Chapter V: Virginia, 1606-1689 (1)

BY ROBERT A. BROCK,

_Corresponding Secretary of the Virginia Historical Society._

ON the petition of Hakluyt (then prebendary of Westminster), Sir Thomas Gates, Sir George Somers, and other “firm and hearty lovers of colonization,” James I., by patent dated the 10th of April, 1606, chartered two companies (the London and the Plymouth), and bestowed on them in equal proportions the vast territory (then known as Virginia) lying between the thirty-fourth and forty-fifth degrees of north latitude, together with the islands within one hundred miles of the coast stretching from Cape Fear to Halifax.

The code of laws provided for the government of the proposed colonies was complicated, inexpedient, and characteristic of the mind of the first Stuart. For each colony separate councils appointed by the King were instituted in England, and these were in turn to name resident councillors in the colonies, with power to choose their own president and to fill vacancies. Capital offences were to be tried by a jury, but all other cases were left to the decision of the council. This body was, however, to govern itself according to the prescribed mandates of the King. The religion of the Church of England was established, and the oath of obedience was a prerequisite to residence in the colony. Lands were to descend as at common law, and a community of labor and property was to continue for five years. The Adventurers, as the members of the Company were termed, were authorized to mine for gold, silver, and copper, to coin money, and to collect a revenue for twenty-one years from all vessels trading to their ports. Certain articles of necessity, imported for the use of the colonists, were exempted from duty for seven years. Sir Thomas Smith, an eminent merchant of London, who had been the chief of the assignees of Sir Walter Raleigh and ambassador to Russia, was appointed treasurer of the Company.

But the body of the men who composed the expedition had little care for forms of government. A wilder chimera than the impractical devices of the selfish and pedantic monarch possessed them. “I tell thee,” says Seagull, in the play of _Eastward Ho!_ which was popular for years, “golde is more plentifull there than copper is with us; and for as much redde copper as I can bring I’ll have thrise the weight in gold. Why, man, all their dripping-pans ... are pure gould; and all the chaines with which they chaine up their streets are massie gold; and for rubies and diamonds, they goe forth in Holydayes and gather ‘hem by the seashore, to hang on their children’s coates and sticke in their children’s caps, as commonly as our children weare saffron gilt brooches and groates with holes in ‘hem.” A life of ease and luxury is pictured by Seagull, and, as the climax of allurement, with “no more law than conscience, and not too much of eyther.”[227] The expedition left Blackwall on the 19th of December, but was detained by “unprosperous winds” in the Downs until the 1st of January, 1606-7. It consisted of three vessels,—the “Susan Constant,” of one hundred tons, with seventy-one persons, in charge of the experienced navigator Captain Christopher Newport (the commander of the fleet); the “God-Speed,” of forty tons, Captain Bartholomew Gosnold, carrying fifty-two persons; and the “Discovery,” of twenty tons, Captain John Ratcliffe, carrying twenty persons. The crews of the ships must have constituted thirty-nine of the total of these, as the number of the first planters was one hundred and five. In the lists of their names, more than half are classed as “gentlemen,” and the remainder as laborers, tradesmen, and mechanics. Two “chirurgeons,” Thomas Wotton, or Wootton, and Wil. Wilkinson, are included; the service of the first of them in a professional capacity is afterwards noted. Sailing by the old route of the West Indies, the Virginia coast was reached on the 26th of April, and in Chesapeake Bay on that night the instructions from the King were examined. These, with a mystery well calculated to promote mischief, had been confided to Newport, in a sealed box, with the injunction that it should not be opened until he reached his destination. The councillors found to be designated were Edward Maria Wingfield, Bartholomew Gosnold, John Smith, Christopher Newport, John Ratcliffe, John Martin, and John Kendall. Wingfield, a man of honorable birth and a strict disciplinarian, who had been a companion of Ferdinando Gorges in the European wars, was chosen president; and Thomas Studley, cape-merchant, or treasurer.

On the 29th of the month a cross was planted at Cape Henry, which was so named in honor of the Prince of Wales, the eldest son of King James; the name of his second son, then Duke of York, afterwards Charles I., being perpetuated in the opposite cape. The point at which the ships anchored the next day was designated, in thankful spirit, Point Comfort. On the 13th of May, 1607, the colonists landed at a peninsula on the northern bank of the river known to the natives as Powhatan, after their king, but to which the English gave the name James River. Upon this spot, about fifty miles from its mouth, they resolved to build their first town, to which they also gave the name of the English monarch. The selection of this site is said to have been urged by Smith and objected to by Gosnold. The better judgment of the latter was vindicated in the sequel. Smith—at this time not yet twenty-eight years of age, a man the most remarkably endowed among those nominated for the council, and whose administrative capacity was to be so prominently evidenced—was at first excluded from his seat because, says Purchas, he had been “suspected of a supposed mutinie” on the voyage over.[228] This proscription in all probability had no more warrant than in the jealousy which the recent adventurous career and the confident bearing of Smith may be supposed to have excited, since he was admitted to office on the 10th of June following. The colonists at once set about building fortifications and establishing the settlement. Newport, Smith, and twenty-three others in the mean time ascended the river in a shallop on a tour of exploration. At an Indian village below the falls was found a lad of about ten years of age with yellow hair and whitish skin, who, it has been assumed, was the offspring of some representative of the ill-fated Roanoke Colony left by White, of which it is narrated that seven persons were preserved from slaughter by an Indian chief.[229] On the 26th of May, the day before the return of the explorers to Jamestown, the unfinished fort (not completed until the 15th of June) was attacked by the savages, who were repulsed by the colonists under the command of Wingfield. The colonists had one boy killed and eleven men wounded, one of whom died. Communion was administered by the chaplain, the Rev. Robert Hunt, on Sunday, the 21st of June, and on the next day Newport sailed for England in the “Susan Constant,” laden with specimens of the forest and with mineral productions. A bark or pinnace, with provisions sufficient to sustain the colonists for three months, was left with them. The prospect of the men thus cast upon their own resources, was not promising. Disturbed by the fatuous hope of discovering gold, divided by faction, unused to the labor and hardships to which they were now subjected, and in daily peril from the hostility of the savages, the difficulties of success were enhanced by the insalubrity of their ill-chosen settlement. By September fifty of them, including the intrepid Gosnold, had died, and the store of damaged provisions upon which they mainly depended was nearly exhausted. Violent dissension ensued, which resulted, on the 10th of the month, in the displacement of Wingfield by Ratcliffe in the office of president, and the deposing, imprisonment, and finally the execution of Kendall; by which the Council, never more than seven in number (including Newport), and in which no vacancies had been filled, was reduced to three only,—Ratcliffe, Smith, and Martin. Reprehensible as the conduct of the colonists at this period may have been, they yet held religious observances in regard. Their piety and reverence are instanced both by Smith and Wingfield. In Bagnall’s narrative in the _Historie_ of the first, it is noted that “order was daily to haue Prayer, with a Psalme;”[230] and Wingfield states that when their store of liquors was reduced to two gallons each of “sack” and “aqua-vitæ,” the first was “reserued for the communion table.”[231]

This cut follows a sketch made about 1857 by a travelling Englishwoman, Miss Catherine C. Hopley, and shows the condition of the ruined church at that time.]

Differences among the colonists being somewhat allayed, labor was resumed, habitations were provided, a church was built, and, through the courage and energy of Smith, supplies of corn were obtained from the Indians. Leaving the settlement on the 10th of December, Smith again ascended the Chickahominy to get provisions from the savages, but incurring their hostility, two of his companions, Emry and Robinson, were killed, and Smith himself was taken captive. Being released after a few weeks, on the promise of a ransom of “two great guns and a grindstone,” he returned to Jamestown. On his arrival there he found the number of the colonists reduced to forty, and that Captain Gabriel Archer had been admitted to the Council during his absence. Archer caused him to be arrested and indicted, under the Levitical law, for allowing the death of his two men; but in the evening of the same day, Jan. 8, 1607-8, Newport returned from England with additional settlers (a portion of the first supply), and at once released both Smith and Wingfield from custody. Within five or six days the fort and many of the houses at Jamestown were destroyed by an accidental fire. Newport, accompanied by Matthew Scrivener (newly arrived and admitted to the Council), with Smith as interpreter and thirty or forty others, now visited Powhatan at his abode of Werowocomico. This was at Timberneck Bay, on the north side of York River. On the east bank of the bay still stands a quaint stone chimney,[232] subsequently built for Powhatan by German workmen among the colonists. Hostages were exchanged; Namontack, an Indian who was taken to England by Newport, being received from Powhatan for Thomas Savage, a youth aged thirteen, who for many years afterwards rendered important service to the colonists as interpreter. With supplies of food obtained from Powhatan and Opecancanough, the chief of the Pamunkey tribe, the party returned to Jamestown.

The ship being loaded with iron ore, sassafras, cedar posts, and walnut boards, Newport, with Archer[233] and Wingfield as passengers, sailed on the 10th of April from Jamestown, and on the 20th of May, 1608, arrived in England. The diet of the colonists was soon reduced to meal and water, and through hunger and exposure death diminished them one half. While they were engaged in re-building Jamestown and in planting, to their great joy Captain Nelson, who had left England with Newport, but from whom he had been separated by storm and detained in the West Indies, arrived in the ship “Phœnix,” with provisions and seventy settlers, being the remainder of the first supply of one hundred and twenty. He departed for England on the 2d of June with a cargo of cedar-wood, carrying Martin of the Council. Smith, in an open boat, with fourteen others,—seven gentlemen (including Dr. Walter Russell of the last arrival), and seven soldiers,—accompanied the “Phœnix” down the river, and parted from her at Cape Henry, with the bold purpose of exploring Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries, and establishing intercourse with the natives along their borders. To the islands lying off Cape Charles, Smith gave his own name. After a satisfactory cruise, having crossed the bay, visited its eastern shore, and explored the Potomac River some thirty miles, the party returned late in July to Jamestown for provisions. Smith again embarked on the 24th of July to complete his explorations, with a crew of twelve, similarly constituted as before, but with Anthony Bagnall as surgeon. At the head of Chesapeake Bay they were hospitably entertained by a tribe of Indians, supposed by Stith[234] to have been of the Iroquois, or Five Nations, and also by the Susquehannas, at a village on the Tockwogh (now Sassafras) River. The highest mountain to the northward observed by them was named Peregrine’s Mount, and Willoughby River was so called after the native town of Smith. The Indian tribes on the Patuxent, and the Moraughtacunds and the Wighcomoes on the Rappahannock, were visited. Richard Featherstone, a “gentleman” of the party, dying, was buried on the banks of the last-named river, which was explored to the falls, near where Fredericksburg now is. Here a skirmish took place with the Rappahannock tribe. The Pianketank, Elizabeth, and Nansemond rivers were in turn examined for a few miles. From the results of these discoveries Smith composed his Map of Virginia, a work so singularly exact that it has formed the basis of all like delineations since, and was adduced as authority as late as 1873 towards the settlement of the boundary dispute between the States of Virginia and Maryland. The drawing was sent to England by Newport before the close of the year, and in 1612 was published in the _Oxford Tract_. Returning to Jamestown, Sept. 7, 1608, Smith was elected President of the Council over Ratcliffe (who suffered from a wounded hand and was enfeebled by sickness), and now, for the first time, he had the “letters patent” of office placed in his hands.[235] Ever firm, courageous, and persevering, he at once instituted vigorous and salutary measures adapted to the wants and conducive to the discipline of the colonists. The church was repaired, the storehouse covered, and magazines erected. Soon after, Newport arrived for the third time from England, with the second supply of settlers, seventy in number. Among them were Captains Peter Wynne and Richard Waldo, Francis West (the brother of Lord Delaware), Raleigh Crashaw, Daniel Tucker, some German and Polish artisans for the manufacture of glass and other articles, Mrs. Thomas Forest, and her maid, Ann Burras. The last named of these—the first Englishwomen in the colony—became, before the close of the year, the wife of John Laydon. This was the first marriage celebrated in Virginia. Newport had left England under the silly pledge not to return without a lump of gold, or without tidings of the discovery of a passage to the North Sea, or without the rescue of one of the settlers of the lost company of Sir Walter Raleigh. The Company added the equally impossible condition that he should bring a freight in his vessel of equal value to the cost of the expedition, which was £2,000. In case of failure in these respects, the colonists were to be abandoned to their own resources. Much valuable time was consumed by Newport in an idle coronation of Powhatan (for whose household he had brought costly presents), and in futile efforts for the accomplishment of the visionary expectations of the Company. At last there was provided by those of the colonists who remained at their labors a part of a cargo of pitch, tar, glass, and iron ore, and Newport set sail, leaving at Jamestown about two hundred settlers. The iron ore which he carried was smelted in England, and seventeen tons of metal sold to the East India Company at £4 per ton. In the preservation of the colony until the next arrival, the genius and energy of Smith were strongly but successfully taxed,—for Captain Wynne dying, and Scrivener and Anthony Gosnold, with eight others, having been drowned, he alone of the Council remained. His measures were sagacious. Corn was planted, and blockhouses were built and garrisoned at Jamestown for defence, and an outpost was established at Hog Island, to give signal of the approach of shipping.

At the last place the hogs, which increased rapidly, were kept. But being subject to the treachery of the natives, the colonists were in continual danger of attack, and were too slothful to make due provision for their wants, so that the tenure of the settlement became like a brittle thread. The store of provisions having been spoiled by damp or eaten by vermin, their subsistence now depended precariously on fish, game, and roots. The prospects of the colony were so discouraging at the beginning of the year 1609, that, in the hope of improving them, the Company applied for a new charter with enlarged privileges. This was granted to them, on the 23d of May, under the corporate name of “The Treasurer and Company of Adventurers and Planters of the City of London for the first Colony in Virginia.” The new Association, which embraced representatives of every rank, trade, and profession, included twenty-one peers, and its list of names presents an imposing array of wealth and influence. By this charter Virginia was greatly enlarged, and made to comprise the coast-line and all islands within one hundred miles of it,—two hundred miles north and two hundred south of Point Comfort,—with all the territory within parallel lines thus distant and extending to the Pacific boundary; the Company was empowered to choose the Supreme Council in England, and, under the instructions and regulations of the last, the Governor was invested with absolute civil and military authority.

With the disastrous experience of the previous unstable system, a sterner discipline seems, under attending circumstances, to have been demanded to insure success. Thomas West (Lord Delaware), the descendant of a long line of noble ancestry, received the appointment of Governor and Captain-General of Virginia. The first expedition under the second charter, which was on a grander scale than any preceding it, and which consisted of nine vessels, sailed from Plymouth on the 1st of June, 1609.

Newport, the commander of the fleet, Sir Thomas Gates, Lieutenant-General, and Sir George Somers, Admiral of Virginia, were severally authorized, whichever of them might first arrive at Jamestown, to supersede the existing administration there until the arrival of Lord Delaware, who was to embark some months later; but not being able to settle the point of precedency among themselves, they embarked together in the same vessel, which carried also the wife and daughters of Gates. Among the five hundred colonists, were the returning Captains Ratcliffe, Archer, and Martin, divers other captains and gentlemen, and, by the suggestion of Hakluyt, a number of old soldiers[236] who had been trained in the Netherlands. On the 23d of July the fleet was caught in a hurricane; a small vessel was lost, others damaged, and the “Sea Venture,” which carried Gates, Somers, and Newport, with about one hundred and fifty settlers, was cast ashore on the Bermudas. Captain Samuel Argall (a relative of Sir Thomas Smith) arrived at Jamestown in July, with a shipload of wine and provisions, to trade on private account, contrary to the regulations of the Company. As the settlers were suffering for food, they seized his supplies. Many of them at this time had gone to live among the Indians, and eighty had formed a settlement twenty miles distant from the fort. Early in August the “Blessing,” Captain Archer, and three other vessels of the delayed fleet sailed up James River, and soon after the “Diamond,” Captain Ratcliffe, appeared, without her mainmast, and she was followed in a few days by the “Swallow,” in like condition.

The Council being all dead save Smith, he, obtaining the sympathy of the sailors, refused to surrender the government of the colony; and the newly arrived settlers elected Francis West, the brother of Lord Delaware, as temporary president. The term of Smith expiring soon after, George Percy—one of the original settlers, a brother of the Earl of Northumberland, and a brave and honorable man—was elected president, and West, Ratcliffe, and Martin were made councillors.

Smith, about Michaelmas (September 29), departed for England or, as all contemporary accounts other than his own state, was sent thither “to answer some misdemeanors.”[237] These were doubtless of a venial character; but the important services of Smith in the sustenance of the colony appear not to have been as highly esteemed by the Company as by Smith himself. He complains that his several petitions for reward were disregarded, and he never returned to Virginia. Modern investigation has discredited many of the so-long-accepted narratives in which he records his own achievements and judges so harshly the motives and conduct of all others of his companions; and the glamour of romance with which he invested his own exploits has been somewhat dissipated. But whatever may have been the fervor of his imagination as a historian, it was more than equalled by his fertility of resource in vital emergencies, and there is ample evidence that his services in the preservation of the infant colony were momentous. After his return to England but little is recorded of him until the year 1614, during which he made a successful voyage to New England, under the auspices of the Plymouth Company, which gained for him the title of Admiral of New England.[238] Whatever may have been the defects of Smith, the greatness of his deeds has impressed him enduringly on the pages of history as one of the most prominent figures of his period. At the time of his departure for England he left at Jamestown three ships, seven boats, a good stock of provisions, nearly five hundred settlers, twenty pieces of cannon, three hundred guns, with fishing-nets, working-tools, horses, cattle, swine, etc.

Jamestown was strongly fortified with palisades, and contained between fifty and sixty houses. The favorable prospects of the colony were soon threatened by the renewal of Indian hostilities. Provisions becoming scarce, West and Ratcliffe embarked in small vessels to procure corn. The latter, deceived by the treachery of Powhatan, was slain with thirty of his companions, two only escaping,—one of whom, Henry Spelman, a young gentleman well descended, was rescued by Pocahontas, and lived for many years among the Patowomekes. He acquired their language, and was afterwards highly serviceable to his countrymen as an interpreter. He was slain by the savages in 1622. No effort by tillage being made to replenish their provisions, the stock was soon consumed, and the horrors of famine were added to other calamities. The intense sufferings of the colonists were long remembered, and this period is referred to as “the starving time.” In six months their number was reduced to sixty, and such was the extremity of these that they must soon have perished but for speedy succor. The passengers of the wrecked “Sea Venture,” though mourned for as lost, had effected a safe landing at the Bermudas, where, favored by the tropical productions of the islands, they, under the direction of Gates and Somers, constructed for their deliverance two vessels from the materials of the wreck and cedar-wood, the largest of the vessels being of eighty tons burden. The Sabbath was duly observed by them under the faithful ministry of Mr. Bucke. Among the passengers was John Rolfe and wife,[239] to whom a male child was born on the island, who was christened Bermuda; a girl also born there was named Bermudas. Six of the company, including the wife of Sir Thomas Gates, died on the island. The company of one hundred and forty men and women embarked on the completed vessels—which were appropriately named the “Patience” and the “Deliverance”—on the 10th of May, 1610, and on the 23d they landed at Jamestown. Here the church bell was immediately rung, and such of the famished colonists as were physically able repaired to the sanctuary, where “a zealous and sorrowful prayer” was offered by Mr. Bucke. The new commission being read, Percy, the acting president, surrendered the former charter and his credentials of office. The fort was in a dismantled condition, and most of the habitations had been consumed for fire-wood. So forlorn was the condition of the settlement that Gates reluctantly resolved to abandon it and to return to England by way of Newfoundland, where he expected to receive succor from trading-vessels. Some of the colonists were with difficulty restrained from setting fire to the town, Gates, with a guard to prevent it, remaining on shore until all others had embarked. A farewell volley was fired; but the leave-taking of a spot associated with so much suffering was tearless.

In the mean time, the repeated ill tidings brought by returning ships to England, and the supposed loss of the “Sea Venture” had so dismayed the members of the Company in London that many of them withdrew their subscriptions. Lord Delaware—who is characterized in the “Declaration” of the Council, in 1610, as “one of approved courage, temper, and experience”—determined to go in person as Governor and Captain-General of Virginia (the first of such title and authority), and, disregarding the comforts of home and noble station, “did bare a grate part upon his owne charge.” By his example, constancy, and resolution, “that which was almost lifeless” was revived in the Company. On Feb. 21, 1609-10, William Crashaw, a preacher at the Temple (the father of the poet eulogized by Cowley), in view of the departure of Lord Delaware, delivered before the Council and Adventurers in London a stirring sermon, which was the first preached in England to any embarking for Virginia in a missionary cause.[240] Distinct and unequivocal testimony is given by the Company, in the “Declaration” already cited, as to the reputation of settlers for the colony, none being desired but those of blameless character. Five weeks later Lord Delaware sailed with three vessels and one hundred and fifty settlers, and arrived in Virginia providentially to intercept, off Mulberry Island, Gates and his disheartened companions as they were descending the river, who returned at once to Jamestown. The fleet, following, arrived there on Sunday, the 10th of June. The first act of Lord Delaware upon landing was to fall devoutly upon his knees and offer up a prayer, after which he repaired with the company to the church, to listen to a sermon by Mr. Bucke. Two days later a council was organized, consisting of Sir Thomas Gates, lieutenant-general, Sir Thomas Somers, admiral, Sir Ferdinando Wenman, master of ordnance (who soon died), Captain Newport, vice-admiral, Captain George Percy and William Strachey, secretary and recorder. Captain John Martin was made master of the steel and iron works. The restoration of the settlement was prosecuted with vigor, and the church, a building sixty feet in length by twenty-four in breadth, was repaired, and services were held regularly twice on Sunday, and again on Thursday. Two forts were also built on Southampton River, and called after the King’s sons, Henry and Charles, respectively.

The administration of Delaware, though ludicrously ostentatious for so insignificant a dominion, was yet highly wholesome, and under his judicious discipline the settlement was restored to order and contentment. On the 19th of June Sir George Somers, in his cedar pinnace, accompanied by Argall in another vessel, re-embarked to seek for provisions. The vessels separating, Argall on the 27th of August “came to anchor in nine fathoms, in a very great bay,” called by him Delaware,[241] and on the ninth of the month reached Cape Charles. Somers, soon after parting from Argall, reached the Bermudas, where, dying from the effects of the hardships he had undergone, his body was embalmed and conveyed to England by his nephew, Captain Matthew Somers. About Christmas, Captain Argall sailed in the “Discovery” up the Potomac for supplies of corn, and rescued the captive English boy Henry Spelman from Jopassus, the brother of Powhatan. In the month of February following, Argall, aided by a small land force under Captain Edward Brewster, attacked the chief of the Warraskoyacks for a breach of contract and burned two of his towns. Sir Thomas Gates, being despatched to England to report to the Company the condition of the colony, succeeded by strenuous appeals in inducing it to send a fresh supply of settlers and provisions. During his absence, the health of Lord Delaware failing, on the 28th of March, 1611, accompanied by Dr. Bohune and Captain Argall, he sailed for England by way of the Isle of Mevis, leaving Percy in authority. On the 17th of March Sir Thomas Dale, with the appointment of “high marshall,” had sailed with three vessels for the colony, with settlers (among whom was the Rev. Alexander Whitaker) and cattle. He reached Point Comfort May the 12th, and spent several days in provisioning and disciplining that station and the forts Henry and Charles on the Southampton River, and in planting corn.

Sir Thomas landed at Jamestown on Sunday the 19th, where, first repairing to the church, he listened to a sermon from the Rev. Mr. Poole, after which, his commission being read by Secretary Strachey, Percy surrendered the government to him. Under an extraordinary code of “Lawes, Divine, Morall, and Martiall,” compiled by William Strachey for Sir Thomas Smith, and based upon those observed in the wars in the Low Countries, Dale inaugurated vigorous measures for the government and advancement of the colony. The church was repaired, and store, powder, and block houses severally were built, while pales and posts were prepared for a new settlement. The site selected for the last was a peninsula in Varina Neck on James River, known as Farrar’s Island, which is formed by an extraordinary curve resembling that of a horseshoe, where the river, after a sweep of seven miles, returns to a point within a hundred and twenty yards from that of its deviation. The name of the bend, Dutch Gap,[242] by the events of the late civil war attained a historic notoriety. The building of the new town was delayed by insubordination among the colonists, which however, under the rigors of the martial code in force, was promptly quelled, eight of the ringleaders being executed. The pernicious system of a community of property was now to some extent remedied by Dale, in the allotment to each settler of three acres of land to be worked for his individual benefit. “Comon gardens for hemp and flaxe, and such other seedes,” were also laid out.[243]

In June, 1611, Sir Thomas Gates, accompanied by his wife (who died on the passage) and daughters and the Rev. Mr. Glover (who lived but a short time after his arrival in the colony), followed Dale with six ships, three hundred settlers, and one hundred cows, besides other cattle and an abundant supply of provisions. He arrived at Jamestown early in August, and thus increased the number of the colonists to seven hundred persons. Gates established himself at Hampton, deputed the command of Jamestown to Percy, and sent Dale, early in September, with three hundred and fifty men, to found the projected town of Henrico, at which, among the “three streets” of buildings erected, was a handsome church. The foundation of another, to be of brick, was laid.[244] In December, the Appomattox Indians having committed some depredations, Dale captured their town on the south side of the James, near the mouth of Appomattox River (and about five miles distant from Henrico), and upon its site established a third town, which he called Bermuda. Here the pious apostle Alexander Whitaker fixed his residence, serving as the minister both of Bermuda and Henrico.[245] Several plantations were laid out near Bermuda,—Upper and Lower Rochdale, West Shirley, and Digges’ Hundred. In conformity with the code of martial law, each hundred was subjected to the control of a captain. In December, also, Newport arrived at London from Jamestown, in the ship “Star,” with a cargo of “forty fine and large pines for masts,” and with the daughters of Sir Thomas Gates as passengers. Newport’s name does not again appear in connection with Virginia.[246] The reinforcements for the colony for some months were insignificant, the only ships sent over being the “John and Francis” and the “Sarah,” with few settlers and less provisions, and the “Treasurer” with fifty persons, under the bold and unscrupulous Captain Samuel Argall, who, sailing from England in July, 1612, arrived at Point Comfort, September 17.[247] This year was a marked one in the inauguration by John Rolfe of the systematic culture of tobacco,—a staple destined to exert a controlling influence in the future welfare and progress of the colony, and soon, by the paramount profit yielded by its culture, to subordinate all other interests, agricultural as well as manufacturing. This influence permeated the entire social fabric of the colony, directed its laws, was an element in all its political and religious disturbances, and became the direct instigation of its curse of African slavery. It may be added, however, as an indisputable fact, that the culture of tobacco constituted the basis of the present unrivalled prosperity of the United States, and that this staple is still one of the most prolific factors in the revenue of the General Government.

Early in the spring of 1613, the colonists needing food, Argall determined on a bold stroke, and with the bribe of a copper kettle induced Jopassus, the king of Potomac, in whose domain Pocahontas was sojourning, to betray her into his hands. Having sent a messenger to Powhatan, demanding as a ransom the restoration of all English captives held by him, and of all arms and tools stolen from the settlement, Argall returned with his captive to Jamestown. There was a protracted struggle in the breast of the savage chieftain between avarice and parental affection.

Some months later Dale, with a command of one hundred and fifty men, sailed up York River to Werowocomico, the seat of Powhatan, carrying Pocahontas with him. Meeting with defiance, he landed and destroyed the settlement, and then returned to Jamestown. The ship “Elizabeth” arriving in March with thirteen settlers, Sir Thomas Gates departed in her for England finally, leaving the government to Dale. An event most auspicious for the future welfare of the colony soon occurred. A mutual attachment springing up between John Rolfe and Pocahontas, with the consent of Sir Thomas Dale they were united in marriage by the Rev. Alexander Whitaker, about the 5th of April, 1614. This was a politic example, which Dale himself unsuccessfully attempted to follow, although he had then a wife in England. Sending Ralph Hamor (who had been secretary of the Council under Lord Delaware) to Powhatan, with a request for the younger sister of Pocahontas, a girl scarce twelve years of age, his overtures were disdainfully rejected. The results of the union of Rolfe and Pocahontas were the good-will of Powhatan during the remainder of his life, and a treaty of peace with the formidable Chickahominy tribe, by which the natives agreed ever to be called Englishmen, and to be true subjects to the British crown. With the immunity of peace, and under the wholesome discipline of Dale, industry was stimulated, property accumulated, and famine was no longer feared. Prosperity being now seemingly assured to the colony, the martial spirit of Dale sought other modes of manifesting itself. As early as 1605 the French had sent settlers to Acadia, and planted a colony at Port Royal, which had now attained some prominence.

This is a fac-simile of the engraving used in the publications of the Company. Cf. _Calendar of Virginia State Papers_, i. p. xxxix; Neill’s _Virginia Company_, p. 156. An example of this seal with the same dimensions and devices, but with the differing legend on the reverse of “COLONIA VIRGINÆ—CONSILIO PRIMA,” is in the collections of the Virginia Historical Society. It is of red wax between the leaves of a foolscap sheet of paper, and is affixed to a patent for land issued by Sir John Harvey, governor, dated March 4, 1638.]

This being deemed by Dale an invasion of the territory of Virginia, which by charter extended to the forty-fifth degree of latitude, he sent Argall to dislodge the settlers, which was summarily accomplished.[248] Stimulated to new conquests, Argall on his return visited the Dutch settlement near the site of Albany, on the Hudson, and compelled its governor to capitulate.[249] It was however soon after reclaimed by the Dutch. Argall now sailed for England, where he and Gates both arrived in June, 1614. In March, 1612, a third charter had been granted to the Virginia Company, extending the boundaries of the colony so as to include all islands lying within three hundred leagues of the continent,—one object of which was to embrace the Bermuda or Summer Islands, of the fertility of which extravagant accounts had been given; but these last were soon after sold by the Company to one hundred and twenty of its members, who became a distinct corporation.[250] The privilege of holding lotteries for the benefit of the Company was also secured. Gates reporting that the colony in Virginia would perish unless better provided, the Company held for its relief a grand lottery, by which the sum of £29,000 was secured. The year 1615 is remarkable in the history of Virginia for the first establishment of a fixed property in the soil, in the granting by the Company of fifty acres to every freeman in absolute right.

Good order being established, and the colony prosperous, in April, 1616, Sir Thomas Dale, leaving the government to Captain George Yeardley as his deputy, accompanied by Rolfe, Pocahontas, and several Indians of both sexes, sailed for England, where he arrived on the 12th of June. The settlements in Virginia at this time were Henrico, the seat of the college for the education of the natives (of whom children of both sexes were already being taught), and of which the Rev. William Wickham was the minister,—its limits being Bermuda, Nether Hundred, or Presquile, the residence of the Deputy-Governor Yeardley and of the Rev. Alexander Whitaker; West and Shirley Hundred, Captain Isaac Madison, commander; Jamestown, Captain Francis West, Mr. Mease, minister; Kiquotan; and Dale’s Gift, on the sea-coast near Cape Charles, Lieutenant Cradock, commander. The total population of the colony was three hundred and fifty-one.

Pocahontas was the object of much kindly attention in London, where she was presented at court by Lady Delaware, attended by Lord Delaware, her husband, and other persons of quality. In March, 1617, John Rolfe prepared to return to Virginia with Pocahontas and their infant child Thomas,[251] but on the eve of embarkation Pocahontas was stricken with the small-pox, of which she died on the 21st instant, aged twenty-two years, and was buried at Gravesend, in the county of Kent.[252] Tobacco proving the most salable commodity of the colony, in 1616 Yeardley directed general attention to its culture, the profit of which speedily became so alluring that all other occupations were forsaken for it.

Through the influence of the court faction of the Company, in 1617, Captain Samuel Argall was elected Deputy-Governor of Virginia. He arrived in the colony on the 15th of May, with one hundred settlers, accompanied by Ralph Hamor as Vice-Admiral, and John Rolfe as “Secretary and Recorder-General.” They found “the market-place, streets, and all other spare places” in Jamestown planted with tobacco.[253] In a few days thereafter Captain Martin also arrived in a pinnace, after a passage of five weeks. The whole number of the colonists was now about four hundred. To reinforce the languishing colony, the Company, in April, 1618, sent thither Lord Delaware, the Governor-General, in the ship “Neptune,” with two hundred men, and supplies. After his departure the ship “George” arrived from Virginia with such complaints of the malfeasance of Argall, who under martial law had loaded the colonists with oppressive exactions and robbed them of their property, that letters were despatched to Lord Delaware to seize upon all goods and property in Argall’s possession. Lord Delaware dying on the passage, these letters fell into the hands of Argall, who, to make the most of his remaining time, grew yet more tyrannical. For seizing one of the servants of the estate of Lord Delaware, on the complaint of Edward Brewster, the son of its manager, Argall was arrested, and on the 15th of October, 1618, tried and sentenced to death; but the penalty was commuted to perpetual banishment. He secretly stole away from the colony April the 9th, 1619, leaving Captain Nathaniel Powell in authority. Upon the intelligence of the death of Lord Delaware, Captain George Yeardley, who was knighted on the occasion, was appointed to succeed him. Sir Edwin Sandys also displaced Sir Thomas Smith as treasurer of the Company.

His portrait is preserved at Bourne, the seat of his descendant the present Earl de la Warr, in Cambridgeshire, England. There is a copy of it in the Library of the State of Virginia at Richmond, which was made by William L. Sheppard, an artist of that city in July, 1877. He is represented as a stout, ruddy-visaged Saxon, with a most benevolent expression of countenance. King James granted a pension to the widow of Lord Delaware, who was alive in 1644, and is called Dame Cecily Dowager de la Warre in the sixth _Report of the Historical Commission_ to Parliament, in a paper in which the continuance of her pension is asked for.]

Yeardley arrived in the colony April the 19th with a new authority under the charter, by which the authority of the governor was limited by a council and an annual general assembly, to be composed of the Governor and Council, and two burgesses from each plantation, to be freely elected by the inhabitants thereof. John Rolfe, who was succeeded in the office of Secretary of the Colony by John Pory, a graduate of Cambridge, a great traveller and a writer, was, with Captain Francis West, Captain Nathaniel Powell, William Wickham, and Samuel Macock, added to the Council. On Friday, July 30, 1619, in accordance with the summons of Governor Yeardley in June, the first representative legislative assembly ever held in America was convened in the chancel of the church at James City or Jamestown, and was composed of twenty-two burgesses from the eleven several towns, plantations, and hundreds, styled boroughs. The proceedings were opened with prayer by the Rev. Mr. Bucke, and each burgess took the oath of supremacy. John Pory was elected speaker, and sat in front of Governor Yeardley, and next was John Twine, the clerk, and at the bar stood Thomas Pierse, sergeant-at-arms. The delegates from Captain John Martin’s plantation were excluded, because by his patent, granted according to the unequal privilege of the manors of England, he was released from obeying any order of the colony except in time of war and the Company was prayed that the clause in the charter guaranteeing equal immunities and liberties might not be violated, so as to “divert out of the true course the free and public current of justice.” The education and religious instruction of the children of the natives was enjoined upon each settlement. Among the enactments, tobacco was authorized as a currency, and the treasurer of the colony (Abraham Percy) was directed to receive it at the valuation of three shillings per pound for the best, and eighteen-pence for the second quality. The government of ministers was prescribed according to the Church of England, and a tax of tobacco laid for their support. It was also enacted that “all persons whatsoever upon the Sabbath days shall frequent divine service and sermons, both forenoon and afternoon.” To compensate the officers of the Assembly, a tax of a pound of tobacco was laid upon every male above sixteen years of age.

The introduction of negro slavery into the colony is thus noted by John Rolfe: “About the last of August [1619] came in a Dutch man of warre, that sold us twenty Negars.”[254] During this year there were sent to the colony more than twelve hundred settlers, and one hundred “disorderly persons” or convicts, by order of the King, to be employed as servants. Boys and girls picked up in the streets of London were also sent, and were bound as apprentices[255] to the planters until the age of majority. In June twenty thousand pounds of tobacco, the crop of the preceding year, was shipped to England. In November the London Company adopted a coat-of-arms, and ordered a seal to be engraved.[256] The Company appears ever to have held in due regard the importance of education as intimately connected with the preservation and dissemination of Christianity in the colony. Under an order from the King, nearly £1,500 were collected by the bishops of the realm to build the college at Henrico, and fifteen thousand acres of land were appropriated for its support.[257] To cultivate it during the years 1619 and 1620 one hundred laborers were sent over under the charge of Mr. George Thorpe (a kinsman of Sir Thomas Dale) and Captain Thomas Newce as agents. At a meeting of the Company held June 28, 1620, the Earl of Southampton was elected to succeed Sir Edwin Sandys as treasurer.

The population of the colony in July was estimated at four thousand, and during the year forty thousand pounds of tobacco were shipped to England. The freedom of trade which the Company had enjoyed for a brief interval with the Low Countries, where they sold their tobacco, was in October, 1621, prohibited in Council, and thenceforward England claimed a monopoly of the trade of her plantations. The planters at length were absolved from service to the Company, and enjoyed the blessings of property in the soil and of domestic felicity. In the autumn of 1621 the practice was begun by the Company of shipping to the colony young women of respectability as wives for the colonists, who were chargeable with the cost of transportation. This charge was at first one hundred and twenty, afterwards one hundred and fifty, pounds of tobacco. A windmill, the first in America, was about this time erected by Sir George Yeardley, and iron-works (the primal inauguration of this essential manufacture in this country) were established at Falling Creek on James River, under the management of Mr. John Berkeley.[258]

Upon the request of Sir George Yeardley to be relieved of the cares of office, Sir Francis Wyatt was appointed to succeed him upon the expiration of his term of government on the 18th of November, 1621. Sir Francis, with a fleet of nine sail, arrived in October, accompanied by his brother, the Rev. Haut Wyatt, Dr John Pott as physician, William Claiborne (destined to later prominence in the colony) as surveyor of the Company’s lands, and George Sandys[259] as treasurer, who during his stay translated the _Metamorphoses_ of Ovid and the First Book of Virgil’s _Æneid_. This first Anglo-American poetical production was published in 1626. Sir Francis Wyatt brought with him a new constitution for the colony, granted July 24, by which all former immunities and franchises were confirmed, trial by jury was secured, and the Assembly was to meet annually upon the call of the Governor, who was vested with the right of veto. No act of this body was to be valid unless ratified by the Company; but, on the other hand, no order of the Company was to be obligatory without the concurrence of the Assembly. This famous ordinance furnished the model of every subsequent provincial form of government in the Anglo-American colonies.[260] In November Daniel Gookin arrived from Ireland with fifty settlers under his control and thirty-six passengers, and planted himself in Elizabeth City County, at Mary’s Mount, just above Newport News.[261] There arrived during the year twenty-one vessels, bringing over thirteen hundred men, women, and children. The aggregate number of settlers arriving during the years 1619, 1620, and 1621 was thirty-five hundred and seventy.

Deluded by long peace, on the 22d of March, 1622, the unsuspecting colonists fell easy victims to a frightful Indian massacre of men, women, and children, to the number of three hundred and forty-seven. Among the slain were Mr. George Thorpe, the agent for the college at Henrico, and Mr. John Berkeley, master of the iron-works at Falling Creek.[262] Their death and the destruction of their charges terminated the prosecution of these material measures for the good of the colony. The future policy with the savages was aggressive until the peace of 1632. At an Assembly held in March, 1623, monthly courts to be appointed by the Governor were authorized. The Virginia Company, in their opposition to the King in the nomination of their officers, had already incurred his ill-will, which was increased by the freedom with which they discussed public measures so as to invoke his denunciation of them as “but a seminary to a seditious parliament.” Violent factions divided them, and the massacre came at a juncture to fan discontent. Commissioners were sent to Virginia by the King to gather materials for the ruin of the Company. The result was the annulling of its charter by the King’s Bench on the 16th of June, 1624. Sir Francis Wyatt was continued as governor by commission from King James, dated Aug. 26, 1624, and again in May, 1625, by the young monarch, Charles I., who appointed as councillors for the colony, during his pleasure, Francis West, Sir George Yeardley, George Sandys, Roger Smith, Ralph Hamor, John Martin, John Harvey, Samuel Matthews, Abraham Percy, Isaac Madison, and William Claiborne. He omitted all mention of an assembly, and there is no preserved record of the meeting of this body again until 1629. The administration of Wyatt was wise and pacific. The death of his father, Sir George Wyatt, calling him to Ireland, he was succeeded, in May, 1626, by Sir George Yeardley, who dying Nov. 14, 1627, the Council elected as his successor, on the following day, Francis West, a younger brother of Lord Delaware. West, departing for England on the 5th of March, 1628, was succeeded by Dr. John Pott. The export of tobacco in 1628 was five hundred thousand pounds. Charles, desiring a monopoly of the trade, directed an assembly to be called to grant it. That body, replying the 26th of March, demanded a higher price and more favorable terms than his Majesty was disposed to yield. The colony rapidly increased in strength and prosperity, the population in 1629 being five thousand. Pott was superseded as governor in March, 1630, by Sir John Harvey, who had been one of the commissioners sent in 1623 to procure evidence to be used against the Virginia Company. Between him and the colonists there was but little good-will, and his arbitrary rule soon rendered him odious.

In July, by a strange mutation of fortune, Pott, the late governor, was tried for cattle-stealing, and convicted. This was the first trial by jury in the colony. It was in 1630 that George Calvert, with his followers, arrived in the colonies; but the details of his experience here and of the disputes about jurisdiction arising out of the grant of the present territory of Maryland, made to him and confirmed to his son in 1632, are given in another chapter.[263] It was under successive grants from the governors in 1627, 1628, and 1629, and from Charles I. in 1631, that William Claiborne had established his trading-posts in the disputed territory, from which he was driven with bloodshed, and by the final decree of the King in 1639 despoiled of £6,000 of property. Harvey—actuated, it has been charged, by motives of private interest—sided with Maryland in the disputes, and rendered himself so obnoxious that an assembly was called for the 7th of May, 1635, to hear complaints against him. Before it met, however, he consented to go to England to answer the charges, and was “thrust out of his government” by the Council on the 28th of April, and Captain John West, a brother of Lord Delaware, was authorized to act as his successor until the King’s pleasure might be known. In 1634 the colony was divided into eight shires,[264] subject, as in England, to the government of a lieutenant.[265] The election of sheriffs, sergeants, and bailiffs was similarly provided for. The King, intolerant of opposition, reinstated the hated Harvey as governor, by commission dated April 2, 1636.[266] During his rule of three years thereafter, no assembly was held. Charles gradually relaxed his policy, and in November, 1639, displaced Harvey with Sir Francis Wyatt, who in turn was succeeded by Sir William Berkeley as governor in February, 1642. During the year three Congregational ministers came from Boston to Virginia to disseminate their doctrines.