University of Virginia Library

I. PART I.

HISTORY OF VIRGINIA.

CHAPTER I.

If, in the present age, a child of science could
discover and unfold to our view a world connected
with that in which we live, yet heretofore invisible,
teeming with the treasures of nature, unimpaired
in original freshness and beauty, and peopled by
beings to whom all art seemed unknown, we would
hail this discovery as approaching the miraculous,

and its author as destined to immortality on
earth.

Hence we may conceive something of the astonishment
that pervaded the mind of Europe[1] when
it was first announced that a navigator had crossed
the mysterious expanse of water which had so long
bounded her hopes and excited her fears, and had
returned to tell of a world that she had never known
before.

He who really accomplished this great object,
may be reckoned among the men to whom our race
should rejoice to render all that gratitude could
suggest, or that generosity could give; and if Columbus
in life was loaded with chains, and in death
has been deprived of the privilege which the heart
of a father seeks when he would give his name to
his child, it has been because man is neither perfect
in judgment, nor untainted in virtue.

It may be possible to attach too much importance
to the discovery either of a great truth in science,
or of an exhaustless source of physical wealth upon
our earth, but it would be difficult to express a
measure of merit greater than that which is due to
the navigator of Genoa. He who would compute
his worth must belong not to any age that has succeeded
him, nor to the time in which we live, nor
to any era that may soon appear.

He must live near the point at which we have
reason to believe that this world will close its final
scene; and as he looks back to the beginning of the
sixteenth century, and sees what America has done

in affecting the destinies of man, in developing the
human mind, in pointing out the road to national
happiness, and in leading on the hosts which are at
last to be united under one Divine Director, he may
catch some faint view of the glories which should
encircle the name of Columbus.

If it be feared that love to his native land may
exercise an influence upon an American so strong
as to cause him to view his country's progress with
too sanguine hope, and her discoverer with undue
enthusiasm, we would be tempted to refer to the
words of an English historian, proverbial for his
distrust of democracy, for his love to the monarchical
institutions of his country, but whose prophetic
eye had been accustomed so long to regard the rise
of empires and the fall of kings, that he had learned
to look down the vista of the future and behold the
fates of nations. He has spoken of America, and
pointed to her shores as the hope of the world, even
of that nation to which his heart was most firmly
bound,—and the warmest patriot in the "great
Republic" could hardly desire for his country renown
more substantial, or influence more extended,
than that which this impartial mind has declared
to await her.[2]

From the immense field of American history

which the genius of Columbus has developed,
a portion has been selected for the subject of the
following pages that would seem, at first sight, to
bear but a small value when compared with all the
interests of the powerful republic of which Virginia
is a part; but it will not be difficult to show
that her history merits a separate consideration,
and that from an early period of her existence as a
colony, she has exerted an influence upon the fate
of America that may well draw to her progress the
notice of all who hope to find in the past, lessons
for future generations.[3]

In tracing the events which first led Europeans
to her shores, it will not be the duty of the historian
to speak of every voyage that was undertaken,
or of every discovery made, during the century
succeeding the first voyage of Columbus to
the western world. These successive discoveries
opened an immense tract of coast and of island extending
from the frozen sea of the north to the more
temperate ocean in the region of Cape Horn, and
many of them had little influence in determining
the fate of North America.[4] But it will be a task
appropriate to our subject to award to him who
deserves it the merit of having opened the seal
which none before him had dared to touch, and led
the way along which others of more humble name
were to pass in founding a nation's greatness.

Since this discovery has been made, many have
been found willing to deny to the noble Genoese
his right to its exclusive honour. Nations and
men unknown to fame have been industriously
marshalled in array against him, and pretensions
have been advanced in favour of those who, could
they themselves have spoken, would have declared
their unworthiness of the glory which he has won
with so enormous hazard.[5] But perhaps nothing
could more fully vindicate the title of Columbus
than the failure of all attempts to prove that America
had been reached by adventurers from Europe
before his day; and those whose misspent industry
has been employed in drawing from the mouldering
records of the past evidences in favour of the
navigators of Iceland or of Wales, might with justice
be rewarded with the lands explored by their
favoured heroes of the ocean.[6]

(1002.) The narrative upon which rests the claim
of Norway and Iceland to the discovery of Newfoundland
and Nova Scotia, five centuries before the
great voyage of Columbus, is traditional in its form,

and so far inconsistent in its statements that it
would be difficult to declare to what land it accompanies
its actors. The ingenuity of learned minds
has been employed in reconciling its facts, and in
accommodating its descriptions to the soil, the
productions, the climate, and the people of northern
America;[7] but it would be more prudent to suppose
that Vinland and Greenland were one and the same,
than to believe that the rude voyagers of the
eleventh century, without chart or compass, and
exposed to the storms of northern regions, passed
in safety the terrific seas which separate the western
islands of the old world from the eastern outposts
of the great American continent.

(1170.) But if the claim of the Northmen be more
than doubtful, the pretensions that have been advanced
in favour of Wales are not better supported.

Madoc, son of Owen Guyneth, Prince of North
Wales, may have existed, may have quarrelled
with his brethren concerning the division of their
rugged patrimony, may have wandered away to
sea and sailed west, "leaving the coast of Ireland
so far north that he came to a land unknown,
where he saw many strange things;"[8] but it would
require a mind steeped in credulity to believe that
he landed on the shores of the western world.[9]
Though the tradition which speaks of him be of

unquestionable antiquity, yet it affords no sufficient
basis for belief that he visited America,[10] and nothing
but national prepossession and jealousy of
Spain could have induced the authentic Hakluyt
to lend his favour to this fable.[11] Those who by
their burrowing propensities, have discovered
among the Indians of North Carolina a dialect of
the Welsh,[12] will not find much difficulty in receiving
Madoc as the forerunner of Columbus, and to
their guardianship the fame of the Welsh navigator
may be safely committed.

But even should it be acknowledged that the
hardy seamen of the North, or the adventurer of
Wales, did in fact reach the coasts of the new
world, this will not in any manner detract from the
merit of the Genoese navigator. The voyages of
Biron and of Madoc were the result rather of accident
than of design; they were followed by no permanent
settlement, and their very memory would
have been lost but for the industry of modern times.
We have no reason to believe that Columbus had
any knowledge either of their attempts, or of their
alleged success,[13] nor do we find in his notes preserved
by his son any reference to these prior adventures.
His soul was not kindled into flame by
the breath of any mortal. His views were his
own—conceived in solitude, matured by incessant
study and profound thought—and when once they

had taken full effect upon his mind, they prevailed
to the exclusion of all inferior purposes. "He
never spoke in doubt or hesitation, but with as
much certainty as if his eyes had beheld the promised
land."[14] His hopes were not the result of
excited fancy, nor of that dreamy enthusiasm
which peoples the air and fills all space with fairy
beings, but were founded upon the intense labour
of a powerful and philosophic intellect. He firmly
believed that by sailing continuously westward
from Europe, the adventurers must finally attain
either to the extreme eastern projections of Asia,
or to the shores of a fourth and hitherto unknown
continent.[15]

He based this belief upon three grounds:—First,
upon the nature of things: for the spherical form
of the earth was now generally received; and
though the laws of specific and of general gravity
were but the conjectures of the learned few,[16] yet a
mind trained to habits of thought easily adopted
the belief that some counterbalancing weight of
land had been placed by the all-wise Architect in
opposition to the immense continents known to
antiquity. Secondly, upon the authority of learned

writers. Marco Polo had travelled into Asia; and,
half a century after, Sir John Mandeville had followed;
and both, in returning, had published accounts
of their discoveries, in which, with much of
truth, they had combined more of extravagant fiction.[17] From these and others Columbus gathered
nutriment for his faith in a western passage to the
Indies. Thirdly, upon the reports of navigators.
Some, who had stretched farthest into the expanse
west of Europe, had encountered timber artificially
carved, and canes of enormous size floating upon
the sea; even a canoe had been driven to them by
easterly winds; and at one time the bodies of two
men resembling neither the inhabitants of Europe
nor of Africa were cast upon the coasts of the Azore
Islands.[18]

But it is evident that the first of these grounds
produced on the mind of Columbus the deepest impression,
and that the others were only resorted
to as confirming his favourite theory. His genius
had already imparted to the land of the West all
the freshness of reality; and at a time when the
vulgar mass would have listened with doubt—perhaps
with horror—to his proposal, and when even
the enlightened were confining their views to the
East and the shores of Africa, he was willing to
launch his bark upon the Atlantic, and to steer
westward until either his cherished hopes were

realized, or his body had found a tomb in the
bosom of that ocean to which he had entrusted his
fortunes. It is in this aspect that Columbus appears
among the greatest of the great. He was
not misled by enthusiasm, or driven on by accident:
he was not the fortunate victim of winds and
waves, whose fury he would willingly have avoided.
His judgment was mature; his conduct was deliberate;
he had estimated the hazard, and was ready
to meet it. He was willing to encounter the scorn
of the ignorant, the perfidy of the interested, the
doubts of the learned, the delays of royalty,—all
these he welcomed if they might conduct him to
the threshold of an enterprise of danger beyond all
that had gone before,—of inevitable ruin should he
fail—but of unfading glory should success place a
crown upon his brow.

He who would speak coldly of Columbus, and
who, without thought, would ascribe to another the
merit which is claimed for him alone, would do
well to reflect upon the facts attending his discovery.
It is not merely because he crossed the Atlantic,
and landed upon one of the Bahama Islands,
that we would receive him as our benefactor. This
might, by singular and fortunate accident, have
been accomplished by one before his day, who would
have merited little at the hands of posterity. But
it is the profound, the reflecting, the firm, yet
chastened and trusting spirit, that deserves our admiration—the
mind that conceived, formed, executed
the plan of his life.

Excited by hope, yet laden with care, he turned

his ships to the setting of the sun, and perhaps
might have gathered from the departing light presages
of darkness for his own high aspirations. He
passed three thousand miles of water that had
never before been disturbed by a keel; he knew
not, with certainty, whither he tended; the very
winds which blew with gentle force and wafted on
the adventurers over a placid sea, seemed invested
with a mysterious control; their breath might be
the treacherous fanning of a power from which they
could never escape, and which was finally to bear
them to certain destruction.[19] The superstitious
minds over which the master soul presided threatened
constant rebellion, and added to the solemn
terrors of nature the fierce impulses of human passions.

But the difficulties have been encountered and
overcome, the dangers have fled before courage and
genius; and the day on which Columbus cast himself
upon his knees on the beach of San Salvador,
and then rising drew his sword and displayed the
royal ensign of the Castilian monarchs,[20] has imparted
to his name a lustre which will brighten
with its rays the history of all succeeding generations.

If any thing could add to the interest of a discovery
so wonderful, achieved by a character so magnanimous,
it might be found in the thought, that
for this great success, Columbus, and all who have
lived after him, are wholly indebted to the generous

energy of a woman; and if that part of our
country upon whose history we are about to enter
bears a name given by a queen, and endeared by
many associations of feminine grace, America herself
will never forget the ties which bind her to the
fame of the noble, the virtuous, the self-sacrificing
Isabella of Castile.[21]

After the return of the great Genoese from his
first voyage across the Atlantic, all astonishment at
subsequent discoveries must be greatly diminished,
if not entirely removed. There were indeed stormy
seas, bleak and frozen coasts, treacherous rocks and
quicksands yet to be encountered, but the mysteries
of the ocean had been revealed—the veil was
removed—and future voyagers might securely open
their sails to the breeze which bore them to the
western continent.

To Spain undoubtedly belongs the honour of
having equipped and sent forth the hero who was
destined to give to religion and civilization a new
world for their favoured home; but another country
must claim the merit of having planted in America
the germ of that greatness which she derives from
her prosperity and her free institutions. Had Bartholomew
Columbus reached the court of Henry
the Seventh of England in due season, even the
avaricious caution of that monarch might have

been moved by his arguments, and under English
auspices the great navigator might have set forth
upon his voyage.[22] But it was otherwise disposed;
and to the influence thus fairly gained by Spanish
and papal power may be ascribed much of the oppression,
the inactivity, and the vice, which have
checked the growth of colonies in the fairest part
of the western world.

But though England thus lost the privilege of
being first in the enterprise which had been so
happily commenced, she was not blind to the advantages
that were to flow from the opening of this
new field to European effort. She had not then
indeed attained to that skill in navigation which
has since distinguished her, and which has secured
for her fleets the dominion of the seas, but her
people were beginning to develope those unconquerable
energies which have ever impelled the
Anglo-Saxon race.[23] In maritime attainments she
was still inferior to the navigators of Italy, of
Spain, or of Portugal; but in well-directed activity,
and in resources from which to draw means for the
equipment of voyagers, the wisdom of her monarch
had rendered her their superior.

Europe had not recovered from the years of
pleasing astonishment into which she was thrown
by the return of Columbus, before Henry made
diligent preparation to send forth a fleet upon a
voyage of discovery to the new world thus opened
to his view.

But no Englishman was willing to lead in an
adventure certainly hazardous, and requiring boldness
and naval skill of the highest order.

Giovanni Gaboto, a Venetian merchant, whose
name, when anglicized, may be known under the
familiar form of John Cabot, was the man to whom
England committed her dawning interests for the
new world. He was a merchant of Bristol; and,
in union with other enterprising spirits of that city,
he fitted out four small barks, which, with one ship[24]
furnished by the king, composed the frail fleet that
prepared to buffet the waves of the northern ocean.
On the 5th of March, 1496, Henry granted to John
Cabot, and to his sons Lewis, Sebastian, and Sanctius,
a patent;[25] and as this, "the most ancient American
state paper of England,"[26] will furnish to us
an idea of the contracted views of colonization then
entertained, it will be expedient to refer to its terms.
Henry grants to the Cabot family power "to sail in
all parts of east, west, and north, under the royal
banners and ensigns; to discover countries of the
heathen unknown to Christians; to set up the king's
banners; to occupy and possess as his subjects such
places as they could subdue; giving them the rule
and jurisdiction of the same, to be holden on condition
of paying to the king as often as they should
arrive at Bristol, (at which place only they were

permitted to arrive,) in wares and merchandise,
one-fifth part of all their gains; with exemption
from all customs and duties on such merchandise
as should be brought from their discoveries.[27]

Under this grant, it is clear that the Venetian
and his family would acquire a complete title to all
the lands they discovered, as well as full power to
exercise over them such form of government as to
them might seem best; while the unhappy colonists
who might be induced to settle on their domain
would be bereft of all political rights, and
consigned to the tender mercies of the Cabot dynasty
and their duly appointed agents. This grant,
so liberal to the leading adventurers, and so crushing
to those upon whom alone a colony must depend,
was only on condition of the due payment to
the royal merchant of his reserved part of the
gains!

The time was not yet come when men had
learned their social rights, and when human beings
resented the attempt of a crowned head to transfer
or to settle them like beasts of the field. Many
years were to pass away before England could
learn the true policy for colonizing; but it was fortunate
that the gallant men to whom royalty committed
its patents had more liberal souls than their
sovereigns, and were always willing to share with
their colonists the burdens and the pleasures of
their arduous enterprises.

(1497, May.) Clothed with these powers, John
Cabot and his heroic son Sebastian[28] launched boldly
forth upon the western waters. Columbus had
adopted the opinion that the islands he had discovered
were contiguous to the coast of Asia, and the
name of Indies might already be familiarly bestowed
on the groups which belonged to America.
Visions of gold and gems upon the soil of Cathay
were already floating in the brain of the elder Cabot;
and, steering a northwest course, he hoped to
reach the promised haven of exhaustless wealth.
On the 24th June the cheering sight of land was
obtained in a high latitude, and the Italian navigator
welcomed it with a name expressive of gratified
hope. He called it Prima Vista; but the sailors
of his fleet soon bestowed a title, which, if less
pleasing to the ear, has been of more enduring
existence.[29] No gems or gold were found to sate
their eager appetites; but subsequent years have
developed the true value of the treasure they had
discovered, and the banks of Newfoundland will
continue to be a source of wealth and prosperity to
man when the artificial thirst for gold has been forgotten.[30]

Continuing their voyage from Prima Vista and
St. John, with no prize more valuable than three
natives, they next encountered the great continent
itself; and the world seems to have acknowledged

that to an expedition sent forth under English patronage,
Europe owes the discovery of the main
land of the West.[31]

Still seduced by the golden phantom, Cabot had
steered north from Newfoundland, and he made
the American coast in the latitude of fifty-six degrees.

The cold and forbidding cliffs of Labrador could
furnish neither invitations for colonizing, nor wealth
for avarice, nor hopes of a northern passage to the
much-sought Indies; and Cabot was easily induced
to turn his course to the more temperate seas of the
south. He coasted along America, probably to the
latitude of Virginia, and possibly even to that of
Florida,[32] but returned to England without having
attempted either conquest or settlement.

The success of this voyage rekindled the zeal of
Henry, who had not yet become so far involved in
the interests of Spain as to be willing to yield deference
to the enormous claims of papal folly.
Subsequently, indeed, the marriage of his son with
Catharine of Arragon[33] made him anxious to preserve
peaceful relations with his Catholic majesty,
even by sacrificing in appearance his well-founded
claims to America. The Pope had granted to the
Spanish monarchs absolute right to all the countries
discovered or discoverable west of a meridian
line drawn from pole to pole one hundred leagues

to the westward of the Azores,[34] and the period had
not yet arrived when even the faithful subjects of
his Holiness had learned to yield to him spiritual
obedience so absolute as to bring their lips to his
feet, and yet, when necessary, to bind his temporal
hands.[35]

On the 3d February, 1498, Henry granted to
John Cabot another patent, somewhat less ample
than the first, and under its sanction another fleet
of discovery was prepared. The direction of this
enterprise was given to Sebastian Cabot, who was
born at Bristol,[36] and whose memory England
should cherish with a love little inferior to that
which she bestows upon the best of her native sons.
Full of adventurous courage, yet calm in danger,
deeply skilled in his favourite art, and devoted with
enthusiasm to a life of discovery, his eighty years
on earth were passed in almost ceaseless efforts for
the advance of scientific knowledge, and he deserves
more from his race than a grave unknown
even to the most diligent antiquary.[37]

In the voyage now commenced, Sebastian followed
the course formerly pursued by his father,
and stretched away first to the north, still intent
upon finding a northwestern passage. On the
11th of June he had attained the very high latitude

of sixty-seven and a half degrees, and yet the favourable
season so acted with its genial heat upon
the sea, that his passage was unobstructed by ice.[38]
But his crew, finding little to gratify in these barren
regions, and not partaking of his zeal, mutinied and
compelled him to return to the south, where former
voyages had induced them to believe, might
be found a clime of unexampled charms, and a
country filled with all that nature could lavish
upon her lovers. He sailed along the coast of
what was afterwards Virginia, and seems to have
been tempted even to the flowery land upon which
a name so appropriate was subsequently bestowed;[39]
but he was compelled to return to England by
threatened famine in his ships.[40]

It would be a violation of the unity of plan desired
in history, longer to dwell upon the successive
voyages undertaken by Europeans for the discovery
and settlement of the new world. It will
not be expedient to accompany the navigators of
France[41] in their hardy attempts to draw wealth or
fame from the frozen coasts of North America, nor
to follow the Spaniard, Ferdinand De Soto, in his
long-continued excursion through a country now

covered by some of the most flourishing states in
our Union,[42] nor to trace the events which resulted
in the settlement of St. Augustine in 1565, nearly
half a century before the landing of Englishmen
upon the shores of the Chesapeake.[43] The voyages
of the Cabots have been the more fully described,
because they give to England a title by discovery
to the fairest portion of North America, and the
zeal she afterwards manifested in settling it completed
the equity of her claim. Had Spain or even
France sent colonies to Virginia, her history would
have been far less grateful to a mind intent upon
the good of man than it has proved—there might,
perchance, have been stirring incident, ardent patriotism,
and even successful revolution; but there
would not have been that clearness of political
view, and that stern adherence to principle, the
seeds of which are deeply implanted in English
character. And if North America shall finally
exercise an influence for unmeasured good upon
the destinies of mankind, the world will owe this
to the guidings of that Providence which sent the
superstitious Spaniard to the climes of gold and
silver, and reserved during more than a century,
the soil of the north for the labour of English industry.

It has been a subject of surprise, perhaps of regret
to many, that England should so long have
delayed to plant colonies in that inviting country
which had been opened to her view by her fearless

voyagers. Eighty-nine years passed away between
the success of the elder Cabot and the first
feeble attempt to engraft upon the young tree of
the virgin land a scion from the vigorous oak of
Britain. But it may not be unprofitable to reflect,
that during this intervening period the history of
the mother country presents little else than a scene
of profligacy and oppression in the conspicuous
reigning monarchs, and of submissive stupor in the
people, which promised no good thing for the only
spirit desirable for colonization.

Henry VIII. was a tyrant by nature and by culture,
and added to the imposing traits of a despot the
less respectable vices of an unscrupulous libertinism.
His religion consisted in a bigotry which exceeded
even that of Rome, and which condemned alike
Papists and Protestants to the stake or the gibbet.[44]
His opposition to popery had no better basis than
his relentless resolve to divorce a queen worthy of
the best love that man could give; and the liturgy
that he inflicted upon what he might truly have
called "his church," was an embodiment of his
own cruel inconsistencies. Under such a monarch,
it is not wonderful that little was effected for colonies
either by public spirit in government or by
private adventure. Henry might rejoice in the
welfare of a country which ministered food for his
intense selfishness, and the people might be willing
for a time to bear a yoke entailed upon them by
the wars of an age of blood; but few could be
found disposed to expatriate themselves and encounter

the toils of the sea and the wilderness, with
the certain prospect of devoting all their strength
to fill the coffers of the grasping Tudor. Perhaps
these considerations will do more to explain
the indifference of England to colonization
during his dominion, than his fierce struggles with
the Pope, his general interference in European
politics,[45] or his domestic cares in providing successive
wives to share his throne and sink beneath
his cruelty.

During the short reign of the amiable Edward,
a prince who seems to have drawn from his mother
all that was distinctive in his moral character,
England was free from papal control, and might
have ridiculed with impunity the preposterous
grant which divided the new world between two
favoured nations.[46] But a regency is a season not
often benignant in its influence upon the foreign
interests of a people, unless it be long continued,
and be sustained by hands more skilful than those
which directed the youthful king. In this reign
no steady effort was made farther to develope the
resources of the new world.

And when bigotry, in a female form, ascended
the English throne in the person of Mary, the most
sanguine heart could not have hoped for successful
enterprise. Her time was wholly occupied in
forcing popery again upon her unwilling people, in
burning faithful subjects of her crown, and in soothing

the morose pride of her husband, Philip of Spain.
It is melancholy to reflect upon the character of a
woman so repulsive, that we can ascribe to her no
praise, save that of loving one whom all others
united in regarding with fear and execration.[47]

Her love to the church of Rome and to the monarch
of Spain, would cause her to pay unlimited
respect to the papal grant of Alexander VI.; and
her persecuted subjects would have sought in vain
from her an humble home in America, in which to
enjoy their hated religion.

But if the spirit of maritime adventure slumbered
during these reigns and a part of that which succeeded,
and if America was left without colonies,
we who now enjoy her happy institutions have probably
little reason to regret the delay. Colonists
educated under governments grossly despotic, could
not have failed to bear some impress of their origin;
and long years of suffering might have been necessary
to cast off the moulded forms of inveterate custom.
Before the work of settling America had been
firmly entered upon, the human mind was beginning
to acquire that elastic power which was its
happy possession in the best days of republican
antiquity; and we may yet notice, in the progress
of this narrative, the influence exerted on Virginia
by the principles which were gaining strength
at the time when her colonization, in truth, was
effected.

Elizabeth is the sovereign to whom her country
is indebted for the first systematic effort to colonize

America. The character of this great Queen would
insure a vigorous prosecution of any attempt made
under her auspices to extend the influence of her
far-famed dominion. Inheriting from her father an
inflexible strength of purpose, without the fitful
inconsistency which often prostrated his efforts,
she entered with her whole heart into any measure
which captivated her imagination. Possessed of a
mind firm and well balanced, yet susceptible of the
most varied impressions, she selected the best means
to effect the ends her judgment indicated as desirable,
and seldom failed by her vigour to render
them effectual. Her mind had been carefully cultivated
in youth, and it sought for knowledge with
an ardour amounting almost to enthusiasm. An
inquisitive spirit incessantly prompted her to find
new sources of improvement for her people; and
her fostering care had gathered around her the most
learned and brilliant men of her age.[48] Imperious
alike in her public offices and in her own private
family, her parliament trembled at the sound of her
voice,[49] and her domestics shrank from her presence
with awe and distrust;[50] but this very habit of command
made her the bulwark of her country in danger,
and urged forward with resistless force each
scheme that received her favour. Even her vanity,
which taught her to claim for her person the beauty
which nature had wholly denied to her,[51] was not
without its influence in enlisting her feelings for
the success of every plan to which she gave being.

Under this princess England put forth her gigantic
powers, and Christendom was made to feel her
influence. Russia was visited by her fleets; and
the autocrat who governed amid her cities and her
forests was willing to open a communion with the
isle that could send forth such adventurers.[52]

(June 11.) Elizabeth looked with favour on Sir
Humphrey Gilbert, (perhaps from love to his kinsman
Raleigh,) and granted to him a patent as ample
in its liberality to him as he could desire, and as
little favourable to the interests of colonists as the
enemies of England could wish.[53] But this unhappy
navigator fell a victim to his zeal for discovery and
marine adventure. In 1583 he took solemn possession
of Newfoundland in the name of his mistress;
but, in returning, a violent storm separated the frail
barks under his charge. The pious admiral was
in the Squirrel, a small vessel to which a point of
true professional pride had driven him.[54] When the
wind had somewhat abated, the Hind was near him.
Sir Humphrey was seen with a book in his hand,
carelessly reading amid the storm; and the last
words heard from his lips were—"We are as near

heaven by sea as by land;"—a sentiment as devout
as it is true, but one which will not remove our regret
that so valuable a life should have been entrusted
to so frail a bark. In the darkness which
followed, the light of the vessel suddenly disappeared
amid the angry waters, and the noble-hearted
Gilbert was seen no more.

But there survived him in England a spirit
worthy of greater success than ever attended the
enterprises of Sir Humphrey. Walter Raleigh[55]
was his half-brother on the maternal side, and had
sailed with him in a prior voyage of discovery.
This celebrated man has filled a space in the eye
of the world to which nothing but splendid talents
and singular energy could have entitled him. At
an age when the boy is still in the doubtful career
of youth, and far removed from the maturity of
manhood, he left his native land, and drew his
sword in behalf of the Protestant queen of Navarre.[56]
Chivalrous courage and a love of adventure were
his distinguishing traits; and if his enthusiastic
spirit sometimes betrayed him into folly, his warm
affections endeared him to all who best knew his
heart. To man he was often haughty and forbidding,
but to woman he was willing to submit with
uncomplaining deference. A character so marked
could not long escape the notice of Elizabeth, and
Raleigh soon received unequivocal tokens of her

favour. If we may trust to authority otherwise
undoubted, an incident strictly in accordance with
the romance of his nature introduced him to the
Queen; and the splendid cloak of plush and velvet
which he cast upon the ground before her, and
which saved the feet of Elizabeth from the miry
contact that threatened them, did not fail to secure
to its gallant possessor a path to the antechambers
of royalty.[57] The classic novelist of Scotland has
introduced this event as one of the links which
bound the fortunes of the knight to the throne of
his mistress;[58] and the happiness of Raleigh sank
for ever with the declining sun of the last and
greatest of the Tudors.

(March 25.) Elizabeth granted to Sir Walter a
patent as ample in every respect as that before given
to his kinsman Gilbert.[59] She gives him power for
himself, "his heirs and assigns for ever, to discover,
find, search out, and view all such remote, heathen,
and barbarous lands, countries, or territories, as were
not actually possessed by any Christian prince or
people," and to colonize them from England. The
principles of the feudal system were called in to
perfect this grant; and the Queen, as the great
proprietor in feudal sovereignty of all her present

and future dominions, made Raleigh and his heirs
her tenants in fee simple of his discoveries, reserving
to herself the duty of homage and the fifth part of
all gold and silver which should at any time be
found. The patent also gives to its holders full
license to "encounter, expel, repel, and resist" all
persons who should be guilty of the unpardonable
insolence of inhabiting these countries, or any place
within two hundred leagues of their settlements in
six years then to ensue, unless these countries should
have been previously planted by the subjects of some
Christian prince in amity with her majesty,—and
to capture, "by any means," all vessels or persons
trafficking or found without license within their
limits. Amid so much of narrow policy and extravagant
claim, it is at least pleasing to find recognised
that merciful principle of international law,
which exempts from hostility the unhappy victims
of shipwreck cast upon the shores of the settlers;
but in Elizabeth's patent even this exception is
confined to "persons in amity with her."

The holders of the patent are farther authorized
"to correct, punish, pardon, govern, and rule, as
well in causes capital or criminal, as civil," all the
inhabitants of these colonies. It is strange that any
men should have been found willing to entrust
themselves to a dominion so absolute and liable to so
ruinous abuse; but the colonist confided rather to the
honour, the humanity, the common sympathies of
his adventurous leaders, than to rights derived from
a patent which tacitly denied to him the lowest privileges
of self-legislation.

After granting this instrument to her favourite,
the Queen provided him with the means of rendering
it efficacious. Her own coffers were not invaded,
but the hoards of the luxurious in her realm
were indirectly visited to procure the needed money.
(Dec. 18.) She gave to Raleigh a monopoly
for the sale of sweet wines throughout the kingdom,[60]
by which he was enabled to realize immense
profits; and however fatal was the general policy
of vesting in single interests the exclusive right to
any branch of trade, yet the world has small reason
to regret a tax upon wealthy indulgence, which was
applied to the labour of pioneers in the western
wilderness.

Sir Walter himself never visited North America,
although many have believed that he did.[61] His
spirit of adventure might have impelled him to undertake
an enterprise so congenial to his taste; but

England and her European neighbours now offered
all that his heart could wish, of exciting incident,
and of prospect for renown. He was content to
interest in his scheme of colonization his two rich
relatives, "Sir Richard Grenville the valiant, Mr.
William Sanderson, a great friend to all such noble
and worthy actions, and divers other gentlemen and
merchants."[62] Two barks were equipped and fully
provided with every thing necessary to success.
They were well supplied with men, and were entrusted
to the command of captains Philip Amidas
and Arthur Barlow, to whom was committed the
responsible task of planting English enterprise
upon the soil of the West.

They sailed from England on the 29th April,
high in hope, and full of that novel interest felt by
men who are hazarding their lives in a cause and
clime hitherto untried. Unskilled yet in the higher
mysteries of navigation, and fearful of departing
from the course formerly pursued by traversers of
the Atlantic, they steered first to the Canaries, and
thence to the West Indies, where the summer heats
caused sickness among them.[63] At length, after
this needless delay, they approached the great continent,
now first to be visited by Englishmen whose
professed design it was to find among its magnificent
forests a home for themselves and their children.
(July 2.) As they drew near to the shores

they had so long waited for, although the eye was
yet unable to discern the distant landscape of luxuriant
verdure, yet another organ of sense told them
with unwonted accuracy of the charms which nature
had lavished upon America. A fragrance as
of a thousand different flowers, varying in their
odour yet uniting in their pleasing address to the
senses, filled the air, and was wafted across the
water to the approaching barks.[64] It seemed as
though the land they sought were already apprised
of their coming, and were wooing them to her embrace
by the delicious breath of her yet unviolated
children.

Determined to avoid the error of former navigators,
who had, with few exceptions, sought first
the stormy seas and inhospitable coasts of a high
northern latitude, Raleigh had encouraged his
subordinates to seek the temperate south; and it
was partly their desire to make the continent far
below the cliffs of Labrador, that had induced them
to sail by the Canaries and West Indian Islands.
The land they were now drawing upon was the
coast of Florida; but, turning their bows northward,
they sailed yet one hundred and twenty
miles before they discovered a harbour which
seemed to invite them to enter. At length, on the
13th July, they landed on an island which they
soon acknowledged under its Indian name of Wococon;
and, with grateful hearts, they returned

thanks to the Divine Protector who had guided
them in safety across the treacherous ocean.[65]

The isle upon which they entered, was the
southernmost of the two which form the mouth
now known as Ocracock Inlet.[66] In the winter
season, the whole eastern line of these islands is to
be approached with extreme caution, even by the
most skilful navigators. Terrific storms rage
around their borders, and the projecting headland
of Hatteras stands out like a fearful demon, to inspire
dread in the bosoms of weather-beaten voyagers.[67] (July.) But the adventurers now approached
them at a season when the sea is calm,
and when the verdure of these circling islands
would offer to the eye and the mind hopes of tranquillity
and of plenty. They were in a special
manner struck with the appearance of the country.
The beach was sandy,[68] and extended far into the
land, but a dense cover of small trees and clambering
vines shaded the interior, and furnished
many pleasing retreats from the rays of the summer
sun. The quantity of grapes was so enormous,
that every shrub was filled with them: the
rising ground and the valley were alike laden with
their abundance. Even the waves of the ocean,
as they rolled in upon the sandy beach, bore back
immense numbers of this teeming fruit, and scattered

them in profusion along the coasts of the
contiguous islands.[69]

Many of the trees were odorous, and imparted
to the air that healthful freshness peculiar to the
fragrance of nature. The cedar, the sassafras, the
cypress, the pine, were all abundant; and in the
woods were found the hare and the deer, almost
tame from the absence of civilized destroyers. The
fabled island of Calypso could scarcely have exceeded
the charms of this spot as it appeared to
the adventurers, and the genius of Fenelon might,
without injustice, have given to the goddess a residence
in summer upon the coasts of North Carolina.[70]

No human being was seen by the voyagers until
the third day, when a canoe, carrying three men,
came by the shore. One of them landed, and,
though probably filled with surprise, he evinced
neither distrust nor fear. He received with apparent
gratitude the gifts of his new friends, and, on
leaving them, hastened with his companions to a
favourable spot, whence they soon returned with
the canoe laden with fish. Dividing these into
two parts, he intimated, by intelligible signs, that
he intended one portion for each vessel.[71]

This savage hospitality was followed up on the
succeeding day. Several canoes arrived, bringing
many of the natives, and, among them, Granganameo,
the brother of Wingina, the king. The Indian
monarch himself was kept from his guests by
a severe wound, received not long before in a conflict
with a neighbouring tribe. His brother lavished
upon the voyagers all the simple kindness
that his heart could suggest. He left his boats at
a distance, and, approaching with his people, invited
an interview. Spreading a mat upon the
ground, he seated himself, and made signs to the
English that he was "one with them."

A friendly interchange of courtesies took place.
The child of nature seemed strangely pleased with
a pewter dish, which he hung round his neck, and
with a copper kettle, for which he gave fifty skins,
"worth fiftie crowns."[72] He brought his wife and
children to his new friends; they were small in
stature, but handsome, and graced with native
modesty. When the trafficking was in progress,
none of the savages ventured to advance until
Granganameo and the other great men were satisfied.
They were his servants, and were governed,
while in presence of their monarch, by a rule more
absolute than that exercised by the kings of civilized
climes, though his dominion virtually ceased
when they passed beyond his sight.

The gentle manners of these people induced
Captain Barlow,[73] and seven others, to comply with

their request, and visit Granganameo on the Isle of
Roanoke. They sailed up the river Occam (now
known as Pamlico Sound) about twenty miles,
and arrived in the evening at the north end of the
isle, where they found nine houses, built of cedar,
for the families around the chief. Granganameo
was absent, but he was well represented; and in
the very opening of their enterprise the settlers of
Virginia were to receive from the gentle nature of
woman a support which afterwards preserved them
from destruction. The wife of the chief ran,
brought them into her dwelling, caused their
clothes to be dried, and their feet to be bathed in
warm water; and provided all that her humble
store could afford of venison, fish, fruits, and hominy
for their comfort.[74]

When her people came around with their bows
and arrows—the usual implements for hunting,—
the English, in unworthy distrust, seized their
arms, but this noble Indian woman drove her followers
from the lodge, and obliged them to break
their arrows, in proof of their harmless designs.
Though her whole conduct gave evidence of openhearted
and determined good faith, yet the adventurers
thought it most discreet to pass the night in
their boat, which was launched and laid at anchor
for this purpose. The wife of the Indian chief
was grieved by their conduct, yet she relaxed not
her efforts for their comfort. Five mats were sent
to cover them from the heavy dews of the season,
and a guard of men and women remained during

the whole night on the banks of the river.[75] The
learned and philanthropic Belknap might well propose
the question, "Could there be a more engaging
specimen of hospitality?" Yet can we
not blame the caution of the English, for on their
safety depended the voyage; and they had not now
first to learn that man in a state of nature is prone
to violence and treachery.

These Indians were represented by the voyagers
on their return as gentle and confiding beings, full
of innocent sweetness of disposition, living without
labour, and enjoying a golden age in their western
home; yet, by a singular inconsistency, the
same narratives tell us of their feuds with other
tribes, their fierce wars (often urged to extermination),
and of those perfidious traits which so uniformly
enter into the character of the savage.[76] It
is not irrational to suppose that the enthusiasm engendered
by the discovery of a clime so full of natural
charms, affected the view of the adventurers
as to every thing connected with this land; and
suffering and cruelty, both in the settlers and in
the natives, slowly dispelled the pleasing vision.

Beyond the island of Roanoke they made no attempt
to extend their voyage; and they collected
no intelligence that could be useful or interesting,
except a confused statement from the Indians that,

twenty or thirty years before, a ship had been
wrecked upon their coast.[77] What this ill-fated
messenger was we do not know. It may have been
one of the many barks shattered by the winds and
waves in the dangerous passage of the Atlantic, and
gradually driven by tide and current to the shores
of Carolina.

Having thus happily accomplished some of the
objects they had sought, the voyagers set sail on
their return to England, taking with them two natives,
Manteo and Wanchese, who voluntarily accompanied
them to the "great country" beyond the
sea. They arrived about the middle of September,
and immediately sought the Queen, and laid before
her an account of their voyage, and of its results.
There was much of truth as a basis for their wondrous
descriptions; but the sober observer will not
fail to mark in this narrative the impress of imaginations
heated by the novelty of their performance
and the encouraging hopes of their royal mistress.[78]
They spake of the land they had visited as an
earthly paradise;—its seas were tranquil and gemmed
with green islands, on which the eye delighted
to rest,—its trees were lofty, and many of them
would rival the odoriferous products of tropical
soil,—its fruits were so lavishly supplied by nature,
that art needed to do little more than gather them in

summer and autumn, for the wants of winter,—its
people were children of another age, when virtue
triumphed, and vice was yet unknown. The court
and the Queen were alike enlisted, and looked to
this discovery as one of the brightest spots in her
lustrous reign.

For a land so distinguished in natural charms,
and to which England designed to devote the expanding
energies of her people, a name was to be
found worthy of future love. The Queen selected
"Virginia," and none can deplore the graceful
choice. She remembered her own unmarried state;
and connecting, it may be, with this the virgin purity
which yet seemed to linger amid these favoured
regions,[79] she bestowed a name which has since interwoven
itself with the most sensitive cords of a
million of hearts. Had Elizabeth carried to her
grave a reputation as unsullied for chastity[80] as it
is unassailable for intellectual force, her memory
might now be regarded with the most sacred affection
by the sons and daughters of her favoured
colony.

Raleigh had now obtained the honour of knighthood
and a seat in Parliament; and, deriving from
his lucrative monopoly means for farther effort, he

made diligent preparation for despatching another
fleet to Virginia. The second expedition consisted
of seven vessels, large and small; and that gallant
spirit, Sir Richard Grenville himself, was at its
head.[81] The war with Spain was now in progress,
and the richly laden vessels from South America
and the West Indies offered tempting prizes to
English bravery. Sir Richard sailed from Plymouth
the 9th of April, passed the Canaries and
West Indies, captured two Spanish ships, ran imminent
hazard of being wrecked on the dangerous
headland now known as Cape Fear, and reached
Wococon on the 26th of June. Manteo was brought
back to his native land, and proved an invaluable
guide and interpreter to his newly-made friends.

But their amicable relations with the natives were
now to receive a rude shock, from which they never
recovered. At Aquascogoc, an Indian stole from
the adventurers a silver cup; and, on being detected,
he did not return it as speedily as was desired.
(July 16.) For this enormous offence, the
English burned the town, and barbarously destroyed
the growing corn. The affrighted inhabitants
fled to the woods, and thus a poisoned arrow
was planted in their bosoms, which rankled unto
the end.[82] A silver cup, in the eyes of European
avarice, was a loss which could only be atoned by
ruin and devastation; and had the unhappy savage
stolen the only child of the boldest settler, a more

furious vengeance could not have followed! To
such conduct does America owe the undying hatred
of the aboriginal tenants of her land, and the burden
of infamy that she must bear when weighed
in the scales of immaculate justice.

A serious attempt was now made to found a colony.
One hundred and eight men were left on
the island of Roanoke, comprising in their number
some of the boldest hearts, and many of the best-cultivated
minds that had left the mother country.
Among them was Thomas Heriot, whom Raleigh
had sent out with a full knowledge of his scientific
acquirements, his love of investigation, and his
moral worth.

Sir Richard Grenville returned to England,
where he arrived in September, bringing with him
a rich Spanish prize.

The settlers, thus left to their own resources,
seem to have done little in the all-important task of
clearing the country and planting corn for future
necessities. Ralph Lane had been appointed governor,
a man uniting military knowledge with experience
in the sea. He undertook several voyages
of exploration, penetrated north as far as Elizabeth
River and a town on Chesapeake Bay,[83] and south
to Secotan, eighty leagues from Roanoke. But his
most famous expedition was up Albemarle Sound
and the Chowan River, of his adventures in which
he has himself given us a description, in a letter
preserved by Captain Smith. The king of the
Chowanocks was known by the title of Menatonon.

He was lame in one of his lower limbs, but his
spirit seems to have been one of uncommon activity
and shrewdness. He told the credulous English
of a country, four days' journey beyond them,
where they might hope for abundant riches. This
country lay on the sea; and its king, from the waters
around his island retreat, drew magnificent
pearls in such numbers that they were commonly
used in his garments and household conveniences.[84]
Instantly the fancies of the eager listeners were
fired with the hope of attaining this wealth; and
notwithstanding the scarcity of food, and the danger
of an assault by "two or three thousand" savages,
they continued to toil up the river. They
laboured on until they had nothing for sustenance,
except two dogs of the mastiff species, and the sassafras
leaves which grew in great abundance
around them. Upon this inviting fare they were
fain to nourish their bodies, while their souls were
fed upon the hope of finally entering this region of
pearls; but at length, in a state near to starvation,
they returned to Roanoke, having made no discovery
even so valuable as a copper spring[85] high up
the Chowan River, concerning which the Indians
had excited their hopes.

Thomas Heriot employed his time in researches

more rational than those which sought for pearls
amid the wilderness of America. He intermingled
freely with the Indian tribes, studied their habits,
their manners, their language, and origin. He
sought to teach them a theology more exalted than
the fancies of their singular superstition, and to expand
their minds by a display of the instruments
of European science. He acquired a vast fund of
information as to the state of the original country,
its people and its products,—and to his labours we
may yet be indebted in the progress of this narrative.[86]

But we have reason to believe that a great part
of the colonists contributed nothing to the success
of the scheme, and did much to render it fruitless.

The natives, who had received the first adventurers
with unsuspecting hospitality, were now
estranged by the certain prospect of seeing their
provisions taken away and their homes wrested
from them by civilized pretenders. Wingina, the
king of the country, had never been cordial, and
he now became their implacable foe. Nothing but
a superstitious reverence of the Bible—the firearms,
and the medicinal remedies of the colonists,
restrained his early enmity; but at length, upon
the death of his father, Ensenore, who had been
the steady friend of the whites, he prepared for
vengeance. In accordance with a custom common
among the Indians, he had changed his name to
Pemissapan, and now drew around him followers

to aid in his scheme of death. Twenty or more
were to surround the hut of Lane, drive him forth
with fire, and slay him while thus defenceless.
The leader destroyed, the rest of the colonists
were to be gradually exhausted by starving, until
they should fall an easy prey to the savages. But
this well-concerted plan was betrayed to the English—a
rencontre occurred, and several Indians
were slain. The settlers considered themselves
justifiable in meeting the treachery of the foe by a
stratagem, which drew Pemissapan and eight of
his principal men within their reach, and they
were all shot down in the skirmish.[87]

(1586.) But this success did not assuage the
hunger of the famished colonists. They were reduced
to extremity, when a seasonable relief appeared
on their coasts. (June 8.) While despair
was taking possession of their bosoms, the white
sails of a distant fleet were seen, and Sir Francis
Drake, with twenty-three ships, was soon in their
waters. He had been cruising in search of the
Spaniards in the West Indies, and had been directed
by the Queen to visit the Virginia Colony.
His quick perception instantly discerned the wants
of the settlers, and he provided for them a ship
well stored with provisions, and furnished with
boats to serve in emergency. But a violent storm
drove his fleet to sea, and reduced to wreck the
vessel intended to sustain the settlers. Their resolution
gave way; it seemed as though Divine
and human powers were united against them, and,

in utter despondency, they entreated Drake to receive
them in his fleet, and carry them to England.
He yielded to their wishes. They embarked the
18th June, and, on the 27th July, they landed
once more on the shores of their mother-land.

Thus, after a residence of nearly twelve months
in Virginia, the first colonists deserted the country
which had been offered as containing all that the
heart of man could desire. Little was gained by
their abortive attempt beyond an increased knowledge
of the new world, and another lesson in the
great book of depraved human nature.

It would be pleasing to the lover of Virginia to
be able to record the final good fortune of Walter
Raleigh, but nothing resulted from his patent, except
successive disaster and an appalling consummation.
The determined knight had sent a ship[88]
to seek the colony; and this arrived after the disheartened
settlers had sailed with Sir Francis
Drake, and thus, finding the island deserted, it returned
to England. Two weeks afterwards, Sir
Richard Grenville arrived with two ships well appointed;
but no flourishing settlement greeted his
eager eyes. Unwilling to abandon the semblance
of hope, he left fifteen[89] men on the island, well

provided with all things essential to their comfort,
and then spread his sails for England.

(1587.) In the succeeding year, Raleigh prepared
for another attempt. Convinced that the
bay of Chesapeake, which had been discovered by
Lane, afforded greater advantages for a colony, he
directed his adventures to seek its shores, and
gave them a charter of incorporation for the city
of Raleigh[90] —a name that North Carolina has
since, with merited gratitude, bestowed upon her
most favoured town. John White assumed command
of this expedition, and they were soon in the
waters of Virginia. (July 22.) The cape, to which
maritime terrors have given an expressive name,
threatened them with shipwreck, but at length
they arrived in safety at Hatteras, and immediately
despatched a party to Roanoke to seek the settlers
left by Sir Richard Grenville. A melancholy silence
pervaded the spot—the huts were yet standing,
but rank weeds and vines had overspread
them and striven to reclaim to the wilderness the
abortive efforts of human labour. Not one man
could be found, but the bones of one unhappy victim
told in gloomy eloquence of conflict and of
death.[91] From the reluctant statements of the natives,
they gathered the belief that these men had
either all perished under the attacks of overwhelming
numbers, or had gradually wasted away under
the approaches of disease and famine.

A discovery so mournful held out no cheering

prospects to the new adventurers; yet they determined
to renew the attempt upon the islands adjoining
Hatteras. About one hundred and fifteen
persons were landed and prepared for their novel
life. The Indians were no longer pacific; the spirit
of Wingina had diffused itself through every bosom,
and the unfortunate mistake, which caused the
death of a friendly savage,[92] contributed much to
the general hostility. But amid so much that was
unpropitious, two events occurred to shed a faint
light upon their days. (Aug. 13.) Manteo, the
faithful friend of the early visiters was baptized
with the simple though solemn rites of the Christian
faith, and upon him was bestowed the sounding
title of Lord of Dessamonpeake;[93] and a few
days after, the first child of European parentage
was born upon the soil of America. Eleanor,
daughter of Governor White, had married Ananias
Dare, and, on the 18th of August, she gave birth
to a female, upon whom was immediately bestowed
the sweet name of Virginia.[94] It is sad to reflect,
that the gentle infant of an English mother, and
the first whose eyes were opened upon the new
world, should have been destined to a life of privation
and to a death of early oblivion.

But the colonists needed many things from the
mother-land, and determined to send the governor
to procure them. He was unwilling to leave them
under circumstances so strongly appealing to his

paternal heart, but yielded to the general wish,
and sailed on the 27th August. But many causes
now opposed his success in the mother-country.
Spain was threatening a descent with her formidable
Armada, and England was alive with preparation
to meet the shock. Raleigh and Grenville
entered with enthusiasm into the interests of their
country, and were no longer in a state to furnish
aid for a distant colony. Not until April 22d, 1588,
could they prepare two small barks for a voyage
to Virginia, and these, drawn away by their eager
thirst for Spanish prizes laden with Mexican gold,
wandered from their route, and were driven back
by superior enemies to their original ports.[95]

Yielding to his disappointment and mortification
at these repeated disasters, and exhausted in
money by his enormous outlays, Raleigh no longer
hoped for success from his own exertions. Forty
thousand pounds had been expended and no return
had been made. On the 7th March, 1589, he
assigned his patent to Thomas Smith, Richard
Hakluyt, and others, who had the means and the
experience of merchants, or rather he extended to
them the rights enjoyed under his patent and exercised
by him in giving the charter for the "City
of Raleigh."[96] With this assignment, he gave one
hundred pounds for the propagation of Christian
principles among the savages of Virginia.[97] But

the energetic soul of Raleigh no longer ruled, and
doubtful zeal impelled the assignees. Not until
March, 1590, could Governor White obtain three
ships for his purposes; and though their names
might have incited him, by the motives both of
earthly hope and of religious trust,[98] yet he preferred
an avaricious cruise among the West India
Isles, to a speed which might, peradventure, have
preserved the life of his daughter. He arrived at
Hatteras the 15th August, and sought the settlers
left there three years before. The curling smoke
of grass and trees in flame gave them encouragement,
but they sought in vain their long-neglected
friends. On the bark of a tree was found the word,
"Croatan," legibly inscribed, and White hoped,
from the absence of the cross, which he himself
had suggested as a sign of distress, that the settlers
were still in being; but as they proceeded to Croatan,
a furious storm arose, and drove them from the
coast, and their dismayed spirits could find no relief
except in a return to England. No lingering
trace has ever marked the fate of this unhappy
colony. The generous Raleigh in vain sent five
successive messengers to seek and save.[99] They
were gone, and whither no tongue was left to tell.
Modern ingenuity may be indulged in the forlorn
suggestion that they were amalgamated among
their savage neighbours, but sober thought will
rather fear that they perished under the mingled
weight of famine, of disappointed hope, and of Indian
barbarity. And if, in closing this mournful
page in the history of Virginia, a feeling heart
could consent to have its sadness yet farther increased,
it might, with generous sympathy, turn
to the fate of the leaders, who had so nobly striven
for the success of the colonists. In an age of great
men, Sir Richard Grenville was the bravest of the
brave. In 1591, he commanded the Revenge, in
the squadron of Lord Thomas Howard, when they
were suddenly surprised at the Azores, by an overwhelming
Spanish fleet, sent out to convoy their
merchantmen. Lord Howard and all of his squadron,
except the Revenge, got to sea and made good
their retreat, but the heroic Grenville was left to
cope single-handed with fifty-seven armed ships of
Spain. History does not record a scene of more
desperate heroism than was now displayed. From
three o'clock in the afternoon until daybreak, he
combated with numbers who poured upon him
from every point. Fifteen times the Spaniards
gained the deck of the Revenge, and as often were
they driven back by English valour. At length,
when his deck was slippery with the blood of his
bravest men,—himself bleeding from many wounds,
—his powder nearly exhausted, and his ship a perfect
wreck, the unconquerable Grenville proposed
to his crew at once to sink their bark and leave no
trophy to their enemy. But, though many applauded,
this rash proposal was overruled; the
Revenge struck her colours, and, two days after,
Grenville died of his wounds aboard the admiral's
ship. In his own words, he had a "joyful and
quiet mind" in death, and his enemies could not
refuse their admiration to a heroism so exalted and
triumphant even in defeat.[100]

But the fate of Grenville was full of brightness
when compared with that of Walter Raleigh. The
great events of his life and his death are too well
known to need a formal statement; but it is to be
feared that few have entered into the inner temple
of his soul, and read there his true history. Had
David Hume been willing to sacrifice his obtrusive
love of the Stuarts to a generous desire to do justice
to an enthusiastic character, he might have found
in Raleigh something more than a false and dreaming
visionary;[101] and the cruel delay which held the
axe suspended for fifteen years over the victim,
only that it might finally fall in execution of accumulated
injustice, added to the already darkened
escutcheon of James a blot which will never be
washed away.

Thus the generous efforts of English hearts had
been vain. Money had been freely poured out, but
had brought no recompense. Savage jealousies had
been roused, and savage enmity had commenced
its work; devoted colonists had sunk in death on
the soil of America; and when Elizabeth descended
to her grave, not one English inhabitant could be
found amid the inviting plains of the new world.[102]

CHAPTER II.

The melancholy result which attended the effort
of Raleigh, operated during several years to check
the spirit of colonization; but it was not destined
finally to destroy it. As we approach the time
when the first permanent settlement was to be made
in America, we pause for a moment to reflect upon
the circumstances which gave to it importance, and
which rendered the movement of a discordant band
of adventurers the source of life to a nation, and of
renewed vigour to a world.

The last and most powerful of a renowned dynasty
had ceased to reign. Elizabeth had sunk
beneath the struggles of a spirit wasted by its own
intense energy, and crushed by the death of a favourite

whom her own hand had consigned to the
scaffold. To the vacant throne of England succeeded
a prince whose brow had already borne a
crown, and who united in his person the hereditary
honours of two royal families. But the world
needed no protracted experience to show that the
hand of a Tudor no longer grasped the sceptre.
James Stuart had been educated in Scotland; and,
perhaps, had not his fortunes called him to a more
ample field of action, he might have descended to
his grave with a character at least respectable for
moderation, if not renowned for wisdom. His advancement
to a post which required all the power
of self-sustained courage, and all the sagacity of
well-balanced intellect, served only to present his
defects in bold relief. Vain of his talents, and inflated
with the flattery of the designing, he sought
to display his useless learning in works of the pen,
which are known only to be ridiculed. He believed
himself a master of kingcraft and political science,
yet was he so ignorant of the laws of nations as to
excite the surprise of the Spanish court[103] and the
scorn of his own advisers. His domestic virtues
had no strength more enduring than that which
they derived from silly fondness and selfish design;
nor will the world easily ascribe generous affections
to a heart which refused to oppose more than a
feeble remonstrance to the injustice which finally
took away the life of his beautiful mother. His
timid soul shrank from contests and enterprises, to
which his love of dominion would have urged him.
Born and reared in a land where the claims of prelacy
had been rejected, he had repeatedly promised
that he would protect and sustain the church institutions
of his native clime,[104] yet the atmosphere of
England wrought in him an instantaneous change.
He gave full sway to the strong love he had always
felt for episcopal government; and he has not been
suspected, without cause, of a bias to popery, too
controlling to be subdued, yet too dangerous to be
openly indulged. Even upon the discovery of the
plot by which the most conscientious of the popish
party intended to discharge what they believed to
be a solemn duty to God and to the church,[105] the
religious prepossessions of James could not be concealed.
The mortal fear of being blown up with
gunpowder might indeed require the torture and
execution of Guy Fawkes; but the king, in his
speech to Parliament, spake with great moderation
of Roman Catholics in general, and denounced, in
plain terms, the "hateful uncharitableness of puritans."[106] In his principles of government, this monarch
was among the most imperious and uncompromising
that ever filled the English throne. Conducted
by a singular course of events from a place
comparatively humble to one of paramount dignity,
he believed himself to be the special favourite of
heaven, and would willingly have retained the enormous
prerogative bequeathed to him by his predecessors,
as a sacred inheritance beyond the control
of secular hands.[107] But it was fortunate that his
timid spirit was not equal to the task assigned to it
by his regal principles; and his parliaments met his
demands for power, for money, and for submission,
with resolute acts, and with resistance which gathered
strength during every year of his feeble dominion.

Leaving, for a season, the king under whose reign
Virginia was to receive her first colony, we may
now direct our thoughts to that condition of things
in the mother country which affected her interests,
and gave a form to her future destinies. For nearly
one hundred years England had been bound in
chains of brass. The Tudor dynasty had reigned
with absolute sway. Differing, indeed, in their
characters, they had yet been alike in the ample
prerogative which they openly claimed or tacitly
enjoyed; and during the exciting career of their
reigns, neither lords nor commons could secure a
breathing-time in which to reflect upon and calmly
to test the foundation on which was erected so majestic
a superstructure. But when a stranger came
from Scotland and ascended the throne, a change not
the less important, because almost insensible, took
place. The revival of learning had expanded the
human mind; and the scholar and the statesman
might draw from the fountains of antiquity a love
of rational liberty, and a full conviction that it might

be obtained.[108] The divine right of kings could no
longer be passively admitted; and none were more
ardent in seeking to secure freedom from royal encroachment
than the men who were most deeply
imbued with the spirit inculcated in the Scriptures.
The commons began seriously to ask by what right
the king imposed arbitrary customs and duties on
trade—how he acquired exclusive control in matters
of religion—and why he should be permitted to
wield the dangerous power of imprisoning at will
his faithful subjects.

Coeval with this awakening spirit of freedom, a
general fermentation pervaded the minds of men,
and urged them to every species of enterprise and
improvement. The mechanic arts were assiduously
cultivated, and the man was reckoned a
benefactor to his species who could add to the
comfort of life by the ingenuity of the artisan.
Travelling was no longer the dangerous adventure,
grateful to an age of knight-errantry. Navigation
became fixed in its principles, honourable
in its agents, expanded in its results; the very
dangers which attended it, gave to it attractive
features in the eyes of the young and the brave,
and the immense wealth which had been gathered
from its achievements, rendered it dear to the ambitious
and the prudent. Disappointment had indeed
attended many efforts to gather gold and silver
from the shores of the new world, and to find
pearls amid the wilds of North America, but the
very failure of extravagant hope had tended to

direct public enterprise to more reasonable objects.
Men now began to learn that real wealth might be
drawn from the soil, the forest, and the sea—wealth
more substantial than the precious metals,—and
that America needed only to be colonized to become
an inviting home to those who would abandon
the mother country, and a fruitful source of
profit to those who were left behind. But in addition
to these impelling motives to enterprise, another
cause now operated in England to make many
willing to leave her shores and embark for the
novel scenes of the western world.

The martial reign of Elizabeth had given employment
to many restless spirits, whose happiness
could only be found in constant commotion. Cavaliers
and gentlemen of high birth, but of decayed
fortunes, had found congenial employment
in seeking the rich prizes of Spain; but when
James ascended the throne, pacific counsels
speedily prevailed. (Aug. 18, 1604.) Not more
than a year after his accession, a peace was concluded,
by which the angry spirits of the belligerents
were stilled, and the most amicable relations
were established between the Catholic and the
Protestant sovereigns. Thus the adventurers,
who had little employment for their talents except
in war or maritime danger, were left to inactivity,
and eagerly turned to America as an interesting
field for their occupation.[109] James was not
unwilling to gratify their desires. Too timid in
his policy to give them appropriate duties at home,

he found it highly convenient to turn to Virginia
a tide of his population, whose troubled waves
might have visited too rudely the barriers of his
own regal office; and it is no less remarkable than
true, that the class of men from whom he was thus
anxious to be delivered, furnished afterwards the
most generous supporters of the fortunes of his
unhappy son.

We have thus glanced with rapidity over the
sources from which were to be directed the streams
of European enterprise, destined to fertilize the soil
of America; and now we may proceed to the settlement
of the colony that first established and maintained
a precarious existence upon the shores of
Virginia.

Bartholomew Gosnold may, with justice, claim
the honour of having excited again the discouraged
heart of England to an attempt for settling the
new world.[110] He was a skilful navigator, and had
crossed the Atlantic in 1602 by a direct western
course, which saved him many leagues of weary
sailing. On the 17th May, he discovered Cape
Cod, and he then coasted along the shores of what
was afterwards New England, landed on an island
so full of fruits and luxuriant vines, that he could
not bestow a more appropriate title than Martha's
Vineyard,[111] viewed a country and a soil rich, beautiful,
and inviting, and finally returned to England
about the close of July.

The success of this voyage of exploration, revived

the hopes of English adventurers. Gosnold
was enthusiastic in his praises of the natural charms
of Virginia, and urged with ardour another effort
to occupy her soil. Among those who united with
him in endeavouring again to arouse the colonizing
desire, was Richard Hakluyt, Prebendary of Westminster,
a man of great learning and indefatigable
industry, to whom America owes a heavy debt of
gratitude.[112]

Under his auspices public attention was strongly
drawn to his favourite scheme. A number of adventurers
offered their money, and many presented
themselves to aid in the enterprise. To the King
at length application was made, and he readily
granted his sanction to a project which promised to
employ the turbulent spirits of his realm, and to
replenish his coffers with the results of success.
On the 10th April, 1606, James issued a patent to
Sir Thomas Gates, Sir George Somers, Richard
Hakluyt, and others with them associated, under
which they proposed to embark upon their eagerly
sought scheme.[113]

This royal grant deserves our close attention, as
it will explain the nature of the enterprise and the
powers originally enjoyed by those who entered
upon it.

Selecting for the scene of operations the beautiful
belt of country lying between the thirty-fourth
and forty-fifth parallels of north latitude, the King

certainly provided an ample field for the success
of the patentees. This tract extends from Cape
Fear to Halifax, and embraced all the lands between
its boundaries in North America, except
perhaps the French settlement in Acadia,[114] which
had already been so far matured as to come under
the excluding clause of the patent. For colonizing
this extensive region, the King appointed two companies
of adventurers,—the first consisting of noblemen,
knights, gentlemen, and others, in and about
the city of London, which, through all its subsequent
modifications, was known by the title of the
London Company; the other consisted of knights,
gentlemen, merchants, and others, in and about
the town of Plymouth, and was known as the
Plymouth Company, though its operations were
never extensive, and were at last utterly fruitless.

To the London adventurers was granted exclusive
right to all the territory lying between the
thirty-fourth and thirty-eighth parallels, and running
from the ocean to an indefinite extent westward
into the wilds of America, even to the waters
of the Pacific.[115] They were also allowed all the
islands, fisheries, and other marine treasures, within
one hundred miles directly eastward from their
shores, and within fifty miles from their most

northern and most southern settlements, following
the coast to the northeast or southwest, as might
be necessary. Within these limits, ample jurisdiction
was conferred upon them. To the Plymouth
Company was granted in like manner the land
and appurtenances between the forty-first and
forty-fifth parallels. Thus the whole region between
thirty-eight and forty-one was left open to
the enterprise of both companies; but to render
angry collision impossible, the charter contained
the judicious clause above noted, by which each
colony might claim exclusive right fifty miles
north or south of its extreme settlements, and thus
neither could approach within one hundred miles
of the other.

The hope of gold and silver from America, was
yet clinging with tenacity to the English mind.
James grants to the companies unlimited right to
dig and obtain the precious and other metals, but
reserves to himself one-fifth part of all the gold
and silver, and one-fifteenth of all the copper that
might be discovered. Immediately after this clause,
we find a section granting to the councils for the
colonies, authority to coin money and use it among
the settlers and the natives. This permission may
excite some surprise, when we remember that the
right to coin has been always guarded with peculiar
jealousy by English monarchs, and that this
constituted one serious charge against the Massachusetts
colony in the unjust proceedings by
which her charter was wrested from her in subsequent
years.[116]

To the companies was given power to carry
settlers to Virginia and plant them upon her soil,
and no restriction was annexed to this authority,
except that none should be taken from the realm
upon whom the king should lay his injunction to
remain. The colonists were permitted to have
arms, and to resist and repel all intruders from
foreign states; and it was provided that none
should trade and traffic within the colonies unless
they should pay or agree to pay to the treasurers
of the companies two and a half per cent. on their
stock in trade if they were English subjects, and
five per cent. if they were aliens. The sums so
paid were to be appropriated to the company for
twenty-one years from the date of the patent, and
afterwards were transferred to the crown. James
never forgot a prospect for gain, and could not
permit the colonists to enjoy for ever the customs,
which, as consumers of foreign goods, they must
necessarily have paid from their own resources.

The jealous policy which, at this time, forbade
the exportation without license, of English products
to foreign countries, has left its impress upon
this charter. The colonists were, indeed, allowed
to import all "sufficient shipping and furniture of
armour, weapons, ordinance, powder, victual, and
all other things necessary,"[117] without burdensome
restraint; but it was provided that if any goods
should be shipped from England or her dependencies
"with pretence" to carry them to Virginia, and

should afterwards be conveyed to foreign ports,
the goods there conveyed and the vessel containing
them should be absolutely forfeited to his majesty,
his heirs and successors.[118]

The lands held in the colonies were to be possessed
by their holders under the most favourable
species of tenure known to the laws of the mother
country. King James had never admired the military
tenures entailed upon England by the feudal
system, and he had made a praiseworthy, though
unsuccessful effort, to reduce them all to the form
of "free and common soccage,"[119] a mode of holding
land afterwards carried into full effect under
Charles II., and which, if less pervaded by the
knightly spirit of feudal ages, was more favourable
to the holder and more congenial with the freedom
of the English constitution. This easy tenure
was expressly provided for the lands of the new
country; and it is a happy circumstance that America
has been little affected even by the softened
bonds thus early imposed upon her.

But how shall these colonial subjects be governed,
and from whom shall they derive their laws?
These were questions to which the vanity and the
arbitrary principles of the King soon found a reply.
Two councils were to be provided, one for each
colony, and each consisting of thirteen members.
They were to govern the colonists according to
such laws, ordinances, and instructions as should
be afterwards given by the king himself, under his

sign manual, and the privy seal of the realm of
England; and the members of the councils were to
be "ordained, made, and removed from time to
time," as the same instructions should direct.[120] In
addition to these provincial bodies, a council of
thirteen, likewise appointed by the King, was to be
created in England, to which was committed the
general duty of superintending the affairs of both
colonies.[121]

And to prove the pious designs of a monarch
whose religion neither checked the bigotry of his
spirit nor the profaneness of his language,[122] it was
recited in the preamble of this charter, that one
leading object of the enterprise was the propagation
of Christianity among "such people as yet live
in darkness and miserable ignorance of the true
knowledge and worship of God, and might in time
be brought to human civility and to a settled and
quiet government."[123]

Such was the first charter of James to the colony
of Virginia. We will not now pause to consider
it minutely either for praise or for blame.
With some provisions that seem to be judicious,
and which afterwards proved themselves to be salutary,
it embraces the most destructive elements
of despotism and dissension. The settlers were

deprived of the meanest privileges of self-government,
and were subjected to the control of a council
wholly independent of their own action, and of
laws proceeding directly or indirectly from the
King himself. The Parliament of England would
have been a much safer depository of legislative
power for the colonists, than the creatures of a monarch
who held doctrines worthy of the Sultan of
Turkey or the Czar of the Russian empire.

But all parties seemed well satisfied with this
charter, and neither the King nor the adventurers
had before their minds the grand results that were
to follow the enterprise to which they were now
giving birth. The patentees diligently urged forward
preparations for the voyage, and James employed
his leisure hours in preparing the instructions
and code of laws contemplated by the charter.
His wondrous wisdom rejoiced in the task of acting
the modern Solon, and penning statutes which were
to govern people yet unborn; and neither his advisers
nor the colonists seem to have reflected upon
the enormous exercise of prerogative herein displayed.
The adventurers did not cease to be Englishmen
in becoming settlers of a foreign clime, and
the charter had expressly guarantied to them "all
liberties, franchises, and immunities" enjoyed by
native-born subjects of the realm.[124] Even acts of
full Parliament bind not the colonies unless they
be expressly included,[125] and an English writer of

subsequent times has not hesitated to pronounce
this conduct of the royal law-maker in itself illegal.[126] (Nov. 20.) But James proceeded with much
eagerness to a task grateful alike to his vanity and
his principles of government.

By these Articles of Instruction, the King first
establishes the general council, to remain in England,
for the superintendence of the colonies. It
consisted originally of thirteen, but was afterwards
increased to nearly forty, and a distinction was
made in reference to the London and Plymouth
companies.[127] In this body, we note many names
which were afterwards well known, both in the
interests of America and of the mother land.

Sir William Wade, Lieutenant of the Tower of
London; Sir Thomas Smith, Sir Oliver Cromwell,
Sir Herbert Croft, Sir Edwin Sandys, and
others, formed a power to whom were intrusted
many of the rights of the intended settlement.
They were authorized, at the pleasure, and in the
name of his majesty, to give directions for the
good government of the settlers in Virginia, and
to appoint the first members of the councils to be
resident in the colonies.

These resident councils thus appointed, or the
major part of them, were required to choose from
their own body a member, not being a minister of
God's word, who was to be president, and to continue
in office for a single year. They were authorized
to fill vacancies in their own body, and,

for sufficient cause, to remove the president and
elect another in his stead; but the authority to
"increase, alter, or change" these provincial councils
was reserved as a final right to the king.

The Church of England was at once established,
and the local powers were to require that the true
word and service of God, according to her teachings,
should be preached, planted, and used, not
only among the settlers, but, as far as possible,
among the sons of the forest.

The crimes of rebellion, tumults, conspiracy,
mutiny, and sedition, as well as murder, incest,
rape, and adultery, were to be punished with
death, without benefit of clergy. To manslaughter,
clergy was allowed. These crimes were to be
tried by jury, but the president and council were
to preside at the trial—to pass sentence of death—
to permit no reprieve without their order, and no
absolute pardon without the sanction of the king,
under the great seal of England.

But, with the exception of these capital felonies,
the president and council were authorized to hear
and determine all crimes and misdemeanors, and
all civil cases, without the intervention of a jury.
These judicial proceedings were to be summary
and verbal, and the judgment only was to be
briefly registered in a book kept for the purpose.[128]

For five years succeeding the landing of the
settlers, all the results of their labour were to be
held in common, and were to be stored in suitable
magazines. The president and council were to

elect a "cape merchant," to superintend these
public houses of deposit, and two clerks to note all
that went into or came out from them, and every
colonist was to be supplied from the magazines by
the direction and appointment of these officers or
of the council.

The adventurers of the first colony were to
choose from their number one or more companies,
each to consist of at least three persons, to reside
in or near London, and these were to superintend
the general course of trade between the mother
country and her distant daughter, and direct it
into such channels as would be most advantageous
to both.

No person was to be permitted to reside in the
colonies but such as should take the oath of obedience
to the king, in the ample form provided for
by a statute passed early in the reign of James,
and any rash offenders who should attempt to
withdraw from allegiance to his majesty, was to
be imprisoned until reformation, or else sent to
England, there to receive "condign punishment."[129]

The president and councils, or the major part
of them, were empowered, from time to time, to
make, ordain, and constitute laws, ordinances, and
officers for the better government of the colony,
provided that none of these laws affected life or
limb in the settlers. Their enactments were also
required to be, in substance, consonant to the jurisprudence
of England, and the king or the council

in the mother country, was invested with absolute
power at any time to rescind and make void the
acts of the provincial councils.

As the colonies should increase in population
and influence, the king reserves to himself the right
to legislate for them; but condescends to restrict
his law-making energies to such action as might
be "consonant to the law of England or the equity
thereof."[130]

And to show his tender feelings towards the aborigines,
whose lands he was so deliberately appropriating
to the use of his subjects, his majesty requires
that they shall be treated with all kindness
and charity, and that all proper means should be
used to bring them to "the knowledge of God and
the obedience of the king, his heirs and successors,
under such severe pains and punishments as should
be inflicted by the respective presidents and councils
of the several colonies."

On these kingly ordinances the philosophic
reader will not fail to observe the impress of the
man. The stern penalty of death visited the crimes
of rebellion and conspiracy, which aimed a blow at
sovereign power, and even the popular tumult,
which kings have so much cause to dread, was
stilled by the same bloody monitor; yet arson and
burglary were left to the discretion of the councils.
Adultery was punished with death—a penalty
never inflicted even in England, except during a
time of puritanic zeal, which offered to God a service

without knowledge.[131] In the eye of divine
purity the offender, by this crime, may be the
vilest of the vile; but if the Redeemer of the world
refused to denounce the punishment of death
against one taken in the act,[132] it devolved not on
this Scottish Draco to render it a capital crime.[133]
The whole legislative power is vested in the council,
without any reference to the interests or the
rights of the people whom they were to govern, and
the King retains absolute control over the present
and future laws of the colony—thus rendering their
great distance from his face the best protection they
could have against his tyranny. The trial by jury
was required for capital felonies and manslaughter;
but all inferior offences and every civil interest,
however overwhelming in importance to the colonist,
were to be summarily decided upon by the
provincial councils. In the same space, it would
have been difficult to compress more of absurd concession
and of ruinous restraint. The clause requiring
all things to be held in common was destructive
of the most powerful stimulus that urges
man to labour; the semblance of mercy which forbade
war upon the savages, often held the hand of
the settler when raised in self-defence; and the
church establishment, forced by the arm of the law
upon reckless adventurers, made religion a hated
bondage, and the tithe-gatherer more odious than
the author of evil.[134]

But notwithstanding the defects and deformities
of a charter which, in modern times, would have
been indignantly rejected as an invasion of the
rights of man,[135] the London Company eagerly prepared
for their proposed scheme of settlement. Sir
Thomas Smith was elected treasurer,—a gentleman
who had amassed great wealth by merchandise,
who was one of the assignees under Raleigh's
patent, and was soon afterwards made governor of
the East India Company.[136] Much has been said
against him; but he was a man of public spirit
and expanded views, and urged forward the enterprise
with his influence and his contributions.
The means of the company were at first very
limited; three ships only were prepared, the
largest of which was of not more than one hundred
tons burden, and Christopher Newport was selected
for the command. He was a navigator of some
renown, principally derived from a voyage of destruction
against the Spaniards in 1592; but he
was a vain and affected character, little calculated
for decisive and manly action. Instructions were
prepared, but the King, with his accustomed profundity
of folly, directed that they should be sealed
in a box, and not opened until the voyagers arrived
upon the coasts of Virginia. In the vessels, there
embarked, beyond the regular crews, one hundred
and five persons, to form the settlement. And it

does not seem extravagant to assert, that Virginia
has felt, through all her subsequent history, the
influence of these first settlers in giving a peculiar
bias to her population. Besides the six gentlemen
intended for the council, and Mr. Robert Hunt, a
minister of the Gospel, we find the names of more
than fifty cavaliers, who are carefully reckoned in
the shipping-list as "gentlemen,"[137] and who were
better fitted for the adventures of the drawing-room
than for the rude scenes of the American forest.
Disappointed in hope and reduced in fortune, these
restless wanderers sought the new world with desire
for exciting adventure and speedy wealth.
Among them was George Percy, a member of a
noble family and brother to the Earl of Northumberland.[138] In this singular band we note but eleven
professed labourers, four carpenters, one blacksmith,
one bricklayer, and one mason; but we are
not surprised to find a barber to aid in making the
toilet of the "gentlemen," a tailor to decorate their
persons, and a drummer to contribute to their martial
aspirations!

Thus prepared with the elements of a refined
colony, Newport set sail from Blackwall the 19th
December, 1606. Adverse winds kept him long
upon the coast of England, and with disappointment
came discord and murmuring among the
voyagers. The preacher suffered with weakening
disease, but his soothing counsels alone preserved

peace among this wild company.[139] Instead of following
Gosnold's former voyage immediately across
the Atlantic, they sailed by the Canaries and West
Indies; and while in full route, the dissensions
among the great men raged so furiously that Captain
John Smith was seized and committed to close
confinement on the false charge that he intended to
murder the council and make himself king of Virginia.
Arriving at length near the coast of America,
their false reckoning kept them in suspense so
alarming, that Ratcliffe, commander of one of the
barks, was anxious to bear away again for England.

But heaven, by its storms, contributed more to
the settlement of Virginia, than men by their infatuated
counsels. (1607.) A furious tempest drove
them all night under bare poles, and on the 26th
April, they saw before them the broad inlet to the
Bay of Chesapeake. The cape to the south they
honoured with the name of Henry, from the Prince
of Wales, a noble youth, whose character gave the
fairest promise of a career of high-souled action,
whose love to Raleigh was only exceeded by his
father's hatred, and whose early death gave England
cause for unaffected mourning.[140] The northern
headland was called Charles, from the king's
second son, who afterwards succeeded to his
throne.

As they passed the first cape, a desire for recreation
possessed them,—and thirty, without arms,
went on shore; but they were soon attacked by five

savages, and two of the English were dangerously
hurt. This inhospitable treatment promised but
little for future peace. The sealed box was now
opened, and it was found that Bartholomew Gosnold,
John Smith, Edward Maria Wingfield, Christopher
Newport, John Ratcliffe, John Martin, and
George Kendall, were named as members of the
Provincial Council.

Sailing leisurely up the beautiful expanse of
water to which the Indians have given a name that
Europeans have never violated,[141] the voyagers were
charmed with the prospect before them. The season
was mild, and nature had fully assumed the
emerald robe of spring. On either side, the distant
land presented a scene of tranquil verdure, upon
which the eye might rejoice to repose. The noble
bay received into its bosom the waters of many
broad streams, which descended from the highlands
faintly visible in the dim horizon. Green islands
saluted them at times as they advanced, and invited
their approach by their peaceful loveliness.[142]

At length they reached the mouth of a magnificent
river, that tempted them too strongly to be
resisted. This was the "Powhatan" of the Indians;
and no true lover of Virginia can cease to

deplore the change which robbed this graceful
stream of a title pregnant with all the associations
of Indian valour and of the departed glory of their
empire, and bestowed a name that can only recall
a royal pedant and a timid despot!

Seventeen days were employed in searching for
a spot suited to a settlement. (May 13.) At length
they selected a peninsula, on the north side of the
river, and about forty miles from its mouth, and
immediately commenced the well-known city of
Jamestown.

A commendable industry seems at first to have
prevailed. The Council contrived a fort,—the settlers
felled the trees, pitched their tents, prepared
gardens, made nets for the fish which abounded in
the river, and already began to provide clapboards
to freight the ships on their return to England.

But these fair promises of good were destined to
a speedy betrayal. Already discord prevailed in
their counsels, and a flagrant act of injustice had
been committed, which soon recoiled upon the
heads of its authors. We have heretofore mentioned
the name of John Smith among the persons
nominated for the Council, and have spoken of the
violent imprisonment to which he was subjected
during the outward voyage. Jealousy of his merit
and commanding talents did not stop at this point.
He was excluded from his place in the Council, and
an entry was made in their records detailing the
alleged reason for this act.[143]

John Smith is the hero of the romantic destinies
that attended the early life of Virginia; and the historian
who would attempt to tell of her fortunes
and yet neglect his story, would be recreant to his
trust. Nations have generally owed their brightest
days of power or of happiness to the genius of a
single person,—directing their energies, subduing
their follies, enlightening their seasons of early
ignorance. Assyria has had her Semiramis,
China her Confucius, Arabia her Mohammed,
England her Alfred; and were we required to
point to the man to whom America is principally
indebted for the care of her infant years, we would
not hesitate to name the heroic spirit who now appears
before us.

His life deserves, and shall receive from our
hands, something more than the passing notice bestowed
upon the vulgar herd. He was born at
Willoughby, in Lincolnshire of England, in the
year 1579,[144] and lived during a period of the world's
career rare in adventure and excitement. His
parents died when he was thirteen, leaving him
competent means of support. Even at this tender
age he pined for a voyage, and, as he informs us,
"the guardians of his estate, more regarding it than
him, he had libertie enough, though no means to
get beyond the sea." A spirit so restless could not
long be restrained. His friends (friends after the
fashion of the world) gave him ten shillings out of
his own estate "to be rid of him," and in a short

time he found himself in Paris. Here one David
Hume made some use of his purse, and in return
gave him letters of strong recommendation to King
James of Scotland. But before he sought the
shores of Caledonia, he passed several years in
learning the practical duties of a soldier in the
bloody wars now raging in the Netherlands, where
Philip of Spain was yet struggling to restore his
hateful dominion.[145] Arriving, at length, in Scotland,
he found the duties of a courtier too onerous
to be endured, and returning to his native seat, he
passed a season in perfect seclusion, employing his
mind upon Marcus Aurelius and Machiavel's Art
of War,[146] and his body in vigorous exercise with
horse and lance. But he soon returned to active
life. Having recovered a portion of his estate, he
was enabled to revisit France in the train of a
Frenchman, who held forth fair promises in the
day, and at night joined in a scheme to plunder the
unsuspecting Englishman of his trunks and baggage.
This treachery he afterwards visited upon
the author, and in single combat left him desperately
wounded upon the field. Wandering
through various provinces, he at length reached
Marseilles, and embarked for Italy in a ship containing
many pilgrims possessed of the very demon
of religious intolerance. On the passage a fierce
storm arose, and with it arose the fears of the Papists,
who firmly believed that their danger was
caused by the presence of the heretic Briton.
With many pious curses upon himself and his
queen, they seized the victim and threw him into
the troubled waters; but his strength and skill at
swimming preserved his life: he landed in safety,
was carried by a vessel to Egypt, sailed in the Levant,
pleased his restless soul by a fight with a
rich Venetian ship, which he captured, and was at
length put on shore at Antibes, with a treasure
amounting to nearly one thousand sequins. The
excitement of war had greater charms for him than
the acquirement of wealth, and in a short time we
find him in the employ of Austria, and accompanying
the Transylvanian army in their march against
the Turks.

No traits in the character of this remarkable
man appear more prominently than that readiness
of invention and promptitude in danger which
made him invaluable to those he served. The
Turks assembled an immense army around Olumpagh,
and shut out all communication. Smith
offered to his general a plan by which to converse
with the governor of the city, and it was
most ingeniously executed. First a signal was
given by raising and lowering three torches on a
neighbouring hill, and this was duly acknowledged
from the town. Then a brief message was written,
and the alphabet divided into two parts. The letters
from A to L were indicated by showing and

hiding one torch as many times as there were letters
from A to the one intended to be expressed; the
letters from M to Z, by showing and concealing
two torches in like manner; as each letter was
formed, it was acknowledged by a single torch in
the town, and at the end of each word, all three
torches were exhibited.[147] By this plan Smith conveyed
to the governor a message—"On Thursday
at night I will charge on the east; at the alarum,
sally you." Ebershaught answered simply, "I
will." At the appointed time false fires were shown;
the Christians without and within fell with resistless
fury upon the Turkish trenches; confusion
and dismay seized upon them; nearly one-third of
the besiegers on that side of the town were slain,
and many others drowned. So great was the
panic thus produced, that the Turks raised the
siege, and the garrison was relieved.[148]

But achievements awaited him more glorious
than signals with torches, or destruction with fireworks.
Count Meldritch, a nobleman of Transylvania,
had laid siege to a strong town on the frontiers
of his patrimonial estate, then in possession of
the Turks. Smith was in his army; and the infidel
garrison, grown bold in supposed impunity,
employed a new mode of insult. The Lord Turbashaw
challenged any Christian, who had the
rank of commander, to single combat, each for his
antagonist's head. Lots being cast, the die fell to
Smith, who joyfully prepared for the lists. Fair

ladies and men at arms in glittering attire graced
the ramparts. The Turk entered with the sound
of hautboys, clad in gorgeous array, and shining
with jewels and gold. The English combatant
bore only his lance; but at the first terrible shock
the infidel was pierced through the brain, and the
victor alighting, bore away his head in triumph.[149]
Another Turk soon met him, and encountered a
similar fate. But Bonamalgro was yet alive, and
wounded pride forced him to accept a challenge
from the heroic Briton. Each entered the lists
armed with pistols, battle-axe, and falchion; the
first were discharged without effect; but when they
closed, the Turk dealt Smith so fearful a blow upon
the crest, that he reeled in his saddle and his axe
fell from his hand. But the triumph of the Turk
was brief. Summoning all his strength, and managing
his horse with matchless skill, he avoided
the blows of the infidel, and at last pierced him
through with his falchion, and added his head to
the two already laid at the feet of Count Moyses of
Transylvania.[150]

Exploits so remarkable called for reward. A

triumphal procession of six thousand men attended
the conqueror to the general's tent; three Turkish
horses were led before him, and three spears, with
a Turk's head affixed to each, were carried in the
van. Moyses received him with rapture, and presented
to him a beautiful horse, richly caparisoned,
and a scimitar and belt worth three hundred ducats;
and after the capture of the town, Sigismund, the
Duke of Transylvania, granted to the English
knight a patent, vouching in high terms his valour,
and appointing him a shield of arms bearing the
device of three Turks' heads, to which Smith afterwards
added his own chosen motto, "Vincere est
vivere." These letters patent were duly examined
and approved in the office of the heralds of arms
in England, as appears by the certificate of registry
in 1625.[151] Besides this insubstantial honour, Sigismund
bestowed a pension of three hundred ducats
annually, and his miniature set in gold.

(1602.) In the fatal battle of Rotenton the
Turks were victorious, and Smith was left severely
wounded upon the field. He was eagerly seized
by the pillagers as a person whose appearance and
dress held forth promises of heavy ransom. When
his wounds were cured, he was carried with other
captives to the market of Oxopolis, and sold to a
bashaw, who sent him immediately to his fair mistress,
Charatza Tragabizanda, at Constantinople.
The noble adventurer excited in the tender heart
of this Turkish lady so much of interest and affection

that she treated him with the utmost kindness;
and to preserve him from the danger of being again
sold, she sent him to her brother, the Timor of Nalbrits
in Tartary, urging him to use the captive with
all care and gentleness. But the Tartar chief had
no responsive chord of mercy in his bosom, and his
brutality was increased by the suspicion of his sister's
tenderness. Stripped of his own garments,
and clothed in a coat of the coarsest hair, with a
belt of "undressed skin" to encompass it, his head
shaved, and his neck encircled by an iron ring,
with a long handle like a sickle attached to it, the
wretched captive was driven to the fields for labour
among his hapless companions. But the nature of
the lion could not endure the slavery of a meaner
animal. The savage Timor sometimes visited him
only "to beat, spurne, and revile him;" and in one
interview the enraged Briton rose upon his oppressor,
and dashed out his brains with the threshing-flail
with which he laboured.[152]

Escaping from Tartary by a series of wonderful
adventures, he afterwards travelled through Germany,
France, and Spain, visited the kingdom of
Morocco, enjoyed a furious naval engagement in
the Atlantic, off the African coast, and finally
arrived in England with one thousand ducats in
his purse, and a spirit still eager for farther adventure.[153]

Here Bartholomew Gosnold communicated
to him the plan for colonizing Virginia, and he entered
upon it with all the enthusiasm of his nature.

(1607.) Such was the man who now stood upon
the soil of America, and contemplated with joy her
natural riches. The believer in a special Providence
will not marvel that such a character should
have been selected by the Deity to give life to
such an enterprise, and, among all whom the history
of that age will introduce to our knowledge,
we find not one, besides this rarely-gifted man,
fitted for the task that devolved upon him. In the
prime of manhood, with a body active, healthful,
and inured to toil and suffering; with a mind
acute, vigorous, and inventive; possessed of courage
which knew no fear; of energy which shrank
from no obstacles; of self-possession which failed
not in any danger; he entered the wilderness of the
West, and left an impression never to be erased.

His talent for command excited the mean jealousy
of inferior souls, only that his merit might
appear brighter by contrast. If we have aught to
urge against him, it is, that he met the treachery
of the Indians with a severe spirit, but too much
akin to that of the Spaniards in the South. Yet
we cannot reproach him with undeserved cruelty,
or with deliberate falsehood, and the stern demands
of his circumstances often rendered inevitable acts
which would otherwise have been ungrateful to
his soul.

When the Council was constituted, Edward Maria

Wingfield was elected President, — a man who
always proved an inveterate enemy to Smith, and
who speedily attracted the hatred even of his accomplices
by his rapacity, his cowardice, and his
selfish extravagance. Smith demanded a trial, but
the Council feared to trust their wretched charge
to an impartial jury, and pretended, in mercy to
him, to keep him under suspension. But their
own incompetence soon brought his talents into
demand. He accompanied Newport upon an exploring
voyage up the river, and ascended to the
residence of King Powhatan, a few miles below
the falls, and not far from the spot now occupied
by the city of Richmond.[154] The royal seat consisted
of twelve small houses, pleasantly placed on
the north bank of the river, and immediately in
front of three verdant islets. His Indian majesty
received them with becoming hospitality, though
his profound dissimulation corresponded but too
well with the treacherous designs of his followers.
He had long ruled with sovereign sway among the
most powerful tribes of Virginia, who had been
successively subdued by his arms, and he now regarded
with distrust the advent of men whom his
experience taught him to fear, and his injuries to
detest.

On their return to Jamestown, they found that,
during their absence, the Indians had made an
attack upon the settlement, had slain one boy, and
wounded seventeen men. The coward spirit of
Wingfield had caused this disaster. Fearful of

mutiny, he refused to permit the fort to be palisadoed,
or guns to be mounted within. The assault
of the savages might have been more fatal, but
happily a gun from the ships carried a crossbar-shot
among the boughs of a tree above them, and,
shaking them down upon their heads, produced
great consternation. The frightened wretches fled
in dismay from an attack too mysterious to be
solved, yet too terrible to be withstood.[155]

After this disaster, the fears of Wingfield were
overruled,—the fort was defended by palisades, and
armed with heavy ordnance, the men were exercised,
and every precaution was used to guard
against a sudden attack or a treacherous ambuscade.

Smith had indignantly rejected every offer of
pardon held out to him by the mean artifices of
the Council. He now again demanded a trial in a
manner that could not be resisted. The examination
took place, and resulted in his full acquittal.
So evident was the injustice of the president, that
he was adjudged to pay to the accused two hundred
pounds, which sum the generous Smith immediately
devoted to the store of the colony.[156]
Thus elevated to his merited place in the Council,
he immediately devised and commenced active
schemes for the welfare of the settlers, and, on the
15th June, Newport left the colony, and set forth
on his voyage of return for England.

Left to their own resources, the colonists began

to look with gloomy apprehension upon the prospect
before them. While the ships remained, they
enjoyed many sea-stores, which to them were real
luxuries, but now they had little whereupon to
feast, except a miserable compound of wheat and
barley boiled with water, and even to the larger
portion of this, the worms successfully laid claim.
Crabs and oysters were sought with indolent greediness,
and this unwholesome fare, with the increasing
heats of the season, produced sickness,
which preyed rapidly upon their strength. The
rank vegetation of the country pleased the eye,
but it was fatal to health. In ten days hardly ten
settlers were able to stand. Before the month of
September, fifty of their number were committed
to the grave, and among them we mark, with sorrow,
the name of Bartholomew Gosnold.[157] The
gallant seaman might have passed many years
upon the stormy coasts of the continent, but he
sank among the first victims who risked their lives
for colonization.

To this scene of distress and appalling mortality,
the president Wingfield lived in sumptuous
indifference. His gluttony appropriated to itself
the best provisions the colony could afford—"oatmeal,
sacke, oyle, aqua vitæ, beefe, egges, or whatnot,"[158] —and, in this intemperate feasting, it seemed
as though his valueless life were only spared that
he might endure the disgrace he so richly merited.
Seeing the forlorn condition of the settlement, he

attempted to seize the pinnace, which had been
left for their use by Newport, and make his escape
to England. These outrages so wrought upon the
Council, that they instantly deposed him, expelled
his accomplice, Kendall, and elected Ratcliffe to
the presidency.[159] Thus their body, consisting originally
of seven, was reduced to three. Newport
had sailed, Gosnold was dead, Wingfield and Kendall
were in disgraced seclusion. Ratcliffe, Martin,
and Smith alone remained. They seem to
have felt no desire to exercise their right of filling
their vacant ranks. The first had a nominal superiority,
but the genius of the last made him the
very soul of the settlement.[160]

It is related by the best authority, that, at this
dark crisis, when their counsels were distracted,
their hopes nearly extinguished, their bodies enfeebled
from famine and disease, the savages
around them voluntarily brought in such quantities
of venison, corn, and wholesome fruits, that
health and cheerfulness were at once restored.[161]
Their condition now brought them in almost daily
contact with the aborigines; and, in order that we
may appreciate the importance of this singular
people in their action upon the history of Virginia,
we must devote to them for a time the notice they
so well deserve.

When Columbus first landed upon an island of the

Bahama Group, he found his fair discovery already
occupied by inhabitants differing widely, both in
manners and appearance from the people of the
world, hitherto explored.[162] And as European enterprise
successively unfolded the islands and the
huge continent, over which a veil of mystery had
so long been hung, men were still found to claim
the rights of ancient habitation. The curious may
conjecture their origin, but we waive a task so futile.
A learned mind has told us, that "there is
hardly any nation from the north to the south pole,
to which some antiquary in the extravagance of conjecture
has not ascribed the honour of peopling
America." Jews, Canaanites, Phœnicians, Carthaginians,
and Scythians, have all been marshalled
for the claim,[163] and the pompous labour of
one from the Emerald Isle has found a wondrous
similitude between the savages of North America
and the hardy sons of Sparta in her prime.[164] We
assume the more humble, but we trust not less
valued duty, of speaking of the aboriginal tribes of
Virginia themselves rather than of their imagined
progenitors.

The original grant of James covered a tract of
country now embracing a large proportion of the
American States, and within its boundaries were
contained a great number of savage nations, differing
widely in their languages, their manners, and
their power, though alike in many characteristics.
But our attention will be confined to Virginia proper,

which, at that time, may be considered as including
the territory now lying between Pennsylvania
on the north and North Carolina on the
south. Many noble rivers traversed this region.
The Susquehanna descended from above, and
discharged its waters into the head of the bay.
Next in importance was the Potomac, whose majestic
opening from the Chesapeake, struck the
early discoverers with wonder and delight. Then
came the Rappahannoc, often called Toppahanoc,
by the writers from whom Captain Smith compiled
his history. The York succeeded in order,
and, finally, the royal Powhatan swept through
the lower country from its mountainous source,
and added its ample tribute to the inland sea.

Three principal tribes or classes of natives inhabited
this beautiful country,—the Powhatans,
the Manuahoacs, and the Monacares;[165] but many
subordinate divisions gained distinctive names.
The empire of King Powhatan was most extensive.
By his conduct and valour he had gradually reduced
under his sceptre all the tribes from the
borders of the Bay to the falls of each river, as far
north as the Potomac; but the space between the
falls and the mountains was occupied by two confederacies,—the
Monacares, living near the head of
James and York rivers, and the Manuahoacs, on
the upper part of the Rappahannoc and the Potomac.
These last were in amity with each other,
but waged incessant war upon the Powhatans; and

all the emperor's prowess could not reduce them
to subjection.[166] At the head of the bay lived the
Susquehanocs, of whom marvellous accounts have
been rendered. They were represented as men of
gigantic stature, and yet of perfect symmetry of
proportion, clad in skins of bears or wolves, with
the heads of these animals still attached to their
garments and hanging down with their glittering
teeth upon the breast or shoulders of the wearer.[167]
Their voices were said to be deep and solemn, like
the hollow tones which might issue from a vault;
yet these formidable people were so simple and
honest in disposition that they could with difficulty
be restrained from worshipping the English
as gods. Beyond the mountains lived the Massawomecs,
whom the eastern Indians represented as
numerous and powerful, living upon a great salt
water, inveterate in their enmities, and terrible in
war.[168] They were probably a branch of the celebrated
Five Nations, so well known afterwards in
the history of New York.[169]

These were the general classes of the natives
whom the first settlers found upon the soil of Virginia.
They were alike interesting from the mystery
surrounding their birth, the independence of
their lives, and the influence for good or evil they
were capable of exerting upon the English colonists.

Active and hardy in body, subtle and inventive
in mind, they could never be treated with contempt;
they preferred stratagem to open warfare,
and considered him who could devise the darkest
scheme of treachery as best entitled to their esteem.
In the highest sense, they could not be called brave,
for they were easily dismayed, and fled in general
from the first attempt at resistance; yet in passive
courage they were unequalled, for they endured
suffering and torture without a murmur.

The men devoted themselves chiefly to hunting
and war, and left the labour of cultivating their
scanty fields to the fairer sex.[170] Their food consisted
principally of the game which at certain
seasons was abundant in their forests, and the fish
taken in the "weirs" contrived by savage ingenuity.
They cultivated a grain known as maize
or Indian corn, which was prolific in increase and
highly nutritious for food. The colonists were
soon well pleased to adopt it; subsequent years
have introduced it yet farther to the tables of the
enlightened, and the Premier of England may at
last rejoice to find this grain not unworthy of his
own gastric energies.[171]

The settlements of the Indians seldom attained
to the dignity of a town. A few cabins occupied
a space palisadoed for defence. Their houses were
constructed with primitive simplicity. A circle of
flexible trees or "saplings" was planted, and their

tops were drawn together and confined by cords
made of tough bark or white oak. The thatch was
made with bark, or skins closely interwoven; the
chimney was simply a hole in the top, through
which the smoke ascended.[172] These rude hovels
were very warm in winter, but were rendered comfortless
by the rapid accumulation of filth and
smoke.[173]

The dress of the natives in summer consisted
generally of a short mantle thrown over one shoulder
and descending below the middle; this was
often confined by a girdle around the waist. In
winter they were more fully covered; and their
priests uniformly wore a sacerdotal garment made
of the skins of animals with the hair dressed upon
them and reversed, so as to give them a shaggy
and most frightful exterior.[174] The men took exceeding
pains in early life to extirpate the beard,
and the absence of this manly appendage has been
noticed as a reproach to the natives of America.[175]

The forms of the natives were, in general,
straight, symmetrical, and well proportioned.
They were, at birth, of very light copper colour,
but grew gradually darker by the influence of exposure,
and of grease assiduously rubbed upon
their skins. The women were often graceful, and
were sometimes of uncommon beauty. Insinuations
highly unfavourable to their chastity have

been made; but a writer who has devoted great
attention to the natives, magnanimously defends
the gentle sex from these assaults, and declares
them to be "unjust scandal."[176] He asserts, that an
Indian maiden who had borne a child before marriage
was looked upon as disgraced, and was never
able afterwards to get a husband; and he declares,
that no such case of female frailty had ever come
under his knowledge.

Learning and the arts could hardly be said to
have existence among the Indians; and unless we
consider the enormous sepulchres, generally called
"barrows," which are found in some parts of our
state, in the light of monuments,[177] no other vestiges
remain entitled to such dignity. Yet oratory was
not unknown among them, and grave debates often
occurred, which, for order and decency, might put
to shame the confused bodies of civilized legislators.
When an Indian orator addressed the council
of his own or a foreign tribe, profound silence
reigned through the assembly, and he who violated
it was a public offender. Beverley relates, that on
one occasion, when an Indian delegate was treating
with the English concerning peace, he was interrupted
by one of his own attendants. Taking his
tomahawk from his girdle, he clove the head of the
unhappy wretch at a single blow, and then directing
the lifeless body to be carried out, he continued
his oration as though nothing had occurred.[178]

Their knowledge of the art of healing was but
limited; a few simples culled from the vegetable
kingdom formed the list of their "materia medica,"
and their conjurors were the only physicians.
They used, in the words of Captain Smith, "many
charms and rattles, and an infernal rout of words
and actions;" but they had little success. Wounds
were seldom healed, and epidemics were never arrested
until either their own virulence or their subjects
were exhausted. The poor savages attributed
a superstitious importance to the medical skill of
the English, and believed them capable even of restoring
the dead to life.

Man is a religious animal, and the Indians had
their religion. Their supreme god was the great
"Okee;" but whether he was indeed the holy
Creator of the universe or the author of evil, it is not
easy to say. Like all other people left to the light
of depraved reason, they attributed to the Deity
some of the worst qualities of men, and assigned
to him bodily existence and monstrous proportions.
Upon a rock about a mile from the James, and not
far below the site of Richmond, might be seen the
impress of huge footsteps, about five feet asunder.
These the natives declared to be the tracks imprinted
by their god as he walked through the
land.[179]

Besides their chief divinity, they worshipped
fire, water, lightning, thunder, the cannon and
muskets of the colonists; adoring with natural but

superstitious reverence, each agent able to inflict
upon them injury not to be avoided by their own
exertions. Some have thought that they used
bloody rites in worship, and even sacrificed children
to their gods; but a close study of all that
early writers and eye-witnesses have said on this
subject, will convince us that the children offered
were never put to death, but were devoted, with
hideous ceremonies, to the service of their idols in
the priestly office.[180] They believed in the immortality
of the soul; and this sublime doctrine, with
its attendant law "written upon the heart," taught
them to expect rewards for the virtuous, and fearful
punishment for the wicked.

Their hell was a loathsome cavern, where flames
continually burned, and where furies, in the shape
of haggard women, tormented the lost spirit day
and night; but, on the other hand, their heaven
contained all the charms of savage taste,—abundant
game, for hunting, fishing, or fowling, a
temperate clime, and a spring which knew no
change.[181]

The government and laws of the aborigines,
were the result rather of custom than of positive
institution. Each individual considered himself a
member of some tribe, and governed by the "werowance,"
or chief man among his people; and the
Emperor Powhatan ruled over many distinct communities.

His dominion was absolute in theory,
and extended to life or property of his subjects;
but beyond the control of his immediate band of
armed warriors, very little attention was paid to
his decrees. Powhatan was now sixty years of
age—his aspect stern and commanding—his carriage
was such as became a king. He had as
many wives as he should be pleased to take, and
when he reposed, one sat at his head and another
at his feet—when he dined, they brought water to
bathe and a tuft of feathers to dry the royal hands.[182]
His will was law, and when made known must be
obeyed by all. A singular canon of descent governed
the royal office, which well merits our attention.
The crown, upon the death of the king,
never descended to his children, either male or
female, but vested in his oldest brother, and upon
his demise, in his remaining brethren successively,
and then in his sisters. At their decease, it descended
to the heirs, male or female, of the eldest
sister and of the other sisters in succession; but
never to the heirs of the brothers.[183] If, for this last-named
rule, any reason can be assigned, it may be
one not creditable to the chastity of the wives in
the royal family.

Thus we have traced with rapidity, yet it is
hoped not without interest, the prominent features
of the natives of Virginia.

At the time when the settlers first landed, the
number of the aborigines in the present limits of
the state did not probably exceed sixteen thousand.[184] The powerful confederacy under Powhatan
consisted of about eight thousand inhabitants,
of whom a proportion of one-third were
warriors. This population was not one-thirtieth
part of that now covering this beautiful region,
and yet our state is far less densely peopled than
our northern sisters. The law of nature, by its
most benevolent construction, could not be held
to give to a handful of savages, thinly scattered
over an immense tract of land, where they hunted
much and cultivated little, a right to exclude civilized
settlers; and all that justice required was, that
they should consent to sell, and should receive a
fair equivalent for those parts to which they had
acquired a title by settlement. This proper mode
of extinguishing their right, we fear, was too often
departed from in Virginia; but a diligent scholar
has asserted, that regular purchases and payments
in the east were more numerous than has generally

been supposed,—and we know that from the ascent
to the mountains westward, titles were obtained by
purchases, to which rigid equity itself could make
no objection.[185] The wilderness was open to all,—
and if the Indians had a right to hunt, the Europeans
had an equal right to fell the trees, build
houses, plant the ground, and reclaim the treasures
of nature for the purposes of refined life.

Small as the original number of natives appeared,
it rapidly diminished before the advancing step of
civilization. No arts have had more than partial
success in curbing the wild independence of the
American, and moulding him to European forms.
To him it has been an unhappy fate to have been
brought in sudden contact with foreign learning
and arts, instead of passing gradually through the
several stages that conducted our Saxon and British
ancestors from the stern ferocity engendered in the
forests of Germany and Britain, to the very pinnacle
of modern refinement. The vigorous shoot
may be gently guided in time to the desired point;
but if a firm hand be applied with sudden force, it
must break, and fall withered to the ground. Such
has been the fate of the Indians. "Every where,
at the approach of the white man, they fade away.
We hear the rustling of their footsteps like that of
the withered leaves of autumn, and they are gone
for ever; they pass mournfully by us, and they return
no more."[186] The eloquent jurist has not falsely
spoken. When Beverley wrote his history, in 1720,

a few decayed tribes in the eastern counties remained
only to tell of wasting and of death. The
proud name of Powhatan was nearly forgotten.
Wyanoke, Appamaton, Port Tobago, Rappahannoc,
all were extinct.[187] When Mr. Jefferson turned
to seek them, he could find but twenty, or perhaps
thirty members of the tribes seated on fertile lands
upon the Pamunky and Nottoway rivers, and needing
trustees to guard their simple natures from injury.[188] Modern industry may perchance still find
in the counties of King William and Southampton
the feeble remains of these tribes, sunk in indolence,
and degraded by intermixture with a lower
race;[189] but a few years will sweep from eastern
Virginia every vestige of the savage warriors who
once held her soil. Like the vapour of morning,
they have pleased for a time by their varied and
singular forms, and then disappeared for ever before
the beams of the sun as he ascended from the eastern
waters. Cold philosophy may explain their
decay, and mark each step of their melancholy pilgrimage
through years of diminution; but a sensitive
heart will not refuse to let fall a tear upon the
soil once trodden by the feet of these desolated sons
of the forest.

From this necessary digression, we turn again
to the history of the English settlers. Ratcliffe
and Martin were alike incompetent, and Smith assumed
the guidance of affairs. Finding their provisions

again nearly exhausted, he went with a
party down the river to Kecoughtan to obtain supplies
from the natives. Savage irony was all they
received; a handful of corn and a piece of bread
were offered in exchange for swords and muskets.[190]
The Indians came against them in numbers, frightfully
dressed, and bearing their okee in the form
of a monstrous idol, stuffed with moss, and hung
with chains and copper. But they were received
with a volley of pistol-shot. The omnipotent okee
fell to the earth, and with him several of his worshippers.
The rest fied to the woods, and, finding
resistance vain, they brought quantities of corn,
venison, turkeys, and wild-fowl, and received in
exchange, beads, copper, hatchets, and their discomfited
deity.

During the absence of the ruling mind, Wingfield
and Kendall seduced a few sailors, and made
another attempt to carry off the bark to England.
At the critical moment, Smith returned, and, instantly
directing the cannon of the fort against
them, commanded submission. A skirmish ensued
and the seditious Kendall lost his life.[191] A similar
effort to desert the settlement was soon made by
Captain Gabriel Archer and the imbecile President
Ratcliffe, and again the decision of Smith arrested
them and forced them to their duty. He was ever
prompt, and hesitated not at any measures required
to govern his turbulent compeers.

And now the winter came on, and with it came

immense numbers of swans, geese, and ducks,
which covered the rivers, and afforded delightful
food to the settlers.[192] They daily feasted upon
them, and enjoyed in abundance the peas, pumpkins,
persimmons,[193] and other vegetable treasures
which the season matured. But Smith could not
be contented with a life of inactivity, however
plentifully supplied. The Council had ungratefully
charged him with negligence, in not searching
for the head of the Chickahominy, and his
own adventurous spirit urged him to renewed enterprise.

He prepared his boat for a voyage, and, in a
season of uncommon rigour, he set forth upon an
expedition destined to add greatly to the fame of
his already wonderful career.

CHAPTER III.

The Chickahominy falls into the James, not
many miles above the site of Jamestown. It flows
through a very fertile region, and upon its banks
were native settlements well supplied with the
stores of savage labour.

Up this stream Smith urged his boat with great
perseverance, cutting through trunks of trees and
matted underwood which opposed his progress. At
length, finding the obstacles to increase, he left the
boat in a broad bay, where Indian arrows could not

reach her, and strictly forbidding the crew to leave
her, he pressed on, with two Englishmen and two
Indians, eager to penetrate with their canoe the
swamps beyond them.[194] Hardly had he disappeared,
before the disobedient seamen left the boat,
and sought amusement upon the shore. Opecancanough,
an Indian chief of great subtlety and
courage, was near with a lurking band of savages,
and, instantly seizing his advantage, he made prisoner
George Cassen, one of this party, and obtained
from him full information as to the movements
of Captain Smith. The cowardice of Cassen
did not save him. The savages put him to death
with cruel tortures, and then pursued their more
dreaded foe.[195]

Smith had now penetrated twenty miles into the
marshes; and leaving the two Englishmen in the
canoe, he went forward with an Indian guide. The
savages found the two men sunk in stupid slumber
by the side of the canoe, and shot them to death
with arrows ere they could escape. But they had
now to encounter a superior being. Two hundred
savages approaching with fatal intent, caused no
dismay in the heart of Smith. Binding the Indian
guide firmly to his arm, he used him as a shield to
preserve him from the arrows of the enemy, and
with his musket he brought two of them dead to
the ground. He would perhaps have reached
the canoe—the savages fell back appalled by his

courage—but while in full retreat, he sunk to the
middle in a swamp, from which his utmost efforts
could not extricate him. Excessive cold froze his
limbs and deprived him of strength, yet the Indians
dared not to approach until he threw away his arms
and made signals of submission.[196] They then drew
him out, and chafing his benumbed body, speedily
restored him to activity. His self-possession was
never lost for a moment. Discovering that Opecancanough
was the chief, he presented to him a
small magnetic dial, and made the simple savages
wonder at the play of the needle beneath the glass
surface. If they had previously regarded him as
more than human, they were now confirmed in
their belief; and when he proceeded to convey to
them some idea of the spherical form of the earth,
its motion on its axis and round the sun, and the
existence of men standing opposite to them on this
globe, their wonder knew no bounds.[197] Yet the
hope of crushing at once this powerful enemy
seemed to prevail. They bound him to a tree, and
prepared to pierce him through with arrows, when
Opecancanough held up the dial, and every arm
fell;—each spirit was subdued, either by fear of his
power or admiration of his knowledge.[198]

The prisoner was then conducted in triumph to

Orapaques, a hunting town on the north side of
Chickahominy Marshes, much frequented by Powhatan
and his court for the game which there
abounded. In the march the Indians walked in
single file, their chief in the centre, with the captured
swords and muskets borne before him, and
the captive held by three savages, and watched by
others with their arrows upon the string. Women
and children came forth to meet them, wild with
joy at so strange an occurrence. On arriving, the
whole band performed a dance of triumph around
the captive, yelling and shrieking in the most approved
mode, and decorated with every hideous
ornament that heads, feet, and skins of animals
could supply. After this performance, he was conducted
to a long house, and guarded by thirty or
forty vigorous warriors. Bread and venison in
abundance were brought to him, for which he had
little appetite. The savages never ate with him,
but devoured what he left some hours after; and
this, with other things, caused him to suspect a design
to fatten him for their table.[199] His body was,
however, destined to subserve better purposes than
that of furnishing an Indian ragout. While thus
desolate and chilled, he experienced an instance of
savage gratitude which will not be forgotten. A
native, to whom he had once given some beads and
other toys, brought him his gown, which amply
protected him from the freezing atmosphere.[200]

A danger from superstition now assailed him.
The son of an Indian was dying, and the father
would have slain the captive under the belief that
he had caused this misfortune by his magic arts.
Smith examined the patient, and told the savages
that he possessed at Jamestown a water which
would effect a cure, if they would permit him to go
for it; but the wily natives were not willing to
suffer a prey to escape whom they regarded as so
valuable. They now conceived that in the absence
of the "great captain," they might attack Jamestown
with success; and they held forth to Smith
magnificent offers of as many Indian beauties as he
might select, and as much dower in land as he
would have, if he would aid in their schemes. But
savage sovereignty had few temptations for the
champion of Christendom. To deter them from an
attack, he painted in glowing colours the means of
defence possessed by the English, the cannon, which
could sweep hundreds down by a single discharge,
and the mine of gunpowder, which would instantly
blow a town into the air, and scatter its fragments
in utter devastation.[201]

The Indians were horror-stricken by these accounts;
but some being yet incredulous, Smith
offered to prove his veracity by sending messengers
to the town. Writing a few sentences on a leaf
from his tablets, he delivered it to the wondering
red men, and awaited the result. In accordance
with his directions, the colonists exhibited before
the embassy a display of ordnance and fireworks,

which nearly bereft them of their senses; but afterwards
going to a spot already designated, they
found there precisely the articles which their prisoner
had declared he would obtain. A man who
could thus speak by a fragment of paper to people
at a distance, was looked upon by savage eyes as
more than mortal.[202]

The natives were too much impressed with the
importance of their capture to be willing to confine
the wonder to a single tribe. They set forth on a
tour of triumph, conducting Smith successively to
Indian settlements on the Pamunky, the Mattapony,
the Piankatank, the Rappahannoc, and the
Potomac.[203] Every where the prisoner was looked
upon as a being of supernatural order, and when
finally he was carried to the residence of Opecancanough,
on the Pamunky, a complete system of
conjuration was entered upon to ascertain his nature.

The reverend gentleman who wrote the early
history of our state, seems to look with pious horror
upon "the strange and hellish ceremonies"[204]
used; but a mind less disposed to gravity will read
with amusement of the forms begrimed with coal,
and painted with figures of snakes and weasels,
the grotesque gestures, the furious dancing, the
impassioned discourse, the circles of corn and
meal, and the bundle of mystic rods, which entered
largely into this wondrous incantation.[205] If

the captive kept his own counsel, we may presume
that the captors were not greatly enlightened as to
his designs by these wise ceremonies. But they
were at least as useful as their purpose to plant a
bag of gunpowder obtained from Jamestown, from
which they hoped to derive an abundant crop for
future service.[206]

Finally, the prisoner was conducted to the imperial
seat of Powhatan. The Indian monarch so
little enjoyed the neighbourhood of the English,
that he often withdrew to Werowocomoco, in the
county now known as Gloucester, and not far removed
from the site of the military scenes, which
resulted in the surrender of Cornwallis, in the war
of the Revolution. Here Powhatan received his
captive, and exhibited before him all the savage
splendour that his court could furnish. Two hundred
grim attendants surrounded him. On his
either hand, sat a young girl of sixteen or eighteen
years of age, and on each side of the room was a
row of men, and, behind them, a corresponding
number of savage ladies, with their necks and
shoulders dyed with crimson, their heads bedecked
with the white down of birds, and with
chains of glittering beads around their persons.
The noble captive was received with a shout of
triumph, and Indian courtesy did not refuse him
honour. The Queen of Appamaton, brought him

water to wash his hands, and another damsel tendered
him a bunch of feathers upon which to dry
them. But among so many who regarded him
with wonder and alarm, there was one heart which
already began to beat with more generous feeling.
Pocahontas, the daughter of the monarch, was
now budding into womanhood, and cotemporary
writers tell us of her beauty, her intelligence, her
sensitive modesty. The noble bearing of the unhappy
stranger filled her with pity and admiration.
The king and his counsellors held the life
of the captive in their hands, and already the voice
of this gentle girl was raised in entreaties for his
safety. But to suffer so formidable a foe to live,
was adjudged imprudent. The sentence was pronounced,
and immediate measures for its execution
were commenced.

Two large stones were brought and placed at
the feet of the Indian monarch. Then as many
as could grasp him, seized the prisoner and forced
him down, with his head upon the fatal resting-place.
The clubs of the savages were raised, and
another moment would have closed the life of a
hero. But at this critical instant, Pocahontas,
with a cry which thrilled through the assembly,
threw herself upon the prostrate captive, and
clasped her arms around his neck. Her own head
was interposed to receive the threatened blow, and
raising her eyes, which spoke the eloquence of
mercy, to her father's face, she silently awaited
the result. The bosom of the monarch relented.
He could not take the life of one for whom the

child of his own nature thus interceded. Smith
was raised from the ground and kept alive to minister
to the pleasure of the generous girl who had
thus preserved him.[207]

There must have been something in the appearance
and character of this great man, strongly attractive
to a sensitive nature. He has himself, in
manly terms, told us of his gratitude to woman
for the love she had so often shown him;[208] and
after Pocahontas saved his life, her brother Nantaquas,
"a youth of the comeliest and most manly
person, and of the highest spirit and courage," devoted
himself to him with much warmth of affection.
Two days after the incident above narrated,
Powhatan gave his captive an imposing spectacle
of savage rites, urged him to send him from Jamestown
two great guns and a grindstone, and then
suffered him to proceed in safety to the English
settlement.

Thus, after a captivity of seven weeks, Captain

Smith returned to Jamestown with increased knowledge
of savage life and manners. He treated his
Indian guides with great kindness, and gave them
two heavy guns and a millstone for the monarch.
But the present was too heavy for their strength,
and when one of the cannons was discharged among
the boughs of a tree, and the crashing of wood and
ice was heard, the timid natives declined any farther
interference with agents so formidable.[209]

The absence of Smith had caused disorder and
insubordination in the colony. The pinnace had
again been seized, and again he was obliged to
level the guns of the fort against her and compel
submission. He was now personally assailed by a
charge replete with stupid malignity. Some, who
believed themselves skilled in the Levitical Law,
accused him of being the cause of the death of
Emry and Robinson, the two unfortunate men
whom the Indians had slain, and with this pretext,
they clamoured for capital punishment.[210] To their
insane charge Smith replied by taking the accusers
into custody, and by the first vessel he sent
them for trial to England. By his courage, his
address, and his firmness, he now wielded great
influence with the Indians, and proved the salvation
of the settlement.

Early in the winter Newport arrived again from
England, in one of the two ships despatched by

the Council, with ample stores, and nearly a hundred
settlers. The other bark was the Phenix,
under Captain Nelson, who by heavy gales was
driven off the coast, and compelled to refit in the
West Indies. Newport was eager to rise in the
esteem of the savages, and sought to gratify his
vanity by a grand trading excursion up the York
River. Smith accompanied the bark to the royal
residence, and watched with care the progress of
the negotiations. The wily old monarch made a
pompous speech to Newport, in which he told him
it was beneath his dignity as a king, to trade in
the manner of pedlers for trifles, and proposed that
they should at once balance all the commodities on
each side. The result was so managed that the
English received about four bushels of corn for
what they had expected to produce at least twenty
hogsheads.[211] But a keener mind soon restored the
equilibrium. Smith passed before the eyes of his
savage majesty a string of glittering beads of the
deepest blue colour, and inflamed his great soul
by telling him that, in the "far country," such
were never worn except by the mightiest of kings.
Instantly Powhatan determined to obtain them at
any price, and so adroit was the English trader,
that for a few pounds of blue beads he obtained
several hundred bushels of corn, and yet they parted
in perfect amity.[212] Whether the maxim "caveat
emptor" will justify such proceedings, we will
not pretend to decide; but it is certain that these
simple ornaments soon obtained such ascendency
at the courts of Werowocomoco and Pamunky,
that none but princes and nobles might venture
to wear them; and it is equally certain, that in real
value they were equivalent to a crown of gold or a
tiara of jewels.

(Dec.) About this time, a conflagration broke
out in Jamestown, and swept before it almost every
house, with much clothing and provision. This
disaster, together with the rigour of the season and
the meagre food to which they were driven, caused
many deaths and infinite suffering. But to give
illusory comfort, a bright phantom rose before
them, and delighted for a time, only to cover them
at last with disappointment and shame.

(1608.) In the neck of land in the rear of Jamestown,
they found a stream of water which sprang
from a sand-bank, and bore along its channel a
shining dust of most auspicious appearance.
Forthwith uprose in the hearts of the starving
settlers, the hopes of a golden harvest, or rather of
a Pactolus, in the wilds of Virginia. All were now
active in loading the ship with this valueless dirt.
Visions of exhaustless wealth flitted before their
eyes; and men now clothed in tatters, shivering
with cold and attenuated by famine, were enjoying,
in fancy, estates of princely proportions.[213] In
the mean time the Phenix arrived from the West
Indies, and her commander generously imparted

his sea-stores to the starving colonists. Martin
was madly bent on loading her also with the newly
discovered treasure; but the remonstrances of
Smith prevailed, and she sailed with a cargo of
cedar wood. When these ships returned to England
they carried back Wingfield and Archer; and
if they brought to the mother country, as the first
fruits of the settlement, nothing more valuable than
dust and cedar, they at least relieved the colony
from a mass of "admirals, recorders, chronologers,
and justices of common pleas," all of which titles
had been assumed by these two seditious idiots.[214]

The ruling powers in England had given positive
orders that war should not be made on the natives,
and that they should be treated with uniform
kindness. These commands, good in themselves,
were liable to abuse; for the savages were treacherous,
and often needed chastisement. When Newport
was about to sail, Powhatan sent him twenty
turkeys, and demanded as many swords, which
were immediately given to him; but having made
a similar demand of Smith, he met with a prompt
refusal.[215] This so irritated the natives, that they
grew daily in fraud and insolence, seizing violently
upon swords wherever they could find them. Martin
bore all with cowardly patience; but Smith instantly
fell upon them,—and capturing seven, gave
them such admonition by whipping and imprisonment,
that they confessed their fault, and Powhatan
was well pleased to send his gentle daughter to

mediate between himself and the determined Englishman.

On the 2d of June, Nelson dropped down the
river in the Phenix. Smith had now resolved on
a general cruise of exploration among the islands
and rivers of Virginia. He embarked in an open
boat of three tons burden, and was accompanied by
thirteen men, as well as by Walter Russel, a physician
of high character and courage, who has given
us a full account of their performances. Accompanying
the Phenix to the capes, Smith then bade
her adieu, and stretched across the outlet to the
group of islands that have since borne his name.
It would be interesting to accompany this undaunted
navigator in the two voyages which he
successfully accomplished, and which occupied
him almost constantly from early in June until the
10th of September. It would be pleasing to follow
him into every creek—to land upon every island—
to mark each green valley, and study the nature of
each unknown vegetable—to commingle with the
natives, and learn their manners and language;—to
see his firmness in repressing their attacks, and his
gentle demeanour in asking their confidence—all
this would afford a theme of genuine interest; but
a minute account would be inconsistent with the
due proportion of history. In an open boat, exposed
to wind and weather, governing a crew of
insubordinate spirits, and surrounded by treacherous
enemies, he accomplished a voyage of nearly
three thousand miles;[216] and in its progress he gathered

knowledge which has formed the basis of
all that has since been learned of the natural features
of our beautiful state. He penetrated each
river to its falls—every where encountered the
natives—awed the warlike by his courage—conciliated
the peaceful by his gentle manners—discovered
the exhaustless resources of the land, and
made surveys from which he afterwards prepared
a map of astonishing accuracy and extent.[217] A
spirit of hardy romance is diffused throughout the
whole enterprise, and adds to our esteem for its
heroic projector.

Sailing high up the bay, they coasted along the
shore from the mouth of the Patuxent to the Patapsco
River. The coast was well watered, though
mountainous and barren,—but ever and anon a
verdant valley refreshed their eyes, and the forests
abounded with wolves, bears, deer, and other wild
creatures. Here the spirits of the men began to
fail under fatigue and exposure. To encourage
them Smith made a speech, which Dr. Russel has
preserved in full, and which is a fine specimen of
manly admonition.[218] He reminds them of Ralph
Lane's party in Carolina, who had persevered
while yet a dog and sassafras leaves remained for
food; and, telling them of his willingness to share
their greatest hardships, he urges them to resolute
conduct. But some fell sick, and he was obliged

to return to the southern rivers. The magnificent
expanse of the Potomac invited them to enter; and
as they sailed up towards the falls, the richness of
the country on either bank filled them with delight.
In one part they found the fish so abundant that
they were packed together with their heads above
water; and having no nets, the voyagers attempted
to take them in a frying-pan—an instrument which
would have been more appropriately used after the
capture.[219]
While in this river they were repeatedly
assailed by large bodies of Indians, frightfully
painted, and yelling like demons from the world of
despair; but the steady discharge of muskets, and
the glancing of balls from the water, damped their
enthusiasm, and compelled them to surrender hostages
to the voyagers. From these they gathered
the fact that they were urged on by Powhatan, and
that this monarch himself was impelled to action
by the discontented in Jamestown, whom Captain
Smith had kept in the country against their wills.
How degraded must have been the population containing
men so deliberate in perfidy![220]

They now desired to explore the Rappahannoc,
but a singular accident deterred them. On entering
its mouth their boat grounded at low tide, and
in the idle hours thus afforded, they amused themselves
by striking with the points of their swords

the innumerable fish that played about the boat.
Smith plunged his weapon into one of peculiar
form, "like a thornback," with a long tail, and from
its midst a poisoned sting, two or three inches long,
bearded like a saw on each side. In taking this
fish from his sword, it drove the sting into his wrist.
No blood appeared, but a small blue spot was seen.
The pain was torturing, and in four hours the whole
hand, arm, and shoulder, had swollen so fearfully,
that death seemed inevitable. With heavy hearts,
his companions prepared his grave, in a spot which,
with his accustomed calmness, he pointed out to
them; but in the moment of despair relief was obtained.
Dr. Russel applied the probe, and used an
oil which he had fortunately with him. Entire
success attended this treatment. The pain and
swelling subsided, and the undaunted captain ate
for his supper a fair proportion of the fish that had
threatened his death.[221] The spot near which this
accident occurred was called Stingray Point, a
name which it still retains.

From this first examination they returned to the
settlement the 21st July. As usual, sickness, want,
depression, and turmoil greeted their eyes. The
imbecile Martin had sailed with Nelson in the Phenix.[222] Ratcliffe was now president, and while all
around him were suffering with disease and privation,
he entertained himself by having erected in
the woods an elegant mansion for his own special
comfort. Popular discontent might have been fatal

to this extravagant pretender but for the arrival of
Smith. Ratcliffe was instantly deposed, and at
length the only man truly fitted for the office was
made president.[223] Leaving his friend, Matthew
Scrivener, as his deputy, to restore order and continue
the repairs of the town, the indefatigable
captain prepared for another voyage, and sailed
with twelve men on the 24th July.

Proceeding immediately to the head of the bay,
they passed some time in exploring its four principal
inlets. As they crossed a part of its expanse,
they encountered many canoes filled with the warlike
Massawomecs, of whom they had received so
marvellous accounts from the lowland Indians. A
stratagem awed these warriors, and an interchange
of arms and commodities took place.

They had now an opportunity of viewing the
gigantic Susquehanocs, and of making those observations
upon their size, their dress, and their
manners, which have heretofore been narrated.
The simple giants looked with boundless reverence
upon the short religious ceremony with which Captain
Smith invariably accompanied the duties of
the day. The English had "prayer and a psalm,"
and the Susquehanocs forthwith followed up these
Christian rites with a passionate display of worship
after their own manner. Notwithstanding all opposition,
they adored the English commander as a
god: delivering an edifying discourse, with "most
strange furious action and a hellish voice,"[224] they

covered him with a painted bear-skin, and hung
around his neck an oppressive ornament of white
beads, weighing at least six pounds, perchance to
remind him of the weighty responsibility they
would fain assign him.[225]

Leaving these people, they next proceeded up
the Rappahannoc. Mosco, an Indian from the Potomac
accompanied them. They supposed him
to be a descendant of some French settler, because
he had a bushy black beard, of which he was extremely
proud, and claiming to be related, he was
pleased to call the English "his countrymen." He
warned them of the warlike habits of the Rappahannocs,
and they quickly found that he spake the
truth. In no part of Virginia did they encounter
more opposition, or meet with greater courage in
the natives, than on the banks of this river. As
they sailed up, a shower of arrows would pour
upon them from bushes on the shores, behind which
the archers had ingeniously concealed themselves,
and nothing but the willow targets they had obtained
from the Massawomecs protected them from
serious injuries.

When they arrived at the falls, they set up
crosses and carved their names upon the bark of
trees. Many of them were rambling carelessly
through the woods, when suddenly they were attacked
by about one hundred Indians, who discharged
their arrows with great precision, and ran
rapidly from tree to tree, to protect their bodies from

the fatal fire of musketry. A running fight of nearly
half an hour was thus kept up, when the Indians
vanished as mysteriously as they had first appeared.
Looking over the battle-field, they found a single
savage, wounded by a ball in the knee, and lying
as though dead, but he soon revived, and was with
difficulty preserved from the rage of Mosco, who
earnestly asked the privilege of dashing out the
captive's brains.[226]

The voyagers set sail at night, and proceeded
twelve miles down the river, followed all the way
by the natives, who shrieked, yelled, and shot their
arrows with all the energy of savage natures.[227]
Early in the succeeding dawn, they found themselves
in a broad bay, caused by the lowlands
skirting the river; and here they anchored out of
reach of hostile missives.[228]

After making peace with the Rappahannocs,
they sailed towards the south. A terrible storm of
rain, thunder, and lightning, visited them when a
few miles south of York River, and with grateful
hearts they made a point to which the name of
"Comfort" might well be given. They visited
the Chesapeakes and Nansemonds, who lived
around the place now occupied by the town of

Norfolk. Three hundred savages received them
with a flight of arrows, shot as fast as they could
draw their bows; but the English replied with
musket-balls, and the natives left their canoes, and
hid behind the trees on the shore. Smith resolved
to burn the canoes and waste the country; but the
Indians, perceiving his design, sued for peace, and
gave their chief's bow and arrows, a chain of pearl,
and four hundred baskets of corn, as the price of
safety.[229]

Returning in triumph from this expedition, the
voyagers, without farther accident, arrived at
Jamestown on the 7th day of September, after an
absence of nearly two months.

On their return, they found Ratcliffe a prisoner
for mutiny, many sick, some dead, Scrivener in
perfect health, managing the government well, and
rejoicing in the new harvest of corn, which had just
been gathered in. This was the first grain produced
by the industry of the colonists themselves,
and might have been serviceable had it not been
injured by rain.[230]

Smith could now no longer refuse the office
which the Council and colonists united in forcing
upon him. On the 10th of September, he was formally
elected president, and commenced vigorous
measures for the welfare of the settlement. The
church was rebuilt, the store-house repaired, a new
building erected for supplies, the fort put in order,

and a regular watch established. The men were
diligently exercised each Saturday, and a martial
spirit began gradually to displace habits of indolence
and insubordination. The Indians often
attended the drills, and looked with awe upon the
firing of musketry, by which a file of soldiers would
shatter with their balls the trunk of a tree at a considerable
distance.[231]

The time of harvest among the natives having
arrived, Lieutenant Percy was sent out with the
boats to trade; but he had not gone far ere he met
Captain Newport with a ship from England, containing
another supply of settlers and provisions.
In every load of colonists that had yet left the native
country, we mark the usual superabundance
of indolent gentlemen and dissipated cavaliers, to
consume food and create sedition. We find few
labourers and fewer mechanics. But in this last
supply, came eight Poles and Germans, skilled in
making tar, pitch, glass, mills, and soap ashes,—
and two females, Mrs. Forrest and her maid Anne
Burras, the first European women who had yet
dared to exhibit their faces upon the shores of the
Chesapeake.

Newport, with all the vanity of a weak and jealous
mind, had obtained from the council in England
instructions authorizing him, in some cases,
to act independently of the council of the colony;
and setting forth three objects, without obtaining
one of which he was not to return to the mother

country: these were a lump of gold, a discovery
of the South Sea, or one of the lost colony of Sir
Walter Raleigh.[232] He came also fully prepared to
astound old Powhatan by a profusion of princely
presents, such as a basin and ewer for the royal
face and hands, a bedstead and bed to be substituted
for the tanned hide that formerly subserved
his majesty's purposes; and by express command
of the ignorant English council, he was to convey
a barge above the falls of the river, and penetrate
to the South Sea![233] Smith regarded with ill-concealed
disgust these ridiculous pretensions; but
prepared, in good faith, to aid Newport in his
schemes. The first grand affair to be accomplished
was the coronation of Powhatan, in the name
and by authority of King James of Britain. When
a small party arrived at Werowocomoco,[234] the presents
were spread before the eyes of the king; but
Newport soon found that he had encountered a
soul not to be dazzled by false show. Powhatan,
with haughty coldness, told Smith that "if the
English king had sent him presents, he also was
a king; he would not go to meet Newport, and
would wait but eight days for his coming; he desired
not their aid against the savages above the
falls, as he was able to avenge his own injuries;
and as to the stories his people had told about the
salt waters beyond the mountains, they were all
utterly false." Newport now came, and all the
presents, basin and ewer, beds, bedding, and royal
garments, were prepared. The old king was to be
crowned, and we know not whether to be more
amused at the stupid farce arranged by James
Stuart and executed by Christopher Newport, or
struck with the noble independence of the Indian
monarch. He was willing to wear the scarlet
cloak and other regal apparel offered; but stubbornly
refused to kneel, in order that the crown
might be placed upon his head. He had never
bended the knee to mortal man, and should he now
humble himself before the men who had, as he believed,
so deeply injured him? Vain were all protestations,
examples, and persuasive addresses.
Had the Archbishop of Canterbury stood ready
with the anointing oil, the monarch of the forest
would not have bowed before him. We can gather
from the narrative no other inference than this,
that several attendants pressed heavily on the royal
shoulders, and that while he was thus bent by physical
force, three others placed the crown upon his
brow![235]

Immediately a pistol-shot was fired, and a volley
from the boat announced the glorious coronation.
Powhatan started to his feet in terrible fright, and
seized his arms, but finding that this was part of
the ceremony, he became calm, and, by way of
making due return for the honour conferred on
him, he presented to Captain Newport his worn
mantle and his old shoes![236] Comment on gifts so
dignified and so appropriate, is entirely unnecessary.

Newport now set forth with one hundred and
twenty chosen men, to explore the country above
the falls and discover the South Sea; but after
wandering in the wooded country several days,
exhausting their strength, provoking the natives,
inflating their own light souls with the hope of
having disclosed a silver mine, they returned to
Jamestown, "deluded and disappointed, half sick,
and all complaining, being sadly harassed with toil,
famine, and discontent."[237]

Smith had plainly foretold this result, and he
now exercised his authority as president, in directing
their labour to more profitable ends.

Leading a number of gentlemen and cavaliers
into the forest, he set them to work with axes to
fell the trees and prepare boards for building. He
himself joined in the task, and shame drove these
proud spirits forward. It has often been found,
that men of good birth and refined manners, possess
indomitable energy when they can be induced

to apply themselves even to laborious bodily exertion.
These gentlemanly wood-cutters soon began
to relish their work, and took great delight in hearing
the thunder of the lofty trees as they fell before
their prowess. But fingers, which in England had
perchance been decked with jewels, were sometimes
blistered by the rough contact of an axe, and
often tremendous oaths at every third blow attested
the pain. Smith corrected this habit by counting
the oaths, and for each one, at the close of the day,
a can of cold water was poured down the sleeve of
the offender.[238]

But, while the president thus incited them to industry
and union, the seeds of discontent were yet
alive in the colony. It could not be otherwise with
a mixed band of adventurers, compounded of every
grade and character. Smith was indefatigable in
endeavours to obtain provision, and exacted it from
the Indians by every means in his power. His
necessities alone can be pleaded in justification of
some of his measures, and these necessities would
not have existed but for the indolence and despicable
jealousy of his companions. Newport envied
his influence, and endeavoured to undermine him;
but Smith finally threatened to send the ship to
England and keep the captain, in order that by
bitter experience he might learn the causes at work
unfavourable to the settlement. This threat so
awed him, that he hastened his departure.

While the ship remained, an active trade was

carried on between her crew, the settlers, and the
natives. The savages brought furs, baskets, and
"young beasts," and received in exchange powder,
ball, and arms, as well as axes, hoes, butter, cheese,
oatmeal, and oil. The policy of permitting them
to have arms was strictly forbidden by Smith, and
its fatal effects were made apparent in subsequent
years.[239]

The ship, being at length freighted, sailed under
Newport's command. She left behind, among
other colonists, Captains Waldo and Winne, as
members of the Provincial Council.

Deep disappointment had been felt by the English
council at the result of this enterprise, so far as
it had been carried. Their expectations were extravagant,
and their despondency was proportionably
great. They had hoped for gold and silver,
and they had obtained glittering sand and unwrought
cedar. They had looked for accounts of
abundance and content, and they had learned of
famine and incessant discord. By Captain Newport
they had sent an intemperate letter to Smith,
complaining of the state of things in the colony,
and declaring that, unless the expenses of this ship,
amounting to about two thousand pounds, should
be paid by her return cargo, they would abandon
the settlers to their own resources.

To this ungenerous missive Captain Smith returned
a letter, which has been preserved, and
which is a fair transcript of his own vigorous, acute,
and manly character. He refutes every charge

brought against himself,—and for the distress and
dissensions of the colonists, he refers them to the
true cause—that is, the character of the persons
who had been sent—dissipated cavaliers and indolent
gentlemen, who did nothing but consume what
the industry of a few provided. He begs for mechanics,
"carpenters, husbandmen, gardeners, fishermen,
blacksmiths, masons, and diggers up of
trees' roots." He lashes with unsparing severity
the valueless beings who had possessed authority.
Newport and Ratcliffe are fearlessly denounced.
Their silly requirements as to the South Sea, the
lump of gold, and Raleigh's company, are treated
with well-deserved freedom; and the scheme of employing
Dutchmen in making glass and pot-ashes
is shown to be false in economy; for these articles
might be obtained on the shores of the Baltic greatly
cheaper than they could then be produced in Virginia.
Altogether this letter is an unanswerable
reply to the complaints that had been made, and
must have convinced the English council that one
mind at least in Virginia was worthy of confidence.[240]

The maiden lady, Anne Burras, who had come
with the last adventurers, did not long pine for a
husband. She was soon united to John Laydon,
one of the original settlers; and this marriage was
the first ever solemnized between Europeans on
the soil of Virginia.[241]

Powhatan was too observant not to perceive the
difference in vigour of mind between the vain-glorious
Newport and the resolute Smith. Some
time after the ship had sailed, he sent a message to
the president, inviting him to pay him a visit, and
promising that if he would send men to build him
a house, and send also a cock and hen, a grindstone,
and other articles, he on his part would grant to the
English a full supply of provisions. Smith resolved
instantly to accept this offer; but knowing
the treacherous arts of the savages, he prepared for
every emergency, and determined, if necessary, to
seize the person of the monarch, and retain him as
a hostage until his demands were complied with.

Sending before him two Englishmen and four
Germans to build the house for Powhatan, he left
Jamestown on the 29th December, with a wellarmed
party of volunteers, who eagerly sought the
service.[242]

(1609, Jan. 12.) On arriving at Werowocomoco,
the wary emperor received them with apparent surprise,
and denied that he had sent any invitation
to Captain Smith,—but when his messengers were
confronted with him, he relaxed his caution, and
attempted to give the affair a ludicrous turn. To
their earnest demand for corn he gave dilatory replies,
and would be satisfied with none of their
commodities except swords and muskets. The

English were now placed in circumstances highly
critical and dangerous. They were surrounded by
overwhelming numbers of warriors, who waited but
a signal from the king either to fall openly upon
them, or to cut them off by stratagem. And in addition
to these, a secret foe now threatened them.
The Germans who had been sent to build the king's
house, with perfidy infinitely blacker than that of
the savages, united themselves with the natives,
and sought by a thousand schemes to involve the
English in ruin.[243] Their treachery was not fully
discovered until nearly six months after this time,
and thus their secret plan only rendered them the
more dangerous.

But Smith never for a moment lost his self-possession.
If the savage monarch was skilful in
fraud, able in diplomacy, profound in dissimulation,
and prompt in action, he had opposed to him
one competent to meet him. A most ingenious
system of manœuvres now took place. Powhatan
delivered several long harangues, in which, under
the cover of friendly professions and of kingly dignity,
he veiled a purpose of bloody revenge. He
told the English that he had outlived three generations
of his own people, and now in his age he desired
peace. Why should war exist between them
to keep the settlers in watchful suspense, and the
Indians in fear of death from swords and musket-balls?
He entreated his visiters to lay aside their

arms for a season, and come up to his quarters to
partake of his hospitality. But the president was
not thus to be deceived. He sternly reminded the
Indian of his promises, reproached him for his refusal
to perform them, admonished him of his own
power, refused to give him weapons, and threatened
to use them. It was at this stage of their debates
that we are told the baffled emperor heaved a deep
sigh, and uttered words so characteristic, so expressive
both of his own disappointment and of his reluctant
esteem for his adversary, that they merit a
place in history.

"Captain Smith," said Powhatan, "I never used
any werowance so kindly as yourself, and yet from
you I receive the least kindness of any. Captain
Newport gave me swords, copper, clothes, a bed,
towels, or what I desired; ever taking what I
offered him, and would send away his guns when
I entreated him. None doth deny to lie at my
feet, or refuse to do what I desire, but only you, of
whom I can have nothing but what you regard
not, and yet you will have whatsoever you demand.
Captain Newport you call father, and so
you call me; but I see for all, as both, you will do
what you list, and we must both seek to content
you. But if you intend so friendly as you say,
send hence your arms, that I may believe you; for
you see the love I bear you doth cause me thus
nakedly to forget myself."[244]

Determined now to proceed to extremities, Smith
prepared to seize the king, and transport him to
the settlement; but the ever-watchful savage took
the alarm, and fled with his valuables, his women
and children, leaving a few attendants to divert
suspicion. The English commenced loading their
boats with corn. The night approached—a storm
of rain and wind arose and raged without intermission.
A dark plot of death was arranged by the
Indians; and, in the relaxed vigilance of the hour,
the English might all have fallen. But a guardian
spirit was near. Through the gloom of the forest,
and the heavy rain of a rigorous season, Pocahontas
hastened to the cottage where the president
was reposing. Her feelings, long restrained, found
relief in tears, and, with all the sensibility of a
woman, she revealed the intended plot, warned
them to prepare, and told them of her own danger,
should it be discovered that she had disclosed the
scheme of her father and his vindictive warriors.[245]

This generous maiden had not been gone more
than an hour, when eight strong savages arrived
from the king's quarters, bringing professions of
amity, and also platters of venison for the use of
the English. The captain listened coolly to their
insidious request, that the matches for the guns
might be extinguished, made them taste every
platter they had brought, and sent them back to
the king with a message that he was ready to receive
him.[246] Thus the plot of the savages was

rendered abortive by the exertions of their monarch's
favourite daughter.

We cannot justify Smith in his design to seize
the person of Powhatan. War did not exist between
them, and whatever may be the perfidy of
savages, those who pretend to be Christians can
never make this a plea for fraud and violence. Yet
we find our admiration constantly growing with
each step in the history of this great man. He
was ever watchful, brave, and self-balanced. He
controlled the vicious, awed the turbulent, encouraged
the timid, and roused the indolent. Several
periods occurred in the history of the colonists,
when his genius alone preserved them from death,
either by famine or by savage assault. He visited
Pamunky, the seat of Opecancanough, who was
the first of the native chiefs in active and treacherous
hostility to the English. With sixteen men,
Smith encountered the chief, surrounded by nearly
seven hundred braves, and he terrified them by an
act of heroism which they long remembered.
Seizing Opecancanough in the midst of his army,
he wound his hand in the long lock of hair
that graced his head, and, turning a pistol against
his breast, led him forth in sight of all his followers.
Trembling with fear at this determined
conduct, they threw down their arms, and, after a
speech from the president, in which he threatened
that "if they did not load his boat with corn, he
would load her with their carcasses,"[247] they professed
their good-will, and complied with every demand.

Could his commanding spirit have been every
where, much grief might have been saved to the
settlers. During his absence, a melancholy event
had resulted from the folly of one in whom he had
felt some confidence. Matthew Scrivener had received
letters from England, which encouraged
him to hope that he might displace his friend in
the presidency, and determined him to be "either
Cæsar or nothing."[248] In order to gain celebrity,
he prepared for an excursion to Hog Island, which
lies in the river, not far from Jamestown. Neither
his own want of skill, the inclemency of the season,
nor the remonstrances of his companions,
could deter him. He embarked in an open boat,
with ten others, among whom we note the names
of Waldo, a member of the Council, and of Anthony
Gosnold, a brother of the great navigator.
A cold and boisterous day greeted their departure,
and, in the storm which followed, the overladen
boat sank beneath the waters, and not one of her
unhappy crew was ever recovered.[249]

The natives had long been satisfied of the weakness
and incapacity generally prevailing among the
settlers; butin proportion as they scorned the rest, did
they esteem and fear the redoubtable Smith. The
German traitors sought in vain for opportunities to
destroy him; and so anxious was Powhatan on the
subject, that he threatened several of his people
with death if they did not cause that of his most

formidable foe.[250] But all their attempts were vain.
Poison was resorted to, and the savages of Virginia
proved themselves capable of all the deliberate hatred
common in Eastern despotisms; but they were
not so skilful in chemistry as they were relentless
in revenge. Smith was made sick for a time by
their drugs, but took no farther notice of the attempt,
than by having wholesome flagellation inflicted
upon the poisoners.[251] The president seemed
to bear a charmed life. In one of his excursions,
he was suddenly assailed by a chief of the Pasiphays,
a man of great strength and giant stature,
who first tried to entice him into a snare, and then
drew his bow upon him. When they grappled,
neither was able to use his weapons; the Indian
dragged his foe into the river, and a fearful struggle
for life ensued. Smith seized his antagonist by
the throat, and so firmly retained his grasp that the
Indian sank beneath him, and suffered himself to
be carried a prisoner to Jamestown. This Indian
afterwards escaped; and when the president reproached
two of his tribe, whom he made prisoners,
with the flight of their chief, one, in a strain of
savage oratory, told him he should remember that
"the fishes swim, the foules fly, and the very beasts
strive to escape the snare and live."[252] From these
and other arguments they drew an excuse for their
chief, so stringent, that the president made peace
with the tribe, and they were afterwards his warm
friends.

Thus the captain retained his influence with the
natives. They began to regard his power with
superstitious reverence, and accident confirmed
their faith. A young Indian having been apprehended
for stealing a pistol, was confined in a
guard-room until the weapon was returned. To
contribute to his comfort during the cold night,
fire and a supply of charcoal were sent in, together
with his food. The unlettered savage knew little
of carbonic acid gas, and for the sake of humanity
it is to be hoped that his captors knew not much
more. The fumes of the burning charcoal soon
deprived the hapless prisoner of consciousness, and
when a companion, who brought back the pistol,
found him, he was stretched, as though lifeless,
upon the ground. The others commenced a grievous
lamentation. The president arrived, and immediately
directed the strongest brandy and vinegar
to be applied, and used other remedies so
successfully, that ere morning the patient was perfectly
restored.[253] Nothing more was necessary to
the reputation of Captain Smith among the savages;
he might have been made a king or a god at his
pleasure. He who could give life to the dead was
worthy of the worship of mortals.

The natives now desired peace, and used all
means to conciliate the settlers. Stolen property
was returned; arms were no longer snatched with

open violence, or taken by fraud, and those Indians
who were detected in theft were apprehended by
Powhatan and sent for punishment to Jamestown.[254]
Thus the colonists became secure in their persons
and property, and had the fairest opportunity for
improvement in their general prospects. The president
was untiring in energy, prudent in every
undertaking; the arts were encouraged; glass, tar,
and soap-ashes were tried; a well of excellent water
was opened; twenty houses were built; the church
was newly covered; nets and weirs were provided
for fishing; fowls were domesticated, and increased
with astonishing rapidity; Hog Island was peopled
with its appropriate inhabitants.

Matters began to wear a bright appearance, and
but two causes operated against their prosperity:
the one was unavoidable, as it came in the form of
innumerable rats, who destroyed vast quantities of
their grain; the other was their own "insufferable
sloth and unreasonable perverseness,"[255] which often
bade defiance to every exertion of the president, and
plunged them again in distress and famine. The
river abounded in sturgeon, which were caught by
the lazy settlers, and eaten, sometimes alone, sometimes
compounded with the esculent grasses of the
soil around them. Rather than work, many were
so mean in spirit as to permit themselves to be billetted
upon the Indians, who fed their valueless
bodies with great hospitality.[256]

We can hardly attribute to the English council
motives of pure philanthropy, for their desire to
obtain some knowledge of the fate of Walter Raleigh's
unhappy colony. It is more probable they
were excited by the hope, that these men, by their
communion with the natives, had secured some
knowledge of the gold and silver mines supposed
to be in the country, or, perchance, of that South
Sea, which constantly rolled before the eyes of
European fancy. But whatever may have been
their motives, Smith did not neglect the duty imposed
upon him. He had despatched Michael
Sicklemore, a hardy and gallant soldier, with a
small party, to the Chowan River, to seek acquaintance
with the natives, and make inquiries about
the lost settlers. Sicklemore returned at this time,
having zealously fulfilled his duties, explored the
country, ascertained its resources, and conciliated
the natives, but without having gathered even a
savage rumour concerning the abandoned colony.
He was equally unsuccessful in his search for silk-grass,
which had been assigned as one of the objects
of his inquiries.[257]

The treason of the Germans had now been fully
developed. They were afraid to encounter the
just indignation of the English settlers, and remained
among the Indians in a state of mind and
body sufficiently comfortless. Traitors themselves,
they could hope for little countenance, even from
the men to whom they had sold their honour.
William Volday, a Swiss by birth, was employed

by the president to offer pardon and safety to these
misguided foreigners, with the hope of regaining
them to the colony. But this messenger of peace,
with doubly-refined treachery, united with the
Dutchmen, and endeavoured to lead the Indians
in a body against the unsuspecting settlement.
When this plot was revealed at Jamestown, the
utmost indignation prevailed, and a deliberate proposal
was made to go to the native quarters and
cut down these traitors in the very sight of Powhatan.
This bold scheme was not accomplished;
but the Indian monarch, finding he could no longer
hope for advantage from his allies, disclaimed their
attempt, and ever afterwards regarded them with
an evil eye.[258]

And now an unexpected arrival took place. Captain
Samuel Argal entered the bay with a single
ship, drawn by the hope of gain from the fishery
of sturgeon and traffic with the colony. The laws
indeed forbade the fishery, except to the settlers;
but Argal was a kinsman of Sir Thomas Smith,
the Treasurer of the London Company, who connived
at the expedition.[259] The colonists were well
pleased with the wine and good provisions he
brought, and the adventurer himself was not of a
character to be deterred by mere legal obstacles.
From him the Virginians obtained the first intelligence
of proceedings in England which deeply

affected their welfare, and to which we must now
give due attention.

The London Company had been greatly disappointed
in their hopes with regard to the colony.
Gold and silver had flowed in continuous streams
from the mines of South America to the coffers of
Portugal and Spain, and English avarice demanded,
why had not equal wealth been drawn from
the bosom of the northern continent? Had their
wisdom borne any proportion to their cupidity,
the adventurers might have seen in the feeble settlements
they were now establishing, the germ of
lasting wealth and of happiness, which the richest
minerals could not purchase; but their insatiate
desires craved instant gratification, their hunger
for riches called continually for sustenance, and
they were at first better pleased with hopes of gold
from a sand-bank, or of silver from shining dust
on the shores of the Potomac,[260] than with the most
intelligent efforts for successful colonizing. It has
been happy for Virginia that the gold she really
possesses was not discovered in any quantity until
long years of industry had established the tenants
of her soil. Had the mines now open in the counties
of Orange, Culpeper, Louisa, Fauquier, Stafford,
and Buckingham,[261] been even suspected to
have existed in the days of the London corporation,
it is not probable that Thomas Jefferson would
ever have written the charter of American freedom,
or that Washington would have gained a ratification
of that charter in the trenches of Yorktown.

The company had a strong desire for commercial
advantage rather than for colonial extension. Two
years had now passed away, and they found not
one of their brilliant dreams realized. No gold had
brought sudden wealth; no precious wood had returned
to repay the contributions of the motherland;
no boat had penetrated to the South Seas, to
connect the riches of the Indies with the ports of
Britain. Forests had been felled, vegetation had
been encouraged, only to bring disease and death
to the settlers; Indian hostilities had raged with
few intermissions; discord had distracted the counsels,
and indolence had paralysed the strength of
the colonists. These evils were too apparent to be
longer neglected, nor can we censure the council
for desiring to find a remedy; but we can note their
blindness to their own faults, and their unworthy
attack upon the only man who really merited praise
at their hands.

Smith's administration had been firm and consistent.
He had laboured ardently for the substantial
welfare of the settlers, knowing that in
their permanent success alone must depend the
final profit of the company. He saw at once that
no precious metals would be found, to meet the importunate
demands of England; but he knew that
the country was rich, its soil was fertile, its forests
were valuable, its natural products were abundant—
and his expanded view enabled him to perceive that
only perseverance was necessary to make Virginia
invaluable to the country that gave her birth.[262]

The London council blamed him for his salutary
rigour towards the Indians, attributed to him the
dissensions caused by the vices of the men they
had themselves sent to the colony, and finally determined
to seek an entire change in the government
heretofore existing in Virginia. They accordingly
applied to the King for a new charter,
and on the 23d May he granted to them a patent,
from which they promised themselves all manner
of success.

We must now look to the terms of this second
expression of royal wisdom, and see whether we
can discover in it any thing favourable to the rights
of the settlers themselves.[263] He who shall hope that
greater privileges were now granted to them, will
be sadly disappointed.

The King erected a gigantic corporation, under
the name and style of the Treasurer and Company
for Virginia. It consisted of more than twenty
peers of the realm, among whom we note the distinguished
names of Robert, Earl of Salisbury,
Thomas, Earl of Suffolk, Henry, Earl of Southampton,
and of the Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells.
It consisted further of nearly one hundred knights,
among whom we find Sir George Moor, Sir Edwin
Sandys, Sir Dudley Digges, Sir Herbert Crofte,
and Sir Francis Bacon. Leaving the knighted
ranks, the eye then glances along several massive
pages of names, designating every class, from the
stout English gentleman to the most humble trader

who could invest money enough to become an adventurer.
We then plunge into a sea of private corporations,
as mercers, drapers, fishmongers, grocers,
goldsmiths, skinners, salters, ironmongers, waxchandlers,
butchers, saddlers, and barber chirurgeons:
and in this we swim, until we begin to believe that
London is about to pour out in full power its artisan
force upon the shores of the new world. All
these are invested with regular corporate privileges,
as the right to fill vacancies, to elect new members,
to have a common seal, and perpetual succession.[264]

Having called this unwieldy monster into being,
the King proceeds to divest himself of the powers
held by the crown under the first charter, and to
vest them in the corporation.[265] A council was still
to exist in England, to whom was committed absolute
authority in governing the colony abroad.
This council consisted of fifty-two persons, and
was originally appointed by the King, but full
power was given to the company to nominate,
choose, displace, change, alter, and supply the
members of this governing body, as a majority
might see fit.[266] The council was invested with authority
to appoint all officers necessary to the colony;
and, instead of the former provincial establishment
of a president and council, we find a governor
provided, who, with his counsellors, is invested with
terrific powers in administering the laws enacted
by the council in England, or (such laws not having

been enacted) in case of necessity, he is authorized
to consult his own discretion, even in cases
criminal and capital.[267] In cases of rebellion and
mutiny, the governor is empowered to call to his
aid the arm of martial law, with as full energy as
it might be employed by lieutenants governing
other dependencies of the English realm; and he
is himself to judge of the emergency calling for
this stern exercise of power.

We deem it not necessary to dwell further upon
the provisions of this charter, as many of them are
substantially the same with those previously explained
in speaking of the original patent. The observant
reader will note, with pain, that not one political
right is granted to the colonists, or secured to
their children. They are transferred, without ceremony,
from the grasp of a single hand to the busy
manipulations of a thousand lawgivers, formed into a
great commercial company, and wholly independent
of the choice of the settlers. The power of the governor
was enormous, and after experience proved that
it did not exist in theory alone. The colonists were
indeed mocked with clauses securing to them the
rights of Englishmen, and the enjoyment of the
laws and policy of the mother country;[268] but these
sounding promises never had any practical operation.
And finally, with many pious wishes breathed
for the conversion of the heathen, and against
the bringing in of Romish superstitions, all intending

to settle are required to take the oath of supremacy[269] to the head of the church, in the person of
a king, better fitted for the metaphysical debates
of the learned host in Pandæmonium,[270] than to give
laws to the visible kingdom of Christ on earth.

Sir Thomas Smith was appointed treasurer. Of
him we have heretofore spoken. He was first a
merchant in London, amassed a large fortune, was
made governor of the East India and Moscovy
Company; sent by James ambassador to Russia;
and was one of Walter Raleigh's assignees.[271] Much
blame has been cast upon this gentleman for his
administration of some of the affairs of Virginia,
and for the careless manner in which he permitted
his accounts to be kept; yet we must award him
due praise for his zeal, and for the integrity which
he uniformly exhibited.

The company immediately prepared for strenuous
efforts. Thomas West, Lord Delaware, was
elected governor and captain-general of the colony.
This appointment was highly judicious, for
it fell upon a man distinguished in birth, high-minded
and generous in disposition, of commanding
talents, and of peculiar fitness for the duty of
superintending an infant settlement.[272]

Emigrants now offered themselves from every
quarter and of every class. Nine vessels were
equipped, and furnished with every thing necessary
to safety during the voyage, and to the comfort
of the colonists on their arrival. They carried
nearly five hundred settlers, besides their crews,
and set forth under auspices so flattering as to
attract to their enterprise the title of "the Virgine
voyage."[273] Lord Delaware remained yet in England,
intending to follow them in the course of a
few months. Sir George Somers was appointed
admiral of Virginia, Sir Thomas Gates lieutenant-general,
and Christopher Newport commander of
the fleet; but by a most unwise arrangement, these
three officers all embarked in the same ship, being
unable to determine among themselves the important
question of priority.[274]

They sailed from Plymouth on the 2d day of
June, and notwithstanding their express orders to
proceed immediately westward, they went as far
south as the twenty-sixth degree of latitude, and
paid the penalty of their delay in disease and death
among their crews. But a more imposing danger
now assailed them. On the 24th July, a tremendous
hurricane came on, attended with all the horrors
of a tropical storm. The heavens became gradually
darker, until they assumed a pitchy hue;

the lightnings were incessant, and the thunder
seemed to burst immediately above the tops of
their masts; the wind blew with so much fury,
that sails were torn from the yards, masts were
carried away, and the sea, rolling in huge waves
over their decks, swept off every thing that could
be displaced, and entering the holds, it reduced
many of their cargoes to ruin.[275] In this awful
tempest, the ships of the fleet were all separated,
and the ketch, unable to weather the storm, foundered
at sea, and all her crew were lost. Leaving
the other ships for a season, we must now follow
the Sea-Adventure, in which the three principal
commanders had embarked together.

This stout vessel was heavily laden with provisions,
and carried out also the commission for the
new government in Virginia. Her safety was all-important,
but it seemed impossible that she could
survive. A leak admitted streams of water, and
incessant pumping for three days and four nights
could scarcely keep her afloat. During all this
time, the venerable Somers kept the deck.[276] His
gray locks streamed in the tempest and were saturated
with rain, yet his self-possession never deserted
him. Even when his exhausted crew abandoned
all hope, and, staving the spirit casks, endeavoured

to drown thought in intoxication, he retained
his calmness, and was the first to discover
land. The ship struck the ground about half a
mile from the shore, and was thrown in such a
position between two rocks, that all on board were
easily saved.

The island on which they were wrecked was
one of the well-known Bermuda group, lying in
the Atlantic, about six hundred miles from the
American coast.[277] They have never been remarkable
for fertility; but their climate is charming.
When approached from the seaboard, they present
a most picturesque appearance; and they have been
invested with peculiar interest by the notice of an
English poet, who once passed a season of his life
within their rocky barrier.

The isle they first reached was uninhabited. It
had previously been visited by Spaniards, and in
1591 an English ship had been cast away upon its
coast, but now none of the human species were
left. It was moreover supposed to be enchanted.
Strange tales of demons and monsters of fantastic
form had been received, and the English sailors
were alive to all the superstitions of their class.[278]
But they had no reason to complain of inhospitable

treatment in this fairy land. The air was pure—
the heavens were serene—the waters abounded
with excellent fish—the beach was covered with
turtle—birds of many kinds enlivened the forests—
and the whole island swarmed with hogs, which
were so numerous that very little labour sufficed
to procure plenty.

A mid this profusion they remained nine months.
The loveliness of nature had not subdued human
passions. Somers was envied, and the commanders
lived apart; yet the influence of the good admiral
was exerted to have daily worship,—and on Sunday,
divine service was performed, and two sermons
were preached by Mr. Bucke, their chaplain. In
the brief space of this sojourn, one marriage was
celebrated, two children were born and baptized,
five persons died, of whom one was murdered,—
and when they left the island the murderer escaped,
and with another culprit remained, to be afterwards
instrumental in a singular discovery.[279]

(1610.) Many were so well pleased with the climate
and resources of this island that they would
willingly have made it their abode. But the admiral
longed for Virginia. Two vessels were constructed
from the cedar of the isle—the lower seams
were calked with the old cables and other cordage
saved from the wreck—the upper seams were filled
with a mixture of lime and turtle's oil, which soon
became hard as a stone. Sir George Somers had
but one single piece of iron in his bark, a bolt in
her keel,—yet these vessels proved strong and seaworthy.

They were supplied with such provisions
as they had saved from the Adventure, and with a
large store of pork from the wild hogs of the island,
cured with salt obtained by crystallizing the sea
water on the rocks around them.

(1610.) Thus prepared, they set sail on the 10th
of May, and steered directly for Virginia. Their
vessels bore the appropriate names of Patience and
Deliverance; yet in the brief voyage unexpected
dangers severely tried the one, and threatened the
existence of the other. At length, on the 24th, they
made Point Comfort, and sailed up the river to the
long-sought settlement. But here a heavy disappointment
awaited them. Instead of plenty and
peace, they found starvation and wretchedness—instead
of smiling faces and looks of welcome, they
met gaunt forms and wasted strength—miserable
beings, who with difficulty dragged themselves
forth to receive their countrymen. To explain this
gloomy scene, we must go back to the time when,
during the hurricane, Sir George Somers, in the
Sea-Adventure, was separated from the rest of the
fleet.

(1609.) Seven vessels rode out the storm, and
arrived, in a shattered condition, in Virginia, during
the month of August. So considerable a fleet
caused alarm; and believing them to be Spaniards,
the president prepared to greet them warmly with
shot from the fort. The Indians came forward, and
offered their aid in defending the settlement;[280] and
had not the mistake been speedily discovered, the

English ships might have received a rude welcome.
When the new colonists were landed, it was soon
discovered that the supply of provisions they
brought, with that at the settlement, was hardly
adequate to their wants. But even this was a small
evil, when compared with that flowing from their
own vicious characters. We have heretofore had
occasion to speak of the quality of the material
forming the settlement,—but all that had before
been sent were virtuous in contrast with those of
the late importation. Gentlemen, reduced to poverty
by gaming and extravagance, too proud to
beg, too lazy to dig—broken tradesmen, with some
stigma of fraud yet clinging to their names—footmen,
who had expended in the mother country the
last shred of honest reputation they had ever held—
rakes, consumed with disease and shattered in the
service of impurity—libertines, whose race of sin
was yet to run—and "unruly sparks, packed off
by their friends to escape worse destinies at
home,"—these were the men who came to aid in
founding a nation, and to transmit to posterity their
own immaculate impress;[281] —and, to crown all, the
three men, Ratcliffe, Archer, and Martin, who had
been sent away from the colony with the hope that
they were gone for ever, now returned, to present
again a rallying point for insubordinate folly.

Immediately all was confusion and turbulence;
the new officers declared that by the charter every
function of the old government had been destroyed,
and they insisted that the president could no longer
exercise authority. Smith would most willingly
have abandoned the thankless office he held, and
bade adieu to a colony that seemed destined to misrule;[282] but no higher functionary had yet arrived
to displace him, and he could not calmly view the
ruinous freaks of these arrogant pretenders. Acting
with his usual promptness, he arrested Ratcliffe
and Archer in the full tide of mutiny, threw them
into prison, and kept them closely confined until
he should have time to bring them properly to
trial. This resolute conduct awed the rest, and
reduced them to something like submission; but
knowing that idleness would quickly inflame the
old malady, he sought means of employing them.
He despatched Captain West, with a hundred and
twenty men, to form a settlement at Powhatan, just
below the falls; and sent Martin, with nearly an
equal number, to Nansemond, for a similar purpose.
His year having nearly expired, he resigned the
presidency to the last-named person (whose proper
title seems to have been Sicklemore), but the new
president, after wearing his honours during the
protracted space of three hours,[283] declared himself
wholly incompetent, and once more the magnanimous
Smith was compelled to assume the office.

West was a man of easy and indolent temper,

little fitted for struggling with the difficulties of a
new country. The president was obliged to go in
person and purchase from the Indian king a place
for the new settlement. It was not far from the
falls, and possessed so many advantages of nature
that the English called it "Nonesuch," a name
certainly more expressive than elegant. But the
disorderly gang assembled here did nothing useful.
They mutinied against the president, robbed
the savages, broke open their houses, spoiled their
gardens, and in other ways so incensed them that, a
short time after Smith's departure, twelve natives,
well armed, fell upon the hundred and twenty
colonists, killed several as they wandered through
the woods, and kept the whole in mortal fear for
their lives. So thoroughly were they frightened
by this insignificant band, that they sued for peace
with the president, and entreated him to protect
them. He placed some of the most refractory in
confinement; and having by his influence appeased
the Indians, he again left them to return to Jamestown.
But as he passed down the river, a most
unfortunate casualty befell him. While asleep in
the boat, his powder-bag accidentally took fire, and
the explosion tore the flesh from his body, and
inflicted a terrible wound. In the agony of pain
he endured, he plunged into the water, and was
with much difficulty saved from drowning. In
this dangerous condition he was conveyed nearly
one hundred miles to the fort. It might be supposed
that the helpless state of this brave sufferer
would have excited compassion in bosoms of stone.
But Ratcliffe and Archer, with others equally diabolical,
conspired to take his life. A murderer
was sent to his bed with a pistol, but in the critical
moment his heart failed him, and he suffered
his proposed victim to live.[284]

Unable to procure in the colony such surgical
aid as he needed, Captain Smith determined to
return to England. His purpose was soon made
known; and the better hearts among the settlers,
concurring in his views of the necessity for this
step, took leave of him with unfeigned sorrow,
and elected George Percy president in his stead.
Thus, early in the autumn of 1609, the hero of
Virginia left her shores, never again to return.[285]

It would not be consistent with the purpose of
this work to follow him further in his career. His
active spirit could not remain unemployed; and to
him New England is indebted for much of the
interest which at last drew hardy settlers to her
shores. We shall meet again with Smith under
circumstances honourable alike to his head and to
his heart. We have seen enough already to convince
us that he united in himself rare virtues,
and that his faults were those of an ardent and
generous temperament. Those who knew him
best have borne testimony to his noble character.
Justice was the pole-star of his life; experience
formed the basis of his views; selfishness had no
place in his bosom; falsehood and avarice were

hateful to his soul. Thrown in early youth upon
the world, he partook of its excitement without
imbibing its corruption; bred in a camp, he yet
avoided the proverbial vices of the soldier, and
was never a slave to "wine, debts, dice, or oaths."[286]
Prompt in decision and formidable in conflict, he
was yet gentle in victory, and open to the approaches
of confiding dispositions. The savages
themselves, though often foiled by his prudence
and defeated by his courage, respected him as a
friend, and even loved him as a father.

This great man died in London in the year 1631,
at the age of fifty-two. The events attending his
death are obscure, and his own genuine modesty
has concealed many facts which the world would
have rejoiced to learn.[287]

If we needed any proof of the inestimable benefit
that John Smith had conferred on the Virginia
colony, we might find it in the disasters which almost
immediately followed his departure. He left
behind him more than four hundred and ninety
persons,—of whom at least one hundred were well-trained
soldiers,—twenty-four pieces of ordnance, a
large quantity of muskets, firelocks, shot, powder,
pikes, and swords, sufficient for the whole colony;
nets for fishing, tools for labour, clothes to supply
all wants; horses, swine, poultry, sheep, and goats
in abundance; a harvest newly gathered; three
ships, seven boats: every thing, in short, that could
be required for the wants of the idle, and more than

enough to have satisfied the industrious.[288] We shall
see, with pain, this profusion squandered; these
resources turned to the worst purposes, and these
fair numbers diminished by their own vicious
courses.

George Percy was constantly sick, and could
give no personal attention to the government. Riot
and sedition every where prevailed. The Indians,
emboldened by their discord, and irritated by their
insolence, assailed them on every side; drove in
the feeble settlements at Nansemond and Powhatan,
which West and Martin had planted, and
threatened Jamestown itself with destruction. The
king threw off his apathy and assumed his wonted
power. Plots thickened around them; ambuscades
were prepared in every forest hedge; the settlers
dared not wander forth in search of food or of recreation;
those who were so rash as thus to expose
themselves were, with few exceptions, destroyed
by the natives. Hemmed in on every side, harassed
by the Indians, distracted by their own profligate
disputes, the wretched colonists now began to
experience the tortures of famine. Their provisions
either failed entirely, or were rendered unwholesome
by decay. Diseases spread rapidly
among them, and death commenced his race.
Maddened by suffering, they invoked curses on
the head of Sir Thomas Smith, the treasurer in
England, imputing to him a scarcity caused by

their own riotous folly.[289] Powhatan lost no opportunity
for an exercise of his treachery and his
revenge. By specious promises he tempted Ratcliffe
and about forty men within his reach, for the
alleged purpose of trade. The savages suddenly
fell upon them, and not one escaped except a helpless
boy, whom the generous daughter of the king
rescued from the hands of the murderers.[290]

Their misery had now nearly reached its height.
Weakened by disease, and sunk in profound gloom,
one after another the colonists descended to the
grave. Famine, in all its horrors, was among
them. For years, even for centuries afterwards,
this fatal season was spoken of as "The Starving
Time." As their regular food disappeared, they
were driven to the most revolting means for sustenance.
The skins of their horses were prepared
by cooking, and yielded precarious support; and
it is related that the body of an Indian, who had
been slain, was disinterred and eagerly devoured
by these civilized cannibals! The soul sickens at
such recitals, yet are we compelled to go farther.
Several historians relate that one miserable wretch,
in the pangs of hunger, killed his own wife, and
fed upon her body several days before the deed
was discovered!![291] Unwilling to believe, we seek
for some explanation of this horrible account; but
we find nothing to mitigate it, except the fact, that

the monster slew his wife from hatred and not to
gratify his hunger, and that the discovery of her
dismembered body in his house was the means of
his detection.[292]

Of all that Smith had left in Virginia, sixty persons
only now survived; and these maintained a
feeble existence upon roots, herbs, and berries, with
a few fish taken from time to time in the river.
(1610, May 24) Ten days more would probably
have closed the scene, and Somers and Gates, on arrival,
would have found the settlement tenanted only
by the dead. The view really presented was indeed
little more cheering. Weak, pallid, emaciated, with
feelings made callous by suffering, and selfish from
the very intensity of misery, the survivors received
their countrymen in hopeless gloom. To remain
longer upon this fatal soil, was a thought they did
not encourage for a moment; and even had they
desired it, the provisions brought by the ships
would not have supplied their wants. With difficulty
the two commanders could gather from the
confused accounts of the settlers, some notion of
their sufferings, and of the causes that produced
them. It was determined that all should embark,
and sailing first to the banks of Newfoundland for
a supply of food, that they should then proceed
immediately to England.

With that association of thought and feeling so

natural, yet so saddening to review, the settlers
proposed to burn their ancient home, and thus
sweep away at once the vestiges of their misery;[293]
but Sir Thomas Gates steadily resisted this barbarous
design.

Having buried their ordnance at the gate of the
fort, they prepared for their departure. The drum
beat a melancholy measure, and, at its sound, the
colonists embarked in four pinnaces, and, on the
7th of June, turned their backs upon the deserted
settlement. The Virginian who loves his state,
cannot look, without deep feeling, upon this sad
page in her history. Twenty-five years had passed
away since the first feeble colony of Raleigh had
gained the shores of North Carolina. Brave hearts
had been called into action, noble lives had sunk
in death under the influence of the climate, and
now at last it seemed as though the last effort had
been made and had failed. The beautiful country
was to be deserted; the houses, which English art
had built, where Christian rites had been solemnized,
and where some of the sweet pleasures of
civilized life had been tasted, were soon to be over-topped
by the weeds of the field, or converted to
the purposes of savage superstition. But the Author
of good willed it not so.

On the morning of the 8th, the vessels had been
wafted by the ebb tide to Mulberry Island Point,
and, while awaiting the turn of the flood, they discovered
a boat approaching from below. In one

hour, she was alongside the governor's pinnace,
and aroused even the desponding minds aboard,
by information that Lord Delaware had arrived
from England with three ships and an ample supply
of provision, and that hearing at Point Comfort
of the proposed abandonment of the colony,
he had sent this boat before him to encourage
them and prevent their departure. Instantly, as
if by magic, a load of depression was rolled from
the hearts of the colonists, hope once more dawned
upon them, gloom deserted their countenances—a
leader had arrived, able to minister to their necessities
and to govern their counsels. Spreading
their canvass to a fair easterly wind, the whole
fleet sailed up the river, and, on Sunday, the 10th
of June, they came to anchor at the very spot
which, two days before, they had left, with a stern
resolve never to return.[294]

CHAPTER IV.

When Lord Delaware landed on the shore at
Jamestown, he immediately knelt, and, for a season,
continued in silent devotion. Then rising,
he attended divine service in the church, and endeavoured,
by his example, to inspire his followers
with a sense of gratitude for their late deliverance,
and of dependence upon the Supreme Being for
future safety.[295] From these facts, we obtain some
insight into the character of this devout and upright
nobleman. He then read his commission

and delivered a calm address, admonishing the
vicious, encouraging the good, threatening to draw
the sword of justice against the intractable, but
declaring that it would give him as much pain to
shed their blood as his own. General applause
followed his speech, and, with cheerful zeal, all
prepared for their respective duties. Houses were
repaired, defences made good, fields reclaimed after
long neglect, and some French vintners, who came
over with Delaware, commenced planting vines, in
order to a harvest for the next year.[296]

It may not be amiss here to notice the unhappy,
but well-merited fate of the German traitors, who
had given the colony so much annoyance. Few
of them died by natural death. One, after returning
for a time to the English, during their distress,
fled again to the Indians, promising them great
gain from his influence with Lord Delaware when
he should arrive; but Powhatan coldly replied, that
as he had endeavoured to betray Captain Smith to
the savages, so he would perhaps endeavour to betray
him to this great lord; and, without farther
discussion, caused the traitor's brains to be dashed
out by one of his people. Volday, the Swiss, had
escaped to England, and there having excited expectations
by enormous lies concerning gold mines
in Virginia, he was permitted to return with Delaware;
but his imposture having been discovered,

he died, laden with the scorn and contempt of all
who encountered him.[297]

Lord Delaware, in every respect, proved himself
well fitted for his arduous task. But a scarcity of
provisions soon occurred; and to remedy it, Sir
George Somers offered to proceed with a ship to
the Bermuda Isles, and bring back a supply of
pork procured from the wild hogs there abundant.[298]
(June 19.) His offer was gratefully accepted. He
embarked in his own cedar vessel, and Captain
Argal accompanied him in a smaller bark. But
the latter was soon forced back by heavy weather;
and in order not to lose entirely his expedition, he
sailed to the Potomac River—traded with the savages—found
among them the boy Henry Spilman,
who had been saved by Pocahontas during the
starving time,—and by the influence of this mediator,
he obtained a full freight of corn, and returned
in good spirits to Jamestown. Meanwhile, Somers
had buffeted his stormy way to the Bermudas.
Hogs were found in profusion, killed, salted, and
packed away for the use of the colony. The brave
old knight was preparing to return, when a malady,
engendered by the fatigue and exposure he had
lately undergone, assailed him, and soon terminated
his valuable life.[299]

His dying admonition to his nephew required

that the ship, with her provisions, should proceed
to Virginia; but his orders were disregarded. The
bark sailed to England, conveying the body of this
venerable man to be deposited at White Church, in
Dorsetshire.

While Lord Delaware retained his health, he
was ever active and judicious in devising and executing
plans for the welfare of the colony. His
treatment of the Indians was more decided and
harsh than that of Smith had been; and the savages
loved him less, and hardly respected him more.[300]
But his lordship soon experienced the effects of the
Virginia climate. Agues, chills, dysentery, cramp,
and gout, successively assailed him, and forced him
to fly from a land requiring so severe a process of
climatization.[301] (1611, March 28.) He sailed to the
West Indies, enjoyed the mineral baths of the
Isle of Mevis, ate oranges and lemons on their native
soil between the tropics, and finally went to
England, being advised by his physicians not to
return to Virginia until his health should be perfectly
restored. Dale and Gates having both gone
before him to the mother country, George Percy

was again left at the head of affairs. He was of
good birth, of easy disposition, and of pleasing
manners; but his body was feeble, and his mind
partook of its imbecility.

The council in England, still disappointed and
surprised by the continued disasters of their undertaking,
questioned Sir Thomas Gates closely as to
the evils affecting the colony, and seem at one time
seriously to have contemplated its total abandonment.
But better counsels prevailed. It was clear
that the country itself was rich and beautiful; and
to suffer it to return to barbarism seemed a retrograde
movement to which the expanding spirit of
England could not submit. Again an expedition
was prepared. Three ships, filled with men, cattle,
and wholesome provisions, were placed under the
care of Sir Thomas Dale, who was appointed High
Marshal of Virginia. He arrived at the settlement
on the 10th of May, and found affairs relapsing into
their former confusion. No corn was planted—no
ground prepared—houses were neglected—fences
destroyed—and the inhabitants, rejoicing in the
sweet season which had already covered their land
with flowers and fruits, were entertaining themselves
daily with bowling games and other gentlemanly
diversions in the streets of the town.[302] The
Marshal immediately set the idle company to work
in felling trees, and preparing pales and posts for a
new settlement, which he had determined to commence.
He selected for its site a neck of land,

nearly surrounded by a bend of the river, about
ninety miles above Jamestown; and, in honour of
the cherished memory of Prince Henry, he called
his new seat Henrico.[303]

But finding the people still turbulent, idle, and
devoted to their own selfish enjoyments, Dale prepared
for more vigorous measures. To provide for
emergency, Sir Thomas Smith, the treasurer of
the Council, had sent over by the last arrival, a
"code of laws," framed almost entirely upon the
model furnished by the martial code then in force
in the Low Countries. This was the most rigid
school of military discipline existing in Europe,
and so stringent were its demands, that even the
Spaniards did not enforce them in their colonies,
but permitted the civil government to reign paramount
over the martial. We have no reason to
believe that this system was regularly adopted by
the London Council under the power given them
by their charter. It appears to have been sent to
Dale upon the sole responsibility of Sir Thomas
Smith;[304] but before we heap indignant denunciation,
either upon these laws or their introducer, we
must consider with calmness the existing state of
affairs.

All legislators will admit, that human laws must
vary according to the character of the subjects of

their government. Mild and humane rules may
suffice to direct the industrious and the moderate;
but the vicious and the disorderly will openly despise
them. Motives which are all-powerful with
one mind, fall impotently upon another. The fear
of disgrace, which will act upon a sensitive soul
with resistless power, has no restraining force upon
a heart callous alike to contempt and to pity.
Wise nations have adapted their laws to the state
of their people, and have indulged in no visionary
hope that man, in his original depravity, can be
governed by a system of refined moral suasion. If
it be admitted that the Southern States of the American
Union have acted wisely in enacting for the
slaves, unhappily existing within their borders,
laws different from those applied to the whites,
then we presume, that none who approve this distinction,
can object to the principle upon which
the martial law of Sir Thomas Smith was introduced.
The inhabitants of Virginia, at this time,
were among the most ungovernable of mankind:
they had the wildness of savages without their
simplicity; to the hatred of control peculiar to the
Indian, they added the pride induced by ignorant
civilization. Too indolent to work, yet unwilling
to starve; seditious in temper, and unscrupulous
in their measures for obtaining power; they needed
a strong and unshrinking arm to govern them;
a hand which would unsheathe the sword, and, if
necessary, strike the offender to the earth. It was
at this crisis that the military code was introduced.
It was wholly at variance with the English common
law, dispensed with trial by jury, subjected
the accused to arbitrary punishment, and denounced
instant death against the disobedient.
Yet in the mother country, its introduction for her
colonial settlements was strongly advised by a
noble and liberal mind,[305] and when published and
carried into effect in Virginia, its happy results
were immediately manifest. Sir Thomas Dale
used care and discrimination. The worst only
were punished, but all were awed; industry revived,
tumults ceased, and plenty began again to
appear. This code, suited to emergency, was not
intended to be permanent. It became gradually
unnecessary and obsolete; and when it was afterwards
revived by Argal, for purposes of oppression,
the complaints of the settlers secured from the
Council its final abolishment.[306]

Encouraged by hopes of better conduct in the
settlers, the London Company sent out a new supply
of three hundred men, with many cattle, hogs,
and other comfortable munitions. Sir Thomas
Gates, with "six tall ships," arrived early in August,
and cheered the colonists by his seasonable

aid. He seconded Dale in his efforts for Henrico,
and a salutary check to the Indians gave them leisure
for their schemes.

When Captain Matthew Somers had arrived in
England with the body of his uncle, inflated accounts
of the beauty and richness of the Bermuda
Islands had been given, and the public mind had
been additionally excited by news of an enormous
fragment of ambergris, accidentally found by the
two men left on the island when Sir George Somers
first left it to sail to Virginia.[307] The London
Company, anxious at once to secure this prize, applied
to the King for an extension of their patent;
and his majesty granted them a third charter on
the 11th March, 1612.[308]

After giving, in a most ample manner, all the
islands in the Atlantic within three hundred leagues
east of Virginia, and thus securing to them the
Bermudas, the sovereign proceeds to grant privileges
to the company, of the extent of which he
does not seem to have been himself fully apprised,
and the exercise of which afterwards undoubtedly
drew down upon the head of the corporation a
deathblow from the royal hand. The council,
though elected by and dependent upon the company,
yet in the long intervals between the corporate
sessions, had possessed great power; but now
the king creates a huge democratic assembly for
governing the settlement. He gives the company

authority to sit once a week, or oftener if they
thought proper,[309] and appoints four solemn General
Courts to be held quarterly during the year, at
which all the members might attend, and might
debate and decide great questions relative to their
officers, their ordinances, and the colony.[310] From
this time until its dissolution, we note in the debates
of the London Company a freedom, a sagacity,
and a spirit of inquiry very little acceptable
to James. Their quarter courts were attended by
masses of members, all eager to claim their privileges,
and for a time the English Solomon seems
to have held the position appropriate to Satan,
who is said to have power to raise a tempest
which he is wholly impotent to allay.

The charter further provides for raising money
by lotteries, giving the company full power to use
this pernicious mode of gaming. This authority
they afterwards resorted to, and sufficient folly
existed in England to bring twenty-nine thousand
pounds into the treasury of the corporation from
this source alone.[311] James long upheld his lottery
system, and justly claimed it as the first ever
known in England; but when, in 1621, the House
of Commons presented it as among the grievances

of the English people, his timid heart at once gave
way, and it was suppressed by proclamation.[312]

Early in this year two ships arrived, bringing
more men, but a scanty store of food. Argal, who
commanded them, determined to supply the defect
by a bold stroke of policy, highly congenial to the
firmness and the craft of his character. Since the
departure of Captain Smith, the Indian maiden
Pocahontas had withdrawn from Werowocomoco,
and lived concealed among her friends on the Potomac.
Argal, having learned this fact from Japazaws,
the king of this region, gained him over to
his purposes, and sailed up the river in one of his
barks. The deed of perfidy was soon complete.
A copper kettle, given by Englishmen and received
by Indians, was the price paid for the betrayal of
one of the noblest of human beings—of her who
had offered her own life to save a stranger—who
had encountered the anger of her father to shield
his enemies, and who had finally fled from his
presence to avoid the sight of butchered colonists!
By false pretences she was enticed into the gun-room
of Argal's ship, and then, immediately weighing
anchor, he carried the innocent and helpless
girl a prisoner to Jamestown.[313]

Powhatan was informed of her capture, and told

that she should be returned when he restored all
his English captives, and all the arms stolen by
Indians from the settlement. A struggle now commenced
between paternal affection and savage avarice,
and the result, for many months, was doubtful.[314] But Providence, by a divine alchemy, can
transmute even the crimes of men into the sweet
joys of social happiness. The Indian maiden was
treated by her captors with all the respect and
tenderness she deserved. Her gentle nature fully
sympathized with the refined emotions of polished
life; her confidence was easily won by kindness;
and we cannot doubt that she found her present
position more congenial to her taste than the rude
scenes of an Indian wigwam.

Among the settlers now at Jamestown, was John
Rolfe, a young gentleman to whom his contemporaries
assign good abilities and a spotless character.
Attracted by the beauty of Pocahontas, and by
that native dignity which graced this daughter of
an Indian monarch, his own affections became
deeply enlisted, and by his constant proof of tenderness
he gained a heart which the best of men
might have prized. He now earnestly desired to
be united to her in marriage; and when Sir Thomas
Dale communicated this proposal to Powhatan,
his majesty gave a gracious answer, and
sent his brother Opachiseo, and two of his sons, to
attend the nuptial ceremony.

(1613.) Early in April their union was solemnized
—the Indian princess became the wife of an English

gentleman; and we may say with truth that few
marriages have ever produced more tranquil happiness
in the parties themselves, or more lasting benefit
to others connected with them. Powhatan no
longer regarded the English as his enemies, but
during the rest of his life, himself and his people
maintained with them the most amicable relations.
And the powerful tribe of Chickahominies, who
had always hated and feared his dominion, finding
that he would now have time to reduce them to
subjection, voluntarily came forward and sought
the friendship of the settlers. They concluded
with them a treaty of peace, agreeing to take the
name of "New Englishmen,"—to aid them in
war—never to molest them or their property—to
enter none of their towns without notice—to give
an annual offering of two bushels of corn for every
fighting man, receiving as many hatchets in exchange—and
finally, that eight chiefs of this tribe
should see that the articles were performed; and
that these chieftains should be considered King
James's noblemen, and should each receive his picture,
a red coat, and a copper chain.[315]

Thus the colony was at peace, and Dale had an
opportunity of reforming abuses and improving
existing customs. A great and most salutary
change took place in the mode of holding property.
We have seen that, under the original
charter of James, all things were to be held,

during five years, in common, and all were to be
supplied from one common store. Under this unwise
system, the most powerful motives to private
industry were taken from the colonists. The indolent
slept or gamed away their hours, with the
comfortable assurance that the magazine would
feed them; the enterprising had no stimulant to
labour, the fruits of which they were not to enjoy,
and, between these conflicting views, the united
result was scarcity and starvation. Bees may
work diligently for a common stock, (though it
has never been shown that each one of these exemplary
insects has not her own private cell,) but
it is certain that men will never labour with zeal,
unless the benefits of their industry are to be reflected
directly or indirectly upon themselves.[316]
The intervention of a common fund did not long
survive the apostolic age,[317] and has never been successfully
revived in subsequent times.

Five years in Virginia had tested this scheme
and proved its evils. Sir Thomas Dale determined
gradually to change it. He allotted to each
man three acres of cleared ground, and required
him to labour eleven months for the common store
and one month for himself. This was but a slight
improvement; but upon his own extensive plantation

on the river, known as the Bermuda Hundred,
more favourable terms were granted. Each man
laboured one month for the community and appropriated
the remaining eleven to his own purposes.
Even these imperfect reforms produced the best
results. Industry revived; property accumulated;
famine was no longer feared;[318] and when, a few
years afterwards, all restrictions upon the enjoyment
of private property were removed, Virginia
assumed every feature of a flourishing colony.

But while the worthy marshal was thus kind to
the interests of his own colony, he showed a stern
opposition to the just rights of another. As early
as 1605, the French had sent settlers to Acadia,
and planted a colony at Port Royal, which had
now obtained some permanence.[319] England and
France had long been at peace, and the preamble
to James's first patent had expressly excluded from
his proposed grant any land then actually possessed
by a Christian prince or people.[320] But Dale, conceiving
this French settlement to be an invasion
of the rights of Virginia, because it was between
thirty-four and forty-five degrees of latitude, determined
to attack it. Argal was an agent well suited

for his purposes. Bold and unscrupulous, greedy
of gain, and little careful as to the means of acquiring
it he regarded a piratical expedition, covered
by the forms of law, as falling within his
peculiar province. (1614.) Early in the year, he
sailed to the north, attacked Port Royal, shot many
of the garrison with musketry, killed a gallant
Jesuit who resisted him, drove the settlers into the
woods, seized upon all the provisions, furniture,
and apparel he could find, and turned his bow
again to the southward. But, by way of completing
the work of reform, he entered the sound
at the mouth of the Hudson, and summoned the
Dutch settlements on Manhattan Island to surrender,
on the absurd pretence that Captain Hudson,
who discovered this country in 1609, while
lawfully in the service of Holland, was an Englishman,
and could not deprive his native land of
the benefit of his adventure. Unable to resist, the
fort surrendered; but soon afterwards, a reinforcement
having arrived, the phlegmatic Dutchmen
hoisted their colours and pursued their intended
course as though it had not been interrupted.

These exploits of Argal had every distinctive
trait of piracy, and we have no reason to believe
that they were approved by the English government.
James, indeed, in 1621, granted Port Royal
to one of his subjects;[321] but Nova Scotia was still

retained by the French, and Manhattan by the
Netherlanders.

The natives were now at peace with the colonists,
and their friendly relations began to be productive
of good to both parties. But Dale feared
the consummate art of Powhatan; and, seeing the
powerful check upon his hostile views which the
presence of Pocahontas among the English secured,
he wished to obtain another valued hostage.
Ralph Harner was sent to the king, and,
after a due exchange of courtesies, he asked that
the youngest daughter of Powhatan, a handsome
girl, much beloved by her father, might be sent to
Jamestown, where a husband, well suited to her
taste, would speedily be provided. The old monarch
immediately perceived the distrust of the
colonists, and, after various excuses, he delivered
to Harner a speech, in which the tender feelings
of a father's heart are exhibited with touching
simplicity. He asked why his brother desired to
bereave him of his two children at once. He had
already a pledge of his friendship in his oldest
daughter; and even though no pledge at all existed,
they need fear no injury from him. He had
seen enough of blood; his people had been slain;
his country had been wasted; and now, in his old
age, when he was soon to go to the grave, he desired
nothing but "peace and quietness."[322] With
this answer, the messenger returned to the fort.

Meanwhile, Pocahontas became daily an object
of greater interest to her new friends, and of ever-growing
affection in her husband. Her gentle and
susceptible mind easily received the impress of that
lovely religion, taught in its purity by Christ and
his disciples; and she signified her desire to be
baptized, in testimony of her Christian faith. This
interesting ceremony was performed during the
month of June. She received the name of Rebecca;
and as she was the first native converted to
Christianity, so was she perhaps the most sincere
and most exemplary, in all the virtues of her profession.[323] It has not been amiss, that American genius
has selected the scene of her baptism for
adorning the national hall of the country, whose
infancy was preserved by her courage, and cherished
by her love.

(1615.) From views of domestic pleasure, we turn
to the general interests of a colony which may now
at last be considered as permanent. Virginia had
heretofore had no staple which promised to yield
regular returns to her productive industry. Plank
was liable to injury, and required much labour.
Tar, pitch, and turpentine, pot and pearl ashes,
were produced in Europe far cheaper than inexperienced
hands in the settlement could make them;
vines and silk-worms demanded a dense population
and technical skill; gold and silver had at length,

though most reluctantly, been abandoned as dreams.
In this juncture the colonists turned their eyes
upon a weed, of which the history deserves an exalted
place among the records of human vagaries.
Revolting to an unviolated taste, abhorred by the
brute creation, fatal even to the insects that men
profess most to dislike, this weed has yet gained its
way from the pouch of the beggar to the household
stores of the monarch upon his throne. It has
affected commerce through her every vein, caused
disputes between a king and his subjects, and excited
royal genius to unwonted literary effort; and,
with equal truth may we say, that it has often enveloped
the brave in smoke, and stimulated the
drooping and the despondent. We need scarcely
mention the name of Tobacco. Walter Raleigh
first made it fashionable in England, and smoked
so vigorously, that his servant, in alarm, poured
over his head and face the generous ale intended
to aid in its effect.[324] Elizabeth paid her favourite a
wager, which he fairly won, by weighing the
smoke produced from a certain quantity of this
weed; and her majesty has been suspected of having
regaled her own royal system with a pipe from
time to time.[325] James hated it with unquenchable
fury—drew upon it his pen, and shot forth a
"Counterblast against Tobacco," to convince the
world that it was the appropriate luxury of the
Evil One, and that its smoke was as the vapour of
the bottomless pit.[326]

This plant was known to the Indians throughout
almost the whole of the American continent. The
French navigator, Cartier, had found it in Canada,
in 1535;[327] but it then excited in his crews nothing
but disgust. Ralph Lane carried it from Carolina
to England in 1586; and it soon became a luxury,
used by the rich, and coveted by the poor. The
Spaniards in the south had long cultivated it, and
made it a source of profitable traffic. The Virginians,
finding men more willing to pay for the
exciting and the agreeable than the useful, now determined
to make this weed the staple of their land;
and from the year 1615 to the present time, it has
been always her product, sometimes her support,
often her bane. Her rich soil and warm suns were
well adapted to its wants. Instantly all were full
of diligence and commotion in raising the new staple;—fields
were opened and prepared, trees were
felled, and every spot of cleared land was appropriated
to the precious weed. Corn, and other grain,
were so much neglected, that they were again
threatened with scarcity, and driven to endanger
their peace with the Indians, by demanding from
them supplies. So violent was the tobacco mania,
that Dale thought it necessary to restrain it by

law; and yet when, two years afterwards, Argal
came from England as governor to Virginia, he
found the church in decay, and the yard, the market
square, the very streets of Jamestown full of the
plants of this much-esteemed commodity.[328] The
people were glowing with the belief that they had
discovered a superior mode of drying by suspending
it on lines, instead of piling it in heaps; and it
is related that by large importations for this purpose,
the demand for small cord became great in
the mother country.[329]

(1616.) Sir Thomas Dale prepared to return to
England. The colony owed much to this gentleman;
and notwithstanding his use of the martial
law suggested by Smith, he was respected and beloved
by worthy settlers. He had introduced several
salutary changes, and among the rest one regulating
the tenure of land. Originally, any man
adventuring his person in the colony was entitled
to one hundred acres of ground to his sole and
separate use; but as the settlement increased, this
quantity was found too great, and was reduced to
fifty acres. To encourage industry, it was provided,
that when the first plot granted should be
well cleared and occupied, the owner should have
a right to as much more, to be selected at his pleasure.
For extraordinary merit, the Company
would sometimes give land to a particular person;
but by the King's patent, they were forbidden in

these grants to bestow in all more than two thousand
acres. Any one paying into the treasury
the sum of twelve pounds, ten shillings, acquired a
right to one hundred acres, to be located where he
pleased. Under these regulations, the tenure of
lands became gradually fixed and secure.[330]

Leaving the government to Sir George Yeardley,
Dale embarked for England, and arrived
safely at Plymouth on the 12th of June. He carried
with him John Rolfe and his young wife Pocahontas,
who was now to appear amid the scenes
of European refinement, to which her beauty, her
intelligence, and her artless manners were to impart
additional grace. Captain John Smith was,
at this time, about to commence a voyage to New
England; but on learning of the arrival of the
generous woman who had jeoparded her life to
save his own, his noble nature prompted him to
serve her by all means in his power. He wrote a
letter to the Queen, and used all his influence with
Prince Charles to obtain for it a favourable reception.
Did nothing remain to us of his writings
except this letter, it would yet suffice to give us an
insight into his character. Frank, modest, and
manly, he speaks to her majesty in the true spirit
of an English gentleman. He introduces to her
the amiable Pocahontas; tells of his own danger,
of her heroism in rescuing him, of her love to the
colonists, her self-denial for their welfare, her marriage

and conversion, and of the birth of her son.
Then appealing to the best impulses of the human
heart, he invokes the Queen's tenderness and protection
for this gentle being, thus separated from
her friends, her home, her native ties, and coming
unknown and almost friendless to a land where all,
to her, were strangers.[331] We have reason to believe,
that this letter produced a happy effect upon
the Queen, and excited her sympathies in behalf
of her interesting visiter.

But the learned idiot, who then wore the English
crown, did not look upon this matter with perfect
complacency. The very name of a king had
a magic sound in his ears, and whether the sovereign
were king of Great Britain, Ireland, and
France, or king of the Ashantees in Africa, he
alike regarded him as the anointed of heaven.
Under this view, Pocahontas was a princess, and
Rolfe had married one of the blood royal. Peradventure
he had thus acquired some claim to
sovereignty in Virginia, either for himself or his
offspring, and James was chafed by absurd fears,
based on his own more absurd theory of government.[332]

Captain Smith had not left London when Pocahontas
arrived. The smoke and noise of the city
were so offensive to her, that she immediately retired
to the pleasant village of Brentford, and here

her distinguished friend enjoyed an interview with
her. She had been told that he was dead, and
when he now presented himself, a crowd of conflicting
emotions so affected her that she turned
from him and covered her face with her hands.
But after a season she resumed her composure, addressed
him in the simple language of a heart unschooled
in artifice, reminded him of their former
friendship, and claimed its continuance. She asked
the privilege of calling him her father; and nothing
but a knowledge of the jealousy of the court
could have induced Smith to reject the touching
petition. It would be difficult to imagine a scene
more interesting than this interview between the
brave soldier of England and the heroine of the
American wilderness.[333]

Lady Delaware undertook the pleasing office of
presenting the princess at court; and the genuine
modesty, the good sense, the dignity of manner,
and personal grace, which Pocahontas possessed in
a remarkable degree, soon rendered her a favourite,
and caused her society to be sought by courtiers
and nobles, who vied with each other in paying
her attention. Masks, balls, and theatrical exhibitions
were daily presented for her amusement; and
her susceptible mind seems to have derived intense
pleasure from these evidences of European refinement.[334] But she willingly prepared to return to
Virginia with her husband. Early in 1617, they

arrived at Gravesend, intending soon to embark,
when Pocahontas was attacked by a dangerous malady,
and in a few days resigned her gentle spirit
to Him who gave it. She had not yet reached her
twenty-third year. In the very morning of life,
and when the hearts of all around her were most
tenderly linked to her fate, she was taken away.
Yet, saddening as was the event, we cannot regret
it. We can even see in it evidences of Divine
foresight and mercy. She died with perfect composure,
relying with simple faith upon promises
from lips which have never deceived, and upon
the support of an arm which has never grown
feeble.[335] Had she lived even a few years longer, it
might have been to have her heart tortured by the
sight of murdered colonists and of Indians extermimated,
in a war which all her powers of conciliation
would not have averted.

She left a son, Thomas Rolfe, who, after spending
his childhood and youth in England, came to
Virginia, and by his fortune and his talents exercised
a happy influence upon her destinies. He
died, leaving an only daughter, who intermarried
with Colonel Robert Bolling, and became the mother
of a son, John Bolling, who was her only child.
He was the father of Colonel John Bolling, and of
five daughters, who were severally married to

Richard Randolph, John Flemming, Doctor William
Gay, Thomas Eldridge, and James Murray.[336]
By these channels the blood of the Indian princess
has been transmitted to numerous descendants, who
have inhabited the soil once possessed by her imperial
father. A historian, not unknown to fame,
has asserted that these children of a noble parentage,
have been distinguished rather for virtue and
wealth, than for the more imposing gifts of talent
and renown. "None of them has been conspicuous
in arts or arms: no great statesman or consummate
general has issued from the loins of Powhatan."[337] But these statements must be received
with caution. Were John Randolph, of Roanoke,
the only name to which we could point in this
family,[338] he would be sufficient to shed upon it the
light of a genius too rare to be neglected, too glowing
to be concealed, yet too peculiar to be imitated;
and in the present age, it would be easy, among
the descendants of Pocahontas, to find, in man,
those gifts of nature which cause the few to govern
the many, and in woman the most brilliant personal
beauty, united with the highest of mental
endowments.

Among the attendants of Pocahontas, to the court
of James, was an intelligent Indian, bearing the
euphonious name of Uttamatomakkin, sent by King
Powhatan to ascertain the resources of England,
and particularly the number of her population.

He bravely began his census by notching a long
stick for each person that he met, but soon gave
way in despair, and on returning told his monarch
to number the stars in the sky, the leaves on the
trees, and the sand on the sea-shore, if he desired
to know the number of this great people.[339] This
acute savage formed but a low opinion of the English
sovereign, and in sadness complained to Captain
Smith, that though Powhatan had given to
his white visiter a dog as a present, James had
given nothing to him, and certainly he was better
than a dog! Perchance the native critic was well
fitted to pronounce an impartial opinion upon the
author of the Basilicon Doron.

Meanwhile George Yeardley held the reins of
government in Virginia. He was mild and amiable
in character, but feeble in administration, and
it was thought the colony yet needed a stronger
arm for its control. Already in the counsels of
the London Company, we mark, with pain, the influence
of a court faction, who sympathized with
the King in his hatred of democracy, and opposed
by their intrigues the efforts of the friends of freedom.
Lord Rich and Sir Thomas Smith united
their efforts to obtain the appointment of deputy
governor for Captain Samuel Argal, and they unhappily
succeeded. Early in this year the new
governor came over, and immediately opened his
administration by acts of tyranny, and threats of
its increase. (May.) The martial law of Smith

had been gradually relaxed, until it became almost
lifeless, but Argal breathed into its frame his own
relentless spirit, and it sprang up in pristine vigour.
In the middle of a year of drought and of storm,
attended by a fall of hailstones nine inches in circumference,[340] the provincial monarch thundered
forth his decrees. He bound the private commerce
of the colony in chains; forbidding goods to be sold
for more or less than twenty-five per cent. advance,
or tobacco for more or less than three shillings per
pound, on penalty of three years slavery to the offender.
He forbade all private traffic with the
Indians, and denounced death against any who
should teach them the use of fire-arms. No man
was permitted to hunt deer or hogs without his excellency's
fiat; and a year of slavery was the punishment
for him who should use fire-arms at all,
except in necessary self-defence, until more ammunition
should arrive. No person was to go on
board the ships at Jamestown, nor were the crews
to come on shore, or talk with the inhabitants,
without the governor's license. Any person neglecting
to go to church Sundays and holidays,
was to "lye neck and heels that night,"[341] and be a
slave for a week; for the second offence, he was to
be enslaved a month, and for the third, for a year
and a day![342] From this last clause we infer that
the alternative of the church or the stocks was not
uncommon, and that some preferred the latter.

(1618.) While the colonists were groaning under
this reign of terror, Lord Delaware was preparing
to resume in person his duties as governor. The
company sent him forth with a large ship and two
hundred settlers. Storms soon assailed him; adverse
winds delayed his progress; foul weather
and exhaustion produced disease; and many died
on the passage. His lordship was still in delicate
health; and, unable to bear up under the pressure
now affecting him, he rapidly declined, and died
at sea, when his ship had reached a point probably
not far from the mouth of the bay now bearing his
name.[343] We cannot contemplate the death of this
excellent nobleman without sorrow and sympathy.
Virginia should cherish his memory with warm
affection, for he devoted his best days to her service,
and may truly be said to have fallen a martyr
to his zeal for her welfare.

In the same year in which Delaware died, it is
remarkable that two other persons descended to
the grave, whose names will always be connected
with the most interesting passages of American
history. Walter Raleigh at last fell a sacrifice to
the envy of inferiors, the cruel policy of James,
and the hatred of the Spanish court, all united for
his destruction. And the great emperor Powhatan,

after a life of martial activity, was permitted to die
in peace. He had keenly felt the death of his
daughter, and, from the time it was announced to
him, seems to have lost all interest in public affairs.
He died full of years, and, we may add, laden with
the honours which should gather around the memory
of one who acted well in the sphere to
which his Creator has assigned him. Acute in
mind, inventive in counsel, prompt in execution,
bold in danger, he ever retained his dignity and
his command amid surrounding numbers; and had
not English skill overpowered his native ingenuity,
his dominion would never have been lessened.
His powers were far more exalted than
those of the civilized monarch, who proposed to
hold him in vassalage; and had British soil given
him birth, and hereditary right raised him to the
throne of England, his name would not be found
among those of her kings who are remembered
only to be despised and ridiculed.[344]

After the death of Lord Delaware, Argal continued
his course of arbitrary government, without
scruple or hindrance. His rapacity was insatiate,
and not content with plundering the public store,
by every artifice that his knavery could suggest,
he attacked the private property of the deceased
earl himself, and Lady Delaware has left on record
many complaints of her losses by this fearless
peculator.[345] The unhappy colonists were now fettered

and lying helpless at his feet; for if they
acted or even spake against his oppression, martial
law was forthwith called down upon their heads.

An individual example will illustrate. Argal
had taken under his special care Lord Delaware's
estate, and converted its profits to his own use.
Edward Brewster, who had long been one of its
lawful overseers, remonstrated against this, and
sharply threatened one of the creatures of the governor,
who was fulfilling his master's unrighteous
purposes. This man complained to Argal, who
instantly determined to visit upon the intrepid
Brewster all the terrors of the martial code.

He was arrested and tried under a provision denouncing
death against any man who should "contemptuously
resist or disobey his commander, or
do any act or speak any words which might tend
to breed disorder or mutiny;"[346] and, after a brief
examination, he was found guilty and condemned
to die. Yet so revolting was the whole proceeding
to the Council, that they threw off their accustomed
apathy, and implored mercy for the condemned
at the hands of the governor.[347] Argal had
at first determined that Brewster should die; but
after much entreaty, he consented to pardon him,
on condition that he should leave the colony never
to return, and that neither in England nor elsewhere
should he ever utter any disrespectful words
concerning his persecutor. Conduct so refined in
violence and oppression could not long be concealed.
Brewster appealed to the company in

London, who reversed his sentence, and prepared
to call the inflated governor to account.[348]

Even Sir Thomas Smith could no longer countenance
his kinsman. In union with Sir Lionel
Cranfield and Alderman Johnson, (two members of
the court party,) he wrote to Argal a letter, in
which he charged him, in most cutting terms, with
his manifold crimes and misdemeanors. He accuses
him of rapacity, peculation, embezzlement, in
every shape and form, and threatens him with
speedy punishment. This letter, and one from the
Company to Lord Delaware, had been written before
the death of that nobleman; and they both fell
into the hands of Argal, who took measures for defence,
or, if necessary, for securing, by flight, the
fruits of his dishonesty. (1619.) When the Company
appointed Sir George Yeardley to supersede
him, the Earl of Warwick, formerly Lord Rich,
who was bound to the governor by ties of similarity
in character and partnership in profit, despatched a
small vessel to Virginia, which arrived in time to
carry off Argal and his ill-gotten treasures before
the advent of his successor.[349] (April.) Thus he

escaped punishment, and enjoyed for a season the
gains of iniquity.

The arrival of Sir George Yeardley, as Governor
of Virginia, in the spring of 1619, may be hailed as
the opening of a more brilliant era in her annals
than any that had gone before. Much obloquy has
been heaped upon the London Company, by those
who have marked its faults without regarding its
virtues; but the true lover of freedom will not forget
that to this body America is indebted for the first of
those free constitutions which have so long been
the boast of her highly favoured soil. We have
already spoken of the spirit which appeared and
gained strength in the open debates of this large
body. Men began to find that they could think
for themselves, and that they were not absolutely
dependent for wisdom upon a crowned head. A
small number did indeed steadily adhere to the interest
and policy of the king; but an overwhelming
majority spake, debated, determined, and acted with
all the resolution that intelligent freedom could inspire.
Unable to make this influence fully felt in
England, where popular indignation had not yet
ripened into resistance by arms to the king's prerogative,
they determined to give to Virginia a
constitution embodying their views of the rights of
man. Accordingly, Sir George Yeardley was despatched
with plenary powers, and brought with
him to the settlement several charters, by one of
which he was authorized to call together the "First
General Assembly" that ever sat upon the soil of

the new world.[350] Little did James and his obsequious
servants imagine that he had imparted being
to a parent who was now to give birth to a child
destined by his own innate vigour to shake the dominion
of Britain to its centre, and finally to change
the aspect of the most powerful nations of earth!

Among the manuscript records of the London
Company, which have fortunately been preserved,[351]
we do not find the charter authorizing the creation of
the first representative body in Virginia; but we may
presume that it did not differ materially from the
constitution afterwards fully established under Sir
Francis Wyatt, to which we shall soon have occasion

to refer. It is certain that about the close of
the month of June, the first Assembly met at Jamestown.
The division of counties was yet unknown;
but each borough or township sent a representative,
and from this the legislators acquired the
name of "Burgesses," which they long retained.
The representatives sat and voted in the same room
with the council, and the governor retained a negative
upon all laws or other action. Not one of the
acts of this Assembly has been preserved; but we
have reason to believe they legislated with wisdom,
and that their conduct was approved by the Company
in England.[352]

Such was the origin of true liberty in America.
We find in this constitution much that is obscure,
and of that which is well ascertained we note much
that might be amended; but we see in it the germ
of a representative body, taken from, elected by,
sympathizing with, the people, ready to watch over
their interests and protect their rights, and yet
sufficiently removed from them to be beyond the
immediate influence of their prejudices and passions.
This is as nearly as man may, with safety,
approach to entire self-government.

Besides the important change just alluded to,
this year was fruitful in events deeply affecting
the welfare of the colony. Sir Thomas Smith was
not popular as treasurer. He was too much inclined
to the king's faction, and his increasing
years made him willing to retire from public life.
(April 28.) He was succeeded by Sir Edwin

Sandys, a gentleman of liberal views, of warm
heart, and of steady devotion to the rights of the
Company and of the settlers. Under his care, several
salutary measures were adopted, and a vigorous
spirit pervaded the affairs of the colony.
Nearly one thousand reputable settlers were sent
from the mother country to occupy the soil and
increase the strength of her dependency. But in
recording this great increase, the historian is compelled,
with indignation, to narrate a most shameful
exercise of regal tyranny. King James expressly
commanded the Company to transport to
Virginia one hundred convicts, guilty of every
species of felony, or else adjudged too dissolute to
remain upon the soil of Britain. Entreaties, remonstrances,
appeals, were tried in vain. At a
heavy expense these miscreants were transported
to the colony, to add strength to indolence and
energy to vice. The judicious Stith may well denounce,
in unsparing terms, this conduct, which
"hath laid one of the finest countries in British
America under the unjust scandal of being a mere
hell upon earth."[353] These people and their descendants
gradually improved in morals; but Virginia
has deeply felt the wound which their very
presence inflicted on her.[354]

A great mortality prevailed this season among
the settlers, and three hundred were swept away
within the year.[355] They were, probably, those who
had not yet passed the ordeal of the climate, and
the rank vegetation of the summer and autumn
exercised the most fatal of influences. But if
death was thus busy, abundance seemed to pour
in upon the survivors. An enormous yield of corn
and wheat was gathered, and it is even related that
two harvests were obtained the same year. The
wheat first sown was shaken by the wind, and the
grains which fell produced the second crop. This
seems hardly credible; but the profusion in this
year is proved by the highest authority.[356]

Sir Edwin Sandys looked with great favour
upon the attempt already made to found a college
in the colony, and exerted himself to raise money
for its support. It was seated at Henrico, was
under good directors, and was intended not only
for the education of white children, but also for
training Indian boys to Christian lives and civilized
learning. Many benevolent persons, of both sexes,
in the mother country, contributed to its aid, and
it promised much, when its proceedings were interrupted
by a disaster soon to be mentioned.[357]

And now began the first dispute between England
and her dependency; caused, beyond doubt,
by a spirit of unrighteous demand in the mother,

and of resistance to oppression in the child. King
James, by the charter of 1609, had expressly exempted
the colonists from all customs for twenty-one
years, upon their products imported into England,
except five per cent. on imports, according to
the long-established custom of merchants.[358] But
this astute pedant, notwithstanding his hatred to
tobacco, hated it not with a hatred equal to his love
for money, and determined to draw from this diabolical
commodity a revenue wherewith to appease
his starving coffers. For this purpose a plan was
adopted, as ingenious as it was fraudulent. Spanish
tobacco, being of fine quality, generally sold
for about eighteen shillings per pound, while that
from Virginia never brought more than five, and
generally sold for three or four shillings per pound.
Notwithstanding this disparity, his majesty's custom-house
officers exacted an average duty of six
pence per pound on all tobacco imported, thus favouring
Spain and oppressing Virginia. For it
will be perceived, that this duty would be not
quite three per cent. on the Spanish product, and
from ten to sixteen per cent. on that of the colony.
In addition to this, Mr. Jacob, the farmer of the
tobacco impost, deliberately annexed six pence per
pound to this already heavy tax, thus imposing the
enormous duty of twenty per cent. upon the staple
of Virginia even when it brought its highest
price.[359]

Such oppression could not be endured; the Company
appealed to the courts of law, relying upon
the strength of their charter; but as might have
been foretold, they met with meagre justice and
much loss. The conflict thus commenced, continued,
with little intermission, during several
years. The King granted monopolies for the sale
of tobacco, limited the quantity to be imported,
appointed commissioners for inspecting or "garbling,"
and confiscating all that they might see fit
to declare to be of "base quality;" exacted heavy
duties, and yet, when the Company, wearied by his
systematic oppression, ceased to import the weed
into Britain, and sent it to the inviting ports of
Holland, his majesty flew into a royal rage, and
forbade them to send their own products to any
other country, unless they were first landed in
England. The Company appealed to the House
of Commons, and supported their right to ship
their staple directly to Holland, by referring to
their charters, which in no sense restricted this
well-known privilege of English subjects. The
controversy was waged with skill and violence on
both sides, until finally, in 1622, a compromise
was effected. The articles agreed upon provided,
that the Virginia and Somers' Island Companies
should have the sole right to import tobacco into
the British realm; that no person should be permitted
to plant this article on the soil of Great

Britain during the continuance of this agreement;
that besides the regular duties of sixpence a pound
on roll, and fourpence on leaf, the Company should
pay to his majesty a full third part of all the tobacco
imported; but they were not obliged to import
a greater quantity than they thought proper;
that the Company should import from forty to sixty
thousand pounds of Spanish tobacco in each of the
first two ensuing years; and that the contract
should commence at Michaelmas, 1622, and continue
for seven years.[360]

Thus did James drive the Spaniards from his
market, and grant to the English colonists a complete
monopoly for the sale of their staple. It is
singular that he should have done this, while his
love of popery was still strong, and while he was
indulging in ardent hopes of soon effecting a marriage
between his son Charles and the infanta of
Spain;[361] but it is still more singular, that the Company
should have supposed they would derive pecuniary
benefit from this change. Few articles
can bear a tax amounting to more than one-third
their value; and nothing but the insatiate longing
for a stimulant once indulged, could have attracted
an ounce of this weed to England after the granting
of the monopoly. But men have ever preferred
their vices or their vagaries to their own
substantial welfare. During the years in which

this dispute was in progress, we find in the pages
of Stith, little but the word "tobacco," repeated in
every possible combination, until we are almost led
to imagine that the odour of the weed clings permanently
to the words of the reverend historian.
We shall again encounter it as we pass through
the story of Virginia's fortunes.

(1620.) An incident now presents itself, upon
which none who have proper feelings, can look
without melancholy interest, and which few Englishmen
or Americans can regard without deep
humiliation. It is not a purpose here entertained
to enter upon a history of slavery; to go back to
the time when man first bought and sold his fellow-creatures,
or when, under the Divine constitution,
it first became lawful for one mortal to control
another as his property. Whatever may be the
ravings of fanaticism on this subject, it is certain
that the father of the faithful, the chosen servant
of the Almighty, owned and governed slaves in a
mode as absolute as any that had ever prevailed in
the Southern States of the American Union.[362] It
is also certain, that the inspired Apostle of Christ,
who enjoyed more abundant revelations than any
other writer of the New Testament, has laid down
laws to govern the relation of master and slave;
thus proving it to be lawful.[363]
For neither has the

Deity, nor have righteous men, at any time given
laws to regulate an unlawful relation, as that of
adulterer and adulteress, receiver and thief. But
upon a subject which has excited, and is still producing
so profound emotion in the world, we will
not enter the arena of debate. Inexorable necessity
alone[364] could induce the people of Virginia to
continue an institution which, however lawful, is
not desirable; which has been entailed upon them
by British ancestors; which they have perseveringly
struggled to mitigate; and from which they
hope finally to see their land wholly delivered. It
is rather the duty of the historian to trace evils to
their sources, and, without fear or malice, to attach
censure to those who have rendered themselves ingloriously
immortal, by giving birth to ills which
are destined to curse the world when their bodies
have, during ages, slumbered in the dust.

England has always held slaves under her control:
villeins in the feudal ages—kidnapped Africans
under Elizabeth—negroes in her American
islands—white children in the mines and factories
upon her own soil—conquered Hindoos in her vast
East Indian domain. Nevertheless, it is true that
the bondman who now touches her soil becomes
free, and may have a writ of "habeas corpus" to
secure his liberty! So skilful is she in retaining

the substance without the form, in giving to her
poets and orators a phantom upon which to waste
their eloquence, while she relaxes not her grasp
upon the enslaved spirit thus disembodied! Sir
John Hawkins was the first Englishman of note,
who openly engaged in the slave trade. In 1562,
he visited Africa, enticed the unsuspecting negroes
aboard his ship, attacked and captured a large
number of a hostile tribe, promised them all much
comfort under the pleasant skies of Hispaniola,
sold them to the Spaniards upon that island, and
returned to England "with a rich freight of pearls,
sugar, and ginger," to excite his countrymen to
emulation, and to allay the qualms of the Queen's
conscience by displays of wealth, and promises of
great moderation in his future kidnappings.[365] Thus,
while the Pope of Rome was steadily hurling anathemas
at this inhuman traffic,[366] a Protestant princess
received it under her especial care and countenance.

But though England sanctioned the slave trade,
sold her own people into servitude, after the unhappy
rebellion of Monmouth, in the reign of
James II.,[367] and afterwards contributed heavily to

swell the number of Africans on the soil of America,
yet she did not originally introduce them.
James I was content to prepare the minds of the
colonists for enslaving their innocent fellow-beings,
by sending guilty wretches from Britain to servitude
in the settlement.[368] In August, 1620, a Dutch
man-of-war sailed up the James, landed twenty
negroes from the African coast,[369] and soon obtained
a sale for them from the planters, who were willing
at any expense, either of money or of feeling, to
secure suitable labourers for their lucrative staple.
We will not further dwell upon this circumstance,
or upon its results. The number was small, but
the practice was commenced; the virus was introduced
into the blood of the patient, and centuries
perchance will yet elapse ere she will recover from
its influences.

From a cargo of unhappy negroes, torn from
their native land to be reduced to bondage on a
distant soil, we pass immediately to an importation
far more useful, more agreeable, more interesting
in all its aspects. The colonists had hitherto
wanted permanency of view. Many of them
came to Virginia with the mere hope of amassing
wealth, and then with a fixed design to return to
the comforts of their native land. They regarded
the colony as a commercial speculation, rather than

as the fœtus of a great and prosperous people.
But gradually this unsettled feeling had diminished;
men began to regard the beautiful country
around them with affection, and to look upon
it with all those tender thoughts which gather
around the spot we call our home. To encourage
this sentiment, the Company adopted a plan as
novel as it was judicious. The presence of woman
has always been necessary, to cause the wandering
desires of man to centre upon a particular spot.
The Deity judged not unwisely when he brought
our mother to Adam, who was already surrounded
by the charms of Eden; for without her, the garden
would not long have retained his restless spirit.

Hitherto, matrimonial connexions in the colony
had not been numerous. Many families, it is true,
had come undivided, but a large number of men
were still single, and composed a class most capable
of affecting the settlement either for good or
for evil. To provide these with companions, the
managers in England made proper proposals, and
immediately ninety young females declared that
they were ready to devote themselves to so praiseworthy
an object.[370] They were shipped to the colony,
and, as the adventurers had made a considerable
outlay in preparing them for the voyage,
on arrival, they were offered for sale—the price
demanded being one hundred and twenty pounds
of tobacco.[371] This, at three shillings per pound,

would be a sum equal to about eighty dollars, but
if proper allowance be made for the greater value
of money at that time than at the present, each of
these damsels was to be sold for nearly one hundred
and fifty dollars. Immediately on arriving,
these gentle ladies were placed before the young
colonists. Offers were rapid. They sold in a
brief space of time, and were duly united in holy
wedlock to their respective purchasers. Family
ties were formed; mutual content prevailed; life
began to grow brighter; cares lost their depressing
power. Certainly we may suppose, that women
who had not been deterred by any silly fastidiousness
from seeking advantageous matches by such
means, would not afterwards torment their husbands
by the caprices and follies to which their
sex is said to be liable; and the young planters had
every guarantee for finding in their wives the respect
and obedience, alike required by laws human
and divine.

This encouraging prospect induced the Company
to prepare for another shipment. They designed
to send one hundred, but their funds were
only sufficient for sixty, and, accordingly, that
number speedily arrived at Jamestown. We are
told by good authority, that they were young,
handsome, and chaste.[372] We may not presume
that the daughters of noblemen, or even of the

higher gentry of England, embarked on this truly
philanthropic excursion; but we have the best reason
to believe, that they were girls of respectable
parentage, of more than common personal beauty,
and of undoubted virtue.[373] Great care was taken
to permit none to go out whose morals were not
pure; and, in proof of the strictness observed on
this point, we find, at a later period, an order of
Council, regularly made, to send back to England
two women, whose chastity had been successfully
assailed, and who had become pregnant during the
passage.[374] They were instantly discarded, as unworthy
to propagate a race who have always been
proverbial for honour in man, and for purity in
woman.

The importation of this year sold as rapidly as
the first. The price rose to one hundred and fifty
pounds of tobacco; and as we do not hear of any
very heavy bidding for particular maidens, while
others were neglected, or only taken if accompanied
by a premium, we infer that a remarkable equality
prevailed in the attractions of these damsels, and
that this had been a point judiciously managed by
the consignors. The Company proved its wisdom
by annexing strong inducements to wedlock; declaring
that they would deal with, ship to, and in
all things favour married men, rather than those
who, after a certain age, remained single.[375]

Under these happy auspices we note a perceptible

improvement in the affairs of the colony;
industry revived, men became attached to their
homes and settled in their views, the servitude of
apprenticeship was relaxed, and all things wore a
cheering aspect, until the terrible disaster which it
will soon be our duty to record.

Sir George Yeardley was a man of mild and
sensitive spirit, and so deeply was he wounded by
the ungenerous attacks constantly made upon him
by the court party in the Company, with Warwick
and Argal at its head, that his health began to decline.
He fell into painful languor of body,[376] from
which he seems not to have recovered. Sir Francis
Wyatt was appointed to succeed him, and early
in August set out for the colony. He brought with
him a written constitution for the settlers, and full
instructions for his own guidance and control.
The constitution was but intended to confirm the
privileges granted under Sir George Yeardley, but
it will ever remain among our records as a monument
of the noble and expanded spirit pervading
the counsels of the London Company.[377]

After erecting two councils—one to consist of the
governor and his advisers, known as the Council
of State, and the other to consist of the first body,
together with two burgesses from each town, hundred,
or plantation, to be freely elected by the people,
and called together by the governor, once a
year, and not oftener unless for special reason,—

the charter provides that this last-mentioned body,
forming one "General Assembly," shall have power
to make laws, subject, however, to an absolute
negative in the governor, and subject also to the
approval of the Company at some one of their quarterly
courts. But, with admirable equity, it was
farther declared, that no action of the Company
should be binding on the colonists unless duly ratified
by the General Assembly.[378] Imperfect as was
this constitution, it should afford unmixed delight,
when we remember whence it came, and under the
reign of what sovereign it was granted.

The instructions accompanying the governor,
with much that is good, embrace some things savouring
of the errors of the age.[379] The Church of
England is commended to his fatherly care—
drunkenness is denounced—fine clothes are proscribed—a
census is commanded—dead men's estates
are to be properly guarded—mulberry trees,
vines, salt, tar, pitch, and soap-ashes are to be encouraged.
The people are not to plant more than
one hundred pounds of tobacco per head, and they
are absolutely required to son great quantities of
corn, to provide effectually against famine or even
scarcity.

Thus enjoying the blessings of liberty, of health,
of good laws, and of an amiable governor, the people

of Virginia began to put forth their energies,
and already abundance and peace were the rewards
of their exertions. But a dark cloud was gathering
above them, unseen indeed by their eyes, which
were sealed in placid confidence, yet pregnant
with a storm that was soon to descend in horror
and death upon their devoted heads.

Since the marriage of Pocahontas with John
Rolfe, the Indians had preserved the most peaceful
relations with the settlers, and hopes were entertained
that permanent friendship would be established
between them. The dominion of Powhatan
had descended to his brother Opitchapan, a feeble
and decrepit chieftain, who was neither dreaded by
the whites, nor respected by his own subjects.
But there was one mind among the natives, which
now exercised all the sway of superior genius and
courage. Opecancanough has heretofore been mentioned.
It is doubtful whether he was in any manner
related to Powhatan, though he is often spoken
of as his brother. Among the Indians, and some of
the whites, prevailed a belief that he came from a
tribe far in the southwest, perhaps from the interior
of Mexico.[380] But in talents and influence he was
now the ruling power among the savages. Profound
in dissimulation, cruel by nature and by
habit, patient of suffering, skilled in every species
of treachery, and possessed of a ready eloquence,
always at his command, he soon gained over the
minds of his inferiors an ascendency as resistless

as it was dangerous. When Sir Francis Wyatt
assumed the government, he sent messengers to
this powerful chief, asking a renewal of their
friendly pledges, and promising his countenance
and protection to the Indians. George Thorpe, a
minister of the Gospel, possessed of great piety and
zeal, accompanied this mission, and they returned
perfectly satisfied with their success. Opecancanough
received them with every mark of delight;
assured them that heaven and earth should
mingle ere he should dissolve the peace between
them; expressed much reverence for the Christian
system, which was expounded to him; and, with
consummate hypocrisy, renounced his own religion
as a scheme of falsehood, invented by priests and
conjurors.[381] The simple-hearted divine was deceived,
and began to cherish hopes that this perfidious
savage would soon become a convert to the faith of
the Redeemer. He even exerted himself to have
a house built for Opecancanough, with which the
chief was so much delighted, that he could spend
hours in locking and unlocking the doors of his
mansion.[382] Yet during all their interviews, this man
was nursing in his bosom a plan of diabolical vengeance,
which was soon to be carried into full
effect.

The English had become careless and unsuspecting.
Believing the natives to be their friends,
they admitted them freely to their houses—sometimes

supplied them with arms, employed them
in hunting and fishing for their families, and in
all respects treated them as faithful allies. As
habits of industry and steady labour gained ground,
the colonists relaxed their martial discipline. The
plough was a more useful implement than the
musket, and the sword had given place to the hoe
and the pickaxe. Seduced by the present tranquillity,
and by the fertile soil found in belts of
land upon all the rivers running into the bay, they
had extended their settlements until they were
now nearly eighty in number, and spread in scattered
plantations over a space of several hundred
miles.[383] They were lulled into complete security
by the demeanour of the natives; and those who
were most zealous for religion, were beginning to
hope that the seeds of the truth were taking root
in many untutored minds, and would, after a season,
produce fruits of joy and peace. Some were
not thus sanguine; and among those who looked
with most suspicion upon the Indians, we mark
the name of Jonas Stockam, a minister, who has
left on record an open acknowledgment of his distrust.[384] His strong common sense, his knowledge
of human nature, and his observations upon the
natives around him, all confirmed his belief that
they were yet highly dangerous, and that until
their priests and "ancients" were destroyed, no
hope of their conversion need be entertained. But
his warnings, and slight proofs of enmity in the
savages,[385] were alike disregarded. The colonists
remained immersed in unruffled security.

In the mean time Opecancanough was preparing
the actors in his infernal drama. Either in person,
or by his emissaries, he visited all the tribes
composing the confederacy over which Powhatan
had held dominion. He roused them to revenge;
represented their wrongs; wrought their passions
to intensity by mingled promises of blood and of
rapine; pointed to the defenceless state of the colonists,
and established a complete organization for
the work of death. No people whom the world has
ever seen can be compared with the aborigines of
America, in skill to concert schemes of ingenious
perfidy, and in the deep silence and caution with
which they are accomplished. In the night, or
the day, they move through the forest with a step
more stealthy than that of the leopard, about to
spring upon his victim. Large bodies pass from
one point to another, and leave not a trace of their
progress, or a sound by which their presence might
be detected.[386] The savages of Virginia were now
embodied for their fatal purpose, and awaited but
the signal from their leader to fall upon the unsuspecting
colonists.

Opecancanough soon obtained a pretext for commencing
hostilities. Among the Indians, was a
noted young warrior, who had often distinguished

himself in the wars of his tribe, and who united
to the other traits of the savage, a passion for dress
so extravagant, that he was known by the English
under the title of Jack of the Feather. His Indian
name was Nemattanow. He was greatly esteemed
by his countrymen for the grace of his person,
and the boldness of his spirit; and having escaped
without a wound from the many skirmishes in
which he had been engaged, he was regarded by
the simple savages as invulnerable and immortal.
This reputation he highly valued, and sedulously
cherished; but it was soon to be put to the test.
He often visited the settlements, and was so well
known that his appearance created no suspicion.
At length he came to the house of a colonist named
Morgan, urged him to accompany him to Pamunky
for purposes of traffic, and offered him immense
gain. The unhappy Englishman consented; but
on the way he was murdered by his treacherous
companion, and his body was rifled of its clothing.[387]
A few days afterwards, Nemattanow, wearing Morgan's
hat, appeared on his grounds. Two strong
young men, who had been employed by the colonist
as labourers, immediately accused the Indian
of having caused his death, and wished to carry
him, for examination, before a justice of the peace.
He resisted, and they instantly shot him down,
and conveyed him, mortally wounded, towards
the nearest magistrate. On the way, finding his
strength fast failing, the ruling passion appeared
strong in death. He implored them to bury his
body where it should never be discovered, and not
to reveal to his countrymen that he had really
died. So strong in the bosom of man is the
desire for immortal fame among his fellow-beings.[388]

There is reason to believe that Opecancanough
secretly rejoiced at the death of this young warrior,
whose influence had inspired him with jealousy;[389]
but he hesitated not to convert it to his own bloody
purposes. He represented the case among the Indians
in false colours, and urged them, by their
affection for the memory of their favourite, to avenge
his death upon the colonists. A time was now selected,
and the natives were secretly drawn together
to effect their design.

On Friday, the 22d day of March, the tragedy
began. So perfect was the confidence of the settlers,
that they loaned the savages their boats to
cross the rivers for their deadly purpose—many of
them even came in to take the morning meal with
the whites, and brought deer, turkeys, fish, and
fruits, which they offered for sale in the usual
manner. But at mid-day the scene of blood was
opened. Instantly, and as if by magic, the savages
appeared at every point, and fell upon their victims
with the weapons which first presented themselves.
Neither age nor sex was spared. The tender infant
was snatched from the mother to be butchered
before her eyes,—wives were left weltering in blood
in the presence of their husbands,—men, helpless
from age, or wholly without defence, were stricken
down ere they could see the foe who assailed them.

In one morning, three hundred and forty-nine settlers
were slain upon the several plantations.[390] The
murderers were lashed into frenzied excitement by
their own passions; and, not content with the work
of death, they mutilated the corpses in a manner so
revolting, that the original recorders of this massacre
shrink from the task of describing them!

No considerations of honour or of gratitude restrained
the hands of the savages. George Thorpe
had been their friend, their benefactor, their steady
advocate,—he had laboured alike for their temporal
good and their immortal interests. Yet they
repaid him by imbruing their hands in his blood,
and then cutting and disfiguring his lifeless corse
with all the fury of impotent malice.[391] Six members
of the Council were among the victims of this
fatal day; and it would seem that nothing but a
special intervention of the divine order of things
saved the colony from total ruin.

Amid a scene of brutal murder, displaying the
darkest passions that prevail in the human heart,
it is grateful to be able to point with triumph to a
victory achieved by Christianity alone; and if the
Indians generally had been callous to all appeals
from a higher authority than man, one of their
number, at least, was destined to prove that his

race was not utterly abandoned to the dominion of
evil. A young Indian convert, named Chanco,
lived with Richard Pace, and was treated by him
with all the tenderness of a son. The brother of
this native slept with him the night before the massacre,
and urged him to kill his master, telling him
that he intended that fate for his own. But the
young Christian recoiled with horror from the proposal,
and the next day informed Mr. Pace, who
instantly despatched an express to Jamestown.[392]
Thus the principal settlement was alarmed,—guns
and swords were made ready, and the natives ventured
not to make an assault.

It is remarkable that wherever resistance was
made to these fiends it was entirely successful.
Too cruel to be brave, they fled from the first vigorous
onset; and had the colonists received one
hour's warning, no life would have been lost that
was not dearly atoned for. An old soldier who
had served under John Smith, although surrounded
by Indians and severely wounded, clove the
skull of one assailant with a single stroke of an
axe, and the rest instantly took to flight. A Mr.
Baldwin, whose wife was lying before his eyes,
profusely bleeding from many wounds, by one
well-directed discharge, drove a crowd of murderers
from his house. Several small parties of settlers
obtained a few muskets from a ship that happened
to be lying in the stream near their plantations,

and with these they routed the savages in every
direction, and dispersed them in great alarm.[393]

In reading these accounts, we know not whether to
wonder more at the infernal skill of the natives in
choosing the time and circumstances of their attack,
or at the unparalleled confidence of the colonists
while within reach of such a foe.

At the iron-works, which had been in successful
operation at Falling Creek, the work of death was
so complete, that of twenty-four occupants none
escaped except a boy and girl, who concealed themselves
with much difficulty.[394] The superintendent
of these works had discovered a vein of lead ore,
which was of great utility until the massacre; but
afterwards it remained unknown until Col. Byrd
of Virginia bribed an Indian to reveal the spot, by
dropping his tomahawk upon the place.[395]

The immediate effects of this blow upon the
colony were most disastrous. Horror and consternation
pervaded every mind; nearly one-fourth of
their whole number had, in a single hour, been
stricken down. The rest were drawn hastily together
around Jamestown. Distant plantations
were abandoned, and in a short time eighty settlements
were reduced to six. Some few bold spirits
(and among them a woman) refused to obey the

order, and remained on their country-seats, among
their servants, mounting cannon at weak points,
and preparing to meet the treacherous foe with
becoming courage. But they were compelled by
law to abandon their strongholds, and to unite
their resources to the common fund. A terrible
reaction in the feelings of the colonists immediately
took place. They had trusted the natives and had
been betrayed; they had given them arms only to
be turned against their own lives; they had laboured
for their good, and had been rewarded by
seeing their wives and children butchered before
their eyes. Their purpose now seemed not one of
revenge, but of extermination. They could no
longer hold any terms with a people whose friendship
was hypocrisy, whose promises were falsehood,
whose very smiles were the precursors of
bloodshed and death. They regarded them as
they would have looked upon the hyena, or the
poisonous reptile, with which no safety can be enjoyed,
except in his destruction. A war ensued,
in which the fiercest impulses that man can feel
were called into being. No truce was ever declared.
The Indians were shot down at any time,
and in any place in which they showed themselves.
When seedtime approached, hostilities declined
from absolute necessity. The English resorted to
a stratagem which cannot be justified. Offering
peace to the savages, they seduced them from their
places of concealment; but in the midst of their
labour, they rushed upon them, cut down their
corn, and put to death a large number, among
whom were several of their greatest warriors and
most skilful chieftains.[396] So embittered and so
deep was the feeling of hatred thus engendered
between the races, that for many years it was transmitted
from father to son. The colonists looked
upon the Indians as their hereditary foes, and the
unhappy natives never spoke of the "long knives"
without fear and execration.

When intelligence of this massacre reached England,
it excited profound sympathy in many bosoms.
Instead of suffering themselves to be discouraged,
the London Company determined on
renewed efforts for restoring the colony. Captain
John Smith offered his services to subdue the
Indians, and openly proposed the policy of the
Spaniards in South America and the Atlantic
Isles as worthy of adoption. It is probable the
brave Captain knew not all the cruelties of the
people he presented as models; he had experienced
savage perfidy himself, and would naturally
regard no measures as too severe in order to
their conquest.[397] But his offer was finally declined.
Some of the Company offered to permit him to go,
provided he would bear his own expenses, and pay
one half the pillage into their coffers! It is needless
to say, that this proposal was indignantly rejected.

King James, on hearing of the disaster, was
wrought into wondrous rage against the Indians,
and affection for the settlers. Forthwith, he loaned
the adventurers twenty barrels of powder, and
sundry old swords and muskets from the Tower,
which would have been useless in any hands, however
skilful. He promised to raise four hundred
soldiers in England, for the special protection of
the colony; but this was never accomplished.
His coward spirit delighted not in deeds of arms,
or in preparation for the field of battle.[398]

The zeal of the London Company, their exertions
for the colony, and their heavy losses encountered
in its behalf, did not shield them from the
tyranny of the King. Among the writers who
have recorded the life of this body, we find few to
approve its conduct, and many to load it with indiscriminate
censure. We are told of all the evils
attendant on the deeds of a commercial corporation;
but these evils are not specified, or if specified,
not proved.[399] It would be well to remember the
difficulties that these adventurers had encountered
and overcome. It is true the settlement had suffered
from sickness, from famine, from savage warfare
and from internal dissension; but, whether its
condition would have been better under any other

form of government that James would have granted,
remains to be proved. It is certain that the Company
expended more than one hundred thousand
pounds, for which they received no adequate recompense.
It is certain, that, though clothed with
absolute power, they freely granted to the colonists
a representative government, which will for ever
stand on record to vouch their generous spirit. It
is certain they evinced steady interest in the affairs
of the settlers, displaced wicked agents, removed
grievances, and only ruled them with severity,
when nothing else would have preserved them
from destruction. Such were their good deeds;
and if they often erred, their faults were venial, and
merited not the fate to which they were finally
subjected.

But we need not look to the errors of the London
Company for the cause of its ruin. The motive
of the King is much more obvious and much
less defensible. With all the intensity proper to a
monarch who claimed absolute power, he hated
the semblance of liberty which appeared in the debates
of the quarterly courts. The spirit of free
inquiry was now rapidly gaining ground in England;
it had manifested itself in the House of Commons,
in many forms ungrateful to his majesty;
but it chiefly pervaded the discussions of a body
which he himself had called into being, and which
now numbered more than a thousand adventurers.
So open were the principles of freedom, declared
and defended by the Company, that the Spanish
ambassador, Gondomar, warned the King against

their influence, and declared, that "The Virginia
courts are but a seminary to a seditious Parliament."[400] A despicable faction, composed of members,
few in number but active in intrigue, sought
to paralyse the energies of the Company and to
render it a mere tool to the King. At the head of
this court party we find the dishonest Warwick,
the rapacious Argal, the sordid Cranfield, and the
reptile Butler; and others composed it, equally
adverse to freedom and to the true interests of the
colony. The vanity of James had already received
two mortal strokes, for which he never forgave the
predominant party in the corporation.

In 1620, Sir Edwin Sandys having resigned
the office of treasurer, the King determined to interfere
and procure the election of one of his own
creatures for his successor. He knew well that
under the charter he had no right to nominate, or
even suggest the officer upon whose fidelity to
their interests the Company were so dependent;
yet in a most indelicate manner he sent in the
names of four persons, Sir Thomas Smith, Sir
Thomas Roe, Alderman Johnson, and Maurice
Abbot, and declared his desire "out of his especial
care and affection for the colony," that one of these
should be made treasurer; but the Company showed
no disposition to submit to this outrage, and the
King, finding them firm, became alarmed, and with
very ill grace withdrew his nominees; the meeting
then immediately, by a unanimous vote, elected

the Earl of Southampton, a nobleman of great public
spirit, and well known to be deeply imbued
with the growing love of religious and civil freedom.[401] It might have been supposed that this rebuff
would have been sufficient, and that the nervous
monarch would not have renewed an attempt,
the failure of which had so deeply mortified him.
Yet, in 1622, we find him again sending the names
of five strenuous courtiers to the quarterly session,
and imploring them to elect one of them treasurer.
Again they refused; Southampton received a vote
nearly unanimous; and James with difficulty retained
his venom until a suitable opportunity
should present itself for discharging it upon the
hated corporation.[402]

He gradually threw off the mask and assumed
an attitude of direct hostility. Upon some frivolous
pretext, Sir Edwin Sandys was imprisoned;
but as he was an influential member of the House
of Commons, the King found it necessary to explain
his action to that jealous and formidable body.[403]
Charges against the Company were listened to with
greedy ears; accusations were invented, and suspicions
of malfeasance were nursed into realities.
(1623.) At this time, one Nathaniel Butler returned
from the colony, and being introduced by
the court faction to the King, he highly pleased and
edified his majesty by publishing a tissue of enormous
falsehoods under the title of "The Unmasked

Face of our Colony in Virginia, as it was in the winter
1622."[404] In this ennobling production, he
attacks with indiscriminate abuse the physical and
social state of the colony, declaring that the climate
was pestilential, the rivers were shallow, the soil
was barren, the products were meagre, the houses
were not fit for human beings, the people were
seditious, the manufactories were neglected, the
forts dismantled, and the whole settlement was in
a miserable condition, "odious to themselves and
contemptible to all the world."

The King, pretending fully to believe these slanders,
determined at once to wrest the government
from the hands of the Company. (Oct. 8.) He
coolly sent them a message, informing them that,
having taken into his princely consideration the
distressed state of the colony, he had resolved to
change the mode of their charter. He intended to
appoint a governor and twelve assistants, to reside
in England, who were to fill their own vacancies
with the concurrence of the king. This council
was (the king concurring in like manner) to appoint
a governor and twelve assistants, to live in
the colony, and act as a provincial council. He did
not design to deprive the colonists of the franchises
they now enjoyed, but wished them to be more immediately
under his paternal care. As to the Company,
he asked them to decide, with all expedition,
whether they would submit and surrender their
charters; for should they resist, he gave them the

consoling assurance that he should proceed to crush
them in the manner he might deem most expedient.[405]

When this order of council was announced, the
Company were stricken dumb with astonishment.
Unwilling, at first, to believe, they required that the
paper should be deliberately read three several
times, and when the last reading was over, for many
minutes no man uttered one word. Profound silence
reigned throughout the assembly. They could not
bring their minds to receive the truth that the King
contemplated an act of so gross injustice.[406] But
when the fact was finally realized, they resolved to
defend with courage their privileges and chartered
rights. A puny faction voted for the surrender,
but one hundred and twelve members signified their
resolve to defy the malice of the King.

His enmity did not long sleep. (Oct. 24.) To
preserve the semblance of justice, he appointed commissioners[407] to visit Virginia, and there to use their
utmost industry in gathering subjects of complaint
against the Company's management. They were to
inspect plantations, forts, arms, boats, bridges, people,
houses, savages; every thing in which they might
detect malfeasance or abuse. (Nov. 10.) Seventeen
days after their departure a writ of "quo warranto"
issued from the Court of King's Bench, and
was served upon the deputy treasurer and several
other members of the Company. This well known

process subjects a corporation to a rigid judicial
ordeal; and it has as often been used as the instrument
of rapine and violence, as of salutary correction.[408] Nicholas Farrar, the deputy treasurer, was
imprisoned, the records and papers of the Company
were seized, and the court party endeavoured by
every dishonourable means to perplex and disable
their companions. Notwithstanding all this, the
majority preserved their magnanimous bearing, and
prepared with coolness for the expected shock.

(1624.) Meanwhile the commissioners had arrived
in Virginia, and forthwith entered upon their
task. (Feb. 14.) About the same time a General
Assembly convened at Jamestown, and though
every effort had been made to keep secret the
object for which the commissioners were sent,
yet by some means it was discovered, and the assembly
appointed John Pountis,[409] one of the Council,
to go to England and plead the cause of the
colony before his majesty. Their advocate died
on the way, but the address of the Assembly was
presented to the King. They earnestly protest
against a return of the martial rule of Sir Thomas
Smith, with its accompanying horrors of starvation
and cannibalism. They completely refute the slanderous
charges of Nathaniel Butler, and implore
the King to support them in their present labours,
and, above all, to continue to them the blessing of

the free government they now enjoyed. We find
this paper signed by Sir Thomas Wyatt, the governor,
and by several members both of the Council
and House of Burgesses.

The acts of this Assembly are memorable, both
from their antiquity and their intrinsic excellence.
They are the earliest upon the statute book of
Virginia.[410]
After providing for the due worship of
God, and the support of the ministry, according to
the false principles of their age, they set forth a
"petition of right," which may be considered one
of the clauses of our Magna Charta. The governor
is forbidden to lay any taxes or imposts upon the
colonists or their property without the consent of
the General Assembly; neither can he withdraw
the people from their private labours, except under
special circumstances, and with strict impartiality.[411]

The day of the massacre (March 22) is appointed
for a holy-day, to be duly solemnized as
other such days; trading with the Indians is forbidden;
arms and ammunition are to be carefully
guarded; and it seems that, at the beginning of
each July, the colonists were required to make an
attack upon the natives, in order to their total subjugation.[412]

The remaining acts are, in general, judicious.
We note, as a curious fact, that a short time afterwards,
the governor was compelled to issue his
proclamation under the authority of law, forbidding

any woman to engage herself to more than
one man at the same time, and denouncing corporeal
punishment against the fair one who should
thus offend.[413] We have melancholy reason to believe,
that such a law, in the present age, would
not be without good effect.

The commissioners, finding the Assembly on
their guard, and ready for defence, sought to intimidate
them, and endeavoured to inveigle them
into a surrender of their charter. But they steadily
repelled these assaults; and when Edward
Sharples, clerk of the Council, was convicted of
breach of trust, in revealing their acts to the commissioners,
he was condemned to the usual punishment.
(May 10.) He was set in the pillory, and
one of his ears was cut from his head;[414] a penalty
as degrading as it was richly deserved.

The Parliament of England had assembled, and
the Company, despairing of justice from the hands
of the King, appealed to the House of Commons.
It has been said, that the cold reception given by
this body to their address, furnishes conclusive
proof that the Company was unpopular;[415] but an
egregious error may be here committed. When
the humble memorial of the adventurers was presented,
the King immediately sent a stern message,
protesting against its reception, and peremptorily
ordering the Commons to give it no countenance.
This great branch of the legislature contained men

who hated oppression, and already looked with
jealous eyes upon the royal prerogative; but they
had not yet tested the full strength of their own
powers of resistance, and they had always regarded
the Virginia Company as peculiarly under the
control of the crown, and protected by their charter
from illegitimate interference. It is not singular,
therefore, that the Commons should have
obeyed the King, and refused to receive the memorial.[416] Yet in the same session we find the Parliament
declaring, that the Company ought to have
the exclusive privilege of importing tobacco into
the British realm.[417] A strange liberality, truly, to
be shown to an overgrown corporation, then tottering,
as is alleged, beneath the full weight of popular
odium!

To enable the Company to prepare for their defence,
the Attorney-General was so far just as to
cause their records and other papers to be returned
to them. One of the last acts of this noble body,
was the re-election of Sir Francis Wyatt, governor,
by an overwhelming majority over his opponent,
Samuel Argal, who was supported by all the
influence of the royalist party. To the very moment
of death, the Company manifested invincible
courage; but its fate came hastening on.

When the commissioners returned from Virginia,
they made a report,[418] studiously unfavourable

to the corporation. They represented the colony
as in a most unhappy state, suffering with disease,
famine, and Indian hostility; but they insisted
that it might be made a valuable part of his
majesty's domains. With cool effrontery, they declared,
that the settlement was much better governed
under the charter of 1606, and that the
popular course it had assumed, both at home and
abroad, since 1612, had been highly prejudicial to
its interests. On hearing this report, the King
delayed no longer the intended blow. By proclamation,
dated 15th July, he suppressed the
quarterly sessions of the Company, and ordered
that, for the present, a meeting, composed of the
Lord President, and some other members of his
majesty's Privy Council, with a few knights and
gentlemen, should be held each Thursday evening,
at the house of Sir Thomas Smith, to consider
the affairs of the colony.[419]

Such was the end of the wealthy, the talented,
the high-minded body, who had so long directed
the destinies of Virginia. The King, by an illegal
proclamation, inflicted the mortal stroke; the
judicial sentence was afterwards pronounced: a
proceeding as just as would be the conduct of a
government in requiring its executive officer to
put a prisoner to death upon a charge, afterwards
to be examined and passed upon by a court of law.

At Trinity Term following, the quo warranto
came on for trial in the King's Bench. The result

could not long be uncertain, before a tribunal composed
of materials dependent for existence upon the
will of the crown.[420] Yet we have reason to believe
that the Attorney-General was compelled to torture
his brain with more than ordinary vigour for arguments
against the Company; and that some of his
objections were so ludicrous as to excite derision
even in the most favourable hearers.[421] It is probable
that the judgment was finally rendered upon a
formal error in pleading committed by the agent of
the Company, and not upon the broad merits of the
case.[422] But whatever may have been the means
employed, the end was surely accomplished. The
London corporation was dissolved, and the King
appropriated to himself the power of directing the
colony as his sapience might deem most expedient.

He suffered the local government to remain undisturbed,
but employed his leisure hours in preparing
a new code of laws for the growing people
whom he resolved once more to enlighten by special
emanations from his own mind. (1625, March
27.) Happily for Virginia, his legislative labours
were arrested by death; and the King, who had
claimed for himself the immediate sanction of the
Almighty, was summoned to His bar to give account
of his stewardship. A writer who loved the
Stuart family more than he venerated truth, has
said, that "in all history it would be difficult to

find a reign less illustrious, yet more unspotted and
unblemished;"[423] but candour will accord little credit
even to the negative innocence of a sovereign whose
avarice had no restraint but his impotence, whose
bigotry was scarcely neutralized by his personal
vices, and whose love of dominion was only controlled
by his contemptible cowardice!