CHAPTER VI.

ENGLAND PLANTS A NEW NATION IN VIRGINIA.

"I SHALL yet live to see Virginia an English nation," wrote Raleigh to Sir Robert Cecil shortly before the accession of James I. When the period for success had arrived, changes in European politics and society had moulded the forms of colonization. The Reformation had broken the harmony of religious opinion, and differences in the church began to constitute the basis of political parties. After the East Indies had been reached by doubling the southern promontory of Africa, the great commerce of the world was carried upon the ocean. The art of printing had been perfected and diffused; and the press spread intelligence and multiplied the facilities of instruction. The feudal institutions were undermined by the current of time and events. Productive industry had built up the fortunes and extended the influence of the middle classes, while habits of indolence and expense had impaired the estates and diminished the power of the nobility. These changes produced correspond ing results in the institutions which were to rise in America.

A revolution had equally occurred in the objects for which voyages were undertaken. Columbus sought a new passage to the East Indies. The passion for gold next became the prevailing motive. Then islands and countries near the equator were made the tropical gardens of Europeans. At last the higher design was matured: to plant permanent Christian colonies; to establish for the oppressed and the enterprising places of refuge and abode; to found states in a temperate clime, with all the elements of independent exist.

ence.

In the imperfect condition of industry, a redundant population had grown up in England even before the peace with Spain, which threw out of employment the gallant men who had served under Elizabeth by sea and land, and left them no option but to engage as mercenaries in the quarrels of strangers, or incur the hazards of "seeking a New World." The minds of many persons of intelligence and rank were directed to Virginia. The brave and ingenious Gosnold, who had himself witnessed the fertility of the western soil, after long solicitations, prevailed with Edward Maria Wingfield, a merchant of the west of England, Robert Hunt, a clergyman of fortitude and modest worth, and Captain John Smith, an adventurer of indomitable perseverance, to risk their hopes of fortune in an expedition. For more than a year this little company revolved their project. Nor had the assigns of Raleigh become indifferent to "western planting," which the most distinguished of them all, "industrious Hakluyt," still promoted by his personal exertions, his weight of character, and his invincible zeal. Possessed of whatever information could be derived from foreign sources and a correspondence with eminent navigators of his times, and anxiously watching the progress of Englishmen in the west, his extensive knowledge made him a counsellor in colonial enterprise.

With these are to be named George Popham, a kinsman of the chief justice, and Raleigh Gilbert. They and "certain knights, gentlemen, merchants, and other adventurers of the city of London and elsewhere," and "of the cities of Bristol and Exeter, and of the town of Plymouth and other places in the west," applied to James I. for "his license to deduce a colony into Virginia." The king, alike from vanity, the wish to promote the commerce of Great Britain, and the ambition of acquiring new dominions, entered heartily into the great design. From the "coast of Virginia and America” he selected a territory of ten degrees of latitude, reaching from the thirty-fourth to the forty-fifth parallel, and into the backwoods without bound. For the purposes of colonization, he divided the almost limitless region equally between the two rival companies of London and of the West. The London company were to lead forth the "FIRST COLONY OF VIRGINIA" to lands

south of the thirty-eighth degree; and north of the forty-first parallel the Western company was to plant what the king called "THE SECOND COLONY OF VIRGINIA." The three intermediate degrees were reserved for the eventual competition of the two companies, except that each was to possess the soil extending fifty miles north and south of its first settlement. The conditions of tenure were homage and rent; the rent was no other than one fifth of the net produce of gold and silver, and one fifteenth of copper. The right of coining money was conceded. The natives, it was hoped, would receive Christianity and the arts of civilized life. The general superintendence was confided to a council in England; the local administration of each colony to a resident council. The members of the superior council in England were appointed exclusively by the king, and were to hold office at his good pleasure. Their authority extended to both colonies, which jointly took the name of VIRGINIA. Each of the two was to have its own resident council, of which the members were from time to time to be ordained and removed according to the instructions of the king. To the king, moreover, was reserved supreme legislative authority over the several colonies, extending to their general condition and the most minute regulation of their affairs. A duty of five per cent, to be levied within their precincts, on the traffic of strangers not owing obeisance to the British crown, was, for one-and-twenty years, to be wholly employed for the benefit of the several plantations; at the end of that time was to be taken for the king. To the emigrants it was promised that they and their children should continue to be Englishmen.

The charter for colonizing the great central territory of the North American continent, which was to be the chosen abode of liberty, gave to the mercantile corporation nothing but a wilderness, with the right of peopling and defending it. By an extension of the prerogative, which was in itself illegal, the monarch assumed absolute legislative as well as executive powers. The emigrants were subjected to the ordinances of a commercial corporation, in which they could not act as members; to the dominion of a domestic council, in appointing which they had no voice; to the control of a superior council

in England; and, finally, to the arbitrary legislation of the sovereign. The first "treasurer" or governor of the London company, to whom fell the chief management of its affairs, was Sir Thomas Smythe, a merchant zealous for extending the commerce of his country, and equally zealous for asserting the authority of the corporation.

The summer was spent in preparations for planting the first colony, for which the king found a grateful occupation in framing a code of laws. The superior council in England was permitted to name the colonial council, which was independent of the emigrants, and had power to elect or remove its president, to remove any of its members, and to supply its own. vacancies. Not an element of popular liberty or control was introduced. Religion was established according to the doctrine and rites of the church within the realm; and no emigrant might avow dissent, or affect the superstitions of the church of Rome, or withdraw his allegiance from King James. Lands were to descend according to the laws of England. Not only murder, manslaughter, and adultery, but dangerous tumults and seditions, were punishable by death, at the discretion of the magistrate, restricted only by the trial by jury. All civil causes, requiring corporal punishment, fine, or imprisonment, might be summarily determined by the president and council, who possessed legislative authority in cases not affecting life or limb. Kindness to the savages was enjoined, with the use of all proper means for their conversion. It was further ordered that the industry and commerce of the several colonies should, for five years at least, be conducted in a joint stock.

The council of the English company added instructions to the emigrants to search for navigable rivers, and, if any of them had two branches, to ascend that which tended most toward the north-west to its sources, and seek for some. stream running the contrary way toward the South sea. Then, on the nineteenth day of December, in the year of our Lord one thousand six hundred and six, one hundred and nine years after the discovery of the American continent by Cabot, forty-one years from the settlement of Florida, the squadron of three vessels, the largest not exceeding one hundred tons' burden, with the favor of all England,

stretched their sails for "the dear strand of Virginia, earth's only paradise." Michael Drayton, the patriot poet" of Albion's glorious isle," cheered them on, saying:

Go, and in regions far such heroes bring ye forth

As those from whom we came; and plant our name Under that star not known unto our north.

Yet the enterprise was ill concerted. Of the one hundred and five on the list of emigrants, there were but twelve laborers, and few mechanics. They were going to a wilderness, in which, as yet, not a house was standing; and there were fortyeight gentlemen to four carpenters. Neither were there any men with families.

Newport, who commanded the ships, was acquainted with the old passage, and sailed by way of the Canaries and the West India islands. As he turned to the north, a severe storm, in April, 1607, carried his fleet beyond the settlement of Raleigh, into the magnificent bay of the Chesapeake. The headlands received and retain the names of Cape Henry and Cape Charles, from the sons of King James; the deep water for anchorage, "putting the emigrants in good Comfort," gave a name to the northern Point; and within the capes a country opened, which appeared to "claim the prerogative over the most pleasant places in the world." "Heaven and earth seemed never to have agreed better to frame a place for man's commodious and delightful habitation." A noble river was soon entered, which was named from the monarch; and, after a search of seventeen days, during which the comers encountered the hostility of one savage tribe, and at Hampton smoked the calumet of peace with another, on the thirteenth of May they reached a peninsula about fifty miles above the mouth of the stream, where the water near the shore was so very deep that the ships were moored to trees. Here the council, except Smith, who for no reason unless it were jealousy of his su perior energy was for nearly a month kept out of his seat, took the oath of office, and the majority elected Edward Maria Wingfield president for the coming year. Contrary to the earnest and persistent advice of Bartholomew Gosnold, the peninsula was selected for the site of the colony, and took the name of Jamestown.