PREFACE
The first century and a half of Virginia's Colonial History, the
period described in this volume, was crowded with events of extraordinary
variety and far-descending influence. The eighteen years
of the London Company's existence saw the erection on the banks of
the James of the first permanent English settlement in the Western
Hemisphere; the meeting at Jamestown of the earliest representative
assembly to convene within the present area of the United States;
the establishment of the first civil and criminal courts; the first trial
by jury; the first grant of separate titles to land; the planting of the
first staple crops; the manufacture of the first merchantable articles;
the building of the first church; and the construction of the first
dwelling-house. The era of Nathaniel Bacon made up another
interval of supreme importance, for it was then that the first armed
blow on a large scale was struck on American soil for the preservation
of the rights of the common people and for their equality before the
law. Subsequently, it was during the administrations of Culpeper
and Effingham that the Virginians contended, with indomitable
courage and persistence, for the inherited, and inalienable, and sole
right of their General Assemblies to impose taxes and originate the
measures necessary for the proper government of their local affairs.
And next, it was during the administrations of Spotswood and Gooch
that the first great movement of population westward began, never to
pause until the shores of the Pacific were reached; and it was during
this interval, also, that the Dissenters carried on their noble struggle
for religious liberty, which was to end, at a later day, in a splendid
triumph. And, finally, it was during the administrations of Dinwiddie
and Fauquier that the expansion of the French Power towards
the Alleghanies was permanently halted. All these dramatic and
pregnant episodes were, by their transmitted influence, to make a
profound impression on the character and career of the great Republic
which now dominates the Western Hemisphere, and they are, therefore,
entitled to a discriminating study as much from a national, as
from a Virginian, point of view. I have not lost sight of this larger
significance in my treatment of the different aspects of my central
theme, whether it deals with the facts in the ordinary current of
events, or with the qualities of the men who played the chief part
during the years of the colonial period.
