England in America, 1580-1652
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Title: England in America, 1580-1652
Author: Lyon Gardiner Tyler
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Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ENGLAND IN AMERICA, 1580-1652 ***
Produced by Suzanne Shell, Gary Houston and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
ENGLAND IN AMERICA
1580-1652
By
Lyon Gardiner Tyler, LL.D.
J. & J. Harper Editions
Harper & Row, Publishers
New York and Evanston
1904 by Harper & Brothers.
[Illustration: SIR WALTER RALEIGH (1552-1618). From an engraving by
Robinson after a painting by Zucchero.]
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION xiii
AUTHOR'S PREFACE xix
I. GENESIS OF ENGLISH COLONIZATION (1492-1579) 3
II. GILBERT AND RALEIGH COLONIES (1583-1602) 18
III. FOUNDING OF VIRGINIA (1602-1608) 34
IV. GLOOM IN VIRGINIA (1608-1617) 55
V. TRANSITION OF VIRGINIA (1617-1640) 76
VI. SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC CONDITIONS OF VIRGINIA (1634-1652) 100
VII. FOUNDING OF MARYLAND (1632-1650) 118
VIII. CONTENTIONS IN MARYLAND (1633-1652) 134
IX. FOUNDING OF PLYMOUTH (1608-1630) 149
X. DEVELOPMENT OF NEW PLYMOUTH (1621-1643) 163
XI. GENESIS OF MASSACHUSETTS (1628-1630) 183
XII. FOUNDING OF MASSACHUSETTS (1630-1642) 196
XIII. RELIGION AND GOVERNMENT IN MASSACHUSETTS (1631-1638) 210
XIV. NARRAGANSETT AND CONNECTICUT SETTLEMENTS (1635-1637) 229
XV. FOUNDING OF CONNECTICUT AND NEW HAVEN (1637-1652) 251
XVI. NEW HAMPSHIRE AND MAINE (1653-1658) 266
XVII. COLONIAL NEIGHBORS (1643-1652) 282
XVIII. THE NEW ENGLAND CONFEDERATION (1643-1654) 297
XIX. EARLY NEW ENGLAND LIFE 318
XX. CRITICAL ESSAY ON AUTHORITIES 328
INDEX 341
MAPS
ROANOKE ISLAND, JAMESTOWN, AND ST. MARY'S
(1584-1632) _facing_ 34
CHART OF VIRGINIA, SHOWING INDIAN AND
EARLY ENGLISH SETTLEMENTS IN 1632 76
VIRGINIA IN 1652 99
MARYLAND IN 1652 133
NEW ENGLAND (1652) _facing_ 196
MAINE IN 1652 265
NEW SWEDEN AND NEW NETHERLAND 296
[Transcriber's Note: This text retains original spellings. Also,
superscripted abbreviations or contractions are indicated by the
use of a caret (^), such as w^th (with).]
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION
Some space has already been given in this series to the English and
their relation to the New World, especially the latter half of
Cheyney's _European Background of American History_, which deals with
the religious, social, and political institutions which the English
colonists brought with them; and chapter v. of Bourne's _Spain in
America_, describing the Cabot voyages. This volume begins a detailed
story of the English settlement, and its title indicates the
conception of the author that during the first half-century the
American colonies were simply outlying portions of the English nation,
but that owing to disturbances culminating in civil war they had the
opportunity to develop on lines not suggested by the home government.
The first two chapters deal with the unsuccessful attempts to plant
English colonies, especially by Gilbert and Raleigh. These beginnings
are important because they proved the difficulty of planting colonies
through individual enterprise. At the same time the author brings out
clearly the various motives for colonization--the spirit of adventure,
the desire to enjoy a new life, and the intent to harm the commerce of
the colonies of Spain.
In chapters iii. to vi. the author describes the final founding of the
first successful colony, Virginia, and emphasizes four notable
characteristics of that movement. The first is the creation of
colonizing companies (a part of the movement described in its more
general features by Cheyney in his chapters vii. and viii.). The
second is the great waste of money and the awful sacrifice of human
life caused by the failure of the colonizers to adapt themselves to
the conditions of life in America. That the people of Virginia should
be fed on grain brought from England, should build their houses in a
swamp, should spend their feeble energies in military executions of
one another is an unhappy story made none the pleasanter by the
knowledge that the founders of the company in England were spending
freely of their substance and their effort on the colony. The third
element in the growth of Virginia is the introduction of the staple
crop, always in demand, and adapted to the soil of Virginia. Tobacco,
after 1616, speedily became the main interest of Virginia, and without
tobacco it must have gone down. A fourth characteristic is the early
evidence of an unconquerable desire for self-government, brought out
in the movements of the first assembly of 1619 and the later colonial
government: here we have the germ of the later American system of
government.
The founding of the neighboring colony of Maryland (chapters vii. and
viii.) marks the first of the proprietary colonies; it followed by
twenty-five years and had the advantage of the unhappy experience of
Virginia and of very capable management. The author shows how little
Maryland deserves the name of a Catholic colony, and he develops the
Kent Island episode, the first serious boundary controversy between
two English commonwealths in America.
To the two earliest New England colonies are devoted five chapters
(ix. to xiii.), which are treated not as a separate episode but as
part of the general spirit of colonization. Especial attention is paid
to the development of popular government in Massachusetts, where the
relation between governor, council, and freemen had an opportunity to
work itself out. Through the transfer of the charter to New England,
America had its first experience of a plantation with a written
constitution for internal affairs. The fathers of the Puritan
republics are further relieved of the halo which generations of
venerating descendants have bestowed upon them, and appear as human
characters. Though engaging in a great and difficult task, and while
solving many problems, they nevertheless denied their own fundamental
precept of the right of a man to worship God according to the dictates
of his own conscience.
Chapters xiv. to xvi. describe the foundation of the little
settlements in Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Haven, New Hampshire,
and Maine; and here we have an interesting picture of little towns for
a time standing quite independent, and gradually consolidating into
commonwealths, or coalescing with more powerful neighbors. Then follow
(chapters xvii. and xviii.) the international and intercolonial
relations of the colonies, and especially the New England
Confederation, the first form of American federal government.
A brief sketch of the conditions of social life in New England
(chapter xix.) brings out the strong commercial spirit of the people
as well as their intense religious life and the narrowness of their
social and intellectual status. The bibliographical essay is
necessarily a selection from the great literature of early English
colonization, but is a conspectus of the most important secondary
works and collections of sources.
The aim of the volume is to show the reasons for as well as the
progress of English colonization. Hence for the illustration Sir
Walter Raleigh has been chosen, as the most conspicuous colonizer of
his time. The freshness of the story is in its clear exposition of the
terrible difficulties in the way of founding self-sustaining
colonies--the unfamiliar soil and climate, Indian enemies, internal
dissensions, interference by the English government, vague and
conflicting territorial grants. Yet out of these difficulties, in
forty-five years of actual settlement, two southern and six or seven
northern communities were permanently established, in the face of the
opposition and rivalry of Spain, France, and Holland. For this task
the editor has thought that President Tyler is especially qualified,
as an author whose descent and historical interest connect him both
with the northern and the southern groups of settlements.
AUTHOR'S PREFACE
This book covers a period of a little more than three-quarters of a
century. It begins with the first attempt at English colonization in
America, in 1576, and ends with the year 1652, when the supremacy of
Parliament was recognized throughout the English colonies. The
original motive of colonization is found in English rivalry with the
Spanish power; and the first chapter of this work tells how this
motive influenced Gilbert and Raleigh in their endeavors to plant
colonies in Newfoundland and North Carolina. Though unfortunate in
permanent result, these expeditions familiarized the people of England
with the country of Virginia--a name given by Queen Elizabeth to all
the region from Canada to Florida--and stimulated the successful
settlement at Jamestown in the early part of the seventeenth century.
With the charter of 1609 Virginia was severed from North Virginia, to
which Captain Smith soon gave the name of "New England"; and the story
thereafter is of two streams of English emigration--one to Virginia
and the other to New England. Thence arose the Southern and Northern
colonies of English America, which, more than a century beyond the
period of this book, united to form the great republic of the United
States.
The most interesting period in the history of any country is the
formative period; and through the mass of recently published original
material on America the opportunity to tell its story well has been of
late years greatly increased. In the preparation of this work I have
endeavored to consult the original sources, and to admit secondary
testimony only in matters of detail. I beg to express my indebtedness
to the authorities of the Harvard College Library and the Virginia
Library for their courtesy in giving me special facilities for the
verification of my authorities.
LYON GARDINER TYLER.
ENGLAND IN AMERICA
CHAPTER I
GENESIS OF ENGLISH COLONIZATION
(1492-1579)
Up to the last third of the sixteenth century American history was the
history of Spanish conquest, settlement, and exploration. Except for
the feeble Portuguese settlements in Brazil and at the mouth of the La
Plata, from Florida and the Gulf of Mexico, around the eastern and
western coasts of South America, and northward to the Gulf of
California, all was Spanish--main-land and islands alike. The subject
of this volume is the bold assertion of England to a rivalry in
European waters and on American coasts.
How came England, with four millions of people, to enter into a
quarter of a century of war with the greatest power in Europe? The
answer is that Spain was already decaying, while England was instinct
with the spirit of progress and development. The contrast grew
principally out of the different attitude of the two nations towards
the wealth introduced into Europe from America, and towards the
hitherto established religion of the Christian world. While the
treasure from Mexico and Peru enabled Charles V. and Philip II. to
carry on great wars and to establish an immense prestige at the
different courts of Europe, it created a speculative spirit which drew
their subjects away from sober employment. For this reason
manufacturing and agriculture, for which Spain was once so
distinguished, were neglected; and the kingdom, thinned of people and
decreasing in industry, grew dependent for supplies upon the
neighboring countries.[1]
On the other hand, the treasures which destroyed the manufactures of
Spain indirectly stimulated those of England. Without manufactures,
Spain had to employ her funds in buying from other countries her
clothing, furniture, and all that was necessary for the comfort of her
citizens at home or in her colonies in America. In 1560 not above a
twentieth part of the commodities exported to America consisted of
Spanish-manufactured fabrics: all the rest came through the foreign
merchants resident in Spain.[2]
Similar differences arose from the attitude of the two kingdoms to
religion. Philip loved to regard himself as the champion of the
Catholic church, and he encouraged it to extend its authority in Spain
in the most absolute manner. Spain became the favored home of the
Inquisition, and through its terrors the church acquired complete
sovereignty over the minds of the people. Since free thought was
impossible, private enterprise gave way to mendicancy and indolence.
It was not long before one-half of the real estate of the realm fell
into the hands of the clergy and monastic orders.[3]
In England, on the other hand, Henry VIII.'s quarrel with the pope in
1534 gave Protestantism a foothold; and the suppression of the
convents and monasteries in 1537-1539 put the possibility of the
re-establishment of papal power out of question. Thus, while the body
of the people remained attached to the Catholic church under Edward
VI. and Queen Mary, the clergy had no great power, and there was
plenty of room for free speech. Under Elizabeth various causes
promoted the growth of Protestantism till it became a permanent ruling
principle. Since its spirit was one of inquiry, private enterprise,
instead of being suppressed as in Spain, spread the wings of
manufacture and commerce.[4]
Thus, collision between the two nations was unavoidable, and their
rivalry enlisted all the forces of religion and interest. Under such
influences thousands of young Englishmen crossed the channel to fight
with William of Orange against the Spaniards or with the Huguenots
against the Guises, the allies of Spain. The same motives led to the
dazzling exploits of Hawkins, Drake, and Cavendish, and sent to the
sea scores of English privateers; and it was the same motives which
stimulated Gilbert in 1576, eighty-four years after the Spaniards had
taken possession, in his grand design of planting a colony in America.
The purpose of Gilbert was to cut into Spanish colonial power, as was
explained by Richard Hakluyt in his _Discourse on Western Planting_,
written in 1584: "If you touche him [the king of Spain] in the Indies,
you touche the apple of his eye; for take away his treasure, which is
_neruus belli_, and which he hath almoste oute of his West Indies, his
olde bandes of souldiers will soone be dissolved, his purposes
defeated, his power and strengthe diminished, his pride abated, and
his tyranie utterly suppressed."[5]
Still, while English colonization at first sprang out of rivalry with
Spain and was late in beginning, England's claims in America were
hardly later than Spain's. Christopher Columbus at first hoped, in his
search for the East Indies, to sail under the auspices of Henry VII.
Only five years later, in 1497, John Cabot, under an English charter,
reached the continent of North America in seeking a shorter route by
the northwest; and in 1498, with his son Sebastian Cabot, he repeated
his visit. But nothing important resulted from these voyages, and
after long neglect their memory was revived by Hakluyt,[6] only to
support a claim for England to priority in discovery.
Indeed, England was not yet prepared for the work of colonization. Her
commerce was still in its infancy, and did not compare with that of
either Italy, Spain, or Portugal. Neither Columbus nor the Cabots were
Englishmen, and the advantages of commerce were so little understood
in England about this period that the taking of interest for the use
of money was prohibited.[7] A voyage to some mart "within two days'
distance" was counted a matter of great moment by merchant
adventurers.[8]
During the next half-century, only two noteworthy attempts were made
by the English to accomplish the purposes of the Cabots: De Prado
visited Newfoundland in 1527 and Hore in 1535,[9] but neither of the
voyages was productive of any important result. Notwithstanding,
England's commerce made some advancement during this period. A
substantial connection between England and America was England's
fisheries on the banks of Newfoundland; though used by other European
states, over fifty English ships spent two months in every year in
those distant waters, and gained, in the pursuit, valuable maritime
experience. Probably, however, the development of trade in a different
quarter had a more direct connection with American colonization, for
about 1530 William Hawkins visited the coast of Guinea and engaged in
the slave-trade with Brazil.[10]
Suddenly, about the middle of the century, English commerce struck out
boldly; conscious rivalry with Spain had begun. The new era opens
fitly with the return of Sebastian Cabot to England from Spain, where
since the death of Henry VII. he had served Charles V. In 1549, during
the third year of Edward VI., he was made grand pilot of England with
an annual stipend of £166 13s. 4d.[11] He formed a company for the
discovery of the northeast and the northwest passages, and in 1553 an
expedition under Sir Hugh Willoughby and Richard Chancellor penetrated
the White Sea and made known the wonders of the Russian Empire.[12]
The company obtained, in 1554, a charter of incorporation under the
title of the "Merchant Adventurers for the Discovery of Lands,
Territories, Isles, Dominions, and Seignories Unknown or Frequented by
Any English." To Russia frequent voyages were thereafter made. A few
days after the departure of Willoughby's expedition Richard Eden
published his _Treatyse of the Newe India_; and two years later
appeared his _Decades of the New World_, a book which was very popular
among all classes of people in England. Cabot died not many years
later, and Eden, translator and compiler, attended at his bedside, and
"beckons us with something of awe to see him die."[13]
During Mary's reign (1553-1558) the Catholic church was restored in
England, and by the influence of the queen, who was married to King
Philip, the expanding commerce of England was directed away from the
Spanish colonial possessions eastward to Russia, Barbary, Turkey, and
Persia. After her death the barriers against free commerce were thrown
down. With the incoming of Elizabeth, the Protestant church was
re-established and the Protestant refugees returned from the
continent; and three years after her succession occurred the first of
those great voyages which exposed the weakness of Spain by showing
that her rich possessions in America were practically unguarded and
unprotected.
In 1562 Sir John Hawkins, following in the track of his father William
Hawkins, visited Guinea, and, having loaded his ship with negroes,
carried them to Hispaniola, where, despite the Spanish law restricting
the trade to the mother-country, he sold his slaves to the planters,
and returned to England with a rich freight of ginger, hides, and
pearls. In 1564 Hawkins repeated the experiment with greater success;
and on his way home, in 1565, he stopped in Florida and relieved the
struggling French colony of Laudonnière, planted there by Admiral
Coligny the year before, and barbarously destroyed by the Spaniards
soon after Hawkins's departure.[14] The difference between our age and
Queen Elizabeth's is illustrated by the fact that Hawkins, instead of
being put to death as a pirate for engaging in the slave-trade, was
rewarded by the queen on his return with a patent for a coat of arms.
In 1567 Hawkins with nine ships revisited the West Indies, but this
time ill-fortune overtook him. Driven by bad weather into the harbor
of San Juan de Ulloa, he was attacked by the Spaniards, several of his
ships were sunk, and some of his men were captured and later put to
torture by the Inquisition. Hawkins escaped with two of his ships, and
after a long and stormy passage arrived safe in England (January 25,
1569).[15] Queen Elizabeth was greatly offended at this conduct of the
Spaniards, and in reprisal detained a squadron of Spanish treasure
ships which had sought safety in the port of London from some Huguenot
cruisers.
In this expedition one of the two ships which escaped was commanded by
a young man named Francis Drake, who came to be regarded as the
greatest seaman of his age. He was the son of a clergyman, and was
born in Devonshire, where centred for two centuries the maritime skill
of England. While a lad he followed the sea, and acquired reputation
for his courage and sagacity. Three years after the affair at San
Juan, Drake fitted out a little squadron, and in 1572 sailed, as he
himself specially states, to inflict vengeance upon the Spaniards. He
had no commission, and on his own private account attacked a power
with which his country was at peace.[16]
Drake attacked Nombre de Dios and Cartagena, and, as the historian
relates, got together "a pretty store of money," an evidence that his
purpose was not wholly revenge. He marched across the Isthmus of
Panama and obtained his first view of the Pacific Ocean. "Vehemently
transported with desire to navigate that sea," he fell upon his knees,
and "implored the Divine Assistance, that he might at some time or
other sail thither and make a perfect discovery of the same."[17]
Drake reached Plymouth on his return Sunday, August 9, 1573, in sermon
time; and his arrival created so much excitement that the people left
the preacher alone in church so as to catch a glimpse of the famous
sailor.[18]
Drake contemplated greater deeds. He had now plenty of friends who
wished to engage with him, and he soon equipped a squadron of five
ships. That he had saved something from the profits of his former
voyage is shown by his equipment. The _Pelican_, in which he sailed,
had "expert musicians and rich furniture," and "all the vessels for
the table, yea, many even of the cook-room, were of pure silver."[19]
Drake's object now was to harry the coast of the ocean which he had
seen in 1573. Accordingly, he sailed from Plymouth (December 13,
1577), coasted along the shore of South America, and, passing through
the Straits of Magellan, entered the Pacific in September, 1578.
The _Pelican_ was now the only one of his vessels left, as all the
rest had either returned home or been lost. Renaming the ship the
_Golden Hind_, Drake swept up the western side of South America and
took the ports of Chili and Peru by surprise. He captured galleons
carrying quantities of gold, silver, and jewelry, and acquired plunder
worth millions of dollars.[20] Drake did not think it prudent to go
home by the way he had come, but struck boldly northward in search of
a northeast passage into the Atlantic. He coasted along California as
far as Oregon, repaired his ship in a harbor near San Francisco, took
possession of the country in the name of Queen Elizabeth and called it
Nova Albion. Finding no northeast passage, he turned his prow to the
west, and circumnavigated the globe by the Cape of Good Hope, arriving
at Plymouth in November, 1580.[21]
The queen received him with undisguised favor, and met a request from
Philip II. for Drake's surrender by knighting the freebooter and
wearing in her crown the jewel he offered her as a present. When the
Spanish ambassador threatened that matters should come to the cannon,
she replied "quietly, in her most natural voice," writes Mendoza,
"that if I used threats of that kind she would throw me into a
dungeon." The revenge that Drake had taken for the affair at San Juan
de Ulloa was so complete that for more than a hundred years he was
spoken of in Spanish annals as "the Dragon."
His example stimulated adventure in all directions, and in 1586 Thomas
Cavendish, of Ipswich, sailed to South America and made a rich plunder
at Spanish expense. He returned home by the Cape of Good Hope, and was
thus the second Englishman to circumnavigate the globe.[22]
In the mean time, another actor, hardly less adventurous but of a far
grander purpose, had stepped upon the stage of this tremendous
historic drama. Sir Humphrey Gilbert was born in Devonshire, schooled
at Eton, and educated at Oxford. Between 1563 and 1576 he served in
the wars of France, Ireland, and the Netherlands, and was therefore
thoroughly steeped in the military training of the age.[23] The first
evidence of Gilbert's great purpose was the charter by Parliament, in
the autumn of 1566, of a corporation for the discovery of new trades.
Gilbert was a member, and in 1567 he presented an unsuccessful
petition to the queen for the use of two ships for the discovery of a
northwest passage to China and the establishment of a traffic with
that country.[24]
Before long Gilbert wrote a pamphlet, entitled "A Discourse to Prove a
Passage by the Northwest to Cathaia and the East Indies," which was
shown by Gascoigne, a friend of Gilbert, to the celebrated mariner
Martin Frobisher, and stimulated him to his glorious voyages to the
northeast coast of North America.[25] Before Frobisher's departure on
his first voyage Queen Elizabeth sent for him and commended him for
his enterprise, and when he sailed, July 1, 1576, she waved her hand
to him from her palace window.[26] He explored Frobisher's Strait and
took possession of the land called Meta Incognita in the name of the
queen. He brought back with him a black stone, which a gold-finder in
London pronounced rich in gold, and the vain hope of a gold-mine
inspired two other voyages (1577, 1578). On his third voyage Frobisher
entered the strait known as Hudson Strait, but the ore with which he
loaded his ships proved of little value. John Davis, like Frobisher,
made three voyages in three successive years (1585, 1586, 1587), and
the chief result of his labors was the discovery of the great strait
which bears his name.[27]
Meanwhile, the idea of building up another English nation across the
seas had taken a firm hold on Gilbert, and among those who communed
with him were his half-brother Sir Walter Raleigh, his brothers Adrian
and John Gilbert, besides Richard Hakluyt, Sir Philip Sydney, Sir
Richard Grenville, Sir George Peckham, and Secretary of State Sir
Francis Walsingham. The ill success of Frobisher had no influence upon
their purpose; but four years elapsed after Gilbert's petition to the
crown in 1574 before he obtained his patent. How these years preyed
upon the noble enthusiasm of Gilbert we may understand from a letter
commonly attributed to him, which was handed to the queen in November,
1577: "I will do it if you will allow me; only you must resolve and
not delay or dally--the wings of man's life are plumed with the
feathers of death."[28]
At length, however, the formalities were completed, and on June 11,
1578, letters to Gilbert passed the seals for planting an English
colony in America.[29] This detailed charter of colonization is most
interesting, since it contains several provisions which reappear in
many later charters. Gilbert was invested with all title to the soil
within two hundred leagues of the place of settlement, and large
governmental authority was given him. To the crown were reserved only
the allegiance of the settlers and one-fifth of all the gold and
silver to be found. Yet upon Gilbert's power two notable limitations
were imposed: the colonists were to enjoy "all the privileges of free
denizens and persons native of England"; and the protection of the
nation was withheld from any license granted by Gilbert "to rob or
spoil by sea or by land."
Sir Humphrey lost no time in assembling a fleet, but it was not till
November 19, 1578, that he finally sailed from Plymouth with seven
sail and three hundred and eighty-seven men, one of the ships being
commanded by Raleigh. The subsequent history of the expedition is only
vaguely known. The voyagers got into a fight with a Spanish squadron
and a ship was lost.[30] Battered and dispirited as the fleet was,
Gilbert had still Drake's buccaneering expedient open to him; but,
loyal to the injunctions of the queen's charter, he chose to return,
and the expedition broke up at Kinsale, in Ireland.[31]
In this unfortunate voyage Gilbert buried the mass of his fortune,
but, undismayed, he renewed his enterprise. He was successful in
enlisting a large number of gentlemen in the new venture, and two
friends who invested heavily--Sir Thomas Gerard, of Lancaster, and Sir
George Peckham, of Bucks--he rewarded by enormous grants of land and
privileges.[32] Raleigh adventured £2000 and contributed a ship, the
_Ark Raleigh_;[33] but probably no man did more in stirring up
interest than Richard Hakluyt, the famous naval historian, who about
this time published his _Divers Voyages_, which fired the heart and
imagination of the nation.[34] In 1579 an exploring ship was sent out
under Simon Ferdinando, and the next year another sailed under John
Walker. They reached the coast of Maine, and the latter brought back
the report of a silver-mine discovered near the Penobscot.[35]
[Footnote 1: Cf. Bourne, _Spain in America_, chap. xvi.]
[Footnote 2: Cf. Cheyney, _European Background of American History_,
chap. v.]
[Footnote 3: Prescott, _Hist. of the Reign of Philip II._, III., 443.]
[Footnote 4: Ibid., chaps, xi., xii.]
[Footnote 5: Maine Hist. Soc., _Collections_, 2d series, II., 59.]
[Footnote 6: Hakluyt, _Discourse on Western Planting_.]
[Footnote 7: Robertson, _Works_ (ed. 1818), XI., 136.]
[Footnote 8: _Nova Britannia_ (Force, _Tracts_, I., No. vi.).]
[Footnote 9: Purchas, _Pilgrimes_ (ed. 1625), III., 809; Hakluyt,
_Voyages_ (ed. 1809), III., 167-174.]
[Footnote 10: Hakluyt, _Voyages_, III., 171; IV., 198.]
[Footnote 11: Purchas, _Pilgrimes_, III., 808; Hakluyt, _Voyages_,
III., 31.]
[Footnote 12: Hakluyt, _Voyages_, I., 270.]
[Footnote 13: Winsor, _Narrative and Critical History_, III., 7.]
[Footnote 14: Hakluyt, _Voyages_, III., 593, 618.]
[Footnote 15: Ibid., 618-623.]
[Footnote 16: Hakluyt, _Voyages_, IV., 1; Winsor, _Narrative and
Critical History_, III., 59-84.]
[Footnote 17: Camden, _Annals_, in Kennet, _England_, II., 478.]
[Footnote 18: Harris, _Voyages and Travels_, II., 15.]
[Footnote 19: Harris, _Voyages and Travels_, II., 15.]
[Footnote 20: Camden, _Annals_, in Kennet, _England_, II., 478, 479.]
[Footnote 21: Camden, _Annals_, in Kennet, _England_, II., 479, 480;
Hakluyt, _Voyages_, IV., 232-246.]
[Footnote 22: Ibid., 316-341.]
[Footnote 23: Edwards, _Life of Raleigh_, I., 77.]
[Footnote 24: _Cal. of State Pap., Col._, 1513-1616, p. 8.]
[Footnote 25: Hakluyt, _Voyages_, III., 32-46; Edwards, _Life of
Raleigh_, I., 77; Doyle, _English in America_, I., 60.]
[Footnote 26: Hakluyt, _Voyages_, III., 53.]
[Footnote 27: Hakluyt, _Voyages_, III., 52-104, 132.]
[Footnote 28: Brown, _Genesis of the United States_, I., 9.]
[Footnote 29: Hakluyt, _Voyages_, III., 174-176.]
[Footnote 30: Hakluyt, _Voyages_, III., 186.]
[Footnote 31: _Cal. of State Pap., Col._, 1574-1674, p. 17.]
[Footnote 32: _Cal. of State Pap., Col._, 1574-1674, pp. 8-10.]
[Footnote 33: Edwards, _Life of Raleigh_, I., 82, 83.]
[Footnote 34: Stevens, _Thomas Hariot_, 40.]
[Footnote 35: _Cal. of State Pap., Col._, 1574-1660, p. 2.]
CHAPTER II
GILBERT AND RALEIGH COLONIES
(1583-1602)
Preparations for Gilbert's second and fateful expedition now went
forward, and public interest was much aroused by the return of Drake,
in 1580, laden with the spoils of America. Gilbert invited Raleigh to
accompany him as vice-admiral, but the queen would not let him
accept.[1] Indeed, she seemed to have a presentiment that all would
not go well, and when the arrangements for the voyage were nearing
completion she caused her secretary of state, Walsingham, to let
Gilbert also know that, "of her special care" for him, she wished his
stay at home "as a man noted of no good hap by sea."[2] But the
queen's remark only proved her desire for Gilbert's safety; and she
soon after sent him word that she wished him as "great goodhap and
safety to his ship as if herself were there in person," and requested
his picture as a keepsake.[3] The fleet of Sir Humphrey Gilbert,
consisting of five ships bearing two hundred and sixty men, sailed
from Plymouth June 11, 1583, and the "mishaps" which the queen feared
soon overtook them. After scarcely two days of voyage the ship sent by
Raleigh, the best in the fleet, deserted. Two more ships got
separated, and the crew of one of them, freed from Gilbert's control,
turned pirates and plundered a French ship which fell in their way.
Nevertheless, Gilbert pursued his course, and on August 3, 1583, he
reached the harbor of St. John's in Newfoundland, where he found the
two missing ships. Gilbert showed his commission to the fishing
vessels, of which there were no fewer than thirty-six of all nations
in port, and their officers readily recognized his authority. Two days
later he took possession of the country in the name of Queen
Elizabeth, and as an indication of the national sovereignty to all men
he caused the arms of England engraved on lead to be fixed on a pillar
of wood on the shore side.
Mishaps did not end with the landing in Newfoundland. The emigrants
who sailed with Gilbert were better fitted for a crusade than a
colony, and, disappointed at not at once finding mines of gold and
silver, many deserted; and soon there were not enough sailors to man
all the four ships. Accordingly, the _Swallow_ was sent back to
England with the sick; and with the remainder of the fleet, well
supplied at St. John's with fish and other necessaries, Gilbert
(August 20) sailed south as far as forty-four degrees north latitude.
Off Sable Island a storm assailed them, and the largest of the
vessels, called the _Delight_, carrying most of the provisions, was
driven on a rock and went to pieces.
Overwhelmed by this terrible misfortune, the colonists returned to
Newfoundland, where, yielding to his crew, Gilbert discontinued his
explorations, and on August 31 changed the course of the two ships
remaining, the _Squirrel_ and _Golden Hind_, directly for England. The
story of the voyage back is most pathetic. From the first the sea was
boisterous; but to entreaties that he should abandon the _Squirrel_, a
little affair of ten tons, and seek his own safety in the _Hind_, a
ship of much larger size, Gilbert replied, "No, I will not forsake my
little company going homeward, with whom I have passed so many storms
and perils." Even then, amid so much danger, his spirit rose supreme,
and he actually planned for the spring following two expeditions, one
to the south and one to the north; and when some one asked him how he
expected to meet the expenses in so short a time, he replied, "Leave
that to me, and I will ask a penny of no man."
A terrible storm arose, but Gilbert retained the heroic courage and
Christian faith which had ever distinguished him. As often as the
_Hind_, tossed upon the waves, approached within hailing distance of
the _Squirrel_, the gallant admiral, "himself sitting with a book in
his hand" on the deck, would call out words of cheer and
consolation--"We are as near heaven by sea as by land." When night
came on (September 10) only the lights in the riggings of the
_Squirrel_ told that the noble Gilbert still survived. At midnight the
lights went out suddenly, and from the watchers on the Hind the cry
arose, "The admiral is cast away." And only the _Golden Hind_ returned
to England.[4]
The mantle of Gilbert fell upon the shoulders of his half-brother Sir
Walter Raleigh, whose energy and versatility made him, perhaps, the
foremost Englishman of his age. When the _Hind_ returned from her
ill-fated voyage Raleigh was thirty-one years of age and possessed a
person at once attractive and commanding. He was tall and well
proportioned, had thick, curly locks, beard, and mustaches, full, red
lips, bluish gray eyes, high forehead, and a face described as "long
and bold."
By service in France, the Netherlands, and Ireland he had shown
himself a soldier of the same fearless stamp as his half-brother Sir
Humphrey Gilbert; and he was already looked upon as a seaman of
splendid powers for organization. Poet and scholar, he was the patron
of Edmund Spenser, the famous author of the _Faerie Queene_; of
Richard Hakluyt, the naval historian; of Le Moyne and John White, the
painters; and of Thomas Hariot, the great mathematician.
Expert in the art of gallantry, Raleigh won his way to the queen's
heart by deftly placing between her feet and a muddy place his new
plush coat. He dared the extremity of his political fortunes by
writing on a pane of glass which the queen must see, "Fain would I
climb, but fear I to fall." And she replied with an encouraging--"If
thy heart fail thee, climb not at all." The queen's favor developed
into magnificent gifts of riches and honor, and Raleigh received
various monopolies, many forfeited estates, and appointments as lord
warden of the stannaries, lieutenant of the county of Cornwall,
vice-admiral of Cornwall and Devon, and captain of the queen's guard.
The manner in which Raleigh went about the work of colonization showed
remarkable forethought and system. In order to enlist the active
cooperation of the court and gentry, he induced Richard Hakluyt to
write for him, in 1584, his _Discourse on Western Planting_, which he
circulated in manuscript.[5] He not only received from the queen in
1584 a patent similar to Gilbert's,[6] but by obtaining a confirmation
from Parliament in 1585 he acquired a national sanction which
Gilbert's did not possess.[7]
In imitation of Gilbert he sent out first an exploring expedition
commanded by Arthur Barlow and Philip Amidas; but, warned by his
brother's experience, he directed them to go southward. They left the
west of England April 27, 1584, and arrived upon the coast of North
Carolina July 4, where they passed into Ocracoke Inlet south of Cape
Hatteras. There, landing on an island called Wokokon--part of the
broken outer coast--Barlow and Amidas took possession in the right of
the queen and Sir Walter Raleigh.[8]
Several weeks were spent in exploring Pamlico Sound, which they found
dotted with many small islands, the largest of which, sixteen miles
long, called by the Indians Roanoke Island, was fifty miles north of
Wokokon. About the middle of September, 1584, they returned to England
and reported as the name of the new country "Wincondacoa," which the
Indians at Wokokon had cried when they saw the white men, meaning
"What pretty clothes you wear!" The queen, however, was proud of the
new discovery, and suggested that it should be called, in honor of
herself, "Virginia."
Pleased at the report of his captains, Sir Walter displayed great
energy in making ready a fleet of seven ships, which sailed from
Plymouth April 9, 1585. They carried nearly two hundred settlers, and
the three foremost men on board were Sir Richard Grenville, the
commander of the fleet; Thomas Cavendish, the future circumnavigator
of the globe; and Captain Ralph Lane, the designated governor of the
new colony. The fleet went the usual way by the West Indies, and June
20 "fell in with the maine of Florida," and June 26 cast anchor at
Wokokon.
After a month the fleet moved out again to sea, and passing by Cape
Hatteras entered a channel now called New Inlet. August 17, the colony
was landed on Roanoke Island, and eight days later Grenville weighed
anchor for England. On the way back Grenville met a Spanish ship
"richly loaden," and captured her, "boording her with a boate made
with boards of chests, which fell asunder, and sunke at the ships
side, as soone as euer he and his men were out of it." October 18,
1585, he arrived with his prize at Plymouth, in England, where he was
received with great honor and rejoicing.[9]
The American loves to connect the beginnings of his country with a
hero like Grenville. He was one of the English admirals who helped to
defeat the Spanish Armada, and nothing in naval warfare is more
memorable than his death. In an expedition led by Lord Charles Howard
in 1591 against the Spanish plate-fleet, Grenville was vice-admiral,
and he opposed his ship single-handed against five great Spanish
galleons, supported at intervals by ten others, and he fought them
during nearly fifteen hours. Then Grenville's vessel was so battered
that it resembled rather a skeleton than a ship, and of the crew few
were to be seen but the dead and dying. Grenville himself was captured
mortally wounded, and died uttering these words, "Here die I, Richard
Grenville, with a joyful and quiet mind, for that I have ended my
life, as a true soldier ought to do, fighting for his country, queen,
religion, and honor."[10]
Of the settlers at Roanoke during the winter after their landing
nothing is recorded, but the prospect in the spring was gloomy. Lane
made extensive explorations for gold-mines and for the South Sea, and
found neither. The natives laid a plot to massacre the settlers, but
Lane's soldierly precaution saved the colonists. Grenville was
expected to return with supplies by Easter, but Easter passed and
there was no news. In order to get subsistence, Lane divided his men
into three parties, of which one remained at Roanoke Island and the
other two were sent respectively to Hatteras and to Croatoan, an
island just north of Wokokon.
Not long after Sir Francis Drake, returning from sacking San Domingo,
Cartagena, and St. Augustine, appeared in sight with a superb fleet of
twenty-three sail. He succored the imperilled colonists with supplies,
and offered to take them back to England. Lane and the chief men,
disheartened at the prospects, abandoned the island, and July 28,
1586, the colonists arrived at Plymouth in Drake's ships, having lost
but four men during the whole year of their stay.[11]
A day or two after the departure of the colonists a ship sent by
Raleigh arrived, and about fourteen or fifteen days later came three
ships under Sir Richard Grenville, Raleigh's admiral. Grenville spent
some time beating up and down Pamlico Sound, hunting for the colony,
and finally returned to England, leaving fifteen men behind at Roanoke
to retain possession.[12] This was the second settlement.
The colonists who returned in Drake's ships brought back to Raleigh
two vegetable products which he speedily popularized. One was the
potato,[13] which Raleigh planted on his estate in Ireland, and the
other was tobacco, called by the natives "uppowoc," which he taught
the courtiers to smoke.
Most of the settlers who went with Lane were mere gold-hunters, but
there were two who would have been valuable to any society--the
mathematician Thomas Hariot, who surveyed the country and wrote an
account of the settlement; and John White, who made more than seventy
beautiful water-colors representing the dress of the Indians and their
manner of living. When the engraver De Bry came to England in 1587 he
made the acquaintance of Hakluyt, who introduced him to John White,
and the result was that De Bry was induced to turn Hariot's account of
Virginia into the first part of his celebrated _Peregrinations_,
illustrating it from the surveys of Hariot and the paintings of John
White.[14]
If Raleigh was disappointed with his first attempt at colonization he
was encouraged by the good report of Virginia given by Lane and
Hariot, and in less than another year he had a third fleet ready to
sail. He meant to make this expedition more of a colony than Lane's
settlement at Roanoke, and selected as governor the painter John
White, who could appreciate the natural productions of the country.
And among the one hundred and fifty settlers who sailed from Plymouth
May 8, 1587, were some twenty-five women and children.
The instructions of Raleigh required them to proceed to Chesapeake
Bay, of which the Indians had given Lane an account on his previous
voyage, only stopping at Roanoke for the fifteen men that Grenville
had left there; but when they reached Roanoke Simon Ferdinando, the
pilot, refused to carry them any farther, and White established his
colony at the old seating-place. None of Grenville's men could be
found, and it was afterwards learned that they had been suddenly
attacked by the Indians, who killed one man and so frightened the rest
as to cause them to take to sea in a row-boat, which was never heard
of again.
Through Manteo, a friendly Indian, White tried to re-establish
amicable relations with the natives, and for his faithful services
Manteo was christened and proclaimed "Lord of Roanoke and
Dasamon-guepeuk"; but the Indians, with the exception of the tribe of
Croatoan, to which Manteo belonged, declined to make friends. August
18, five days after the christening of Manteo, Eleanor Dare, daughter
to the governor and wife of Ananias Dare, one of White's council, was
delivered of a daughter, and this child, Virginia, was the first
Christian born in the new realm.[15]
When his granddaughter was only ten days old Governor White went to
England for supplies. He reached Hampton November 8, 1587.[16] He
found affairs in a turmoil. England was threatened with the great
Armada, and Raleigh, Grenville, Lane, and all the other friends of
Virginia were exerting their energies for the protection of their
homes and firesides.[17] Indeed, the rivalry of England and Spain had
reached its crisis; for at this time all the hopes of Protestant
Christendom were centred in England, and within her borders the
Protestant refugees from all countries found a place of safety and
repose. In 1585 the Dutch, still carrying on their struggle with
Spain, had offered Queen Elizabeth the sovereignty of the Netherlands,
and, though she declined it, she sent an army to their assistance. The
French Huguenots also looked to her for support and protection. Spain,
on the other hand, as the representative of all Catholic Europe, had
never appeared so formidable. By the conquest of Portugal in 1580 her
king had acquired control over the East Indies, which were hardly less
valuable than the colonies of Spain; and with the money derived from
both the Spanish and Portuguese possessions Philip supported his
armies in Italy and the Netherlands, and was the mainstay of the pope
at Rome, the Guises in France, and the secret plotters in Scotland and
Ireland of rebellion against the authority of Elizabeth.
This wide distribution of power was, however, an inherent weakness
which created demands enough to exhaust the treasury even of Philip,
and he instinctively recognized in England a danger which must be
promptly removed. England must be subdued, and Philip, determining on
an invasion, collected a powerful army at Bruges, in Flanders, and an
immense fleet in the Tagus, in Spain. For the attack he selected a
time when Amsterdam, the great mart of the Netherlands, had fallen
before his general the duke of Palma; when the king of France had
become a prisoner of the Guises; and when the frenzied hatred of the
Catholic world was directed against Elizabeth for the execution of
Mary, queen of Scots.
How to meet and repel this immense danger caused many consultations on
the part of Elizabeth and her statesmen, and at first they inclined to
make the defence by land only. But Raleigh, like Themistocles at
Athens under similar conditions, urgently advised dependence on a
well-equipped fleet, and after some hesitation his advice was
followed. Then every effort was strained to bring into service every
ship that could be found or constructed in time within the limits of
England, so that in May, 1588, when Philip's huge Armada set sail from
the Tagus, a numerous English fleet was ready to dispute its onward
passage. A great battle was fought soon after in the English Channel,
and there Lord Charles Howard of Effingham, and Raleigh and Drake and
Hawkins joined with Grenville and Cavendish and Frobisher and Lane,
and all the other glorious heroes of England, in the mighty overthrow
of the Spanish enemy.[18]
Under the inspiration of this tremendous victory the Atlantic Ocean
during the next three years swarmed with English cruisers, and more
than eight hundred Spanish ships fell victims to their attacks. So
great was the destruction that the coast of Virginia abounded in the
wreckage.[19] But the way to a successful settlement in America was
not entirely opened until eight years later, when the English fleet,
under Howard, Raleigh, and Essex, completed the destruction of the
Spanish power by another great naval victory won in the harbor of
Cadiz.
Amid all this excitement and danger Raleigh did not forget his colony
in Virginia. Twice he sent relief expeditions; but the first was
stopped because in the struggle with Spain all the ships were demanded
for government service; and the second was so badly damaged by the
Spanish cruisers that it could not continue its voyage. Raleigh had
spent £40,000 in his several efforts to colonize Virginia, and the
burden became too heavy for him to carry alone. As Hakluyt said, "It
required a prince's purse to have the action thoroughly followed out."
He therefore consented, in 1589, to assign a right to trade in
Virginia to Sir Thomas Smith, John White, Richard Hakluyt, and others,
reserving a fifth of all the gold and silver extracted, and they
raised means for White's last voyage to Virginia.[20]
It was not until March, 1591, that Governor White was able to put to
sea again. He reached Roanoke Island August 17, and, landing, visited
the point where he had placed the settlement. As he climbed the sandy
bank he noticed, carved upon a tree in Roman letters, "CRO," without a
cross, and White called to mind that three years before, when he left
for England, it had been agreed that if the settlers ever found it
necessary to remove from the island they were to leave behind them
some such inscription, and to add a cross if they left in danger or
distress. A little farther on stood the fort, and there White read on
one of the trees an inscription in large capital letters, "Croatoan."
This left no doubt that the colony had moved to the island of that
name south of Cape Hatteras and near Ocracoke Inlet. He wished the
ships to sail in that direction, but a storm arose, and the captains,
dreading the dangerous shoals of Pamlico Sound, put to sea and
returned to England without ever visiting Croatoan.[21] White never
came back to America, and his separation from the colony is heightened
in tragic effect by the loss of his daughter and granddaughter.
What became of the settlers at Roanoke has been a frequent subject of
speculation. When Jamestown was established, in 1607, the search for
them was renewed, but nothing definite could be learned. There is,
indeed, a story told by Strachey that the unfortunate colonists,
finally abandoning all hope, intermixed with the Indians at Croatoan,
and after living with them till about the time of the arrival at
Jamestown were, at the instigation of Powhatan, cruelly massacred.
Only seven of them--four men, two boys, and a young maid--were
preserved by a friendly chief, and from these, as later legends have
declared, descended a tribe of Indians found in the vicinity of
Roanoke Island in the beginning of the eighteenth century and known as
the Hatteras Indians.[22]
Sir Walter Raleigh will always be esteemed the true parent of North
American colonization, for though the idea did not originate with him
he popularized it beyond any other man. Just as he made smoking
fashionable at the court of Elizabeth, so the colonization of
Virginia--that is, of the region from Canada to Florida--was made
fashionable through his example. His enterprise caused the advantages
of America's soil and climate to be appreciated in England, and he was
the first to fix upon Chesapeake Bay as the proper place of
settlement.
When James I succeeded Elizabeth on the throne Raleigh lost his
influence at court, and nearly all the last years of his life were
spent a prisoner in the Tower of London, where he wrote his _History
of the World_. In 1616 he was temporarily released by the king on
condition of his finding a gold-mine in Guiana. When he returned
empty-handed he was, on the complaint of the Spanish ambassador,
arrested, sentenced to death, and executed on an old verdict of the
jury, now recognized to have been based on charges trumped up by
political enemies.[23]
Raleigh never relinquished hope in America. In 1595 he made a voyage
to Guiana, and in 1602 sent out Samuel Mace to Virginia--the third of
Mace's voyages thither. In 1603, just before his confinement in the
Tower, he wrote to Sir Robert Cecil regarding the rights which he had
in that country, and used these memorable words, "I shall yet live to
see it an English nation."[24]
[Footnote 1: Edwards, _Life of Raleigh_, I., 81, II., 10.]
[Footnote 2: _Cal. of State Pap., Col._, 1574-1674, p. 17.]
[Footnote 3: Edwards, _Life of Raleigh_, I., 82.]
[Footnote 4: Hakluyt, _Voyages_, III., 184-208.]
[Footnote 5: Stevens, _Thomas Hariot_, 43-48.]
[Footnote 6: For the patent, see Hakluyt, _Voyages_, III., 297-301.]
[Footnote 7: Brown, _Genesis of the United States_, I., 13.]
[Footnote 8: Hakluyt, _Voyages_, III., 301.]
[Footnote 9: Hakluyt, _Voyages_, III., 302-310.]
[Footnote 10: Edwards, _Life of Raleigh_, I., 144-145.]
[Footnote 11: Hakluyt, _Voyages_, III., 322, IV., 10.]
[Footnote 12: Hakluyt, _Voyages_, III., 323, 340.]
[Footnote 13: Edwards, _Life of Raleigh_, I., 106.]
[Footnote 14: Stevens, _Thomas Hariot_, 55-62.]
[Footnote 15: Hakluyt, _Voyages_, III., 340-345.]
[Footnote 16: Ibid., 346, 347.]
[Footnote 17: Brown, _Genesis of the United States_, I., 19.]
[Footnote 18: Edwards, _Life of Raleigh_, I., 111.]
[Footnote 19: Brown, _Genesis of the United States_, I., 20.]
[Footnote 20: Stebbins, _Life of Raleigh_, 47.]
[Footnote 21: Hakluyt, _Voyages_, III., 350-357.]
[Footnote 22: Strachey, _Travaile into Virginia_, 26, 85.]
[Footnote 23: Edwards, _Life of Raleigh_, I., 706, 721.]
[Footnote 24: Ibid., 91.]
[Illustration: ROANOKE ISLAND, JAMESTOWN AND ST. MARY'S 1584-1632]
CHAPTER III
FOUNDING OF VIRGINIA
(1602-1608)
Though a prisoner in the Tower of London who could not share in the
actual work, Sir Walter Raleigh lived to see his prediction regarding
Virginia realized in 1607. He had personally given substance to the
English claim to North America based upon the remote discovery of John
Cabot, and his friends, after he had withdrawn from the field of
action, were the mainstay of English colonization in the Western
continent.
Bartholomew Gosnold and Bartholomew Gilbert, son of Sir Humphrey, with
Raleigh's consent and under the patronage of Henry Wriothesley, the
brilliant and accomplished earl of Southampton, renewed the attempt at
colonization. With a small colony of thirty-two men they set sail from
Falmouth March 26, 1602, took an unusual direct course across the
Atlantic, and seven weeks later saw land at Cape Elizabeth, on the
coast of Maine. They then sailed southward and visited a headland
which they named Cape Cod, a small island now "No Man's Land," which
they called Martha's Vineyard (a name since transferred to the larger
island farther north), and the group called the Elizabeth Islands. The
colonists were delighted with the appearance of the country, but
becoming apprehensive of the Indians returned to England after a short
stay.[1]
In April, 1603, Richard Hakluyt obtained Raleigh's consent, and, aided
by some merchants of Bristol, sent out Captain Martin Pring with two
small vessels, the _Speedwell_ and _Discovery_, on a voyage of trade
and exploration to the New England coast. Pring was absent eight
months, and returned with an account of the country fully confirming
Gosnold's good report. Two years later, in 1605, the earl of
Southampton and his brother-in-law, Lord Thomas Arundell, sent out
Captain George Weymouth, who visited the Kennebec and brought back
information even more encouraging.[2]
Meanwhile, Queen Elizabeth died March 24, 1603, and was succeeded by
King James I. In November Raleigh was convicted of high-treason and
his monopoly of American colonization was abrogated. By the peace
ratified by the king of Spain June 15, 1605, about a month before
Weymouth's return, the seas were made more secure for English voyages,
although neither power conceded the territorial claims of the
other.[3]
Owing to these changed conditions and the favorable reports of
Gosnold, Pring, and Weymouth, extensive plans for colonization were
considered in England. Since the experiment of private colonization
had failed, the new work was undertaken by joint-stock companies, for
which the East India Company, chartered in 1600, with the eminent
merchant Sir Thomas Smith at its head, afforded a model. Not much is
known of the beginnings of the movement, but it matured speedily, and
the popularity of the comedy of _Eastward Ho!_ written by Chapman and
Marston and published in the fall of 1605, reflected upon the stage
the interest felt in Virginia. The Spanish ambassador Zuñiga became
alarmed, and, going to Lord Chief-Justice Sir John Popham, protested
against the preparations then making as an encroachment upon Spanish
territory and a violation of the treaty of peace. Popham, with true
diplomatic disregard of truth, evaded the issue, and assured Zuñiga
that the only object of the scheme was to clear England of "thieves
and traitors" and get them "drowned in the sea."[4]
A month later, April 10, 1606, a charter was obtained from King James
for the incorporation of two companies, one consisting of "certain
knights, gentlemen, merchants" in and about London, and the other of
"sundry knights, gentlemen, merchants" in and about Plymouth. The
chief patron of the London Company was Sir Robert Cecil, the secretary
of state; and the chief patron of the Plymouth Company was Sir John
Popham, chief-justice of the Queen's Bench, who presided at the trial
of Raleigh in 1603.
The charter claimed for England all the North American continent
between the thirty-fourth and forty-fifth degrees north latitude, but
gave to each company only a tract fronting one hundred miles on the
sea and extending one hundred miles inland. The London Company was
authorized to locate a plantation called the First Colony in some fit
and convenient place between thirty-four and forty-one degrees, and
the Plymouth Company a Second Colony somewhere between thirty-eight
and forty-five degrees, but neither was to plant within one hundred
miles of the other.
The charter contained "not one ray of popular rights," and neither the
company nor the colonists had any share in the government. The company
must financier the enterprise, but could receive only such rewards as
those intrusted with the management by the home government could win
for them in directing trade, opening mines, and disposing of lands. As
for the emigrants, while they were declared entitled "to all
liberties, franchises, and immunities of British subjects," they were
to enjoy merely such privileges as officers not subject to them in any
way might allow them. The management of both sections of Virginia,
including the very limited grants to the companies, was conferred upon
one royal council, which was to name a local council for each of the
colonies in America; and both superior and subordinate councils were
to govern according to "laws, ordinances, and instructions" to be
given them by the king.[5]
Two days after the date of the charter these promised "laws," etc.,
were issued, and, though not preserved in their original form, they
were probably very similar to the articles published during the
following November.[6] According to these last, the superior council,
resident in England, was permitted to name the colonial councils,
which were to have power to pass ordinances not repugnant to the
orders of the king and superior council; to elect or remove their
presidents, to remove any of their members, to supply their own
vacancies; and to decide all cases occurring in the colony, civil as
well as criminal, not affecting life or limb. Capital offences were to
be tried by a jury of twelve persons, and while to all intents and
purposes the condition of the colonists did not differ from soldiers
subject to martial law, it is to the honor of King James that he
limited the death penalty to tumults, rebellion, conspiracy, mutiny,
sedition, murder, incest, rape, and adultery, and did not include in
the number of crimes either witchcraft or heresy. The articles also
provided that all property of the two companies should be held in a
"joint stock" for five years after the landing.[7]
The charter being thus secured, both companies proceeded to procure
emigrants; and they had not much difficulty, as at this time there
were many unemployed people in England. The wool culture had converted
great tracts of arable land in England into mere pastures for
sheep,[8] and the closure of the monasteries and religious houses
removed the support from thousands of English families. Since 1585
this surplus humanity had found employment in the war with Spain, but
the return of peace in 1605 had again thrown them upon society, and
they were eager for chances, no matter how remote, of gold-mines and
happy homes beyond the seas.[9]
Hence, in three months' time the Plymouth Company had all things in
readiness for a trial voyage, and August 12, 1606, they sent out a
ship commanded by Henry Challons with twenty-nine Englishmen and two
Indians brought into England by Weymouth the year before. Two months
later sailed another ship (of which Thomas Hanham was captain and
Martin Pring master), "with all necessary supplies for the seconding
of Captain Challons and his people." Unfortunately, Captain Challons's
vessel and crew were taken by the Spaniards in the West Indies, and,
though Hanham and Pring reached the coast of America, they returned
without making a settlement.[10] Nevertheless, they brought back, as
Sir Ferdinando Gorges wrote many years after, "the most exact
discovery of that coast that ever came to my hands since," which
wrought "such an impression" on Chief-Justice Popham and the other
members of the Plymouth Company that they determined upon another and
better-appointed attempt at once.[11]
May 31, 1607, this second expedition sailed from Plymouth with one
hundred and twenty settlers embarked in two vessels--a fly boat called
the _Gift of God_ and a ship called _Mary and John_. August 18, 1607,
the company landed on a peninsula at the mouth of the Sagadahoc, or
Kennebec River, in Maine. After a sermon by their preacher, Richard
Seymour, the commission of government and ordinances prepared by the
authorities at home were read. George Popham was therein designated
president; and Raleigh Gilbert, James Davis, Richard Seymour, Richard
Davis, and Captain Harlow composed the council. The first work
attempted was a fort, which they intrenched and fortified with twelve
pieces of ordnance. Inside they erected a church and storehouse and
fifteen log-cabins. Then a ship-builder constructed a pinnace, called
the _Virginia_, which afterwards was used in the southern colony. But
the colonists were soon discouraged, and more than half their number
went back to England in the ships when they returned in December.
The winter of 1607-1608 was terrible to the forty-five men who
remained at Kennebec, where land and water were locked in icy fetters.
Their storehouse took fire and was consumed, with a great part of the
provisions, and about the same time President George Popham died. The
other leader, Captain Raleigh Gilbert, grew discouraged when, despite
an industrious exploration of the rivers and harbors, he found no
mines of any kind. When Captain James Davis arrived in the spring,
bringing news of the death of Chief-Justice Popham and of Sir John
Gilbert, Raleigh Gilbert's brother, who had left him his estate, both
leader and colonists were so disenchanted of the country that they
with one accord resolved upon a return. Wherefore they all embarked,
as we are told, in their newly arrived ship and newly constructed
pinnace and set sail for England. "And this," says Strachey, "was the
end of that northerne colony upon the river Sagadahoc."[12]
To the London Company, therefore, though slower in getting their
expedition to sea, belongs the honor of the first permanent English
colony in America. December 10, 1606, ten days before the departure of
this colony, the council for Virginia set down in writing regulations
deemed necessary for the expedition. The command of the ships and
settlers was given to Captain Christopher Newport, a famous seaman,
who in 1591 had brought into the port of London the treasure-laden
carrack the _Madre de Dios_, taken by Raleigh's ship the _Roe Buck_.
He was to take charge of the commissions of the local council, and not
to break the seals until they had been upon the coast of Virginia
twenty-four hours. Then the council were to elect their president and
assume command of the settlers; while Captain Newport was to spend two
months in discovery and loading his ships "with all such principal
commodities and merchandise there to be had."[13]
With these orders went a paper, perhaps drawn by Hakluyt, giving
valuable advice concerning the selection of the place of settlement,
dealings with the natives, and explorations for mines and the South
Sea.[14] In respect to the place of settlement, they were especially
advised to choose a high and dry situation, divested of trees and up
some river, a considerable distance from the mouth. The emigrants
numbered one hundred and twenty men--no women. Besides Captain
Newport, the admiral, in the _Sarah Constant_, of a hundred tons, the
leading persons in the exploration were Bartholomew Gosnold, who
commanded the _Goodspeed_, of forty tons; Captain John Ratcliffe, who
commanded the _Discovery_, of twenty tons; Edward Maria Wingfield;
George Percy, brother of the earl of Northumberland; John Smith;
George Kendall, a cousin of Sir Edwin Sandys; Gabriel Archer; and Rev.
Robert Hunt.
Among these men John Smith was distinguished for a career combining
adventure and romance. Though he was only thirty years of age he had
already seen much service and had many hairbreadth escapes, his most
remarkable exploit having been his killing before the town of Regal,
in Transylvania, three Turks, one after another, in single combat.[15]
The ships sailed from London December 20, 1606, and Michael Drayton
wrote some quaint verses of farewell, of which perhaps one will
suffice:
"And cheerfully at sea
Success you still entice,
To get the pearl and gold,
And ours to hold
Virginia,
Earth's only paradise!"
The destination of the colony was Chesapeake Bay, a large gulf opening
by a strait fifteen miles wide upon the Atlantic at thirty-seven
degrees, and reaching northward parallel to the sea-coast one hundred
and eighty-five miles. Into its basin a great many smooth and placid
rivers discharge their contents. Perhaps no bay of the world has such
diversified scenery. Among the rivers which enter the bay from the
west, four--the Potomac, Rappahannock, York, and James--are
particularly large and imposing. They divide what is called tide-water
Virginia into long and narrow peninsulas, which are themselves
furrowed by deep creeks making numerous necks or minor peninsulas of
land. Up these rivers and creeks the tide ebbs and flows for many
miles. In 1607, before the English arrived, the whole of this
tide-water region, except here and there where the Indians had a
cornfield, was covered with primeval forests, so free from undergrowth
that a coach with four horses could be driven through the thickest
groups of trees.
The numerous tribes of Indians who inhabited this region belonged to
the Algonquin race, and at the time Captain Newport set sail from
England they were members of a confederacy, of which Powhatan was head
war chief or werowance. There were at least thirty-four of these
tribes, and to each Powhatan appointed one of his own friends as
chief. Powhatan's capital, or "werowocomoco," was on York River at
Portan Bay (a corruption for Powhatan), about fourteen miles from
Jamestown; and Pochins, one of his sons, commanded at Point Comfort,
while Parahunt, another son, was werowance at the falls of the James
River, one hundred and twenty miles inland. West of the bay region,
beyond the falls of the rivers, were other confederacies of Indians,
who carried on long wars with Powhatan, of whom the most important
were the Monacans, or Manakins, and Massawomekes.[16]
Powhatan's dominions extended from the Roanoke River, in North
Carolina, to the head of Chesapeake Bay, and in all this country his
will was despotic. He had an organized system of collecting tribute
from the werowances, and to enforce his orders kept always about him
fifty armed savages "of the tallest in his kingdom." Each tribe had a
territory defined by natural bounds, and they lived on the rivers and
creeks in small villages, consisting of huts called wigwams, oval in
shape, and made of bark set upon a framework of saplings. Sometimes
these houses were of great length, accommodating many families at
once; and at Uttamussick, in the peninsula formed by the Pamunkey and
Mattapony, were three such structures sixty feet in length, where the
Indians kept the bodies of their dead chiefs under the care of seven
priests, or medicine-men.
The religion of these Chesapeake Bay Indians, like that of all the
other Indians formerly found on the coast, consisted in a belief in a
great number of devils, who were to be warded off by powwows and
conjurations. Captain Smith gives an account of a conjuration to which
he was subjected at Uttamussick when a captive in December, 1607. At
daybreak they kindled a fire in one of the long houses and by it
seated Captain Smith. Soon the chief priest, hideously painted,
bedecked with feathers, and hung with skins of snakes and weasels,
came skipping in, followed by six others similarly arrayed. Rattling
gourds and chanting most dismally, they marched about Captain Smith,
the chief priest in the lead and trailing a circle of meal, after
which they marched about him again and put down at intervals little
heaps of corn of five or six grains each. Next they took some little
bunches of sticks and put one between every two heaps of corn. These
proceedings, lasting at intervals for three days, were punctuated with
violent gesticulations, grunts, groans, and a great rattling of
gourds.[17]
Another custom of the Indians is linked with a romantic incident in
Virginia history. Not infrequently some wretched captive, already
bound, to be tortured to death, has owed his life to the interference
of some member of the tribe who announced his or her desire to adopt
him as a brother or son. The motives inducing this interference
proceeded sometimes from mere business considerations and sometimes
from pity, superstition, or admiration. It was Captain Smith's fortune
during his captivity to have a personal experience of this nature.
After the conjuration at Uttamussick Smith was brought to Werowocomoco
and ushered into a long wigwam, where he found Powhatan sitting upon a
bench and covered with a great robe of raccoon skins, with the tails
hanging down like tassels. On either side of him sat an Indian girl of
sixteen or seventeen years, and along the walls of the room two rows
of grim warriors, and back of them two rows of women with faces and
shoulders painted red, hair bedecked with the plumage of birds, and
necks strung with chains of white beads.
At Smith's entrance those present gave a great shout, and presently
two stones were brought before Powhatan, and on these stones Smith's
head was laid. Next several warriors with clubs took their stand near
him to beat out his brains, whereupon Powhatan's "dearest daughter,"
Pocahontas, a girl of about twelve years old, rushed forward and
entreated her father to spare the prisoner. When Powhatan refused she
threw herself upon Smith, got his head in her arms, and laid her own
upon his. This proved too much for Powhatan. He ordered Smith to be
released, and, telling him that henceforth he would regard him as his
son, sent him with guides back to Jamestown.[18]
The credibility of this story has been attacked on the ground that it
does not occur in Smith's _True Relation_, a contemporaneous account
of the colony, and appears first in his _Generall Historie_, published
in 1624. But the editor of the _True Relation_ expressly states that
the published account does not include the entire manuscript as it
came from Smith. Hence the omission counts for little, and there is
nothing unusual in Smith's experience, which, as Dr. Fiske says, "is
precisely in accord with Indian usage." About 1528 John Ortiz, of
Seville, a soldier of Pamfilo de Narvaez, captured by the Indians on
the coast of Florida, was saved from being roasted to death by the
chief's daughter, a case very similar to that of John Smith and
Pocahontas. Smith was often inaccurate and prejudiced in his
statements, but that is far from saying that he deliberately mistook
plain objects of sense or concocted a story having no foundation.[19]
Still another incident illustrative of Indian life is given by Smith.
In their idle hours the Indians amused themselves with singing,
dancing, and playing upon musical instruments made of pipes and small
gourds, and at the time of another visit to Werowocomoco Smith was
witness to a very charming scene in which Pocahontas was again the
leading actor. While the English were sitting upon a mat near a fire
they were startled by loud shouts, and a party of Indian girls came
out of the woods strangely attired. Their bodies were painted, some
red, some white, and some blue. Pocahontas carried a pair of antlers
on her head, an otter's skin at her waist and another on her arm, a
quiver of arrows at her back, and a bow and arrow in her hand. Another
of the band carried a sword, another a club, and another a pot-stick,
and all were horned as Pocahontas. Casting themselves in a ring about
the fire, they danced and sang for the space of an hour, and then with
a shout departed into the woods as suddenly as they came.[20]
On the momentous voyage to Virginia Captain Newport took the old route
by the Canary Islands and the West Indies, and they were four months
on the voyage. In the West Indies Smith and Wingfield quarrelled, and
the latter charged Smith with plotting mutiny, so that he was arrested
and kept in irons till Virginia was reached. After leaving the West
Indies bad weather drove them from their course; but, April 26, 1607,
they saw the capes of Virginia, which were forthwith named Henry and
Charles, after the two sons of King James.
Landing at Cape Henry, they set up a cross April 29, and there they
had their first experience with the Indians. The Chesapeakes assaulted
them and wounded two men. About that time the seals were broken, and
it was found that Edward Maria Wingfield, who was afterwards elected
president for one year, Bartholomew Gosnold, Christopher Newport, John
Smith, John Ratcliffe, John Martin, and George Kendall were
councillors.
For more than two weeks they sought a place of settlement, and they
named the promontory at the entrance of Hampton Roads "Point Comfort,"
and the broad river which opened beyond after the king who gave them
their charter. At length they decided upon a tract of land in the
Paspahegh country, distant about thirty-two miles from the river's
mouth; and though a peninsula they called it an island, because of the
very narrow isthmus (long worn away) connecting it with the main-land.
There they landed May 14, 1607 (May 24 New Style), and at the west
end, where the channel of the river came close to the shore, they
constructed a triangular fort with bulwarks in each corner, mounting
from three to five cannon, and within it marked off the beginnings of
a town, which they called Jamestown.[21]
The colonists were at first in high spirits, for the landing occurred
in the most beautiful month of all the year. In reality, disaster was
already impending, for their long passage at sea had much reduced the
supplies, and the Paspaheghs bitterly resented their intrusion.
Moreover, the peninsula of Jamestown was not such a place as their
instructions contemplated. It was in a malarious situation, had no
springs of fresh water, and was thickly covered with great trees and
tall grass, which afforded protection to Indian enemies.
May 22 Captain Newport went up in a shallop with twenty others to look
for a gold-mine at the falls of James River. He was gone only a week,
but before he returned the Indians had assaulted the fort, and his
assistance was necessary in completing the palisades. When Newport
departed for England, June 22, he left one hundred and four settlers
in a very unfortunate condition:[22] they were besieged by Indians; a
small ladle of "ill-conditioned" barley-meal was the daily ration per
man; the lodgings of the settlers were log-cabins and holes in the
ground, and the brackish water of the river served them for drink.[23]
The six weeks following Newport's departure were a time of death and
despair, and by September 10 of the one hundred and four men only
forty-six remained alive.
Under such circumstances dissensions might have been expected, but
they were intensified by the peculiar government devised by the king.
In a short time Gosnold died, and Kendall was detected in a design to
desert the colony and was shot. Then (September 10) Ratcliffe, Smith,
and Martin deposed Wingfield from the government and elected as
president John Ratcliffe.
In such times men of strong character take the lead. When the cape
merchant Thomas Studley, whose duty it was to care for the supplies
and dispense them, died, his important office was conferred on Smith.
In this capacity Smith showed great abilities as a corn-getter from
the Indians, whom he visited at Kecoughtan (Hampton), Warascoyack, and
Chickahominy. At length, during the fall of 1607, the Indians stopped
hostilities, and for a brief interval health and plenty prevailed.[24]
In December Smith went on an exploring trip up the Chickahominy, but
on this occasion his good luck deserted him--two of his men were
killed by the Indians and he himself was captured and carried from
village to village, but he was released through the influence of
Pocahontas, and returned to Jamestown (January 2, 1608) to find more
dangers. In his absence Ratcliffe, the president, admitted Gabriel
Archer, Smith's deadly enemy, into the council; and immediately upon
his arrival these two arrested him and tried him under the Levitical
law for the loss of the two men killed by the Indians. He was found
guilty and condemned to be hanged the next day; but in the evening
Newport arrived in the _John and Francis_ with the "First Supply" of
men and provisions, and Ratcliffe and Archer were prevented from
carrying out their plan.[25] Newport found only thirty or forty
persons surviving at Jamestown, and he brought about seventy more. Of
the six members of the council living at the time of his departure in
June, 1607, two, Gosnold and Kendall, were dead, Smith was under
condemnation, and Wingfield was a prisoner. Now Smith was restored to
his seat in council, while Wingfield was released from custody.[26]
Five days after Newport's arrival at Jamestown a fire consumed nearly
all the buildings in the fort.[27] The consequence was that, as the
winter was very severe, many died from exposure while working to
restore the town. The settlers suffered also from famine, which
Captain Newport partially relieved by visiting Powhatan in February
and returning in March with his "pinnace well loaden with corne,
wheat, beanes, and pease," which kept the colony supplied for some
weeks.[28]
Newport remained in Virginia for more than three months, but things
were not improved by his stay. His instructions required him to return
with a cargo, and the poor colonists underwent the severest sort of
labor in cutting down trees and loading the ship with cedar, black
walnut, and clapboard.[29] Captain Martin thought he discovered a
gold-mine near Jamestown, and for a time the council had busied the
colonists in digging worthless ore, some of which Newport carried to
England.[30] These works hindered others more important to the
plantation, and only four acres of land was put in corn during the
spring.[31] Newport took back with him the councillors Wingfield and
Archer, and April 20, ten days after Newport's departure, Captain
Francis Nelson arrived in the _Phoenix_ with about forty additional
settlers. He stayed till June, when, taking a load of cedar, he
returned to England, having among his passengers Captain John Martin,
another of the council.
During the summer Smith spent much time exploring the Chesapeake Bay,
Potomac, and Rappahannock rivers,[32] and in his absence things went
badly at Jamestown. The mariners of Newport's and Nelson's ships had
been very wasteful while they stayed in Virginia, and after their
departure the settlers found themselves on a short allowance again.
Then the sickly season in 1608 was like that of 1607, and of
ninety-five men living in June, 1608, not over fifty survived in the
fall. The settlers even followed the precedent of the previous year in
deposing an unpopular president, for Ratcliffe, by employing the men
in the unnecessary work of a governor's house, brought about a mutiny
in July, which led to the substitution of Matthew Scrivener. At
length, September 10, 1608, Captain Ratcliffe's presidency definitely
expired and Captain Smith was elected president.
[Footnote 1: Purchas, _Pilgrimes_, IV., 1647-1651; Strachey, _Travaile
into Virginia_, 153-158; John Smith, _Works_ (Arber's ed.), 332-340.]
[Footnote 2: Purchas, _Pilgrimes_, IV., 1654-1656, 1659-1667.]
[Footnote 3: Brown, _Genesis of the United States_, I., 27.]
[Footnote 4: Brown, _Genesis of the United States_, I., 46.]
[Footnote 5: Hening, _Statutes_, I., 57-66; see also Cheyney,
_European Background of American History_, chap. viii.]
[Footnote 6: Brown, _First Republic_, 8.]
[Footnote 7: Hening, _Statutes_, I., 67-75.]
[Footnote 8: Ashley, _English Economic History_, II., 261-376.]
[Footnote 9: Brown, _Genesis of the United States_, I., 50.]
[Footnote 10: Brown, _Genesis of the United States_, I., 127-139.]
[Footnote 11: Gorges, _Briefe Narration_ (Mass. Hist. Soc.,
_Collections_, 3d series., VI. 53).]
[Footnote 12: Strachey, _Travaile into Virginia_, 162-180; Brown,
_Genesis of the United States_, I., 190-194.]
[Footnote 13: Neill, _Virginia Company_, 4-8.]
[Footnote 14: Ibid., 8-14.]
[Footnote 15: Purchas, _Pilgrimes_, II., 1365.]
[Footnote 16: On the American Indians, Farrand, _Basis of American
History_, chaps, vi.-xiv.]
[Footnote 17: For accounts of aboriginal Virginia, see Strachey,
_Travaile into Virginia_; Spelman, in Brown, _Genesis of the United
States_, I., 483-488; Smith, _Works_ (Arber's ed.), 47-84.]
[Footnote 18: Smith, _Works_ (Arber's ed.), 400.]
[Footnote 19: Cases of rescue and adoption are numerous. See the case
of Conture, in Parkman, _Jesuits_, 223; Fiske, _Old Virginia and Her
Neighbors_, I., 113.]
[Footnote 20: Smith, _Works_ (Arber's ed.), 436.]
[Footnote 21: Percy, _Discourse_, in Smith, _Works_ (Arber's ed.),
lvii.-lxx.]
[Footnote 22: Percy, _Discourse_, in Smith, _Works_ (Arber's ed.),
lxx.]
[Footnote 23: _Breife Declaration_, in Virginia State Senate
_Document_, 1874.]
[Footnote 24: Percy, _Discourse_, in Smith, _Works_ (Arber's ed.),
lxxiii.]
[Footnote 25: Wingfield, _Discourse_, in Smith, _Works_ (Arber's ed.),
lxxiv.-xci.]
[Footnote 26: Wingfield, _Discourse_, in Smith, _Works_ (Arber's ed.),
lxxxvi.]
[Footnote 27: Brown, _Genesis of the United States_, I., 175.]
[Footnote 28: Wingfield, _Discourse_, in Smith, _Works_ (Arber's ed.),
lxxxvii.]
[Footnote 29: _Breife Declaration_.]
[Footnote 30: Smith, _Works_ (Arber's ed.), 104.]
[Footnote 31: _Breife Declaration_.]
[Footnote 32: Smith, _Works_ (Arber's ed.), 109-120.]
CHAPTER IV
GLOOM IN VIRGINIA
(1608-1617)
When Newport arrived with the "Second Supply," September 29, 1608, he
brought little relief. His seventy passengers, added to the number
that survived the summer, raised the population at Jamestown to about
one hundred and twenty. Among the new-comers were Richard Waldo, Peter
Wynne (both added to the council), Francis West, a brother of Lord
Delaware; eight Poles and Germans, sent over to begin the making of
pitch and soap ashes; a gentlewoman, Mrs. Forrest, and her maid, Anne
Burras, who were the first of their sex to settle at Jamestown. About
two months later there was a marriage in the church at Jamestown
between John Laydon and Anne Burras,[1] and a year later was born
Virginia Laydon, the first white child in the colony.[2]
The instructions brought by Newport expressed the dissatisfaction of
the council with the paltry returns made to the company for their
outlay, and required President Smith to aid Newport to do three
things[3]--viz., crown Powhatan; discover a gold-mine and a passage to
the South Sea; and find Raleigh's lost colony. Smith tells us that he
was wholly opposed to all these projects, but submitted as best he
might.
The coronation of Powhatan was a formality borrowed from Sir Walter
Raleigh's peerage for Manteo, and duly took place at Werowocomoco.
Powhatan was presented with a basin, ewer, bed, bed-cover, and a
scarlet cloak, but showed great unwillingness to kneel to receive the
crown. At last three of the party, by bearing hard upon his shoulders,
got him to stoop a little, and while he was in that position they
clapped it upon his head. Powhatan innocently turned the whole
proceeding into ridicule by taking his old shoes and cloak of raccoon
skin and giving them to Newport.
To seek gold-mines and the South Sea, Newport, taking all the strong
and healthy men at the fort, visited the country of the Monacans
beyond the falls of the James. In this march they discovered the vein
of gold that runs through the present counties of Louisa, Goochland,
Fluvanna, and Buckingham; but as the ore was not easily extracted from
the quartz they returned to Jamestown tired and disheartened. The
search for Raleigh's lost colony was undertaken with much less
expense--several small parties were sent southward but learned nothing
important.
In December, 1608, Newport returned to England, taking with him a
cargo of pitch, tar, iron ore, and other articles provided at great
labor by the overworked colonists. Smith availed himself of the
opportunity to send by Newport an account of his summer explorations,
a map of Chesapeake Bay and tributary rivers, and a letter in answer
to the complaints signified to him in the instructions of the home
council. Smith's reply was querulous and insubordinate, and spiteful
enough against Ratcliffe, Archer, and Newport, but contained many
sound truths. He ridiculed the policy of the company, and told them
that "it were better to give £500 a ton for pitch, tar, and the like
in the settled countries of Russia, Sweden, and Denmark than send for
them hither till more necessary things be provided"; "for," said he,
"in overtaxing our weake and unskillful bodies, to satisfie this
desire of present profit, we can scarce ever recover ourselves from
one supply to another." Ratcliffe returned to England with Newport,
after whose departure Smith was assisted for a short time by a council
consisting of Matthew Scrivener, Richard Waldo, and Peter Wynne. The
two former were drowned during January, 1609, and the last died not
long after. Smith was left sole ruler, and, contrary to the intention
of the king, he made no attempt to fill the council.[4]
The "Second Supply" had brought provisions, which lasted only two
months,[5] and most of Smith's time during the winter 1608-1609 was
occupied in trading for corn with the Indians on York River. In the
spring much useful work was done by the colonists under Smith's
directions. They dug a well for water, which till then had been
obtained from the river, erected some twenty cabins, shingled the
church, cleared and planted forty acres of land with Indian-corn,
built a house for the Poles to make glass in, and erected two
block-houses.
Smith started to build a fort "for a retreat" on Gray's Creek,
opposite to Jamestown (the place is still called "Smith's Fort"), but
a remarkable circumstance, not at all creditable to Smith's vigilance
or circumspection, stopped the work and put the colonists at their
wits' end to escape starvation. On an examination of the casks in
which their corn was stored it was found that the rats had devoured
most of the contents, and that the remainder was too rotten to eat.[6]
To avoid starvation, President Smith, like Lane at Roanoke Island, in
May, 1609, dispersed the whole colony in three parties, sending one to
live with the savages, another to Point Comfort to try for fish, and
another, the largest party, twenty miles down the river to the
oyster-banks, where at the end of nine weeks the oyster diet caused
their skins "to peale off from head to foote as if they had been
flead."[7]
While the colony was in this desperate condition there arrived from
England, July 14, 1609, a small bark, commanded by Samuel Argall, with
a supply of bread and wine, enough to last the colonists one month. He
had been sent out by the London Company to try for sturgeon in James
River and to find a shorter route to Virginia. He brought news that
the old charter had been repealed, that a new one abolishing the
council in Virginia had been granted, and that Lord Delaware was
coming, at the head of a large supply of men and provisions, as sole
and absolute governor of Virginia.[8]
The calamities in the history of the colony as thus far outlined have
been attributed to the great preponderance of "gentlemen" among these
early immigrants; but afterwards when the company sent over mechanics
and laborers the story of misfortune was not much changed. The
preceding narrative shows that other causes, purposely underestimated
at the time, had far more to do with the matter. Imported diseases and
a climate singularly fatal to the new-comers, the faction-breeding
charter, the communism of labor, Indian attack, and the unreasonable
desire of the company for immediate profit afford explanations more
than sufficient. Despite the presence of some unworthy characters,
these "gentlemen" were largely composed of the "restless, pushing
material of which the pathfinders of the world have ever been made."
The ships returning from the "Second Supply" reached England in
January, 1609, and the account that they brought of the dissensions at
Jamestown convinced the officers of the London Company that the
government in Virginia needed correction. It was deemed expedient to
admit stockholders into some share of the government, and something
like a "boom" was started. Broadsides were issued by the managers,
pamphlets praising the country were published, and sermons were
delivered by eminent preachers like Rev. William Simonds and Rev.
Daniel Price. Zuñiga, the Spanish minister, was greatly disturbed, and
urgently advised his master, Philip III., to give orders to have
"these insolent people in Virginia quickly annihilated." But King
Philip was afraid of England, and contented himself with instructing
Zuñiga to keep on the watch; and thus the preparations of the London
Company went on without interruption.[9]
May 23, 1609, a new charter was granted to the company, constituting
it a corporation entirely independent of the North Virginia or
Plymouth Company. The stockholders, seven hundred and sixty-five in
number, came from every rank, profession, or trade in England, and
even included the merchant guilds in London.[10] The charter increased
the company's bounds to a tract fronting on the Atlantic Ocean, "from
the point of land called Cape, or Point, Comfort all along the
sea-coast to the northward two hundred miles, and from the point of
Cape Comfort all along the sea-coast to the southward two hundred
miles," and extending "up into the land, throughout from sea to sea,
west and northwest,"[11] a clause which subsequently caused much
dispute.
The governing power was still far from taking a popular form, being
centred in a treasurer and council, vacancies in which the company had
the right to fill. For the colonists it meant nothing more than change
of one tyranny for another, since the local government in Virginia was
made the rule of an absolute governor. For this office the council
selected one of the peers of the realm, Thomas West, Lord Delaware,
but as he could not go out at once they commissioned Sir Thomas Gates
as first governor of Virginia,[12] arming him with a code of martial
law which fixed the penalty of death for many offences.
All things being in readiness, the "Third Supply" left Falmouth, June
8, 1609, in nine ships, carrying about six hundred men, women, and
children, and in one of the ships called the _Sea Venture_ sailed the
governor, Sir Thomas Gates, and the two officers next in command, Sir
George Somers and Captain Christopher Newport.
When within one hundred and fifty leagues of the West Indies they were
caught in the tail of a hurricane, which scattered the fleet and sank
one of the ships. To keep the _Sea Venture_ from sinking, the men
bailed for three days without intermission, standing up to their
middle in water. Through this great danger they were preserved by
Somers, who acted as pilot, without taking food or sleep for three
days and nights, and kept the ship steady in the waves till she
stranded, July 29, 1609, on one of the Bermuda Islands, where the
company, one hundred and fifty in number, landed in safety. They found
the island a beautiful place, full of wild hogs, which furnished them
an abundance of meat, to which they added turtles, wild fowl, and
various fruits. How to get away was the question, and though they had
not a nail they started promptly to build two small ships, the
_Patience_ and _Deliverance_, out of the cedar which covered the
country-side. May 10, 1610, they were ready to sail with the whole
party for Jamestown, which they reached without accident May 23.[13]
At Jamestown a sad sight met their view. The place looked like "some
ancient fortification" all in ruins; the palisades were down, the
gates were off their hinges, and the church and houses were in a state
of utter neglect and desolation. Out of the ruins tottered some sixty
wretches, looking more like ghosts than human beings, and they told a
story of suffering having hardly a parallel.[14]
The energetic Captain Argall, whose arrival at Jamestown has been
already noticed, temporarily relieved the destitution there, first by
supplies which he brought from England and afterwards by sturgeon
which he caught in the river.[15] August 11, 1609, four of the
storm-tossed ships of Gates's fleet entered Hampton Roads, and not
long after three others joined them. They set on land at Jamestown
about four hundred passengers, many of them ill with the London
plague; and as it was the sickly season in Virginia, and most of their
provisions were spoiled by rain and sea-water, their arrival simply
aggravated the situation.
To these troubles, grave enough of themselves, were added dissensions
among the chief men. Ratcliffe, Martin, and Archer returned at this
time, and President Smith showed little disposition to make friends
with them or with the new-comers, and insisted upon his authority
under the old commission until Gates could be heard from. In the
wrangles that ensued, nearly all the gentlemen opposed Smith, while
the mariners on the ships took his side, and it was finally decided
that Smith should continue in the presidency till September 10, when
his term expired.[16]
Thus having temporarily settled their differences, the leaders divided
the immigrants into three parties, retaining one under Smith at
Jamestown, and sending another under John Martin to Nansemond, and a
third under Francis West to the falls of the James River. The Indians
so fiercely assailed the two latter companies that both Martin and
West soon returned. Smith was suspected of instigating these attacks,
and thus fresh quarrels broke out. About the time of the expiration of
his presidency Smith was injured by an explosion of gunpowder, and in
this condition, exasperated against Martin, Archer, and Ratcliffe of
the former council, he would neither give up the royal commission nor
lay down his office; whereupon they deposed him and elected George
Percy president.[17] When the ships departed in October, 1609, Smith
took passage for England, and thus the colony lost its strongest
character. Whatever qualifications must be made in his prejudiced
account of the colony, the positions of trust which he enjoyed after
reaching home prove that his merit does not rest solely upon his own
opinions.
Under Percy the colony went from bad to worse. Sickness soon
incapacitated him, and his advisers, Martin, Archer, Ratcliffe, and
West, were not men of ability. Probably no one could have accomplished
much good under the conditions; and though it became fashionable
afterwards in England to abuse the emigrants as a "lewd company" and
"gallants packed thither by their friends to escape worse destinies at
home," the broadsides issued by the company show that the emigrants of
the "Third Supply" were chiefly artisans of all sorts.[18] The Rev.
William Croshaw perhaps stated the case fairly in a sermon which he
preached in 1610,[19] when he said that "those who were sent over at
the company's expense were, for aught he could see, like those that
were left behind, even of all sorts, better and worse," and that the
gentlemen "who went on their own account" were "as good as the
scoffers at home, and, it may be, many degrees better."
The colonists at first made various efforts to obtain supplies; and at
President Percy's command John Ratcliffe, in October, 1609,
established a fort called Algernourne and a fishery at Point Comfort,
and in the winter of 1609-1610[20] went in a pinnace to trade with
Powhatan in York River; but was taken off his guard and slain by the
Indians with twenty-seven of his men.[21] Captain West tried to trade
also, but failing in the attempt, sailed off to England.[22] Matters
reached a crisis when the Indians killed and carried off the hogs,
drove away the deer, and laid ambushes all around the fort at
Jamestown.[23]
Finally came a period long remembered as the "Starving Time," when
corn and even roots from the swamps failed. The starving settlers
killed and ate the dogs and horses and then the mice and snakes found
about the fort. Some turned cannibals, and an Indian who had been
slain was dug out of the ground and devoured. Others crazed with
hunger dogged the footsteps of their comrades; and one man cut his
wife into pieces and ate her up, for which barbarous act he was
executed. Even religion failed to afford any consolation, and a man
threw his Bible into the fire and cried out in the market-place,
"There is no God in heaven."
Only Daniel Tucker, afterwards governor of Bermuda, seemed able to
take any thought. He built a boat and caught fish in the river, and
"this small relief did keep us from killing one another to eat," says
Percy. Out of more than five hundred colonists in Virginia in the
summer of 1609 there remained about the latter part of May, 1610, not
above sixty persons--men, women, and children--and even these were so
reduced by famine and disease that had help been delayed ten days
longer all would have perished.[24]
The arrival of Sir Thomas Gates relieved the immediate distress, and
he asserted order by the publication of the code of martial law drawn
up in England.[25] Then he held a consultation with Somers, Newport,
and Percy, and decided to abandon the settlement. As the provisions
brought from the Bermudas were only sufficient to last the company
sixteen days longer, he prepared to go to Newfoundland, where, as it
was the fishing season, he hoped to get further supplies which might
enable them to reach England.[26] Accordingly, he sent the pinnace
_Virginia_ to Fort Algernourne to take on the guard; and then embarked
(June 7, 1610) the whole party at Jamestown in the two cedar vessels
built in the Bermudas. Darkness fell upon them at Hog Island, and the
next morning at Mulberry Island they met the _Virginia_ returning up
the river, bearing a letter from Lord Delaware announcing his arrival
at Point Comfort, and commanding him to take his ships and company
back to Jamestown; which order Gates obeyed, landing at Jamestown that
very night.[27]
It seems that the reports which reached the council of the company in
England in December, of the disappearance of Sir Thomas Gates and the
ill condition of things at Jamestown, threw such a coldness over the
enterprise that they had great difficulty in fitting out the new
fleet. Nevertheless, March 2, 1610, Lord Delaware left Cowes with
three ships and one hundred and fifty emigrants, chiefly soldiers and
mechanics, with only enough "knights and gentlemen of quality" to
furnish the necessary leadership.[28]
He arrived at Point Comfort June 6; and, following Gates up the river,
reached Jamestown June 10. His first work was to cleanse and restore
the settlement, after which he sent Robert Tindall to Cape Charles to
fish, and Argall and Somers to the Bermuda Islands for a supply of hog
meat. Argall missed his way and went north to the fishing banks of
Newfoundland, while Somers died in the Bermudas.
Delaware next proceeded to settle matters with the Indians. The policy
of the company had been to treat them justly, and after the first
summer the settlers bought Jamestown Island from the Paspaheghs for
some copper,[29] and during his presidency Captain Smith purchased the
territory at the Falls.[30] For their late proceedings the Indians had
incurred the penalties of confiscation, but Lord Delaware did not like
harsh measures and sent to Powhatan to propose peace. His reply was
that ere he would consider any accommodation Lord Delaware must send
him a coach and three horses and consent to confine the English wholly
to their island territory.[31] Lord Delaware at once ordered Gates to
attack and drive Powhatan's son Pochins and his Indians from
Kecoughtan; and when this was done he erected two forts at the mouth
of Hampton River, called Charles and Henry, about a musket-shot
distance from Fort Algernourne.
No precautions, however, could prevent the diseases incident to the
climate, and during the summer no less than one hundred and fifty
persons perished of fever. In the fall Delaware concentrated the
settlers, now reduced to less than two hundred, at Jamestown and
Algernourne fort. Wishing to carry out his instructions, he sent an
expedition to the falls of James River to search for gold-mines; but,
like its predecessor, it proved a failure, and many of the men were
killed by the Indians.[32] Delaware himself fell sick, and by the
spring was so reduced that he found it necessary to leave the colony.
When he departed, March 28, 1611, the storehouse contained only enough
supplies to last the people three months at short allowance; and
probably another "Starving Time" was prevented only by the arrival of
Sir Thomas Dale, May 10, 1611.[33]
From this time till the death of Lord Delaware in 1618 the government
was administered by a succession of deputy governors, Sir Thomas
Gates, Sir Thomas Dale, Captain George Yardley, and Captain Samuel
Argall. For five years--1611-1616--of this period the ruling spirit
was Sir Thomas Dale, who had acquired a great reputation in the army
of the Netherlands as a disciplinarian. His policy in Virginia seemed
to have been the advancement of the company's profit at the expense of
the settlers, whom he pretended to regard as so abandoned that they
needed the extreme of martial law. In 1611 he restored the settlements
at forts Charles and Henry; in 1613 he founded Bermuda Hundred and
Bermuda City (otherwise called Charles Hundred and Charles City, now
City Point), and in 1614 he established a salt factory at Smith Island
near Cape Charles.[34]
In laboring at these works the men were treated like galley-slaves and
given a diet "that hogs refused to eat." As a consequence some of them
ran away, and Dale set the Indians to catch them, and when they were
brought back he burned several of them at the stake. Some attempted to
go to England in a barge, and for their temerity were shot to death,
hanged, or broken on the wheel. Although for the most part the men in
the colony at this time were old soldiers, mechanics, and workmen,
accustomed to labor, we are told that among those who perished through
Dale's cruelty were many young men "of Auncyent Houses and born to
estates of £1000 by the year,"[35] persons doubtless attracted to
Virginia by the mere love of adventure, but included by Dale in the
common slavery. Even the strenuous Captain John Smith testified
concerning Jeffrey Abbott, a veteran of the wars in Ireland and the
Netherlands, but put to death by Dale for mutiny, that "he never saw
in Virginia a more sufficient soldier, (one) less turbulent, a better
wit, (one) more hardy or industrious, nor any more forward to cut them
off that sought to abandon the country or wrong the colony."[36]
To better purpose Dale's strong hand was felt among the Indians along
the James and York rivers, whom he visited with heavy punishments. The
result was that Powhatan's appetite for war speedily diminished; and
when Captain Argall, in April, 1613, by a shrewd trick got possession
of Pocahontas, he offered peace, which was confirmed in April, 1614,
by the marriage of Pocahontas to a leading planter named John Rolfe.
The ceremony is believed to have been performed at Jamestown by Rev.
Richard Buck, who came with Gates in 1610, and it was witnessed by
several of Powhatan's kindred.[37]
Dale reached out beyond the territory of the London Company, and
hearing that the French had made settlements in North Virginia, he
sent Captain Samuel Argall in July, 1613, to remove them. Argall
reached Mount Desert Island, captured the settlement, and carried some
of the French to Jamestown, where as soon as Dale saw them he spoke of
"nothing but ropes" and of gallows and hanging "every one of them." To
make the work complete, Argall was sent out on a second expedition,
and this time he reduced the French settlements at Port Royal and St.
Croix River.[38] On his return voyage to Virginia he is said to have
stopped at the Hudson River, where, finding a Dutch trading-post
consisting of four houses on Manhattan Island, he forced the Dutch
governor likewise to submit by a "letter sent and recorded" in
Virginia. Probably in one of these voyages the Delaware River was also
visited, when the "atturnment of the Indian kings" was made to the
king of England.[39] It appears to have received its present name from
Argall in 1610.[40]
Towards the end of his stay in Virginia, Dale seemed to realize that
some change must be made in the colony, and he accordingly abolished
the common store and made every man dependent on his own labor. But
the exactions he imposed upon the settlers in return made it certain
that he did not desire their benefit so much as to save expense to his
masters in England. The "Farmers," as he called a small number to whom
he gave three acres of land to be cultivated in their own way, had to
pay two and a half barrels of corn per acre and give thirty days'
public service in every year; while the "Laborers," constituting the
majority of the colony, had to slave eleven months, and were allowed
only one month to raise corn to keep themselves supplied for a year.
The inhabitants of Bermuda Hundred counted themselves more fortunate
than the rest because they were promised their freedom in three years
and were given one month in the year and one day in the week, from May
till harvest-time, "to get their sustenance," though of this small
indulgence they were deprived of nearly half by Dale. Yet even this
slender appeal to private interest was accompanied with marked
improvement, and in 1614 Ralph Hamor, Jr., Dale's secretary of state,
wrote, "When our people were fed out of the common store and labored
jointly in the manuring of ground and planting corn, ... the most
honest of them, in a general business, would not take so much faithful
and true pains in a week as now he will do in a day."[41]
These were really dark days for Virginia, and Gondomar, the Spanish
minister, wrote to Philip III. that "here in London this colony
Virginia is in such bad repute that not a human being can be found to
go there in any way whatever."[42] Some spies of King Philip were
captured in Virginia, and Dale was much concerned lest the Spaniards
would attack the settlement, but the Spanish king and his council
thought that it would die of its own weakness, and took no hostile
measure.[43] In England the company was so discouraged that many
withdrew their subscriptions, and in 1615 a lottery was tried as a
last resort to raise money.[44]
When Dale left Virginia (May, 1616) the people were very glad to get
rid of him, and not more than three hundred and fifty-one
persons--men, women, and children--survived altogether.[45] Within a
very short time the cabins which he erected were ready to fall and the
palisades could not keep out hogs. A tract of land called the
"company's garden" yielded the company £300 annually, but this was a
meagre return for the enormous suffering and sacrifice of life.[46]
Dale took Pocahontas with him to England, and Lady Delaware presented
her at court, and her portrait engraved by the distinguished artist
Simon de Passe was a popular curiosity.[47] While in England she met
Captain John Smith, and when Smith saluted her as a princess
Pocahontas insisted on calling him father and having him call her his
child.[48]
It was at this juncture that in the cultivation of tobacco, called
"the weed" by King James, a new hope for Virginia was found. Hamor
says that John Rolfe began to plant tobacco in 1612 and his example
was soon followed generally. Dale frowned upon the new occupation, and
in 1616 commanded that no farmer should plant tobacco until he had put
down two acres of his three-acre farm in corn.[49] After Dale's
departure Captain George Yardley, who acted as deputy governor for a
year, was not so exacting. At Jamestown, in the spring of 1617, the
market-place and even the narrow margin of the streets were set with
tobacco. It was hard, indeed, to suppress a plant which brought per
pound in the London market sometimes as much as $12 in present money.
Yardley's government lasted one year, and the colony "lived in peace
and best plentye that ever it had till that time."[50]
[Footnote 1: Smith, _Works_ (Arber's ed.), 114, 130.]
[Footnote 2: Hotten, _Emigrants to America_, 245; Brown, _First
Republic_, 114.]
[Footnote 3: Smith, _Works_ (Arber's ed.), 121.]
[Footnote 4: Smith, _Works_ (Arber's ed.), 23, 125, 442, 449, 460.]
[Footnote 5: _Breife Declaration_.]
[Footnote 6: Smith, _Works_ (Arber's ed.), 133-147, 154.]
[Footnote 7: _Breife Declaration_.]
[Footnote 8: Smith, _Works_ (Arber's ed.), 159; Brown, _Genesis of the
United States_, I., 343.]
[Footnote 9: Brown, _Genesis of the United States_, I., 250-321.]
[Footnote 10: Brown, _Genesis of the United States_, I., 228.]
[Footnote 11: Hening, _Statutes_, I., 80-98; Brown, _Genesis of the
United States_, I., 206-224.]
[Footnote 12: _True and Sincere Declaration_, in Brown, _Genesis of
the United States_, I., 345.]
[Footnote 13: Purchas, _Pilgrimes_, IV., 1734-1754; _Plain Description
of the Barmudas_ (Force, _Tracts_, III., No. iii.); Brown, _Genesis of
the United States_, I., 346, 347.]
[Footnote 14: Purchas, _Pilgrimes_, IV., 1749.]
[Footnote 15: _Breife Declaration_; Brown, _Genesis of the United
States_, I., 404-406.]
[Footnote 16: Brown, _Genesis of the United States_, I., 330-332.]
[Footnote 17: Smith, _Works_ (Arber's ed.), 480-485; Archer's letter,
in Brown, _Genesis of the United States_, I., 331-332; Ratcliffe's
letter, ibid., 334-335; Brown, _First Republic_, 94-97.]
[Footnote 18: Brown, _First Republic_, 92.]
[Footnote 19: Brown, _Genesis of the United States_, I., 364.]
[Footnote 20: Smith, _Works_ (Arber's ed.), 497.]
[Footnote 21: Brown, _Genesis of the United States_, I., 483-488.]
[Footnote 22: _True Declaration_ (Force, _Tracts_, III., No. i.).]
[Footnote 23: Smith, _Works_ (Arber's ed.), 498.]
[Footnote 24: _Breife Declaration_; Percy, _Trewe Relacyon_, quoted by
Brown, _First Republic_, 94, and by Eggleston, _Beginners of a
Nation_, 39; _The Tragical Relation_, in Neill, _Virginia Company_,
407-411; _True Declaration_ (Force, _Tracts_, III., No. i.).]
[Footnote 25: _Laws Divine, Morall and Martiall_ (Force, _Tracts_,
III., No. ii.).]
[Footnote 26: Brown, _Genesis of the United States_, I., 401-415.]
[Footnote 27: Ibid., 407.]
[Footnote 28: Brown, _Genesis of the United States_, I., 400-415;
Purchas, _Pilgrimes_, IV., 1734-1756; _True Declaration_ (Force,
_Tracts_, III., No. i.).]
[Footnote 29: _True Declaration_ (Force, _Tracts_, III., No. i.).]
[Footnote 30: Spelman, in Brown, _Genesis of the United States_, I.,
483-488.]
[Footnote 31: Purchas, _Pilgrimes_, IV., 1756.]
[Footnote 32: Brown, _Genesis of the United States_, I., 490.]
[Footnote 33: _Breife Declaration_.]
[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_.]
[Illustration: 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 constitution 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 petitions 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 associated with Sir Thomas Smith in preparing a
document 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 associations--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 assembly 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 assembly,
after a prayer from Rev. Richard Buck, of Jamestown, sat six days and
did a great deal of work. Petitions 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 passed 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 passed 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 passed 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 nobility 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 accumulated 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 massacre 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 assured 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 massacre 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 quantity 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 massacre 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 Middlesex, 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
Middlesex, 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 petition 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 massacre
and hostility of the natives." This petition 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 assumed a
national and patriotic character, which entitles it to be considered
the greatest and noblest association 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 Assembly,
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 Assembly about the same time passed 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 Assembly to be levied and ymployed as
the said assembly shall appoynt." By this act Virginia formally
asserted 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.
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 petitioned 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 petition,
dated June 15, 1625, that they be permitted the right of a general
assembly, 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 assembly; and March 26, 1628, after an interval of
four years, the regular law-making body again assembled 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 massacre 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 assembly 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 constitution 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 petition 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 Petition 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 surreptitiously
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 assembly, in February, 1632, re-enacted the law of 1624
asserting 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
petition addressed to the king by the assembly 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 passion 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 assembly 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: _Assembly Journal_, 1619, in Va. State Senate
_Documents_, 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.]
[Footnote 35: In 1624 the crop was three hundred thousand pounds, the
total importations from Virginia, Bermuda, and Spain four hundred and
fifty thousand pounds, and the profit in customs to the crown was
£93,350.]
[Footnote 36: _Cal. of State Pap., Col._, 1574-1660, p. 89.]
[Footnote 37: Ibid., 88.]
[Footnote 38: Hening, _Statutes_, I., 147, II., 20.]
[Footnote 39: _Cal. of State Pap., Col._, 1574-1660, p. 133.]
[Footnote 40: Hening, _Statutes_, I., 208, 257; Mass. Hist. Soc.,
_Collections_, 4th series, IX., III.]
[Footnote 41: _Cal. of State Pap., Col._, 1574-1660, p. 130.]
[Footnote 42: _Cal. of State Pap., Col._, 1574-1660, pp. 136, 177.]
[Footnote 43: Hening, _Statutes_, I., 171.]
[Footnote 44: _Va. Magazine_, I., 416, 425, VIII., 299-306; Neill,
_Virginia Carolorum_, 118-120.]
[Footnote 45: _Cal. of State Pap., Col._, 1574-1660, pp. 216, 217.]
[Footnote 46: Wyatt's commission, in _Va. Magazine_, XI., 50-54; _Cal.
of State Pap., Col_., 1574-1674, p. 83.]
[Illustration: VIRGINIA IN 1652. Showing the Counties and Dates of
their Formation.]
CHAPTER VI
SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC CONDITIONS OF VIRGINIA
(1634-1652)
During the vicissitudes of government in Virginia the colony continued
to increase in wealth and population, and in 1634 eight counties were
created;[1] while an official census in April, 1635, showed nearly
five thousand people, to which number sixteen hundred were added in
1636. The new-comers during Harvey's time were principally servants
who came to work the tobacco-fields.[2] Among them were some convicts
and shiftless people, but the larger number were persons of
respectable standing, and some had comfortable estates and influential
connections in England.[3] Freed from their service in Virginia, not a
few attained positions as justices of the peace and burgesses in the
General Assembly.[4]
The trade of Virginia was become so extensive that Dutch as well as
English ships sought the colony. The principal settlements were on the
north side of James River, and as the voyager in 1634 sailed from
Chesapeake Bay he passed first the new fort at Point Comfort lately
constructed by Captain Samuel Matthews. About five miles farther on
was Newport News, chiefly remarkable for its spring, where all the
ships stopped to take in water, at this time the residence of Captain
Daniel Gookin, a prominent Puritan, who afterwards removed to
Massachusetts. Five miles above Newport News, at Deep Creek, was
Denbeigh, Captain Samuel Matthews's place, a miniature village rather
than plantation, where many servants were employed, hemp and flax
woven, hides tanned, leather made into shoes, cattle and swine raised
for the ships outward bound, and a large dairy and numerous poultry
kept.
A few hours' sail from Denbeigh was Littletown, the residence of
George Menifie. He had a garden of two acres on the river-side, which
was full of roses of Provence, apple, pear, and cherry trees, and the
various fruits of Holland, with different kinds of sweet-smelling
herbs, such as rosemary, sage, marjoram, and thyme. Growing around the
house was an orchard of peach-trees, which astonished his visitors
very much, for they were not to be seen anywhere else on the coast.[5]
About six miles farther was Jamestown, a village of three hundred
inhabitants, built upon two streets at the upper end of the island.
There the governor resided with some of his council, one of whom,
Captain William Pierce, had a garden of three or four acres, from
which his wife a few years before obtained a hundred bushels of
figs.[6] The houses there as elsewhere were of wood, with brick
chimneys, but architecture was improving.
In 1637 the General Assembly offered a lot to every person who should
build a house at Jamestown Island; and in pursuance of the
encouragement given, "twelve new houses and stores were built in the
town," one of brick by Richard Kempe, "the fairest ever known in this
country for substance and uniformity." About the same time money was
raised for a brick church and a brick state-house.[7] As to the
general condition of the colony in 1634, Captain Thomas Young reported
that there was not only a "very great plentie of milk, cheese, and
butter, but of corn, which latter almost every planter in the colony
hath."[8]
Such a "plentie of corn" must be contrasted with the scarcity in 1630,
for the current of prosperity did not run altogether smoothly. The
mortality still continued frightful, and "during the months of June,
July, and August, the people died like cats and dogs,"[9] a statement
especially true of the servants, of whom hardly one in five survived
the first year's hardships in the malarial tobacco-fields along the
creeks and rivers.[10] In 1630 tobacco tumbled from its high price of
3s. 6d. to 1d. per pound, and the colony was much "perplexed" for want
of money to buy corn, which they had neglected to raise. To relieve
the distress, Harvey, the next year, sent several ships to trade with
the Indians up Chesapeake Bay and on the coast as far south as Cape
Fear.[11]
Tobacco legislation for the next ten years consisted in regulations
vainly intended to prevent further declines. Tobacco fluctuated in
value from one penny to sixpence, and, as it was the general currency,
this uncertainty caused much trouble. Some idea of the general
dependency upon tobacco may be had from a statute in 1640, which,
after providing for the destruction of all the bad tobacco and half
the good, estimated the remainder actually placed upon the market by a
population of eight thousand at one million five hundred thousand
pounds.[12]
The decline in the price of tobacco had the effect of turning the
attention of the planters to other industries, especially the supply
of corn to the large emigration from England to Massachusetts. In 1631
a ship-load of corn from Virginia was sold at Salem, in Massachusetts,
for ten shillings the bushel.[13] In 1634 at least ten thousand
bushels were taken to Massachusetts, besides "good quantities of
beeves, goats, and hogs";[14] and Harvey declared that Virginia had
become "the granary of all his majesty's northern colonies,"[15] Yet
from an imported pestilence, the year 1636 was so replete with misery
that Samuel Maverick, of Massachusetts, who visited the colony,
reported that eighteen hundred persons died, and corn sold at twenty
shillings per bushel.[16]
Sir Francis Wyatt arrived in the colony, November, 1639, and
immediately called Harvey to account for his abuse of power. The
decree against Panton was repealed, and his estate, which had been
seized, was returned to him, while the property of Harvey was taken to
satisfy his numerous creditors.[17] The agitation for the renewal of
the charter still continued, and Wyatt called a general assembly
January, 1640, at which time it was determined to make another effort.
George Sandys was appointed agent of the colony in England, and
petitions reached England probably in the autumn of 1640. The breach
between the king and Parliament was then complete, and Charles had
thrown himself entirely into the arms of the court party. Sandys,
despairing of success from the king, appealed to Parliament in the
name of the "Adventurers and Planters in Virginia," and "the Virginia
patent was taken out again under the broad seal of England."[18] To
what extent the new charter established the boundaries of Virginia
does not appear, and the subsequent turn of affairs in Virginia made
the action of Parliament at this time a nullity.
To offset these proceedings, the king commissioned[19] Sir William
Berkeley, a vehement royalist, as successor to the popular Wyatt, and
he arrived in Virginia in January, 1642, where he at once called an
assembly to undo the work of Sandys. A petition to the king protesting
against the restoration of the company was adopted, but although it
was signed by the council and burgesses, as well as by Berkeley, the
preamble alludes to strong differences of opinion.[20] The change of
position was doubtless brought about by the issue made in England
between loyalty and rebellion; and, while desirous of a recharter, the
majority of the people of Virginia did not care to desert the king.
The petition was presented July 5, 1642, to Charles at his
headquarters at York, who returned a gracious reply that "he had not
the least intention to consent to the introduction of any
company."[21]
While loyal to the king, the people of Virginia had never been wedded
to the views of the high-church party in England. Among the ministers
the surplice was not usual, and there was a Puritan severity about the
laws in regard to the Sabbath and attendance at church. As the strife
in England became more pronounced, the people in Nansemond and lower
Norfolk counties, on the south of the James, showed decided leanings
towards Parliament and to the congregational form of worship.
Soon they began to think of separating from the church of England
altogether, and they sent for ministers to New England in 1642. In
response, the elders there despatched three of their number, who,
arriving in Virginia, set zealously to work to organize the
congregations on the Nansemond and Elizabeth rivers. According to
their own account, these ministers met with much success till they
were suddenly stopped in the work by Berkeley, who persuaded the
assembly, in March, 1643, to pass severe laws against Nonconformists;
and under this authority drove them out of the land in 1644.[22]
In the same year occurred an Indian attack which these preachers and
John Winthrop, the governor of Massachusetts, thought to be a special
visitation of Providence. After the massacre in 1622 the war with the
Indians had continued in a desultory way for over twelve years. Year
after year squads of soldiers were sent in various directions against
the different tribes, and by 1634 the Indians were so punished that
the whites thought it safe to make peace. Now, after a repose of ten
years, the fierce instincts of the savages for blood were once more
excited.
April 18, 1644, was Good Friday, and Governor Berkeley ordered it to
be kept as a special fast day to pray for King Charles; instead, it
became a day of bloodshed and mourning.[23] The chief instigator of
the massacre of 1622 was still alive, old Opechancanough, who, by the
death of his brother Opitchapam, was now head chief of the Powhatan
Confederacy. Thinking the civil war in England a favorable occasion to
repeat the bloody deeds of twenty-two years before, on the day before
Good Friday he attacked the settlers, and continued the assault for
two days, killing over three hundred whites. The onslaught fell
severest on the south side of James River and on the heads of the
other rivers, but chiefly on the York River, where Opechancanough had
his residence.[24]
The massacre of 1622 shook the colony to its foundation, and it is
surprising to see how little that of 1644 affected the current of life
in Virginia. Berkeley seemed to think so little of the attack that
after making William Claiborne general of an expedition against the
Pamunkey tribe he left the colony in June, 1645.[25] He was gone a
whole year, and on his return found that Claiborne had driven the
Indians far away from the settlements. In 1646 he received information
which enabled him to close the war with dramatic effect. At the head
of a body of cavalry he surprised old Opechancanough in an encampment
between the falls of the Appomattox and the James, and brought him,
aged and blind, to Jamestown, where, about three weeks later, one of
his guards shot him to death.[26] A peace was made not long after with
Necotowance, his successor, by which the Indians agreed to retire
entirely from the peninsula between the York and James rivers.[27]
One of the most remarkable results of the massacre was the change it
produced in Rev. Thomas Harrison, Berkeley's chaplain at Jamestown,
who had used his influence with the governor to expel the
Nonconformist ministers of New England. He came to the belief of John
Winthrop that the massacre was a Providential visitation and turned
Puritan himself. After a quarrel with Berkeley he left Jamestown and
took charge of the churches on the Elizabeth and Nansemond rivers with
their Puritan congregations. Berkeley would probably have set the
law-officers upon him at once, but among his councillors was Richard
Bennett, himself of Harrison's congregation, and his influence held
the governor back for a time.
Three years passed, and at length Harrison and his elder, William
Durand, were peremptorily directed to leave the colony. Harrison went
first to New England and then to old England, while William Durand
emigrated to Maryland, where, aided by Bennett, he made terms with
Governor William Stone for the emigration of his flock; and in the
year 1649 more than one thousand persons left Virginia and settled on
the Severn and Patuxent rivers. The settlement was called Providence,
and was destined to play a remarkable part in the history of
Maryland.[28]
When the civil war in England was fairly on, emigration to Virginia
was much improved in material, and for many years was very large. The
new-comers came to make homes, not merely to make tobacco, and they no
longer consisted of servants, but of the merchants and yeomanry of
England. "If these troublous times hold long amongst us," wrote
William Hallam, a salter of Burnham, in Essex County, England, "we
must all faine come to Virginia."[29]
Hitherto the uncertainty resulting from the overthrow of the charter
made it difficult to secure a good class of ministers. Those who came
had been "such as wore black coats and could babble in a pulpet, and
roare in a tavern, exact from their parishioners, and rather by their
dissolutenesse destroy than feed their flocks." Now these "wolves in
sheep's clothing" were by the assembly forced to depart the country
and a better class of clergymen arrived.[30] In 1649 there were twenty
churches and twenty ministers who taught the doctrines of the church
of England and "lived all in peace and love";[31] and at the head of
them was a roan of exemplary piety, Rev. Philip Mallory, son of Dr.
Thomas Mallory, Dean of Chester.[32]
The condition of things about 1648 is thus summed up by Hammond, a
contemporary writer: "Then began the gospel to flourish; civil,
honorable, and men of great estates flocked in; famous buildings went
forward; orchards innumerable were planted and preserved; tradesmen
set to work and, encouraged, staple commodities, as silk, flax,
potashes attempted on.... So that this country, which had a mean
beginning, many back friends, two ruinous and bloody massacres, hath
by God's grace outgrown all, and is become a place of pleasure and
plenty."
Later, after the beheading of King Charles in 1649, there was a large
influx of cavaliers, who, while they raised the quality of society,
much increased the sympathy felt in Virginia for the royal cause.
Under their influence Sir William Berkeley denounced the murder of
King Charles I., and the General Assembly adopted an act making it
treason to defend the late proceedings or to doubt the right of his
son, Charles II., to succeed to the crown.[33] Parliament was not long
in accepting the challenge which Berkeley tendered. In October, 1650,
they adopted an ordinance prohibiting trade with the rebellious
colonies of Virginia, Barbadoes, Antigua, and Bermuda Islands, and
authorizing the Council of State to take measures to reduce them to
terms.[34]
In October, 1651, was passed the first of the navigation acts, which
limited the colonial trade to England, and banished from Virginia the
Dutch vessels, which carried abroad most of the exports. About the
same time, having taken measures against Barbadoes, the Council of
State ordered a squadron to be prepared against Virginia. It was
placed under the command of Captain Robert Dennis; and Thomas Stegge,
Richard Bennett, and William Claiborne, members of Berkeley's council,
were joined with him in a commission[35] to "use their best endeavors
to reduce all the plantations within the Bay of Chesopiack." Bennett
and Claiborne were in Virginia at the time, and probably did not know
of their appointment till the ships arrived in Virginia.
The fleet left England in October, 1651, carrying six hundred men, but
on the way Captain Dennis and Captain Stegge were lost in a storm and
the command devolved on Captain Edmund Curtis.[36] In December they
reached the West Indies, where they assisted Sir George Ayscue in the
reduction of Barbadoes. In January, 1652, they reached Virginia, where
Curtis showed Claiborne and Bennett his duplicate instructions.
Berkeley, full of fight, called out the militia, twelve hundred
strong, and engaged the assistance of a few Dutch ships then trading
in James River contrary to the recent navigation act.
The commissioners acted with prudence and good sense. They did not
proceed at once to Jamestown, but first issued a proclamation intended
to disabuse the people of any idea that they came to make war.[37] The
result was that in March, 1652, when they appeared before the little
capital, the council and burgesses overruled Berkeley, and entered
into an agreement with Curtis, Claiborne, and Bennett, which proves
the absence of hard feelings on both sides. The Virginians recognized
the authority of the commonwealth of England, and promised to pass no
statute contrary to the laws of Parliament. On the other hand, the
commissioners acknowledged the submission of Virginia, "as a voluntary
act not forced nor constrained by a conquest upon the countrey"; and
conceded her right "to be free from all taxes, customs, and
impositions whatever, not enforced by the General Assembly." In
particular it was stipulated that "Virginia should have and enjoy the
antient bounds and lymitts granted by the charters of the former
kings."
The articles were signed March 12, 1652, and the commissioners soon
after sailed to St. Mary's and received the surrender of Maryland.
They returned in time to be present at a new meeting of the assembly
held at Jamestown in April, at which it was unanimously voted that
until the further pleasure of Parliament was known Richard Bennett
should be governor and William Claiborne secretary of state. To the
burgesses, as the representatives of the people, was handed over the
supreme power of thereafter electing all officers of the colony.[38]
Then Virginia, the last of the British dominions to abandon the king,
entered upon eight years of almost complete self-government, under the
protection of the commonwealth of England.
In 1652 the settlements in Virginia were embraced in thirteen
counties, of which Northampton, on the Accomack Peninsula, extended to
the southern boundary of Maryland. On the James River were nine
counties: Henrico, Charles City, James City, Surry, Warwick,
Warascoyack, or Isle of Wight, Elizabeth City, Nansemond, and Lower
Norfolk. On York River were York County on the south side and
Gloucester on the north side.[39] On the Rappahannock was Lancaster
County, extending on both sides of the river from Pianketank to
Dividing Creek in the Northern Neck; and on the Potomac was the county
of Northumberland, first settled about 1638 at Chicacoan and
Appomattox on the Potomac, by refugees from Maryland.[40]
Towards the south the plantations, following the watercourses, had
spread to the heads of the creeks and rivers, tributaries of the
James, and some persons more adventurous than the rest had even made
explorations in North Carolina.[41] Westward the extension was, of
course, greatest along the line of the James, reaching as far as the
Falls where Richmond now stands. The population was probably about
twenty thousand, of whom as many as five thousand were white servants
and five hundred were negroes.
The houses throughout the colony were generally of wood, a story and a
half high, and were roofed with shingles. The chimneys were of brick,
and the wealthier people lived in houses constructed wholly of
home-made brick.[42] "They had, besides, good English furniture" and a
"good store of plate." By ordinary labor at making tobacco any person
could clear annually £20 sterling, the equivalent of $500 to-day. The
condition of the servants had greatly improved, and their labor was
not so hard nor of such continuance as that of farmers and mechanics
in England. Thefts were seldom committed, and an old writer asserts
that "he was an eye-witness in England to more deceits and villanies
in four months than he ever saw or heard mention of in Virginia in
twenty years abode there."[43]
The plenty of everything made hospitality universal, and the health of
the country was greatly promoted by the opening of the forests.
Indeed, so contented were the people with their new homes that the
same writer declares, "Seldom (if ever) any that hath continued in
Virginia any time will or do desire to live in England, but post back
with what expedition they can, although many are landed men in
England, and have good estates there, and divers wayes of preferments
propounded to them to entice and perswade their continuance."
In striking contrast to New England was the absence of towns, due
mainly to two reasons--first, the wealth of watercourses, which
enabled every planter of means to ship his products from his own
wharf; and, secondly, the culture of tobacco, which scattered the
people in a continual search for new and richer lands. This rural
life, while it hindered co-operation, promoted a spirit of
independence among the whites of all classes which counteracted the
aristocratic form of government. The colony was essentially a
democracy, for though the chief offices in the counties and the colony
at large were held by a few families, the people were protected by a
popular House of Burgesses, which till 1736 was practically
established on manhood suffrage. Negro slavery tended to increase this
independence by making race and not wealth the great distinction; and
the ultimate result was seen after 1792, when Virginia became the
headquarters of the Democratic-Republican party--the party of popular
ideas.[44]
Under the conditions of Virginia society, no developed educational
system was possible, but it is wrong to suppose that there was none.
The parish institutions introduced from England included educational
beginnings; every minister had a school, and it was the duty of the
vestry to see that all poor children could read and write. The county
courts supervised the vestries and held a yearly "orphans' court,"
which looked after the material and educational welfare of all
orphans.[45]
The benevolent design of a free school in the colony, frustrated by
the massacre of 1622, was realized in 1635, when--three years before
John Harvard bequeathed his estate to the college near Boston which
bears his name--Benjamin Syms left "the first legacy by a resident of
the American plantations of England for the promotion of
education."[46] In 1659 Thomas Eaton established[47] a free school in
Elizabeth City County, adjoining that of Benjamin Syms; and a fund
amounting to $10,000, representing these two ancient charities, is
still used to carry on the public high-school at Hampton, Virginia. In
1655 Captain John Moon left a legacy for a free school in Isle of
Wight County; and in 1659 Captain William Whittington left two
thousand pounds of tobacco for a free school in Northampton County.
[Footnote 1: Hening, _Statutes_, I., 224.]
[Footnote 2: _Cal. of State Pap., Col._, 1574-1660, pp. 201, 231,
268.]
[Footnote 3: _William and Mary Quarterly_, IV., 173-176, V., 40.]
[Footnote 4: _Virginia's Cure_ (Force, _Tracts_, III., No. xv.).]
[Footnote 5: De Vries, _Voyages_ (N.Y. Hist. Soc., _Collections_, 2d
series, III., 34).]
[Footnote 6: Smith, _Works_ (Arber's ed.), 887.]
[Footnote 7: _Cal. of State Pap., Col._, 1574-1660, p. 288. In 1639
Alexander Stonar, brickmaker, patented land on Jamestown Island "next
to the brick-kiln," Tyler, _Cradle of the Republic_, 46, 99.]
[Footnote 8: Mass. Hist. Soc., _Collections_, 4th series, IX., 108.]
[Footnote 9: De Vries, _Voyages_ (N.Y. Hist. Soc., _Collections_, 2d
series, III., 37)]
[Footnote 10: _William and Mary Quarterly_, VII., 66, 114.]
[Footnote 11: _Cal. of State Pap., Col._, 1574-1660, p. 117.]
[Footnote 12: Hening, _Statutes_, I., 225.]
[Footnote 13: Winthrop, _New England_, I., 67.]
[Footnote 14: Mass. Hist. Soc., _Collections_, 4th series, IX., 110.]
[Footnote 15: _Cal. of State Pap., Col._, 1574-1660, p. 184.]
[Footnote 16: Winthrop, _New England_, I., 228.]
[Footnote 17: _Va. Magazine_, V., 123-128.]
[Footnote 18: _Virginia and Maryland, or the Lord Baltimore's Printed
Case, uncased and answered_ (Force, _Tracts_, II, No. ix.).]
[Footnote 19: _Va. Magazine_, II., 281-288.]
[Footnote 20: Hening, _Statutes_, I., 230-235.]
[Footnote 21: _Manuscript Collection of Annals relating to Virginia_
(Force, _Tracts_, II., No. vi.).]
[Footnote 22: Latané, _Early Relations between Maryland and Virginia_
(_Johns Hopkins University Studies_, XIII., Nos. iii. and iv.).]
[Footnote 23: Winthrop, _New England_, III, 198, 199].
[Footnote 24: Ibid.; Beverley, _Virginia_, 48.]
[Footnote 25: _Va. Magazine_, VIII., 71-73.]
[Footnote 26: _A Perfect Description of Virginia_ (Force, _Tracts_,
II., No. viii.); Beverley, _Virginia_, 49.]
[Footnote 27: Hening, _Statutes_, I., 323-326.]
[Footnote 28: Latané, _Early Relations_ (_Johns Hopkins University
Studies_, XIII.).]
[Footnote 29: _William and Mary Quarterly_, VIII., 239.]
[Footnote 30: Hammond, _Leah and Rachel_ (Force, _Tracts_, III., No.
xiv.).]
[Footnote 31: _Perfect Description_ (ibid., II., No. viii.).]
[Footnote 32: Neill, _Virginia Carolorum_, 238; Tyler, _Cradle of the
Republic_, 90.]
[Footnote 33: Hening, _Statutes_, I., 359-361.]
[Footnote 34: _Cal. of State Pap., Col._, 1574-1660, p. 343.]
[Footnote 35: _Md. Archives_, III., 265-267.]
[Footnote 36: _Cal. of State Pap., Col._, 1574-1660, p. 393.]
[Footnote 37: See report of the commissioners, _Va. Magazine_, XI.,
32.]
[Footnote 38: Hening, _Statutes_, I., 363, 371.]
[Footnote 39: Virginia Land Grants, _MSS_.]
[Footnote 40: _Md. Archives_, IV., 268, 315.]
[Footnote 41: Bancroft, _United States_ (22d ed.), II, 134.]
[Footnote 42: Tyler, "Colonial Brick Houses," in _Century Magazine_,
February, 1896.]
[Footnote 43: Hammond, _Leah and Rachel_ (Force, _Tracts_, III., No.
xiv.).]
[Footnote 44: Tyler, "Virginians Voting in the Colonial Period," in
_William and Mary Quarterly_, VI., 9.]
[Footnote 45: "Education in Colonial Virginia," _William and Mary
Quarterly_, V., 219-223, VI., 1-7, 71-86, 171-186, VII., 1-9, 65, 77.]
[Footnote 46: Neill, _Virginia Carolorum_, 112.]
[Footnote 47: "Eaton's Deed," in _William and Mary Quarterly_, XI,
19.]
CHAPTER VII
FOUNDING OF MARYLAND
(1632-1650)
The founding of Maryland was due chiefly to the personal force of
George Calvert, first Lord Baltimore, son of Leonard Calvert. He was
born near Kiplin, in Yorkshire, about 1580, and graduated at Trinity
College, Oxford, 1597. After making a tour of Europe he became the
private secretary of Sir Robert Cecil, who rapidly advanced his
fortunes. He served upon several missions to investigate the affairs
of Ireland, was knighted in 1617, and in 1619 succeeded Sir Thomas
Lake as principal secretary of state.
In this office he began to revolve plans of colonization in America,
to which his attention was directed as a member of the Virginia
Company since 1609. In 1620 he bought from Sir William Vaughan the
southeastern peninsula of Newfoundland, known as Ferryland, and the
next year sent some colonists thither. He supported the Spanish match;
and when Charles changed his policy he obtained from the king in 1623
a charter for his province, which he called Avalon. In 1625 he
resigned his secretaryship and openly avowed his adherence to the
church of Rome; but the king, as a mark of favor, raised him to the
Irish peerage, with the title of Baron of Baltimore, after a small
town of that name in Ireland.[1]
Baltimore returned to his plans of colonization, and in 1627 went to
Newfoundland with his wife and children. But the country proved too
cold for him and he determined to "shift" to a warmer climate.
Accordingly, in August, 1629, he wrote to the king for a "grant of a
precinct of land in Virginia," with the same privileges as those which
King James gave him in Newfoundland.[2] Without waiting for a reply he
left Avalon, and in October, 1629, arrived in Virginia, where the
governor, Dr. John Pott, and his council received him politely but
coldly. Neither his religion nor his past career as a court favorite,
nor the design which he made known of establishing an independent
state within the confines of Virginia, commended him to the people of
Jamestown.
Naturally, they wished to get rid of him, and the council tendered him
the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, which, in the various
instructions from the king, they were strictly enjoined to require of
all new-comers. The oath of allegiance occasioned no difficulty, but
the oath of supremacy, which required Baltimore to swear that he
believed the king to be "the only supreme governor in his realm in all
spiritual or ecclesiastical things or causes," was repugnant to him as
a Catholic, and he declined to take it, but offered to subscribe to a
modified form. This was refused, and after several weeks' sojourn Lord
Baltimore sailed away to England to press his suit in person before
the king.[3]
So far as the law of England stood at that time, the effect of the
dissolution of the London Company was to extinguish the debts of the
corporation and vest all its property undisposed of in the crown. On
the other hand, there were the repeated official pledges of Charles
and his father not to disturb the interest of either planter or
adventurer in any part of the territory formerly conveyed by the
charter of 1609.[4] Nevertheless, the king preferred law to equity,
and October 30, 1629, granted to Sir Robert Heath the province of
Carolana in the southern part of Virginia, between thirty-one and
thirty-six degrees.[5] But there was a clause in this charter
excepting any land "actually granted or in possession of any of his
majesty's subjects."
About the same time Cottington, the secretary of state, was directed
to answer Lord Baltimore's letter written from Newfoundland and
promise him "any part of Virginia not already granted." Lord Baltimore
arrived in London soon after this letter was written, and in December,
1629, petitioned to be permitted to "choose for his part" a tract
south of James River and north of Carolana. A charter was made out for
him in February, 1631, and would have passed the seals but for the
intervention of William Claiborne, one of those Virginia councillors
who had offered the oath to Baltimore.[6]
William Claiborne, the second son of Sir Edward Claiborne, of
Westmoreland County, England, went over to Virginia with Governor
Wyatt in 1621 as surveyor-general of the colony. Shortly afterwards he
was made a councillor, and in 1625 secretary of state of the colony.
In the Indian war, which began with the massacre in 1622, he was
appointed general, and in 1629 received lands in the Pamunkey Neck for
valuable military service. Active and fearless, he engaged with great
success in the trade for furs in the bay, and was recognized as the
foremost man in Virginia. Sent in May, 1630, by the Virginia council
to watch the movements of Lord Baltimore, he co-operated in England
with ex-Governor Francis West, of Virginia, Sir John Wolstenholme, and
other gentlemen who wished the restoration of the London Company.
Aided by these friends, Claiborne defeated the proposed grant, but
Baltimore persevered, and, in April, 1632, received from the crown a
patent for a portion of the Virginia territory lying north of Point
Comfort, and having for bounds the ocean, the fortieth parallel of
north latitude, the meridian of the western fountain of the Potomac,
the southern bank of the Potomac River, and a line drawn east from
Watkins Point. In the grant the land was described as "hitherto
unsettled and occupied only by barbarians ignorant of God." The king
first proposed to call it Mariana, in honor of his wife, Henrietta
Maria, but on Baltimore objecting that it was the name of a Spanish
historian who had written against the doctrine of passive obedience,
Charles modified the appellation, and said, "Let it be called Terra
Mariæ--Maryland."[7]
April 15, 1632, George Calvert died, and the charter was made out in
the name of his eldest son, Cecilius, and was signed by the king, June
20, 1632. Cecilius Calvert, named after Sir Robert Cecil, was born in
1605, and in 1621 entered Trinity College, Oxford University. He
married Anne Arundel, daughter of Lord Thomas Arundel, of Wardour. As
Cecilius, unlike his father, never held public positions in England,
his character is best revealed by his conduct of his province in
America, which shows him to have been a man of consummate prudence and
tact.
Baltimore's grant called forth a strong remonstrance from members of
the Virginia Company and all the leading planters in Virginia,
including Claiborne. The matter was referred by the king to the
Commissioners for Foreign Plantations, who heard the complaint, and
July 3, 1633, decided to "leave Lord Baltimore to his patent" and "the
other partie to the course of the law."[8] This certainly meant a
decision against the wholesale claim of Virginia to the ancient
limits, and was deemed by Lord Baltimore as authorizing him to go on
with his settlement; and his patent authorized a form of government
entirely different from anything yet tried in America.
The English colonies of Virginia and Massachusetts were founded by
joint-stock companies really or ostensibly for profit. After the
suppression of the London Company in 1624, the powers of government in
Virginia devolved upon the king, and the government was called a crown
government. Had Charles been a Spanish or French king he would have
appointed an absolute governor who would have tyrannized over the
people. But Charles, as an English king, admitted the colonists into a
share of the government by permitting them to elect one of the
branches of the law-making body. This concession effectually secured
the liberties of the people, for the House of Burgesses, possessing
the sole right to originate laws, became in a short time the most
influential factor of the government.
Baltimore's government for Maryland, on the other hand, was to be a
palatinate similar to the bishopric of Durham, in England, which took
its origin when border warfare with Scotland prevailed, and the king
found it necessary to invest the bishop, as ruler of the county, with
exceptionally high powers for the protection of the kingdom. Durham
was the solitary surviving instance in England of the county
palatinate, so called because the rulers had in their counties _jura
regalia_ as fully as the king had in his palace. In Durham the bishop
had the sole power of pardoning offences, appointing judges and other
officers, coining money, and granting titles of honor and creating
courts. In the other counties of England all writs ran in the king's
name, but in Durham they ran in the bishop's. The county had no
representation in the House of Commons, and were it not that the
bishop was a member of the House of Lords, an officer of the church,
paid taxes into the national treasury, and had to submit to appeals to
the court of exchequer in London, in cases to which he was a party, he
was, to all intents and purposes, a king, and his county an
independent nation.
Baltimore by his charter was made even more independent of the king of
England than the bishop, for neither he nor his province had any taxes
to pay into the British treasury, and he held his territory in free
and common socage by the delivery of two Indian arrows yearly at the
palace of Windsor and a promise of the fifth part of all gold and
silver mined. In legislation the bishop had decidedly the advantage,
for his power to make law was practically uncontrolled, while the
proprietor of Maryland could only legislate "with the advice, assent,
and approbation of the freemen or the greater part of them or their
representatives."[9]
One cardinal feature of Lord Baltimore's colony found no expression
either in the government of Durham or in his own charter. On their
liberality in the question of religion the fame of both George and
Cecilius Calvert most securely rests. While neither realized the
sacredness of the principle of religious freedom, there is no doubt
that both father and son possessed a liberality of feeling which
placed them ahead of their age. Had policy been solely their motive,
they would never have identified themselves with a persecuted and
powerless sect in England. In the charter of Maryland, Baltimore was
given "the patronage and advowsons of all churches which, with the
increasing worship and religion of Christ within the said region,
hereafter shall happen to be built, together with the license and
faculty of erecting and founding churches, chapels, and places of
worship in convenient and suitable places within the premises, and of
causing the same to be dedicated and consecrated according to the
ecclesiastical laws of England." This clause was far from establishing
religious freedom; but while it permitted Baltimore to found Anglican
churches, it did not compel him to do so or prohibit him from
permitting the foundation of churches of a different stamp.
About the middle of October, 1633, Baltimore's two ships got under way
for America--the _Ark_, of three hundred tons, and the _Dove_, of
sixty tons. The emigrants consisted of twenty gentlemen and about
three hundred laborers; and, while most of the latter were
Protestants, the governor, Leonard Calvert, brother of Lord Baltimore,
was a Catholic, as were Thomas Cornwallis and Gabriel Harvey, the two
councillors associated with him in the government, and the other
persons of influence on board. Among the latter were two Jesuit
priests, to one of whom, Father Andrew White, we owe a charming
account of the voyage. Baltimore, in his written instructions to his
brother, manifested his policy of toleration, by directing him to
allow no offence to be given to any Protestant on board, and to cause
Roman Catholics to be silent "upon all occasions of discourse
concerning matters of religion."[10]
The expedition did not get away from England without trouble. The
attempt to divide the territory of Virginia was not popular, and
Catholics were looked upon as dangerous persons. The effort of the
emigrants to sail without subscribing the necessary oaths caused the
ships to be brought back by Admiral Pennington.[11] It was not until
November 22, 1633, that they got off, and the ships took the old route
to Virginia--by way of the West Indies.
February 27, 1634, they reached Point Comfort, where the king's letter
addressed to Sir John Harvey insured them a kind reception. Here they
learned that the Indians of the Potomac were excited over a rumor that
they were Spaniards coming to subdue the country. After a stay of
eight or nine days for fresh provisions the emigrants set sail up
Chesapeake Bay and soon entered the Potomac River, "in comparison with
which the Thames seemed a rivulet." At its mouth they saw natives on
shore in arms, and at night their watch-fires blazed throughout the
country.
March 25 the settlers landed on St. Clement's Island and erected a
cross. Then leaving the _Ark_ with most of the passengers, Governor
Calvert, with the _Dove_, and a pinnace bought at Point Comfort,
explored the river and made friends with the Indians. He found that
they all acknowledged the sovereignty of the "emperor of Piscataqua,"
who, relieved of his apprehensions, gave them permission to settle in
the country. The final choice of a seating-place was due to Captain
Henry Fleet, a well-known member of the Virginia colony, who guided
them up St. George's River, about nine miles from its juncture with
the Potomac; and there, on its north bank, March 27, 1634, Leonard
Calvert laid out the city of St. Mary's.[12]
Though we have little record of the early social and economic
conditions of the settlers, the colony appears to have been remarkably
free from the sufferings and calamities that befell the Virginians.
This exemption was probably due to the following causes: there was no
common stock, but the property was held in severalty; there was a
proper proportion of gentlemen and laborers, few of one class and many
of the other; Virginia was near at hand and provisions and cattle
could be easily secured; and they had immediate use of Indian-cleared
fields, because when they arrived at St. Mary's, the Yaocomocos,
harassed by the Susquehannas, were on the point of removing across the
Potomac to Virginia, and were glad to sell what they had ceased to
value. It seems, too, that Maryland was healthier than Virginia.
Hence, the very first year they had an excellent crop of corn, and
sent a ship-load to New England to exchange for salt fish and other
provisions.[13] Imitating the example of the Virginians, they began
immediately to plant tobacco, which, as in Virginia, became the
currency and leading product. Its cultivation caused the importation
of a great number of servants, "divers of very good rank and
quality,"[14] who, after a service of four or five years, became
freemen. In the assembly of 1638 several of the servants in the first
emigration took their seats as burgesses. As the demand for houses and
casks for tobacco was great, a good many carpenters and coopers came
out at their own expense and received shares of land by way of
encouragement.
A state of society developed similar in many respects to that in
Virginia. Baltimore, accustomed to the type of life in England,
expected the settlements in Maryland to grow into towns and cities;
and, under this impression, in January, 1638, he erected the
population on the south side of St. George's River into a "hundred,"
and afterwards created other hundreds in other parts of the colony.
But the wealth of watercourses and the cultivation of tobacco caused
the population to scatter, and made society from the first distinctly
agricultural and rural. St. Mary's and St. George's Hundred, in
Maryland, shared the fate of Jamestown and Bermuda Hundred, in
Virginia, and no stimulus of legislation could make them grow.
The application of the powers of the palatinate intensified these
conditions by creating an agricultural and landed aristocracy. There
was a council like that in Durham, whose members, appointed by the
lord proprietor, held all the great offices of state.
Outside of the council the most important officer was the sheriff,
who, like the sheriff of Durham, executed the commands of the governor
and the courts, of which there were (in addition to the council) the
county court and the manorial courts, answering respectively to the
court of quarter-sessions and the courts baron and leet in Durham. As
for the manorial courts, feudal relicts transplanted to America, they
sprang from Lord Baltimore's attempt to build up an aristocracy like
that which attended upon the bishop in his palace in Durham. In his
"Conditions for Plantations," August 8, 1636, after providing
liberally for all who brought emigrants to the colony, he directed
that every one thousand acres or greater quantity so given to any
adventurer "should be erected into a manor with a court-baron and
court-leet to be from time to time held within every such manor
respectively."
There were many grants of one thousand acres or more, and Maryland
"lords of the manor" became quite common. These "lords" were the
official heads of numerous tenants and leaseholders who were settled
on their large estates. Yet the manor, as a free-governing community,
was a stronghold of liberty. At the courts baron and leet the tenants
elected the minor officers, tried offences, and made by-laws for their
own government. Later, when negroes substituted white laborers, these
feudal manors changed to plantations worked by slaves instead of free
tenants.[15]
Even great office-holders and a landed aristocracy were insufficient
to sustain the regal dignity to which Lord Baltimore aspired.
Apparently, his right of initiating legislation and dictating the
make-up of the assembly ought to have been sufficient. But political
and social equality sprang from the very conditions of life in the New
World; and despite the veneering of royalty, Maryland came soon to be
a government of the people. The struggle began in the assembly which
met in February, 1635, but not much is known of the proceedings of
this assembly beyond the fact that it assumed the initiative and drew
up a code to which Lord Baltimore refused his assent.
Of subsequent assemblies the record is copious enough. Lord Baltimore
had the right under his charter to summon "all the freemen, or the
greater part of them, or their representatives," and thus for a long
time there was a curious jumble of anomalies, which rendered the
assembly peculiarly sensitive to governmental influence. The second
assembly met at St. Mary's, January 25, 1638, and consisted of the
governor and council, freemen specially summoned, freemen present of
their own volition, and proxies.[16] Governor Calvert submitted a code
of laws sent from Lord Baltimore, and it was rejected by a vote of
thirty-seven to fourteen; but twelve of the minority votes were in two
hands, the governor and Secretary Lewger, an illustration of the
danger of the proxy system.
Not long after, in a letter August 21, 1638, the proprietor yielded by
authorizing Leonard in the future to consent to laws enacted by the
freemen, which assent should temporarily make them valid until his own
confirmation or rejection should be received. To the next assembly,
held February 25, 1639, Leonard Calvert, instead of summoning all the
freemen, issued writs to different hundreds for the election of
representatives.
Among the laws which they enacted was one limiting seats in the
assembly to councillors, persons specially summoned by the
proprietor's writ, and burgesses elected by the people of the
different hundreds. This law controlled the make-up of the next four
assemblies (October, 1640, August, 1641, March and July, 1642).
Nevertheless, in September, 1642, Baltimore reverted to the old
practice.
In 1649 Baltimore made another and last attempt for his initiative. He
sent over a learned and complicated code of sixteen laws which he
asked the assembly to adopt; but they rejected his work and sent him a
code of their own, begging him in their letter not to send them any
more such "bodies of laws, which served to little end than to fill our
heads with jealousies and suspicions of that which we verily
understand not." The next year, 1650, a constitutional system was
perfected not very different from the plan adopted in the
mother-country and Virginia. The assembly was divided into two
chambers, the lower consisting exclusively of burgesses representing
the different hundreds, and the upper of the councillors and those
specially summoned by the governor.[17]
[Footnote 1: Brown, _Genesis of the United States_, II., 841.]
[Footnote 2: _Cal. of State Pap., Col._, 1574-1660, pp. 83, 93, 100.]
[Footnote 3: _Cal. of State Pap., Col._, 1574-1660, p. 104; _Md.
Archives_, III., 17.]
[Footnote 4: _Md. Archives_, III., 19.]
[Footnote 5: Heath's grant, in _Cal. of State Pap., Col._, 1574-1674,
p. 70.]
[Footnote 6: Neill, _Founders of Maryland_, 46, 47.]
[Footnote 7: Neill, _Terra Mariæ_, 53; Ogilby, _America_, 183.]
[Footnote 8: _Md. Archives_, III., 21.]
[Footnote 9: Fiske, _Old Virginia and Her Neighbors_; Bassett,
_Constitutional Beginnings of North Carolina_; Lapsley, _County
Palatinate of Durham_.]
[Footnote 10: _Calvert Papers_ (Md. Hist. Soc., _Fund Publications_,
No. 28), p. 132.]
[Footnote 11: _Md. Archives_, III., 23.]
[Footnote 12: White, _Relation_ (Force, _Tracts_, IV., No. xii.);
letter of Leonard Calvert, _Calvert Papers_ (Md. Hist. Soc., _Fund
Publications_, No. 35), pp. 32-35; Baltimore, _Relation_ (London,
1635).]
[Footnote 13: Winthrop, _New England_, I., 166.]
[Footnote 14: Neill, _Founders of Maryland_, 80.]
[Footnote 15: Johnson, _Old Maryland Manors (Johns Hopkins University
Studies_, I., No. iii.).]
[Footnote 16: _Md. Archives_, I., 1-24.]
[Footnote 17: _Md. Archives_, I., 32, 74, 243, 272.]
[Illustration: MARYLAND IN 1652]
CHAPTER VIII
CONTENTIONS IN MARYLAND
(1633-1652)
The delay in the constitutional adjustment of Maryland, while mainly
attributable to the proprietors, was partially due to the prolonged
struggle with Virginia, which for years absorbed nearly all the
energies of the infant community. The decision of the Commissioners
for Foreign Plantations in July, 1633, disallowing the Virginia claim
to unoccupied lands, was construed by the Virginians to mean that the
king at any rate intended to respect actual possession. Now, prior to
the Maryland charter, colonization in Virginia was stretching
northward. In 1630, Chiskiack, on the York River, was settled; and in
August, 1631, Claiborne planted a hundred men on Kent Island, one
hundred and fifty miles from Jamestown.[1]
Though established under a license from the king for trade, Kent
Island had all the appearance of a permanent settlement. Its
inhabitants were never at any time as badly off as the settlers in the
early days at Jamestown and Plymouth, and the island itself was
stocked with cattle and had orchards and gardens, fields of tobacco,
windmills for grinding corn, and women resident upon it. Had it,
however, been only a trading-post, the extension over it of the laws
of Virginia made the settlement a legal occupation. And we are told of
Kent that warrants from Jamestown were directed there. "One man was
brought down and tried in Virginia for felony, and many were arrested
for debt and returned to appeare at James City."[2] In February, 1632,
Kent Island and Chiskiack were represented at Jamestown by a common
delegate, Captain Nicholas Martian.[3] The political existence of the
whole Virginia colony, and its right to take up and settle lands, the
king expressly recognized.
Accordingly, when Leonard Calvert, on his arrival at Point Comfort in
February, 1634, called upon Claiborne to recognize Baltimore's
paramount sovereignty over Kent Island, because of its lying within
the limits of his charter, the council of Virginia, at the request of
Claiborne, considered the claim, and declared that the colony had as
much right to Kent Island as to "any other part of the country given
by his majesty's patent" in 1609.[4] After this, acquiescence in
Baltimore's wishes would have been treason, and Claiborne declined to
acknowledge Lord Baltimore's authority in Kent Island, and continued
to trade in the bay as freely as formerly.
Calvert's instructions[5] had been, in case of such a refusal, not to
molest Claiborne for at least a year. But Captain Fleet, Claiborne's
rival in the fur trade, started a story that Claiborne was the
originator of the rumor which so greatly alarmed the Indians at the
time of the arrival of the emigrants at St. Mary's. Though Claiborne
promptly repelled the calumny, Baltimore, in September, 1634, sent an
order to his brother Leonard to seize Kent Island, arrest Claiborne,
and hold him prisoner.[6] As this mandate was contrary to the order in
July, 1633, of the lords commissioners, which enjoined the parties to
preserve "good corresp
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