ENGLAND
IN
AMERICA
1580-1652
By
Lyon Gardiner Tyler, LL.D.
J. & J. Harper Editions
Harper & Row, Publishers
New York and Evanston
1904
CONTENTS
MAPS
| 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 ]
1 ([return])
[ Cf. Bourne, Spain in America, chap. xvi.]
2 ([return])
[ Cf. Cheyney, European Background of American History, chap. v.]
3 ([return])
[ Prescott, Hist. of the Reign of Philip II., III., 443.]
4 ([return])
[ Ibid., chaps, xi., xii.]
5 ([return])
[ Maine Hist. Soc., Collections, 2d series, II., 59.]
6 ([return])
[ Hakluyt, Discourse on Western Planting.]
7 ([return])
[ Robertson, Works (ed. 1818), XI., 136.]
8 ([return])
[ Nova Britannia (Force, Tracts, I., No. vi.).]
9 ([return])
[ Purchas, Pilgrimes (ed. 1625), III., 809; Hakluyt, Voyages (ed. 1809), III., 167-174.]
10 ([return])
[ Hakluyt, Voyages, III., 171; IV., 198.]
11 ([return])
[ Purchas, Pilgrimes, III., 808; Hakluyt, Voyages, III., 31.]
12 ([return])
[ Hakluyt, Voyages, I., 270.]
13 ([return])
[ Winsor, Narrative and Critical History, III., 7.]
14 ([return])
[ Hakluyt, Voyages, III., 593, 618.]
15 ([return])
[ Ibid., 618-623.]
16 ([return])
[ Hakluyt, Voyages, IV., 1; Winsor, Narrative and Critical History, III., 59-84.]
17 ([return])
[ Camden, Annals, in Kennet, England, II., 478.]
18 ([return])
[ Harris, Voyages and Travels, II., 15.]
19 ([return])
[ Harris, Voyages and Travels, II., 15.]
20 ([return])
[ Camden, Annals, in Kennet, England, II., 478, 479.]
21 ([return])
[ Camden, Annals, in Kennet, England, II., 479, 480; Hakluyt, Voyages, IV., 232-246.]
22 ([return])
[ Ibid., 316-341.]
23 ([return])
[ Edwards, Life of Raleigh, I., 77.]
24 ([return])
[ Cal. of State Pap., Col., 1513-1616, p. 8.]
25 ([return])
[ Hakluyt, Voyages, III., 32-46; Edwards, Life of Raleigh, I., 77; Doyle, English in America, I., 60.]
26 ([return])
[ Hakluyt, Voyages, III., 53.]
27 ([return])
[ Hakluyt, Voyages, III., 52-104, 132.]
28 ([return])
[ Brown, Genesis of the United States, I., 9.]
29 ([return])
[ Hakluyt, Voyages, III., 174-176.]
30 ([return])
[ Hakluyt, Voyages, III., 186.]
31 ([return])
[ Cal. of State Pap., Col., 1574-1674, p. 17.]
32 ([return])
[ Cal. of State Pap., Col., 1574-1674, pp. 8-10.]
33 ([return])
[ Edwards, Life of Raleigh, I., 82, 83.]
34 ([return])
[ Stevens, Thomas Hariot, 40.]
35 ([return])
[ 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 ]
1 ([return])
[ Edwards, Life of Raleigh, I., 81, II., 10.]
2 ([return])
[ Cal. of State Pap., Col., 1574-1674, p. 17.]
3 ([return])
[ Edwards, Life of Raleigh, I., 82.]
4 ([return])
[ Hakluyt, Voyages, III., 184-208.]
5 ([return])
[ Stevens, Thomas Hariot, 43-48.]
6 ([return])
[ For the patent, see Hakluyt, Voyages, III., 297-301.]
7 ([return])
[ Brown, Genesis of the United States, I., 13.]
8 ([return])
[ Hakluyt, Voyages, III., 301.]
9 ([return])
[ Hakluyt, Voyages, III., 302-310.]
10 ([return])
[ Edwards, Life of Raleigh, I., 144-145.]
11 ([return])
[ Hakluyt, Voyages, III., 322, IV., 10.]
12 ([return])
[ Hakluyt, Voyages, III., 323, 340.]
13 ([return])
[ Edwards, Life of Raleigh, I., 106.]
14 ([return])
[ Stevens, Thomas Hariot, 55-62.]
15 ([return])
[ Hakluyt, Voyages, III., 340-345.]
16 ([return])
[ Ibid., 346, 347.]
17 ([return])
[ Brown, Genesis of the United States, I., 19.]
18 ([return])
[ Edwards, Life of Raleigh, I., 111.]
19 ([return])
[ Brown, Genesis of the United States, I., 20.]
20 ([return])
[ Stebbins, Life of Raleigh, 47.]
21 ([return])
[ Hakluyt, Voyages, III., 350-357.]
22 ([return])
[ Strachey, Travaile into Virginia, 26, 85.]
23 ([return])
[ Edwards, Life of Raleigh, I., 706, 721.]
24 ([return])
[ Ibid., 91.]
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.
1 ([return])
[ Purchas, Pilgrimes, IV., 1647-1651; Strachey, Travaile into Virginia, 153-158; John Smith, Works (Arber's ed.), 332-340.]
2 ([return])
[ Purchas, Pilgrimes, IV., 1654-1656, 1659-1667.]
3 ([return])
[ Brown, Genesis of the United States, I., 27.]
4 ([return])
[ Brown, Genesis of the United States, I., 46.]
5 ([return])
[ Hening, Statutes, I., 57-66; see also Cheyney, European Background of American History, chap. viii.]
6 ([return])
[ Brown, First Republic, 8.]
7 ([return])
[ Hening, Statutes, I., 67-75.]
8 ([return])
[ Ashley, English Economic History, II., 261-376.]
9 ([return])
[ Brown, Genesis of the United States, I., 50.]
10 ([return])
[ Brown, Genesis of the United States, I., 127-139.]
11 ([return])
[ Gorges, Briefe Narration (Mass. Hist. Soc., Collections, 3d series., VI. 53).]
12 ([return])
[ Strachey, Travaile into Virginia, 162-180; Brown, Genesis of the United States, I., 190-194.]
13 ([return])
[ Neill, Virginia Company, 4-8.]
14 ([return])
[ Ibid., 8-14.]
15 ([return])
[ Purchas, Pilgrimes, II., 1365.]
16 ([return])
[ On the American Indians, Farrand, Basis of American History, chaps, vi.-xiv.]
17 ([return])
[ 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.]
18 ([return])
[ Smith, Works (Arber's ed.), 400.]
19 ([return])
[ Cases of rescue and adoption are numerous. See the case of Conture, in Parkman, Jesuits, 223; Fiske, Old Virginia and Her Neighbors, I., 113.]
20 ([return])
[ Smith, Works (Arber's ed.), 436.]
21 ([return])
[ Percy, Discourse, in Smith, Works (Arber's ed.), lvii.-lxx.]
22 ([return])
[ Percy, Discourse, in Smith, Works (Arber's ed.), lxx.]
23 ([return])
[ Breife Declaration, in Virginia State Senate Document, 1874.]
24 ([return])
[ Percy, Discourse, in Smith, Works (Arber's ed.), lxxiii.]
25 ([return])
[ Wingfield, Discourse, in Smith, Works (Arber's ed.), lxxiv.-xci.]
26 ([return])
[ Wingfield, Discourse, in Smith, Works (Arber's ed.), lxxxvi.]
27 ([return])
[ Brown, Genesis of the United States, I., 175.]
28 ([return])
[ Wingfield, Discourse, in Smith, Works (Arber's ed.), lxxxvii.]
29 ([return])
[ Breife Declaration.]
30 ([return])
[ Smith, Works (Arber's ed.), 104.]
31 ([return])
[ Breife Declaration.]
32 ([return])
[ 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 ]
1 ([return])
[ Smith, Works (Arber's ed.), 114, 130.]
2 ([return])
[ Hotten, Emigrants to America, 245; Brown, First Republic, 114.]
3 ([return])
[ Smith, Works (Arber's ed.), 121.]
4 ([return])
[ Smith, Works (Arber's ed.), 23, 125, 442, 449, 460.]
5 ([return])
[ Breife Declaration.]
6 ([return])
[ Smith, Works (Arber's ed.), 133-147, 154.]
7 ([return])
[ Breife Declaration.]
8 ([return])
[ Smith, Works (Arber's ed.), 159; Brown, Genesis of the United States, I., 343.]
9 ([return])
[ Brown, Genesis of the United States, I., 250-321.]
10 ([return])
[ Brown, Genesis of the United States, I., 228.]
11 ([return])
[ Hening, Statutes, I., 80-98; Brown, Genesis of the United States, I., 206-224.]
12 ([return])
[ True and Sincere Declaration, in Brown, Genesis of the United States, I., 345.]
13 ([return])
[ Purchas, Pilgrimes, IV., 1734-1754; Plain Description of the Barmudas (Force, Tracts, III., No. iii.); Brown, Genesis of the United States, I., 346, 347.]
14 ([return])
[ Purchas, Pilgrimes, IV., 1749.]
15 ([return])
[ Breife Declaration; Brown, Genesis of the United States, I., 404-406.]
16 ([return])
[ Brown, Genesis of the United States, I., 330-332.]
17 ([return])
[ 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.]
18 ([return])
[ Brown, First Republic, 92.]
19 ([return])
[ Brown, Genesis of the United States, I., 364.]
20 ([return])
[ Smith, Works (Arber's ed.), 497.]
21 ([return])
[ Brown, Genesis of the United States, I., 483-488.]
22 ([return])
[ True Declaration (Force, Tracts, III., No. i.).]
23 ([return])
[ Smith, Works (Arber's ed.), 498.]
24 ([return])
[ 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.).]
25 ([return])
[ Laws Divine, Morall and Martiall (Force, Tracts, III., No. ii.).]
26 ([return])
[ Brown, Genesis of the United States, I., 401-415.]
27 ([return])
[ Ibid., 407.]
28 ([return])
[ Brown, Genesis of the United States, I., 400-415; Purchas, Pilgrimes, IV., 1734-1756; True Declaration (Force, Tracts, III., No. i.).]
29 ([return])
[ True Declaration (Force, Tracts, III., No. i.).]
30 ([return])
[ Spelman, in Brown, Genesis of the United States, I., 483-488.]
31 ([return])
[ Purchas, Pilgrimes, IV., 1756.]
32 ([return])
[ Brown, Genesis of the United States, I., 490.]
33 ([return])
[ Breife Declaration.]
34 ([return])
[ Hamor, True Discourse, 29-31; Brown, Genesis of the United States, I., 501-508.]
35 ([return])
[ The Tragical Relation, in Neill, Virginia Company, 407-411.]
36 ([return])
[ Smith, Works (Arber's ed.), 508.]
37 ([return])
[ Hamor, True Discourse, 11.]
38 ([return])
[ Brown, Genesis of the United States, I., 709-725.]
39 ([return])
[ A Description of the Province of New Albion (1648) (Force, Tracts, II., No. vii.).]
40 ([return])
[ Brown, Genesis of the United States, I., 438.]
41 ([return])
[ Hamor, True Discourse, 17; Breife Declaration.]
42 ([return])
[ Brown, Genesis of the United States, II., 739, 740.]
43 ([return])
[ Ibid., 657.]
44 ([return])
[ Ibid., 760, 761.]
45 ([return])
[ John Rolfe, Relation, in Va. Historical Register, I., 110.]
46 ([return])
[ Virginia Company, Proceedings (Va. Hist. Soc., Collections, new series, VII.), I., 65.]
47 ([return])
[ Neill, Virginia Company, 98.]
48 ([return])
[ Smith, Works (Arber's ed.), 533.]
49 ([return])
[ Rolfe, Relation, in Va. Historical Register, I., 108.]
50 ([return])
[ Breife Declaration.]
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 matie yt commissioners may be sent over wth 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 ]
1 ([return])
[ Brown, Genesis of the United States, II., 543-554; First Republic, 165-167.]
2 ([return])
[ Brown, English Politics in Early Virginia History, 24-33.]
3 ([return])
[ Brown, Genesis of the United States, II., 775-779, 797-799.]
4 ([return])
[ Ibid., 967.]
5 ([return])
[ Virginia Company, Proceedings (Va. Hist. Soc., Collections, new series, VII., VIII.), I., 65, II., 198.]
6 ([return])
[ Discourse of the Old Company, in Va. Magazine, I., 157.]
7 ([return])
[ Instructions to Yardley, 1618, ibid., II., 154-165.]
8 ([return])
[ Assembly Journal, 1619, in Va. State Senate Documents, 1874.]
9 ([return])
[ Smith, Works (Arber's ed.), 541.]
10 ([return])
[ Virginia Company, Proceedings (Va. Hist. Soc., Collections, new series, VII.), I., 67.]
11 ([return])
[ Brown, Genesis of the United States, II., 1014; Bradford, Plymouth, 47.]
12 ([return])
[ Virginia Company, Proceedings (Va. Hist. Soc., Collections, new series, VII.), I., 78.]
13 ([return])
[ Peckard, Ferrar, 115.]
14 ([return])
[ Discourse of the Old Company, in Va. Magazine, I., 161.]
15 ([return])
[ Smith, Works (Arber's ed.), 562.]
16 ([return])
[ Breife Declaration; Neill, Virginia Company, 395-406.]
17 ([return])
[ Neill, Virginia Company, 334.]
18 ([return])
[ Brown, First Republic, 464, 467.]
19 ([return])
[ Smith, Works (Arber's ed.), 539.]
20 ([return])
[ William and Mary Quarterly, IX., 203-214; Neill, Virginia Company, 293, 307-321; Smith, Works (Arber's ed.), 572-594.]
21 ([return])
[ Neill, Virginia Company, 364, 366.]
22 ([return])
[ Smith, Works (Arber's ed.), 263.]
23 ([return])
[ Discourse of the Old Company, in Va. Magazine, I., 291-293.]
24 ([return])
[ Neill, Virginia Company, 395-407.]
25 ([return])
[ Peckard, Ferrar, 145; Discourse of the Old Company, in Va. Magazine, I., 297.]
26 ([return])
[ Brown, First Republic, 615.]
27 ([return])
[ Cal. of State Pap., Col., 1574-1660, 74; Neill, Virginia Company, 407.]
28 ([return])
[ Hening, Statutes., I., 124.]
29 ([return])
[ Cal. of State Pap., Col., 1574-1674, p. 64, 1574-1660, p. 62.]
30 ([return])
[ Brown, English Politics in Early Virginia History, 89.]
31 ([return])
[ Brown, First Republic, 640, 641].
32 ([return])
[ Cal. of State Pap., Col., 1574-1660, pp. 73, 74, 79.]
33 ([return])
[ Ibid., 86, 88; Neill, Virginia Carolorum, 55.]
34 ([return])
[ Hening, Statutes, I., 134.]
35 ([return])
[ 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.]
36 ([return])
[ Cal. of State Pap., Col., 1574-1660, p. 89.]
37 ([return])
[ Ibid., 88.]
38 ([return])
[ Hening, Statutes, I., 147, II., 20.]
39 ([return])
[ Cal. of State Pap., Col., 1574-1660, p. 133.]
40 ([return])
[ Hening, Statutes, I., 208, 257; Mass. Hist. Soc., Collections, 4th series, IX., III.]
41 ([return])
[ Cal. of State Pap., Col., 1574-1660, p. 130.]
42 ([return])
[ Cal. of State Pap., Col., 1574-1660, pp. 136, 177.]
43 ([return])
[ Hening, Statutes, I., 171.]
44 ([return])
[ Va. Magazine, I., 416, 425, VIII., 299-306; Neill, Virginia Carolorum, 118-120.]
45 ([return])
[ Cal. of State Pap., Col., 1574-1660, pp. 216, 217.]
46 ([return])
[ Wyatt's commission, in Va. Magazine, XI., 50-54; Cal. of State Pap., Col., 1574-1674, p. 83.]
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.
1 ([return])
[ Hening, Statutes, I., 224.]
2 ([return])
[ Cal. of State Pap., Col., 1574-1660, pp. 201, 231, 268.]
3 ([return])
[ William and Mary Quarterly, IV., 173-176, V., 40.]
4 ([return])
[ Virginia's Cure (Force, Tracts, III., No. xv.).]
5 ([return])
[ De Vries, Voyages (N.Y. Hist. Soc., Collections, 2d series, III., 34).]
6 ([return])
[ Smith, Works (Arber's ed.), 887.]
7 ([return])
[ 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.]
8 ([return])
[ Mass. Hist. Soc., Collections, 4th series, IX., 108.]
9 ([return])
[ De Vries, Voyages (N.Y. Hist. Soc., Collections, 2d series, III., 37)]
10 ([return])
[ William and Mary Quarterly, VII., 66, 114.]
11 ([return])
[ Cal. of State Pap., Col., 1574-1660, p. 117.]
12 ([return])
[ Hening, Statutes, I., 225.]
13 ([return])
[ Winthrop, New England, I., 67.]
14 ([return])
[ Mass. Hist. Soc., Collections, 4th series, IX., 110.]
15 ([return])
[ Cal. of State Pap., Col., 1574-1660, p. 184.]
16 ([return])
[ Winthrop, New England, I., 228.]
17 ([return])
[ Va. Magazine, V., 123-128.]
18 ([return])
[ Virginia and Maryland, or the Lord Baltimore's Printed Case, uncased and answered (Force, Tracts, II, No. ix.).]
19 ([return])
[ Va. Magazine, II., 281-288.]
20 ([return])
[ Hening, Statutes, I., 230-235.]
21 ([return])
[ Manuscript Collection of Annals relating to Virginia (Force, Tracts, II., No. vi.).]
22 ([return])
[ Latané, Early Relations between Maryland and Virginia (Johns Hopkins University Studies, XIII., Nos. iii. and iv.).]
23 ([return])
[ Winthrop, New England, III, 198, 199].
24 ([return])
[ Ibid.; Beverley, Virginia, 48.]
25 ([return])
[ Va. Magazine, VIII., 71-73.]
26 ([return])
[ A Perfect Description of Virginia (Force, Tracts, II., No. viii.); Beverley, Virginia, 49.]
27 ([return])
[ Hening, Statutes, I., 323-326.]
28 ([return])
[ Latané, Early Relations (Johns Hopkins University Studies, XIII.).]
29 ([return])
[ William and Mary Quarterly, VIII., 239.]
30 ([return])
[ Hammond, Leah and Rachel (Force, Tracts, III., No. xiv.).]
31 ([return])
[ Perfect Description (ibid., II., No. viii.).]
32 ([return])
[ Neill, Virginia Carolorum, 238; Tyler, Cradle of the Republic, 90.]
33 ([return])
[ Hening, Statutes, I., 359-361.]
34 ([return])
[ Cal. of State Pap., Col., 1574-1660, p. 343.]
35 ([return])
[ Md. Archives, III., 265-267.]
36 ([return])
[ Cal. of State Pap., Col., 1574-1660, p. 393.]
37 ([return])
[ See report of the commissioners, Va. Magazine, XI., 32.]
38 ([return])
[ Hening, Statutes, I., 363, 371.]
39 ([return])
[ Virginia Land Grants, MSS.]
40 ([return])
[ Md. Archives, IV., 268, 315.]
41 ([return])
[ Bancroft, United States (22d ed.), II, 134.]
42 ([return])
[ Tyler, "Colonial Brick Houses," in Century Magazine, February, 1896.]
43 ([return])
[ Hammond, Leah and Rachel (Force, Tracts, III., No. xiv.).]
44 ([return])
[ Tyler, "Virginians Voting in the Colonial Period," in William and Mary Quarterly, VI., 9.]
45 ([return])
[ "Education in Colonial Virginia," William and Mary Quarterly, V., 219-223, VI., 1-7, 71-86, 171-186, VII., 1-9, 65, 77.]
46 ([return])
[ Neill, Virginia Carolorum, 112.]
47 ([return])
[ "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 ]
1 ([return])
[ Brown, Genesis of the United States, II., 841.]
2 ([return])
[ Cal. of State Pap., Col., 1574-1660, pp. 83, 93, 100.]
3 ([return])
[ Cal. of State Pap., Col., 1574-1660, p. 104; Md. Archives, III., 17.]
4 ([return])
[ Md. Archives, III., 19.]
5 ([return])
[ Heath's grant, in Cal. of State Pap., Col., 1574-1674, p. 70.]
6 ([return])
[ Neill, Founders of Maryland, 46, 47.]
7 ([return])
[ Neill, Terra Mariæ, 53; Ogilby, America, 183.]
8 ([return])
[ Md. Archives, III., 21.]
9 ([return])
[ Fiske, Old Virginia and Her Neighbors; Bassett, Constitutional Beginnings of North Carolina; Lapsley, County Palatinate of Durham.]
10 ([return])
[ Calvert Papers (Md. Hist. Soc., Fund Publications, No. 28), p. 132.]
11 ([return])
[ Md. Archives, III., 23.]
12 ([return])
[ 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).]
13 ([return])
[ Winthrop, New England, I., 166.]
14 ([return])
[ Neill, Founders of Maryland, 80.]
15 ([return])
[ Johnson, Old Maryland Manors (Johns Hopkins University Studies, I., No. iii.).]
16 ([return])
[ Md. Archives, I., 1-24.]
17 ([return])
[ Md. Archives, I., 32, 74, 243, 272.]
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 correspondence one with another," Claiborne's partners petitioned the king against it.
Thereupon the king, by an order[7 ] dated October 8, 1634, peremptorily warned Lord Baltimore, or his agents, "not to interrupt the people of Kent Island in their fur trade or plantation." Nevertheless, April 5, 1635, Thomas Cornwallis, one of the Maryland councillors, confiscated a pinnace of Claiborne's for illegal trading, and this act brought on a miniature war in which several persons on both sides were killed.[8 ] Great excitement prevailed in both colonies, and in Virginia the people arrested Harvey, their governor, who upheld Cornwallis's conduct, and shipped him off to England; while two of the councillors were sent to Maryland to protest against the violent proceedings affecting Claiborne.[9 ]
These measures induced a truce, and for nearly three years there were no further hostilities in the bay. Claiborne brought his case before the king, who referred it to the Lords Commissioners for Plantations; then, as his partners feared to take further risk, he carried on the trade in the bay almost solely with his own servants and resources. In December, 1636, these partners, becoming dissatisfied at their loss of profit, made the capital mistake of sending, as their agent to Kent Island, George Evelin, who pretended at first to be an ardent supporter of Claiborne, but presently, under a power of attorney, claimed control over all the partnership stock.
Claiborne, naturally indignant and not suspecting any danger, sailed for England in May, 1637, to settle accounts with his partners, having just previously established another settlement on Palmer's Island at the mouth of the Susquehanna River, believed by him to be north of the Maryland patent. After he was gone, Evelin tried to persuade the inhabitants to disown Claiborne and submit to Lord Baltimore; and when they declined he urged Governor Calvert to attempt the reduction of the island by force. After some hesitation the latter consented, and while the assembly was sitting at St. Mary's, in February, 1638, Calvert made a landing at night with thirty men, and, taking the inhabitants by surprise, succeeded in reducing the island to submission.[10 ]
Calvert's after-conduct reflects little credit upon his reputation for leniency. In March, 1638, he caused Claiborne to be attainted by the assembly as a rebel and his property confiscated, and Thomas Smith, who commanded one of Claiborne's pinnaces in the battles three years before, was tried and hanged for murder and piracy.[11 ] In England, in the mean time, Claiborne and Baltimore were contending zealously for the favor of the king. Both had powerful interests behind them, but Baltimore's were the stronger. At last the Commissioners for Foreign Plantations rendered a report (April 4, 1638), giving Kent Island and the right of trade in the bay wholly to Lord Baltimore, leaving all personal wrongs to be redressed by the courts.
The question of title at least seemed settled, and in October, 1638, Sir John Harvey, now restored as governor of Virginia, issued a proclamation recognizing the validity of the decision. Claiborne submitted, and, being left to "the course of the law," empowered George Scovell to recover, if possible, some of the confiscated property in Maryland; but Scovell was told that the law-courts of Maryland were closed against such a rebel as Claiborne.[12 ] The justice of the English decision depends on the impartiality of the board which made it, and of any board with Bishop Laud at the head only partisanship could be expected.
While these turbulent proceedings were going on, the Jesuit priests introduced into the colony by Lord Baltimore were performing a work of peace and love. They visited the Indian tribes and made many Christian converts. Tayac, chief of the Piscataquas, received baptism, and his example was followed by the chiefs and inhabitants of Port Tobacco. The main trouble came from the Nanticokes on the eastern shore, and the fierce Susquehannas to the north of the settlements, and at different times armed expeditions were sent out against them; but there was nothing like a war.
For sixteen years the only clergy in the colony were priests, who were so zealous in their propaganda that nearly all the Protestants who came in 1638 were converted to Catholicism and many later conversions were made.[13 ] Nevertheless, the Catholic governor and council acted up to the spirit of the instructions given by Baltimore to his brother on the sailing of the first emigrants from the port of London, and would permit no language tending to insult or breach of peace. Not long after the arrival at St. Mary's a proclamation to this end was issued, of which only two violations appear in the records; in both cases the offenders were Roman Catholics, and they were arrested and promptly punished.[14 ]
Baltimore would not even exempt the Jesuit priests in Maryland from the ordinary laws as to lands and taxes, and by the "Conditions of Plantations," published in 1648, he prohibited any society, temporal or spiritual, from taking up land.[15 ] In 1643 his liberality carried him so far as to induce him to extend, through Major Edward Gibbons, an invitation to the Puritans of Massachusetts to emigrate to Maryland, with a full assurance of "free liberty of religion"; but Winthrop grimly writes, "None of our people had temptation that way."[16 ]
In the year of this invitation the possibility of a new shuffle of the political cards occurred through the breaking out of the war so long brewing in England between the king and Parliament. The struggle of party made itself strongly felt in Maryland, where, among the Protestants, sympathy with Parliament was supplemented by hatred of Catholics. In 1643, Governor Leonard Calvert repaired to England, where he received letters of marque from the king at Oxford commissioning him to seize ships belonging to Parliament. Accordingly, when, three months later, in January, 1644, Captain Richard Ingle arrived in his ship at St. Mary's and uttered some blatant words against the king, he was arrested by Acting Governor Brent, for treason. The charges were dismissed by the grand jury as unfounded, but Brent treated Ingle harshly, and fined and exiled Thomas Cornwallis for assisting the captain in escaping.[17 ]
In September, 1644, when Calvert returned to Maryland, there were strong symptoms of revolt, which came to a head when Ingle came back to St. Mary's with a commission from Parliament in February, 1645. Chaotic times ensued, during which Catholics were made victims of the cruel prejudices of the Protestants. The two Jesuit priests, Father Andrew White and Father Philip Fisher, were arrested, loaded with irons,[18 ] and sent prisoners into England, while Leonard Calvert himself was driven from Maryland into Virginia.[19 ]
During these tumults so many persons went over from Virginia to Maryland that the Virginia assembly sent Captain Edward Hill and Captain Thomas Willoughby to compel the return of the absentees,[20 ] with curious result. As the province was without a governor, some of the council of Maryland issued, in the name of the refugee Calvert, a commission to Hill to act as governor of Maryland. The revolutionists flattered themselves that a stable government under a Protestant governor was now at hand. But the unexpected came to pass, when, in December, 1646, Governor Calvert suddenly appeared with a strong body of soldiers furnished by Sir William Berkeley and re-established his authority by capturing both Hill and the Protestant assembly then sitting at St. Mary's.
These two years of civil war in Maryland are called the "plundering time." Claiborne again appears, though there is no evidence that he had any part in Ingle's spoliations.[21 ] He did visit Kent Island about Christmas, 1645, and put Captain Brent, to whom Governor Calvert had assigned his house and property, in a terrible fright. One year later he visited the island a second time, when he offered to aid the Kent Islanders in marching upon St. Mary's with a view of reinstating Hill. When the men of Kent declined to take the risk, Claiborne returned to Virginia, and Kent Island fell once more under the government of Lord Baltimore.[22 ] On this visit Claiborne, instead of posing as a friend of the Parliament, showed a commission and letter from the king, by whom he appears to have stood till the king's death in 1649. Charles I., in his turn, who deposed Lord Baltimore as a "notorious parliamentarian," appointed Claiborne, in 1642, treasurer of Virginia;[23 ] and Charles II. included his name among the list of councillors in the commission issued by Sir William Berkeley in 1650.[24 ]
While Maryland was thus convulsed with civil war an ordinance settling the Maryland government in Protestant hands passed the House of Lords. Before the Commons could concur, Lord Baltimore appeared and asked for time to inquire into the charges. This was after the battle of Marston Moor, and perhaps marks the moment when Lord Baltimore, conceiving the king's cause desperate, began to trim his sails to the parliamentary side. His request was granted, and Parliament, diverted from immediate action, left Baltimore's authority unaffected for several years.[25 ]
In this interval Baltimore busied himself in reorganizing his government on a Protestant basis. Leonard Calvert died in June, 1647, not long after his coup d'état at St. Mary's, and upon his deathbed he appointed Thomas Greene, a Catholic and royalist, as his successor. Lord Baltimore removed him and appointed in his stead a Protestant, Captain William Stone, of Northampton County, Virginia, giving him a Protestant secretary and a Protestant majority of councillors. Yet Baltimore took care not to surrender the cardinal principle of his government. Before Stone and his chief officers were allowed to take office they were required to swear not to "molest any person in the colony professing to believe in Jesus Christ for or in respect of his or her religion, and in particular no Roman Catholic."[26 ]
The famous Toleration Act of 1649 was passed at the first assembly succeeding Stone's appointment. It was very probably in great part a copy of a bill in the code of sixteen laws which Baltimore sent over at this time, and it very nearly repeated the provisions of the oath required of Governor Stone. While the terms of the act did not place the right on that broad plane of universal principle stated later in the Virginia Declaration of Rights, it proclaimed toleration, even if it was a toleration of a very limited nature.[27 ]
Stone had recommended himself to Calvert by promising to lead five hundred persons of British or Irish descent[28 ] into Maryland; and this engagement he was soon able to perform through the Puritans, whose story of persecution in Virginia has been already related. The new emigrants called the country where they settled "Providence," from feelings akin to those which led Roger Williams to give that comforting name to his settlement on Narragansett Bay. They were to prove a thorn in Baltimore's flesh, but for the moment they seemed tolerably submissive. In January, 1650, soon after their arrival, Governor Stone called an assembly to meet at St. Mary's in April, and to this assembly the colony at "Providence" sent two representatives, one of whom was made speaker.
Apprehension of William Claiborne was still felt, and the assembly, though dominated by the new-comers, declared their readiness to resist any attempts of his to seize Kent Island.[29 ] Only in one particular at this time did they oppose Lord Baltimore's policy. The oath of fidelity required them to acknowledge Lord Baltimore as "absolute lord" and his jurisdiction as "royal jurisdiction."[30 ] The Puritans, having scruples about these words, struck them out and inserted a proviso that the oath "be not in any wise understood to infringe or prejudice liberty of conscience."[31 ] About this time Charles II., although a powerless exile, issued an order deposing Baltimore from his government and appointing Sir William Davenant as his successor, for the reason that Baltimore "did visibly adhere to the rebels in England and admit all kinds of schismatics and sectaries and ill-affected persons into the plantation."[32 ]
Thus when Parliament soon after took up his case again, Lord Baltimore came full-handed with proofs of loyalty to the commonwealth. His enemies produced evidence that Charles II., in 1649, was proclaimed in Maryland, but Baltimore showed that it was done without his authority by Thomas Greene, who acted as governor a second time during a brief absence of Captain Stone from Maryland. When they accused him of being an enemy of Protestants he produced the proclamation of Charles II., deposing him from the government on account of his adherence to them. Finally, he exhibited a declaration in his behalf signed by many of the Puritan emigrants from Virginia, among whom were William Durand, their elder, and James Cox and Samuel Puddington, the two burgesses from Providence in the assembly of 1650.[33 ]
Nevertheless, Baltimore played a losing game. At heart the Puritans in England were unfriendly to him because of his religion; and, when persistent rumors reached Maryland that Baltimore's patent was doomed, some of the men of Providence appeared in England and urged that it be revoked.[34 ] At length, October 3, 1650, Parliament passed an ordinance authorizing the Council of State to reduce to obedience Barbadoes, Antigua, Bermudas, and "Virginia," the last being a term which in England was often used to include Maryland. Baltimore struggled hard to have Maryland left out of the instructions drawn up afterwards by the Council of State; but though he was apparently successful, a descriptive phrase including his province was inserted, for the commissioners, Curtis, Claiborne, and Bennett, with an armed fleet, were instructed "to use their best endeavors to reduce all the plantations within the Bay of Chesopiack to their due obedience to the Parliament of England."[35 ]
After the commissioners had reduced Virginia, they found even less resistance in Maryland. The commissioners landed at St. Mary's, and, professing their intention to respect the "just rights" of Lord Baltimore, demanded that Stone should change the form of the writs from the name of Lord Baltimore to that of Parliament. Stone at first declined to comply, and the commissioners, March 29, 1652, put the government into the hands of a council of leading Protestants. Stone then reconsidered his action, and Claiborne and Bennett, returning to St. Mary's, restored him to the government, June 28, 1652, in conjunction with the councillors already appointed. The ascendency of Claiborne seemed complete, but beyond renewing his property claim to Kent and Palmer islands, he did not then further interfere.[36 ]
Maryland consisted at this time of four counties: St. Mary's, erected in 1634, Kent, 1642, and Charles and Anne Arundelin 1650, and contained a population perhaps of eight thousand. The settlements reached on both sides of the bay, from the Potomac to the Susquehanna. Society was distinctly democratic, for while there were favored families there was no privileged class, and the existence of African slavery and the temporary servitude of convicts and redemptioners tended to place all freemen on an equality. As there was no state church, educational opportunities in the province were small, but it was a land of plenty and hospitality, and charity in religion made the execution of the criminal law singularly mild. In spite of turmoils and dissensions, Maryland prospered and flourished. A home feeling existed, and there were many even among the recent exiles from Virginia who looked with hope to its future and spoke of it as "a country in which I desire to spend the remnant of my days, in which I covet to make my grave."[37 ]
1 ([return])
[ Md. Archives, III., 32.]
2 ([return])
[ Md. Archives, V., 158.]
3 ([return])
[ Hening, Statutes, I., 154. ]
4 ([return])
[ Md. Archives, III., 33. ]
5 ([return])
[ Browne, George and Cecilius Calvert, 49.]
6 ([return])
[ Md. Archives, V., 164-168.]
7 ([return])
[ Ibid., III., 29.]
8 ([return])
[ Neill, Founders of Maryland, 51.]
9 ([return])
[ Md. Archives III., 37.]
10 ([return])
[ Browne, George and Cecilius Calvert, 69.]
11 ([return])
[ Md. Archives, V., 187.]
12 ([return])
[ Md. Archives, III., 42-93.]
13 ([return])
[ White, Relation (Force, Tracts, IV., No. xii.).]
14 ([return])
[ Md. Archives, I., 119, IV., 38.]
15 ([return])
[ Calvert Papers (Md. Hist. Soc., Fund Publications, No. 35), 166, 216, 217; Md. Archives, III., 227.]
16 ([return])
[ Winthrop, New England, II., 179.]
17 ([return])
[ Md. Archives, IV., 246-249.]
18 ([return])
[ Neill, Founders of Maryland, 75; Md. Archives, III., 165, 177.]
19 ([return])
[ Bozman, Maryland, II., 293.]
20 ([return])
[ Hening, Statutes, I., 321.]
21 ([return])
[ Bozman, Maryland, II., 296.]
22 ([return])
[ Md. Archives, IV., 281, 435, 458, 459.]
23 ([return])
[ Hazard, State Papers, I., 493.]
24 ([return])
[ Cal. of State Pap., Col., 1574-1660, p. 340.]
25 ([return])
[ Md. Archives, III., 164, 180, 187.]
26 ([return])
[ Md. Archives, III., 211, 214.]
27 ([return])
[ Ibid., I., 244-247.]
28 ([return])
[ Ibid., III., 201.]
29 ([return])
[ Md. Archives, I., 261, 287.]
30 ([return])
[ Ibid., III., 196.]
31 ([return])
[ Ibid., I., 305.]
32 ([return])
[ Neill, Terra Mariæ, 88.]
33 ([return])
[ Bozman, Maryland, II., 672.]
34 ([return])
[ Md. Archives, III., 259.]
35 ([return])
[ Md. Archives, III., 265.]
36 ([return])
[ Ibid., 271-277.]
37 ([return])
[ Hammond, Leah and Rachel (Force, Tracts, III., No. xiv.).]
CHAPTER IX
FOUNDING OF PLYMOUTH
(1608-1630)
After the disastrous failure of the Popham colony in 1608 the Plymouth Company for several years was inactive. Its members were lacking in enthusiastic co-operation, and therefore did not attract, like the London Company, the money and energy of the nation. After Sir John Popham's death, in 1607, his son Francis Popham was chiefly instrumental in sending out several vessels, which, though despatched for trade, served to keep up interest in the northern shores of America.
That coast threatened to be lost to Englishmen, for the French, in 1603, began to make settlements in Nova Scotia and in Mount Desert Island, near the mouth of the Penobscot, while their ships sailed southward along the New England shores. The Dutch, too, explored the Hudson (1609) and prepared the way for a colony there. It was, therefore, a great service to England when Captain Argall, under the authority of Sir Thomas Dale, in 1613, dislodged the French at Mount Desert, Port Royal, and St. Croix.
Shortly after Argall's visit John Smith sailed, in 1614, for the northern coast, with two ships fitted out by some private adventurers. While the ships were taking a freight of fish, Smith, with a view to colonization, ranged the neighboring coast, collecting furs from the natives, taking notes of the shores and the islands, and making soundings of the water. Smith drew a map of the country, and was the first to call it "New England" instead of North Virginia, Norumbega, or Canada. This map he submitted to Prince Charles, who gave names to some thirty points on the coast. Only Plymouth, Charles River, and Cape Ann have permanently kept the names thus fastened upon them. Boston, Hull, Cambridge, and some others were subsequently adopted, but applied to localities different from those to which Prince Charles affixed them.
While he was absent one day Thomas Hunt, master of one of his vessels, kidnapped twenty-four savages, and, setting sail, carried them to Spain, where he sold most of them. The outrage soured the Indians in New England, but of the captives, one, named Squanto or Tisquantum, was carried to England, and his later friendliness worked to the benefit of subsequent English colonization.[1 ]
In 1615 Captain Smith entered into the service of the Plymouth Company and was complimented with the title of "Admiral of New England." With great difficulty they provided two ships and despatched them to effect a settlement, but the result was the old story of misfortune. The ship in which Smith sailed was captured by the French, and Smith himself was detained in captivity for some time. Captain Dormer, with the other vessel, proceeded on his voyage to New England, but did not attempt anything beyond securing a cargo of furs.
Smith tried to stir up interest in another expedition, and travelled about England in 1616, distributing his maps and other writings, but he says "all availed no more than to hew rocks with oyster-shells." Smith's connection with the American coast then ceased altogether; but his plans of colonization were not without fruit, since his literary works, making known the advantages of New England, kept the attention of the public fastened upon that region.[2 ]
At this time the most prominent member of the Plymouth Company was Sir Ferdinando Gorges, son of Edward Gorges, of Worcestershire, born about 1566. He served at Sluys in 1587, was knighted by Essex before Rouen, in October, 1591, and in 1593 was made governor of the port of Plymouth in England, which office he still held. Despite the ill-fortune attending past efforts, he continued to send out vessels under color of fishing and trade, which ranged the coast of New England and brought news of a calamity to the natives unexpectedly favorable to future colonization. In 1616-1617 the country from Penobscot River to Narragansett Bay was almost left "void of inhabitants" by a pestilence which swept away entire villages of Indians. This information, together with the better knowledge due to Gorges of the value of the fisheries, caused a revival of interest regarding New England among the members of the Plymouth Company.[3 ]
Under the name of "the Council for New England," they obtained from the king in 1620 a new charter,[4 ] granting to them all the territory in North America extending "in breadth from forty degrees of northerly latitude, from the equinoctial line, to forty-eight degrees of the said northerly latitude, and in length by all the breadth aforesaid throughout the main-land from sea to sea." In the new grant the number of grantees was limited to forty, and all other persons enjoying rights in the company's lands stood in the position of their tenants. Thus, like the Plymouth Company, the new company proved defective in co-operative power, and the first actual settlement of New England was due to an influence little fancied by any of its members.
Religious opinions during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were great political forces. The Christian church of Europe, before the days of Luther, held the view that the pope of Rome was the only infallible interpreter of the Holy Scriptures, and against this doctrine Luther led a revolt denominated Protestantism, which insisted upon the right of private judgment. Nevertheless, when the reformed churches came to adopt articles and canons of their own they generally discarded this fundamental difference, and, affirming infallibility in themselves, enlisted the civil power in support of their doctrines.
Hence, in 1559, Queen Elizabeth caused her Parliament to pass two famous statutes, the Act of Supremacy, which required all clergymen and office-holders to renounce the spiritual as well as temporal jurisdiction of all foreign princes and prelates; and the Act of Uniformity, which forbade any minister from using any other liturgy or service than that established by Parliament.[5 ]
These acts, though directed originally against the Roman Catholics, were resented by many zealous English clergymen who, during the reign of Queen Mary, had taken refuge in Switzerland and Germany, and learned while there the spiritual and political doctrines of John Calvin. These English refugees were the first Puritans, and in the beginning the large majority had no desire of separating from the church of which the sovereign was the head, but thought to reform it from within, according to their own views of ecclesiastical policy. They wanted, among other things, to discard the surplice and Book of Common Prayer and to abolish the order of bishops. Queen Elizabeth looked upon their opinions as dangerous, and harassed them before the Court of High Commission, created in 1583 for enforcing the acts of supremacy and uniformity. But her persecution increased rather than diminished the opposition, and finally there arose a sect called Independents, who flatly denied the ecclesiastical supremacy of the queen and claimed the right to set up separate churches of their own. The Scotch Calvinists worked out an elaborate form of Presbyterian government, by synods and assemblies, which later played a great part in England.
For a long time the "Separatists," as they were called, were as unpopular with the great body of Puritans as with the churchmen. Popular aversion was expressed by the derisive name of "Brownists," given them from Robert Browne, the first to set forth their doctrines in a formal pamphlet, entitled The Life and Manners of True Christians. Their meetings were broken up by mobs, and worshippers were subjected to insults.[6 ]
Holland at that time was the only country enlightened enough to open its doors to all religions professing Jesus Christ; and as early as 1593 a Separatist congregation, which had come into existence at London, took refuge at Amsterdam, and they were followed by many other persons persecuted under the laws of Queen Elizabeth. When she died, in 1603, there were hopes at first of a milder policy from King James, but they were speedily dispelled, and at a conference of Puritans and High Churchmen at Hampton Court in 1604 the king warned dissenters, "I will make them conform or I will harry them out of this land, or else worse"; and he was as good as his word.[7 ]
Several congregations of Separatists were located in the northeastern part of England, in some towns and villages in Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire, and Yorkshire. One held meetings, under Rev. John Smith, a Cambridge graduate, at Gainsborough, and another, under Richard Clifton as pastor and John Robinson as teacher, at the small village of Scrooby. Persecuted by the king's officers, these congregations began to consider the advisability of joining their brethren in Holland. That of Gainsborough was the first to emigrate, and, following the example of the London church, it settled at Amsterdam.
In the second, or Scrooby, congregation, destined to furnish the "Pilgrim Fathers" of New England,[8 ] three men were conspicuous as leaders. The first was John Robinson, a man, according to the testimony of an opponent, of "excellent parts, and the most learned, polished, and modest spirit" that ever separated from the church of England. The second was the elder, William Brewster, like Robinson, educated at Cambridge, who had served as one of the under-secretaries of state for many years. After the downfall of his patron, Secretary Davison, he accepted the position of postmaster and went to live at Scrooby in an old manor house of Sir Samuel Sandys, the elder brother of Sir Edwin Sandys, where, in the great hall, the Separatists held their meetings.[9 ] The third character was William Bradford, born at Austerfield, a village neighboring to Scrooby, and at the time of the flight from England seventeen years of age, afterwards noted for his ability and loftiness of character.
In 1607 the Scrooby congregation made their first attempt to escape into Holland. A large party of them hired a ship at Boston, in Lincolnshire, but the captain betrayed them to the officers of the law, who rifled them of their money and goods and confined them for about a month in jail. The next year another party made an attempt to leave. The captain, who was a Dutchman, started to take the men aboard, but after the first boat-load he saw a party of soldiers approaching, and, "swearing his countries oath Sacramente, and having the wind faire, weighed anchor, hoysted sayles & away." The little band was thus miserably separated, and men and women suffered many misfortunes; but in the end, by one means or another, all made good their escape from England and met together in the city of Amsterdam.
They found there both the church of the London Separatists and that of the Gainsborough people stirred up over theological questions, which bid fair to tear them to pieces. Hence, Robinson determined to remove his flock, and in May, 1609, they made the city of Leyden, twenty miles distant, their permanent abode. Their pastor, Richard Clifton, remained in Amsterdam, and the care of the congregation in their new home was confided to John Robinson and William Brewster.[10 ]
In Leyden the Pilgrims were compelled to adapt themselves, as they had in Amsterdam, to conditions of life very different from those to which they had been trained in their own country. As far as they can be traced, a majority seem to have found employment in the manufacture of woollen goods, for which the city was famous. Their uprightness, diligence, and sobriety gave them a good name and pecuniary credit with their Dutch neighbors, who testified twelve years later that in all their stay in Holland "we never had any suit or accusation against any of them."[11 ]
To Robinson, Brewster, and Bradford the change was a decided gain. As the site of a great university, Leyden furnished them intercourse with learned men and access to valuable libraries. Robinson was admitted a member of the university, and before long appeared as a disputant on the Calvinist side in the public discussions. Brewster taught the English language to the Dutch, and, opening a publishing house, printed many theological books. Bradford devoted himself to the study of the ancient languages, "to see with his own eyes the ancient oracles of God in all their native beauty."[12 ]
Their stay at Leyden covered the period of the famous twelve years' truce between Spain and Holland, and their number increased from one hundred to three hundred. Among the new-comers from England were John Carver, Robert Cushman, Miles Standish, and Edward Winslow. Towards the end of the period the exiles began to think of a second emigration, and this time it was not persecution that suggested the thought. In expectation of the renewal of hostilities with Spain, the streets of Leyden sounded with the beating of drums and preparations of war. Although Holland afforded them religious freedom, they won their subsistence at the price of unremitting toil, which might be made even harder by renewal of hostilities. A more sentimental reason was found in the desire to perpetuate their existence as a religious body of Englishmen.
By the summer of 1617 the majority of the Scrooby congregation had fully decided to emigrate, and it only remained to determine the new place of residence. Some talked of Guiana, others of New York, but the majority inclined to Virginia; and the conclusion was to emigrate as a distinct body to a place under the London Company, but not so near Jamestown as to be troubled by the Episcopalian planters there.
With this design they sent two of their number, John Carver and Robert Cushman, to London, and Sir Edwin Sandys tried to obtain for them a patent recognizing their religious rights. To aid him, Robinson and Brewster drew up a confession of faith which, as it contains an admission of the right of the state to control religion, seems strangely at variance with the doctrines of the Separatists. But the king was not easily persuaded, and he promised only that "he would connive at them and not molest them, provided they carried themselves peaceably."[13 ]
Sandys passed through the London Company two "particular patents" in their behalf, one taken out in the name of John Wincop and the other in that of John Pierce, two of their associates in England; under the latter, granted in February, 1620, the Pilgrims prepared to leave Holland.[14 ] Capital to the amount of £7000 was furnished by seventy merchant adventurers in London, and it was agreed with them that for several years everything was to be held in joint stock, the shares of which were to be valued at £10 each and to be paid for in money or by personal service.[15 ]
As they had not resources for all to go, the major part of the congregation, with Robinson, stayed behind, promising to follow later. The emigrants under Carver, Bradford, and Brewster started out from Delft-Haven in July, 1620, in the leaky ship the Speedwell. At Southampton, in England, they met the Mayflower with friends from London, and soon after both ships made an attempt to start to sea. They had not sailed any distance before the Speedwell let in so much water that it was necessary to put in at Dartmouth for repairs. Again they set sail, and this time they had left old England one hundred leagues behind when the captain reported the Speedwell in danger of foundering. There was nothing to do but to bear up again and return to England, where they put in at Plymouth. Upon examination the Speedwell was pronounced unseaworthy and sent to London with about twenty of the company. With the rest, one hundred and two in number, the Mayflower cleared the port, September 6, for America.
Her destination was some point south of the Hudson River, within the Virginia patent; but foul weather prevented any accurate calculation, and November 9, 1620, the emigrants found themselves in the neighborhood of Cape Cod. They tacked and sailed southward, but ran into "dangerous shoals and roaring breakers," which compelled them to turn back and seek shelter in the harbor now called Provincetown. The anxiety of the sailors to be rid of the emigrants prevented any further attempt southward, and forced them to make their permanent habitation near this accidental lodgment.
As the patent under which they sailed had no force in the territory of the Plymouth Company, they united themselves by the so-called "Mayflower compact," November 11, 1620, into a "civill body politic," and promised "submission and obedience to all such ordinances as the general good of the colony might require from time to time." Under the patent John Carver had been chosen governor, and he was now confirmed in that office under the new authority, which followed pretty nearly the terms of the old.[16 ]
For five weeks they stayed in the ship, while Captain Miles Standish with a small company explored the country. In the third expedition, after an attack from the Indians and much suffering from snow and sleet, Standish's men reached a landing nearly opposite to the point of Cape Cod, which they sounded and "found fit for shipping." There "divers cornfields" and an excellent stream of fresh water encouraged settlement, and they landed, December 11 (Old Style), 1620, near a large bowlder, since known as Plymouth Rock.
By the end of the week the Mayflower had brought over her company of emigrants—seventy-three males and twenty-nine females—and December 25, 1620, they began to erect the first house "for the common use to receive them and their goods." The Indian name of the place was Patuxet, but the emigrants called it New Plymouth "after Plymouth, in old England, the last town they left in their native country";[17 ] and it was a curious coincidence that the spot had already received from John Smith the name of Plymouth. Later the town was called simply Plymouth, while the colony took the name of New Plymouth.
1 ([return])
[ Smith, Works (Arber's ed.), 699; Bradford, Plimoth Plantation, 117.]
2 ([return])
[ Smith, Works (Arber's ed.), 699-701, 731-742, 745.]
3 ([return])
[ Gorges, Description of New England (Mass. Hist. Soc., Collections, 3d series, VI.), 57.]
4 ([return])
[ Poore, Charters and Constitutions, I., 921. ]
5 ([return])
[ Cf. Cheyney, European Background of Am. Hist., chap. xi.]
6 ([return])
[ Neal, Puritans, I., 149-151, 202; cf. Cheyney, European Background of Am. Hist., chap. xii.]
7 ([return])
[ Neal, Puritans, I., 232; Hart, Source-Book, No. 15.]
8 ([return])
[ Bradford, Plimoth Plantation, 13.]
9 ([return])
[ Hunter, Founders of New Plymouth.]
10 ([return])
[ Bradford, Plimoth Plantation, 15-29.]
11 ([return])
[ Ibid., 27.]
12 ([return])
[ Bradford, Plimoth Plantation, 28, 488-493; Mather, Magnolia, I., 113.]
13 ([return])
[ Bradford, Plimoth Plantation, 29-38.]
14 ([return])
[ Brown, First Republic, 424.]
15 ([return])
[ Smith, Works (Arber's ed.), 783; Bradford, Plimoth Plantation, 56-58.]
16 ([return])
[ Bradford, Plimoth Plantation, 90-110; Eggleston, Beginners of a Nation, 184, note 4.]
17 ([return])
[ Morton, New England's Memorial, 56.]
CHAPTER X
DEVELOPMENT OF NEW PLYMOUTH
(1621-1643)
During the winter of 1620-1621 the emigrants suffered greatly from scurvy and exposure. More than half the company perished, and the seamen on the Mayflower suffered as much.[1 ] With the appearance of spring the mortality ceased, and a friendly intercourse with the natives began. These Indians were the Pokanokets, whose number had been very much thinned by the pestilence. After the first hostilities directed against the exploring parties they avoided the whites, and held a meeting in a dark and dismal swamp, where the medicine-men for three days together tried vainly to subject the new-comers to the spell of their conjurations.
At last, in March, 1621, an Indian came boldly into camp, and, in broken English, bade the strangers "welcome." It was found that his name was Samoset, and that he came from Monhegan, an island distant about a day's sail towards the east, where he had picked up a few English words from the fishermen who frequented that region. In a short time he returned, bringing Squanto, or Tisquantum, stolen by Hunt seven years before, and restored to his country in 1620 by Sir Ferdinando Gorges. Squanto, who could speak English, stated that Massasoit was near at hand, and on invitation that chief appeared, and soon a treaty of peace and friendship was concluded; after which Massasoit returned to his town of Sowams, forty miles distant, while Squanto continued with the colonists and made himself useful in many ways.[2 ]
In the beginning of April, 1621, the Mayflower went back to England, and the colonists planted corn in the fields once tilled by Indians whom the pestilence had destroyed. While engaged in this work the governor, John Carver, died, and his place was supplied by William Bradford, with Isaac Allerton as assistant or councilman. During the summer the settlers were very busy. They fitted up their cabins, amassed a good supply of beaver, and harvested a fair crop of corn. In the fall a ship arrived, bringing thirty-five new settlers poorly provided. It also brought a patent, dated June 1, 1621, from the Council for New England, made out to John Pierce, by whom the original patent from the London Company had been obtained. The patent did not define the territorial limits, but allowed one hundred acres for every emigrant and fifteen hundred acres for public buildings, in the same proportion of one hundred acres to every workman.[3 ]
The ship tarried only fourteen days, and returned with a large cargo of clapboard and beaver skins of the value of £500, which was, however, captured on the way to England by a French cruiser. After the departure the governor distributed the new-comers among the different families, and because of the necessity of sharing with them, put everybody on half allowance. The prospect for the winter was not hopeful, for to the danger from starvation was added danger from the Indians.
West of the Pokanokets were the Narragansetts, a tribe of two thousand warriors, whose chief, Canonicus, sent to Plymouth in January, 1622, a bundle of arrows tied with a snake's skin, signifying a challenge of war. Bradford knew that it was fatal to hesitate or show fear, and he promptly stuffed the snake's skin with bullets and returned it to the sender with some threatening words. This answer alarmed Canonicus, who thought that the snake's skin must be conjured, and he did not pursue the matter further. But the colonists took warning, and the whole settlement was enclosed with a paling, and strict military watch was maintained. Thus the winter passed and the spring came, but without the hoped-for assistance from the merchant partners in England.[4 ]
On the contrary, the arrival in May, 1622, "without a bite of bread," of sixty-seven other persons, sent out on his own account under a grant from the Council for New England, by Thomas Weston, one of the partners, plunged them into dire distress, from which they were happily saved by a ship-captain, John Huddleston, from the colony on James River, who shared his supplies with them, and thus enabled them to "make shift till corn was ripe again." Weston's emigrants were a loose set, and before they left in August they stole most of the green corn, and thus Plymouth was threatened with another famine. Fortunately, about this time another ship from Virginia, bearing the secretary of state, John Pory, arrived, and sold the colonists a supply of truck for trading; by which they bought from the Indians not only corn, but beaver, which proved afterwards a source of much profit.
Weston's people removed to Wessagusset (modern Weymouth), on Massachusetts Bay, where they conducted themselves in so reckless a manner that they ran the double risk of starvation and destruction from savages. To save them, Bradford, in March, 1623, despatched a company under Captain Miles Standish, who brought them corn and killed several of the Indians. Then Standish helped Weston's "rude fellows" aboard ship and saw them safely off to sea. Shortly after Weston came over to look after his emigrants, fell into the hands of the Indians, escaped to Plymouth, where the colonists helped him away, and returned in October, 1623, to create more disturbance.
Weston was not the only one of the partners that gave the colonists trouble. John Pierce took advantage of the prominence given him by the patent issued in his name for the benefit of all, to get a new one which made him sole actual owner of the territory. His partners resented this injustice, and the Council for New England, in March, 1623, was induced to revoke the grant to Pierce.[5 ]
About this time Bradford made a great change in the industrial system of the colony. At Plymouth, as at Jamestown, communism was found to breed "confusion and discontent," and he tried the experiment of assigning to every family, in proportion to its size, a tract of land. In July, 1623, arrived sixty other settlers, and the old planters feared another period of starvation. Nevertheless, when harvest-time arrived, the wisdom of Bradford's appeal to private interest was demonstrated, for instead of misery and scarcity there was joyfulness, and "plentie of corn." Later experience was equally convincing, for, as Bradford wrote many years after, "any general wante or famine hath not been known amongst them since to this day."
While the Pilgrim fathers were overcoming their difficulties in Massachusetts, the Council for New England were struggling with the London Company to maintain the monopoly of fishing and fur trading on the North Atlantic coast granted to them by their charter. The London Company complained to the king in 1620 and to Parliament in 1621, but the king refused any relief, and prevented Parliament from interfering by dissolving it.[6 ] Thereupon, the Council for New England, appreciating the danger, made a grand effort to accomplish something in America. As a preliminary step they induced the king to publish a proclamation, November 6, 1622, against all unlicensed trading and other infringements upon the rights granted them,[7 ] and shortly afterwards sent out Francis West as admiral to reduce the fishermen on the coast to obedience. West came to America, but found them "stuberne fellows,"[8 ] and he returned in about a year to England without effecting anything.
During his absence the Council for New England set to work to send out a colony under Robert Gorges, son of Sir Ferdinando; and, June 29, 1623, a division was made among twenty patentees, of the North Atlantic coast from the Bay of Fundy to Narragansett Bay.[9 ] In September, 1623, Gorges arrived at Plymouth attended by an Episcopal minister, William Morell, and a company of settlers, whom he planted at Wessagusset. He remained in New England throughout the winter, and in the effort to exert his authority had a long wrangle with Weston. In the spring of 1624 he received news from his father that discouraged his further stay. It seems that in March, 1624, a committee of Parliament, at the head of which was Sir Edward Coke, had reported the charter of the Council for New England as a national grievance, which so discouraged the patentees that most of them abandoned the enterprise, and it became, in the language of the elder Gorges, "a carcass in a manner breathless."[10 ] After Robert Gorges' departure most of his party dispersed, some going to England and some to Virginia, but a few remained at Wessagusset, which was never entirely abandoned.
The relations between the colony and the London merchant adventurers, never very pleasant, became more unsatisfactory as time went on. The colonists naturally wanted to bring over their friends at Leyden, but the partners regarded Robinson as the great leader of the Independents, and London was already rife with rumors of the heretical character of the rulers at Plymouth. It seemed to the partners evidently for their interest to introduce settlers of a different religious opinion from Bradford and Brewster, and to this was largely due the fact that the emigrants who came over after the Mayflower's return in 1621 had little in common with the original band of Pilgrims.
In January, 1624, arrived another miscellaneous cargo, including a minister named John Lyford. Upon his arrival he professed intense sympathy with the settlers, and when they received him as a member of their church he renounced, pursuant to the extreme tenets of Separatism, "all universall, nationall, and diocessan churches."[11 ] Nevertheless, he joined with John Oldham, who came the year before, in a conspiracy to overturn the government; but was detected and finally banished from the colony. In March, 1625, Lyford and Oldham went to Wessagusset, from which they moved with Roger Conant and other friends to Nantasket, where, in the mean time, a new settlement had sprung up.
In the division of 1623, the region around Cape Ann fell to Lord Sheffield, and the same year he conveyed the country to Robert Cushman and Edward Winslow in behalf of the colonists at Plymouth.[12 ] The next year the new owners sent a party to establish a fishing stage at Cape Ann, but they found other persons on the spot, for in 1623 some merchants of Dorchester, England, who regularly sent vessels to catch fish in the waters of New England, had conceived the idea of planting a colony on the coast, and in the summer of that year landed fourteen men at Cape Ann, soon increased to thirty-four.
For some months the two parties got along amicably together and fished side by side. An element of discord was introduced in 1625 when the Dorchester men invited Roger Conant and Rev. Mr. Lyford from Nantasket, and made the former manager and the latter minister of their settlement; while John Oldham was asked to become their agent to trade with the Indians. A short time after, the crew of a vessel belonging to the Dorchester adventurers, instigated, it is said, by Lyford, took from the Plymouth men their fishing stage; whereupon Miles Standish came with soldiers from Plymouth, and the rival parties would have come to blows had not Conant interfered and settled the matter.[13 ] The Plymouth settlers built a new stage, but, as the war with Spain affected the sale of fish, they soon abandoned the enterprise altogether. The Dorchester men had no better fortune, and the discouraged merchants at home, in 1626, broke up their colony and sold their shipping and most of their other property.[14 ] Lyford went to Virginia, where he soon died, and all the other settlers, except Conant and three others, returned to England.
The colony at Plymouth, in the mean time, was signally prospering, and soon felt strong enough to dissolve the troublesome relations with the merchant partners, who had fallen into dissensions among themselves. For this purpose the colonists made, in 1627, an agreement by which for £1800, to be paid in nine annual instalments of £200 each, the colonists were relieved from all vassalage under their original contract.[15 ]
Custodians of their own fortunes, they now established trading-posts at several places on the coast—at Manomet, on Buzzard's Bay (1627), at Kennebec (1628), and at Penobscot and Machias Bay (1629). In addition they made arrangements for reunion with their friends in Holland, one party of whom arrived in 1629 and another in 1630, though Robinson, the Moses of the Pilgrims, was never permitted to join them, having died March 1, 1626,[16 ] in Leyden.
They tried also to obtain a charter from the king, but they never could get anything better than a fresh patent from the Council for New England. This patent,[17 ] dated January 13, 1630, empowered Bradford and his associates "to incorporate by some usual and fit name and title him and themselves, or the people there inhabiting under him or them, with liberty to them and their successors from time to time to frame and make orders, ordinances, and constitutions" not contrary to the laws of England or to any government established by the council.
The patent had the merit of defining the extent of territory belonging to the Plymouth settlers, and granted "all that part of New England in America aforesaid and Tracte and Tractes of Land that lye within or betweene a certaine Reuolett or Runlett there commonly called Coahassett alias Conahassett towards the North and the Riuer commonly called Narragansett Riuer towards the South and the great Westerne Ocean towards the East, and betweene, and within a Streight Line directly Extending up Into the Maine Land towards the west from the mouth of the said Riuer called Narragansett Riuer to the utmost bounds of a Country or place in New England Commonly called Pokenacutt als Sowamsett, westward, and another like Streight line Extending it Self Directly from the mouth of the said Riuer called Coahassett als Conahassett towards the West so farr up into the Main Land Westwards as the Vtmost Limitts of the said place or Country Commonly called Pokenacutt als Sowamsett Do Extend togeather with one half of the sd Riuer called Narragansett and the sd Reuolett or Runlett called Coahassett als Conahassett and all Lands Riuers waters hauens Ports Creeks ffihings fowlings and all hereditaments Proffitts Commodityes and Imoluments Whatsoeuer Scituate Lyeing and being or ariseing within or betweene the said Limitts or bounds or any of them." For trading purposes the patent also gave them a tract extending fifteen miles in breadth on each bank of the Kennebec.
Among the "scattered beginnings" in the neighborhood of Plymouth, the most interesting, because the most contrasted with the Puritan colony at Plymouth, was Captain Wollaston's settlement, established in 1625 a little north of Wessagusset. His men were, for the most part, servants, and Wollaston finding, soon after his arrival, that they could be used to better advantage in Virginia, transported some of them to that colony.
During his absence one Thomas Morton, a lawyer of Clifford's Inn, asserted his authority, freed the rest of the settlers, and engaged in a successful traffic with the Indians for beaver and other skins. This circumstance was itself calculated to excite the jealousy of the Plymouth settlers, but the ceremonies and customs at "Merry Mount," which name Morton gave to the settlement in lieu of "Mount Wollaston," caused them to regard him with even greater disgust. He instituted the Episcopal service and planted a May-pole eighty feet high, around which, for many days together, the settlers "frisked" hand-in-hand with the Indian girls.
As Morton was outside of the Plymouth jurisdiction, the colonists there had no right to interfere except in self-defence. But the Plymouth people asserted that Morton sold arms to the Indians and received runaway servants. This made him dangerous, and all the other "straggling settlements," though, like Morton's, of the church of England, united with the people at Plymouth in suppressing Morton's settlement. In June, 1628, a joint force under Captain Miles Standish was sent against Merry Mount, and Morton was captured and shipped to England in charge of John Oldham, who had made his peace with Plymouth, and now took with him letters to the Council for New England and to Sir Ferdinando Gorges, in which Morton's offences were duly set forth.[18 ]
The settlements besides Plymouth which took part in the expedition were Piscataqua (Portsmouth); Nantasket (now Hull), then the seat of John Oldham; Naumkeag (now Salem); Winnisimmet (now Chelsea), where Mr. Jeffrey and Mr. Burslem lived; Cocheco, on the Piscataqua, where Edward Hilton lived; Thompson's Island, where the widow of David Thompson lived; and Shawmut (now Boston), where Rev. William Blackstone lived. Besides the settlements, there were in the neighborhood of Plymouth plantations of some solitary settlers whose names do not appear in this transaction. Thomas Walford lived at Mishawum (now Charlestown), and Samuel Maverick on Noddle's Island; Wessagusset also had probably a few inhabitants.
In 1627 De Rasières, the secretary of state of the Dutch colony at New Netherland, opened a correspondence with Governor Bradford and assured him of his desire to cultivate friendly relations. Bradford gave a kind reply, but questioned the right of the Dutch on the coast, and invited Rasières to a conference. He accepted the invitation, and in 1628 visited the Puritan settlement. A profitable exchange of merchandise succeeded, and the Dutch taught the Plymouth men the value of wampum in trading for furs, and sold them £50 worth of it. It was found useful both as a currency and commodity, and afterwards the settlers learned to make it from the shells on the sea-shore.[19 ] It was not till five years later that this peaceful correspondence with the Dutch was disturbed.
Unfriendliness characterized, from the first, the relations with the French. They claimed that Acadia extended as far south as Pemaquid, and one day in 1631, when the manager of the Penobscot factory was away, a French privateer appeared in port and landed its crew. In the story, as told by Bradford, the levity of the French and the solemn seriousness of the Puritans afford a delightful contrast. The Frenchmen were profuse in "compliments" and "congees," but taking the English at a disadvantage forced them to an unconditional surrender. They stripped the factory of its goods, and as they sailed away bade their victims tell the manager when he came back "that the Isle of Rhé gentlemen had been there."[20 ] In 1633, after Razilly's appointment as governor-general, De la Tour, one of his lieutenants, attacked and drove away the Plymouth men at Machias Bay,[21 ] and in 1635 D'Aulnay, another lieutenant, dispossessed the English at Penobscot.
The Plymouth people, greatly incensed, sent two armed ships to punish the French, but the expedition proved a failure. Then they appealed to Massachusetts for help, but the great men of that colony, hoping, as Bradford intimates, to arrange a trade with the French on their own account, declined to be at any expense in the matter,[22 ] and so the Penobscot remained in unfriendly hands for many years.
This appeal to Massachusetts showed that another power had stepped to the front in New England. After John Winthrop set up his government in 1630 on Massachusetts Bay the history of the Plymouth colony ceased to be of first importance, and therefore the remaining events in her annals need not take much space. In 1633 the people of Plymouth established a fort on Connecticut River above the Dutch post, so as to intercept the Indian trade, and in 1639 they renewed the ancient league with Massasoit.[23 ] In 1640 they had a dispute with Massachusetts over the boundary-line, which was arranged by a compromise, and in 1641 William Bradford deeded to the freemen of the corporation of New Plymouth the patent of 1630, granted by the Council for New England to him as trustee for the colony.[24 ] Finally, in 1643, Plymouth became a member of the New England confederation.
A survey of these twenty-three years (1620-1643) shows that during the first eleven years the increase in population was very slow. In 1624 there were one hundred and eighty settlers and in 1630 but three hundred. The emigration to Massachusetts, beginning in 1629, brought about a great change. It overflowed into Plymouth, and in twelve years more the population had increased to three thousand.[25 ] The new settlers were a miscellaneous set, composed for the most part of "unruly servants" and dissipated young men, whose ill conduct caused the old rulers like Bradford to question "whether after twenty years' time the greater part be not grown worser."[26 ] Nevertheless, the people increased their "outward estate," and as they scattered in search of fertile land, Plymouth, "in which they lived compactly till now, was left very thin and in a short time almost desolate." In 1632 a separate church and town of the name of Duxbury was formed north of Plymouth; and eleven years later the towns of the Plymouth colony were ten in number: Plymouth, Duxbury, Scituate, Taunton, Sandwich, Yarmouth, Barnstable, Marshfield, Seeconck, or Rehoboth, and Nausett.[27 ]
At the first arrival the executive and judicial powers were exercised by John Carver, without any authorized adviser. After his death, in 1621, the same powers were vested in William Bradford as governor and Isaac Allerton as assistant.[28 ] In 1624 the number of assistants was increased to five and in 1633 to seven, and the governor was given a double voice.[29 ] The elective and legislative powers were vested in a primary assembly of all the freemen, called the "General Court," held at short intervals. One of these meetings was called the court of elections, and at this were chosen the governor and other officers of the colony for the ensuing year.
As the number of settlements increased, it became inconvenient for freemen to attend the general courts in person, and in 1638 the representative system was definitely introduced. Plymouth was allowed four delegates, and each of the other towns two, and they, with the governor and his council of assistants, constituted the law-making body of the colony. To be entitled to hold office or vote at the court of elections, the person had to be "a freeman"; and to acquire this character, he had to be specially chosen one of the company at one of the general courts. Thus suffrage was regarded as a privilege and not a right.[30 ]
Although the first of the colonies to establish a Separatist church, the Puritans of Plymouth did not make church-membership a condition of citizenship; still, there can be no doubt that this restriction practically prevailed at Plymouth, since up to 1643 only about two hundred and thirty persons acquired the suffrage. In the general laws of Plymouth, published in 1671, it was provided as a condition of receiving the franchise that "the candidate should be of sober and peaceable conversation, orthodox in the fundamentals of religion," which was probably only a recognition of the custom of earlier times.[31 ] The earliest New England code of statutes was that of Plymouth, adopted in 1636. It was digested under fifty titles and recognized seven capital offences, witchcraft being one.[32 ]