England in America, 1580-1652 Part 7

In these orders it is expressly stated that the king's intention was not to disturb the interest of either planter or adventurer; while their context makes it clear that he proposed to avoid "the popularness" of the former government and to revive the charter of 1606 with some amendments. King James died March 27, 1625, and by his death this commission for Virginia affairs expired.[29]

Charles I. had all the arbitrary notions of his father, but fortunately he was under personal obligations to Sir Edwin Sandys and Nicholas Ferrar, Jr., and for their sake was willing to be liberal in his dealing with the colonists.[30] Hence, soon after his father's death, he dismissed the former royal commissioners and intrusted affairs relating to Virginia to a committee of the Privy Council, who ignored the Smith party and called the Sandys party into consultation.[31] These last presented a paper in April, 1625, called _The Discourse of the Old Company_, in which they reviewed fully the history of the charter and pet.i.tioned to be reincorporated. Charles was not unwilling to grant the request, and in a proclamation dated May 13, 1625, he avowed that he had come to the same opinion as his father, and intended to have a "royal council in England and another in Virginia, but not to impeach the interest of any adventurer or planter in Virginia."

Still ignorant of the death of King James, Governor Sir Francis Wyatt and his council, together with representatives from the plantations informally called, sent George Yardley to England with a pet.i.tion, dated June 15, 1625, that they be permitted the right of a general a.s.sembly, that worthy emigrants be encouraged, and that none of the old faction of Sir Thomas Smith and Alderman Johnson have a part in the administration; "for rather than endure the government of these men they were resolved to seek the farthest part of the world."

Yardley reached England in October; and the king, when informed of Wyatt's desire to resign the government of Virginia on account of his private affairs, issued a commission, dated April 16, 1626, renewing the authority of the council in Virginia and appointing Yardley governor.[32] The latter returned to Virginia, but died in 1627. After his death the king sent directions to Acting Governor Francis West to summon a general a.s.sembly; and March 26, 1628, after an interval of four years, the regular law-making body again a.s.sembled at Jamestown, an event second only in importance to the original meeting in 1619.[33]

Other matters besides the form of government pressed upon the attention of the settlers. Tobacco entered more and more into the life of the colony, and the crop in the year 1628 amounted to upward of five hundred thousand pounds.[34] King Charles took the ground of Sandys and Southampton, that the large production was only temporary, and like his father, subjected tobacco in England to high duties and monopoly. He urged a varied planting and the making of pitch and tar, pipe-staves, potashes, iron, and bay-salt, and warned the planters against "building their plantation wholly on smoke." It was observed, however, that Charles was receiving a large sum of money from customs on tobacco,[35] and it was not likely that his advice would be taken while the price was 3s. 6d. a pound. Indeed, it was chiefly under the stimulus of the culture of tobacco that the population of the colony rose from eight hundred and ninety-four, after the ma.s.sacre in 1622, to about three thousand in 1629.[36]

In March, 1629, Captain West went back to England, and a new commission was issued to Sir John Harvey as governor.[37] He did not come to the colony till the next year, and in the interval Dr. John Pott acted as his deputy. At the a.s.sembly called by Pott in October, 1629, the growth of the colony was represented by twenty-three settlements as against eleven ten years before. As in England, there were two branches of the law-making body, a House of Burgesses, made up of the representatives of the people, and an upper house consisting of the governor and council. In the const.i.tution of the popular branch there was no fixed number of delegates, but each settlement had as many as it chose to pay the expenses of, a custom which prevailed until 1660, when the number of burgesses was limited to two members for each county and one member for Jamestown.[38]

In March, 1630, Harvey arrived, and Pott's former dignity as governor did not save him from a mortifying experience. The council was not only an upper house of legislation, but the supreme court of the colony, and in July, 1630, Pott was arraigned before this tribunal for stealing cattle, and declared guilty. Perhaps Harvey realized that injustice was done, for he suspended the sentence, and on pet.i.tion to the king the case was re-examined in England by the commissioners for Virginia, who decided that "condemning Pott of felony was very rigorous if not erroneous."[39]

The year 1630 was the beginning of a general movement of emigration northward, and in October Chiskiack, an Indian district on the south side of the York, about twenty-seven miles below the forks of the river where Opechancanough resided, was occupied in force. So rapid was the course of population that in less than two years this first settlement upon the York was divided into Chiskiack and York. One year after Chiskiack was settled, Kent Island in Chesapeake Bay was occupied by a company under William Claiborne, the secretary of state; and in 1632 Middle Plantation (afterwards Williamsburg) was laid out and defended by a line of palisades from tide-water to tide-water.[40]

Meanwhile, the old colonial parties did not cease to strive with one another in England. Harvey had been appointed by the vacillating Charles to please the former court party, but during the quarrel with his Parliament over the Pet.i.tion of Right he became anxious again to conciliate the colonists and the members of the old company; and in May, 1631, he appointed[41] a new commission, consisting of the earls of Dorset and Danby, Sir John Danvers, Sir Dudley Digges, John Ferrar, Sir Francis Wyatt, and others, to advise him upon "some course for establishing the advancement of the plantation of Virginia." This commission had many consultations, and unanimously resolved to recommend to the king the renewal of the charter of 1612 with all its former privileges--except the form of government, which was to be exercised by the king through a council in London and a governor and council in Virginia, both appointed by him.

In June, 1632, Charles I. so vacillated as to grant Maryland, within the bounds of "their ancient territories," to Lord Baltimore, regardless of the protest of the Virginians; and April 28, 1634, he revoked the liberal commission of 1631, and appointed another, called "the Commission for Foreign Plantations," composed almost entirely of opponents of the popular course of government, with William Laud, archbishop of Canterbury, at the head. This commission had power to "make laws and orders for government of English colonies planted in foreign parts, to remove governors and require an account of their government, to appoint judges and magistrates, to establish courts, to amend all charters and patents, and to revoke those surrept.i.tiously and unduly obtained."[42]

Harvey's conduct in Virginia reflected the views of the court party in England. He offended his council by acting in important matters without their consent, contrary to his instructions; and showed in many ways that he was a friend of the persons in England who were trying to make a monopoly of the tobacco trade. He attempted to lay taxes, but the a.s.sembly, in February, 1632, re-enacted the law of 1624 a.s.serting their exclusive authority over the subject.[43] At the head of the opposition to Harvey was William Claiborne, the secretary of state, who opposed Lord Baltimore's claim to Maryland, and, in consequence, was in the latter part of 1634 turned out of office by Harvey, to make way for Richard Kempe, one of Lord Baltimore's friends.

The people of Virginia began in resentment to draw together in little groups, and talked of asking for the removal of the governor; and matters came to a crisis in April, 1635, when Harvey suppressed a pet.i.tion addressed to the king by the a.s.sembly regarding the tobacco contract, and justified an attack by Lord Baltimore's men upon a pinnace of Claiborne engaged in the fur trade from Kent Island. At York, in April, 1635, a meeting of protest was held at the house of William Warren.

Harvey was enraged at the proceeding and caused the leaders to be arrested. Then he called a council at Jamestown, and the scenes in the council chamber are interestingly described in contemporary letters.

Harvey demanded the execution of martial law upon the prisoners, and when the council held back he flew into a pa.s.sion and attempted to arrest George Menifie, one of the members, for high-treason. Captain John Utie and Captain Samuel Matthews retorted by making a similar charge against Harvey, and he was arrested by the council, and confined at the house of Captain William Brocas. Then the council elected Captain John West, of Chiskiack, brother of Lord Delaware, as governor, and summoned an a.s.sembly to meet at Jamestown in May following. This body promptly ratified the action of the council, and Harvey was put aboard a ship and sent off to England in charge of two members of the House of Burgesses.[44]

This deposition of a royal governor was a bold proceeding and mightily surprised King Charles. He declared it an act of "regal authority,"

had the two daring burgesses arrested, and on the complaint of Lord Baltimore, who befriended Harvey, caused West, Utie, Menifie, Matthews, and others of the unfriendly councillors to appear in England to answer for their crimes. Meanwhile, to rebuke the dangerous precedent set in Virginia, he thought it necessary to restore Harvey to his government.[45]

Harvey did not enjoy his second lease of power long, for the king, in the vicissitudes of English politics, found it wise to turn once more a favorable ear to the friends of the old company, and in January, 1639, Sir Francis Wyatt, who had governed Virginia so acceptably once before, was commissioned to succeed Harvey. The former councillors in Virginia were restored to power, and in the king's instructions to Wyatt the name of Captain West was inserted as "Muster-Master-General"

in Charles's own handwriting.[46]

[Footnote 1: Brown, _Genesis of the United States_, II., 543-554; _First Republic_, 165-167.]

[Footnote 2: Brown, _English Politics in Early Virginia History_, 24-33.]

[Footnote 3: Brown, _Genesis of the United States_, II., 775-779, 797-799.]

[Footnote 4: Ibid., 967.]

[Footnote 5: Virginia Company, _Proceedings_ (Va. Hist. Soc., _Collections_, new series, VII., VIII.), I., 65, II., 198.]

[Footnote 6: _Discourse of the Old Company_, in _Va. Magazine_, I., 157.]

[Footnote 7: Instructions to Yardley, 1618, ibid., II., 154-165.]

[Footnote 8: _a.s.sembly Journal_, 1619, in Va. State Senate _Doc.u.ments_, 1874.]

[Footnote 9: Smith, _Works_ (Arber's ed.), 541.]

[Footnote 10: Virginia Company, _Proceedings_ (Va. Hist. Soc., _Collections_, new series, VII.), I., 67.]

[Footnote 11: Brown, _Genesis of the United States_, II., 1014; Bradford, _Plymouth_, 47.]

[Footnote 12: Virginia Company, _Proceedings_ (Va. Hist. Soc., _Collections_, new series, VII.), I., 78.]

[Footnote 13: Peckard, _Ferrar_, 115.]

[Footnote 14: _Discourse of the Old Company_, in _Va. Magazine_, I., 161.]

[Footnote 15: Smith, _Works_ (Arber's ed.), 562.]

[Footnote 16: _Breife Declaration_; Neill, _Virginia Company_, 395-406.]

[Footnote 17: Neill, _Virginia Company_, 334.]

[Footnote 18: Brown, _First Republic_, 464, 467.]

[Footnote 19: Smith, _Works_ (Arber's ed.), 539.]

[Footnote 20: _William and Mary Quarterly_, IX., 203-214; Neill, _Virginia Company_, 293, 307-321; Smith, _Works_ (Arber's ed.), 572-594.]

[Footnote 21: Neill, _Virginia Company_, 364, 366.]

[Footnote 22: Smith, _Works_ (Arber's ed.), 263.]

[Footnote 23: _Discourse of the Old Company_, in _Va. Magazine_, I., 291-293.]

[Footnote 24: Neill, _Virginia Company_, 395-407.]

[Footnote 25: Peckard, _Ferrar_, 145; _Discourse of the Old Company_, in _Va. Magazine_, I., 297.]

[Footnote 26: Brown, _First Republic_, 615.]

[Footnote 27: _Cal. of State Pap., Col._, 1574-1660, 74; Neill, _Virginia Company_, 407.]

[Footnote 28: Hening, _Statutes_., I., 124.]

[Footnote 29: _Cal. of State Pap., Col._, 1574-1674, p. 64, 1574-1660, p. 62.]

[Footnote 30: Brown, _English Politics in Early Virginia History_, 89.]

[Footnote 31: Brown, _First Republic_, 640, 641].

[Footnote 32: _Cal. of State Pap., Col._, 1574-1660, pp. 73, 74, 79.]

[Footnote 33: Ibid., 86, 88; Neill, _Virginia Carolorum_, 55.]

[Footnote 34: Hening, _Statutes_, I., 134.]