*

Patent of A year or two after James I. succeeded to the Virginia. English throne, he issued the patent of Virginia. This was a twofold grant of the American territory from what is now North Carolina to what is now Maine. Of this vast tract, the southerly half was appropriated to the First Colony, and the northerly † to the Second Colony, each colony to be founded and governed by a separate council, to which the grant was made. The council or company, as it is generally styled, of the First Colony went by the name of London, from the residence of its prominent members. For a similar reason, the name of Plymouth was given to the council or company of the Second Colony. The great point, however, is this, that the parties to the patent were not colonists, but capitalists, not adventurers, but speculators, who, in their respective corporations in England, not in America, were declared possessors of the best portion of the American territory. At the same time, the companies were invested with ample powers to settle "colonists and servants," to impose duties, and to coin money. Their obligations, in return, were to pay over to the crown a share of their profits, and to support the laws and the church of England. To exercise some sort of supervision over so great corporations as these, a council for Virginia was instituted by the king, who, to complete his work, put forth a code of laws and regulations for the direction of the various bodies which he had created.

* From lat. 34° to lat. 38°, with a right, if first in the field, to make settlements as far north as 41°.

+ From lat. 41° to lat. 45°, with a right, if first in the field, to make settlements as far south as 38°.

One fifth of the gold and silver, and one fifteenth of the copper, that might be found.

Members

THE LONDON COMPANY.

The moving spirit of the London Company ap and pears to have been Richard Hakluyt, prebendary colonists. of Bristol, afterwards of Westminster, who had been interested in American colonization from the time of Ra

leigh's expeditions. Around him were gathered many eminent and energetic men, among them Sir George Calvert, the future founder of Maryland, but none of greater promise, in relation to the work before them, than Bartholomew Gosnold, the settler of Elizabeth's Island, and John Smith, a hero in the east long before he turned his face westward. Gosnold and Smith were both amongst the first colonists.

James

It was in midwinter, (December 19, 1606,) that town. an expedition, one hundred strong, set out from England. A feeble band as regarded their individual resources, they were strong in the company by which they were sent to stranger shores. The voyage was long, by the common route of the West Indies, but Virginia was reached at last. The spring (May 13, 1607) saw the beginning of the first English town in America. Its royal name of Jamestown is now a name alone.

New

The company had hardly begun its work when charters. it sought new powers. Three years after the patent, a second charter was framed, giving additional authority to the English company, and extending the American limits to the latitude of Philadelphia, (1609.) Three years later, (1612,) a third charter vested the powers of the company in a General Court of the members, and added the Bermuda Islands to their domains. If charters were all that the company needed in order to flourish, it bade fair to be great and enduring.

The fortunes of the colony were less promising. Some

Fortunes of the colony.

times at peace, sometimes at war

* with the natives,

sometimes contented, sometimes despairing amongst themselves, the colonists went through great vicissitudes. One cause of feebleness is plain enough; it is the entire dependence of the colony upon the company and the company's representatives. Another cause of equal moment was the variety of rank and of character in the colony. The gentleman and the felon, the ardent seeker after adventure and the patient toiler for subsistence, the freeman, the apprentice, and the slave,† made up a community too mixed to possess any steadiness of growth. The three first years, (1607-9,) the colonists hung upon John Smith, who had become their president in the year following the settlement of Jamestown. It is curious to see how he led, rebuked, supported them; he, as the strong man, guiding them, as feeble children. One year, (1610,) the colony is all but abandoned; another, (1613,) it is strong enough to make the attack already mentioned upon the French settlements in the north. But the tendency to increase, though interrupted, continues, and not without support from the company in England.

Institu- The first step to raise the colonists from a state tions. of mere vassalage was the grant of an estate to each settler, (1615.) The progress from the landholder to the freeman followed. The colony had been bound, as has been stated, to maintain the church of England. Its civil authorities consisted, first of the English crown and Parliament, then of the English council, then of the English company, by which, according to the various. charters, the local officers were appointed. These were, in the beginning, a council, with a president; but in a year or two from the beginning, a governor and suite, at first with

*The Indian wars are related in Part II. Chapter IV.

† A Dutch man of war brought the first negro slaves, in 1620.

out and afterwards with a council. At length, under the government of Sir George Yeardley, the freemen of the colony, representing eleven corporations or plantations, were called, as burgesses, to a General Assembly, to take the matter of taxes, besides other affairs of importance, into their own hands, (1619.) This was the system of the colonial constitution granted by the company two years afterwards, (1621.) In other words, the executive authority was in the hands of a governor, the judicial in those of a governor and a council, with an appeal to an Assembly, and the legislative in that of a governor, a council, and an Assembly, all subject to the company, which, of course, was subject to the laws and the authorities of England.

An in

fant

colony.

We are apt to exaggerate the importance of the English settlements, in comparison with those of the French or the Spanish, or any other nation in our country. The truth is, that Virginia, like most of the settlements which we shall find in the north, was but an infant colony, unable to regulate its trade or its education, its habits of life or of thought, except in submission to external authorities. One or two examples, occurring under the company's jurisdiction, illustrate the dependence of the colony during the entire period of which we are now treating. A design of a college for native as well as English youth, started in England with large subscriptions, found no fulfilment in Virginia, (1619–21.) Even the want of

wives was met, not by individual devotion, but by a company speculation; a large number of young women of good character being transported to be sold for a hundred and twenty, or even a hundred and fifty pounds of tobacco (at three shillings a pound) to the lonely settlers, (1620–21.) Nothing, however, marks the utter dependence the com- of the colony so plainly as its inactivity during the pany. troubles in which the company became involved.

Fall of

Dissensions amongst the members, and jealousies amongst those who were not members, led to the royal interference; the result being the fall of the company, with all its expenditures heavy on its head, (1624.) The colony at this time numbered about two thousand, the relics of nine thousand who had been sent out. Yet for all the two thousand

did to prove their existence or their independence, the colony might have been supposed to be the company's shadow, too unsubstantial to support or to oppose the power to which it owed its being.

Virginia became a royal province. The governor Virginia a royal and the council received their appointment from the province. king, the freemen continuing to elect their Assembly. It was a national government, instead of a corporation system, and as such it seemed to relieve the Virginians. At any rate, they grew so much in spirit as to make a stand against the royal grant of what they considered their territory to the proprietor of Maryland. Their governor, John Harvey, not taking part with them as they wished, they deposed him, and sent him virtually a prisoner to England, (1635.) The king, of course, restored the governor, but without reducing the colony to silence or to retribution, (1636-37.) The spirit of dependence, however, lingered.

Growth

But the principles of growth and of independence of the were at work. Among the earliest settlers were colony. men of culture and of earnestness, men who, like Alexander Whitaker, "a scholar, a graduate, and a preacher," devoted themselves to the elevation of the colony. Among the earliest governors were Lord De la Ware, (1611,) and Sir George Yeardley, (1619-21,) both of strong character and of strong influence. Around such individuals as these there would naturally gather an in

From £100,000 to £150,000.