History of the Colony and Ancient Dominion of Virginia Part 6

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 j.a.pazaws, 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. j.a.pazaws, 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 rest.i.tution 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 Ba.s.sets, 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 G.o.d'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 a.s.sent 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 Ta.s.sautessus (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 r.e.t.a.r.d 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 rea.s.sumed 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 lat.i.tude, 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 Pen.o.bscot 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 pa.s.sages 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 circ.u.mstances 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 p.r.o.nunciation 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] St.i.th, 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 ill.u.s.trated 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.