University of Virginia Library

CHAPTER XVI

CONFLICT OF FACTIONS IN THE COMPANY

News of the massacre created a feeling of consternation in
England, but it caused no real relaxation in the resolution of
the Company to uphold the Colony—they promptly arranged
to forward more settlers, and also a large quantity of powder
and arms. The Common Council of London subscribed five
hundred pounds sterling to defray the expense of sending
over one hundred persons to serve under indentures; and
other communities in England responded with equal generosity.

But, in the long run, the massacre, though it checked only
for a short time the spread of the Colony—indeed, the people
began returning to their separate plantations in 1623—was to
prove one of the powerful influences which culminated in the
ruin of the Company, for it gave another handle to the faction
that had never ceased to antagonize Sir Edwin Sandys and the
Earl of Southampton, the leaders of the majority of the
members. Above all, that terrible event seemed to justify
the dissatisfaction of the King. So far had his discontent
with the liberal principles of these two men been carried, that
he had, in June, 1621, caused their arrest, together with that
of John Selden, who was aiding them in the preparation of a
new charter. James, egged on by Gondomar, the sinister
Spanish ambassador, was already determined to put an end
to the London Company in the form in which it then existed
—a form, in reality, out of harmony with the administrative
machinery of the rest of the English kingdom, all of which
depended directly on the throne.

But it was the independence of the popular party in the

Nicholas Ferrar
Member of Virginia Colony of London

quarter courts which irritated James most acutely—"a seminary
for sedition," Gondomar had described it. It was this
party which continued to run counter to his wishes in Parliament,
after asserting, on a memorable occasion, that the
members of the House were entitled to freedom of speech—a
declaration so shocking to his arbitrary sensibilities that he
had passionately torn the recording page from the minutes of
that body with his own hands. He cast all his influence on
the side of the minority faction in the Company, which, therefore,
came to be known as the court party. In June, 1622, he
sent to the quarter court, then in session for the election of
treasurer, a list of men from amongst whom he wished that
officer to be chosen. One of these royal candidates obtained
seven votes, another thirteen, whilst one hundred and seventeen
ballots were cast in favor of Lord Southampton. Nicholas
Ferrar, the nominee of the popular party for the office of
deputy-treasurer, received one hundred and three votes; the
court candidates ten and eight respectively. The announcement
of this result filled the King with passionate anger. "It
would be better," he exclaimed, "that the government of
Virginia should be in the hands of merchants, as they at least
would see to the cultivation of staple commodities." Lord
Cavendish, who had informed James in person of the ballot,
was a member of the popular party, and he ventured to point
out that, while Smythe was treasurer of the Company, only one
commodity in any quantity had been produced in the Colony,
and yet he was one of the greatest of English merchants. But
this bold remark did not convince the King that he was wrong
in thinking that the Company under the direct royal control
of 1606-9 was a more desirable association than it was under
the popular charters that followed. It was only a question of
time when he would find the means to carry out the resolution
which he had now formed.

Southampton, in order to combat the feeling of depression
about the Company's affairs which was now spreading even
among the members of the popular party,—largely in consequence,

no doubt, of the known attitude of the King,—gave
orders that a description of the condition of Virginia at that
hour as compared with its condition previous to 1618, should
be prepared by a competent hand. This prompted the opposing
faction through Alderman Johnson to petition the King
to appoint a committee to inquire into and report upon the real
state of the Colony's affairs. The object in view was to discredit
the administrations of Sandys and Southampton; and
that purpose was confirmed by a pamphlet which was published
at this moment from the pen of a former governor of
the Somers Isles. Butler had abandoned his office under a
cloud, and stolen away to Virginia, at that time prostrated
by the blow of the massacre. He looked about him with a
prejudiced and unsympathetic eye and unhappily saw much
to gratify his cynical spirit. Most of his charges were of a
general nature: that the plantations were seated upon the
borders of swamps that exhaled a miasma which made the
country as unhealthy as the worst parts of England; that the
people arriving in Virginia were compelled to wade ashore
owing to the shallowness of the water in the rivers, which
caused many fatalities through colds; that there were no
inns to accommodate the new-comers; that all articles of food
were high through the profitable connivance of the officials;
that the dwelling-houses were inferior to the meanest cottages
in England; and that the fortifications had long sunk in ruins.

The two factions in the Company now fell into a final
grapple that asked for and expected no quarter on either side;
nor was this grapple less deadly because the supporters of
Warwick and Johnson numbered about one hundred in the
membership as against seven hundred who supported the
policy of Sandys, Southampton, and Cavendish. The controversy
had previous to this been brought to the Privy Council's
attention by the petition of John Bargrave, who alleged that
he had lost six thousand pounds sterling through the miscarriages
of the government in Virginia before it passed into
the hands of the liberal party. His case was not decided until

January, 1623 (n. s.). In February of that year, the Privy
Council again took cognizance of the Company's affairs when
it passed on the contract between the Company and the King
for the monopoly of the tobacco trade. It was a few months
after this event that Alderman Johnson's petition and Butler's
Unmasking of Virginia, already referred to, were submitted.

In April, the Privy Council summoned the Company's
committee, of which Lord Cavendish was chairman, before it
to answer the charges of these two accusers, and as the replies
were not satisfactory to that body,—a foregone conclusion,—
it appointed a commission to inquire into the Colony's condition
from its foundation down to the present hour. This
commission in May required the Company to deliver up all its
minutes and orders. The Privy Council, deeming the provisions
of the contract for the tobacco to be unfavorable to the
planters, dissolved it; and they also reduced the customs from
twelve to nine pence per pound. While this was going on, the
commission was taking testimony, and much of that given by
the Warwick clique was of a bitter personal nature. Sandys,
they said, was really guilty of sedition, as it was his purpose
to erect a free state in Virginia; and in supposed confirmation
of this assertion, it was pointed out that he had persuaded the
Archbishop of Canterbury to permit the Separatists and
Brownists to remove to Virginia; and that he, as the head of
the London Company, had actually promised to grant them, in
the terms of their charter, any form of government which they
desired.

Not all these charges, unscrupulous as they were, could
move the popular majority in the quarter court to surrender
the letters-patent of the Company. Finding that majority so
obstinate, the Privy Council ordered the confinement of Southampton
to the limits of his own house so as to prevent his
attendance; on May 13, a similar warrant was issued against
Sandys, and for the same purpose; but still the majority
refused to yield. The Privy Council then called for the surrender
of the charter, whether the act should be voluntary or

involuntary. This occurred in the autumn. Nicholas Ferrer,
the deputy treasurer, was now the acting treasurer, but he
had been virtually deprived of all control of the Colony's
affairs by the command of the Privy Council that all communications
from Virginia should thereafter be sent to them, and
that every member of the Company should contribute to a
magazine of supplies for the Colony in proportion to his holdings
of shares of stock. The commission of inquiry had, in
the meanwhile, submitted a report, the drift of which was that
the Company had forfeited its charter by its delay in choosing
new officers after the incarceration of Sandys and Southampton,
and by its restriction of imports from Virginia to the
single commodity of tobacco. The commission advised the
reestablishment of the royal form of government which had
prevailed in the Colony under the provisions of the charter
of 1606.

This report added more fuel to the fire that had all along
been raging at the meetings of the quarter court. Sandys,
who had been released, and Warwick fell upon each other
with ferocity. Cavendish, upholding Sandys, denounced Warwick
to his face as a liar, which was resented with a challenge,
and both parties hurried off to the Continent to vent their bad
blood in a duel.

In October, 1623, the Privy Council announced that, in
consequence of the poor management in Virginia, the King had
determined to issue new letters-patent to the Company. The
provision which he had decided upon was the appointment in
the beginning by himself of a governor of the Colony and
twelve assistants, all of whom were to reside in England.
Subsequently, these twelve assistants were to submit three
names to the King, and one of the persons so designated was
to be chosen by him as governor, who, like his predecessor, the
treasurer, was not to go out to Virginia, but to supervise its
affairs from London. The vacancies on the board of assistants
were to be filled by their own ballot, but no nominee could take
his seat unless his selection had been approved by the King

Robert Rich
Second Earl of Warwick

and Council. The governor in Virginia was to be appointed
by the King and Council also, but he was to enjoy the right to
choose his own twelve assistants at Jamestown. He and his
subordinates were to look to the governor and assistants in
England for direction, and the latter, in their turn, to the King
and Council.

The Privy Council instructed Ferrer, the deputy treasurer,
to call the Company together at once to take steps to surrender
their present charter, and to accept in its stead a charter containing
the provisions already enumerated by us. The court
convened on October 25th, and it was found that only eight of
the persons present were willing to give up the letters-patent
voluntarily. Ferrer was directed to request the Privy Council's
permission to delay the Company's decision until the
ninth of the following month, but that body positively refused
to consent to this, and the deputy treasurer was warned that,
in case there should be further dilatoriness, the attorney-general
would be instructed to recall the charter by a writ of
quo warranto. The popular party, however, was not frightened
by this threat, and when the court again met, there were
only nine votes cast in favor of complying with the royal command,
and two of these were the votes of men who had no right
to participate. There were sixty ballots in opposition to the
proposal. This number of negatives seemed to stagger the
Privy Council, and instead of carrying out their threat at
once, they, on October 24th, appointed Captain John Harvey,
John Pory, Abraham Peirsey, Samuel Matthews, and John
Jefferson, a commission to visit the Colony to report on its
condition. They were really expected to look for every
adverse fact that would justify a forcible revocation of the
charter.

The members of this board, with the exception of Jefferson,
had reached Jamestown by the advent of March (1624), and
they quickly went before the General Assembly[1] and read the

letters and orders of the Privy Council calling for the surrender
of the charter, and the resumption by the King of the
control of the Colony's affairs. There was no intimation in
any of these documents that the House of Burgesses was to
be continued. Naturally, the General Assembly was greatly
agitated by this omission, and they promptly drafted a petition
to the King and a letter to the Privy Council in remonstrance,
and these papers were supplemented by a detailed statement
of the unhappy condition of the Colony during the administration
of Sir Thomas Smythe. The petition protested against
the proposed bestowal of exclusive power on the governor and
his assistants by the abolition of an elective assembly. "Nothing,"
they declared, with pathetic earnestness, "could be more
conducive to public contentment and public utility than the
retention of this popular body." Indeed, they added, only an
unfortunate misapprehension could have suggested the contrary.
That the commissioners might obtain a practical knowledge
of the Colony's true condition and the state of public
opinion, they were taken from settlement to settlement and
thus brought into personal intercourse with the people at
large. Apparently, the General Assembly did not trust the
impartiality of the commission sufficiently to deliver their petition
and letters to its members for transmission to England,
but despatched these documents by their own messenger,
John Pountis.

The commission during their stay in Virginia, gathered
information on three points: (1) the real condition of the
Colony; (2) the willingness of the people to see the existing
charter revoked; (3) the kind of letters-patent, should a new
charter be unavoidable, that would be most acceptable to
public sentiment. How unscrupulously the commissioners
could act in their pursuit of information was shown by their
successful offer of a bribe to the clerk of the General Assembly,
Sharpless by name, to draft for them copies of all the documents

which Pountis had been appointed to carry out to
England. The Assembly was so enraged by this betrayal that
they clapped Sharpless in the stocks and clipped a piece of
flesh from one of his ears. When the action was afterwards
reported in exaggerated terms to the King, and the Assembly
learned of it, they expressed their indignant remonstrance in
the language of the sternest dignity.