Lyon Gardiner Tyler - England in America, 1580 to 1652

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Then like lightning from a clear sky fell the massacre upon the
unsuspecting settlers. The blow was terrible to the colonists: the
Indians, besides killing many of the inhabitants, burned many houses
and destroyed a great quantity of stock. At first the settlers were
panic-stricken, but rage succeeded fear. They divided into squads, and
carried fire and sword into the Indian villages along the James and
the York. In a little while the success of the English was so complete
that they were able to give their time wholly to their crops and to
rebuilding their houses.[21]

To the company the blow was a fatal one, though it did not manifest
its results immediately. So far was the massacre from affecting the
confidence of the public in Southampton and his friends at the head of
the company that eight hundred good settlers went to Virginia during
the year 1622, and John Smith wrote, "Had I meanes I might have choice
of ten thousand that would gladly go."[22] But during the summer the
members of the company were entangled in a dispute, of which advantage
was taken by their enemies everywhere. At the suggestion of the crafty
earl of Middlesex, the lord high treasurer of England, they were
induced to apply to the king for a monopoly of the sale of tobacco in
England; and it was granted on two conditions--viz., that they should
pay the king L20,000 (supposed to be the value of a third of the total
crop of Virginia tobacco) and import at least forty thousand pounds
weight of Spanish tobacco. Though this last was a condition demanded
by the king doubtless to placate the Spanish court, with whom he was
negotiating for the marriage of his son Charles to the infanta, the
contract on the whole was displeasing to Count Gondomar, the Spanish
minister. He fomented dissensions in the company over the details, and
Middlesex, the patron of the measure, being a great favorer of the
Spanish match, changed sides upon his own proposition.[23]

In April, 1623, Alderman Robert Johnson, deputy to Sir Thomas Smith
during the time of his government, brought a petition to the king for
the appointment of a commission in England to inquire into the
condition of the colony, which he declared was in danger of
destruction by reason of "dissensions among ourselves and the massacre
and hostility of the natives." This petition was followed by a
scandalous paper, called _The Unmasking of Virginia_, presented to the
king by another tool of Count Gondomar, one Captain Nathaniel
Butler.[24] The company had already offended the king, and these new
developments afforded him all the excuse that he wanted for taking
extreme measures. He first attempted to cow the company into a
"voluntary" surrender by seizing their books and arresting their
leading members. When this did not avail, the Privy Council, November
3, 1623, appointed a commission to proceed to Virginia and make a
report upon which judicial proceedings might be had. The company
fought desperately, and in April, 1624, appealed to Parliament, but
King James forbade the Commons to interfere.

In June, 1624, the expected paper from Virginia came to hand, and the
cause was argued the same month at Trinity term on a writ of _quo
warranto_ before Chief-Justice James Ley of the King's Bench. The
legal status of the company was unfavorable, for it was in a hopeless
tangle, and the death record in the colony was an appalling fact.
When, therefore, the attorney-general, Coventry, attacked the company
for mismanagement, even an impartial tribune might have quashed the
charter. But the case was not permitted to be decided on its merits.
The company made a mistake in pleading, which was taken advantage of
by Coventry, and on this ground the patent was voided the last day of
the term (June 16, 1624).[25]

Thus perished the great London Company, which in settling Virginia
expended upward of L200,000 (equal to $5,000,000 in present currency)
and sent more than fourteen thousand emigrants. It received back from
Virginia but a small part of the money it invested, and of all the
emigrants whom it sent over, and their children, only one thousand two
hundred and twenty-seven survived the charter. The heavy cost of the
settlement was not a loss, for it secured to England a fifth kingdom
and planted in the New World the germs of civil liberty. In this
service the company did not escape the troubles incident to the
mercenary purpose of a joint-stock partnership, yet it assumed a
national and patriotic character, which entitles it to be considered
the greatest and noblest association ever organized by the English
people.[26] However unjust the measures taken by King James to
overthrow the London Company, the incident was fortunate for the
inhabitants of Virginia. The colony had reached a stage of development
which needed no longer the supporting hand of a distant corporation
created for profit.

In Virginia, sympathy with the company was so openly manifested that
the Governor's council ordered their clerk, Edward Sharpless, to lose
his ears[27] for daring to give King James's commissioners copies of
certain of their papers; and in January, 1624, a protest, called _The
Tragical Relation_, was addressed to the king by the General Assembly,
denouncing the administration of Sir Thomas Smith and his faction and
extolling that of Sandys and Southampton. The sufferings of the colony
under the former were vigorously painted, and they ended by saying,
"And rather (than) to be reduced to live under the like government we
desire his ma^tie y^t commissioners may be sent over w^th authoritie
to hang us."

Although Wyatt cordially joined in these protests, and was a most
popular governor, the General Assembly about the same time passed an
act[28] in the following words: "The governor shall not lay any taxes
or ympositions upon the colony, their lands or commodities, other way
than by authority of the General Assembly to be levied and ymployed as
the said assembly shall appoynt." By this act Virginia formally
asserted the indissoluble connection of taxation and representation.

The next step was to frame a government which would correspond to the
new relations of the colony. June 24, 1624, a few days after the
decision of Chief-Justice Ley, the king appointed a commission of
sixteen persons, among whom were Sir Thomas Smith and other opponents
of Sandys and Southampton, to take charge, temporarily, of Virginia
affairs; and (July 15) he enlarged this commission by forty more
members. On their advice he issued, August 26, 1624, authority to Sir
Francis Wyatt, governor, and twelve others in Virginia, as councillors
to conduct the government of the colony, under such instructions as
they might receive from him or them.

In these orders it is expressly stated that the king's intention was
not to disturb the interest of either planter or adventurer; while
their context makes it clear that he proposed to avoid "the
popularness" of the former government and to revive the charter of
1606 with some amendments. King James died March 27, 1625, and by his
death this commission for Virginia affairs expired.[29]

Charles I. had all the arbitrary notions of his father, but
fortunately he was under personal obligations to Sir Edwin Sandys and
Nicholas Ferrar, Jr., and for their sake was willing to be liberal in
his dealing with the colonists.[30] Hence, soon after his father's
death, he dismissed the former royal commissioners and intrusted
affairs relating to Virginia to a committee of the Privy Council, who
ignored the Smith party and called the Sandys party into
consultation.[31] These last presented a paper in April, 1625, called
_The Discourse of the Old Company_, in which they reviewed fully the
history of the charter and petitioned to be reincorporated. Charles
was not unwilling to grant the request, and in a proclamation dated
May 13, 1625, he avowed that he had come to the same opinion as his
father, and intended to have a "royal council in England and another
in Virginia, but not to impeach the interest of any adventurer or
planter in Virginia."

Still ignorant of the death of King James, Governor Sir Francis Wyatt
and his council, together with representatives from the plantations
informally called, sent George Yardley to England with a petition,
dated June 15, 1625, that they be permitted the right of a general
assembly, that worthy emigrants be encouraged, and that none of the
old faction of Sir Thomas Smith and Alderman Johnson have a part in
the administration; "for rather than endure the government of these
men they were resolved to seek the farthest part of the world."

Yardley reached England in October; and the king, when informed of
Wyatt's desire to resign the government of Virginia on account of his
private affairs, issued a commission, dated April 16, 1626, renewing
the authority of the council in Virginia and appointing Yardley
governor.[32] The latter returned to Virginia, but died in 1627. After
his death the king sent directions to Acting Governor Francis West to
summon a general assembly; and March 26, 1628, after an interval of
four years, the regular law-making body again assembled at Jamestown,
an event second only in importance to the original meeting in
1619.[33]

Other matters besides the form of government pressed upon the
attention of the settlers. Tobacco entered more and more into the life
of the colony, and the crop in the year 1628 amounted to upward of
five hundred thousand pounds.[34] King Charles took the ground of
Sandys and Southampton, that the large production was only temporary,
and like his father, subjected tobacco in England to high duties and
monopoly. He urged a varied planting and the making of pitch and tar,
pipe-staves, potashes, iron, and bay-salt, and warned the planters
against "building their plantation wholly on smoke." It was observed,
however, that Charles was receiving a large sum of money from customs
on tobacco,[35] and it was not likely that his advice would be taken
while the price was 3s. 6d. a pound. Indeed, it was chiefly under the
stimulus of the culture of tobacco that the population of the colony
rose from eight hundred and ninety-four, after the massacre in 1622,
to about three thousand in 1629.[36]

In March, 1629, Captain West went back to England, and a new
commission was issued to Sir John Harvey as governor.[37] He did not
come to the colony till the next year, and in the interval Dr. John
Pott acted as his deputy. At the assembly called by Pott in October,
1629, the growth of the colony was represented by twenty-three
settlements as against eleven ten years before. As in England, there
were two branches of the law-making body, a House of Burgesses, made
up of the representatives of the people, and an upper house consisting
of the governor and council. In the constitution of the popular branch
there was no fixed number of delegates, but each settlement had as
many as it chose to pay the expenses of, a custom which prevailed
until 1660, when the number of burgesses was limited to two members
for each county and one member for Jamestown.[38]

In March, 1630, Harvey arrived, and Pott's former dignity as governor
did not save him from a mortifying experience. The council was not
only an upper house of legislation, but the supreme court of the
colony, and in July, 1630, Pott was arraigned before this tribunal for
stealing cattle, and declared guilty. Perhaps Harvey realized that
injustice was done, for he suspended the sentence, and on petition to
the king the case was re-examined in England by the commissioners for
Virginia, who decided that "condemning Pott of felony was very
rigorous if not erroneous."[39]

The year 1630 was the beginning of a general movement of emigration
northward, and in October Chiskiack, an Indian district on the south
side of the York, about twenty-seven miles below the forks of the
river where Opechancanough resided, was occupied in force. So rapid
was the course of population that in less than two years this first
settlement upon the York was divided into Chiskiack and York. One year
after Chiskiack was settled, Kent Island in Chesapeake Bay was
occupied by a company under William Claiborne, the secretary of state;
and in 1632 Middle Plantation (afterwards Williamsburg) was laid out
and defended by a line of palisades from tide-water to tide-water.[40]

Meanwhile, the old colonial parties did not cease to strive with one
another in England. Harvey had been appointed by the vacillating
Charles to please the former court party, but during the quarrel with
his Parliament over the Petition of Right he became anxious again to
conciliate the colonists and the members of the old company; and in
May, 1631, he appointed[41] a new commission, consisting of the earls
of Dorset and Danby, Sir John Danvers, Sir Dudley Digges, John Ferrar,
Sir Francis Wyatt, and others, to advise him upon "some course for
establishing the advancement of the plantation of Virginia." This
commission had many consultations, and unanimously resolved to
recommend to the king the renewal of the charter of 1612 with all its
former privileges--except the form of government, which was to be
exercised by the king through a council in London and a governor and
council in Virginia, both appointed by him.

In June, 1632, Charles I. so vacillated as to grant Maryland, within
the bounds of "their ancient territories," to Lord Baltimore,
regardless of the protest of the Virginians; and April 28, 1634, he
revoked the liberal commission of 1631, and appointed another, called
"the Commission for Foreign Plantations," composed almost entirely of
opponents of the popular course of government, with William Laud,
archbishop of Canterbury, at the head. This commission had power to
"make laws and orders for government of English colonies planted in
foreign parts, to remove governors and require an account of their
government, to appoint judges and magistrates, to establish courts, to
amend all charters and patents, and to revoke those surreptitiously
and unduly obtained."[42]

Harvey's conduct in Virginia reflected the views of the court party in
England. He offended his council by acting in important matters
without their consent, contrary to his instructions; and showed in
many ways that he was a friend of the persons in England who were
trying to make a monopoly of the tobacco trade. He attempted to lay
taxes, but the assembly, in February, 1632, re-enacted the law of 1624
asserting their exclusive authority over the subject.[43] At the head
of the opposition to Harvey was William Claiborne, the secretary of
state, who opposed Lord Baltimore's claim to Maryland, and, in
consequence, was in the latter part of 1634 turned out of office by
Harvey, to make way for Richard Kempe, one of Lord Baltimore's
friends.

The people of Virginia began in resentment to draw together in little
groups, and talked of asking for the removal of the governor; and
matters came to a crisis in April, 1635, when Harvey suppressed a
petition addressed to the king by the assembly regarding the tobacco
contract, and justified an attack by Lord Baltimore's men upon a
pinnace of Claiborne engaged in the fur trade from Kent Island. At
York, in April, 1635, a meeting of protest was held at the house of
William Warren.

Harvey was enraged at the proceeding and caused the leaders to be
arrested. Then he called a council at Jamestown, and the scenes in the
council chamber are interestingly described in contemporary letters.
Harvey demanded the execution of martial law upon the prisoners, and
when the council held back he flew into a passion and attempted to
arrest George Menifie, one of the members, for high-treason. Captain
John Utie and Captain Samuel Matthews retorted by making a similar
charge against Harvey, and he was arrested by the council, and
confined at the house of Captain William Brocas. Then the council
elected Captain John West, of Chiskiack, brother of Lord Delaware, as
governor, and summoned an assembly to meet at Jamestown in May
following. This body promptly ratified the action of the council, and
Harvey was put aboard a ship and sent off to England in charge of two
members of the House of Burgesses.[44]

This deposition of a royal governor was a bold proceeding and mightily
surprised King Charles. He declared it an act of "regal authority,"
had the two daring burgesses arrested, and on the complaint of Lord
Baltimore, who befriended Harvey, caused West, Utie, Menifie,
Matthews, and others of the unfriendly councillors to appear in
England to answer for their crimes. Meanwhile, to rebuke the dangerous
precedent set in Virginia, he thought it necessary to restore Harvey
to his government.[45]

Harvey did not enjoy his second lease of power long, for the king, in
the vicissitudes of English politics, found it wise to turn once more
a favorable ear to the friends of the old company, and in January,
1639, Sir Francis Wyatt, who had governed Virginia so acceptably once
before, was commissioned to succeed Harvey. The former councillors in
Virginia were restored to power, and in the king's instructions to
Wyatt the name of Captain West was inserted as "Muster-Master-General"
in Charles's own handwriting.[46]

[Footnote 1: Brown, _Genesis of the United States_, II., 543-554;
_First Republic_, 165-167.]

[Footnote 2: Brown, _English Politics in Early Virginia History_,
24-33.]

[Footnote 3: Brown, _Genesis of the United States_, II., 775-779,
797-799.]

[Footnote 4: Ibid., 967.]

[Footnote 5: Virginia Company, _Proceedings_ (Va. Hist. Soc.,
_Collections_, new series, VII., VIII.), I., 65, II., 198.]

[Footnote 6: _Discourse of the Old Company_, in _Va. Magazine_, I.,
157.]

[Footnote 7: Instructions to Yardley, 1618, ibid., II., 154-165.]

[Footnote 8: _Assembly Journal_, 1619, in Va. State Senate
_Documents_, 1874.]

[Footnote 9: Smith, _Works_ (Arber's ed.), 541.]

[Footnote 10: Virginia Company, _Proceedings_ (Va. Hist. Soc.,
_Collections_, new series, VII.), I., 67.]

[Footnote 11: Brown, _Genesis of the United States_, II., 1014;
Bradford, _Plymouth_, 47.]

[Footnote 12: Virginia Company, _Proceedings_ (Va. Hist. Soc.,
_Collections_, new series, VII.), I., 78.]

[Footnote 13: Peckard, _Ferrar_, 115.]

[Footnote 14: _Discourse of the Old Company_, in _Va. Magazine_, I.,
161.]

[Footnote 15: Smith, _Works_ (Arber's ed.), 562.]

[Footnote 16: _Breife Declaration_; Neill, _Virginia Company_,
395-406.]

[Footnote 17: Neill, _Virginia Company_, 334.]

[Footnote 18: Brown, _First Republic_, 464, 467.]

[Footnote 19: Smith, _Works_ (Arber's ed.), 539.]

[Footnote 20: _William and Mary Quarterly_, IX., 203-214; Neill,
_Virginia Company_, 293, 307-321; Smith, _Works_ (Arber's ed.),
572-594.]

[Footnote 21: Neill, _Virginia Company_, 364, 366.]

[Footnote 22: Smith, _Works_ (Arber's ed.), 263.]

[Footnote 23: _Discourse of the Old Company_, in _Va. Magazine_, I.,
291-293.]

[Footnote 24: Neill, _Virginia Company_, 395-407.]

[Footnote 25: Peckard, _Ferrar_, 145; _Discourse of the Old Company_,
in _Va. Magazine_, I., 297.]

[Footnote 26: Brown, _First Republic_, 615.]

[Footnote 27: _Cal. of State Pap., Col._, 1574-1660, 74; Neill,
_Virginia Company_, 407.]

[Footnote 28: Hening, _Statutes_., I., 124.]

[Footnote 29: _Cal. of State Pap., Col._, 1574-1674, p. 64, 1574-1660,
p. 62.]

[Footnote 30: Brown, _English Politics in Early Virginia History_,
89.]

[Footnote 31: Brown, _First Republic_, 640, 641].

[Footnote 32: _Cal. of State Pap., Col._, 1574-1660, pp. 73, 74, 79.]

[Footnote 33: Ibid., 86, 88; Neill, _Virginia Carolorum_, 55.]

[Footnote 34: Hening, _Statutes_, I., 134.]

[Footnote 35: In 1624 the crop was three hundred thousand pounds, the
total importations from Virginia, Bermuda, and Spain four hundred and
fifty thousand pounds, and the profit in customs to the crown was
L93,350.]

[Footnote 36: _Cal. of State Pap., Col._, 1574-1660, p. 89.]

[Footnote 37: Ibid., 88.]

[Footnote 38: Hening, _Statutes_, I., 147, II., 20.]

[Footnote 39: _Cal. of State Pap., Col._, 1574-1660, p. 133.]

[Footnote 40: Hening, _Statutes_, I., 208, 257; Mass. Hist. Soc.,
_Collections_, 4th series, IX., III.]

[Footnote 41: _Cal. of State Pap., Col._, 1574-1660, p. 130.]

[Footnote 42: _Cal. of State Pap., Col._, 1574-1660, pp. 136, 177.]

[Footnote 43: Hening, _Statutes_, I., 171.]

[Footnote 44: _Va. Magazine_, I., 416, 425, VIII., 299-306; Neill,
_Virginia Carolorum_, 118-120.]

[Footnote 45: _Cal. of State Pap., Col._, 1574-1660, pp. 216, 217.]

[Footnote 46: Wyatt's commission, in _Va. Magazine_, XI., 50-54; _Cal.
of State Pap., Col_., 1574-1674, p. 83.]

[Illustration: VIRGINIA IN 1652. Showing the Counties and Dates of
their Formation.]

CHAPTER VI

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC CONDITIONS OF VIRGINIA

(1634-1652)

During the vicissitudes of government in Virginia the colony continued
to increase in wealth and population, and in 1634 eight counties were
created;[1] while an official census in April, 1635, showed nearly
five thousand people, to which number sixteen hundred were added in
1636. The new-comers during Harvey's time were principally servants
who came to work the tobacco-fields.[2] Among them were some convicts
and shiftless people, but the larger number were persons of
respectable standing, and some had comfortable estates and influential
connections in England.[3] Freed from their service in Virginia, not a
few attained positions as justices of the peace and burgesses in the
General Assembly.[4]

The trade of Virginia was become so extensive that Dutch as well as
English ships sought the colony. The principal settlements were on the
north side of James River, and as the voyager in 1634 sailed from
Chesapeake Bay he passed first the new fort at Point Comfort lately
constructed by Captain Samuel Matthews. About five miles farther on
was Newport News, chiefly remarkable for its spring, where all the
ships stopped to take in water, at this time the residence of Captain
Daniel Gookin, a prominent Puritan, who afterwards removed to
Massachusetts. Five miles above Newport News, at Deep Creek, was
Denbeigh, Captain Samuel Matthews's place, a miniature village rather
than plantation, where many servants were employed, hemp and flax
woven, hides tanned, leather made into shoes, cattle and swine raised
for the ships outward bound, and a large dairy and numerous poultry
kept.

A few hours' sail from Denbeigh was Littletown, the residence of
George Menifie. He had a garden of two acres on the river-side, which
was full of roses of Provence, apple, pear, and cherry trees, and the
various fruits of Holland, with different kinds of sweet-smelling
herbs, such as rosemary, sage, marjoram, and thyme. Growing around the
house was an orchard of peach-trees, which astonished his visitors
very much, for they were not to be seen anywhere else on the coast.[5]

About six miles farther was Jamestown, a village of three hundred
inhabitants, built upon two streets at the upper end of the island.
There the governor resided with some of his council, one of whom,
Captain William Pierce, had a garden of three or four acres, from
which his wife a few years before obtained a hundred bushels of
figs.[6] The houses there as elsewhere were of wood, with brick
chimneys, but architecture was improving.

In 1637 the General Assembly offered a lot to every person who should
build a house at Jamestown Island; and in pursuance of the
encouragement given, "twelve new houses and stores were built in the
town," one of brick by Richard Kempe, "the fairest ever known in this
country for substance and uniformity." About the same time money was
raised for a brick church and a brick state-house.[7] As to the
general condition of the colony in 1634, Captain Thomas Young reported
that there was not only a "very great plentie of milk, cheese, and
butter, but of corn, which latter almost every planter in the colony
hath."[8]

Such a "plentie of corn" must be contrasted with the scarcity in 1630,
for the current of prosperity did not run altogether smoothly. The
mortality still continued frightful, and "during the months of June,
July, and August, the people died like cats and dogs,"[9] a statement
especially true of the servants, of whom hardly one in five survived
the first year's hardships in the malarial tobacco-fields along the
creeks and rivers.[10] In 1630 tobacco tumbled from its high price of
3s. 6d. to 1d. per pound, and the colony was much "perplexed" for want
of money to buy corn, which they had neglected to raise. To relieve
the distress, Harvey, the next year, sent several ships to trade with
the Indians up Chesapeake Bay and on the coast as far south as Cape
Fear.[11]

Tobacco legislation for the next ten years consisted in regulations
vainly intended to prevent further declines. Tobacco fluctuated in
value from one penny to sixpence, and, as it was the general currency,
this uncertainty caused much trouble. Some idea of the general
dependency upon tobacco may be had from a statute in 1640, which,
after providing for the destruction of all the bad tobacco and half
the good, estimated the remainder actually placed upon the market by a
population of eight thousand at one million five hundred thousand
pounds.[12]

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