University of Virginia Library

CHAPTER XIV

ADMINISTRATION OF SIR GEORGE YEARDLEY

When Yeardley left the English coast in January, 1619, he
carried with him two of the most famous public documents
recorded in American history: first, the great Charter of
Privileges, Orders, and Laws drafted by Sandys, which was
the earliest written constitution associated with the annals of
the United States; and secondly, a commission for establishing
the Council of State and the General Assembly of Virginia, the
first legislative body to convene on North American soil. A
comet had appeared in the English heavens on the night when
these momentous papers were signed, and it was still visible
as Yeardley sailed out into the ocean. He reached the Capes
at the end of April, and his first act as governor was to issue
a proclamation to the effect that all colonists who had been
residents of Virginia before Dale's departure in April, 1616,
should be exempted from further service for the public benefit;
that the people were to be governed, not by martial law but
by their own laws and the laws which applied to English
subjects in general; that a General Assembly was to be called
together to be composed of the Governor and Council and two
representatives from each plantation to be elected by its
inhabitants; that monthly courts, in addition to the existing
General Court, were to be set up to facilitate the administration
of justice; and that the domain embraced in the Colony
was to be laid off into four great corporations, namely, the
City of Henricus, Charles City, James City, and Kecoughtan;
and that these were to be subdivided into boroughs.

The General Assembly, composed of the Governor and
Council as the Upper Chamber, and of two burgesses from

each town or borough as the Lower Chamber, convened in the
choir of the church at Jamestown on the ninth of August,
1619. At first, the two bodies met in the same room, but, at a
later date, they adopted the rule of separate sessions. John
Pory, who had accompanied Yeardley to the Colony as its
secretary of state, served as the first speaker, in recognition
of his experience as a member of Parliament. He was a man
of education, for he had graduated from Cambridge with
the degree of master of arts. The first discussion concluded
with the denial of the right of Captain John Martin to act
as a burgess so long as he should refuse to abandon his claim
to practical sovereignty within the bounds of his patent.
This claim was based upon the terms incorporated in this
grant.

Autograph of Sir George Yeardley

The laws passed by this first assembly embraced a wide
field of subjects. They related to the Indians, the church, the
planting of corn and tobacco, the cultivation of the vine, flax,
and the mulberry tree; to artisans, tenants, and indentured
servants; and to land patents. With regard to the Indians, it
was enacted that neither powder nor shot nor mastiffs should
be sold to them by the colonists, and at the same time each
town, city, borough, and plantation was to procure a certain
number of Indian children for training in religion and manners.
All christenings, burials, and marriages taking place
in the several parishes were to be reported regularly by the
clergy. The members of this body were to exercise their
functions strictly in accord with the ecclesiastic laws of
England. They were to catechise the children on Sunday

before the services. All moral sins were to be reported by
the church-wardens, and large fines were to be imposed for
drunkenness and profanity and similar misdemeanors.

With regard to commodities, the price of the best grade
of tobacco was fixed at three shillings. Every planter was,
during a period of seven years, to plant annually six mulberry
slips; and each one was also required to sow hemp seed, to
plant ten vines, and to harvest at least one barrel of corn for
every servant in his employment. All crops for sale were
to be brought to the cape-merchant for exchange for imported
articles of all kinds. As there was no metallic money in circulation,
it was provided that the rents and taxes should be
paid in tobacco, wheat, or maize. In order to reduce the
burden of taxation, a certain area of tillage land was attached
to each public office for its support through the labor of
tenants. This was in accord with instructions from England.

By the action of the quarter court, ten thousand acres were
set apart in the corporation of Henricus for the maintenance
of a university and a college—the college to be erected at once
for the benefit of Indian pupils especially, and the university
so soon as the attendance should justify it. In February,
1620, an unknown benefactor gave five hundred and fifty
pounds sterling for the foundation of a grammar school
designed exclusively for the conversion and education of the
children of the savages. The Company thought it wisest to
invest this fund for a time in the erection of iron works, the
tools and equipment for which were afterwards sent out from
England. The crew on board of the Royal James, lying at the
moment at anchor at the Cape of Good Hope, through the
indirect influence of the chaplain, Rev. Patrick Copeland, a
friend of Sir Thomas Dale, collected among themselves about
seventy pounds sterling for the establishment of a white free
school in Virginia, and in 1620, the Company decided to build
this school within the limits of Charles City corporation. By
subsequent gifts and subscriptions, the seventy pounds grew
to about one hundred and ninety-two pounds sterling. The

project went so far as to require the importation from England
of numerous artisans for the construction of the necessary
buildings, and, in 1622, an usher was appointed. But
the whole plan of the two schools, as well as of the college
and university as originally determined, was ruined by the
red hand of the Indians, who dissipated at one blow all the
property and most of the lives that were relied upon to carry
it out successfully.

Reference has been made to the voyage of the Treasurer, in
which Rich and Argall were so deeply implicated. She
reached Bermuda in January, 1619, and in the company of a
Dutch privateer sailed to West Indian waters, where the two
seemed to have seized the slave cargo of a Spanish ship. A
part of this cargo was brought to Jamestown by the Dutch
vessel and sold to the planters. The captain of the Treasurer
hesitated to do this himself, as King James was, as we have
already stated, relentlessly severe upon those of his subjects
who aroused the anger of Spain by acts of piracy.[1] As it was,
Sir Edwin Sandys, who had succeeded Sir Thomas Smythe
in May, 1619, as the treasurer of the London Company,
reported the mission of the vessel to the quarter court, and
the quarter court in turn reported it to the Privy Council,
which controlled the foreign relations of England. This act
was bitterly resented by Rich, now Earl of Warwick, and he
even threatened the life of Sandys. Such was the beginning
of the bad blood between these two men which was to have
such lasting consequences. Warwick found it necessary to
appease the anger of the Spanish ambassador.

In 1619, tobacco and sassafras were the only commodities
of importance exported from Virginia. James encouraged the
planting of the former in the fields of the Colony by prohibiting

Henry Wriothesley, Third Earl of Southampton

its production in England and Wales. "Tobacco," he said,
"tended to corrupt men's bodies and manners. If it has to
be used, it were better that it should be imported amongst
other vanities from beyond seas rather than be planted here,
to abuse the soil of this fruitful kingdom." Possibly, the
valuable customs from it influenced the monarch in reaching
this conclusion.

A subscription was taken up at a meeting of the Company
in July, 1621, for the purpose of sending out one hundred fair
maids to become the wives of languishing bachelors in Virginia.
Between July and November, one hundred and eleven
were dispatched, and they were particularly recommended for
their sober rearing. They were purchased by "honest and
industrious men" by the payment of the charges for the
voyage over in each case, which seems to have amounted to
about one hundred and twenty pounds of tobacco. None were
married to indentured servants, and all were allowed a free
choice in selecting husbands. As soon as they arrived in
Virginia, they were placed in the homes of respectable freeholders
in order to be relieved of the temptation to yield to
the first solicitation. The authorities in Virginia were
instructed to act as their watchful guardians in this interval.
It is known that several hundred maids in all were imported.

By his liberal opinions and independent acts, Sandys had
become so odious to the King, that, when his name came up
for reelection to the treasurership in June, 1620, a message
was received from Whitehall positively forbidding it. James
proposed the names of four candidates drawn from the list of
the court party, which was the minority party, but all nominations
were passed over until the next session of the quarter
court, and then, after a committee's stormy interview with
the King,[2] Southampton was chosen. It was the opinion of
the popular party that, if the royal order had been complied
with, the Company's privilege of a free election would have

been destroyed; and that party openly declared that they
would rather surrender their charter than give up this
privilege.

It was in 1620 that a charter was granted by the Company
to the Pilgrim Fathers. It applied only to the region of South
Virginia. The Mayflower reached Plymouth in North Virginia
in December, and as the ship drew near land, some of
the passengers, knowing that they had no right under their
letters-patent to disembark there, threatened to set up their
own wishes as their only law. This led to the drafting of a
compact, which was a counterpart of all those privileges of
government which these voyagers enjoyed in emigrating
under the charters and constitutions of the London Company,
to which they were aware they were subject in passing over
sea. Some of the persons on board had been associated with
that company in England, or at least had visited Jamestown.
It was Sandys who had, as we have seen, encouraged them to
found a settlement in Virginia, and their religious independence
appealed to him all the more as he desired to make that
colony a refuge for all who should be seeking ecclesiastical and
civic freedom.

At this time, the people of Virginia were engaged in
building houses, planting tobacco, and suing out patents to
new lands. Much of this tobacco was sent to Flushing and
Middleburg in Holland, although the Privy Council endeavored
to block it. Every man who transported himself or
transported another, was entitled to a dividend of fifty acres.
The population now numbered at least one thousand individuals.
Between March, 1620, and March, 1621, ten ships brought
in one thousand and fifty-one emigrants, and in the course
of the next twelve months, fifteen hundred landed, and yet
by March, 1622, the end of the interval, nearly twelve hundred
of these had perished. Thorpe attributed this mortality
largely to the change from a spirituous diet to a water diet,
which he asserts caused great popular depression; but this
depression must have passed away when the manufacture of

corn-whiskey began, as it did about this time. The mortality
was principally among the newcomers; but many passengers
still died at sea, owing to the crowded and fetid condition of
the ships. So long was the death roll that three distinguished
physicians were elected members of the London Company in
the hope that they might devise a remedy.

George Sandys