It was therefore without any danger of being thwarted at home that on Friday, the thirtieth day of July, 1619, delegates from each of the eleven plantations of Virginia assembled at James City.

The inauguration of legislative power in the Ancient Dominion preceded the introduction of negro slavery. The governor and council sat with the burgesses, and took part in motions and debates. John Pory, a councillor and secretary of the colony, though not a burgess, was chosen speaker. Legislation was opened with prayer. The assembly exercised fully the right of judging of the proper election of its members; and they would not suffer any patent, conceding manorial jurisdiction, to bar the obligation of obedience to their decisions. They wished every grant of land to be made with equal favor, that all complaint of partiality might be avoided, and the uniformity of laws and orders never be impeached. The commission of privileges sent by Sir George Yeardley was their "great charter," or organic act, which they claimed no right "to correct or control;" yet they kept the way open for seeking redress, "in case they should find ought not perfectly squaring with the state of the colony."

Leave to propose laws was given to any burgess, or by way of petition to any member of the colony; but, for expedition's sake, the main business of the session was distributed between two committees; while a third body, composed of the governor and such burgesses as were not on those committees, examined, which of former instructions "might conveniently put on the habit of laws." The legislature acted also as a criminal

court.

The church of England was confirmed as the church of Virginia; it was intended that the first four ministers should each receive two hundred pounds a year; all persons whatsoever, upon the Sabbath days, were to frequent divine service and sermons both forenoon and afternoon; and all such as bore arms, to bring their pieces or swords. Grants of land were asked not for planters only, but for their wives, "because, in a new plantation, it is not known whether man or woman be the most necessary." Measures were adopted "toward the erecting of a university and college." It was enacted that, of

the children of the Indians, "the most towardly boys in wit and graces of nature should be brought up in the first elements of literature, and sent from the college to the work of conversion" of the natives to the Christian religion. Penalties were appointed for idleness, gaming with dice or cards, and drunkenness. Excess in apparel was restrained by a tax. The business of planting corn, mulberry-trees, hemp, and vines was encouraged. The price of tobacco was fixed at three shillings a pound for the best, and half as much "for the second sort."

When the question was taken on accepting "the great charter," "it had the general assent and the applause of the whole assembly," with thanks for it to Almighty God and to those from whom it had issued, in the names of the burgesses and of the whole colony whom they represented: the more so, as they were promised the power to allow or disallow the orders of the court of the London company.

A perpetual interest attaches to this first elective body that ever assembled in the western world, representing the people of Virginia, and making laws for their government, more than a year before the Mayflower, with the pilgrims, left the harbor of Southampton, and while Virginia was still the only British colony on the continent of America. The functions of government were in some degree confounded; but the record of the proceedings justifies the opinion of Sir Edwin Sandys, that "the laws were very well and judiciously formed."

The enactments of these earliest American law-givers were instantly put in force, without waiting for their ratification by the company in England. Former griefs were buried in oblivion, and they who had been dependent on the will of a governor, having recovered the privileges of Englishmen, under a code of laws of their own, "fell to building houses and planting corn," and henceforward "regarded Virginia as their country."

The patriot party in England, who now controlled the London company, engaged with earnestness in schemes to advance the numbers and establish the liberties of their plantation. No intimidations-not even threats of blood-could deter Sir Edwin Sandys, the new treasurer, from investigating and reforming the abuses by which its progress had been retarded.

At his accession to office, after twelve years' labor, and an expenditure of eighty thousand pounds by the company, there were in the colony no more than six hundred men, women, and children; and in one year the company and private adventurers made provision to send over twelve hundred and sixtyone persons.

To the other titles of "the high empress " Elizabeth, Spenser had, just before the end of the sixteenth century, added that of "queen of Virginia;" King James, who was already the titular sovereign of four realms, now accepted as the motto for the London company's coat of arms: "Lo! Virginia gives a fifth crown." A strong interest took hold of the people of England; gifts and bequests came in for "the sacred work" of founding a colonial college and building up the colonial church. There were two poets, of whose works Richard Baxter said that he found "none so savoury next to the Scripture poems." Of these, George Sandys, son of the archbishop of York, himself repaired to Virginia as its resident treasurer, to assist in establishing "a rich and well peopled kingdom;" and George Herbert, the bosom friend of Nicholas Ferrar, expressed the feeling of the best men of England when he wrote: Religion stands on tip-toe in our land,

Readie to passe to the American strand.

The quarter session, held on the seventeenth of May, 1620, was attended by near five hundred persons, among whom were twenty great peers of the land; near a hundred knights of the kingdom; as many more officers of the army, and renowned lawyers; and numerous merchants and men of business. It was the general wish of the company to continue Sir Edwin Sandys in his high office; but, before they proceeded to ballot, an agent from the palace presented himself with the message that, out of especial care for the plantation, the king nominated unto them four, of whom his pleasure was the company should choose one to be their treasurer. Desiring the royal messenger to remain, Southampton entered into a defence of the patent, and added: "The hopeful country of Virginia is a land which will find full employment for all needy people, will provide estates for all younger brothers, gentlemen of this kingdom, and will supply this nation with

commodities we are fain to fetch from foreign nations, from doubtful friends, yea, from heathen princes. This business is of so great concernment that it never can be too solemnly, too thoroughly, or too publicly examined." Sir Laurens Hyde, the learned lawyer, asked that the patent given under the great seal of England, the hand and honor of a king, might be produced. "The patent!" "The patent!" cried all; and, when it was brought forth and read, Hyde went on: "You see the point of electing a governor is thereby left to your own free choice." It was then agreed that the election should be put off until the next great and general court in midsummer term; and a committee of twelve, with Southampton at their head, was in the interim to beseech his majesty not to take from them the privilege of their letters patent. Their right was so clear that the king explained away his interference, as he had intended no more than to recommend the persons whom he nominated, and not to bar the company from the choice of any other.

When at the quarter session, near the end of June, Sir Edwin Sandys, yielding to the ill-will of the king, withdrew from competition, "the whole court immediately, with much joy and applause, nominated the earl of Southampton;" and, resolving "to surcease the balloting box," chose him by erection of hands. In response, he desired them all to put on the same minds with which he accepted the place of treasurer.

He made the condition that his friend, Sir Edwin Sandys, should give him assistance; and these, with Nicholas Ferrar, were the men who for a time managed "the great work of redeeming the noble plantation of Virginia from the ruins that seemed to hang over it:" the first celebrated for wisdom, eloquence, and sweet deportment; Sandys, for knowl edge and integrity; and Nicholas Ferrar, for ability, unwearied diligence, and the strictest virtue. All three were sincere members of the British church: the first, a convert from papacy; the last, pious even to a romantic excess. All three were royalists, and all three were animated by that love of liberty which formed a part of the hereditary patriotism of an Englishman.

Under their harmonious direction the policy of the former year was continued; and more than eleven hundred persons

found their way annually to Virginia. "The people of Virginia had not been settled in their minds," and as, before the recent changes, they retained the design of ultimately returning to England, it was necessary to multiply attachments to the soil. Few women had dared to cross the Atlantic; but now the promise of prosperity induced ninety agreeable persons, young and incorrupt, to listen to the advice of Sandys, and embark for the colony, where they were assured of a welcome. They were transported at the expense of the company, and were married to its tenants, or to men who were able to support them, and who willingly defrayed the costs of their passage, which were rigorously demanded. The adventure, which had been in part a mercantile speculation, succeeded so well that it was proposed to send the next year another consignment of one hundred; but, before these could be collected, the company found itself so poor that its design could be accomplished only by a subscription. After some delays, sixty were actually despatched, maids of virtuous education, young, handsome, and well recommended. The price rose from one hundred and twenty to one hundred and fifty pounds of tobacco, or even more; so that all the original charges might be repaid. The debt for a wife was a debt of honor, and took precedence of any other; and the company, in conferring employments, gave a preference to married men. With domestic ties, habits of thrift were formed. Within three years, fifty patents for land were granted, and a state rose on solid foundations in the New World. Virginia was a place of refuge even for Puritans.

Before Virginia had been planted, King James found in his hostility to the use of tobacco a convenient argument for the excessive tax which a royal ordinance imposed on its consumption. When the weed had become the staple of Virginia, the sale of it in England was prohibited unless the heavy impost had been paid, and a new proclamation forbade its culture in England and Wales. In the parliament of 1621 Lord Coke reminded the commons of the usurpation of authority on the part of the monarch who had taxed the produce of the colonies without their consent and without an act of the national legislature.