University of Virginia Library

II. PART II.

CHAPTER V.

At the age of twenty-five, Charles ascended the
throne left vacant by the death of his father. The
life of this unhappy prince seems to embrace every
thing necessary to warn both monarchs and subjects:—monarchs,
against the exercise of oppressive
powers bequeathed by their ancestors;—subjects,
against the rash use of their sacred right of revolution.
Had he been born in an humble condition,
and had he lived amid the refined enjoyments of
private life, his dignity of manner, his affectionate
temper, his social virtues, would all have combined
to render him useful, beloved, and happy. But he
was born a king,—and for this he lived in tumult

and ceaseless conflict, and died upon a scaffold
erected by hands, which might have been joined in
asking benedictions upon a sovereign possessing
power less ample and more strictly defined. He
received from the unsteady grasp of James a ponderous
crown, worn in triumph by Henry and Elizabeth,
but crushing in its pressure upon brows
less firm and unyielding. He fell a victim to an
expansive power in the minds of his people, rather
than to tyrannous dispositions in his own heart.
He fell, not because he desired to oppress, but because
he knew not how to yield. He asserted principles,
and claimed rights far less stringent than
those of many of his predecessors; but he did this
at the fatal time when man had learned his own
natural nobility, and could receive nothing as belonging
to the constitution of his country that contravened
the great rules of original justice.

Had Charles not fallen by the hands of his people,
posterity would have pronounced him an injudicious
and uncompromising monarch,—willing to
oppress his subjects for his own private benefit, to
sacrifice his friends for his own selfish interests,
and to put in motion tyrannous engines to secure
what he regarded as lawful ends. But the blood
which flowed beneath the axe of his executioner
has atoned for many faults; the premature grave to
which he was consigned has entombed many of his
most flagrant errors; and infatuated as was his
conduct, we cannot look upon his fate without
deep commiseration. The art of his apologist
was not required, to cause tears to fall upon the

tomb of a husband so exemplary, a father so tender
and devoted, a friend so willing to serve, so
reluctant to betray.[1]

The young King did not leave the colonists long
in suspense as to the principles upon which he intended
to govern them. He issued several proclamations,
in which he declared that, after mature
thought, he had adopted the views of his father
concerning them; and he ascribed all their misfortunes
to the government of the corporate democracy
which had but just fallen in ruins. He declared
his intention to govern them by the council which
James had instituted, consisting of men appointed
by, and responsible to, his majesty alone.[2] (April
9.) He confirms the monopoly of tobacco granted
under the advice of Parliament to the Virginia and
Somer Island Companies;[3] but, being already
pressed by that want of money which was the
proximate cause of his ruin, he sought to supply
it in a mode highly injurious to the colonists.
(May 13.) He assumed the position of a royal
factor, decided that he was substituted to all the
rights of the deceased London Company, and demanded
that every pound of tobacco brought from
the colonies should be committed to his agents,

who gave a certain price to the owners and secured
a heavy profit for the crown.[4]

The governor and council for the colony appointed
by the crown were invested with powers
as ample as Henry VIII. could have desired.
They were to make laws and provide for their
execution, to impose taxes and enforce their payment,
to seize the property of the late Company
wherever they could obtain it, and to send colonists
for trial to England whenever they thought
it expedient.[5] No notice whatever was taken of
the representative government, which had been
regularly established in Virginia. Whether the
King thought it unwise directly to overturn a system
to which the people were so much attached,
or whether he deemed it too feeble to be dangerous,
we do not certainly know; but he undoubtedly
left alive the infant who was now fast
growing into the full proportions and intelligence
of vigorous manhood.[6]

From the arbitrary theories advanced by the
King, we might naturally infer that the settlers
immediately felt the hand of oppression bearing
heavily upon them; but this was not the case: the
people continued true to their duties, quiet in their
deportment, yet firm in the assertion of their rights.
Habits of industry and sober living had gained

ground among them. They had already tasted the
sweets of rational freedom, and were not disposed to
forfeit them, either by seditious tumult or by unworthy
indolence. We note with surprise and pleasure
a proof of their firmness. Edward Sharples, who
had received an ignominious punishment for his
treachery in 1624, appealed to the Privy Council;
the King took his part, and sternly rebuked the provincial
government, yet they met his proclamation
with steady courage, and abated not in any respect
their sentence against this perfidious agent.[7]

It should also be remembered, that, notwithstanding
Charles's appointment of a new government,
the General Assembly continued to exist.
Usage had established it, and several expressions
in the King's messages were construed into a design
at least to connive at its existence. It had
already planted its roots too deeply in the hearts of
the people, to be torn out without a struggle. It
is true we have no authentic record of its proceedings
from 1624 to 1629;[8] but we have reason to believe
that during that time it had regular sessions,
and we find the Provincial Council often relying
upon and enforcing its enactments by their own
executive power.[9]

The hostility of the Indians continued unabated.

Memory called up in the bosoms, both of natives
and of colonists, a dark record of injuries sustained,
and of insult unavenged. Even the wavering
Opitchapan was compelled to take the field, and at
the head of eight hundred bowmen of the tribe of
Pamunky, and a large number from surrounding
clans, he boldly offered battle to the English.
Francis Wyatt, in person, led on the whites. A
conflict took place in the neighbourhood of Pamunky,
and from all that we can gather concerning
an event veiled in singular obscurity, we believe
that the savages were defeated with heavy
loss, and that the colonists were only prevented
from marching upon Mattapony by want of ammunition.[10] It seemed vain now to hope for any permanent
peace between the contending parties, until
one or the other should be totally disabled; and in
a contest between knowledge and ignorance, the
result could not long be in doubt.

(1626.) Sir Francis Wyatt had proved himself
a good governor and a steady friend to the interests
of the colony. The death of his father called for
his presence in Ireland,[11] and on leaving Virginia,
Sir George Yeardley assumed his place. The
name of this latter gentleman was sufficient to
assure the settlers that their rights would be respected
and their welfare secured. He had brought
the original authority for a General Assembly from
England in 1619, and at all times he had shown a

sensitive desire for the prevalence of the free principle
in the colony. His health was delicate, but
his mind was fully adequate to his task; and under
his administration, Virginia increased rapidly in
wealth and population. In one year a thousand
emigrants arrived, confidence gathered strength,
the soil was cleared, bread-stuffs were in demand,
and the colony wore the aspect of a very vigorous
and thriving community.[12] (1627, Nov.) But unhappily,
in the midst of his usefulness, the governor
was stricken down by death, leaving behind
him a name unstained by any gross vices, and so
dear to the people over whom he had presided, that
their grief found vent in a eulogy upon his virtues,
immediately transmitted in a letter to the Privy
Council in England.[13]

On the death of Yeardley, the Council, in pursuance
of a power expressly granted them by the
King's proclamation,[14] proceeded to elect his successor,
and Captain Francis West receiving a majority
of votes, was duly installed into office (Nov.
14). But his career was distinguished for nothing
but its brevity; it is probable he died early in the
succeeding year, as we find in the records of the
state the name of John Potts as governor, who

must have been elected about the beginning of
1628.[15]

(1628.) The striking event of this year was the
session of the General Assembly, expressly ordered
by the King himself, to take into consideration certain
proposals made to the settlement in behalf of
his majesty. In the previous year he had sent
them a curious letter, in which he indulges his
royal wit in some keen observations at the expense
of the weed which formed the staple of Virginia.
He tells them that their prosperity rested upon an
unstable basis; that it was "built on smoke, and
would easily turn into air, if either English tobacco
should be planted or Spanish imported."[16] He
urges them to turn their labour to pipe-staves, pot-ashes,
iron, vines, and bay salt, rather than to this
hateful commodity; but finally, should they absolutely
refuse to give up tobacco, he modestly proposes
that he shall be made their sole factor, and
shall take it all at three shillings per pound; of
which, one shilling and threepence were to be
paid in cash upon its receipt.[17] To these overtures
the Assembly were now to give a reply, and we
find no hesitation in their conduct. With due respect,
yet with unshaken firmness, they declined
the proposals of the King, adhered to their staple,

which men were now prone to consider almost
essential to comfort, and refused to permit the price
to be settled by any rule other than that inflexible
law imposed by the relation of supply and demand.

During this year arrived in Virginia, a nobleman,
whose life and fortunes have had a material
influence upon the American Republic. George
Calvert, Lord Baltimore, was beloved by James
and by his son for his firm devotion to their interests
as monarchs; and candour compels us to
add, he was respected and revered by all good men
for his commanding talents, his industry in office,
his steady adherence to principle, and his spotless
purity in the discharge of responsible trusts. In
1624, he declared himself a Roman Catholic upon
serious conviction, and immediately resigned his
lucrative office under the English government.[18]
King James, always sufficiently partial to popery,
was so much affected by this conduct of his favourite,
that he continued his name on the list of his
Privy Council, and conferred upon him the title
which himself and his descendants so long retained.
Wishing to plant a colony in the new world which
should be an asylum both for his friends and his
religion, he obtained a grant of the southeastern
peninsula of Newfoundland.[19] But the hostility of
the French and the rigour of the climate so discouraged
him, that he abandoned his settlement,
after having expended much care and money in its
foundation, and came to Virginia, hoping to find

in her genial air and fertile soil the means of effecting
his desires.[20]

But here a difficulty awaited him, which had
not been expected. The Church of England was
regularly established by law; and the express requirements
of the King, in the several charters
given to the colony, demanded that all should take
the oath of supremacy in the fullest and most unequivocal
terms.[21] The freedom enjoyed by Americans
since the Revolution, as to all religious tests
and obligations, may cause us to look with pain
upon restrictive measures applied to the human
conscience; yet, under the existing circumstances,
we cannot be surprised that the colonial government
should have regarded with distrust a wealthy
and influential nobleman, professing a creed, which
not merely ascribes to man the infallible judgment
of God, but subjects every papist, in every country,
and under every national rule, to the paramount
temporal authority of the Roman Pontiff.[22] On his
lordship's arrival, the test act was brought forward,
and the oath of supremacy tendered to him in the
ample form prescribed by the law then in force.
He refused to take it, but tendered for himself and
his Catholic followers a modified form of the oath,
in which he promised all obedience consistent with
his rights of conscience. This the Council declined,

and referred the whole matter to the Privy
Council in the mother country.

Lord Baltimore was greatly charmed with the
appearance and native advantages of Virginia.
He sailed up the Chesapeake, and navigated the
noble river which then bounded most of the settlements
of the colony. Observing that the beautiful
country north of the Potomac had then few or no
European inhabitants, he determined to seek from
the King a grant covering this region, and to plant
in it a colony according to his own just and expanded
views of colonial policy. He returned to
England, and easily obtained from a partial monarch
a charter, containing within its broad folds
many thousand acres of land, long since fully conveyed
by the patents of James, and claimed by the
Virginia Colony on the basis of a title, alike well
grounded in law, in justice, and in the common
consent of mankind.[23] But it would be premature
now to enter more fully upon this grant. We
shall meet again with the name of Calvert and the
title of Baltimore, when we reach the period of the
settlement of a sister state, whom Virginia has not
loved the less because her portion was first assigned
to her by an act of regal usurpation, committed
on the fair domain of the elder settlement.

During the remainder of this year we note little
of importance, except another session of the Assembly
and an irruption of the Pamunky and Chickahominy
Indians, attended with considerable loss

to the English. One of the most gloomy consequences
of this state of hostility, now permanently
established, was the almost entire destruction of
good faith between the belligerents. The Indians
had never exhibited it; but the whites soon vied
with them in perfidy, inviting them to conferences
only to cut them off when unprepared, and offering
them peace to fall upon them when disarmed.
The natives were speedily undeceived, and never
again trusted to their enemies' assertions, whatever
solemnities might attend them.[24]

(1629.) Early in the next year came the new
Governor, Sir John Hervey, from England, bringing
a broad commission and ample powers from
his royal master. Concerning this officer's character
and conduct, disputes have arisen and doubts
have prevailed, which will probably never be
finally determined, until we shall obtain clearer
light upon the transactions of this the most obscure
period of colonial history.[25] It is certain, however,
that he was one of the commissioners who visited
the colony in 1624, to aid King James in his purposes
against the Company; and from this we
fairly infer, that neither was Hervey very acceptable

to the settlers, nor were his own feelings towards
them of the most cordial character. During
the ten years in which, with few intermissions, he
governed the colony, he often adopted stern measures,
and encountered opposition from the Assemblies
which frequently sat in the course of his
period of dominion. It is probable that he was a
man fond of money, and little scrupulous as to the
means of obtaining it; for we find bitter complaints
of his appropriating fines to his own use, and levying
taxes unauthorized by the legislature, and the
proceeds of which were turned into his private
coffers.[26] Another trait, scarcely less odious, was
his bigotry, which led him to enforce with absolute
rule the laws providing for the Church, to require
rigid conformity in all, and to revive obsolete
demands for religious observances, greatly to the
annoyance of the mass of the colonists.[27]

Yet, with all his faults, Hervey had some qualities
which made him useful and respectable in his
station. He carefully supervised the military plans
of the settlement; caused a fort to be erected at
Point Comfort, well placed for defending the mouth
of the river; encouraged the manufacture of salt-petre
and potash; revived the salt works at Accomac,
which had long been neglected; established
semi-monthly courts at Jamestown; and, notwithstanding
his own vices, with an inconsistency but
too common to human nature, he sought to infuse
into the laws most wholesome precepts as to

morality and religion.[28] In the year 1630, we note,
with surprise and pain, a prosecution against Dr.
John Pott, the late governor, on a charge of stealing
cattle, which resulted in his conviction, and he
was only saved by a reprieve from ignominious
punishment.[29] The governor fostered with care a
spirit of maritime enterprise; sent out an expedition
to trade between the thirty-fourth and forty-first
degrees of latitude; and most cordially invited
the people who had settled in New England, to
desert their cold and barren soil, and take refuge
in the more genial climes of Virginia and Delaware.[30]

Whatever may have been the wishes of Hervey
as to taxation, it is certain that the General Assembly
never submitted to any claims of this character
not warranted by their own assent. In the
session of 1631, we find a bold and lucid declaration,
denying to the chief executive officer the
right to levy any impost without the concurrence
of the legislature; and enacting that, in future,
the governor should have no power to enforce the
services of colonists for his own private benefit,
or to levy them for war without the consent of the
Council. We have reason to believe, that Hervey
gave his constitutional vote for this law, which
was too just and too popular to be safely rejected.[31]

But the cause which has been urged, with
greatest effect, for the odium into which the governor
finally fell, seems to have been his culpable
coalition with King Charles and his favourites, in
encroachments upon the public domain of the colony.
As early as the year 1630, Charles granted
to Sir Robert Heath an immense tract of country,
beginning at the thirty-sixth parallel of latitude,
and running south so far as to embrace almost
the whole of the territory now occupied by the
Southern States of our Union. This huge grant
compromised many vested rights in Virginia; but,
as it was not proceeded upon for several years, it
never became a source of discontent.[32] During
Hervey's administration, several patents were
granted by the English sovereign, interfering materially
with prior claims under the colonial patents;
and the governor is, with good reason, supposed
to have derived pecuniary profit from his
connivance at these usurpations.[33] But at length a
more serious inroad was made upon the broad lands
of Virginia.

George, the first Lord Baltimore, died in April,
1632. But the patent prepared for the father, was
immediately assigned to the son, Cecelius Calvert,
who inherited the dignity of manner, the purity of
morals, and the religious prepossessions of his sire.
By this patent, Charles calmly granted the magnificent
tract of country lying on both sides of the

Bay of Chesapeake and north of the Potomac, running
up to the fortieth parallel of latitude, from the
point where it strikes the first fountain of the river
even to the Atlantic Ocean.[34] Under this grant,
Leonard Calvert prepared for a settlement. The
whole tract was clearly within the limits of Virginia;
and though it may be that few settlers had
yet planted themselves north of the Potomac, yet
that fact did not in any manner give to the King
the right to dispose of land which could only be
lawfully obtained by regular deeds, under the seal
of the provincial authorities. Early in the year
1634, Calvert, with two hundred persons of good
families, and of the Roman Catholic creed, arrived
in America, and proceeded to Jamestown to pay
their respects to existing powers. The Governor
and Council received them courteously, but it was
distinctly announced to them that their grant was
considered an encroachment upon the rights of
Virginia. They then sailed up the Chesapeake,
and laid the foundations of a state, upon which,
in honour of the Queen, Henrietta Maria, they bestowed
the name of Maryland.[35]

Difficulties speedily presented themselves. A

turbulent character, named William Claiborne,
who had at one time been a member of the Virginia
Council, had obtained from King Charles a
license, authorizing him to traffic in parts of the
colony for which no prior license existed. Under
this power, he had settled himself with a band of
followers upon Kent's Island, near the present site
of Annapolis; and, when summoned by Calvert,
he sternly refused to submit to his jurisdiction.
Hostilities immediately commenced. Claiborne
was captured, and, being brought to trial, he was
found guilty upon the grave charges of murder,
piracy, and sedition. But, finding means of escape,
he fled to Virginia, and voluntarily surrendered
himself to Sir John Hervey, who, after some
delay and indecision, sent him to England for final
trial.[36]

The people of Virginia, though willing to extend
to the settlers in Maryland the hand of friendship,
had always regarded their grant as a serious encroachment
upon their own rights. The Governor
was looked upon as secretly favourable to the views
of the King. A short time before this we find him
paying an amicable visit to Calvert, and communing
with him freely as to his future plans.[37]
His treatment of Claiborne gave great offence.
Many thought that the rights of this agitator ought

to be upheld; and that his settlement on Kent's
Island, being in accordance with a prior authority
from Charles, could not be affected by the subsequent
grant to Maryland. This seems to have
been the prominent ground of complaint against
Hervey.[38] But it is altogether probable that many
other sources of dissatisfaction concurred, for we
cannot believe that this alone would have produced
the violent explosion which soon followed. In
1635, we find an Assembly solemnly convened to
receive charges against the governor. Popular
feeling had risen high. Whatever causes had operated,
it is certain that Hervey was looked upon
with universal dislike,—that he was considered the
friend of tyranny, and the enemy of the people. In
a short time the Assembly met; and, after due deliberation,
they adopted a measure so bold and so
unprecedented, that nothing but undoubted testimony
could convince us of its truth. Sir John
Hervey was "thrust out of his government, and
Captain John West was to act as governor till the
King's pleasure be known."[39]

When the suspended governor was thus sent

back to his master, the Assembly deemed it expedient
to send commissioners, selected by themselves,
and supplied with a full body of evidence to sustain
every charge preferred against the accused.
But Charles regarded this whole proceeding with
unmingled disapprobation. Already his intractable
parliaments at home were entering upon that
series of fearless measures which finally arrayed
the King and the people in martial order against
each other. The unhappy monarch was vacillating
between his love of power and his fear of defeat—
his need of money and his dependence on his people
for aid,—and at such a period, each step of the popular
spirit in its onward course was regarded with
jealousy and pain. The King did not even condescend
to give audience to the commissioners of
the colony.[40] Their complaints were unheeded,
their charges were unheard. Without bringing
Hervey to trial, his partial sovereign reinstated him
in office, and sent him back to Virginia; giving to
the colonists the meagre solace of a commission, in
which the government was required to be administered
on the principles of the period during which
the Assembly had existed.[41]

From this time we hear of no complaints against
the governor. Experience may have taught him
moderation; and the salutary fear of assemblies
which regularly sat and acted upon the affairs of

the settlement, may have restrained his former propensities.
In 1639, he was quietly superseded by
Sir Francis Wyatt, who had previously governed
the colony with much satisfaction to its people
and honour to himself. His administration was
brief,—so brief, indeed, that it seems to have
escaped the notice of many of our most diligent
historians.[42] Yet, during its progress, certain laws
were enacted by the General Assembly, which, in
later years, have been misunderstood, misrepresented;
have drawn upon their authors the contempt
of some, the censure of others; but which,
when fully explained, furnish evidence of wisdom
and foresight, rather than of weakness and dishonesty.

(1639.) Let it be remembered, that at this time
Virginia and the Somer Isles enjoyed the exclusive
sale of tobacco in Britain. By reason of its excessive
production the price had fallen so low, that the
planters could neither subsist themselves, nor pay
their just debts, nor turn their labour to any other
staple. (Jan. 6.) Under these circumstances, the
Assembly passed a law requiring all the tobacco
raised this year to be viewed,—the whole of that
decayed and unmerchantable, and one-half of that
really good, to be burned.[43] Now, although this
weed was valueless to those who had not learned
to use it, yet with those who had become its votaries

it was almost necessary to existence. They
would give any price to obtain its odorous consolations.
Therefore the withdrawal of one-half the
usual quantity from market would immediately
enhance the value of the remainder in due proportion.
Thus far, then, none will object to the law
of the Assembly. But they go on, in the same
clause, to enact that all creditors, in payment of
their debts, should be compelled to receive forty
pounds of tobacco for one hundred formerly given;
and, immediately afterwards, that no man should
be obliged to perform more than half his covenants
for freighting tobacco in 1639.[44] Upon these provisions
great obloquy has been heaped. They have
been pronounced iniquitous and absurd, but they
will bear a rigid scrutiny. Tobacco was at this
time the medium of exchange in Virginia. Very
little metallic coin had found its way to the colony;
and the settlers did not hesitate to resort to the
practice of primitive ages, and to make currency of
an article convenient of access, and in universal
demand. Hence the necessity for guarding against
excess in its production, and against the use of
tobacco of inferior quality; for these causes would
affect commerce as injuriously as a plethora of bank
paper, or an influx of spurious coin. Now, when
the legislature required that more than one-half of
the existing supply should be destroyed, the necessary
effect was to render the remnant more than
doubly valuable to the holder; therefore, had the
planters still been held to the payment of their
debts at par, they would in fact have paid more
than double their amount. Thus, if a debtor owed
one hundred pounds of tobacco prior to 1639, when
the commodity might be worth three shillings per
pound, his debt might be estimated at fifteen pounds
sterling. But after 1639, the price would be perhaps
eight shillings per pound; and had he still
been compelled to pay one hundred pounds, he
would in fact pay to his creditor the sum of forty
pounds sterling in value. The injustice of this
must be obvious. The Assembly acted wisely and
equitably in their requirements. They did not
enhance the value of their coin, and still compel
debtors to meet the nominal amount of their dues;
but having really increased its value, they properly
adapted to it the corresponding amounts which
creditors might claim.[45]

In August of 1641, Charles appointed to the
direction of the affairs of Virginia a gentleman
whose name is inseparably interwoven with the
early destinies of our state. William Berkeley was
a cavalier of the most rigid and approved school
then known in the British realm; pure blood and
high connexions gave dignity to his name;[46] refined
manners and the ease imparted by long contact
with polite society, rendered his person acceptable
to all he encountered. He possessed the singular
and scarcely definable art, of enlisting alike the

confidence of the high and the low, the mighty and
the humble. Imbued with the very spirit of the
English gentleman, he knew how to avoid the extremes
of forbidding coldness or of dangerous
familiarity. He was valued by his friends for his
warm affections, and respected by his foes for his
upright demeanour. Yet with so much that was
excellent, he developed traits which tended powerfully
to lower what would otherwise have been a
truly lofty character. His loyalty was so excessive
that it blinded his eyes to the faults of a crowned
head, and steeled his heart against the prayers of
oppressed subjects. He could not tolerate the
least appearance of opposition to the rights claimed
by his King; and this feeling seems to have been
heightened, rather than diminished, by the growing
spirit of freedom that he marked among the
commons of the mother country. He loved the monarchical
constitution of England with simple fervour;
he venerated her customs, her church, her bishops,
her liturgy, every thing peculiar to her as a
kingdom; and believing them to be worthy of all acceptation,
he enforced conformity with uncompromising
sternness. Many virtuous propensities,
when urged to excess, become the sources of vicious
conduct. Had Sir William Berkeley descended to
his grave at the time when Charles II. gained the
English throne, we might with safety have trusted
to those historians who have drawn him as adorned
with all that could grace and elevate his species.[47]
But he lived long enough to prove that loyalty,
when misguided, will make a tyrant; that religious
zeal, when devoted to an established church,
will beget the most revolting bigotry; and that an
ardent disposition, when driven on by desire for
revenge, will give birth to the worst forms of
cruelty and malice.

(Aug. 9.) The commission issued by the King
to the new governor was, in many respects, liberal
and just to the colonists;[48] it recognised the existence
and rights of the Assembly, which had theretofore
been connived at rather than openly approved;
it encouraged the burgesses to unite cordially
with the governor, and to aid him in preparing
a new code of laws, and in adopting the
most salutary customs of the English realm. We
may imagine the pleasure felt by the settlers who
had thus guaranteed to them their much-loved
form of government, and who were at length
blessed with a head, apparently resolved to devote
all his energies to their welfare. Joy and harmony
prevailed; the people were full of love to the King,
and zeal for his service. Industrious habits had
long since become confirmed among them, and
though the bias of their origin still operated upon
their manners and their morals, yet they were no
longer excited to turbulence by want or by discord,
in their ruling councils. Amid so much of cheerfulness
and hope, they barely noticed one clause in

the commission to the governor, which savoured
strongly of a narrow and unjust policy, afterwards
carried into full effect under the Protectorate, and
in the reign of the second Charles. The King required
that all the commerce of the colony should
flow into or through the veins of the mother
country. To enforce this provision, Sir William
Berkeley was instructed to demand from the master
of every vessel trading from Virginia, a bond
obliging him to land his cargo, either immediately
in England, or in some other part of the king's
dominions in Europe.[49]

(1642.) In February the new governor arrived,
and assumed the reins of his colonial province.
Nearly his first act was to call a meeting of the
General Assembly; and in a short time this body
convened at Jamestown, full of joy because of the
favourable change in their affairs, and inspired
with gratitude to a king whom they believed to
be truly their benefactor. It having been represented
to them that George Sandys had presented
a petition to his majesty, praying the re-establishment
of the old London Corporation, and, acting
as though under the guidance of the colonial Assembly,
they immediately drew up a paper, called
"A Declaration against the Company," and transmitted
it to England, with the signatures of the
governor, the council, and nearly all the burgesses.
In this paper they protest vigorously against the
revival of the Company. Some have supposed

that their opposition was caused by their hatred of
the measures formerly adopted by this celebrated
body;[50] but impartial inquiry will convince us,
that they were moved rather by their newly-born
zeal for their monarch, than by any well-founded
arguments against the London Corporation.

With remarkable, perhaps we should add ungrateful,
inconsistency, we find them urging as a
reason against its revival, the prevalence of assemblies
under Charles, forgetting that to this much-injured
body was Virginia indebted for the very
privileges that the King had at last so reluctantly
confirmed.[51] We read, too, charges against the
"intolerable" tyranny of the very man whom the
Court party had caused to be elected; and we even
find what seems to be a bitter complaint against
the clause in the first patent of James, requiring
all things, for five years, to be held in common,[52]
although they could not be ignorant that the Company
had rejoiced as greatly as the colonists when
this unwise restriction expired. Perhaps the clearest
light thrown upon the conduct of the Assembly,
is furnished by the clause in which they protest,
in the most obsequious style, against "so unnatural
a distance as a company will interpose between
his sacred majesty and us his subjects."[53] The time
was not far distant when the unhappy colonists
would have rejoiced in any intervening shield between

their defenceless heads and the sword of the
monarch, grasped by the hand of the very governor
whom they now delighted to honour.

But, whatever may have been the motives impelling
the Assembly, it is certain that their petition
was highly acceptable to the King. (July 5.) From
his Court, at York, he returned them a gracious
answer—complimenting them upon their loyalty,
expatiating upon his own abundant "grace, bounty,
and favour" towards them, and promising never to
restore a Company to power which seemed now
equally unwelcome both to crown and to colonists.[54]

The influence of a popular governor, and of
excited hope, acted like a charm upon the interests
of the settlement. The commercial restrictions
were not enforced with rigour, and attracted so
little attention that we hear no complaints at this
time made against them. Recovering, with elastic
strength, from the pressure they had so long sustained,
the colonists increased rapidly in numbers,
in wealth, in general intelligence. The papers
prepared by the Councils, or even by individuals,
at this period, bear upon their faces the impress of
minds in love with freedom, and expanded by culture.
The assemblies were regularly convened;
and they passed laws, many of which still remain
upon our ancient statute book, to attest the wisdom
and patriotism of our fathers. Notwithstanding
their veneration for the governor, we note with
pleasure the same jealous regard for the rights of
the people which they had always evinced. In

the midst of the session of 1642-43, we find a
statute forbidding the Governor and Council to
lay any taxes or imposts upon either persons
or property, except by authority of the General
Assembly.[55]

But in one respect, the laws of this period were
as unjust and cruel in theory, as they were dangerous
and destructive in their practical tendency.
The Church of England had always been the
cherished establishment of the colonists. The
early settlers of Virginia had no sympathy with
the Puritans, who were now so rapidly increasing
in numbers and power in the mother country.
Two classes may exhibit the whole religious aspect
of the colony, at the time when Berkeley
assumed its government. One consisted of the
cavaliers and gentlemen planters, who, with a reputable
regard for order and morality, and strong
prepossessions in favour of the ancient "régime"
of England, looked upon the Church as closely
connected with all that was dignified and honourable.
They loved her ministers, her forms, and,
perhaps, her creed; and they looked with distrust
upon all innovation. These men were ardent
friends of freedom; and, had they lived in England,
it is not improbable that closer acquaintance
with prelacy, and experience of its inseparable connexion
with the maxims of civil tyranny,[56]
would

have driven them into the Puritan ranks, which
now embraced the noblest hearts and clearest intellects
found in the English realm. The other class
included the lower order of colonists—labourers,
artisans, servants—men who had never been remarkable
for virtue; who found little congenial to
their tastes in the strict morality of dissenters;
who looked upon religion with indifference, and
were content to discharge their obligations to the
Supreme Being by attendance upon the forms of
an established church. From neither of these
classes could we expect any serious resistance to
the known wishes of Berkeley, who was a churchman
of the deepest dye. The Assembly quietly
proceeded to pass laws of the most stringent character
on the subject of religion. Strict conformity
was required; tithes were inexorably imposed;
ministers' persons were invested with a
sanctity savouring strongly of superstition; popish
recusants were forbidden to hold any office, and
their priests were to be banished from the country;
the oath of supremacy to the king, as head of the
Church, was in all cases to be tendered; dissenting
preachers were strictly forbidden to exercise
their office; and the Governor and Council were
empowered to compel "non-conformists to depart
the colony with all convenience."[57]

Such laws, in the present age, would blacken the
statute book of any people with a stain never to be

erased. Yet should we remember, that they were
the results of the age rather than expressions of
popular feeling. Toleration was then almost
wholly unknown. Men had not learned, that the
human conscience is a thing too sacred to be
touched by human laws. Religion was regarded
as all-important; and each dominant sect, believing
its own peculiarities to embody the truth, sternly
required that all should believe according to its
cherished faith; forgetting the precepts of Him
who declared that He was neither a Judge nor a
Ruler of the affairs of man, that his Father was to
be worshipped in spirit and in truth, and that even
enemies were to be loved rather than persecuted.
Men professing His religion had for centuries disgraced
the Christian world by their cruelty to
those who ventured to decide for themselves in a
matter affecting their own immortal interests.
The Church of Rome was chiefly prominent in
the work of blood; the Church of England followed
in her footsteps, and left the fields of Scotland
covered with the dead bodies of her victims.
The Puritan Church of Massachusetts could not
resist so imposing examples, and hung Quakers
and persecuted Anabaptists with edifying zeal.
With these models before, around, and behind
her, it is not wonderful that Virginia should have
yielded to the temptation, and given her hand to
the demon of Intolerance. Yet it is consoling to
reflect, that no actual violence followed these enactments;
and when, nearly eighteen years afterwards,
the first martyrs to religious freedom fell
upon the soil of New England,[58] the elder colony
was wholly unstained by blood shed under laws
so unholy and vindictive.

While the colonists were thus voluntarily imposing
upon themselves a burthen of ecclesiastical
oppression, an ever active foe was preparing to inflict
upon them a dangerous wound. The Indians
were now inveterate enemies. Peace was never
thought of. Successive enactments of the Assembly
made it a solemn duty to fall upon the natives
at stated seasons of the year, and heavy penalties
were visited upon all who traded with them, or in
any mode provided them with arms and ammunition.
The whites were steadily increasing, both
in moral and physical strength; the Indians were
as rapidly wasting away before the breath of civilized
man. A few incursions,—a few convulsive
efforts, always attended by heavy loss to themselves,—one
final struggle,—these will complete
their history in Eastern Virginia.

The illegal grants, favoured by Sir John Hervey,
had provoked the natives into active hostility.
They saw their hunting grounds successively
swept away by a power which they were unable
to resist, and all the passions of the savage arose to
demand revenge.[59] When Sir William Berkeley
arrived, he used all his influence to mitigate the

injustice of these grants, in their effects both upon
the colonists and the Indians;[60] but enough remained
to inflame the spirits of men who were yet
heated by the recollection of past misfortunes.
Among the natives there still lived a hero, who
had proved himself a formidable adversary, even
when encountered by European skill. Opecancanough
had attained the hundredth year of his
life.[61] Declining age had bowed a form once eminent
in stature and manly strength. Incessant
toil and watchfulness had wasted his flesh, and
left him gaunt and withered, like the forest tree
stripped of its foliage by the frosts of winter. His
eyes had lost their brightness, and so heavily did
the hand of age press upon him, that his eyelids
drooped from weakness, and he required the aid of
an attendant to raise them that he might see objects
around him.[62] Yet within this tottering and
wasted body, burned a soul which seemed to have
lost none of its original energy. A quenchless fire
incited him to hostility against the settlers. He
yet wielded great influence among the members of
the Powhatan confederacy; and by his wisdom,
his example, and the veneration felt for his age,
he roused the savages to another effort at general
massacre.

The obscurity covering the best records which
remain of this period, has rendered doubtful the
precise time at which this fatal irruption occurred;

yet the most probable period would seem to be the
close of the year 1643.[63] The Indians were drawn
together with great secrecy and skill, and were
instructed to fall upon the colonists at the same
time, and to spare none who could be safely
butchered. Five hundred victims sank beneath
their attack. The assault was most violent and
fatal upon the upper waters of the Pamunky and
the York, where the settlers were yet thin in number
and but imperfectly armed.[64] But in every
place where resistance was possible, the savages
were routed with loss, and driven back in dismay
to their fastnesses in the forest.

(1644.) Sir William Berkeley instantly placed
himself at the head of a chosen body, composed of
every twentieth man able to bear arms, and
marched to the scene of devastation. Finding the
savages dispersed and all organized resistance at
an end, he followed them with a troop of cavalry.
The aged chief had taken refuge in the neighbourhood
of his seat at Pamunky. His strength was
too much enfeebled for vigorous flight. His limbs
refused to bear him, and his dull vision rendered

him an easy prey. He was overtaken by the pursuers,
and carried in triumph back to Jamestown.

Finding the very soul of Indian enmity now
within his power, the governor had determined to
send him to England as a royal captive, to be detained
in honourable custody until death should
close his earthly career.[65] The venerable chief lost
not for a moment his dignity and self-possession.
True to the principles of that stoicism which had
ever been the pride of his race, he looked with
contempt and indifference upon the men who held
his liberty and life in their hands. It might for
the sake of humanity have been hoped, that one
thus bending under the weight of years, and standing
upon the verge of the grave, would be suffered
to go down to the dust in peace. But a death of
violence awaited him. A brutal wretch, urged on
by desire to revenge injuries to the whites which
had long been forgotten or forgiven, advanced with
his musket behind the unhappy chieftain, and shot
him through the back![66] We know not whether
this murderer was punished; but could his name
be known, his deed would entitle him to a place
among the most hateful and black-hearted of mankind.

The wound thus given was mortal. Opecancanough
lingered a few days in agony; yet, to the
last moment of life, he retained his majesty and
sternness of demeanour. A crowd of idle beings

collected around him to sate their unfeeling curiosity
with a view of his person and his conduct.
Hearing the noise, the dying Indian feebly motioned
to his attendants to raise his eyelids, that he
might learn the cause of this tumult. A flash of
wounded pride and of just indignation, for a moment,
revived his waning strength. He sent for
the governor, and addressed to him that keen reproach,
which has so well merited preservation:
"Had I taken Sir William Berkeley prisoner, I
would not have exposed him as a show to my
people."[67] In a short time afterwards he expired.

Opecancanough was a savage, and with no justice
can he be judged by the rules of Christian
morality. If he was revengeful, he had wrongs to
revenge; if he hated the whites, he loved his own
people, whom he believed to be their victims. If
he made war with the darkest perfidy, it was the
manner of his race, and not a crime peculiar to
himself. Indian valour would avail little in the
open field against European science, and Indian
wiles alone could compensate the disparity. He
was faithful to his own countrymen, among whom
he ruled for many years with the sway of a superior
mind; and the circumstances of his death
affixed another blot upon our escutcheon, already
stained with the blood of thousands of native
Americans.[68]

After the death of this warrior, the celebrated
confederacy of Powhatan was immediately dissolved.
Originally formed by the force of the
emperor's genius, it was preserved during his life
by his influence, and, although constantly growing
weaker, it remained formidable so long as Opecancanough
survived to inspire it with his own courage.
But now it was without a head, and the
members fell away and speedily lost all tendency
to cohesion.[69] The Indians had learned, by fatal
experience, that they contended in vain with the
whites. Their spirits were broken; their buoyancy
was gone; they had no alternative, except to
suffer their savage habits to be moulded into civilized
forms, or to be wasted by the resistless march
of the new power in their land. Few, too few, we
fear, chose the wiser part. The greater number
could not yield, and the result need scarcely be
told. They have faded away and gradually disappeared,
never more to return.

(1645.) Happily relieved from fear of the savages,
the people of Virginia addressed themselves
to their duties with great vigour and success. Sir
William Berkeley paid a brief visit to England,
leaving Richard Kemp to perform his duties in his
absence.[70] (1646, Oct.) About a year after the
governor's return, peace was concluded between

the colony and Necotowance, the successor of Opecancanough.[71] The red men submitted to terms
proposed by their conquerors, and yielded up all
claim to lands upon which their fathers had hunted
for immemorial ages. We cannot yet dismiss them
from the page of Virginian history. Hereafter,
they will hold a subordinate part in the drama in
which they were once the most exciting actors.
Art had conquered nature; science had taken the
place of untaught ingenuity; Christian rites were
substituted for the gross forms of savage superstition.

Under a government yielding to them liberties,
which had already become dear to their hearts, the
colonists had few causes either of fear or of complaint.
Their commerce was yet unrestricted, and
the full monopoly they enjoyed for their staple in
the English market, gave them lucrative advantages.
Their soil was fertile; their climate was
charming; peace had returned to their borders;
the savages around them were no longer active in
hostility. Social happiness flowed to them from
fountains provided by their own industry and care.
Their numbers rapidly increased. About the close
of the year 1648, we find a notice of the shipping
of the colony. Ten ships visited them regularly
from London; two from Bristol; twelve from Holland,
and seven from New England.[72] The population
had already attained to twenty thousand

souls.[73] Gradual climatization had made the air
friendly. Except at certain seasons, and upon unfavourable
spots, we hear no more of fatal fevers,
and of those numerous forms of disease which
had assailed the early settlers. General content
prevailed in Virginia. Although they loved liberty
with warm affection, the people loved the King,
from whom, as they verily believed, they had obtained
a full grant of this precious boon. Had
they lived in the mother country at this time, it is
reasonable to suppose they would have sympathized
with the men who sought to restrict the
royal prerogative; but, at a distance, they saw not
the vices of a dominion which had never pressed
heavily upon them. Attached to a religion of
forms, and despising Puritanism, they wished not
to identify themselves with a rebellion conducted
almost exclusively by men who were dissenters
from the church establishment of England.[74]

But while the colony was thus prosperous, peaceful,
and happy, the mother country was shaken to
her centre by the contest now in progress between
her people and their unhappy monarch. To detail
all the important events which attended this struggle,
would not be consistent with the plan of this
narrative. Charles had summoned and dissolved

successive parliaments with ever-growing danger.
He had claimed rights to which no free people
could submit, and had enforced his claims by arbitrary
imprisonments and all the tyrannic enginery
of the Star Chamber and the Tower of London.
He had raised money so long as he could extract it
from his people without the aid of the Commons;
and when at length he was compelled to meet them,
he encountered nothing but resistance, and a resolution
to maintain their privileges. He devoted
his unfortunate friend to the scaffold, that his blood
might appease the stern spirit that had arisen
among his subjects; but he soon learned, in bitter
self-reproach, that the hour of safety was gone. At
open war with the people of England, he drew
around him many gallant souls ready to meet death
in the service of their sovereign; but their strength
was feeble in contest with a nation. Betrayed by
those to whom he had entrusted his safety, the
monarch was carried through the forms of a trial,
before a body from which all moderation had been
forcibly expelled; and, on the 30th January, 1649,
England gave to the world the sublime but most
dangerous example, of a king publicly executed by
the hands of his own oppressed people.

If a powerful reaction took place in Europe upon
the death of the royal victim,—and if many who
had been foes were now almost converted into
friends, we may presume that, in Virginia, popular
feeling was not less enlisted in his behalf. The
deed was done. They could not recall him from
the tomb; but they could remain faithful to his

son, and they could resist all attempts to subject
them to the dominion of the Long Parliament.
Charles, the unworthy son of an unhappy father,
yet survived to give embodiment to those who
wished a renewal of monarchy. An exile from his
country, he took refuge at Breda, and drew around
him a slender court, composed of men who had
loved his parent, and who were willing to die for
the child. They were not long in marking the
loyalty of Virginia, and Charles had now too few
real friends to be able to neglect any with impunity.
(1650, June.) He sent from Breda to Sir
William Berkeley a new commission, confirming
the powers granted by his father,[75] and the distant
colony remained true to the fortunes of the outcast
Stuart, when all other parts of the world where
his language was spoken seemed combined for his
destruction. It has even been supposed that the
Queen-mother, Henrietta Maria, had formed a project,
with the aid of the sovereign of France, for
transporting to the hospitable shores of Virginia a
large body of her retainers, and of continuing in
the new world the monarchical reign, which, in the
old, had been so suddenly and fatally arrested.[76]

When the Long Parliament had attained to supreme
power, they did not confine their views to
the domestic administration of the English commonwealth.

Already their fleets had gone abroad
in every sea, and they began to learn how strong
was that arm which has since made the name of
Britain formidable to all the world. Distant colonies
could not be unimportant;—Massachusetts
had already submitted with joy to their rule—or
rather, she had hailed the late revolution as a
change of all others most grateful to her people.[77]
With, perhaps, as much love of rational liberty as
was felt in Virginia, the northern colony had likewise
the warmest sympathy for the Puritan sects
who had achieved the overthrow of monarchy in
England; and they hastened to grasp the hand extended
to them by their religious brethren in Parliament.
Under these circumstances, we are not
surprised that the sturdy republicans of the mother
country should have looked with displeasure upon
the loyal spirit of Virginia, and should have determined
at once to reduce her to subjection by open
force.

But they found the task by no means so easy as
had been expected. If the minds of the colonists
were already strongly prepossessed in favour of
the Stuart dynasty, this feeling was not diminished
by the opening acts of the Commonwealth.
Anxious to attract to their own coffers some of the
wealth which Holland was amassing by her carrying
trade, the Parliament had already required
that all commerce between England and the rest
of the world, should be conducted by English

ships, English captains, and a large proportion of
English sailors. The result was a war between
the Dutch and the young republic, in which terrific
contests at sea took place between their fleets;[78]
and though Holland was sometimes successful, her
rival gained rapidly in confidence, in fame, and in
maritime skill.

Following up a policy, of which the germ at
least can be detected in the commission of Charles
I. to Sir William Berkeley, the Parliament issued
an ordinance, forbidding all commerce with the
colonies, except to those bearing a special license,
either by their own authority or from the Council
of State. The navigation act, above noted, operating
to confine the carriage of colonial produce
to English ships, the combined effect of these ordinances
was to secure an absolute monopoly of
the commerce of the colonies to the mother country.[79]

(1651.) But this was not all. A powerful fleet,
carrying, besides its proper crews, a large land
force, was entrusted to the command of Sir George
Ayscue, with directions to subdue the islands of
the West Indies, and to reduce all refractory colonies
to subjection. The orders of Parliament were
stern and decided. Ayscue was to offer mild terms
if the rebels would immediately submit; but should
they resist, he was to open upon them all the terrors
of war. He was even directed to inspire the

slaves of the colonists with thoughts of revenge
against their masters, and to place in their hands
proper weapons for domestic bloodshed.[80]

(1652.) The renowned naval commander promptly
obeyed the commands of the Commonwealth.
Sailing immediately to the West Indies, he reduced
Antigua and the Barbadoes to subjection,
and then turned his eyes to Virginia. His active
subaltern, Captain Dennis, entered the Chesapeake
early in March, and sailed up to Jamestown with
the firm belief that he should encounter no serious
resistance. But he was destined to disappointment.
The brave cavalier who governed Virginia,
esteemed this a fit occasion for displaying his
loyalty to his King and his hatred of the Commonwealth.
His military force was small, but highly
efficient; Jamestown was armed and carefully
guarded. All who could be depended upon for
service were employed; muskets were prepared,
and cannon were remounted. An accident gave
to Sir William Berkeley material aid. Several
Dutch ships were now lying at Jamestown, and
their commanders and crews knew well the fate
they must expect in case the cause of the Commonwealth
should triumph. Their rich cargoes
would fall a prey to the republicans, and their own
persons would be detained as prisoners of war.
They did not long hesitate to unite with the colonists

in their effort to repel the invaders.[81] Their
cargoes were unladen and carried on shore; select
crews were assigned to each ship, and they were
moored in a line along the peninsula on which the
town was built. Their guns were heavily charged,
and their broadsides brought to bear upon every
point from which an attack might be feared. Sir
William Berkeley superintended all these dispositions,
and placed his force in a manner which
would have enabled him to offer a formidable resistance.

When the Parliamentary force discovered these
warlike measures, they were brought to a stand.
Dennis seems at once to have abandoned all
thought of a violent attack, the issue of which
must have been very uncertain. He resorted to
negotiations as a means of success much less precarious
than an assault upon a line of Dutch batteries,
backed by a strong force of the bravest
spirits in Virginia.[82] What might have been the

result of his offers, had no private interest intervened,
we cannot say. The Governor, the Council,
the General Assembly,[83] and a large majority of
the people, were loyalists of the straitest sect;
and the Dutchmen would have fought by the side
of their allies with that phlegmatic resolution
which has ever distinguished them. But the republicans
found means of throwing an apple of
discord among their enemies, and of distracting
their counsels by an appeal to the selfishness of
the human heart.

Aboard the English fleet there was at this time
a large quantity of goods belonging to two members
of the Provincial Council. After some messages
had passed between the adverse parties, and
terms of accommodation had been offered by the
republicans, Captain Dennis, of the fleet, found
means to convey to these two councillors, intelligence
concerning their goods, wares, and merchandise,
aboard his ships; and he delicately
hinted to them that the fate of their property depended
upon their own conduct in the pending

discussion.[84] This skilful touch upon a very sensitive
nerve, was not without its effect. In the
Council, two at least would be strenuous advocates
of pacific measures, and there were doubtless
others equally willing to submit. Yet we need
not attribute so unworthy an origin to the final decision
of the Governor and the General Assembly.
All must have seen, that whatever temporary success
might attend their arms, they must at length
be crushed in a conflict with the mighty Commonwealth,
whose name was already formidable
throughout Christendom. While they could obtain
favourable terms, it was wise to submit, and
nothing can more fully vindicate both the honour
and the prudence of their conduct, than a view of
the articles of surrender, to which the Virginia
colony finally assented.

By this treaty,[85] it was agreed that the colony
should be and remain in obedience and subjection
to the Commonwealth; but this should be considered
a voluntary thing, and not imposed upon
them by force of arms; and in proof of this, they
were to enjoy all the "privileges and freedomes"
of the most favoured subjects of English government.
The General Assembly was to convene
and enact laws as before, with the sole restriction

that their statutes were to be consistent with the
government and laws of the mother country. A
total remission and indemnity for "acts, words, or
writings" against the Parliament was provided.
The existing boundaries of Virginia were guarantied,
former patents were confirmed,—even free
trade was fully granted to the colonists "to all
places and with all nations."[86] No taxes, customs,
or imposts, were to be levied upon them, except
by consent of the Assembly; they were to be at no
charge in respect of the fleet to which they surrendered;
and should any of the inhabitants not
choose to submit to the Commonwealth, they were
allowed one year to remove themselves and their
estates out of Virginia. Public arms and ammunition
were to be given up; but not until security
was provided that satisfaction in some equivalent
should be made for them. Dutch goods already
landed were to be free from forfeiture, and the quitrents
granted by King Charles upon the public
domain were to be continued. It was even agreed
that the use of the Book of Common Prayer should
be continued for one year in those parishes which
desired it, provided only that the parts recognising
the King and the royal government should not be
publicly used.[87] When we remember the uncompromising
dislike felt by the republicans in general
to every thing connected with the Church of
England, we may pronounce this last-named concession
the most liberal granted to the royalist
colony.

But the articles did not rest here. The generous
men who represented the people of Virginia,
wished to provide for the safety of a governor to
whom they were warmly attached, and whose well-known
love for the King might have brought upon
his head the displeasure of the Commonwealth.
Separate articles were agreed upon for the special
benefit of Sir William Berkeley. Neither was he
nor were his council to be required for "one whole
yeare," to take any oath of allegiance to the republic,
nor were they to be censured for speaking well
of the King. He was permitted, at his own charge,
to send a messenger with a report of his proceedings
to the sovereign whom he still recognised.
His lands, his personal property, his debts, were
all secured to him, and he was allowed one year
to provide a ship and transport himself and his
effects to any part of the world he might choose.
Should he land in England, he was even allowed
six months "to follow his occasions" after his
arrival.[88]

These articles, public and private, are followed
by a general grant of indemnity to all the inhabitants
of the colony, for all acts, words, and writings,
by them at any time committed against the Parliament.
The whole treaty is signed and sealed on
the 12th day of March, 1651-52, by Richard

Bennett, William Claiborne, and Edmund Curtis,
in behalf of the Commonwealth of England.[89]

Never, we may say, did a conquered province
obtain terms of settlement so favourable to her privileges,
her liberties, her honour, as did Virginia
in this memorable treaty. Whether her courageous
spirit, her internal resources, or her distance
from England, operated to secure her from the
grasp of the conqueror, we do not know. It is certain
that Oliver Cromwell was not one to be daunted
by resistance, or to be easily reconciled to a
steady adherence to the family whom he had
driven from the English throne. But it may be
that he was too wise to be harsh. That sagacious
intellect which, during eight years, rendered his
Protectorate the most glorious period that his country
had ever known, failed not to suggest to him
the true policy of the mother towards her colonial
offspring. Endeavouring, by moderate enactments,
to secure to England the benefit of the
commerce of the colonies, he left them, in other
respects, to the guidance of their own assemblies.
In religion he interfered but little. In the northern
settlements, changes were not necessary, for their
people were already among the firmest and most

untainted of Puritans; and we have seen that in
Virginia, the ritual of the Church of England was
but slightly modified.

The happy effects of this policy have not been
concealed. Though the period from her surrender
to the Commonwealth until the restoration of Charles
II. be too quiet to be brilliant, yet the colony then
enjoyed every thing essential to her welfare in profusion
hitherto unknown. Her General Assemblies
were freely elected by the people, and exercised
every power of government, whether legislative,
executive, or judicial.[90] So little jealous did they
seem of the authority of the Commonwealth, that
at their meeting in April after the surrender, they
elected to the office of governor Richard Bennett,[91]
a well-known republican, and one of the commissioners
of the English Parliament. In detailing
the events of this period, we are liable to the errors
into which several historians have been betrayed,
either by their partiality to a favourite theory, or
their hatred of Cromwell and all his measures. One
has represented Virginia as ruled by governors appointed
either by the Commonwealth or the Protector
— as groaning under oppression and restraint,
imposed by this wondrous despot—as filled
with gallant cavaliers and gentlemen, who had fled
to her soil to excite pity for their king and rebellion
against the ruling powers;[92] but these statements

are wholly false and unfounded. Neither
the Parliament nor Cromwell ever appointed a governor
for the colony. This officer was invariably
elected by the Assembly; and it is remarkable that
in one case, at least, this body exercised the power
of removing a governor previously elected.[93] The
ordinance of 1650 was in effect repealed by the
articles agreed upon in 1652; and we find few complaints
made by the colonists concerning commercial
tyranny exercised by the Protector. (1653,
July 12.) We have on record a single instance of
a ship and her equipage being declared forfeited
under the navigation laws; but the bill of sale conveying
her to the purchaser, is signed not only by
the Governor, but by the Speaker and Clerk of
the House of Burgesses, from which we infer
that her captain or owners had been guilty of some
plain violation of public policy, and the sentence
of forfeiture was considered righteous and salutary.[94]

The Rappahannoc Indians had always been distinguished
for their bravery and their inveterate
hatred of the whites. Finding them still unsubdued
and dangerous, the Assembly passed an act
providing for hostilities, and directing the counties

of Northumberland, Lancaster, and Westmoreland,
to raise an armed force and march against the
common foe. We have no authentic account of the
conflict, but we have a fact pregnant with proof
that the savages met their usual fate and were entirely
overthrown. The next year we find in the
public records the county of Rappahannoc added
to those that were already enrolled.[95] The natives
had been subdued. Many of them doubtless perished
in the contest. Many retired with sullen
resolution to the west, and the few that remained
could offer no serious resistance to the progress of
civilized life.

(1655.) Notwithstanding their continued enmity,
we find the General Assembly of each year growing
more humane and compassionate in their treatment
of the unhappy Indians. Could these wild
beings have submitted to the healthful restraints of
civil government, they might have been happy and
respected. Laws were enacted for their special
benefit. Rewards were offered to encourage them
in assuming even the forms of civilization. For
eight wolves' heads brought in by the Indians, their
chief man was to receive a cow. They were urged
to acquire private property, and provision was
made for educating their children if they would
entrust them to the whites.[96] No one can read the
recitals and acts of this Assembly, without being
impressed with the conviction, that they sincerely
desired to render the most important service to

their savage neighbours. But it was all in vain.
The red man preferred his life of independence
and indolence, with all its miseries, to the healthful
labour and real comforts of civilized society.

The eastern counties of Virginia were now in
great measure relieved from fear of Indian aggression.
But in the midst of their tranquillity, a report
reached the Assembly that six or seven hundred
savages from the mountains had poured down
in a body upon the upper waters of the James, and
threatened to establish themselves in strongholds
near the falls. To permit this lodgment would
have been highly imprudent and dangerous. These
savages were known as the Rechahecrians; and
they were eminent in valour, in subtilty, in determined
hatred of the settlers. From their lurking-places
around the falls, they might, by a sudden
sally, sweep with ruin all the neighbouring settlements.
The Assembly instantly resolved to dislodge
them. Colonel Edward Hill was sent with
a force of one hundred men, and the friendly tribes
on the York and Pamunky Rivers were called upon
to aid him. It is believed that the mountain horde
made a desperate resistance; many of the Pamunky
tribe were slain, and among them fell their
gallant chief Totopotomoi, who had long been remarkable
for his friendly intercourse with the colonists.[97] (1656.) It seems probable that some unhappy
management occasioned a serious disaster
to the whites, and that the Rechahecrians were

not at this time totally overthrown; for Colonel
Edward Hill was afterwards cashiered and threatened
with fine for his conduct in the affair;[98] and
these Indians were probably among those who
acted a part in the memorable wars of Nathaniel
Bacon.

In 1656, Bennett was succeeded in the office of
governor by Edward Digges, who had long been a
valued member of the Council. Those who have
asserted that the rule of Cromwell in Virginia was
harsh and oppressive,[99] would find their theory not
easily reconciled with known facts during this period.
The very men whom the Assembly chose
as their governors, were also employed to represent
the interests of the colony with the Protector in
England. Had they been the creatures of Cromwell,
and employed by him in enforcing hated
laws, they would hardly have been elected by the
colonial Assembly to sustain their rights in a contest
with Maryland.[100] Whatever may have been
the designs[101] of the extraordinary man who now
grasped the helm of English affairs, it is certain
that he carried into execution no plan which affected

the colonies unfavourably. Their representative
government remained in full force, elected
and removed officers at its pleasure, passed
laws of the utmost importance, extended the right
of suffrage to every freeman who paid taxes,[102] declared
war and peace, inflicted fines, announced
its own privileges with a spirit worthy of the days
of John Hampden, and in all things proved itself
equal to the task of governing a prosperous and
growing people. In 1658, Samuel Matthews was
elected governor. He was "a worthy old gentleman,
a planter of near forty years standing,"[103] and
had already been entrusted with important duties
by the Assembly. But though a lover of liberty
himself, and devoted to the true interests of the
colony, the venerable governor had evidently too
exalted an opinion of his own privileges. This
session of the Assembly was eminent for the ability
of the members, the importance of their acts, and
the noble principles of freedom to which they gave
expression.[104] After passing many laws for the general
welfare of the colony, they declared that it
was the right of the House of Burgesses to discuss,
first and alone, any measure proposed for enactment.
This change rendered their power of legislation
absolute, for it took away from the Governor
and Council all authority to introduce bills, or to
act effectively upon them when introduced.[105]

The worthy chief magistrate took fire at this
act, and in the first impetus of his wrath, adopted
the kingly measure of declaring the Assembly to
be dissolved. But he found his proclamation to be
of small force against the calm republicanism that
pervaded this body. They instantly sent him a

message, denying the power of the Governor and
Council to dissolve them, and then having forbidden
any member to depart, they went into secret session.
The Governor became alarmed, and finally
withdrew his message for dissolving them, but reserved
the question of right to be decided by the
Protector. But this did not satisfy the Burgesses.
By way of showing what their power really was,
they pronounced all former elections of governor
and council void and null, and having thus reduced
these high functionaries to private life, they condescended
to invest old Samuel Matthews with his
office for a renewed term of years.[106] The dispute
was ended in a moment. We hear of no more
dissolving of Assemblies. The representatives of
the people had signally triumphed; and we may
now say that every power that government could
exercise was wielded by their hands.

Tranquillity and content universally prevailed.
When Oliver Cromwell descended to his grave, no
outburst of popular joy, no attempt to cast off a
hated yoke, can be discerned. The amiable but inconsistent
son of the Protector, was proposed and
deliberately recognised by the Assembly, as invested
with all the rights of his father,[107] and had Richard
Cromwell possessed the talents of a sovereign,
England and Virginia would long have remained
under his rule. But his mild spirit shrank from
the perils of a station, perhaps the most dangerous

then in the world. (April 22.) He yielded up the
dominion he had so lately assumed, and retired to
the repose of private life. England was threatened
with anarchy, and Virginia felt the feeble undulations
of a storm which menaced the mother country
with ruin. (1660.) At this critical time Samuel
Matthews died. Who shall be his successor?
This was a question of heavy import to their safety,
and the Assembly seem to have acted with a prescience
sometimes granted to men placed in circumstances
of difficulty and hazard. No tumult
was raised, no excited feeling prevailed, no royal
standard was thrown abroad to announce that
Charles the Second was King of Virginia.[108] All
that has been written and spoken and believed on
this subject, will vanish before the light of truth.
Sir William Berkeley was still in the colony. Beloved
by his friends and respected by the Assembly,
he had remained in rural quietude. His comfort
and his interests had been the subject of special
legislation, and his love to the King had never subjected
him to danger. To him the Assembly now
turned their eyes, and on the 13th day of March,
by a decisive vote, they tendered to him the office
of Governor of Virginia.[109] It was immediately accepted,
without condition or compromise. Whatever
may have been Berkeley's hopes, he required
no oath of allegiance to the King, from the men
who had placed him at the head of their affairs.
At this very session we note an act denouncing a
penalty against any one speaking in derogation of
the existing government.[110] But the mind of England
was soon relieved from its terrible suspense.
Monk threw off the mask of mystery which for
months he had worn, and on the 29th of April,
1660, Charles the Second ascended the throne, left
vacant eleven years before by the death of his unfortunate
sire.

CHAPTER VI.

When the restoration of Charles II. was publicly
announced in the Virginia colony, it excited
emotions of triumph and joy in many bosoms.[111]
Long-cherished prejudices cannot be changed by
momentary thought. The dominion of the Commonwealth
had been a season of peace, of freedom,

and of prosperity to the colonists, with which nothing
they had before enjoyed could be compared.
Their Assemblies had been regularly elected by
the people; had made laws suggested by their
own wisdom; had chosen every important officer
of the government, and, when necessary, had displaced
him; their trade had been scarcely interrupted;
their population had so rapidly increased
that, in 1660, it is said to have numbered thirty
thousand souls.[112] It had been happy for Virginia
had monarchy never again reared its head in England.
Innumerable oppressions, a civil war, and
scenes of blood, would all have been spared. But
the Deity willed that she should again groan beneath
the yoke, in order, it may be, to render her
final deliverance more signal.

While Charles was wandering in exile, many of
his adherents had taken refuge in the colony which
had shown so loyal a spirit in the trying hour.
The number of true cavaliers greatly increased
during the eight years prior to the Restoration,
and these naturally infused their sentiments into
the minds of all who would hear them.

The wealthy planters on the rivers retained their
early prepossessions for monarchy; and the great
body of the people, ignorant of their own true interests,
prejudiced against dissenters, and attracted
by glittering forms, joined in the cry of pleasure
which hailed the return of the king's dominion.
They little anticipated the evils which awaited

them. In reflecting on their folly, we are forcibly
reminded of the fable of antiquity; and it will not
be a violation of the laws of good taste, to compare
the Virginians to the unhappy denizens of the
marsh, who despised the passive log that Jove first
gave them as a king, only to be devoured, at last,
by the monster that succeeded. Had the colonists
been under the rule of reason, rather than of blind
caprice, they would never have rejoiced in the
restoration of a governor who knew no will but
his sovereign's; of a Parliament, disposed to fetter
the commerce of all other people with chains
exported from England; and of a monarch, odious
for his personal vices, and thoroughly contemptible
in his public ministrations.

No occupant of the English throne ever embodied
so many disgraceful qualities as did Charles
the Second. John was weak, cruel, and cowardly;
Henry Eighth was arbitrary and voluptuous;
Mary was bigoted and relentless; James
was pedantic and timid; but Charles, with individual
traits perhaps less imposing than any of
these, went far beyond them in his complete developement.
His private life was a tissue of the
most artful meanness, and of the darkest profligacy.
By his own example, he corrupted a court
which, before him, had been less impure than that
of any of the more splendid kingdoms of Europe.
Professing a regard for freedom, he signed the
death-warrant of Algernon Sidney; holding out
promises of general pardon, he sent many republicans

to the scaffold;[113] taking an oath to support
the Protestant church of England, he was secretly
a Papist; and, in the hour of death, hoped to find,
in the sacrament administered by a popish priest,
an atonement for the enormities of a misspent life.[114]

His name will ever be associated, in Scotland,
with the ideas of persecution and bloodshed. He
loved foul pleasure, and hated business. He humoured
his Parliaments with the hope of getting
money; and sold the honour of his country for the
means of gratifying his own selfish desires. From
the reign of such a man, neither England nor her
distant colonies could hope for quiet and happiness.

Immediately after the appointment of Sir William
Berkeley, and before the news of the restoration
could have reached the colonies, we note a
change in the liberal spirit that had pervaded Virginia
for several years then past. The demon of
religious persecution was awakened from his stupor
and urged to active exercise. A new sect had,
some time before, appeared in the world, upon
whom the name of Quakers had been bestowed,
because of their contortions of body under the influence
of powerful mental excitement. Neither
their creed nor their practice was more dangerous
to the peace of society, than many other follies
which had passed unmolested. The inward light
in which they believed, was never so brilliant as

to illumine the path of ambitious hope. The
movings of the spirit they professed to feel had
never prompted them to popular tumult; if they
abhorred war, this would not render them the
worse citizens; if they rejected forms and sacraments,
they did not therefore become rebels and
outlaws. But upon their first appearance, it is
certain that they were distinguished by certain extravagances,
and even indecencies, which naturally
made them objects of popular odium. These have
long since disappeared, and the Quakers have become
eminent for the propriety of their demeanour,
the rigid morality of their lives, and their attention
to the duties of the best and wisest citizens; but
we may not, therefore, forget the cause they originally
furnished for the harsh measures adopted towards
them. In Massachusetts, in 1658, a furious
fanatic of this sect, named Fanlord, under the influence
of religious frenzy, was preparing to shed
the blood of his own son, when the cries of the unhappy
boy attracted neighbours, who arrested the
arm of this uncalled Abraham.[115] Another deranged
Jeremiah burst in upon an assembled congregation,
and striking violently together two bottles held in
his hands, shattered them in fragments, crying out,
"Thus will the Lord break you in pieces."[116] A
certain lady, of the Quaker persuasion, having decorated
her face with a thick stratum of coal dust,
exhibited herself to many amazed beholders as a
sign of some hideous disease, which she declared
was soon to assail all unbelievers.[117] Another female
saint entered a church in the midst of divine worship,
in a state of perfect nudity, and exhorted the
people to give heed to her as a sign of the naked
condition of their own unhappy souls![118] A similar
exhibition took place in the streets of Salem;[119] and
it has even been asserted, that in the close of the
eighteenth century, a Quaker walked naked during
several days, through the streets of Richmond, as
a sign of the times.[120] Such fanatics fell properly
within the cognizance of police laws, and had they
received salutary flagellation, instead of hanging or
the burning of their tongues with heated iron, none
could have complained.

Early in the session of 1660, the Assembly
passed a stern law against the Quakers, reciting
them as "an unreasonable and turbulent sort of
people," who taught and published "lies, miracles,
false visions, prophecies, and doctrines," to the
great disturbance of religion and order. The statute
forbids any master or commander of a vessel,
under a heavy penalty, to bring any of this hated
sect into the colony; requires that all Quakers,
upon detection, should be imprisoned without bail,
until they took an oath to leave the country, and
gave security that they would never return; and
enacts, that any Quaker returning the second time,

should be punished as a despiser of the laws, and
forced again to depart; and should he return the
third time, he was to be treated as a felon.[121] All
persons were forbidden to give them countenance;
all officers were to note the laws against them; and
the circulation of their books and pamphlets was
rigidly proscribed.

It is vain to attempt to defend these laws. They
do, indeed, flow necessarily from the principles of
an ecclesiastical establishment; but they embody
the worst forms of intolerance, and, if fully developed,
their policy would destroy all religious
freedom. Yet it is consoling to believe, that no
actual cruelty or oppression resulted from these
harsh enactments. The most striking example of
their exercise occurred in 1663, when John Porter,
a burgess elect, from Lower Norfolk County, was
charged with "being loving to the Quakers, and
attending their meetings." He frankly confessed
that he admired the sect, and revered the mildness
of their doctrines and the purity of their lives.
The Assembly, upon this, did not immediately
condemn him, but tendered to him the oaths of
supremacy and allegiance. He refused to take
them, and was formally expelled by a vote of the
legislative body.[122] In reading this account, we
cannot fail to perceive that John Porter was expelled,
rather for refusing to acknowledge his obligations

to the King and his government, than for
loving the despised sect whose doctrines he had
imbibed.

When Charles felt himself firmly seated on the
throne, he sent to his staunch friend, Sir William
Berkeley, a new commission as governor, and some
royal advice as to the proper mode of conducting
the affairs of the colony. He counsels him to attend
diligently to the establishment of religion, to
enforce the use of the prayer book, and to provide
a competent support for ministers. He requires
that a new code shall be prepared, from which all
laws derogatory to a monarchical government shall
be expurgated; urges the governor and people to
build houses and settle towns, in imitation of New
England; directs their thoughts to flax, pitch,
hemp, and silk, and informs them that he had
worn, on his own majestic person, some silk of
Virginian growth, and found it not inferior to that
raised in other countries.[123] The King farther promises
his aid in establishing iron works in the
colony; offers to send over judges to administer
law, provided the people would pay their salaries;
and advises a conference with Maryland on the
subject of planting tobacco. He directs Sir William
Berkeley to summon an Assembly as early as

possible, and gives him permission to return for a
season to England, when he shall think proper so
to do.[124]

Buoyed up by unfounded hope and short-lived
joy, the colonists went cheerfully on their way;
but a melancholy reverse soon afflicted them. In
the first session of Parliament after Charles ascended
the throne, were passed the celebrated "Navigation
Laws" of England, giving full effect to a
policy which had already been threatened by previous
rulers. These laws have had both their
advocates and their enemies. On the one hand,
they have been vaunted as presenting in themselves
a perfect embodiment of political and commercial
wisdom, and on the other, they have been decried
as unjust and impolitic, oppressive to colonists and
injurious to the mother country. This controversy
may now be considered as settled. The wisest of
England's instructers have taught her a lesson,
hard to learn, yet not easily to be forgotten. They
have demonstrated, that the nation that shall deliberately
place fetters upon commerce, will, after
a season, suffer from her own harshness. To force
the products of a colony into the bosom of the mother
country, will render such dependencies discontented
and unhappy; will give to the mother
herself the character of a cruel and selfish step-dame,

and will make other nations rejoice in the
misery of both.[125] A monopoly of colonial trade
will, after a season, diminish the strength of all
parties concerned: of the colony, by confining her
energies to a single market; of the mother country,
by enfeebling the demand of foreign nations, and
consequently the supply made in the colonies, and
thus enhancing the price to her own people, and of
the rest of the commercial world, by cutting off
some of their motives for exertion.

But the Parliament of Charles II. were tempted
by the hope of immediate gain. Their Navigation
Laws provided, that no commodities should be imported
into, or exported from, any English settlements
in Asia, Africa, or America, except in vessels
built in England, or in her colonies, and navigated
by crews of which the master and three-fourths of
the mariners shall be English subjects; and this
was under penalty of forfeiture of ship and cargo;
that no persons other than natural born subjects,
or such as have been naturalized, shall be merchants
or factors in any British colonies, upon pain
of forfeiting their goods and merchandise; that
no sugar, tobacco, cotton, wool, indigo, ginger, or
woods for dyeing, should be exported from the colonies
to any country except England; and, to make

this clause secure, a bond for its observance was to
be exacted from all owners of vessels trading from
the settlements.[126] These enumerated articles, as
they were called, were gradually extended, until
the list embraced every commodity that could be
produced by colonial industry. In 1663, the navigation
law was extended, by forbidding that any
European article should be imported into the colonies,
unless shipped in England, and in vessels
built and manned according to the requirements of
the previous law.[127] And finally, in 1672, the topmost
stone was laid upon the column of oppression.
The colonies had been theretofore free in their trade
with each other, but in this year it was enacted
that, in shipping these enumerated articles from
colony to colony, the same tax should be paid as
was imposed upon the consumers in England.[128]

A more complete system of commercial oppression
could hardly be conceived. The colonists
were at once cut off from all foreign markets, and
shut up to the prices which English consumers
might think proper to pay; and they were compelled
to send their produce in English vessels,
manned by English seamen, and commanded by
English masters. They were denied even the poor
privilege of domestic traffic without customs. A
tax met them at every outlet and avenue. Whether
they imported or exported, bought or sold, they

were taxed. Even their tobacco, of which the
whole burden should have been borne by the consumer,
was laden in the port of shipment and in
the port of sale with a duty so onerous that the
planter endured its heaviest weight, and could
scarcely realize from his crop enough to furnish
clothes for his family.[129] Yet, to justify this oppression,
the British Parliament could urge no better
reason, than that the colonies, having been settled
and supported by England, were to be so used as
best to promote her manufacturing and commercial
interests![130]

(1661, March.) The laws had not been in effect
long in Virginia ere their sinister influence began
to manifest itself. Still hoping against hope, and
unwilling to believe that their sovereign and his
government intended to trample them in the dust,
the General Assembly commissioned Sir William
Berkeley, on his visit to England, to attend specially
to their interests, and to endeavour to procure
for them more favourable laws. They could not
have selected a worse agent. The old cavalier left
the colony about the 30th April, 1661, and returned
in the close of November, 1662. He had feasted
his eyes with the sight of royalty, had obtained
some privileges valuable to himself, but had not
secured one right to the colony, or averted from
her head one stroke of commercial violence.[131] It is

doubtful whether he even sought any change in
these fatal laws.

The Assembly manifested every disposition to
submit to the rule of the mother country, while that
rule could be tolerated. The price of tobacco was
already so low that the most substantial planters
were in great distress; and in order to keep the
country from being overwhelmed in debt, a law
was passed forbidding the importation of unnecessary
articles, among which we find enumerated
"strong drink, silk stuffe in garments or in pieces,
gold and silver lace, and ribbands inwrought with
gold and silver."[132] A Spartan simplicity in dress
and manners was thus encouraged, but such laws
availed but little to check the rise of discontent and
just indignation among the high-minded people of
Virginia.

The Assembly which convened in 1662, was
composed principally of landholders and cavaliers.
The people were willing to prove their devotion to
the King, by electing a body of royalists whose
love for monarchy was hardly neutralized by their
fondness for freedom. Their legislation partook of
their character. A new body of laws was compiled;
and the Assembly, in adopting it, declared
that all acts not in this collection were "to all intents
and purposes utterly abrogated and repealed."[133]
Among these former acts was one requiring the
elections of Burgesses for the Assembly to be once
in two years.[134] An able historian has considered

this act as repealed by the above-mentioned sweeping
clause;[135] but there is reason to believe that the
legislature did not intend that its operation should
be so extensive. Their design was simply to provide
a new code of general jurisprudence for the
people, in place of the one theretofore existing, and
not to destroy all the rules by which their own constitution
had previously been regulated. From his
view of this clause, the same writer has drawn the
belief, that this Assembly, from being biennial,
became permanent, depended no longer upon the
people, but retained its existence for many years,
until it was finally burst asunder by a rebellion.[136]
But we have satisfactory evidence that elections
were held up to the year 1666;[137] though, after that
time, the same body of men continued, without reference
to popular will, to hold the reins of government,
until they were driven from their places by
an explosion too violent to be longer resisted.

The price of tobacco had fallen so low that the
planters were threatened with ruin, and some remedy
seemed indispensable. A meeting of commissioners
from Maryland, North Carolina, and
Virginia, was held at Wicomocomo to arrange a
commercial treaty. It was agreed that in the succeeding
year no tobacco should be planted in either

colony, after the 20th day of June.[138] (1663.) Had
this contract been rigidly observed, it might have
enhanced the price of the staple, and gradually relieved
the planters; but Maryland soon abandoned
the league, and Virginia immediately permitted her
citizens to plant as much as they pleased.[139]

Causes of discontent were daily increasing, in
number and in weight. At length they began
openly to show their influence. A general feeling
of uneasiness and disappointment pervaded a people
who had received a governor and a king, only to
be mocked and oppressed. In the colony at this
time were many soldiers who had served under
Cromwell, and who, from him, had imbibed a cordial
hatred of kings, a prepossession for Puritanism,
and a thorough contempt for the Church of
England in all her forms. These men eagerly
fanned the flames of discontent already rising;
they had but too much reason for their complaints,
and found many to sympathize in their desire for
relief. Secretly and with skill, a formidable insurrection
was organized; conflicting materials
were brought together, and arrayed in opposition
to powers hated by all. So profound was their
concealment, that not one hint of the design escaped
before the evening preceding the day for
the intended stroke. Then, a soldier, named Berkenhead,
who had been one of the conspirators,
moved by remorse or by cowardice, revealed the
plot, and urged instant measures for its defeat.

(Sept. 13.) The governor's conduct was prompt
and decided. He issued private orders that an
ample force of militia should meet at the place of
rendezvous before the time appointed by the insurgents.
His directions were obeyed. As fast as
they appeared, the hapless conspirators were seized
and disarmed. Many of them caught the alarm,
and made their escape. Four of the worst were
speedily hanged; and the intended plot was arrested,
ere its actors could discover the cause of
their discomfiture.[140]

The soldiers were all servants, sent over from
England to labour in the colony. Their sturdy
republicanism, and perhaps their morose tempers,
rendered them ungrateful to the mother country;
and, with her accustomed policy, she sent them to
be improved by the air of Virginia. Berkenhead
was the servant of a Mr. Smith, of Gloucester
County, and, in reward for his services, the Assembly
voted him his freedom, and five thousand
pounds of tobacco.[141] The recollection of this desperate
plot was long fresh in the memories of the
settlers. In 1670, we find an order of Council,
regularly entered, complaining of the practice of
sending convicts and abandoned persons to the colony,
who "deserve to dye in England;" referring
to this conspiracy of 1663, and denouncing
stern penalties against any commanders of vessels

who should in future bring such wretches to Virginia,
to degrade her character and stain her reputation.[142]

When news of the "Oliverian Plot" reached
England, Charles ordered that forts should be constructed
in the colony, and that Jamestown should
be additionally fortified; but these orders were but
partially observed. The people of Virginia were
as jealous of towns as the King was fond. He regarded
them as nurseries of loyalty, and the colonists
considered them as fit engines for executing
the odious laws for navigation.

The defeat of a conspiracy did not remove the
permanent evils under which the settlers were labouring.
Several years passed away, and yet no
softening of the policy of England had occurred.
Various attempts to evade the laws had been entered
upon. At one time, a profitable traffic with
the Dutch of New York was opened; but the
English system was rigidly enforced, and Virginia
soon found that she was closely watched by her
selfish and unfeeling mother. Her own Assembly
was no longer composed of men who loved equal
justice, and guarded the interests of the people.
(1666, Nov. 9.) They protected their own rights
indeed, and refused to permit either the Governor
or his Council to join them in deciding upon the
public levy;[143] but they restricted the right of suffrage,
which had before been exercised by all freemen,

and confined it to "freeholders and housekeepers;"[144] thus excluding a large number of useful
and intelligent voters. But the full weight of
royal power was yet to be felt.

As early as 1649, immediately after the execution
of Charles I., a grant of the northern neck of
Virginia, embracing all the country between Potomac
and Rappahannoc Rivers, had been made to a
company of cavaliers, who designed to settle upon
it.[145] This grant was never acted upon, and was
finally recalled. But nine years after the restoration,
Charles II. determined to exercise his kingly
liberality, in giving away that which belonged not
to him. He was but a highwayman at heart, and
had he occupied a more humble station, it is not
improbable that his total disregard of the rights of
his fellow-men, would have finally conducted him
to a gibbet. (1669.) By letters patent, regularly
executed and issued, he gave away the whole of
Virginia, with her land and water, her fields and
forests, her mountains, swamps, harbours, and
creeks, for the full period of thirty-one years, unto
two of his favourites, to wit: Thomas, Lord Culpeper,
and Henry, Earl of Arlington, and to their
executors, administrators, and assigns.[146] The first
of these grantees was a man of good sense, but
exceedingly subtle and covetous; the last, bears a
name but too well known as one of the renowned
"Cabal," who introduced a new word into our

language, and a new science into our round of
knowledge. He was smooth, polite, well-bred in
the extreme, but he loved low pleasure almost as
much as his sovereign, and even exceeded him in
studied forgetfulness of his overwhelming debts.[147]

(1674.) When this grant was openly promulgated
in the colony, both people and Assembly were
stricken with astonishment and alarm. The King
had at length touched a nerve which caused even his
most loyal servants of the settlement to shudder
with suffering. Upon the faith of previous charters,
they had occupied land, and had devoted to
it assiduous labour. Industry had reclaimed fertile
fields from the forest, and forty thousand inhabitants
now held lands which were thus deliberately
wrested from them by the King, and turned
over to his grasping minions. What burthen, in
the shape of yearly and quit-rents, services, manor
duties, tithes upon advowsons, market customs,
and other imposts, these men might inflict upon
them, was uncertain, but the letters patent were
ample enough to justify these, and many other
exactions.[148]

Immediately the Assembly resolved to seek redress.
They appointed three commissioners, Thomas
Ludwell, Secretary of State, Francis Morrison,
and Robert Smith; and, having provided for their
support by a heavy tax upon the colony, they sent
them to England to implore the King to recall his

grant, or else, they were to endeavour to effect a
compromise with Culpeper and Arlington.[149] The
result of this embassy was what might have been
expected. The commissioners wholly failed in
inducing the despicable being who occupied the
English throne to withdraw his letters patent, as
improvidently issued; and, after protracted negotiations
with the patentees, they obtained terms
little favourable to the interests of the settlers.
Their application for a new charter was equally
fruitless. It has been said that one was prepared;
but it was stopped in its passage through the
Hamper Office, and was at length wholly suppressed.[150]

The grievances of the colonists had now nearly
reached their zenith. The storm was ready to
descend; but, ere we proceed to describe it, we
must speak of an undertaking apparently remote
from popular movements, yet in reality connected
with the immediate cause of their outburst.
Designing to explore the country more fully, Sir
William Berkeley sent Captain Henry Batte with
a brave company, consisting of fourteen Englishmen,
and as many Indians, to penetrate as far
as possible to the southward and westward, and
make such discoveries and observations as were
practicable. Setting out from Appamatox, this
small party, in seven days, reached the foot of
the mountains. Those first encountered were

not very lofty, but after farther progress, they
came to others, which towered in majesty above
them, and seemed to pierce the clouds with their
summits. These mountains were often so rugged
and so full of precipices, that the travellers could
with difficulty make their way, and frequently a
day's exertion carried them but three miles forward
in a direct line. Yet ever and anon, they
came upon level plains and green savannas, most
refreshing to behold. Flocks of turkeys, and herds
of deer, elk, and buffalo, constantly saluted them;
and these creatures were so tame, that they suffered
them to approach within any distance, and
seemed to regard the strangers with curious interest
rather than with alarm. Wild fruits of the
country abounded, and among them were grapes
of enormous size, which the adventurers beheld
with unmixed wonder. When they had passed
the lofty range of mountains, they came again
upon a beautiful country, fertile and level, through
which ran a rivulet that "descended backwards"
from the high lands above. After some progress
down this stream, they came to Indian settlements,
which were deserted, and they then found themselves
on the borders of extensive marshes. Here
their Indian guides halted, and positively refused
to go farther, declaring that but a little way in advance
of them, lived powerful tribes of savages,
who made salt, and sold it to their neighbours;
and who had never suffered any strangers to return,
that ventured within their formidable grasp.
With great reluctance, Captain Batte was compelled
to retrace his steps. When he reached
Jamestown, he gave to the governor so attractive
a description of his achievements, that Sir William
Berkeley resolved to undertake in person a similar
excursion.[151] But events of the highest import soon
arrested his design, and turned his thoughts into a
less peaceful channel.

So irritated and excitable was the public mind
at this time, that slight circumstances threatened
to awaken an insurrection. It would be irrational
in the highest degree to suppose that the scenes of
violence and blood upon which we are soon to
enter, were the result of momentary agitation.
Their true causes will be found deeply planted in
the history of the colony during many years before
they occurred; and the very fact, that the
apparent cause has seemed inadequate, will prove,
that powerful latent springs were in motion, to
drive the people of Virginia into open rebellion.
Let it be remembered, that, for fourteen years,
they had suffered the crushing exactions of the
laws passed by the Parliament which first welcomed
Charles II. to the throne; that their trade

had been ruined; their staple depreciated; their
exports and imports alike laden with intolerable
taxes. When they complained, their petitions
were heard with indifference and treated with neglect.
The loyal governor, whom they had once
delighted to honour, had exhibited his true character;
and now, when the selfishness of the King
and the welfare of the colony were at war, he hesitated
not to take the side of the oppressor. He
drew from the people a princely revenue for his
own private behests, yet he remained unsatisfied,
and craved a larger allowance.[152] He feared and
hated the presence of learning among the colonists,
knowing well that ignorance alone is submissive
to oppression. His memory will for ever
bear a stain induced by his own words, in reply to
an inquiry of the English Council—"I thank God
there are no free-schools nor printing (in Virginia),
and I hope we shall not have these hundred years;
for learning has brought disobedience, and heresy,
and sects into the world; and printing has divulged
them, and libels against the best government.
God keep us from both."[153]

Can it be thought singular that this man should
have forfeited the respect with which he was once
honoured?

Let it be remembered, farther, that the General

Assembly was no longer a fair representation of the
people. Composed of landholders and royalists, it
perpetuated its own existence from year to year by
adjournment. It cut down the sacred right of suffrage,
and reduced it to the smallest possible compass.
It raised the salaries of its own members,
until each received about two hundred and fifty
pounds of tobacco, equivalent to nearly nine dollars,
for his daily emolument.[154] This onerous tax was
wholly borne by the people of the respective counties.
Meanwhile the judiciary itself was rather
dangerous than useful to the colonists. The county
courts were composed of unpaid justices, commissioned
by the governor, and, it seems, holding
their offices during his pleasure.[155] The General
Court was held exclusively by the Governor and
Council; and even when appeals were allowed to
the Assembly, the suitors could hope for little impartiality
from its royalist members. These three
tribunals constituted the whole judicial system of
Virginia.

But yet farther. As though with design to mock
their present miseries, the King had granted away
their whole territory to Culpeper and Arlington.
The men who had borne the brunt of battle, the
heat and burthen of the day, were now in danger
of losing the reward of all their toil. Two
minions of a profligate monarch might fetter their
property with taxes and customs, and drink up

their profits by numberless exactions. Perhaps
this last was the grievance most deeply felt, for it
added insult to injury; it infused into the already
bitter draught of parliamentary oppression, the
more bitter gall of kingly ingratitude. When all
these complicated ills are considered, we are not
surprised that the unhappy people were driven almost
to madness by their pressure. It is not wonderful
that their blood should have been rendered
hot by this continued stimulus, and they should
have been even on the verge of open resistance.

Another cause hastened the dénouement. The
Indians had long been practising private hostilities,
and on the upper streams of York and James Rivers
their strength was yet sufficient to render them
dangerous. The governor had promised to send
a force against them, but afterwards wholly neglected
it.[156] An armed band, under Sir Henry
Chichely, ready to march against the enemy, was
suddenly disbanded without cause.[157] It has been
supposed that Berkeley refrained from severe measures
against the Indians, from a desire to secure
to himself some of the profits of their trade;[158] and it
is certain that he rebuked with sternness, what he
considered an act of perfidy on the part of the
whites, towards the garrison of an Indian fortress.[159]
It is not impossible that the excursion of Captain
Batte may have added impetus to the jealousy of

the savages; but whatever may have been the incitements,
their hostile action became open and
bloody. Frightful murders were almost daily
perpetrated, and tortures were inflicted upon the
wretched captives who fell into their hands, that
are too revolting to be described.[160]

Roused by these outrages, and finding that they
could obtain no redress from their governor, the
people of Virginia resolved to protect themselves.
A large number assembled, and eagerly sought a
leader ready to sympathize in their sufferings, and
to guide their action. All eyes immediately fell
upon a young gentleman, whose talents and manners
had already enlisted attention. Nathaniel
Bacon was yet in the bloom of manhood. Born of
good parentage, and heir to a rich estate in the colony,
he had passed several years of his life in the
inns of court in London, acquiring the legal knowledge
so important at that period to a legislator for
Virginia. On his arrival in the colony, he was
joyfully received by his friends, and in a short time
he became a prominent member of the Provincial
Council.[161] His figure was graceful and commanding;
his countenance was remarkable for manly
beauty and for engaging expression; his manners
were easy and natural, betraying neither the hauteur
of the professed aristocrat, nor the coarseness

of the plebeian. Nature had gifted him with intellectual
endowments of the highest order. His
mind was capacious, yet exact; full of native energy,
yet highly cultured by well-applied art. He
was an orator of uncommon power. His eloquence
appears to have been of that character at once impassioned
and convincing, which carries away alike
the feelings and the reason of the auditors, and
renders them subservient to the speaker's will.
He possessed dauntless courage, and he feared not
to encounter any danger in the cause of freedom
and of innocence.

Such was the man who now assumed the lead
in the great popular movement of 1676. We can
hardly attribute to him any motives other than
those of patriotism and philanthropy. He had all
to lose and nought to gain by a rebellion against
the existing powers. In peace, his youth, his
talents, his riches, would have insured to him the
highest honours that his country could bestow.

(1676, April.) This young councillor had already
received a provocation, urging him to decisive measures
against the Indians. Upon his own lands, in
the county of Henrico, two murders had been committed
by the savages. His overseer and a favourite
servant had fallen beneath their treachery.[162]
He hesitated no longer to assume the command of
the forces assembled by the people of Virginia, to
march against the common foe. When he saw
before him the numbers who had rallied at a single

cry, he was reminded of the wrongs they had suffered
and of their power to remove them. Availing
himself of that ready eloquence always at his
command, he presented to his auditors, in rapid
review, the grievances which had so long oppressed
them. The Navigation Laws of Charles
and his Parliament were a copious theme of just
invective; the selfish grants of the tyrant were
stigmatized as open robbery; the enormous salaries
of the Governor and Burgesses, the restriction
of the right of voting, the judicial abuses, the perpetuity
of the legislature,—all these furnished subjects
upon which a patriot orator could not be
silent, and which found in the hearts of listeners a
ready response.[163] And finally, the Indian outrages
were spoken of, and in the burst of indignation
they elicited, the excited parties mutually pledged
to each other an engagement not to lay down their
arms until their enemies were effectually humbled.[164]

In order to proceed regularly, and according to
the forms of law, they made immediate application
to Sir William Berkeley, humbly begging that he
would grant a commission to Bacon, as commander
of the forces against the Indians. A more reasonable
request could not have been preferred; but
the governor hesitated to comply, and his delay
and his silence were alike intolerable to men whose

families were hourly exposed to the tomahawk.[165]
Bacon instantly resolved to march without a commission;
and no generous soul can censure his
haste. Proceeding, by rapid movements, towards
the heads of the lower rivers, he fell upon the savages,
and routed them with signal success. He
took many prisoners, and with the full consciousness
of having done well for his suffering countrymen,
he returned to his home.[166]

But he had left behind him a foe worse than the
savages. (May 29.) When Bacon marched with
his volunteers, Sir William Berkeley, professing
to be greatly incensed at his unwarranted proceedings,
declared him and his followers to be rebels;
and raising an armed force, set out to pursue them
towards the falls. It was happy that he was not
successful in overtaking the determined young
leader. A conflict would have been, probably, the
result; and it would have been fatal to the cavalier
and the luxurious planters who formed his
guard. But while in march, Berkeley received
intelligence of an alarming spirit of insurrection
that had shown itself in Jamestown; and immediately
retracing his steps, he returned to the capital.
On every side, the long-suppressed resentment
of the people menaced their oppressors with
ruin.

Perhaps nothing can more fully show the justice
of the cause in which Bacon and his band had

engaged, than the conduct of the Governor and
Council in this crisis. Knowing well the foundation
of the people's complaints, they issued orders
directing that the obnoxious forts, which had been
used to enforce the Navigation Laws, should be dismantled,[167] and that writs should be issued for a new
election of Burgesses to the General Assembly.

The people joyfully breathed again the air of
elective freedom, from which they had been so
long debarred. From the county of Henrico, Nathaniel
Bacon was returned a member of the Colonial
Legislature,[168] and corresponding changes occurred
in other places. No attention was paid to the
hated law restricting the right of suffrage to the
freeholders of the colony. Many of the burgesses
themselves were only freemen, and the dangerous
powers usurped by the last Assembly seemed at
once to be overthrown. But, though the Governor
was compelled to yield to the blast, he was not
appeased. He still cherished thoughts of revenge
for the insults which he professed to have received.

As Bacon approached Jamestown, in a small
sloop, utterly unprepared for hostilities, he was
suddenly arrested by an armed ship, under the
guns of which his frail bark was brought, and he
was himself taken into custody by the High Sheriff
of Jamestown, and carried into the city.[169] But the

Assembly convened in a short time thereafter.
Already the young leader was regarded with the
warmest affection by men who considered him
their deliverer, not merely from Indian cruelties,
but from the injustice of their own government.
Berkeley could not venture long to keep such a
man in confinement. With the hope of gaining a
character for clemency, he released his prisoner
from custody, reversed the sentence of attainder
formerly pronounced against him, and restored
him to his place in the Council.[170]

But before Bacon would consent to give his
parole, to resume his duties in Council, or to
acknowledge his fault, he received from the Governor
a promise that he should have a regular
commission as commander of the forces against
the Indians; and this was a condition precedent
on which depended his own agreement. That the
governor gave this promise, no reasonable doubt
can exist: the fact is not only asserted by cotemporary
authorities,[171] but it must be taken for granted,

in order to give consistency to the conduct of
the parties in the scenes which followed. (June 5.)
When this agreement was made, a written paper
was presented by his uncle[172] to Nathaniel Bacon,
who solemnly adopted it in the presence of the Council,
acknowledging himself to have been guilty of
many imprudences and "unwarrantable practices;"
begging pardon of the governor for his offences
against him; promising allegiance and true faith
to the government in future; and expressing his
willingness to pledge his whole estate for his
subsequent good conduct. This acknowledgment
was made on the 5th day of June; and immediately
afterwards the newly elected Assembly commenced
its labours.[173]

The action of this Assembly was salutary and
important. Once more we mark the infusion of
the popular spirit into their laws, giving life to
what would otherwise have been a dead body
of enactments, displaying the presence neither of
wisdom nor of liberty.[174] Ecclesiastical monopolies
were destroyed, by limiting vestrymen to a term of
three years, and making them responsible to the
free voters of each parish.[175] Just levies of county

taxes were provided for; the enormous perquisites
of the Governor and Council were greatly curtailed;[176] the sale of spirituous liquors throughout
the country was forbidden; two unworthy magistrates
were disgraced and disfranchised; and an
act of general indemnity was passed, to cover all
offences for which the actors in the late scenes
might be called in question. And, we note with
interest, that the restrictions on the elective privilege,
which had been imposed by the "Long
Assembly" of Sir William Berkeley, were removed,
and all freemen were permitted once more to have
a voice in choosing the men who were to exercise
over them the power of liberty and bondage—of
life and death.[177] Among laws so wise and so
healthful in their influence, we find but one which
must call for reprobation. The Assembly declared
that Indian captives taken in war should be made
slaves during life[178]
—thus, for the first time, depriving
the red man of the freedom he prized more than
existence, and adding to the burthen of an institution
which had already inflicted unmeasured evil
upon Virginia.

But new troubles were soon to arise. The governor
positively refused to comply with his promise,
and withheld from Bacon the eagerly sought
commission. Indignant at this breach of faith,
and fearing, for stringent reasons, that treachery
would be employed against him,[179] the young planter
obeyed the warning of his uncle, and secretly
left the seat of government. Berkeley, in great
alarm, issued warrants for his apprehension, but
they were impotent against the idol of the people.

Four hundred men were soon under the command
of Bacon, who led them to Jamestown, and,
arranging them in order upon the green in front
of the State House, demanded from the Council a
fulfilment of their pledge. Roused by this daring
act, the old cavalier recalled his well-known courage.
He had not entirely lost the heroism of
earlier years. Advancing towards the insurgents,
he bared his breast to their presented fusils, and
cried aloud: "Here, shoot me—a fair mark—
shoot!"[180] But his young opponent was not inferior
in chivalrous honour. His passions were violent,
and they were now excited to intensity; yet he did
not forget his duty. His reply deserves a record.
"No, may it please your honour, we will not hurt
a hair of your head, nor of any other man's. We
have come for a commission to save our lives from

the Indians, which you have so often promised;
and now we will have it before we go."

The Council and Assembly sought to moderate
the excitement, and persuaded Berkeley to grant
the commission. The moment it was obtained,
Bacon led his followers away, and prepared for a
vigorous prosecution of the Indian war. But when
relieved from the immediate presence of this formidable
patriot, the Governor and his Council
yielded to a mean desire for revenge; and pretending
that their late grant had been forced from them
by arms, they declared Bacon a rebel, and prepared
for hostilities against him. Berkeley repaired to
Gloucester, a county fertile in soil, abundant in
wealth, and containing a large population. Here
he raised the royal standard, and invited the planters
to rally round him and make war upon the disturber
of the public peace. Great was his astonishment
to find that his summons excited no enthusiasm,
no cordial response. The seeds of disaffection had
already taken root upon the very soil on which he
stood. The leading men of Gloucester sent him a
temperate and manly reply, telling him that they
regarded Bacon as their brother and the friend of
their country; that he was now leading an army
against the savages, from whom they had so much
to fear; that they could not consent to bear arms
against one thus endangering his life for their
safety; but that, should he engage in any treasonable
designs, the Governor might depend upon
their aid.[181]

Meanwhile, intelligence of these measures against
him was conveyed to the insurgent by Drummond
and Lawrence, two steady patriots, who were both
afterwards victims of their love of liberty. Bacon
hesitated not a moment in his course. To be thus
hunted in the rear like a savage animal, while he
was pursuing the wolves, tigers, and bears, in front,
was sufficient to awaken his anger.[182] Retracing his
steps, he advanced rapidly upon Sir William Berkeley,
resolved to force him to the adoption of more
equitable counsels. But the Governor prudently
withdrew from the coming storm; and, attended by
a few adherents, he transported himself with the
feeble remnant of his friends across the bay to the
eastern county of Accomac.[183]

Bacon had advanced to Williamsburg, then
known by the name of the Middle Plantation,
when, finding that his enemy had fled, he summoned
the gentlemen of the country to a free conference
on the state of their affairs. Serious
difficulties presented themselves. No organized
government existed, and doubts prevailed as to the
mode of obtaining one. But brave men are never
discouraged by obstacles that can be overcome.
The flight of Sir William Berkeley was considered
a virtual abdication of the government;[184] and when

it was farther urged that the period of ten years,
for which he had been appointed, had expired,[185]
the
people of Virginia did not hesitate to take into their
own hands the responsible power of self-legislation.
Bacon, and four other members of Council, issued
writs for a new Assembly.[186] The utmost joy and
enthusiasm prevailed. Even the sensitive nature
of woman caught the spirit, and aided in its diffusion.
Sarah Drummond was the wife of Bacon's
friend, and was worthy to be the companion of a
patriot martyr. "The child that is unborn," she
said, "will have cause to rejoice for the good that
will come by the rising of the country."[187]

To give consistency to their action, and to bind
themselves into closer union, the assembled colonists
published a manifesto, which, after due debate, they
all subscribed. In this paper they recite the condition
of the country, the raising of the army, the
appointment of Bacon as general, the outrages of
the Indians, and the unjust measures adopted by
Sir William Berkeley. After this preamble, the
manifesto concludes with three articles of agreement:
by the first, the colonists pledge themselves
at all times to join with Bacon against the common
foe; by the second, they promise to use all proper

means for the discovery and apprehension of his
enemies, who desired to beget a civil war by opposing
him; by the third, they go further, and, reciting
that the Governor had informed the King
that the people of Virginia were rebellious, and had
requested that troops might be sent from England
to subdue them, they solemnly engage to oppose all
such troops, until his majesty should be informed of
"the state of the case" by delegates sent by Bacon
in behalf of the people. These bold articles of
agreement were all signed by the colonists then
assembled, on the 3d day of August, 1676.[188]

Having thus successfully exerted himself in restoring
the powers of government, Bacon advanced
with his gallant army to attack the Indians. Already
they had taken the alarm, and had hastily
united their few remaining tribes to oppose his
progress. He destroyed the towns of the Pamunky,
the Mattapony, and the Chickahominy Indians,
and then marched immediately to the point
at which he expected to encounter the whole savage
force. Very near the site of the present city
of Richmond, is a spot well known as "Bacon
Quarter Branch," which is supposed to have been
included by the plantation of the renowned insurgent.
Nearly three miles below this flows a small
stream, which has for many years borne the name
of Bloody Run, a title but too well merited by the
fierce conflict which once took place upon its borders.[189]

On an eminence overhanging this stream
the natives had collected their whole force, and
knowing that here must be made their final stand,
they prepared for a desperate resistance. A fort,
defended and palisadoed in the best manner known
to the savages, had been erected, and within its
barriers, women, children, and warriors were all assembled.
When Bacon approached, he instantly
saw the difficulty and danger of an assault, but
without a moment's delay, he threw himself at the
head of his forces upon the Indian fortress. The
palisades were torn down; the eminence was gained;
the Indian warriors were met hand to hand;
and in the terrible combat which followed, it is
said that streams of blood ran down the hill, and
mingling with the waters of the rivulet below,
gave to it the ominous name which it has ever
since preserved. The savages were completely
routed; many of them were slain, and a large
number were made prisoners. So decisive was
this blow, that the Indian powers were for ever
broken, and in eastern Virginia we hear of them
no more.[190]

While in the full tide of victory, Bacon received
intelligence which again turned his thoughts to the
enemy whom he had left in his rear. When Sir

William Berkeley first arrived in Accomac, he was
received with coldness, and among the better part
of the population, no enthusiasm was felt for the
royal cause. In this peninsula, the odious Navigation
Laws had been felt in all their force, and the
easy access to all parts from the seaboard rendered
evasion of these laws both difficult and hazardous.[191]
Berkeley could gather around him few friends, except
the lowest and most cowardly of the country's
population. His condition was highly critical,
when his fortunes were suddenly restored by an
unexpected event. Giles  Bland  and Captain Carver,
two zealous promoters of the late revolution, determined
to make a descent on Accomac in two armed
vessels which Bacon had pressed for the service.
Their design was, if possible, to take Berkeley a
prisoner and convey him to Jamestown.[192] But
treachery revealed their design. One Captain Larimore,
had commanded one of these vessels, and
had professed fervent zeal for the cause of Bacon.
He was a man of coarse passions, and had even
heretofore been little loved; but now he covered
himself with greater infamy by assuming the office
of a traitor. Hastening to Berkeley, he apprised
him of the intended attack, and offered to
head an expedition for defeating it.  Bland  and
Carver were incautious, and both themselves and
their crews seem to have yielded to the seductions
of the wine cup, at a time when it specially behooved
them to be sober. Twenty-six tried men,
heavily armed, were placed in two boats, and at
midnight they approached in profound stillness the
vessels of the insurgents. The work was accomplished
in a moment. The crews were in no state
to resist, and were all made prisoners.[193] Giles and
Carver were carried on shore and immediately put
in heavy irons. The spirits of the royalist Governor
rose in proportion to his former despair, and with
them returned the thirst for vengeance. Four days
after the capture, the unhappy Carver was executed
upon a gibbet.  Bland  was retained in custody,
but his death was not long delayed.[194]

Collecting in haste his whole naval and military
force, Berkeley set sail for Jamestown with one
large armed ship, seventeen sloops and nearly six
hundred men. (Sept. 7.) When he entered the
town, he first offered solemn thanks to God for his
delivery, and then issued renewed proclamations
against the rebels, whom he now supposed to be
utterly discomfited.[195] But his triumph was brief.
In his camp, near the scene of the late battle,
Bacon received notice of the disasters of his friends
and the success of his foes.[196] Calling his followers
once more to arms, he advanced rapidly towards

Jamestown, and while in route, he caused to be
brought into his camp the wives of several leading
royalists who were found at their houses in the
country. Sending one of the number to apprise
their husbands in town of the capture,[197] he hastened
onward with his determined army.

(Sept.) As the sun was sinking beneath the
horizon, the
horizon, the insurgent forces gained a gentle eminence
above Jamestown. Having first sounded defiance
with their trumpets, and fired a volley, they immediately
began preparations for attack and defence.
A beautiful night in autumn favoured their design,
and under the moonbeams they worked with little
intermission. A trench was cut and a breastwork
thrown up, composed of felled trees, earth, and
brushwood.[198] The royalist army could discern
their labour; but, fearing to injure the wives of
their leaders, who were in the rebel camp, they
ventured not to fire a single shot, either from the
ships or from the ordnance in the city.

But early in the next morning, Berkeley led out
a large force of nearly eight hundred men, resolved
to storm the entrenchment and drive the rebels before
him. He encountered the very chivalry of
Virginia, against whom his degraded followers
would combat in vain. The royalist force was
broken and routed in every direction; many of

them were left dead on the field; their drum was
abandoned to the victors, and with difficulty did
the leaders themselves escape captivity.

Bacon followed up his success with the promptness
of an experienced general. Planting several
heavy cannon upon a commanding position, he
turned them against the fleet anchored near the
city. The first shot was sufficient to convince the
governor that his naval force, upon which he chiefly
depended, would be destroyed if longer retained
in its perilous anchorage; and, with deep disappointment,
he found himself again compelled to fly
before his enemies.[199] He deserted Jamestown with
all his followers, and entering the vessels, they
sailed down the river beyond the reach of the insurgent
cannon.

No opposing force remained to dispute the entrance
of the city. Bacon and his followers took
possession of Jamestown, and found in it neither
enemies nor friends. There is no evidence that
they sought for spoil, nor is it probable that a body
comprising some of the highest and most refined
men in the colony, could have tolerated pillage in
a town in which many of themselves had formerly
dwelt.[200] But the very existence of their prize gave
them serious difficulty. To remain in Jamestown,
with a sufficient force to guard it, would be impossible;
to abandon it again to the royal forces would

be dangerous. In this dilemma, Bacon adopted a
measure, stern indeed, yet apparently both wise
and necessary. He proposed that Jamestown
should be destroyed, and his counsel was immediately
approved. His two faithful friends, Drummond
and Lawrence, with their own hands set fire
to their respective houses, and in a short time the
ancient, the only city in Virginia, was wrapped in
flames.[201]

From the mouldering ruins behind him, the insurgent
chief slowly retired with his victorious
army. Hearing that a large force, consisting of
nearly one thousand men, was advancing through
the upper counties, under Colonel Brent, with the
supposed design of attacking him, he gathered his
men around him, and informing them of the threatened
danger, asked them if they were ready to
renew the contest. Shouts, acclamations, the thunder
of drums, and the clash of steel, attested their
enthusiasm. With one accord they divested themselves
of every thing that could impede their march,
and prepared to meet the enemy.[202] But their zeal,
though sincere, was in this case hardly required.
Already Brent's men were deeply infected with the
spirit of freedom, which had roused their brethren;
they learned, with joy, of the victories of Bacon;
and refusing to march farther against him, they
returned each man to his home.[203] Thus this great
storm was speedily dissipated. Brent was a royalist,

and was deeply mortified at the departure of his
men; but he could not alone resist the tide which
was now rapidly sweeping from Virginia every
trace of monarchical rule.

The young chieftain had accomplished his purpose.
The people, under his guidance, had asserted
their rights, and their opposers had been driven
into exile. A new Assembly had been summoned,
and the power of free election having been restored,
the burgesses might be expected fairly to represent
the will of their electors. The army had been disbanded,
but was ready, at a moment's warning, to reassemble
and to resist again the obnoxious measures
of the royal government. Advices from England
were anxiously expected, and men began to look
upon the late revolution as established on a permanent
basis. But a mysterious Providence was preparing
a reverse. Virginia was not yet ready for
independence. One hundred years were yet to
pass away, ere she could find herself surrounded
by sisters ready to unite their blood with hers in
maintaining the rights of humanity. Nathaniel
Bacon had imbibed the seeds of fatal disease in the
trenches before Jamestown, and as the season wore
away, his strength became visibly less. He lingered
until the first day of October, when, at the residence
of Mr. Pate, in the county of Gloucester, his
spirit took its flight for ever from a world in which,
though yet young, he had borne so conspicuous a
part.[204]

It has generally been found, that popular movements,
whether for good or for evil, are directed
by one ruling spirit. When the keystone of the
most massive arch is withdrawn, the fabric must
crumble and fall. Had George Washington died
at a critical period of the American war, it would
not be safe to declare, that America would, nevertheless,
have achieved her independence. Nathaniel
Bacon died in 1676, and the tide of revolution
was immediately rolled back. The hearts of
the patriots sank within them; neither Ingram
nor Walklate, who now headed them, was competent
to the dangerous task. The first was but a frivolous
being, better skilled in the dance than in the
conflict of arms.[205] As the fortunes of the people
declined, the courage of Berkeley and his followers
revived. Major Robert Beverley, an active member
of the Council, sailed up the rivers, and scoured
the country in pursuit of insurgent bands. Among
his first prizes was Thomas Hansford, a noble
young Virginian, whose warm heart had prompted
him to strenuous action in the late rebellion. With
cruel haste, he was hurried from the place of trial
to the gibbet prepared for his execution. Even in
view of a death so terrible, his heroic spirit did not
give way. He implored only that he might be

shot like a soldier, rather than die on the gallows;
but to this passionate request, a reply was returned,
that he died not as a soldier but as a rebel.[206]
Expressing penitence for the errors of his past life,
he yet fully justified his course in the insurrection,
and calling upon all present to note that he died a
loyal subject, and a lover of his country, he met
his fate with the firmness of a truly brave man.[207]

The powers of revenge were now solemnly invoked.
As fast as prisoners of any note were
brought in, they became victims of martial law.
In York River, Captains Chieseman and Wilford
were captured. In the skirmish, Wilford was
wounded in one of his eyes, and lost its sight entirely;
but when allusion was made to this, he
said, with bitterness, that the loss was of small importance,
as he doubted not the Governor would
find him a guide to the gallows.[208] His fears were,
unhappily, but too soon fulfilled. But a more
cruel punishment awaited Chieseman. When he
was brought into the presence of the Governor, his
wife accompanied him, and kneeling before the
arbiter of their fate, she declared that she alone
had urged her husband to rebellion, and implored
that if one must die, she might be executed as the
guilty person. Such a display of feminine tenderness
might have moved a heart of stone; but it fell
powerless upon the vindictive bosom of William

Berkeley. In the presence of her unhappy husband,
he applied to her an epithet too gross to be
repeated,[209] imputing dishonour to a woman who
had but just given proof of the highest traits that
can adorn a virtuous wife! A few days afterwards,
Chieseman died in prison from the effects of accumulated
insult, injury, and mortification.

When William Drummond was captured, Berkeley
could no longer restrain his triumph within
the bounds of decency. Coming from his ship to
the shore, he saluted his defenceless captive with
a low bend of the body, and with all the mockery
of affected politeness. "Mr. Drummond!" he
said, "you are very welcome. I am more glad to
see you than any man in Virginia. Mr. Drummond,
you shall be hanged in half an hour."[210] A
trial by a court-martial, at the house of John Bray,
resulted, as might have been expected, in his immediate
conviction; and he was suspended upon a
gibbet as soon as one could be prepared.[211] Against
this patriot, the vengeance of Berkeley seems to
have burned with quenchless violence. He pursued
his wife with fines and confiscations, and
would willingly have subjected her to a traitor's
death; but in after days, the protection of King

Charles himself was extended, and she was restored
to the possessions that had been taken
away.[212]

It is impossible to say to what extent the passions
of the Governor would have carried him, had
they been allowed unlimited time for their exercise.
The forces under Ingram and Walklate
were at length broken and dispersed, and daily
additions were made to the list of prisoners of state.
News of the rise and progress of the rebellion having
been carried to England, the King issued a
commission, appointing Herbert Jeffries lieutenant
governor, and uniting him with Sir John Berry
and Francis Morrison, as commissioners to inquire
into the state of the colony. (1677, January 29.)
They arrived early in the year, accompanied by a
regiment of regular troops, to suppress the rebellion.

Although armed with full powers to prosecute
the war with vigour, should it be necessary, the
commissioners had received instructions to use all
means for restoring peace; and they brought with
them a royal proclamation of pardon to all engaged
in the insurrection, except Bacon alone, who was
now far removed beyond the utmost reach of kingly
vengeance.[213] But the Governor had not yet quenched
his thirst for blood. The commissioners objected
strenuously to the trial by martial law, which he

had thus far employed, and urged a return to the
trial by a jury of the people. To this, Berkeley
at first gave the characteristic reply, that he had
used martial law in order to insure conviction;
and that he feared juries would acquit the prisoners![214] A memorable tribute to the worth of an
institution, which may be well termed the bulwark
of civil freedom. With great difficulty, he was
persuaded to resort to a court of oyer and terminer,
in which a jury was used. But a spirit of
fear had now possessed the bosoms of many; the
jury proved pliant, and more convictions took
place. Eleven unhappy victims had fallen under
the stroke of martial law ere the commissioners
arrived.[215] Nine were afterwards convicted by jury
trial, without appeal, and successively executed.[216]
Several were banished from the colony, never to
return, and their estates were forfeited to the use
of the King, or rather of the Governor, who seldom
failed to convert forfeitures into streams of supply
for himself.[217] Many were crushed by enormous
fines, levied for the use of the King's troops sent to
adjust the shackles to their hands; and five men
were sentenced to appear at their respective county
courts, with ropes around their necks, and humbly
"ask pardon for their rebellion and treason."[218] Few
prisoners brought to the bar escaped conviction.
By special requirement of the General Court, the
juries were composed exclusively of freeholders
and housekeepers; and their hearts seem to have
been dismayed by the terrors of the very law
which they were themselves chiefly active in enforcing.

Men began to ask each other to what extent
this scene of blood would go. Berkeley was still
inexorable, and was deaf even to the appeals of
the King's commissioners. When Giles  Bland 
was condemned to death, after a conviction by a
jury, on the 8th of March, he pleaded a special
pardon from the King, which had been sent over
by the commissioners, and which the Governor
had taken into his own custody and refused to exhibit.
There is not the slightest reason to doubt
that Berkeley suppressed this pardon, with the
stern resolve that  Bland  should die.[219] This enlightened

patriot met his fate with the calmness of
conscious innocence;[220] and his name descended to
a family afterwards known among the firmest supporters
of American freedom.

Not content with persecuting and destroying
the living, Berkeley sought to wreak his unmanly
revenge upon the dead. The remains of Nathaniel
Bacon were eagerly sought, that they might be exposed
upon a gibbet; but in this instance the love
of a friend triumphed over the malice of an enemy.
His body had been interred in a retired spot, and
the coffin was pressed down by massive stones, by
order of Lawrence, who had an instinctive presentiment
of the design of the Governor.[221] Thus
the search was vain; the lifeless hero was unviolated,
and his warmest friend escaped a death of
ignominy. Lawrence was drowned in a swollen
branch which he attempted to cross, when Beverley
commenced his incursions into the heart of
Virginia.[222]

It was now time to arrest the Governor's arm.
His vindictive feelings, instead of becoming exhausted,
appeared to gather strength with each
execution. His warmest friends were shocked by
his virulence. When the burgess from Northampton

County returned to his home, he declared to a
colleague, "he believed the Governor would have
hanged half the country if they had let him alone."[223]
Even the King, with all his selfishness and hypocrisy,
was horror-stricken when he heard of the
executions; and, in his own refined language, was
heard to say, "that old fool had hanged more men
in that naked country, than he had done for the
murder of his father."[224] The call for severity had
long since ceased; Ingram and his followers had
been dispersed by Captain Grantham; the insurgents
on York River had returned to their homes;
the Governor's house and property at Green Spring
had been restored to his possession.[225] All were submissive,
and all desired peace.

At this crisis, the General Assembly hesitated
no longer to interfere. They voted an address to
Berkeley, imploring him to shed no more blood,
for none could tell where or when it would terminate.[226]

This entreaty came from a source which the Governor
could not disregard. The Assembly, convened
in February, 1677, had thus far proved itself
a ready instrument for stern measures against the
rebels. They had passed acts of attainder against
the dead, and imposed fines and confiscations upon

the living;[227] they had pronounced Bacon a traitor,
and had repealed all of his laws except the only one
among them worthy of repeal: they spared the law
making Indians taken in war slaves, doubtless to
prove their love of loyalty by their hatred to freedom;[228]
they had gone so far in their devotion to the Governor
as to enact that any one speaking mutinously or contemptuously
concerning him, should either receive
thirty stripes upon his naked person, or should pay
eight hundred pounds of tobacco.[229] Yet this was
the body which now united with the commissioners
in imploring that the arm of vengeance might
pause; that the blood of the people should no longer
flow. Berkeley found his course regarded with
universal disgust; and feeling that he stood upon
tottering ground, he hastened to retrieve, if possible,
his injured fame at the court of his royal
master.

He sailed from the colony in April. The utmost
joy was felt at his departure; and so much was he
detested, that discharges of cannon and displays of
fireworks expressed the public emotions.[230] It were
to be wished that he had left Virginia for ever immediately
after the surrender to the Commonwealth
in 1652. He would then perchance have escaped
both the hatred of others and the dominion of his
own most dangerous passions. But a repulse yet

sterner encountered him when he reached his native
land. The King refused to receive him at
court; and when the proud cavalier heard the remark
that Charles had made concerning his excesses
in Virginia, his spirit sank beneath the indignity.[231] His age and late anxieties aggravated
his disease, and he died a short time after landing
upon the soil of England. It were an ungrateful
task to enter the portals of the tomb in order to
assail the memory of its occupant. Sir William
Berkeley was an inhabitant of Virginia during a
period of nearly forty years, and for twenty-eight
of these he was her governor. His character has
been regarded as inconsistent; but it is to be feared
that such as he was in the closing years of his life,
such had he always been. His very loyalty rendered
him uncompromising. The same stern pride
which planted a battery of cannon against the ships
of the Commonwealth, taught him never to forgive
the first offence of Nathaniel Bacon; the courage
which would have resisted unto death the invasion
of a foreign foe, became the relentless rage which
sought the blood of numberless victims; the very
resolution of purpose which made him true to his
sovereign through evil and through good report,
was afterwards the germ of that avenging zeal
which would have consigned the living to a death
of ignominy, and the remains of the dead to desecration
and dishonour.

(April 27.) Upon the departure of Berkeley,
Herbert Jeffries became governor, and all parties
united in earnest efforts to heal the wounds and
calm the troubled spirits of the unhappy colony.
Previous to the rebellion, Virginia had presented a
phasis of human life almost unknown in the history
of the world. She was without cities; for her
single town contained but eighteen dwellings, with
a state-house and the time-honoured church.[232] The
people lived on their plantations, generally near
some beautiful river or bold stream, which either
turned their mills, or brought to their doors the
produce of foreign climes. The houses were generally
of wood, and few attained to the dignity of a
second story. The more wealthy planters possessed
in property all that could render life desirable.
Seventy horses and three hundred sheep were not
considered excessive possessions for the chief man
of the colony.[233] Their laws were yet simple, and
lawyers were almost unknown. Education was
not generally diffused; schools and colleges could
hardly be said to exist. The affluent sent their
sons to England for education; the medium classes

and the poor imparted to their children such knowledge
of books as they possessed themselves, and
this was generally sufficient for the proper discharge
of their duties in life. Had the power across
the ocean been idle, Virginia might have been prosperous
and happy; but it was her fate to be cursed
by the very dominion to which she had so long and
so loyally adhered. The rebellion opened the eyes
of her people to their wrongs and to the remedy;
but its total failure closed them again in a troubled
sleep, which was not disturbed until they were
roused to slumber no more. It has been remarked
that the rebellion was productive of enormous evil
to Virginia, and of no real benefit;[234] but it would be
unwise thus hastily to judge and to determine. The
evil was immediate and pressing, the benefit was
unseen and silent in its operation. Availing himself
of the insurrection as a pretext, King Charles
refused to grant the favourable charter which was
said to have been prepared, and gave a miserable
substitute, with which the colony was forced to
appear contented.[235] It gave no privileges, guarantied
no liberties, removed no burdens, redressed no
wrongs. It said nothing on the subject of taxation,
thus leaving this avenue still open to English encroachment.
A heavy loss of property had occurred
during the rebellion. Jealousies had been engendered
not easily to be appeased. A body of mercenary
troops, the first ever permanently placed on
the soil of British America, added to the people's burdens,
and insulted them by their very presence;—
lives had been sacrificed that would have been valuable;—blood
had been shed which would have
warmed many patriot hearts. These were the evils;
they were many and onerous, but let them not mislead.
The name of Nathaniel Bacon was not forgotten;
his spirit disappeared from human vision,
but it yet lingered fondly about the land he had
loved, ready to pervade it again when liberty should
invoke its presence; his principles wrought their
way silently into the minds of men,—and one hundred
years from the day of his death, Virginia was
fighting in the front rank of the embattled host
which drove the armies of Britain from her shores,
and planted in imperishable honour the standard of
freedom upon the soil of America.

CHAPTER VII.

Herbert Jeffries exerted himself in good faith
and with commendable zeal, in restoring comfort
and peace to the colony. But it was not easy to
close a chasm rent open by a convulsion hitherto
unequalled in violence. Virginia long retained
the marks of injuries commenced by the Parliament
and King of England, and consummated by
her own abortive effort for relief. She had now to
endure an insult from the men who had seemed at
first disposed to sympathize in her sufferings.
The commissioners of Charles were required to

examine into the causes which led to the rebellion;
and in exercising their power, they pursued a
course of deliberate tyranny which would never
have been expected. They demanded the journals
of the General Assembly, and were met by a
prompt refusal. They repeated the demand, urging
it now personally upon Robert Beverley, the
clerk, who, with inflexible courage, refused to
yield them, unless ordered so to do by the body
who had committed them to his charge. Incensed
by this opposition, the commissioners resorted to
force, and by their agents wrested the journals
from the custody of their guardian![236] No important
information was gained by this unworthy measure.
Its only effect was to embitter the feelings of the
Assembly, and excite a memorable train of persecution
against their faithful officer.

The Indians properly belonging to Eastern Virginia
had been effectually subdued, and Jeffries
succeeded in making a treaty with the western
tribes, by which they bound themselves to terms
of friendship with the whites. This compact was
concluded at Williamsburg, or the Middle Plantation,
as it was then called, and was ratified with
all due solemnity.[237] But it did not long restrain
the savages. No oaths or forms that the red men
of America have ever been induced to assume,

have been strong enough to hold their hands, when
a hope for revenge was awakened by a prospect
for its indulgence.

Sir Herbert did not long wear his honours in
the colony. He died in the close of the year 1678,
and was succeeded by Sir Henry Chicheley,
already well known as a member of the Council.[238]
This gentleman has the rare merit of having done
many things for the good of his charge, and of
having left undone many things that would have
been to her injury. (1679, April 25.) During his
government, the Assembly passed an act for erecting
strong forts at the heads of the four rivers, Potomac,
Rappahannoc, James, and Mattapony, and
for placing in them sufficient garrisons to guard
the country from sudden irruptions of the savages.[239]
This measure was salutary, but expensive. It was
continued in use some years; but was finally displaced
by a less cumbrous substitute. Two other
acts, passed by the Assembly of 1679, have been
censured by every historian who, in subsequent
years, has turned his eyes upon them. Yet they
merit something more than hasty condemnation.
Reciting the many evils which had afflicted the
colony from the importation of tobacco by sea, the
Assembly enacts, that no more shall be imported
into Virginia from the other colonies round the

capes, in any ship, sloop, boat, or other vessel.
This act has been ridiculed as operating unfavourably
upon Virginia, by diminishing her shipping,
and preventing her from obtaining a monopoly of
the carrying trade from Maryland and North Carolina.[240] But let it be remembered, that under the
Navigation Laws, every particle of tobacco imported
from the other colonies bore a tax on entering port.
If reshipped, it was taxed again, and on landing in
England it must receive a farther burthen. It
would not increase, it would rather diminish the
average price of tobacco, thus to accumulate it in
one state; and Virginia, whose heaviest interest
was bound up in the culture of this weed, would
not have been compensated for the real loss thus
incurred, by seeing an increased number of British
ships and British sailors in her navigable waters.
The law particularly relating to Maryland was a
measure of retaliation, called for by her illiberal
conduct as to Virginia vessels and goods, and it
was to cease when this northern sister amended
her ways.[241] Men are seldom blind to their pecuniary
interests. The very fact that other settlements
found it to their advantage to export tobacco
to the older colony, proves the wisdom of Virginia
in refusing to receive it into her ports.

Early in this year a new governor arrived from
England. Thomas Lord Culpeper had already
been introduced to the people of the colony, by

the letters of the King, giving to him and to another
favourite, the fairest part of their broad lands.
He came now to visit his subjects and overlook in
person his Northern Neck. He had been bred in
the worst school in Europe, and soon proved himself
an accomplished scholar. A polished manner
covered a cold heart; an appearance of liberality
concealed insatiate cravings for money; professions
of respect and affection for the colony, accompanied
a secret disgust and uneasiness at the very thought
of residing upon its soil. His only wish was to
realize as much gain from his office as possible, to
inveigle the simple burgesses into an increase of
his perquisites and his presents, to effect a profitable
compromise of his claims upon the Northern Neck,
and to return to the luxuries of England with the
enjoyments of a sinecure.

He opened his game by publishing an act of indemnity
for the benefit of all who had been engaged
in Bacon's Rebellion,[242] and by various courtesies
he insinuated himself into the hearts of the
lawmakers for Virginia. The result of his good
management soon became apparent, and the hopeless
settlers had cause long to regret their complacency
to his smooth lordship. The members of
Assembly, feeling through all the nerves of their
bodies the mesmeric touch of the Governor, hastened
to show their gratitude. The salary of his
office had been one thousand pounds per annum;
they immediately raised it to two thousand, and in

the height of their loyalty they made perpetual
the duties and quit-rents accruing to the King
which had theretofore been subject to their own
revisal.[243] Thus they deliberately resigned the only
power of self-defence they had heretofore possessed
against the encroachments of majesty and
its minions.

But this was not all; it had been the custom of
masters of foreign ships on ascending the James
to present to the Governor wines, liquors, and provisions,
to cheer his soul and sustain him in his
arduous labours. To make this praiseworty custom
more useful, Culpeper procured an act imposing
a regular duty proportioned to their tonnage
on all such ships, which was to be applied to the
benefit of himself and his successors in office.[244]
The Assembly, having provided for his table, gave
him one hundred and sixty pounds per annum for
the rent of the gubernatorial mansion. We are
surprised that we do not find appropriations to build
stables for his horses, sheds for his cows, and kennels
for his canine companions.

Having obtained nearly as much by open demand
as he could venture to accept, his lordship
next resorted to an ingenious scheme of secret
knavery. He had received from the King instructions

to disband the regiment of soldiers sent over
to quell the late rebellion, and to pay them their
respective dues. In view of this, he began to express
great concern at the depreciated value of silver
coin in the colony, which caused a constant
drain to the other settlements in which the depreciation
did not exist. The Assembly were proposing
to remedy the evil, but Culpeper reminded
them that the right to regulate the value of coin,
was a high prerogative of the crown with which
they had no right to interfere. As the representative
of the King, he then issued a proclamation
raising the current value of the silver coin known
as "pieces of eight" from five to six shillings.
Having previously procured an immense number
of these pieces of eight, he immediately paid off
the unlucky soldiers at the increased value, thus
realizing unto himself the consoling profit of
twelve pence in every amount of five shillings.[245]

But some time afterwards, he found his own
salary and perquisites paid in this same money at
its current rate, and not being at all content with
this evenhanded justice, he incontinently issued
another proclamation and reduced the coin to its
former value! His object had been gained, and
his avarice had little regard for the losses of
others.[246]

Although Virginia now furnished every thing

that was essential to moderate desires, she was not
yet cursed with the luxurious pleasures that had
gained admission into England during the reign
of Charles the Second. (Aug.) Lord Culpeper
hastened back to the mother country, to renew his
old associations, and to live on the profits of his
office. Sir Henry Chicheley again assumed the
government. From this time, we note the permanent
establishment of a custom which had already
prevailed to some extent. The governor-in-chief
preferred to reside in England, and enjoyed a revenue
of twelve hundred pounds; the lieutenant-governor
resided in the colony, performed all the
duties, and received eight hundred pounds for his
salary.[247] At first, the King did not heartily acquiesce
in this arrangement, and preferred that the
governor should dwell on the soil of his province;
but gradually this rule was relaxed, until it became
a dead letter.

After the departure of Culpeper, the act of "Cohabitation,"
passed by the last Assembly, went
into effect. With many in the colony, it had long
been a favourite scheme to have towns on the
rivers, and to imitate, as far as possible, the policy
of the northern settlements. The spirit pervading
Virginia was opposed to this scheme. The people
preferred their free lives in the country, to the conventional
restraints of city manners; and, with
some justice, they regarded towns as the instruments
of oppression; useful for little except to enforce
the hated Navigation Laws. When ships entered

their rivers, they traded up and down as far
as tide-water extended; anchoring whenever and
wherever they found it expedient, and lading or
unlading their cargoes at one or several plantations,
as events might require. The Assembly attempted
that which never has been and never will
be accomplished. Selecting many points on the
principal rivers, they forthwith gave them the dignity
of "towns;" forbade ships to receive or discharge
freight at any other places; and required all
persons to bring their produce to these favoured
points.[248] But the legislature soon discovered that
it was easier to make laws than to make cities.
Omnipotence may call a world into being by a
command; but man cannot legislate into existence
even the most humble hamlet. The laws of trade
are paramount even to the enactments of an English
Parliament.

When ships came into the rivers, they found it
almost impossible to obey this law; the planters
refused to bring their tobacco to a distance, at
great expense, when they might load it so easily
before their own doors. Some voyages were entirely
lost; some daring men openly defied the
law; others sought to evade it; disorder crept into
the movements of commerce; criminal proceedings
were instituted against many citizens; and
nearly all parties united in anathematizing a system
so pregnant with folly and evil.[249]

Its remote results were worse than was its immediate
operation. The derangement in trade
caused a farther decline in the price of tobacco;
all previous efforts of the Assembly, to procure
what was called "cessation,"[250] in Maryland and
North Carolina, had falled; the people were driven
to despair by the insufficiency of their only resource
to supply their wants. Stormy passions
began to rise, and the public mind was so much
excited, that nothing but a leader seemed needful
to renew the fires kindled a few years before in
the oppressed colony. (1682, May 1.) In this
crisis, many inhabitants of Gloucester, New Kent,
and Middlesex Counties, assembled, and directed
their rage not against their fellow-men, but against
the devoted weed of their land. They fell upon
the tobacco plants with vigour, and in a short time
cut up the whole growing crop, covering extended
fields in their respective counties.[251] They directed
their fatal attack chiefly to the sweet-scented tobacco,
because this kind was raised in Virginia
alone, and they hoped thus greatly to enhance its
price.

(1682.) Intimations of a threatened tempest had
been carried across the Atlantic, and the King
commanded Lord Culpeper to repair in person to
the seat of his government. He arrived in November,

and immediately appeared before the
Council and Assembly. His temper was soured
by disappointment, and he regarded with disgust
the people, to govern whom he was called from
the luxuries of the English court. He rebuked
both councillors and burgesses for remissness in
duty, and threw out dark threats of chastisement,
if they again incurred his displeasure. The tobacco
rioters were prosecuted with the utmost
rigour; many of them were already in jail, and
were immediately brought forth to be placed upon
trial. It will not be premature at once to state the
result of this remarkable outbreak. Most of the
offenders were too obscure to be detected; but
some were followed with all the vindictive energy
of the law. At the session of 1684, an act was
passed, denouncing the penalty of death against
the offence of plant-cutting, and declaring a combination
for the purpose to be high treason.[252] Lord
Culpeper had, by proclamation, on the 22d May,
1683, pardoned all the rioters, except seven individuals,
whose names are given;[253]
and in 1684, during
the administration of Lord Howard, six of these
unhappy men were executed under previous conviction
and sentence.[254] It is to be feared they suffered
under that most terrible of all engines of
power—an ex post facto law.

A more noble victim than these had felt the
weight of kingly persecution. The name of Robert
Beverley is comparatively unknown in Virginia,
yet does it merit to be preserved among the
records of those who have suffered martyrdom in
the cause of liberty. We have already seen that
he refused to yield the journals of the House of
Burgesses when demanded by the royal commissioners.
His conduct was approved by the Assembly,
who voted that the forcible taking of their records
was "a violation of their privileges; and desired
satisfaction to be given them, that they might
be assured no such violation should be offered for
the future."[255] When this magnanimous act was
reported to Charles, he was startled by its boldness,
and immediately commanded that it should be
erased from the journals of the house,[256] and that
Culpeper should have a bill introduced into the
Assembly condemning its previous conduct. Before
the second arrival of his lordship, the proceedings
against Beverley commenced. (May 9.) Under
the pretext that he had fomented opposition to
the "paper towns," had urged on clamours for an
Assembly, and had incited the plant-cutters to
their work, he was seized and sent aboard the
Duke of York, a ship of war then lying at Jamestown,

and commanded by Captain John Purvis.[257]
Three members of Council were ordered to seize
his papers, and if necessary to break open doors in
order to obtain them.[258]

It would be painful rather than instructive to
follow Beverley through the various scenes of deliberate
persecution prepared for him by the government.
He was hurried from ship to ship, perhaps
from fear that he would be forcibly set at liberty if
confined on land. He was sent to the Eastern Shore,
and subjected to rigid custody. He escaped once,
and was immediately afterwards seized and guarded
with increased vigilance. His demand for a lawful
trial, and for information of the charges against him,
was unheard. His prayer for the sacred writ of
habeas corpus was refused, or was granted only
that he might be mocked by the appearance of its
protection. When at length Lord Culpeper returned
to the colony, it was thought necessary to
proceed in form against the prisoner. (Jan. 10.)
In addition to the charges already made, it was
considered best to fortify their case by accusing
him of having broken open letters containing writs
for electing members of the House of Burgesses.[259]
Sir Henry Chicheley asserted that this act was
without his consent, but it is certain that Beverley
had warrant for his conduct, having received the

letters by a messenger from the Lieutenant-Governor,
with permission to examine their contents
if he thought proper.[260] Thus was this resolute
victim kept in close confinement, debarred from
the privileges of life, the joys of family intercourse,
and the test of a fair trial, until Culpeper passed
out of office and a successor assumed his station,
and rivalled his tyranny.

His lordship was not content with individual
wrong; he aimed a blow at the whole colony, and
directed his assault to a point peculiarly sensitive
and unprotected. Heretofore the General Assembly
had been the supreme judicial tribunal of
Virginia, to which appeals lay even from the General
Court, composed of the members of Council.
Culpeper knew that the Assembly would be perfectly
intractable on the subject of his claims upon
the Northern Neck. Whenever a question involving
his right to this territory came before them,
he could expect nothing but signal defeat. With
much mean ingenuity, he fanned the flames of a
contest between the Council and Burgesses as to
their judicial rights, and at length on pretence of
deciding it, he referred the matter to King Charles,
who immediately took away all power as a court
from the Assembly, and made the Council the
final tribunal, except in cases involving more than
one hundred pounds, in which an appeal was allowed

to the King in Council.[261] (May 23.) Thus
at one fell stroke the House of Burgesses lost all
judicial power, and this tremendous arm of government
was subjected directly or indirectly to
the will of the English sovereign. Lord Culpeper
had no longer any reason to fear opposition in his
encroachments upon the proprietors of the Northern
Neck. His principal difficulty was to get
agents willing to represent him among these high-souled
planters.[262]
Wearied with litigation, they at
length determined to effect a compromise of the conflicting
claims, but his lordship derived little profit
from his success, having, in 1684, surrendered his
grant to the King.[263] After James II. ascended the
throne, he again made a full grant of this territory
to the Culpeper family, of which the sole heiress
married Thomas, Lord Fairfax, from whom was
descended the Earl whose name even to the present
day graces the title deeds of landed proprietors
in this pleasant portion of Virginia.[264]

The Governor remained upon the soil of the
colony as short a time as decency would permit.
He fled again to the delights of England, and so
fascinated did he become, that his master could not
drive him to his task. Charles could be stern
when his caprice required it. He brought Culpeper
to a trial, on the charge of having misapplied
the provincial revenues, and the verdict of a jury
solemnly affirmed the justice of the charge.[265] He
lost his commission, and for a few years at least,
he was driven from the sunshine of royal favour.

(1684, April 15.) A change of men in the colony
produced no salutary change of measures.
English governors, at this time, were formed in
the same mould, and we mark but little difference
between them, except that some were more successful
in pillage than others. Lord Howard, of
Effingham, appeared in Virginia, and his commission
from the King was read on the 15th of April.
He came with the hope and design of gathering
money, and to this end his prominent measures
were directed. He commenced with an annual
tax of twenty shillings upon school-masters,[266] probably
to prove his appreciation of learning, and his
desire for its progress in the colony. Had he given
a heavy bounty to this invaluable class of men, instead

of taxing them, he would have been a benefactor
not merely to his own, but to subsequent
times. He imposed a tax of five pounds upon
lawyers in the General Court, and fifty shillings on
those practising in inferior courts. Probates of
wills, and letters of administration were soon laden
with pecuniary burthens. Nothing that could
bear an impost escaped the vigilant eye of this exactor.
Even when the unhappy plant-cutters,
who had escaped theretofore, were brought to execution,
he seemed more anxious to gratify his own
avarice than to provide victims for insulted sovereignty.
The greater part of their estates, by an
old order of Council, which was produced for the
occasion, became the property of the Governor.[267]
With such temptations, Effingham would willingly
have seen the most substantial men in the
colony wreaking their revenge upon the growing
crop of tobacco.

Although he was profoundly ignorant of the
higher mysteries in legal science, he fell into an
error too common in such cases. He believed himself
to be one of the most enlightened of jurists.
He erected a Court of Chancery, in which he himself
presided, to pass upon the rights of people
compelled to sue in his court, and astonish them
by his luminous decrees.[268] It is not improbable,
that he was urged to this measure by a wish to
secure the fees of the office, rather than by the
suggestions of his ridiculous vanity.

Finding that he could no longer delay to grant
to Robert Beverley the trial to which he was entitled,
Howard, if possible, resolved to make this
case a means of gathering to himself a measure of
popular love. Long imprisonment and loss of
hope had acted sensibly upon the spirits of the
victim; and when it was intimated to him, that by
an humble application to the Governor he might
obtain a pardon, he thought himself compelled to
seek it. It is affecting to see, in his letter to Effingham,
the struggle within a soul conscious of
its own rectitude, and yet depressed by the weight
of irresistible power. Acknowledging his lordship's
kindness in offering to his "sorrowful petitioner"
the aid of counsel, he declines to receive it,
and throws himself upon executive mercy.[269] (May
9.) The court found him guilty of "high misdemeanours,"
and thereupon the Governor outstretched
the hand of clemency and granted him a pardon.[270] A more revolting triumph of oppression could not
have been shown. This courageous man was not
guilty of one of the offences charged upon him.
He was far removed from the plant-cutters, and in
no form participated in or incited their riot. He
properly refused to deliver the journals of the Assembly
without their order. He opened the letters
containing writs, upon the express permission of
Sir Henry Chicheley. He had been a faithful
friend to the government, and had upheld Sir

William Berkeley at the hazard of his own life.[271]
Yet, during more than two years, he was followed
by incessant persecution, seized like a common
felon, imprisoned in ships of war, guarded with
unwonted harshness, kept from his family, forbidden
to practise an honourable profession,[272] and
when at length brought to trial, he was convicted
of high offences, asked forgiveness on his knees,
and received a pardon from the Governor! Let
humanity weep over such an example. When
the innocent must be pardoned for sins never committed,
the guilty will go unquestioned, though
stained with a thousand crimes.

But among all of Effingham's delinquencies,
history will do him justice. He was active in procuring
a treaty, from which Virginia certainly
derived advantage during many years. The Indians
properly belonging to her soil had long
since ceased to give her serious trouble. But
other tribes of red men yet remained. The Five
Nations had won for themselves a name which will
endure with the records of America. These renowned
savages were chiefly settled in the magnificent
country now covered by the western part of
New York; but their influence extended itself
from New England to Carolina. The Mohawks,
Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas, formed

the original confederacy; but their principle of
action was to conquer neighbouring tribes, and to
unite them with themselves.[273] The accession of
the Tuscaroras,[274] who dwelt on the borders of Virginia
and Carolina, swelled the number of the
tribes to six, and made their attacks more formidable
and their name more renowned. These natives
were among the most intellectual and formidable
that America has ever contained. They
were eminent for physical strength and beauty;—
so eminent, that when Benjamin West first saw
the statue of the Apollo Belvidere, he started back
in amazement at the close resemblance to the
graceful proportions of a young Mohawk warrior.[275]
They were terrible in war. To the subtlety of the
savage, they united much of the skill at combined
effort displayed by the civilized. Their courage
was indomitable; their revenge never slumbered.
"They advanced like foxes, attacked like lions,
and retreated like birds."[276] To their Indian enemies
their very name inspired terror; and the
whites found in them foes never to be despised, or
neglected with safety. These dangerous red men
had already extended their incursions to Virginia,
and Effingham eagerly embraced an opportunity
of concluding with them a treaty of peace, under
guarantees sufficiently solemn to insure its observance.

In company with two members of his Council,
he joined Colonel Dongan, Governor of New York,
at Albany, and, on the 13th July, they met deputies
from the several tribes of this Indian league.
The "talk" was opened by Effingham, who, by
means of an interpreter, made a speech to the
natives, well chosen in ideas, and quite sufficient
to give us a favourable view of his abilities. He
told them that they had often provoked their white
brethren of Virginia by their aggressions; brought
to mind particular acts of cruelty they had committed;
threatened, in dignified terms, to retaliate
upon them; and finally urged them to adopt the
provisions of the treaty offered. They were to
call out of Maryland and Virginia all their young
men who had been sent thither for war; they
were to observe profound peace with the friendly
Indians; they were to make no incursions upon
the whites in either state; and, when they marched
southward, they were not to approach near to
the heads of the great rivers on which plantations
had been made. On consenting to these terms,
the chain of friendship was to be brightened,
its links were to remain ever inviolate, and two
hatchets were to be buried in token of peace.[277]

To these proposals an orator of the Mohawk
clan made a reply full of Indian figures and
energy. Disclaiming, in behalf of his tribe, all

hostile designs, he sternly rebuked the Oneidas,
the Onondagas, and Cayugas, for their evil deeds.
"You, Onondagas," he said, "our brethren, you
are like deaf people that cannot hear; your senses
are covered with dirt and filth;" then, after farther
exhortation to all, he said, "There are three things
we must all observe: first, the covenant with Corlaer;
secondly, the covenant with Virginia and
Maryland; thirdly, with Boston. We must stamp
understanding into you, that you may be obedient;
and take this belt for a remembrancer."[278]
In addressing
the governors, he enforced his terse and expressive
sentences by occasional presents of belts,
raccoons, and beavers; and, at the close of the
treaty, a hole was dug, and five axes were buried:
two for Virginia and Maryland, and three for
the Onondagas, Oneidas, and Cayugas. The Mohawks
declared that no axe was necessary for
them, as they had never been hostile; and the
deputies of the senecas had not yet arrived.[279] Thus
was concluded an important treaty, afterwards fully
ratified by a meeting of deputies from Virginia, and
her Indians, with chiefs from the Five Nations.
At this interview a Mohawk orator sang every
link of the symbolic chain of love held in his
hand, and concluded with a chant of peace to the
sachems of the southern colonies.[280]

After this time the natives continued to decrease
in number in the counties east of the Alleghanies.
The forts on the heads of rivers were disused;
and, instead of them, companies of mounted rangers
were appointed, armed with pistols, a sword,
and a carbine, whose duty it was to scour the
country in all parts infested by Indians, and repel
their attacks.[281] This measure was found highly
useful, and it gradually gave existence to a class
of men known as "Virginia Rangers," whose services
were of the greatest importance in subsequent
wars.

(1685.) In the next year Charles the Second
descended to his grave, and was succeeded by
his brother, the popish Duke of York. We can
derive but small profit from reflection either on the
life or the death of the sovereign who had passed
away; and he who now came on the stage would
be equally unworthy of thought, but for the errors
which arrayed England against him, and the merited
misfortunes to which they gave birth. He
was a coarse being, and might have been useful in
the world had he been destined always to occupy
the quarter-deck of an English man-of-war. Popery
offered a convenient creed to him, who could only
repair his injury to Ann Hyde, by making her his
wife and adopting her religion. He was unworthy
to be the king of a noble nation, and he abdicated
her throne, only to escape being hurled from it by
her indignant arm.

Few changes in Virginia followed the accession
of James to the English throne. The illegitimate
Earl of Monmouth made use of the name of his
father, Charles Stuart, to incite a rebellion in the
mother country. His followers were routed; and
he was himself brought to the scaffold, where the
executioner acted the part of an unwilling torturer,
by striking the victim again and again without
severing his head from his body.[282] But James, and
his worthy judicial coadjutor Jeffries, turned the
inferior rebels to better use, by selling them for
"ten or fifteen pound apiece," to be slaves in the
colony.[283] (Sept. 19.) Virginia was willing to receive
these unhappy men. They were dishonoured
by no crime, save that of having attempted to overthrow
a dominion already hated by the virtuous
and the prudent; and on her generous soil they
soon acquired independence and tranquillity.

The Assembly which convened in this year was
composed of courageous and stubborn spirits. They
had already re-elected Robert Beverley their clerk;
and they now proceeded to scrutinize Effingham's
measures, and to censure his exactions with becoming
boldness. He found it impossible to escape
their vigilance. How could he hope for peace, after
having planted thorns in his pillow by numberless
acts of dishonesty? In one point, however, it is to
be feared that the Assembly mistook their own
powers. The King had always claimed the right
to express dissent to the enactments of the provincial

legislatures, and thus prevent them from becoming
laws. The constitution of the colony had
never been freed from this shackle; but so rarely
had it been felt, that its existence was almost forgotten.
Lord Howard, by royal proclamation, repealed
certain acts of the Assembly, which themselves
repealed certain prior laws. The constitutional
effect of this was, of course, to revive these prior
laws, and restore them to full vigour.[284] But against
this the House of Burgesses vehemently protested,
and the dispute waxed so warm, that the Governor
referred it to his majesty in council. Finding the
Assembly inexorable, and most uncomfortably attentive
to his own public conduct, on the 13th December,
Howard abruptly prorogued them.

(1686, Nov. 15.) The next year, arrived a letter
from King James, which Effingham hastened to
inflict upon the refractory burgesses. His majesty's
ire was greatly excited by their obstinacy, and in
this epistle he reprimands them like schoolboys
under the eye of a lordly pedagogue. He talks of
their "disaffected and unquiett dispositions," is
much shocked that his power to negative their laws
should be called in question, and commands that
they shall be dissolved, that the "inhabitants of
that our colony" may send better men to represent
their interests.[285] The conclusion is more remarkable.

Singling out the faithful Beverley as the
source of all evil, he declares him incapable of holding
any office under government, and requires that
he shall be prosecuted again with the full rigour of
the law;[286] —and yet farther, he instructs the Governor
himself to select a clerk for the House, and
on no pretence to permit any other person to exercise
the duties of that office.[287] English monarchs
began already to find American Assemblies and
their officers the most dangerous of foes to their extravagant
pretensions.

(1687.) The succeeding year brought for ever
to a close the persecutions that man could inflict
upon one of his fellows. Worn down by suffering
and anxiety, Robert Beverley sank into the grave;[288]
whither, it may be, the hatred of his enemies would
have followed him, could they have made him
longer feel the wounds that revenge would have
inflicted upon him. Enough were, however, yet
alive to endure the malice of the Governor. We
are informed of one James Collins, who, for treasonable
expressions against the King, was thrown into
prison and confined in irons; of one James Howard,
who was committed for merely slighting the authority
of a member of Council; and of Christopher
Berryman, who disobeyed President Bacon's warrant,
and for this high offence was compelled to ask

pardon on his knees![289] The terrors of the old "regime"
were once more gaining strong ground in
the ancient colony.

King James would fain have introduced popery
into Virginia, had his rule been long enough to
accomplish it. Whenever an officer was to be appointed,
he took care that he should be one friendly
to Rome; whenever he could touch the church, he
sought to turn her eyes to the City of the Seven
Hills.[290]
But God would not permit his designs to
be consummated. The storm was already gathering,
which at length burst upon his head; and his
own ruin, and the overthrow of his governor in
the province, were nearly simultaneous. At the
very time when James was driven from his throne,
and compelled to fly before his son-in-law, Effingham
left the colony never to return; and he was
immediately followed by Philip Ludwell, as the
agent of the people, to lay their complaints at the
feet of royalty.[291]

(1689, May 23.) When the Prince of Orange
was announced as King of England, the most
heartfelt joy pervaded America. The late dynasty
had done little, except oppress and annoy the provinces,
and any change would have been grateful.
William did not immediately declare himself as

the friend of his distant subjects. The advantages
they derived from the revolution were numerous
and great, but they were silent and gradual
in their developement. The complaints against
Effingham were heard, and some of the grievances
set forth were removed;[292] but this unworthy man
still held the office of governor-in-chief of Virginia.
In his absence, Nathaniel Bacon, as President of
Council, administered the government. Many
abuses were corrected; justice returned to her former
regular habits; exorbitant fees were reduced;
the traces of Howard's avaricious follies were gradually
erased, and Virginia began again to give
evidence of prosperity.

(1690, Oct. 16.) In the next year, Francis Nicholson
took his seat in Council, as lieutenant-governor,
under Lord Effingham. This gentleman
had already spent much time in America, and his
course of petty tyranny and annoyance in New
York, had nearly cost him his life. He was compelled
to abscond in great haste, to escape a popular
outburst, which his conduct had roused. Yet,
when transferred to the southern colony, his course
was more moderate, and for a season, at least, he
was regarded with esteem. We are tempted to
believe that he resorted to some doubtful artifices,
in order to gain the good will of the people. He
had certainly never been distinguished either for
courage or bodily prowess; yet, in Virginia, we
find him encouraging manly games, and attending

at scenes of boxing, wrestling, running, and cudgelling,
which were favourite sports in the colony.[293]
For this, we may forgive—we may even commend
him; but it is not so easy to approve the motives
which would invite a mob into his dining-room,
where he was entertaining his friends, that he
might be amused by their struggles for the viands
before them.[294]

After such an exhibition, we may be surprised
to find Nicholson zealously promoting a scheme
for establishing a permanent college in Virginia.
This had often before been spoken of and attempted,
but it was now to be crowned with success.
James Blair was already in the colony—a learned
and accomplished minister of the Established
Church, holding the office of "commissary,"
under the Bishop of London, and exercising a
general superintendence over the spiritual interests
of the people. A subscription was commenced
for funds, and at its head appeared the
names of the Lieutenant-Governor and several members
of Council, giving large amounts to the proposed
object: In a short time, two thousand five
hundred pounds were raised: all persons seemed
eager to aid; merchants in London came forward
in the cause; and so flattering did the prospect
appear, that Mr. Blair was sent to England to solicit
a charter, and implore the aid of the reigning
powers. William and Mary received the application

with distinguished favour. (1691.) The charter
was immediately granted, in accordance with
the views of the commissary, and a more substantial
proof of royal bounty was given. The balance
due upon quit-rents in the colony, amounting to
nearly two thousand pounds sterling, was released
for the benefit of the college; twenty thousand
acres of "choice land" were set apart for its support,
and a revenue of one penny per pound on all
tobacco exported from Virginia and Maryland, to
the other American plantations, swelled the funds
intended for its endowment.[295]

Thus rose into being the College of "William
and Mary." The Middle Plantation was selected
for its site, and ample edifices were soon in a course
of preparation. Commissary Blair was the first
President; and the institution was entitled to a representative
in the House of Burgesses.[296] They
taught, first, "three things—divinity, languages,
and natural philosophy;"[297] a divinity shaped and
moulded at every point by the liturgy and creed
of the English Church; languages, which filled
the college walls with schoolboys hating Greek

and Latin grammars; and natural philosophy,
which was but just learning to believe that the
earth revolved round the sun, rather than the sun
round the earth.[298] But the College of William and
Mary has long been the cherished child of Virginia.
She yields in antiquity to none of her sisters,
except Harvard University, in Massachusetts; and
it would be difficult to find an institution of learning
from which have issued so many men who
might lay claim to renown, for eminent ability
united with ardent patriotism.

Francis Nicholson received from the Assembly
a present of three hundred pounds, in token of their
love. Before he would accept it, he obtained a dispensation
from the King; it being an established
rule that the Governor should take nothing from
the legislature of the province. When all obstacles
were removed, he bestowed one-half of the
amount upon the college, in addition to the sum
he had already subscribed.[299]

In 1692, Sir Edmund Andros arrived, with the
complete title of Governor-in-Chief. Nicholson
was transferred to Maryland, where he administered
affairs during several succeeding years.
Andros was not a stranger in America. He had tormented
New York; and had weighed, like an incubus,
upon the happiness of New England. Connecticut
had snatched her charter almost from his
hand, to commit it to a more faithful guardian; and
Massachusetts had seized and imprisoned him, in

an outburst of generous anger at his tyranny. It
is strange that such a man should have been again
selected by an English king to represent him in
the colonies; and it is still more strange, that on
arrival and during his stay, he should have carried
himself as became a zealous, wise, and moderate
officer. Whether experience had taught him wisdom,
or advancing years had calmed the heat of
youth, or he found no pretext for the exercise of
arbitrary power, we know not; but all authorities
agree in declaring, that his administration was a
season of unwonted prosperity in Virginia. His
manners were conciliatory, rather than forbidding;
he was active in promoting schemes of useful labour;
he encouraged manufactures, incited the
planters to the cultivation of cotton, and gave his
assent to an act establishing the first fulling-mills
ever known in the settlement. He carried his love
of order into the public departments; and, finding
the documents and papers in the several offices
mingled together in frightful confusion, torn, soiled,
and eaten of moths, he commenced a reform,
and urged it with much vigour and success.[300] His
efforts were unhappily retarded by a fire, which
destroyed much that had been done; but he experienced
no abatement in his zeal, and in a short
time the state-house again began to rise from its
ashes. In these salutary labours, years rolled
silently but prosperously away. Laws were revised,
education was fostered, the people were quiet
and contented. History, whose unhappy fate it is
to dwell chiefly on the wars, the hatred, and the
misfortunes of men, finds little to record of Andros
in Virginia, except her approval of his conduct, and
her surprise at his happy change of character.[301]

(Dec. 9.) In 1698, Sir Francis Nicholson was
again transferred from Maryland to Virginia, and
the dignity of Governor-in-Chief was bestowed
upon him. An unfavourable change in his temper
towards the colony was soon exhibited. That
he possessed great pliancy of manners, may be inferred
from what has already been said of him. He
now no longer wore the smooth brow and complacent
smile that had won so many hearts during his
previous government. Ambition had crept into his
soul, and gradually possessed all of its active faculties.
We have strong reason to believe that he had
formed the design of effecting a union of all the
American colonies under one head, and of obtaining
for himself the high office of Governor-General.[302]
His local knowledge, his restless talents, his popular
arts, all combined to fit him for success in this
scheme; but the watchfulness of his colonial charge
entirely defeated him.

He looked with little favour upon domestic manufactures.
Knowing that upon England must depend
the accomplishment of his ambitious plan, he

now frowned upon all measures, the tendency of
which was to render the colonies independent of
their mother. This course involved him in an inconsistency
which has not escaped a cotemporary
observer. He had previously complained that the
price of tobacco was so low that it would not purchase
in England clothes for the planters; and in
the same memorial he afterwards urges Parliament
to pass an act forbidding the colonists to make their
own clothing, "thus desiring," saith Beverley, "a
charitable law that the planters shall go naked."[303]
It was, perchance, the same aspiring vanity, which
induced Nicholson to transfer the seat of government
from Jamestown to the Middle Plantation.
He flattered himself with the hope of being the
founder of a city. Under his own eye the streets
were marked so as to form the letter W; and King
William, it may be, was the more flattered, because
this arrangement was at once the most uncommon
and inconvenient that could have been selected.
The new town bore the name of Williamsburg.
The college buildings were already complete; and
opposite to them soon arose a stately edifice, which
the Governor dignified with the title of "the
Capitol."[304]

(1700.) The Governor, though vain and designing,
was a man of promptness and energy. An incident
occurred in his time which deserves to be recorded.
For some years the coast of America had been infested
by a band of pirates, generally leagued together,

who made the secret harbours of the continent
and of the West India Islands their places
of concealment. As mercantile shipping increased,
the temptations to this mode of life were multiplied,
and the absence of a heavy naval force
in these waters gave confidence to the outlaws.
Several merchantmen, which had been trading in
the rivers of Virginia, had fallen down to Lynhaven
Bay on the outward voyage. A pirate ship,
cruising out of the capes, with consummate audacity,
ventured into the bay and seized several
prizes in full view of a small vessel bound up James
River. But this insolence was speedily chastised.
By a fortunate direction of events, the Shoram, a
fifth rate English man-of-war had but just arrived,
and Captain Passenger was paying his respects to
the Governor when the account of the late capture
was received. The Captain immediately returned to
his ship, whither he was soon followed by Nicholson
himself, and at night the anchor was weighed and
they proceeded down the river. At daybreak they
encountered the pirate just between the capes. A
desperate struggle ensued; the outlaws fought
with all the resolution of despair; the ships were
nearly equal in size, and for ten hours the conflict
was undecided; but at length the pirates were
compelled to strike their colours, and surrender
themselves unconditionally to the mercy of the
King.[305]

It had been better for the fame of Nicholson,
had he always confined his energies to contests
with piratical cruisers. Still intent upon his
scheme for uniting the colonies, he had recommended
to the Court of England a project for
erecting and maintaining forts along the western
frontier of the state of New York. In order fully
to comprehend this plan, it should be remembered,
that England and France had waged a bloody war
from 1689 to 1697, when it was terminated by the
peace of Ryswick. (1702.) Queen Anne had not
long been seated upon the throne, ere hostilities recommenced,
and the memorable contest followed,
in which Marlborough led the allied armies to certain
triumph over the hosts of France.

America could not be tranquil while a conflagration
was raging that affected the two powers most
deeply interested in her soil. The Count de Calliers,
Governor of Montreal, had already made a
strenuous effort to divide the British strength, by a
blow aimed at the middle province of New York;
and though he had been unsuccessful, yet his plan
was too imposing to be forgotten by either party.[306]
Count Frontenac, the French Governor-in-Chief,
saw the importance of this point, and constantly
menaced New York with an irruption of his own
forces and their Indian allies. Virginia had heretofore

remained an undisturbed spectator of the
contest; the tide of general war had not yet
reached her borders; but she was not always to
enjoy this security.

In 1695, England had proposed a plan of general
defence for the colonies, by which each was to contribute
in men and military supplies according to
its population; but this scheme did not take effect,
inasmuch as every colony desired to employ its
means in a manner indicated by its own comparative
danger or safety.[307] When the war was renewed,
New York again became the object of attack on
the one side, and defence on the other. Early in
his present administration, Nicholson had proposed
to the General Assembly of Virginia, that they
should appropriate a sum of money to build a
strong fort in the western border of the threatened
colony. After due deliberation, they determined to
decline this expenditure, and when their resolve
was made known, the Governor was overwhelmed
with astonishment and chagrin. He immediately
addressed a report to the King, presenting in the
strongest light the importance of the measure he
wished, and he so operated on the mind of majesty,
that William urged the Assembly to reconsider
their vote and grant the money. We cannot fail
to be struck with the firm conduct of this provincial
body, under the influence of a monarch's advice.
They replied that they saw no reason to
change their former view; that neither the existing

forts nor any others, that could be built, would in
the slightest degree protect Virginia, because both
French and Indians might pour their destructive
masses upon her, and yet not approach within a
hundred miles of these fortresses; should she
therefore comply with the Governor's wish, she
would be weakening her own resources, and increasing
rather than diminishing her danger.[308]

To these conclusive arguments, no farther objection
was made by the English Court. Queen
Anne was content, but Nicholson was not. The
reason was obvious: he had a secret purpose to
accomplish, to which ran counter the determined
course of the Assembly; and from this time he appears
to have conceived a steady hatred of Virginia
and all her interests. Hastening to New
York, he there took a prominent part in a farce,
which deserves to be recorded only that it may be
ridiculed. Professing to feel great contempt for
the penurious spirit which, as he declared, had influenced
Virginia, he did incontinently execute his
own sealed note for the sum of nine hundred
pounds, to be appropriated to the desired fortresses.
This magnificent act was spread abroad by the
tongue of Fame, that its author might gain popularity;
but Nicholson, with wondrous wisdom,
took a counter-bond from the person to whom his
own note was given, by which it was agreed, that
he should not be called upon for the nine hundred
pounds until her majesty, Queen Anne, should

have granted him that sum out of the quit-rents of
Virginia.[309] In point of fact, no portion of this
money was ever paid.

When Sir Francis returned to his own province,
his ill-humour exhibited itself in many captious
proceedings. To detail them would be a task
more of annoyance than of profit; but there is one
feature in his conduct which cannot be passed in
silence. One Colonel Quarry represented some of
the interests of England in the colonies, and with
him Nicholson joined in preparing and presenting
a memorial to the Council of Trade in the mother
country. In this luminous production, they took
care first to trumpet forth praises of the Governor's
generosity to New York; and in so doing, they
gave currency to a falsehood as dishonouring as
could have been invented.[310] Not content with this,
they proceeded to draw a portrait of Virginia character,
representing her people as numerous and
rich, and imbued with a dangerous republicanism,
which required the sternest rebuke from the reigning
powers. They urged immediate measures of

restraint to check this growing spirit, and declared
that a frown from the Queen would have the happiest
effect. They spoke in plain terms of the necessity
for a standing army to awe the rebellious,
and implored that all the colonies should be united
under one government, and subjected to the surveillance
of a single viceroy.[311] Such were the artful
views of these unworthy slanderers. It is a
source of the purest consolation to reflect that their
advice was totally disregarded, and that one of the
parties was speedily informed that her majesty
could dispense with his services and his presence
in her colony. Nicholson was displaced in the
following year, (1704.)

On his removal, the office of Governor-in-chief
of Virginia was bestowed upon the Earl of Orkney,
who held it during thirty-six consecutive
years, without once crossing the Atlantic.[312] In
1705, Edward Nott arrived in the colony, and entered
upon the duties of his place. He held a full
commission from the Queen as Governor-General,
in order to inspire the people with respect; but in
truth, he was only the lieutenant of Orkney.[313]
The new officer ruled with mildness, and inspired

universal respect. We mark, in his short career,
nothing but measures for peace and happiness. A
full revision of the laws, which had long been
called for, now at length took place.[314] Every department
of colonial jurisprudence was remodelled,
except that relating to the church and clergy, and
here Mr. Commissary Blair made so many difficulties
that the bill was dropped, and for a season
entirely lost.[315] One important change effected
was, by the law making slaves real estate, instead
of personal chattels, as they had theretofore been.
This change was intended for the benefit of three
deserving classes, orphans, widows, and the slaves
themselves. Many of the incidents attaching upon
personal property were yet retained, and it may be
here mentioned, that this law, though wise in some
respects, has been found inconvenient, and has long
since been repealed.[316]

Edward Nott did not live long enough to enjoy
the happiness that his gentle rule tended to give to
the colony. (1706.) He died in August of the
next year, and was succeeded by Edmund Jennings,
who, as President of the Council, assumed
the duties of governor. The administration of
Nott was universally approved, and during its
course we have but to record a single painful incident,

caused not by the agency of man, but by the
direction of a higher power. By some unhappy
accident, the College buildings took fire, at ten
o'clock at night, in a time when a public meeting
had convened in Williamsburg, and before the
alarm was given, the flames had gained such
strength that it was impossible to arrest them.
The edifice was burned to the ground, and many
years elapsed before this misfortune could be fully
repaired.[317]

Years now rolled quietly away, only to bring increased
comfort and happiness to Virginia. Europe
was involved in a terrific war, and the northern
colonies sustained many of its heaviest strokes;
but the "Old Dominion" was at peace, and was
content to watch the progress of affairs, and to
hold herself in readiness to do her duty, whatever
it might be. So profound was the calm reigning
in her bosom, that the intervention of an Assembly
was never required to amend existing laws, or to
interpose between the governor and his people.

It is believed that Brigadier General Robert
Hunter received a commission as lieutenant of
Lord Orkney, and was actually on his way to the
colony, when his ship was captured by a French
man-of-war, and he was carried a prisoner into
France.[318] (June 23.) In 1710, a gentleman arrived
to assume the reins of her government, whose
memory Virginia will ever rejoice to cherish with

gratitude and pride. Alexander Spotswood was
born of Scottish parents, in Tangier, in Africa,
and his earliest years were passed amid the scenes
of the camp and the bivouac.[319] He delighted in
his profession, and bestowed upon it the close
study of an acute and vigorous mind. His talent
for the mathematics was remarkable, and a taste
for drawing made him skilful in one of the highest
duties of the military engineer. Although possessed
of the courage and the accomplishments
which in a peculiar manner fitted him for the life
of a soldier, he had not neglected civil studies,
and his well-trained intellect had mastered much
of the learning necessary to the lawyer and the
statesman.[320] But perhaps his chief advantage consisted
in his social and moral character, in which
aspect it would not be easy to find one, of whom
might be truly asserted so much that is good and
so little that is evil. He came to Virginia after a
time of active employment in the army of Britain.
In the great battle of Blenheim, in which Marlborough
annihilated, for a season, the strength of
France, Colonel Spotswood received a dangerous
wound in the breast by a musket-ball,[321] but by
skilful treatment he recovered, and before the war
was ended he received the appointment of Lieutenant-Governor
in the colony.

He had been a very short time in Virginia ere
his active genius suggested plans for her improvement,
which his industry hastened to carry into
effect. A love of architectural grace displayed
itself in the magazine which he caused to be built
in Williamsburg; and when the Assembly, in
accordance with an intention formed years before,
voted money for the governor's house, Spotswood
applied it with so much prudence and skill that
none could regret its appropriation.[322]

He devised improvements in the tobacco trade,
by which the planters were to deposit their crops
in public warehouses, at certain places, and to
receive certificates of officers as to the amount and
the quality. These certificates they could afterwards
use as money; but though this plan was in
many points convenient, the people did not like it,
and after a time it fell into disuse. The planters
could not endure the slightest approach to the
hated "law of towns." It is wonderful that Virginia
has ever had one hundred houses in juxtaposition.

The mind of the Governor, which had so long
been engaged in the immense field of European
politics, could not be confined to the narrow limits
of a few colonial plantations. He reflected upon the
broad lands, the forests, the rivers, and mountains
of America, with astonishment and delight; and it

would appear that his fancy was already beginning
to grasp some of her capacities for future
greatness. He often turned his eyes to the west.
A few daring pioneers had crossed the beautiful
ridge of mountains which first opposed the progress
of settlers, and the vast region of Orange
was soon to yield a part of its domain to the claims
of West Augusta.[323] But the Alleghanies were still
unexplored: their summits towered far above their
eastern sisters, and the rugged precipices found
among them discouraged the labours of the most
enterprising and undaunted. Natural obstacles
remained in all their pristine strength. Wolves,
bears, and catamounts abounded in the fastnesses
of this wild country; and the Indians on either
side of the mountains were distinguished for their
fierceness and their ability. But these difficulties,
instead of discouraging the Governor, stimulated
his zeal, and added to his design the attractive
zest of novelty and hazard. He resolved to undertake
an expedition for the purpose of exploring the
country, and discovering its resources west of the
rugged barrier that had hitherto bounded the hopes
even of Anglo-Saxon adventurers.

When this object was made known, the General
Assembly lent its aid, and made provision for its
accomplishment. Some of the most enlightened

men in the settlement volunteered their services,
and the chivalry of the "Old Dominion" eagerly
enlisted in a cause promising so much of interest
and excitement.[324] A number sufficient to meet all
enemies were soon assembled. They were well
armed, and mounted on horses selected with a
special view to the duty before them. At the
head of this gallant array, Spotswood turned his
face to the far West. Their course was seldom
interrupted, and was almost a continued triumph.
They marked carefully the resources of a country,
which has since realized all the hopes they could
have formed. The rich valley lying between the
two chains of mountains was then covered with
the wildness of nature, but it was already beautiful
enough to attract a sensitive beholder. On
reaching the base of the Alleghanies, they found
it difficult to select a point at which ascent was
practicable either to man or horse; but when, at
length, they gained the summit, the view presented
repaid them for their exertions. The point
they had attained gave them a view of the splendid
champaign country beyond;[325] and those who
have often enjoyed this prospect may conceive
something of the pleasing wonder it excited in the
minds of colonists beholding it for the first time.
Not yet content with their achievement, they descended
into the plains below; and, after satisfying
themselves that America was indeed one of
the favoured lands of Heaven, they returned to
the East to recount their discoveries to those who
had not, in person, enjoyed them.[326]

When the results of this expedition were made
known in England, King George, who had succeeded
Anne upon the throne, bestowed on Spotswood
the honour of knighthood, and presented to
him, as an appropriate device for his coat of arms,
a small golden horse shoe, bearing the Latin inscription,
"Sic jurat transcendere montes."[327] The
English Court was not entirely insensible to the
value of an undertaking so materially affecting
their dominion in America; and although this
achievement became afterwards the occasion of
an unhappy difference between its author and the
ruling powers, yet it greatly added to his fame on
either side of the Atlantic. It would be unjust to
suppose that one so philosophical in his habits of
thought as was the Governor, was content with

viewing his excursion in its physical aspect alone.
He may have admired the mountains, been refreshed
by the valleys, and rejoiced in the display
of almost exhaustless natural wealth; but he could
not forget the effect that the presence of man was
to have in these fair regions. Although the war
between France and England had been ended by
the peace of Utrecht, concluded the preceding year,
yet Alexander Spotswood could discern causes
which would sooner or later renew the conflict,
and he looked with the deepest interest to the
broad valley of the Ohio, upon which the French
had already thrown a glance of hope and preparation.

Few events now occurred to disturb the peace
or impede the rapid growth of Virginia. Blessed
with good laws, a representative government, and a
chief deservedly popular, she pursued her course
with steadiness and content. The Governor sought
to meliorate the condition of the natives still living
within their bounds, by sending competent and
pure men among them, to inspire a love of order
and civilization. He required that some of the
children of the sachems, delivered up as hostages
to the whites, should be admitted into William
and Mary College, and instructed according
to their necessities for future life.[328] As his administration

passed away, we note a single incident to
break in upon its happy monotony. Although
often heavily chastised, pirates continued to infect
the shores of America and prey upon defenceless
merchantmen. At this period one character, in
particular, distinguished himself by a course of
ferocity even beyond that of the worst of his compeers.
John Theach was his real name, but he
was best known by the title of "Blackbeard," to
which the hideous natural appendage that he wore
gave him undisputed claim. He exhibited, in its
most intense form, every cruel and revolting trait
that could grace the character of a pirate. Fourteen
wretched women were at once the instruments
of his detestable pleasures, and the victims of his
infernal passions. He often personated a fiend for
the entertainment of his crew, and once gave them
a scenic display intended to represent the regions
of the damned![329] With him nothing was more
common than the murder of his own men, whom
he slew when heated to frenzy by rage and intemperance.

(1718.) This wretch had long been the scourge
of the seas near the coasts of North Carolina and
Virginia, and hitherto all efforts to bring him to
justice had been unavailing. Governor Spotswood
and the Assembly had proclaimed an ample reward
for his capture, and when it was at length known

that he had been seen off the coast, Lieutenant
Maynard, commanding a small English ship of
war in the waters of Virginia, hastened to find and
attack him. (Nov. 21.) He discovered the pirate
vessel watching for prey at the mouth of one of
the dangerous inlets to Pamlico Sound, and immediate
preparations were made for battle. Blackbeard
saw that a decisive hour had arrived, and
drinking deep draughts of ardent spirits to excite
himself to desperation, he placed one of his men
with a lighted match at the magazine, instructing
him to blow up the ship should she be captured.
The fight which followed was terrible, but Maynard
and his heroic crew were victorious. When the
outlaw chief found that his orders were not obeyed,
he rose with a cocked pistol in his hand, but in
the act of stepping back he fell to the deck and
almost instantly expired. His body was covered
with wounds, from which blood had flowed in
streams around the spot where he stood.[330] The rest
of the pirates were taken, and, after solemn trial,
they all met the fate their crimes deserved.[331]

In the close of Spotswood's administration, a
controversy respecting boundaries, which had
long been pending between North Carolina and
Virginia, was placed upon a ground which at least
prevented the continuance of embittered feeling.
This dispute had been so serious, that the Governor
had found it necessary to forbid by proclamation
any settlements in the doubtful territory beyond

the Nottoway and Meherrin Rivers.[332] Commissioners
were at length appointed on both sides,
who surveyed the land and marked the bounds
within which each colony was to have jurisdiction
and control, leaving a small part yet to be appropriated.
Among these commissioners was Colonel
William Byrd, a Virginia gentleman of great wealth,
respectable talents, and untiring industry, to whom
our state is much indebted for the preservation of
her ancient records. He kept a journal of the
route and proceedings of the surveyors, which has
descended to us, and which is replete with humour
and good sense. After this survey, the controversy
was in great measure ended, though legislation
was from time to time applied to the subject.[333]

Though Alexander Spotswood was beloved by
all classes in the colony, he was by no means so
highly regarded by the powers then ruling in England.
Whether he was considered as too warm a
friend of the people to be a decided friend to the
King, we do not know; but he was often thwarted
in his schemes, and disappointed in some of his
most reasonable expectations. When he applied
to the English government for a vote of money, to
defray the expenses of his progress across the Alleghany
Mountains, his claim was heard with coldness
and displeasure. It was vain to urge that
this undertaking had been very useful to the
mother country, inasmuch as it developed the resources

of her distant territory, and furnished her
with the means of rendering it profitable. England
was already deeply involved in debt, and she
looked to her colonies rather for supplies, than as
objects of expenditure. After a service of nearly
thirteen years, Spotswood was removed, and his
place was filled by Hugh Drysdale, of whom we
know little and see little, except his signature to
the acts of two sessions of the General Assembly.[334]
The former Governor did not leave the colony,
but, retiring to his plantation near Germanna, in
the newly created county of Spottsylvania,[335] he
passed many quiet days in mining and agricultural
pursuits, surrounded by an attached family,
and beloved even by the lower animals that his
care had domesticated.[336] When the alarm of war
was again heard, in 1739, he was called from his
retirement to take command of the colonial forces;
but he died ere he was able to strike a blow in behalf
of his adopted country.[337]

Drysdale died on the 22d day of July, 1726,
and, after a short season, during which the government
was administered by Robert Carter, as President
of the Council, William Gooch arrived, still
empowered to serve only as lieutenant of the immortal

Orkney.[338] (1727, Oct.) From this period,
the observant reader of American history will
mark an interesting change in the feelings and
policy of the several provinces, in their intercourse
with each other. In their childhood, they had
shown little disposition to unite in bonds of friendship.
They had in truth manifested but too much
of the petulant jealousy which children are prone
to exhibit in their days of juvenile folly. As the
settlements grew older, they were kept apart by a
consciousness of conflicting interests. Their trade
was fettered, and their hearts were rendered cold,
by the unfeeling policy of their common mother.
But when their eyes were gradually opened to
their own strength and importance, they began to
cast off these unworthy doubts, and to regard each
other with ever-growing confidence. They stood
erect; and feeling within themselves the developement
of those energies which have since rendered
them so formidable, they exchanged salutations of
mutual pride and friendship. The coalescing
movement began at the North, where the Puritan
colonies had long been known under the common
bond of New England, and gradually the generous
feeling made its way to the South. New
York, Pennsylvania, and their young sisters on
the Atlantic—Maryland, Virginia, the Carolinas,
Georgia—no longer regarded each other as rivals,
but began to interchange expressions and deeds of
fraternal love. It may be, that the American settlements
were not yet conscious of the pressure of
that golden chain of sympathy, which was at last
to unite them never to be sundered; but they were
already alive to influences which induced each, at
once, to extend to the others the hand of confidence
and affection.

William Gooch was one of the most popular
governors that ever blessed the colony over which
he presided. His urbane manners were the open
expression of a warm and generous heart. If his
conduct was sometimes tinged with a shade of intolerance,
there was much in the events surrounding
him to produce it. It was now a favourite
policy of England to appoint military officers to
administer the affairs of her provinces. The troubled
state of Europe rendered war either a present
or a rapidly approaching evil; and it was no longer
possible to confine the heat of human passions to
the ancient world. Gooch was a brigadier-general
in the English service. When the far-famed expedition
against the Spanish town of Carthagena was
projected, Virginia and North Carolina were called
upon for supplies of armed men, and they furnished
them without delay.[339] (1741.) The brave Governor
himself headed the forces from Virginia, and embarked
in the transports that attended the naval
command of Admiral Vernon. To relate minutely
all the events of this disastrous expedition, would
be foreign to our present subject; but many hearts

in the colony long mourned the losses it produced.
Vernon was brave, but he was possessed neither of
the skill nor of the self-command requisite for success.
The military and naval chiefs lost precious
hours in idle disputes, and sacrificed more precious
lives in rash endeavours. The fire of the enemy
cut down comparatively few, but a more fearful foe
assailed them: disease preyed upon their strength;
fatal fevers swept them away by thousands; gloom
filled their souls, and all energetic effort was at once
destroyed. In melancholy condition they weighed
their anchors, and left the spot which had been to
them a scene of continued defeat and mortality.[340]

A short time after the Governor's return, an Assembly
convened, embracing an unusually large
number of members, and much excited by recent
events. Gooch addressed them in a speech full of
military spirit. The war in which King George
the Second was engaged was lauded in strong
terms, and the burgesses were entreated to make
suitable provision for maintaining it, to build forts,
to encourage the importation of powder and ball,
and to appoint annual salaries for gunners and engineers.
But the legislature was not yet prepared
to commit their state so fully in the contest. They
returned a polite answer to the Governor, assuring

him of their patriotic wish to defend the country;
but they passed no act for the purposes he had so
strenuously urged upon them.[341] They were more
attentive to measures of peace than of war. At
this session was passed an act establishing the town
of Richmond, on land owned by Colonel Byrd, and
beautifully disposed in successive hills extending
nearly to the banks of James River.[342] The town
grew slowly until 1779, when the seat of government
was transferred thither from Williamsburg,
and then immediately it assumed a prominence
which has ever since been retained.

(1743.) In the next year, the College lost its president,
and the country a valued citizen. James
Blair had been educated under the best influences
of Scottish literature, yet had he retained his attachment
to the English Church. He may be called
the father of systematized learning in Virginia; and
if he had an abiding admiration for the privileges
and dignities of the clergy, he was able to unite
with it an ardent love of freedom, and a strong desire
to see letters flourish in America. These two
last-mentioned things were inseparably connected.
Every oppressor hated learning and opposed its
progress.[343] (Nov. 4.) The death of Blair was followed

in a short time by that of another man,
whose name deserves a high place in the records
of colonial improvement. William Byrd was immensely
rich, and his habits manifested a tendency
to profusion and luxury; but wealth did not enervate
his character; he was constantly active, and
exerted himself in many plans for the welfare of a
people whom he truly loved. Cold indeed must
be the heart that will not accord to such a man the
praise of having deserved well at the hands both of
those who knew and of those who survived him.[344]

In the huge county of West Augusta, a serious
conflict occurred between a band of Shawanese
Indians and a company of militia, under Captain
McDowell. At the first fire, the Captain and seven
of his men fell dead on the spot; and before the
whites could recover from the shock, another volley
was poured in by the natives with fatal effect. We
know not how to account for the want of courage
shown by the colonists on this occasion: the savages
were even permitted to carry off their dead
and the scalps of their lifeless victims. No immediate
march against them took place, and the frontier
settlements in the valley were agitated with
fears of Indian massacre.[345] Happily, however, the
evil day was yet deferred for a time; a treaty was

concluded with the hostile tribe, who were already
under the influence of the Six Nations; the hatchet
was buried, the silver chain was brightened, and
peace was solemnly declared to exist between the
belligerents.[346]

As the minds of men became expanded by
knowledge, toleration for the opinions of others on
religious subjects had been gradually established.
Yet the very existence of this word "toleration"
will prove how far public opinion yet fell below
freedom and truth. No insolence can exceed that
of human governments which have declared their
purpose to "tolerate" what the laws of God have
placed beyond their control. It would be wiser in
them to announce toleration to the course of the
sun in the heavens! Governor Gooch was religiously
inclined, but his religion was bounded by
the rubric; he knew some Scripture, but it was all
from the English Prayer Book. (1745.) In the
midst of his administration, there appeared in the
colony a large number of fanatics, composed of
Methodists, Moravians, Quakers, and a sect known
as New-light Presbyterians. What these last-named
persons believed is not certainly known,
but they were doubtless impressed with the delusive
hope, that an immediate revelation had been
made to them by the Deity—a hope which, from
the death of the Apostles to the present hour, has
been invariably productive of folly and crime in

those encouraging it, and of relentless persecution
in church authorities. These wild declaimers
spread themselves abroad, preaching their doctrines
to all who would listen. We do not learn
that they were guilty of any deeds adverse to the
substantial interests of the state. If they were disorderly,
they were amenable to police regulations;
if they were rebellious, Virginia had a law of treason.
No unwonted rigour seemed to be required.
In later and happier times, the flames of their zeal
would have been permitted to expire for want of
fuel. Resistance tended only to make them more
determined and enthusiastic. (April 25.) But the
Governor was greatly scandalized by their course,
and at the next meeting of the General Court, he
proceeded to deliver an edifying charge to the
Grand Jury, directing their thoughts to these persons,
and urging them to present or indict them
under the laws requiring conformity. The chief
offence of these hapless dreamers seems to have
consisted in the doctrine, that salvation was not to
be obtained in any communion except their own.[347]
Of this the Governor complained; but he might
with justice have been reminded, that such doctrine
was neither unknown to nor unapproved by
many in the church to which he adhered with all
his powers, both of mind and body.

The whole of this charge has been preserved,[348]

and may be read with profit by those who wish to
study one of the closing pages of American intolerance.
It shall here be passed, with the remark,
that unless the worthy Governor generally wrote
more correctly, neither his rhetoric nor his thought
merited the commendation which Mr. Burk has
been pleased to bestow upon them.[349] We find
afterwards a proclamation, issued by Gooch,
against Romish priests who might come from
Maryland.[350] He had no love for any rational creature
that pretended to think differently from his
church on the subject of religion; and it deserves
to be noted, that he was sustained by men who
were afterwards among the sternest supporters of
freedom in all her expansion. The General Assembly
passed laws against Moravians, New-lights,
and Methodists, and the name of Pendleton
appears among those who approved the Governor's
counsel.[351]

It may be that their minds had been stimulated
to undue severity by events which had lately
shaken the mother country to her centre. Charles
Edward, the young popish pretender to a throne
from which his popish ancestor had been driven
nearly a half century before, had landed in Scotland
under the favouring eye of France. Highland
clans had flocked to his standard, and in two
battles their resistless onset had broken English
armies to pieces. (1746, April 27.) But the reverse

came. The Duke of Cumberland was in
the field, and at Culloden the hopes of the Roman
Catholic party in the English realm were for ever
crushed. (Oct. 10.) The Pretender fled again to
France, after wandering for a time in imminent
hazard amid the caves and fastnesses of the country
over which he had hoped to reign.[352] When
news of his first progress in Scotland reached Virginia,
she hastened to express her loyalty to the
King, and her resolve to resist with all her strength
the effort of the Pretender;[353] and when his overthrow
was announced, sincere joy pervaded every
class of her people.

During the recess of the Assembly in this year,
an incendiary fired the Capitol, and before the
flames could be arrested, the building was almost
totally destroyed. The Governor considered this
disaster a sufficient reason for summoning the Assembly
to meet at the College, previous to the time
to which they had been prorogued. When they
had convened, a grave question presented itself for
debate. The rapidly extending population of Virginia
had already pressed into the valley beyond
the first range of mountains, and the burgesses
from Augusta and Frederick would willingly have
had the seat of government nearer to their homes.
Others were equally in favour of removal, and the
late conflagration gave them a fair ground on which

to base their proposal. But it was soon found that
ponderous obstacles would oppose any such scheme.
The Governor had purchased property in Williamsburg,
which derived its chief value from the presence
of government business and officers, and in
the Council and Legislature there were not a few
who deprecated a removal from motives nearly
allied to selfishness. It was vain to oppose strong
reasons and soothing flattery to the arguments of
such a monitor as Mammon. The Assembly adjourned
without any decision on this point, and
when, two years afterwards, the subject was renewed,
the Governor threw off all reserve, declared
himself against the change, and in a short
time a heavy majority of members appeared on
his side.[354] Nothing therefore remained but to rebuild
the Capitol, and guard it more securely for
future time.

(1748.) But though unwilling to commence a
new town in person, the Assembly was disposed
to encourage others in efforts at "cohabitation."
Petersburg and Blandford were established: of
which the first has become a flourishing mart, and
the last has degenerated into a mere appendage.[355]
Sites for other towns were selected in Augusta, in
King William, and in Fairfax; but these remained
"in paper," and have not gathered to themselves
the more substantial materials of wood and stone.

Another revisal of the laws was projected, and an
able committee appointed for the purpose.[356]

Thus Virginia enjoyed peace without and within.
She had felt but lightly the hand of war, which
had pressed with so much force upon her sisters in
the North. When the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle
was concluded, and France and England, for a
season, laid aside their arms, Virginia experienced
no change in her internal economy, and recognised
the treaty only to deplore, with the other American
settlements, the shameful submission, which had
yielded up to France the dearly-bought prize of
colonial heroism.[357]

Governor Gooch now prepared to leave America,
and assume a permanent abode in the mother country.
He had presided over the destinies of Virginia
during more than twenty-two years, and there
were few of her inhabitants who did not respect
him as a friend and even love him as a father. His
family were linked by many tender ties to the
children of the soil, and his name is still known to
be esteemed in the "Old Dominion." Just before
his departure, the President and Council, accompanied
by the officers of the College, and of the
town, paid him a visit, and one selected from
among them delivered an address, expressive of

their feelings on parting with their long-tried superior.
We cannot doubt the sincerity of the
tokens of sorrow every where shown on this occasion.
The Governor had been firm, yet gentle;
sound in his views; moderate in his measures;
cordial in his intercourse with all who approached
him. When, on the 14th August, 1749, he embarked
for his voyage to England, many, by tears
and audible blessings, gave proof of the extent to
which he had enlisted their affections.[358]

Mr. Robinson, President of the Council, succeeded
to the administration of affairs; but he had
held his office a very few days ere he was removed
by death, and the duties devolved upon Thomas
Lee, who had followed Robinson in the presidency.
Mr. Lee was a gentleman of talents and
influence, and it is probable he would have been
permanently appointed to the office of Lieutenant-Governor,
had his life been spared.[359] In England,
Lord Albemarle had followed Orkney, as Governor-in-chief.
Louis Burwell, as President of Council,
administered the government of Virginia during
more than a year. While residing in England, he
had sustained a severe injury of the head, by a fall
from his horse, and had been compelled to undergo
the painful operation of the trepan. His habits
had been studious, but from the time of this accident,
he was subject to attacks of mental alienation,

which greatly affected his general capacity
for business.[360] (1751.) History can record in his
administration, no event more important than the
building of a theatre at Williamsburg, by a company
of comedians from New York, who felt a
laudable desire to present some of the charms of
the drama to the dull burgesses of Virginia Plantations.[361]

In 1752, Robert Dinwiddie arrived in the colony,
with a full commission to preside over her counsels
as her Lieutenant-Governor. Originally a clerk
in a custom-house in one of the British West India
Islands, he had powerfully commended himself to
favour, by discovering a vast system of fraud,
which had long been practised by his superiors.
For this, he was rewarded by an appointment to
Virginia, and immediately took possession of his
novel honours.[362] But it would be premature farther
to speak of his character or his conduct. His
name will instantly recall to our minds a period
pregnant with important deeds and grand developements.
A new era opens to our view; great
names are now to be recorded, and great events
are to attend upon them. A hero is to appear, to
whom the centuries of the past had produced no
prototype; and, as he enters upon the stage of
being, we are not surprised to find him surrounded
by the light of a purer civilization—a more exalted
philanthropy!

CHAPTER VIII.

As the English colonies in America increased
in importance to the mother country, they began
also to feel the glowing impulses which were at
work in their own bosoms. Within the past century
Europe had made enormous strides in the
march of science and civilization. Star after star
had appeared above her horizon, to add brilliancy
to her intellectual heavens, until it seemed at length
as though all minor lights had been quenched in

the blaze of a sun that had risen never to decline.
For many years America had felt but feebly the
beams that were darting from every point of her
mother's countenance. She had not improved in
mind as she had expanded in body. But now a
change, natural, but rapid and wondrous, was to be
developed. The sun of learning did not, indeed, recede
from the east, but as he ascended higher in the
heavens his rays began to illumine the western world.
The time of infancy had passed; the struggle for
existence was happily over; the great battle with
the spirit of the wilderness had been fought, and
the victory was won. America did not pause in
her onward course, but she had now secured the
necessary and the useful, and she turned with the
eagerness of new desire to the comforts and elegancies
of social life. The arts grew in strength
as though born upon her soil. Men of science
successively arose, and already one was breathing
her air before whom succeeding ages have rejoiced
to kneel and be instructed. Printing presses began
to send forth the thoughts of her own children,
not drawn from the mind of the old world, but engendered
by the inspiration of a life more fresh,
more vigorous, and more free. In the great science
which teaches the rights of man and the method
of securing them, she was already far beyond
the fettered sages of the best and wisest governments
then known to European kingdoms.

As the colonies thus grew in general intelligence,
they approached nearer to each other, and encouraged
each co-attractive principle acting upon them.

More than a century before, the northern settlements
had formed a sisterhood that had tended
powerfully to increase their influence, their welfare,
and moral power.[363] A plan for a more extended
union had been proposed by Daniel Coxe, in 1741,
and twelve years afterwards, Benjamin Franklin
presented to a convention at Albany, a scheme
which, if carried out, would have drawn into the
closest embrace, all the sisters now so rapidly developing
their charms upon the soil of America.[364]
But the time for this measure, although approaching,
had not yet arrived. They were to feel a
more powerful motive than that furnished by mutual
love and a common country. They did not
yet confederate, but the causes binding them to
each other were already sufficiently strong to array
them in a united front against the enemy who first
assailed them.

This foe was France. The peace of Aix-la-Chapelle,
so inglorious to England, so favourable to
her opponents, had settled none of the disputed
points between herself and her hereditary enemy.
It had left undefined the boundaries of Nova
Scotia, the limits of English jurisdiction west of
the Alleghanies, the right of maritime seizure and
search, the operation of international law upon the
claims of both parties in the valley of the Ohio and

Mississippi Rivers.[365] It had indeed done nothing,
definite, except surrender Cape Breton to the
enemy, and send two English freemen into France
as hostages for England's good behaviour.[366] It
could not have been expected that such a peace
could be long continued. It held out to both parties
temptations to its rupture. To France it furnished
stimulus to farther encroachment; to England
it gave constant cause for disgust and discontent.

He who will accompany his review of the history
of this period by a glance at the map of North
America, as it was then divided, will see the critical
state of affairs between the French and British
interests, and the moral necessity urging them to
a conflict. Along the whole Atlantic coast, from
Halifax to Florida, the Anglo-American colonies
were spread, and from the sea they extended to an
indefinite and advancing line, that made yearly
approaches to the Mississippi River. They were
already powerful in population, in energy, in courage,
and intelligence. They looked upon the
land as their heritage, and were ready to contest
the claims of all who should oppose their progress.
The French held settlements upon the St. Lawrence
to its mouth. They claimed a few bleak
points on the coast of Acadia or Nova Scotia; and
on the great lakes which now bound the English

domain in Canada, they had established forts, and
gathered around them villages and towns. But
this constituted but a small part of their claim.
While their traders and colonists were yet struggling
with the rigours of a northern clime, Indian
narratives had told them of a magnificent stream,
that swept through the whole country, from the
north even to the Gulf of the south, and which
had drawn from savage admiration the name of
"The Father of Waters." In 1673, Marquette, a
Roman Catholic missionary, and Joliet, an envoy
of the French government, in an open boat, with
few attendants, had sailed down the Wisconsin and
entered the great Mississippi. The one came to
preach to the heathen the Gospel of the Prince of
Peace; the other to explore and to assert title to
their lands, as the appanage of an earthly monarch.
Amid the silence of nature, they passed the mouths
of the Missouri and the Ohio, nor did they arrest
their course until they had claimed the river as
their own, and could return to tell of the most
beautiful valley in the world, added, by their enterprise,
to the supposed possessions of their sovereign.[367] Nine years afterwards, La Salle descended
the river to its mouth.[368] The country around received
the name of Louisiana, from the reigning
prince, and efforts were immediately made to plant
colonists from the mother land upon this inviting
soil.

Such had been the success of France in extending
her discoveries in America. Her attempts at
colonizing had not, however, corresponded with
the activity of her movements. Although she had
planted settlers in Acadia before Englishmen ever
saw the site of Jamestown, yet she had been often
called to mourn over decayed towns and withered
hopes. The genius of her people did not fit them
for the labour of the colonist. They wanted not
industry, but they wanted perseverance. They
were not deficient in courage, but they sank easily
under opposing obstacles. A hard soil dismayed
them, and from the labour of the axe and the
plough they turned away in disgust. Pliant, excitable,
and fond of novelty, they preferred to trade
with and to live among the Indians, rather than to
fell trees, to turn furrows, and to build towns.
Their success with the children of the forest was
remarkable. The polite and graceful Frenchman
and the grim warrior of the west were quickly
united in bonds of amity; and if we except the Six
Nations, there were few tribes of America who did
not yield more or less to the seductive influences
of their allies from Gaul.[369] But Indian friendship
alone would not promote the interests of their colonies.
Their progress in numbers, in wealth, and
in general improvement, was slow—so slow, that
by the middle of the eighteenth century the French

settlements from Louisiana to the mouth of the St.
Lawrence numbered but fifty-two thousand souls,[370]
while between one and two millions were found
upon the soil of the British colonies.

Notwithstanding this difference in numbers, the
keen intellects which then governed France had
not been slow in perceiving certain advantages of
position, which, if properly used, would render
their power formidable to British interests in America.
By an extravagant construction of international
law, they claimed the whole valley of the
Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, by virtue of their
discovery in 1673. They insisted that the discovery
of a river gave title to all the country watered
either by itself or its tributaries, and that therefore
"the passing of Father Marquette down the Mississippi
in a canoe, invested his sovereign with a
title to the immense valley bounded by the Appalachian
Mountains on the one side and the Rocky
Mountains on the other."[371] This claim, though
perhaps not openly asserted, was secretly relied
upon, and all the measures of the Court of Versailles
tended to enforce it. They had long before
resolved to link together their possessions in Louisiana
and on the St. Lawrence by a chain of forts,
which should extend along the line of the Ohio
River, and which, if once permanently established,
would have effectually shut in the English settlements

to the narrow limits between the Atlantic
and the Alleghany Mountains.[372]

Many years before, the acute mind of Alexander
Spotswood had detected this scheme of French
ambition, and had warned the English government
to counteract it by commencing at once the
erection of fortresses on the Ohio. He also advised
the establishment of a company for the purpose of
exploring this splendid country, and of selecting
proper places for settlements or for trade with the
natives.[373] But his warning voice and his advice
were alike neglected. Had they been acted upon,
it may be that a bloody war might have been
averted; but it is common for man to despise the
counsels of wisdom, that he may taste the bitter
fruits of folly. When at length information was
received that the French had actually crossed Lake
Champlain, and had built a fort at Crown Point,
upon the soil of New York,[374] the eyes of the English
Ministry were opened to their designs, and they resolved
to meet them with corresponding preparation.

One year after the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, the
Parliament of England created a corporation, upon
which was bestowed the name of the Ohio Company.[375]
It was composed of merchants residing

in London, and of wealthy planters in Virginia,
who desired to engage in profitable trade. Six
hundred thousand acres of land, bordering upon
the Ohio River, were granted to them, and they
were likewise invested with the exclusive privilege
of trading with the Indians living within
their bounds. This extensive grant was designed
to carry out the scheme proposed by Spotswood,
but it was unhappily managed, and it proved the
immediate occasion of the fierce conflict which
followed.

Eager to avail themselves of their privileges,
the Company prepared to open the wilderness on
either side of the Ohio. This was the disputed
territory, for possession of which France and England
were contending; and, in their stern rivalry,
they forgot the claims of another people, who
were yet strong enough to render dangerous their
enmity.

The rights of the Indians had not been extinguished
by purchases or treaties. They claimed
the soil as occupants, and their rude settlements
gave them a title which rigid justice would not
have contemned.[376] It would not have been difficult
for the English to have conciliated the red
men by kindness, and by a few judicious gifts.
So much were they averse to the French, from
whom they had already experienced harsh treatment,
that they would willingly have united with
the other party, had they received any encouragement.[377]

But the avaricious corporation had no
policy so generous in their view. They were
intent upon gain, and thought not of Indian rights
and feelings. Surveyors, with brazen instruments
and measuring-chains, were speedily on the Ohio,
marking the possessions to which the Company
intended to lay claim. When the hapless natives
saw these well-known insignia, their hearts sank
within them. Driven backward from the ocean,
they had hoped for peace in the deep valley beyond
the mountains, and now they beheld the
omens of certain destruction still approaching their
fields and hunting grounds. It is not wonderful
that we read of a question proposed by two Indian
sachems to Gist, the agent of the Ohio Company,
while he was pursuing his surveys, upon this soil.
"Where," they asked, "lay the Indians' lands? for
the French claim all on one side of the Ohio, and
the English all on the other side."[378] There was a
deep and bitter irony concealed in this question,
which was soon to be merged in feelings more
infuriated and relentless; but the agents of the
Company gave no explanation to the savage diplomatists.
They observed profound mystery as to
their design, finished their surveys, and returned
to the east without molestation.

The crisis now approached. The French authorities
on the Lakes sent forces towards the Ohio,
and in a short time intelligence reached Williamsburg,
that a fort had been built on the river Le

Bœuf, which takes its rise not far from Lake Erie,
and is discharged into the Ohio. When the English
government were informed of these and prior
encroachments, they made fruitless complaints to
the ambassador of France; but while negotiations
were yet pending, they instructed the colonies to
defend themselves, to repel force by force, to build
two forts on the river, and to hold themselves ready
for hostilities. Thirty pieces of light cannon and
eighty barrels of powder accompanied these instructions
to Virginia,[379] and all parties felt that a
collision must soon take place. Determined to
proceed by fair and pacific measures, Governor
Dinwiddie prepared, as a final resource, to send a
message to the French commandant on the Ohio,
to remonstrate against his intrusion, and to warn
him that war was inevitable unless he withdrew.[380]

For this hazardous and delicate duty a young
Virginian was selected, who had but just attained
his twenty-first year. Volumes have since been
written concerning him; his name has gone abroad
through all lands; the world claims him as her
citizen, and honours him as her only spotless hero.
To tell, therefore, of his birth, his childhood, his
riper years, or his fully developed character, would
be to repeat that with which all have rejoiced to
render themselves familiar. Yet as he enters upon

the stage of active life, History instinctively pauses
to gaze for a moment upon the man who is destined
to confer upon her records, honour as imperishable
as his own. Could she now call down upon him a
ray of glory more brilliant than any that has yet
darted on his name, she would win, by the deed, a
most exalted triumph. But the task is vain. The
name of George Washington may cause the heart
of an American to beat with a quickened impulse,
but it has already been placed too high in the temple
of renown, to be farther elevated by the praise
of mortals.

He held the rank of major in the colonial military
establishment, and was already well known for
his rare union of the virtues of zeal, prudence, and
courage. Receiving from the Governor his instructions,
and a passport bearing the broad seal of the
colony, he left Williamsburg on the 31st day of
October, and passing through Fredericksburg,
Alexandria, and Winchester, he arrived in fourteen
days at Wills' Creek, on the Potomac.[381] This point
is now known as Cumberland, on the great western
route from Washington City to the Ohio: it was
then nearly the extreme of European settlement.
Beyond it were gloomy forests, ice-bound rivers,
rugged mountains, and treacherous savages. There
was enough in this prospect to daunt the boldest
spirit, but it had no effect upon Washington, except
to add caution to his firmness. His party now
consisted of eight persons, among whom we find

Gist, the former agent of the Ohio Company.
Over the frozen Alleghanies; with their summits
covered with snow, and their valleys flooded by
impetuous streams from above, the adventurers
slowly made their way. Rafts were often constructed
to cross the larger rivers, but they were
useless in contending with mountain torrents. At
length, after severe toil, they reached the point
where the Monongahela and Alleghany Rivers
unite and form the majestic Ohio. The eye of
Washington instantly saw the importance of this
place. He determined that if possible it should
be defended by a Virginia fortress; but he then
little knew the fearful interest with which the passions
of man were soon to invest it.[382]

Twenty miles below the fork, they reached Logstown,
a small settlement on the Ohio, and having
convened as many Indian braves as he could find,
Washington addressed to them a speech, telling
them the object of his mission, and asking their
assistance. Already the jealousy of the red men
had been excited by the movements of the French,
and Tanacharison, the Half King, had visited their
fort, and with native eloquence had remonstrated
against their intrusion.[383] Finding their independence
endangered, the Indians were disposed to
look upon the English as guardians, and the Half
King addressed the young envoy in terms of peace
and confidence.

After a delay of a few days, Washington, accompanied
by the chief and three other Indians, set out
for the French post, which was one hundred and
twenty miles from the Ohio. Persevering progress
against many obstacles, brought him to the
object of his mission. St. Pierre, the commandant,
a knight of the military order of St. Louis, was already
advanced in years, and added to the experience
of the practised soldier, the courteous manners
of the gentleman. He received Washington with
politeness, and read the message of Dinwiddie with
respect, but in reply declared that it was not for
him to determine territorial rights and treaty obligations;
that he would transmit the message to his
superior, the Marquis Duquesne, then governing
Canada, but that, in the mean time, he could not
obey any summons to retire from his present position.[384]

This answer might have been anticipated, and it
was decisive of the question of peace and war. Although
the French authorities treated Washington
with marked respect, entertained him during his
stay, and loaded his boat with wines and provision
on his departure, yet they attempted to seduce the
Indians from their duty, and to attach them to their
own interest.[385] The youthful envoy hastened back
to report the result of his expedition. Difficulties

and dangers surrounded him. Winter had locked
the wilderness in chains, and excessive fatigue and
exposure had reduced even the feeble force with
which he commenced his journey. As we follow
Washington in his perilous course—often on foot
amid snows and tempest, once assailed by Indian
perfidy, now struggling to regain his raft amid the
waves of the Monongahela, where floating ice
threatened his instant destruction—we tremble at
the thought that a life so valuable should have been
thus exposed. But he was shielded by the hand
of One who already beheld and directed his exalted
destinies. (1754.) On the 16th day of January,
after an absence of eleven weeks, he reached Williamsburg,
and delivered to the Governor the answer
of St. Pierre.[386]

Nothing now remained but to make preparations
for war. The English government had advised
the colonies to repel aggression by force; and when
Washington's journal of his late embassy was published
in London, it excited not only respect for its
author, but a firm resolve to meet promptly the
hostile approaches of France. Dinwiddie despatched
messages to the other colonies, informing
them of the crisis, and urging them to unite with
Virginia in opposing the enemy's advance on the
Ohio. North Carolina and New York promptly
responded to the call, and prepared to send military

forces to the threatened point. Other provinces
were yet undecided. Some were not convinced of
the danger; some believed it, but thought their own
frontiers would require all the protection they could
give. The Virginia Assembly voted ten thousand
pounds for defence, by an act which bore an evasive
title, "For the encouragement and protection
of settlers on the waters of the Mississippi." Dinwiddie
was greatly chagrined by this act, which he
said intimated a doubt as to the title of his Britannic
Majesty to the interior of his dominions; but he
concealed his displeasure, and prepared for active
war.[387]

Six companies of provincial troops were raised,
to be commanded by Colonel Joshua Fry, a native
of England, and a gentleman much esteemed for
his mathematical learning and his amiable character.
Washington was second in command, with
the rank of lieutenant-colonel. His brave spirit
urged him to immediate advance; and two companies
having been fully formed, he marched from
Alexandria to Wills' Creek, on his route to the
Ohio. Here he received startling intelligence:
forty-one Virginians had commenced a fort at the
junction of the Monongahela and Alleghany; but,
in the midst of their work, an overwhelming force
of French, consisting of nearly a thousand men, in
three hundred canoes, and with many pieces of
cannon, the whole commanded by M. Contrecœur,
poured down upon them, drove them from the spot,
took possession in the name of France, and completed

the fort, which, in honour of the Governor
of Canada, they called Fort Duquesne.[388]

Washington's duty was now doubtful. Colonel
Fry had not yet joined him, and his force was feeble
compared with the numbers of whom accounts
had just been received. But he was always ready
to advance rather than retreat. Pushing on boldly
through the wilderness, he hoped to be able to erect
a fort on the Monongahela, at the mouth of Redstone
Creek, in time to arrest the farther progress
of the French. After crossing the Yohogany, he
arrived at a spot well known as the "Great Meadows."
The country was open and level, with
little to obstruct progress except bushes and undergrowth,
which were easily uprooted. Washington
here halted for a short time, to gather advices as to
the movements of the enemy.[389] Friendly Indians
joined him; and among them came Tanacharison,
the Half King, from whom he received many evidences
of affection and fidelity.

Learning that the French were advancing upon
him with a force concerning which he could gain
no definite knowledge, he moved cautiously forward,
encamping at night with a strong sentry guard.
After their invasion and capture of Fort Duquesne,
he could not doubt their hostile designs, and he
would have been guilty of unpardonable imprudence
had he still looked upon them in any other

light than as enemies. When, therefore, he was
informed that a small party had advanced near to
his position, that they came with great secrecy,
and that they had left the main route and were encamped
in a dark vale, as if to secure concealment,
he did not hesitate to prepare for the attack. (May
28.) Dividing his troops into two lines, he marched
under the direction of Indian guides. A stormy
night favoured his scheme, and at daybreak he
had nearly surrounded the French, who, suddenly
aroused from sleep, seized their arms. A simultaneous
fire took place; the provincial troops rushed
forward, and the French surrendered, having by
the first discharge lost their commander, M. Jumonville,
and ten of their number. One of Washington's
men was killed, and three were wounded.[390]
Thus the first blood was shed in a war which has
been not inappropriately called the "native of
America,"[391] and which speedily involved Europe
and her dependencies in a conflict of more than
wonted violence.

While the remainder of the regiment, of which
the advance guard was commanded by Washington,
prepared to join him, Colonel Fry died suddenly
at Wills' Creek; and thus the whole responsibility
devolved upon the younger officer. At the
Great Meadows he was joined by two independent

companies, one from New York and another from
South Carolina. The last was commanded by
Captain Mackay, who held a commission under the
English crown, and claimed precedence of the colonial
officers; but though this absurd whim threatened
for a season to produce disastrous results, the
impendence of danger soon caused all to submit
quietly to the superior genius of Washington.[392]
He directed a small stockade fort to be erected at
the Meadows, which afterwards claimed for itself
the title of Fort Necessity,[393] and at the head of
nearly four hundred effective men he turned his
face resolutely towards Fort Duquesne. He had
but just reached the foot of Laurel Hill, thirteen
miles from Fort Necessity, when he was met by
friendly Indians, who warned him not to proceed,
assuring him, in the figurative style to which nature
is always inclined, that enemies were approaching
"as numerous as pigeons in the woods."[394] Deserters
confirmed this report, and the Half King and the
Queen Aliquippa, from a tribe in the vicinity of
the "Great Fork," by their eager admonitions left
no room for doubt. A council of war was called.
Many difficulties assailed them. Ill-timed parsimony,
in their several provinces, had left men and
officers without sufficient pay; their bread was exhausted;
for six days they had not tasted this species
of food; other provisions began to fail, and
their horses grew daily weaker from fatigue and
famine.[395] Under these circumstances it would have
been madness to encounter in the open field a foe
who outnumbered them in the proportion of three
to one; and it was unanimously resolved that they
should return to the fort at the Great Meadows.
(June 28.)

Here they strained every nerve to complete the
stockade and to sink a ditch around it ere the foe
should appear. Before these were finished, fifteen
hundred French and Indians, commanded by M.
De Villier, rapidly advanced, and seemed confident
that superior numbers would secure to them
an easy prey. But they were destined to disappointment.
The mature judgment of Washington
had been shown in the position of Fort Necessity.
In the midst of an even meadow, and surrounded
on all sides by a level surface, which extended
more than two hundred and fifty yards without a
point of concealment, it gave all advantages to the
defence and none to the attack. As the enemy
came up, they commenced firing at long distances,
but their balls were thrown away; and when they
ventured nearer, they were singled out and cut
down by the keen marksmen within the stockade,
and in the ditch without. From ten o'clock in the
morning until dark the engagement continued;

during all this time Washington remained outside
of the wall, encouraging his men, who were often
sunk to the knees in mud and water.[396] De Villier
found that he had met a determined foe; already
two hundred of his men had been killed or disabled,
and yet no impression had been made on the
stockade. To advance to the assault would have
been rash, and would probably have been fatal to
three-fourths of his remaining number. To conquer
by famine was an uncertain means; he knew
not the resources of the garrison, nor did he know
how soon they might be relieved by reinforcements.
Under these circumstances he demanded a parley,
which was at first declined by Washington, from
apprehensions of treachery; but when the demand
was repeated, and an earnest message from De
Villier requested that an officer should be sent out
to him, for whose safety he pledged his honour as
a soldier, the young commander no longer felt himself
at liberty to refuse.[397]

Captain Vanbraam, a Dutch soldier, who knew
more of the art of fighting than of the niceties of
the French language, was sent to De Villier. He
was the only man in the fort then in condition to
act as interpreter, yet was his ignorance so great
as to be the means of injuring the fair fame of his

commander in the eyes of a great and generous
people. (July 4.) The articles agreed upon were
highly honourable to the provincial forces. They
were to retain all their arms, except the artillery;
to march out with drums beating and colours flying;
to preserve as much of their baggage as they
could carry away; and to proceed, unmolested by
the savages, to the frontiers of Virginia.[398] Captains
Vanbraam and Stobo were to be retained as hostages
by the French until the return of certain prisoners
previously captured, among whom was La
Force, a character to be noted hereafter.[399] Such
were the terms of capitulation, as they were explained
to Colonel Washington, who, being ignorant
of the French tongue, was obliged to trust to
interpreters. Whether De Villier designedly took
advantage of this fact or not, we do not know; but
it is certain that the articles contained a word, the
import of which was appreciated neither by Vanbraam
nor by his young commander; and its effect
was to give to Washington the appearance of acknowledging
that in the death of Jumonville, himself
and his party had been guilty of deliberate
murder![400] So artfully was this matter arranged,
that when accounts of the opening of hostilities
reached Paris, profound emotion pervaded the public
mind. Jumonville was looked upon as an assassinated
hero. Washington was vilified as his
murderer, and an epic poem was founded on the
affecting tragedy! Many years passed away before
the writers of France were willing to acknowledge
the injustice done to a character that has since been
the subject of some of their most splendid eulogies.

After the surrender of Fort Necessity, the provincial
troops marched towards Virginia; and notwithstanding
the engagement of De Villier, the
savages were not prevented from resorting to their
wonted attacks upon a disabled foe. They hung
upon their rear, and constantly harassed them, destroying
the feeble and threatening the bold.[401] At
length the regiment arrived at Winchester, having
sustained a total loss of about seventy men. The
Virginia troops suffered most severely. They were
earliest in action, and never recoiled from the post
of danger. When official accounts of the events of
this campaign were received in Williamsburg, the
Assembly passed a vote of thanks to Washington
and all who had served under him, expressed their
perfect content with their conduct, and voted three
hundred pistoles for the supply of their immediate
wants.[402] This approval had been well merited.
They had surmounted formidable difficulties, had
kept a superior foe at bay, and even in defeat had

secured to themselves a most honourable capitulation.

Governor Dinwiddie was wholly ignorant of military
affairs; but, with the confidence often attending
ignorance, he opened a plan for another campaign.
Colonel Innes, of North Carolina, who was
a favourite with Dinwiddie, was appointed to supreme
command in the provincial army. He was
a gentleman, but not a soldier, and his appointment
gave small satisfaction. What he might have done
in the field we know not, for events did not bring
him into actual conflict. But Dinwiddie had magnificent
ideas, and immediately ordered that the
army, which, as now reinforced, did not number
eight hundred men, should march from Winchester,
again cross the Alleghanies, defeat the Indians
and French, and capture Fort Duquesne.[403] When
Washington heard these mad orders, he was astonished
and distressed, but without delay he repaired
to the post of duty. To recruit troops without money,
to march into a wilderness without supplies,
to encounter the snow-storms of the Alleghany region
without tents, and to defeat a daring foe without
one-half his numbers; these were the Governor's
commands, and he was surprised that they were
not promptly obeyed. But the Virginia Assembly
relieved the officers and the army from their dilemma.
They refused to vote a supply of money
for increasing the regiment.[404] The Governor was
vexed, and in an indignant message to the Assembly

he expressed his displeasure at their conduct;
but they adhered firmly to their purpose, and his
plan for the campaign at once vanished into air.

Dinwiddie had none of the chivalrous feeling
which ought to have existed in the bosom of a chief
magistrate of the Old Dominion. He looked upon
the operations of war with the crude views of a
custom-house clerk; and his treatment of a prisoner,
whom the laws of military honour required him to
protect, evinced his meanness of spirit. Early
in the last campaign, a Frenchman named La
Force had been captured by Washington; and
being suspected of having acted as a spy for his
government, he was sent to Williamsburg, and
carefully guarded. Nothing attaching special guilt
to his case appeared; and in the capitulation at Fort
Necessity, it was expressly agreed that La Force
should be released from prison and permitted to
return to his companions. Yet Dinwiddie refused
to comply with this article, and Washington's remonstrances
were vain. The captive was a man
of inventive genius, of indomitable resolution, and
of great bodily powers; and finding his liberty thus
denied to him, he escaped from prison at Williamsburg,
and sought to make his way to Fort Duquesne.
So much courage merited success; but at
King and Queen Court-house, he fell in with a
backwoodsman, to whom his questions exposed
his character. The sturdy Virginian instantly
arrested him; and notwithstanding all his entreaties,
he was conducted back to Williamsburg. The
Governor's triumph was great; and with unmanly

rigour, he directed La Force to be laden with
double irons, and chained to the floor of his dungeon.
Washington renewed his entreaties for his
release, and painted, in strong colours, the dishonour
attendant on this conduct; but Dinwiddie was
deaf to his prayers, nor was La Force ever enlarged
until his persecutor left the colony.[405]

In the mean time, the hostages Vanbraam and
Stobo had been confined, without any unusual
harshness, in Quebec. They too had broken prison,
and Stobo succeeded in making his escape,
but Vanbraam had fainted with fatigue, and was
conducted back to captivity. Even then no retaliatory
measures were adopted; the French governor
was humane and generous, the English clerk
was mean and vindictive.[406]

During the winter, Dinwiddie received from
England ten thousand pounds in specie for the expenses
of the war. This would have been liberal,
had it not been accompanied by orders instructing
him to place the whole provincial force on the
footing of independent companies, and to assign
corresponding rank to their officers. The effect
of this was, to reduce all superior officers in the
colonies to the grade of captains, and to make them
subordinate even to those holding the same nominal
rank in the regular army.[407] The high spirit of
George Washington could not brook this unjust

degradation. He had been first in danger and in
suffering, had led soldiers to victory, and had preserved
them from death; and to be now reduced
in rank, and placed beneath the captains of the
British service, was a descent to which he would
not submit. No man who can appreciate the feelings
of an honourable soldier will blame his course.
He immediately resigned his commission and returned
to private life.

(1755.) England now made vigorous preparations
for carrying on the war in America. Early
in the spring, two regiments of troops from Ireland
arrived in Hampton Roads, and they were
soon followed by the Sea-Horse and Nightingale
ships of war, giving convoy to transports for soldiers
and military supplies. The whole assembled
at Alexandria, which presented the most eligible
point for their subsequent operations. Major-General
Edward Braddock was the commander. He
had won fame on the plains of Europe, and came
to gather fresher laurels amid the forests of America.
He was brave, but imprudent; rigid in discipline,
but inexperienced in the duty now before
him. He was too haughty to be beloved. His
officers were repulsed by his austerity; his men
were alienated by his excessive rigour. Ere he
left England, the Duke of Cumberland had warned
him that he must not expect amid the wilderness
the regular fighting and manœuvres of European
tactics, and had specially urged him to beware of
surprise and ambush.[408] But Braddock despised

his enemies, and believed that compact columns of
grenadiers would instantly put them to flight.

Having learned enough of Washington to induce
a strong wish to secure his services, the commander-in-chief
urged him to accept the place of one
of his aids. Burning with desire to serve his
country, when he could do so without a compromise
of honour, Washington complied with this
request, and asked only a short time to arrange his
private affairs before joining the army.[409] The
whole force moved from Alexandria in April.
Two complete British regiments in admirable condition,
and several bodies of provincial troops, comprised
a total of nearly two thousand five hundred
men. Braddock commanded in chief, and under
him were Colonel Dunbar and Sir Peter Halket.
Without difficulty they reached Wills' Creek,
where a fort had been erected under the eye of
Colonel Innes, which had received the name of
Cumberland, in honour of his warlike highness.
Here an unexpected delay awaited them. The
Virginia contractors had not supplied the requisite
number of wagons and teams for transporting the
baggage, and precious days were lost ere this defect
could be remedied.[410] General Braddock was
wrought up to a paroxysm of rage by this disappointment,

and it required all the philosophy of
Benjamin Franklin to restore him to good humour.
This great man then held the office of postmaster-general
in the colonies, and by active exertions he
succeeded in obtaining from the Pennsylvania farmers
one hundred and fifty wagons, which were
immediately placed under the control of the commander-in-chief.[411]

But the principal difficulties were yet to be encountered.
Beyond Fort Cumberland was the
wilderness of the West, with its mountains and
ravines, its thick forests and matted undergrowth.
Roads were to be traversed along which man had
seldom passed; and so rugged was the way, that
often they could only advance by doubling their
teams in front, and continuing this tedious process
to the last wagon of the train. Their line often
extended to four miles in length; and, while thus
attenuated, an attack on the flank or rear would
have been almost certainly fatal. Washington had
advised, that, for conveying the baggage, pack-horses
should be used, instead of vehicles; but his
counsel was at first rejected, and was at last but
partially applied. Thus the army crept forward
so slowly, that three days after leaving Fort Cumberland
it had gained but ten miles. This torturing
delay, together with his constant exposure
and fatigue, preyed upon the health of Colonel
Washington, and he was prostrated by a violent
fever, which threatened a fatal result. (June 15.)

He was no longer able to keep the saddle, and a
covered wagon furnished the only practicable mode
of conveyance. Even in this state, his mind continued
to dwell upon the affairs of the army, and
his advice was still sought by his superior officers.
He strenuously urged that the heavy baggage and
a part of their force should be left behind, and that
a select body should push rapidly forward to Fort
Duquesne. His reasons were sound. The French
were reported to be yet weak at this point; but
powerful reinforcements were expected, and would
arrive as soon as the waters of Le Bœuf were
swelled by summer rains.[412] Each moment of delay
rendered the success of the English more doubtful.

A council of war approved this plan, and General
Braddock hastened to carry it into execution.
Colonel Dunbar, with the heaviest part of the baggage,
with the troops least fitted for active service,
and with such stores as could be left, remained in
the rear. A select corps of twelve hundred men,
taken from the two regiments, and embracing
nearly all the provincial forces, was detailed for
the advance. They carried on horses all the baggage
absolutely necessary, and they were instructed
to divest themselves of every thing that would
impede a rapid march. General Braddock commanded
in person, and under him were Sir Peter
Halket, now an acting brigadier, Lieutenant-Colonels
Gage and Burton, and Major Spark.[413]

As long as his increasing indisposition would
permit, Washington continued with the commander-in-chief.
He told him of the danger from ambush,
and urged him to employ all the friendly
Indians who offered themselves, as scouts for the
army. Had this been done, surprise would have
been impossible; for these men of the forests would
have detected each concealed party, and warned
the English in time to preserve them. But Braddock
received the natives with coldness, and though
he accepted some of them, he was so forbidding in
his demeanour, that they became disgusted, and,
one after another, they left him to his fate.[414] This
was the first omen that portended the coming
storm.

Washington saw, with deep regret, that the advanced
corps did not push forward with the zeal
that would have insured success. Edward Braddock
could not sacrifice the dignity of regular tactics,
to a regard for American warfare. Every
mole-hill must be levelled; each insignificant
brook was to be spanned by a bridge. Not far
from the Little Meadows, the fever of Washington
became so violent that his life was in hazard, and
he was compelled most reluctantly to obey Braddock's
commands, and remain in camp until he
was in some degree restored.

His last counsel was, that rangers, selected from
the provincial troops, should be employed to scour
the woods in advance of the army, in order to

guard against the deadly ambush of the savages.[415]
But no such precaution was adopted. Slowly the
troops made their way through the rugged paths
leading down the slope from the Alleghanies to
the Ohio. So deliberate was their progress, that
four days were employed in marching the nineteen
miles which intervened between the Little Meadows
and the Shallows, near the mouth of the
Yohogany.[416]

Here, on the 8th day of July, Washington rejoined
the army, and entered upon his duties as aid
to the commander. His fever had left him, but his
strength was not fully restored, and nothing but an
unconquerable spirit could have prepared him for
the scene that followed.

Braddock gave the command for crossing the
river. A glance at the map will convey a correct
view of the route. Fifteen miles above Pittsburg,
where Fort Duquesne then stood, the Monongahela
makes an ample bend, commencing at a point immediately
below the mouth of the Yohogany
River. The road along the northern margin of
this bend was rugged and circuitous, and to avoid
it, the General determined to cross the Monongahela
twice in a direct route to the French fortress.[417] On the morning of the 9th the army was
in motion, and passed the river without interruption.
Those who were eye-witnesses of the scene
have told us that one more brilliant and picturesque

has seldom been presented. The British troops
were in full uniform, and traversed the woods of
America with the regular step of the parade ground.
Their bayonets glittered in the sun, and the flash
of warlike steel contrasted strongly with the deep
and peaceful verdure of the forest shade. The
Monongahela flowed tranquilly on their right,
the road seldom departed from its borders, and on
the left were trees of primitive growth and magnificence,
among which the woodman's axe had
never been heard.[418] The men were in high discipline,
and their spirits were already excited by
the hope of soon entering in triumph into Fort
Duquesne. Three hundred regulars, under Colonel
Gage, formed the advance, and a similar body
of two hundred followed at a short interval. Next
came the artillery, under the General in person,
and these were followed by the provincial troops,
the main body of the army, and the baggage train.
By one o'clock, the whole had passed the second
crossing of the Monongahela, and were ascending
the slope from its banks, within seven miles of their
proposed point of attack.[419]

At this moment a terrible fire was opened upon
the vanguard by hidden foes, in the long grass and
ravines around them. Not an Indian or a Frenchman
could be seen, but their weapons poured death
upon the defenceless ranks of the regulars. Volley
after volley was heard, and every shot told with

fatal power among the English troops. Amid this
destructive storm the grenadiers halted in confusion
and returned the fire, but obviously without
effect. Brave men may be stricken with fear when
assailed by a novel and concealed danger. As their
numbers were thinned by each successive discharge
from the enemy, the regulars lost all presence
of mind, and falling back in dismay upon
their comrades, involved the whole army in distress
and disorder. General Braddock was among
the bravest of the brave, but his efforts to restore
courage to his troops were utterly in vain. Instead
of resorting to a mode of warfare suited to the forest,
and directing his men at once to seek the enemy
with the bayonet, he attempted to form them into
even platoons and solid columns, as though he
were manœuvring on the plains of Flanders.
The result was most appalling. Crowded together
in masses, in which each man did but encumber
his fellows, the regulars kept up a wavering fire,
wholly ineffective as to the enemy, and often fatal
to their own comrades and officers. Upon these
masses the French and Indian sharpshooters poured
in continuous volleys, not one shot of which was
thrown away. The English were cut down in
scores, and it soon became evident that their total
discomfiture was at hand.[420]

In no battle in modern ages has there been a
greater loss of officers, in proportion to the number

engaged, than among the English in the slaughter
of the Monongahela. The French had drawn
up their forces in the shape of a crescent, in
the grass and ravines across the route, and flanking
parties of Indians extended along the whole
line of their enemy's array. Had Braddock ordered
up his ten pieces of light artillery, he
might have raked the wood with grape-shot, and
given time to his troops for recovery from their
panic.[421] But the army officers, although possessed
of dauntless courage, had no experience in
forest warfare. The Indians knew them by their
brilliant uniforms, and, singling them out as marks
for their deadly rifles, brought them down one
after another, until of eighty-six who had crossed
the river with their regiments in the morning,
but twenty-three remained unhurt.[422] Sixty-three
were either killed or wounded. While this drama
of death was in progress, the Virginia troops alone
retained their courage and capacity. Abandoning
all attempts to keep close order, they spread themselves
in the wood, and from the shelter of trees
returned the fire of the enemy. Yet no part of the
English army suffered more than these brave provincials.
"They fought like men, and died like
soldiers."[423] Of one company of twenty-nine, twenty-five
were killed. Of another, commanded by
the gallant Polson, a single private was the only
survivor. Captain Peronny, who had been with
Washington at the Great Meadows, was killed, and
with him fell every officer of his command, even to
the lowest corporal.[424] Thirty men were all that
remained from three full companies of Virginians
who had gone into battle.

On this disastrous day, Washington displayed
the courage of a hero, and the conduct of a general.
Two aids of Braddock had fallen, and on the
young colonial officer devolved the hazardous duty
of distributing his general's commands. As he
galloped through the battle-field, his horse received
a mortal wound, and sunk beneath him. Another
was immediately supplied, but was shot under him
before the retreat commenced. Four bullets pierced
his coat, yet not one inflicted the slightest wound.[425]
An eye-witness in the conflict, watched his motions
with thrilling interest, expecting each moment to
see him fall to the ground.[426] A savage chieftain
marked him, as he rode again and again through
the field, and, drawing his rifle to his shoulder,
took deliberate aim, and fired. The ball swerved
from its course: the intended victim was unharmed.
The fire was repeated, but with like result. Calling
his red men around him, the warrior pointed
out the young brave, whose life he sought, and directed
their rifles upon him. But every shot was

harmless. The savages desisted, in superstitious
fear; yet were they just in their reasoning. A
greater Spirit than they had ever worshipped preserved
the future Liberator of America.[427]

But his unhappy general was not thus protected.
Already three-fourths of his officers had fallen. Sir
Peter Halket was stricken down by the first fire,
and, a few moments after, the secretary of Braddock,
and son of Governor Shirley, of Massachusetts,
fell by his side.[428] For three hours the carnage
continued, but the commander remained untouched.
He exposed his person to the hottest
fire, and used every exertion to restore confidence
to his panic-stricken troops. Three horses in succession
fell under him, and at length a musket-ball
pierced his right arm, and, passing through his
lungs, inflicted a mortal wound.[429] Washington
hastened to his relief, and, with Captain Stewart,
of the Guards, brought him off in safety from the

field, that he might escape the Indian scalping-knife,
and die among his friends.[430]

From this moment, the rout of the English
army was complete. The regulars broke from
their ranks and fled in dismay towards the river.
Artillery, ammunition, baggage, colours, all were
abandoned to the enemy; and it is probable that
this circumstance alone preserved the defeated
troops from total destruction. The savages revelled
in the plunder spread before them, and the
French could not persuade them to leave the field
and join them in pursuit.[431] But for this, the unhappy
English might have met the same fearful
fate which, nearly one hundred years afterwards,
annihilated an army amid the mountains of Affghanistan,
in Asia.[432] Few would have survived to
tell the tale of death. Yet this thought will afford
but melancholy consolation, when we look to the
actual loss of the battle of the Monongahela.
Twelve hundred men, in buoyant health, had
crossed the river, and not more than two hundred
returned uninjured.[433] Of the French and Indians,
it is supposed that not more than forty were killed,

and it is probable that each one of these fell under
the fire of the provincial forces.

The army retreated to the camp of Dunbar,
where Braddock breathed his last. The panic
diffused itself even through the troops who had
not been in action. A rapid and ruinous retreat
was continued. All their heavy baggage was
abandoned, or else was burned by order of they
knew not whom; the artillery was left; the public
stores were destroyed; and the retrograde
march was not arrested until they reached Wills'
Creek, nearly one hundred and fifty miles from
Fort Duquesne. So fatal a battle had seldom
been followed by a flight so long and so disheartening.[434]

Thus ended the expedition of Edward Braddock
against Fort Duquesne. Had his hopes been
less, and his fears greater, he might at least have
avoided defeat, if he did not achieve victory. But
years elapsed before officers bred in Europe learned
the dangers of Indian warfare. Colonel Dunbar
feared for his safety even in Winchester, and in a
short time led the remnant of his army to winter
quarters in Philadelphia.

Genuine merit often shines more brightly because
surrounded by darkness and adverse fortune.
The Legislature of Virginia voted three
hundred pounds to Colonel Washington, and proportionate
sums to the other colonial officers and

privates who had displayed so much heroism in
the battle of the Monongahela. All could see that
had Washington been chief in command, a triumph
might have been hoped for the British arms. He
gained rapidly in the confidence and affections
of his countrymen. Even the pulpit spake his
praises, and one of the most eloquent of American
ministers named him as an object for the
respect of Christian patriots.[435] The Governor, notwithstanding
his partiality for Innes, could not
resist the appeal of facts in favour of the younger
officer. The appointment of commander-in-chief
of the Virginia forces was tendered to Washington;
but before he would accept it he prescribed indispensable
conditions, among which were the nomination
of his own officers, and a guarantee for the
prompt supply of military stores and of payment
to his men. These terms were instantly accepted;
and they bear in themselves the highest testimony
to the worth of him who could secure them.[436] The
General Assembly voted forty thousand pounds
for public exigencies, and increased their regiment
to sixteen companies.

(1756.) These movements were not premature,
nor was the office of Washington one without
responsibility and hazard. Already rumours of
savage incursions were borne from the west. The
defeat of Braddock had left the whole frontier
exposed, and alarm pervaded every family of the

Shenandoah Valley. Washington had arrived at
Fredericksburg, on his way to the seat of government,
when intelligence reached him which called
him back to Winchester. Large bodies of Indians
from the Ohio crossed the Alleghanies, and spreading
themselves into small parties, carried desolation
and death into each defenceless homestead. They
gave no quarter, and spared neither age nor sex.
Women and children were chosen objects of their
barbarity. Many were left weltering in blood on
the floors of their own dwellings. Many were
carried into the wilderness, to be put to death with
nameless tortures. A few survived to return, after
years of degradation and suffering, passed among
native tribes on the Ohio and the Northern Lakes.[437]

In reading of these assaults, we find it difficult
to believe that the red man of the American forests
is indeed the courageous being that he is sometimes
represented to be. It is not easy to separate
the ideas of generosity and true courage, in conceiving
the character of any man; but in the
savages we find nothing that does not excite disgust
and contempt. To maltreat woman has
always been the characteristic of the coward;
and woman has been universally maltreated by
the Indian. To torture the unhappy child, and
to glory in his agonies, can evince nothing but
a thrice-degraded nature; and such has been

the course of the Indian.[438] To fly before an inferior
force of brave men is the act of a craven;
and it has been invariably done by the Indian.
To resort to perfidy, falsehood, mean duplicity, is
conduct which nature pronounces dishonouring;
and in this has been the chief pride of the Indian.
As we trace their steps in their attacks upon the
people of the Valley, we know not whether to
detest more their remorseless treachery or their
base cowardice. Weakness they crushed, but
a single manly spirit often held them at bay.
One noble woodman of Shenandoah has gained
a right to immortality, by slaying five armed
savages with the clubbed barrel of his rifle, after
the stock had been shivered on the head of the
sixth. The Indians fled with horror from his
house, believing him to be the Great Author of
Death, and warning all their compeers to avoid
him.[439]

So great was the terror caused by these attacks
of the savages, that many of its inhabitants forsook
the Valley, and fled to counties east of the Blue
Ridge.[440] Even after the termination of hostilities
between the English and French, the Indian murders
continued from time to time, until the year
1766, when they were suspended on the immediate
Virginia frontier.

But when Washington arrived at Winchester,
all was confusion and alarm; women flying from
their homes—children saved only to tell of butchered
parents—houses burned to the ground—agriculture
totally ruined: such were the sights which
now marred the face of the Valley, of late so lovely
and tranquil. The heart of the young commander-in-chief
was deeply moved by these ills, and his
emotion was not diminished by the thought that
he could not entirely avert them. His despatches
at this time are written in a strain of sadness and
eloquence, to which nothing but profound feeling
could have urged him; and they present him to
us as an ardent lover of his country and of his
species.[441]

(1757.) Under his direction, and with the aid of
Lord Fairfax, the proprietor of the Northern Neck,
who was county lieutenant of Frederick, a strong
fort was built at Winchester, and stockades were
erected at various points, in which the inhabitants
took refuge when attacked, and where a military
force always kept guard. The General Assembly
had formed an extensive scheme for a cordon of
forts running along the whole line of the Alleghanies,
from the Potomac River to the boundary of
North Carolina; but Washington did not approve

of this design. It was very expensive, and afforded
no adequate protection, for the forts would of
necessity be far removed from each other, and the
savages might pass unmolested between them.
Yet he obeyed instructions, and had drawn a plan
for twenty-three forts along the mountain ranges.
He was indefatigable in his exertions, and at the
hazard of his life he visited the western and
southern frontier to provide for its safety.[442] Already
he appears in a character which was afterwards
fully developed in the most self-sacrificing
patriotism the world has ever seen.

Lord Loudon had been appointed commander-in-chief
of the British forces in America in the
place of Governor Shirley, and in honour of him
the fort at Winchester received his name. Although
Virginia had heard of his appointment
with pleasure, and though one of her finest counties
will perpetuate his memory within her borders,
yet in common with other colonies, she soon learned
that her admiration had been premature. With
much conceit and with little knowledge, imperious
in manner, yet undignified in action, his lordship
ruled in America only long enough to render himself
contemptible in the two worlds, the old and
the new. That he was no general, may be inferred
from the fact, that small success and many reverses
attended his military operations; that he was habitually
dishonest, is declared with emphasis in his
mean insinuation that Benjamin Franklin had

amassed money by peculation upon the funds in
his charge as post-master-general of the colonies.[443]
Loudon could not believe that a receiving and disbursing
agent of government could resist temptation.
Bankrupt in principle himself, he had no
sympathies in common with an honest man.

His lordship established his head-quarters at
Philadelphia, where a military convention assembled
in March to consider the best mode of
conducting the war. Washington attended, and
was received with marked respect. He had drawn
up an address to Loudon, in which he gave a brief
history of the cause of hostilities since their commencement
in Virginia, and with the strength and
clearness of a mind perfectly acquainted with its
subject, he presented a plan for future operations.
He strenuously advised an attack on Fort Duquesne.
Had this counsel prevailed, and had a
sufficient force been given to Washington, he
would have driven the savages from the frontiers,
have captured the French fortress, and have
broken the enemy's power on the Ohio, in a single
campaign. But discouraging delays were yet to
prevail. It was determined that the principal attack
should be on the lakes and the Canadian borders,
and that in the mean time Virginia must be
left to her own resources.[444]

(1758, January.) Early in the succeeding year,
Governor Dinwiddie left Virginia to return to

England, where he intended in future permanently
to reside. The Assembly said nothing, but the
Council and the municipal authorities of Williamsburg
took upon themselves the duty of delivering
an address to the Governor, expressing "esteem
and respect."[445] His departure was regretted by
few. His activity had seldom been well directed;
his zeal had been generally without knowledge.
If he had detected fraud in his superiors in the
West Indies, he was himself justly charged with
extortion, in exacting a pistole for issuing each patent
for land. So unjust was this demand, that
the Assembly protested against it in solemn form,
and one of Virginia's most gifted sons pleaded the
wrong before the King in council.[446]
It is not to
the credit of Dinwiddie that his interest was sufficient
to overpower the colony, and that this iniquitous
claim was confirmed by the King. In another
affair, his character was lost beyond redemption.
Twenty thousand pounds had been appropriated
by England to repay to Virginia her advances for
the public service. Dinwiddie received this fund,
and never accounted for its expenditure. He has
been openly accused of having diverted it to his
private use; and this charge has never been answered,
either by himself, or by others in his behalf.[447] Until it is refuted, its stain will rest upon
his memory.

John Blair, the President of the Council, succeeded
to the government in the colony. He was
active and decided in his measures, and under his
auspices public affairs were skilfully administered.
Eight hundred men were ordered into service by
direction of Lord Loudon. An Assembly was convened,
which embraced many of the ablest men
Virginia has ever produced. We read their names
with reverence, and already find among them the
magnanimous supporters of American freedom in
a struggle not yet commenced.[448] The Governor
delivered to them a spirited address, urging the
pressure of the war, and asking their aid, which
was promised, in terms not less marked by patriotism
than by prudence and foresight. When Francis
Fauquier arrived from England, in June, and
assumed the reins of government, he found a people
and an Assembly equally willing to uphold his
hands in each measure required for the safety and
honour of his charge.

At the same time a most auspicious change had
taken place in the ministerial rule of the mother
country. William Pitt could no longer be kept
from the place to which his own great genius, and
the love of his countrymen, united to raise him.
The moment his mighty hand grasped the helm,

it seemed as though the heavens began to brighten
and the storms to lose their power. He infused
vigour and confidence into every department of
government, and seized, with intuitive readiness,
upon the best means for securing the noblest objects.
He had long believed that Europe was not
the field in which the strife between France and
England was to be decided,[449] and when he attained
to power, he took prompt measures for directing a
formidable force against the strongholds of the
enemy in America. Unwonted animation every
where prevailed, and it was soon manifest that the
next campaign would produce results of the highest
moment.

An attack on Fort Duquesne was the duty assigned
to the southern division of the English
forces; and General Forbes commenced a march
from Philadelphia, for the execution of this purpose.
Colonel Bouquet, with a strong advanced
guard of two thousand men, was sent to Raystown,
in Pennsylvania, about thirty miles from Wills'
Creek, and in a short time Washington received
the cheering order to march at the head of the Virginia
troops from Winchester, and arrive as early
as possible at Fort Cumberland. The Assembly
acted with great promptness on General Forbes's
requisitions. Money was voted, bounties were offered
for enlistment, and in a short time two regiments
were raised; one commanded by Colonel
Byrd, and the other by Washington in person,

who was commander-in-chief of the whole colonial
force.[450] In consequence of severe indisposition,
General Forbes did not reach Raystown until the
middle of September.[451] Here Washington learned,
with surprise, that the commander was yet in
doubt whether to approach Fort Duquesne by the
old and well-known route, known as "Braddock's
Road," or to try a new road, leading more directly
from Raystown, and that he seemed inclined to
prefer the latter. He used every argument that he
could devise, to determine General Forbes in favour
of Braddock's Road. It had been carefully
prepared; it lay through a country where forage
was abundant, and though it crossed mountains
and defiles of formidable character, yet the former
passage of an army had, in great measure, overcome
these obstacles. The new route was liable
to all the objections to the first, and it added to
them the disadvantages of continuous forests, of
roads yet to be prepared, and of unknown localities.
Notwithstanding all his remonstrances, Forbes resolved
in favour of the road from Raystown. It is
not easy now to decide whether his judgment was
founded in wisdom, or whether it was the result
rather of his strong desire to please the people of
Pennsylvania. It is certain that Washington's
predictions of delay were fulfilled, and that nothing
but accident gave final success to the expedition.[452]

Without further debate, the new road was cut to
Loyal Hanna, a point forty-five miles from Raystown,
where a fort was erected, and where Colonel
Bouquet took post with his efficient vanguard. It
had saved one farther scene of death had the whole
army now advanced. Eight thousand men, in fine
order, and warned by the disasters of Braddock,
would have surrounded Fort Duquesne and compelled
a capitulation ere it could have been relieved
by forces from the Lakes. But a bloodless victory
was not awarded. From Loyal Hanna, Major
Grant, with a chosen company of eight hundred
men, was despatched to reconnoitre the fort and
obtain information as to the best mode of attack.
(Sept. 24.) In the night he gained a hill near the
fork of the two rivers; and detaching Major Lewis
with a rear-guard, he advanced near the fortress,
and sounded a morning "reveille," as though with
express design to draw the enemy upon him.[453]
Profound silence had reigned in and around the
point; not a voice had broken it, not a leaf had
been stirred, and Grant seemed rashly to hope
that a triumph awaited him. But at the first
sound of the drum, the gates of the fort were opened,
and, with terrific war-cries, a hive of savage

warriors poured out upon the invaders. Ere the
men could draw their rifles to their shoulders, the
foe was upon them, and strokes of the deadly tomahawk
were felling them to the ground. The assault
was so sudden and violent, that the English
forces seem to have lost the power of resistance, and
instead of a conflict, the view was speedily one of
ferocious butchery. Every blow was fatal. No quarter
was given by the savages. French soldiers had
followed them from the fort, and to them alone did
the few prisoners who survived owe their safety.
Major Grant was attacked by an Indian armed
with a tomahawk already reeking with blood, and
would have been killed, had not a French officer
arrested the blow and taken him captive. At the
first sound of battle, Major Lewis had hastened
forward with his company, leaving a guard of fifty
Virginians, under Captain Bullet, to protect the
baggage. But this accession could not turn the
tide of victory. The gallant Lewis was himself
surrounded by foes, and after striking one dead to
his feet, he saved his life by reaching a detachment
of French, to whom he surrendered himself
a prisoner of war.[454]

A deed of heroic courage and of consummate
skill, preserved the remains of the army. When
Captain Bullet saw the course of the combat and the
approach of the savages, he formed his plan, and imparted
it to his companions. Stratagem in war has
received the direct sanction of a Divine lawgiver;[455]

and if ever stratagem was justifiable, it was in the
case we are now to record. The Indians advanced
in a tumultuous band, eager for fresh victims.
With muskets heavily loaded, the Virginians presented
themselves, and, lowering their arms, made
signs of submission, and approached the foe. Already
hatchets were raised to meet them with death;
when Bullet, in a voice of thunder, commanded his
men to "charge;" and, instantly levelling their
guns, the Virginians poured upon the savages a fire
at eight yards' distance, which swept down many
of their numbers. A furious rush with presented
bayonets followed this fire; the savages gave way
on every side; and believing that a strong reinforcement
was at hand, they did not cease their flight
until they reached the main body of the French
near Fort Duquesne.[456] Hastily collecting the remnant
of the army, Bullet directed a retreat; and
after a march of infinite hazard and fatigue, he rejoined
the main body at the camp at Loyal Hanna.

It would be difficult to find in history the record
of a more brilliant achievement than that of Bullet,
or of one more worthy of the approval of the brave
and the honourable. Governor Fauquier promoted
the hero to the rank of major, and ever afterwards
spoke of his conduct in terms of warm admiration.
He had saved the larger part of the army under
Grant, yet their loss had been severe. Nineteen
officers were killed or captured. Two hundred

and seventy-three privates were killed, and forty-two
were wounded. Few survived as prisoners.
Indian warfare seldom offers any prospect other
than that of victory or death.

The main army, under General Forbes, advanced
from Loyal Hanna, over a road hastily constructed,
and nearly impassable. Mountains and defiles,
streams and forests, alike opposed their progress;
and the melancholy fate of prior armies warned
them to move with ceaseless caution. The provincial
troops were employed in the appropriate
duty of ranging; and Washington, at the head of
his Virginians, gained daily in the esteem of the
commander-in-chief by his vigilance and success.
A singular collision occurred near Loyal Hanna,
in which friends turned upon each other the weapons
intended for the savages. Washington had
attacked and defeated a body of Indians, of whom
he made several prisoners. Colonel Mercer, of the
second Virginia regiment, approached during the
night, and, seeing the Indian captives, mistook the
party for enemies, and ordered his men to fire.
Ere the mistake was discovered, several volleys
had been exchanged, and fourteen men were killed
or wounded.[457]

As the army drew near to Fort Duquesne, sad
vestiges of previous conflict on all sides met their
eyes. Whitening bones strewed the forest where
the battle of the Monongahela had raged, and often
a ghastly skeleton recalled to the soldier the thought
that many whom he had known had fallen here.

Nearer to the fort, the unburied bodies of the victims
who had fell in Major Grant's defeat, were
exposed to view. Savage cupidity had in many
cases despoiled them, and savage malice had exhausted
itself in mutilating the defenceless dead.[458]
Already dispirited by a laborious march through
the wilderness, the English troops were but too
well prepared to yield to the depressing influences
of such recollections, and had stern resistance been
made to their approach, it would probably have
resulted in success.

But an easy victory awaited them. The Indians
had taken alarm at the advance of a large force,
attended with all precaution. Supplies had not
reached them from Fort Frontenac, for already
that post had yielded to the British arms.[459] One
by one, the warriors withdrew, believing that the
Great Spirit had deserted their French allies, and
that defeat and disaster would soon arrive. Finding
that resistance would be vain, cut off from all
prospect of aid, and menaced by a greatly superior
force, the French, now reduced in numbers to five
hundred men, set fire to the fort in every part in
which it was combustible, and proceeded down the
Ohio in order to gain their posts at Presque Isle
and Venango. (Nov. 25.) A mine, prepared ere they
left the fortress, exploded as the English drew near,
and before the burning fragments had been extinguished,
Colonel Washington entered the wall at

the head of the advanced guard, and planted the
British standard upon this long-contested ground.[460]
Immediately repairs were commenced, a garrison
of provincials was assigned for its custody, and the
name of Fort Pitt paid a well-earned tribute to the
genius of the great man, to whose vigilance and
energy his country owed this important conquest.

To the triumph of bloodless victory succeeded
the sadness impressed by the discharge of a melancholy
duty. The General and the army were alike
moved with desire to collect the mouldering remains
of those who fell in Braddock's defeat, and
consign them to a soldier's grave. Guided by Indians
who had deserted from the French, and many
of whom had been actors in the tragedy of the
Monongahela, a chosen number of provincial
troops entered the forest and approached the field
of battle. It is not difficult to believe all that an
eye-witness has related of the solemn interest of
this scene. In profound silence they trod the
withered leaves, which were already falling before
the blasts of winter; around them on every side
were the bleaching bones of men who had left the
soil of Britain to die amid the forests of America.
Wild beasts had already visited the field, and many
fearful signs gave proof of their ravages. Among

the visiters who felt most keenly the emotions excited
by this valley of death, was Major Halket,
who had mourned the loss of a father and a brother,
both slain in the conflict. An Indian guide
had told him of the fall of a veteran officer and of
the death of the heroic young subaltern, who had
sunk across the body of the first as he stooped to
his assistance. Now a thrilling discovery was to
be made. Two bodies were found, the one lying
upon the other; when the uppermost was removed,
Major Halket drew near, and with feelings that
would baffle description, examined the other body.
A false tooth for which he sought, instantly
revealed the dead. With a single cry, "It is my
father!" he fell back into the arms of his companions.[461]

Gathering together the remains of each victim
that could be found, the soldiers proceeded to commit
them to one common tomb. The hearts of all
who participated in this solemnity were bowed with
awe and sorrow. Even the Indian warriors looked
on in profound stillness, regarding the service as a
religious observance to which they owed silent
veneration. The genius of one who has described
it, has detected in this scene a resemblance to the
discovery made by the army of Germanicus amid
the forests of Europe; but the mouldering remains
of a whole Roman legion, who fell when the light
of Divine truth had not yet gilded the tomb, could

not excite in the bosoms of their comrades the
awful interest felt by the few who now gave Christian
burial to the slain of the Monongahela.[462]

With the fall of Fort Duquesne ended the war
between France and England, as far as it could be
waged on the frontiers of Virginia. General Forbes
returned with his army to winter quarters in Philadelphia,
and a short time after his arrival, worn
down with fatigue and suffering, he expired.[463]
George Washington retired to Mount Vernon,
nor did he again draw his sword, until it was unsheathed
to make war, in defence of liberty, upon
the very nation whose honour he had often nobly
upheld. But though Virginia was no longer the
theatre of actual conflict, she looked with absorbing
interest upon the progress of war in the northern
colonies, knowing that she could not escape the
conflagration unless it was there arrested.

It would not be proper to trace, with minuteness,
the course of the memorable campaigns of 1758
and 59. They belong to American history, and

will never be forgotten; but they have only an indirect
bearing upon the fate of the Old Dominion.
Again an expedition was prepared against Cape
Breton and Louisbourg, and the prize which had
been so lightly yielded was reconquered by England,
to be surrendered no more. Abercrombie
crossed the placid bosom of Lake George, with a
glittering array of soldiery; but his incompetence
was soon apparent, and nothing but the capture of
Fort Frontenac by Colonel Bradstreet, the able
subaltern of a feeble commander, could have atoned
for the disgrace of the British arms. (1759.) In
the succeeding year, intense activity pervaded the
forces intended to operate in America. A great
soul in the mother country directed their movements,
and inspired them with one common purpose.
Amherst marched against Ticonderoga and
Crown Point, and reduced them successively under
his control. Prideaux embarked upon Lake Ontario,
and attacked the French fortress at Niagara. He
fell a martyr to his zeal, but he had done enough
to insure success, and his brave troops completed
the triumph they would willingly have shared
with himself. And the young General who ascended
the Heights of Abraham, added the crowning
stone to the column of English victory in
America. Wolfe and Montcalm both fell upon the
field of battle, but the one in death could rejoice in
view of his country's triumph, and the other could
only breathe the wish of a hero, that he might not
see the fall of the glory of France upon the American
continent.[464]

Every where England was victorious. On sea
and on land, among the isles of the western world
and in the East India domain, in the Mediterranean
and on the frontiers of Canada, she enjoyed a
continued course of success and conquest. Spain
was humbled, and France desired peace. William
Pitt had retired from the direction of public affairs
in his country; but the result of his measures now
appeared, and England, as she has too often done,
gained the benefit of labour for which she had then
bestowed but meagre gratitude. Noble commissioners
from the two rival kingdoms met at Fontainebleau
in 1762, and agreed upon the articles of
a treaty, which was definitively concluded at Paris
early in the following year. (1763, February 10.)
If Aix-la-Chapelle had brought dishonour to Britain,
the Treaty of Paris more than atoned. She
gained a full title to Nova Scotia and Canada, to
Cape Breton and Louisbourg, to the St. Lawrence
and all its adjoining islands. She divided the
Mississippi with her rival by a line running down
its middle through the lakes Maurepas and Pontchartrain.
She resigned Havana to Spain, but
received in return the beautiful region known as
the Floridas, with the town of St. Augustine and
the port of Pensacola. Avarice might have been
sated with her gains, and ambition content with
her glory.

Thus the civilized world was once more at
peace. Virginia partook of the common blessing,
and made it the source of other advantages. Her
population had rapidly increased, and notwithstanding

the late war, her progress had been onward.
If she had not grown evenly with some of
her sisters of the North, she had at least not fallen
far beneath them. Her hand was watched to point
the way to future greatness. Already principles
had found advocates upon her soil, which were
destined to diffuse themselves throughout the
western world, and to teach man that he was born
for higher destinies than any which had yet befallen
him. She was not yet aware of the struggle
that was approaching, and in which she was
to fill so conspicuous a part; but changes were in
progress within her own bosom, which were silently
preparing her for the decisive hour. Her
infancy, her childhood, even her youth had passed
away; and as the impulses of maturity began to
manifest themselves, she slowly learned from them
the high duties to which she was summoned.
Upon her history, for a season, the curtain must
now fall; but when it shall rise again, it will be to
present her raising the voice of eloquence, wielding
the pen of learning, and shedding the blood
of self-sacrifice in the sacred cause of a nation's
liberty.