into the world, and printing has divulged these and other libels."

At the close of Berkeley's administration Lord Culpepper, to whom with Arlington the province had been granted in 1673, received the appointment of governor for life. The new executive arrived in 1680 and took upon himself the duties of his office. His administration, however, was of bad repute. His official conduct was marked with avarice and dishonesty. It was evident that he regarded the governorship as a speculative opportunity. He accordingly adopted the policy of extortion and hard rulings until the mutterings of rebellion were again heard among the settle.

ments.

They who hung upon the favors of Charles II. held by a precarious tenure. In course of time he repented of his rashness in giving away an American colony to worthless favorities. Seeking to amend his error, he found in the vices and frauds of Culpepper a sufficient excuse to remove him from office and take away his patent. This was accordingly done, and in 1684 Virginia, from being a proprietary government, became a royal province. Lord Howard of Effingham was appointed governor, and he in turn was succeeded by Francis Nicholson. The administration of the latter was signalized by the founding of William and Mary College, so named in honor of the new King and Queen of England. This next to Harvard was the first institution of liberal

learning planted in America. Here the boy Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence, shall be educated. From these halls in the famous summer of 1776 shall be sent forth young James Monroe, future President of the United States.

During the first half of the eighteenth century Virginia pursued an even course of development. Her population steadily-but not rapidly-increased. Her position as old

est of the little American republics was recognized by her sister colonies. Her men began to be scholars and statesmen. At this epoch her Revolutionary heroes that were to be were born. The Virginian character was developed and matured for the exigencies of both war and peace. In the times of the Intercolonial conflicts with New France in alliance with the Indians, Virginia suffered less by her position than did the great colonies of the North; but her patriotism never suffered in comparison, and when the premonitory thrills of National Independence shall at length tremble through the land, the call of country shall in no part be heard with profounder sympathy or more ready answer than in the Commonwealth of Virgina.

CHAPTER VII.

PASSING to New England we note with interest the progress of the first Puritan settlement planted by the Pilgrims at Plymouth. At the beginning there was a struggle most sharp for existence. The first winter had well-nigh proved fatal to the whole company who debarked from the Mayflower. Hope, however, revived with the spring, and the first bird-song brought welcome to the weary heart of man. Though one-half of the colony had been swept off by disease and exposure, the remainder went forward with courageous spirits to the work of destiny. The governor and his wife and son went down to the grave. But the Pilgrims had in them a soul of resolution, and they who survived rose fron the snows of winter to plant and build and sing their hymns of thankfulness.

One of the first exigencies of the colony had respect to the disposition of the natives. Captain Miles Standish was sent out with his soldiers to gather information-to see in what manner the Indians would bear themselves in the presence of a European settlement. The army of New England consisted of six men besides the general. Deserted wigwams were found here and there; the smoke of campfires arose in the distance; savages were occasionally seen in the forest. These fled, however, at the approach of the English and Standish marched back unmolested to Plymouth.

It was now the turn of the Indians to make an attempt at intercourse. A month after the adventure of Standish,

a Wampanoag sachem named Samoset came into Plymouth, offered his hand and bade the strangers welcome. He could speak a broken English, for he had been with the whites at intervals since the time of the earlier voyages. He gave such account as he might of the number and strength of his people, and told the colonists of a great plague by which, a few years before, the country had been swept of its inhabitants. He attributed the present feebleness and dispirited condition of the red men to this malady which had destroyed their fathers.

Soon afterwards another Indian named Squanto, who had been carried abroad by Hunt in 1614 and had learned to speak English, came to Plymouth and confirmed what Samoset had said. Then with the early spring came Massasoit, the great sachem of the Wampanoags, and with him a treaty was made which remained inviolate for fifty years. The compact was simple, providing that no injury should be done by white men to the Indians or by the Indians to them, and that all offenders and criminals should be given up by either part for punishment according to the laws and usages of the two peoples.

The effect of the treaty was salutary. Nine of the leading tribes entered into like relations with the English, and acknowledged, according to the limits of their understandings, the sovereignty of the English King. Some of the sachems were suspicious and hostile. Standish in one instance was obliged to lead out his soldiers against a refractory chief. Canonicus, king of the Narragansetts, sent to Governor Bradford a bundle of arrows wrapped in the skin of a rattlesnake; but the governor stuffed the skin with powder and balls and sent it back as a significant answer to Canonicus. The latter would not receive it, but sent it on from tribe to tribe until it was finally returned, like an unaccepted challenge, to the governor.

The first year after the planting of Plymouth was unfruitful and the colonists were brought to the point of starvation. A new company of immigrants without provisions or stores arrived during the season, and this circumstance heightened the distress, for all must be fed. The newcomers remained over winter with the people of Plymouth, and then crossed to the south side of Boston harbor, where they laid the foundations of Weymouth. But the settlement did not prosper. The Weymouth people, instead of engaging in necessary work, attempted to live by fraudu lent trade with the Indians, and when they were about to starve abandoned their settlement and returned to England.

The third year, 1623, brought a plentiful harvest, and the people of Plymouth began to have abundance. The Indians brought in the products of the chase and exchanged them liberally for corn. Meanwhile the main body of pilgrims still tarried at Leyden. John Robinson, their leader, made strenuous efforts to bring his people to America, but the London adventurers who had managed the enterprise refused to furnish money or transportation, and at the end of the fourth year there were only a hundred and eighty persons of the white race in New England.

In 1624 Cape Ann was settled by a company of Puritans from Dorchester, England. They were led by their minister, John White. The place chosen for the colony, however, was found to be unfavorable, and after two years the whole company moved southward to a place called Naumkaeg, where they laid the foundations of Salem. Two years later a second company arrived at the same place, under conduct of John Endicott, who was chosen governor. The colonists obtained a patent from Charles I., and the settlements were incorporated under the name of the governor and Company of Massachusetts Bay in New England.