University of Virginia Library

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.