eight hundred good settlers went to Virginia during the year 1622, and John Smith wrote, "Had I meanes I might have choice of ten thousand that would gladly go."[22] But during the summer the members of the company were entangled in a dispute, of which advantage was taken by their enemies everywhere. At the suggestion of the crafty earl of Middles.e.x, the lord high treasurer of England, they were induced to apply to the king for a monopoly of the sale of tobacco in England; and it was granted on two conditions--viz., that they should pay the king 20,000 (supposed to be the value of a third of the total crop of Virginia tobacco) and import at least forty thousand pounds weight of Spanish tobacco. Though this last was a condition demanded by the king doubtless to placate the Spanish court, with whom he was negotiating for the marriage of his son Charles to the infanta, the contract on the whole was displeasing to Count Gondomar, the Spanish minister. He fomented dissensions in the company over the details, and Middles.e.x, the patron of the measure, being a great favorer of the Spanish match, changed sides upon his own proposition.[23]

In April, 1623, Alderman Robert Johnson, deputy to Sir Thomas Smith during the time of his government, brought a pet.i.tion to the king for the appointment of a commission in England to inquire into the condition of the colony, which he declared was in danger of destruction by reason of "dissensions among ourselves and the ma.s.sacre and hostility of the natives." This pet.i.tion was followed by a scandalous paper, called _The Unmasking of Virginia_, presented to the king by another tool of Count Gondomar, one Captain Nathaniel Butler.[24] The company had already offended the king, and these new developments afforded him all the excuse that he wanted for taking extreme measures. He first attempted to cow the company into a "voluntary" surrender by seizing their books and arresting their leading members. When this did not avail, the Privy Council, November 3, 1623, appointed a commission to proceed to Virginia and make a report upon which judicial proceedings might be had. The company fought desperately, and in April, 1624, appealed to Parliament, but King James forbade the Commons to interfere.

In June, 1624, the expected paper from Virginia came to hand, and the cause was argued the same month at Trinity term on a writ of _quo warranto_ before Chief-Justice James Ley of the King's Bench. The legal status of the company was unfavorable, for it was in a hopeless tangle, and the death record in the colony was an appalling fact.

When, therefore, the attorney-general, Coventry, attacked the company for mismanagement, even an impartial tribune might have quashed the charter. But the case was not permitted to be decided on its merits.

The company made a mistake in pleading, which was taken advantage of by Coventry, and on this ground the patent was voided the last day of the term (June 16, 1624).[25]

Thus perished the great London Company, which in settling Virginia expended upward of 200,000 (equal to $5,000,000 in present currency) and sent more than fourteen thousand emigrants. It received back from Virginia but a small part of the money it invested, and of all the emigrants whom it sent over, and their children, only one thousand two hundred and twenty-seven survived the charter. The heavy cost of the settlement was not a loss, for it secured to England a fifth kingdom and planted in the New World the germs of civil liberty. In this service the company did not escape the troubles incident to the mercenary purpose of a joint-stock partnership, yet it a.s.sumed a national and patriotic character, which ent.i.tles it to be considered the greatest and n.o.blest a.s.sociation ever organized by the English people.[26] However unjust the measures taken by King James to overthrow the London Company, the incident was fortunate for the inhabitants of Virginia. The colony had reached a stage of development which needed no longer the supporting hand of a distant corporation created for profit.

In Virginia, sympathy with the company was so openly manifested that the Governor's council ordered their clerk, Edward Sharpless, to lose his ears[27] for daring to give King James's commissioners copies of certain of their papers; and in January, 1624, a protest, called _The Tragical Relation_, was addressed to the king by the General a.s.sembly, denouncing the administration of Sir Thomas Smith and his faction and extolling that of Sandys and Southampton. The sufferings of the colony under the former were vigorously painted, and they ended by saying, "And rather (than) to be reduced to live under the like government we desire his ma^tie y^t commissioners may be sent over w^th authoritie to hang us."

Although Wyatt cordially joined in these protests, and was a most popular governor, the General a.s.sembly about the same time pa.s.sed an act[28] in the following words: "The governor shall not lay any taxes or ympositions upon the colony, their lands or commodities, other way than by authority of the General a.s.sembly to be levied and ymployed as the said a.s.sembly shall appoynt." By this act Virginia formally a.s.serted the indissoluble connection of taxation and representation.

The next step was to frame a government which would correspond to the new relations of the colony. June 24, 1624, a few days after the decision of Chief-Justice Ley, the king appointed a commission of sixteen persons, among whom were Sir Thomas Smith and other opponents of Sandys and Southampton, to take charge, temporarily, of Virginia affairs; and (July 15) he enlarged this commission by forty more members. On their advice he issued, August 26, 1624, authority to Sir Francis Wyatt, governor, and twelve others in Virginia, as councillors to conduct the government of the colony, under such instructions as they might receive from him or them.