36] EDWIN SANDYS AND GEORGE YEARDLEY 31 34. A revolution now took place in the London Company. That body had split into factions. The part so far in control was conservative, and belonged to the "court party" in English politics; but toward the close of 1618, control passed to a liberal and Puritan faction, led by the Earl of Southampton and Sir Edwin Sandys. These patriots were struggling gallantly in parliament against King James' arbitrary rule; and they at once granted a large measure of self-government to the Englishmen across the Atlantic, over whom they themselves ruled. Sir George Yeardley was sent out as governor, and a new era began in Virginia. 35. With Yeardley's arrival, in April, 1619, the number of colonists was raised to about a thousand. They were still, mainly, indentured servants (§ 24), and were distributed among eleven petty "plantations," 2-mere patches on the wilderness, - scattered along a narrow ribbon of territory, nowhere THE DOTS MARK THE RIBBON SIR EDWIN SANDYS. more than six miles wide, curving up the James for a hundred miles. Industry was still in common (except for the slight beginning of private tillage under Dale); and martial law was still the prevailing government. 36. According to his instructions from the Company, Yeardley at once introduced three great reforms. 1 Modern Progress, p. 189, or Modern World, § 426 note 2 The word "plantation,' as used here to indicate a distinct settlement, must not be confused with the word as used in § 27. a. He established private ownership, giving liberal grants of land to all free immigrants. A large part of the settlers continued for some time to be " servants of the Company, and these were employed as before on the Company's land. But each of the old free planters now received 100 acres ; each servant was given the same amount when his term of service expired; and each new planter thereafter was to receive 50 acres for himself and as much more for each servant he brought with him. Grants of many hundred acres were made, too, to men who rendered valuable service to the colony. For many years, all grants were in strips fronting on rivers up which ships could ascend. b. Martial law was set aside. Yeardley proclaimed, said a body of settlers later, "that those cruell lawes by which we had soe longe been governed were abrogated, and that we were now to be governed by those free lawes which his Majesties subjects live under in Englande." That is, Yeardley restored the private rights to which the settlers were entitled both by the Common Law and by the Company's charter. c. The settlers received a share in the government. A Representative Assembly was summoned, "freely to be elected by the inhabitants, . . . to make and ordaine whatsoever lawes and orders should by them be thought good and profitable.” This political privilege was a new thing. 37. The First Representative Assembly1 in America met at Jamestown, August 9,2 1619. It was not purely representative. Each of the eleven plantations sent two delegates; but in the same "House" with these elected "Burgesses " sat the governor and his Council (seven or eight in number), appointed from England. We have no account of the elections. No doubt they were extremely informal. Of the thousand people in the colony, seven hundred must have been "servants without a vote; and, of the three hundred free persons, a fraction were women and children. Probably there were not more than two hundred voters. They were distributed among eleven 1 The Records are given in the Source Book, No. 25. 2 The Old Style date, July 30, is often given. A discussion of Old and New Style is given in the Source Book, No. 20, note. 38] FIRST REPRESENTATIVE ASSEMBLY 33 plantations. In some of these, the only voters must have been the foreman and employees of a rich proprietor. The Assembly opened with prayer, and slipped with amaz ing ease into the forms of an English parliament. It "verified credentials" of the delegates; it gave all bills "three readings"; and, in two cases, it acted as a court of justice, trying ordinary criminals. Laws which to-day would be stigmatized as "Blue Laws" were passed against drunkenness, gambling, idleness, absence from church, "excess in apparel," and other misdemeanors. For that age, the penalties were light. The Church of England was made the established church; and aid was asked from the Company toward setting up a college. With all this business, the Assembly sat only six days. This beginning of representative government in the wilderness has a simple grandeur and a striking significance. Virginia had been transformed from a "plantation colony," ruled by a despotic overseer, into a self-governing political community. The pioneers manifested an instinct and fitness for representative government, a zest for it, and a deep sense of its value. It came as a gift; but, once given, it could not be withdrawn. Jury trial and representative government were both established upon a lasting foundation in America in 1619, while Virginia was the only English colony. These two bulwarks of freedom were not then known in any large country except in England; and they were not to take root in the colonies of any other country until more than two hundred years later. Their establishment in Virginia made them inevitable in all other English colonies. 38. Two charters to the settlers established still more firmly the grant of self-government. Yeardley put before the Assembly a long document from the Company. The Assembly called it a "Great Charter," and examined it carefully, "because [it] is to binde us and our heyers forever." This "charter of 1618" has been lost, but the Assembly's Records show that it guaranteed a representative Assembly. Two years later, Francis Wyatt became governor, and the Company sent over by him a brief confirmation of the right of representative government in a second "charter," known as the Ordinance of 1621 (Source Book). These "charters" of 1618 and 1621 were wholly different from royal grants to proprietors in England. They were the first of many charters and "concessions" issued by the proprietors of various colonies to settlers in America, in order to set up ideals of government or to attract settlers. 39. The new management of the Company bestirred itself to build up the colony on the material side also. To supply the labor so much needed, Sandys (the "Treasurer"; § 32) sought throughout England for skilled artisans and husbandmen, and shipped to Virginia many hundred "servants." Several cargoes of young women, too, were induced to go out for wives to the settlers; and supplies of all kinds were poured into the colony with a lavish hand. This generous paternalism was often unwise. Effort and money were wasted in trying to produce glass, silk, and wine;1 while the main industry that was to prove successful, tobacco raising, had to win its way against the Company's frowns. Moreover, pestilence and hardship continued to kill off a terrible propor tion of the people. In the first three years after Yeardley's arrival, more than three thousand new settlers landed; but in March, 1622, of the population old and new, only some twelve hundred survived, and that spring an Indian massacre swept away a third of that little band. 40. In spite of all this, Virginia became prosperous under the Company's rule. Two years after the massacre, when the Company was overthrown (§ 43), the population had risen again to twelve hundred, and the number of settlements had become nineteen. The Indians had been crushed. Fortunes were being made in tobacco, and the homes of the colonists were taking on an air of comfort. The period of experiment was past, and the era of rapid growth had just been reached. During the following ten years (1624–1634) the population grew fourfold, to more than 5000 people, organized in eight counties. 1 Englishmen valued colonies, on the economic side, mainly on the ground that they might furnish England with those products which she had been com. pelled to buy from foreigners. 41. Tobacco for export was first grown in 1614, on the plantation of John Rolfe who had married the Indian girl Pocahontas. The Company always discouraged its cultivation - on moral as well as business grounds - and even later King Hat the manifold abufes of this vile cuftome of Tobacco taking, may the better be efpied, it is fit, that firft you enter into confideration both of the firft originall thereof, and likewife of the reafons of the firft entry thereof into this Countrey. For certainely as fuch cuftomes, that haue their first inftitution either from a godly, neceffary,or honourable ground, and are firft brought in, by the meanes of fome worthy, vertuous, and great Perfonage,are cuer,and moft iuftly, holden in great and reuerent eftimation and account, by all wife, vertuous, and temperate fpirits: So fhould it by the contrary, iuftly bring a great difgrace into that fort of cu BEGINNING OF KING JAMES' TRACT AGAINST TOBACCO. Facsimile from the Complete Works of James I, published in London in 1616. Charles warned the Virginians not to "build on smoke." Tobacco, however, found a steady sale in Europe at high prices; and before 1624 Virginians knew they had found a paying industry. Thereafter the colony needed no coddling. 42. Meanwhile King James became bitterly hostile to the liberal management of the Company. Sandys was particularly 1 Smoking was long looked upon much as drunkenness is now. King James wrote a tract against the practice. |