XIX.
SIR FRANCIS WYATT.
XIX. Governor and Captain-General.
XIX. November 8, 1621, to May 17, 1626.
Sir Francis Wyatt came to Virginia in October, 1621,
at the request of Governor Yeardley, whose term of office was
soon to expire. He succeeded Yeardley, November 8, 1621,
and was in his turn succeeded by Sir George Yeardley, May
17, 1626. Wyatt brought with him the new Constitution for
the Colony, and the opening clause of his instructions reads
as follows:
"To keep up religion of the Church of England as near
as may be; to be obedient to the King and do justice after
the form of the laws of England; and not to injure the natives;
and to forget old quarrels now buried."
During Wyatt's administration the Indian massacre of
March 22, 1622, occurred, in which 347 of the colonists were
killed, and "the 22d of March" was ordered by the General
Assembly held March 5, 1623, to "be yearly solemnized as
holliday," in commemoration of the escape of the Colony
from entire extirpation at this time. The calamities which
had befallen the Virginia Colony, and the dissensions which
had agitated the Company having been represented to the
King, he, after some measures of inquiry, had the matter
brought to trial in the Court of King's Bench, where judgment
was given against the Virginia Company, and the
charter vacated in 1624. King James now issued a new
commission for the government of Virginia, continuing Sir
Francis Wyatt in his office, with 11 Counsellors, and empowering
them to govern "as fully and amplye as any Governor
and Council resident there, at any time within the space of
five years now last past." This term of five years was precisely
the established period of representative government, and
so the continuance of popular assemblies was formally sanctioned.
But King James was denied the task of giving to
the Colony a code of fundamental laws, for he died March
27, 1625, and was succeeded by Charles I.
The demise of the Crown having annulled all former
appointments for Virginia, Charles I. now reduced that Colony
under the immediate direction of the throne, appointing
a Governor and Council, and ordering all patents and processes
to issue in his own name. His proclamation "for settling
the plantation of Virginia," is dated May 13, 1625. When,
however, early in 1626, Wyatt retired, the re-appointment of
Sir George Yeardley by Charles I. was a guarantee in itself
that, as "the former interests of Virginia were to be kept inviolate,"
so the representative government would be continued,
for it was Yeardley who had introduced the system.
King Charles, intent only on increasing his revenue, favored
the wishes of the colonists, and in his commission to Yeardley
expressed his desire to encourage and perfect the plantation
"by the same means that were formerly thought fit for
the maintenance of the Colony." He also limited the power
of the Governor and Council, as had before been done in the
commission of Wyatt, by a reference to the usages of the last
five years. In that period representative liberty had become
the custom of Virginia. A new heaven and a new earth had
spread before the Virginia colonist, and time nor change has
ever blotted from his race that love of freedom which he first
tasted then.
