USA > Virginia > History of the colony and ancient dominion of Virginia > Part 11
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* Stith, 147.
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assisting to him, to oppose all mutinies, factions, rebellions, and all other discords contrary to the quiet and peaceable government of this Commonwealth, as they will answer the contrary at their peril.
"Given at Bermuda City this twentieth of February, in the 15th year of the reign of our Sovereign Lord James, by the Grace of God, King of England, and of Scotland the 51st, and in the 11th year of this Plantation. Anno Domini, 1617.
"Extract and recorded per John Rolf, Sec'y and Recorder Genl.
["Copia. Test. R. Hickman, Ck. Secy's office."]
To reinforce the colony the Company sent out a vessel of two hundred and fifty tons, well stored, with two hundred and fifty people, under command of Lord Delaware. They set sail in April, 1618; during the voyage thirty died, and among them Lord Delaware, a generous friend of the colony. The intelli- gence of his death reached London October fifth. Stith* says: " And I think I have somewhere seen that he died about the mouth of Delaware Bay, which thence took its name from him." Stith fell into a mistake on this point, and Belknap, equally dis- tinguished for his general accuracy, has followed him.t Dela- ware Bay (the mouth of the river called by the Indians Chiho- hocki) and River were named as early as 1611, when Lord Delaware put in there, during his homeward voyage.# According to Strachey, the bay was discovered in 1610, by Captain Argall, and he named Cape Delaware, "where he caught halibut, cod, and ling fish, and brought some of them to Jamestown."
His lordship's family name was West, and persons descended from the same stock are yet found in Virginia bearing the name. West-Point, at the head of York, derived its name from the same source, and it was at first called Delaware. Lord Delaware mar- ried, in 1602, the daughter of Sir Thomas Shirley, of Whiston; and, perhaps, the name of Shirley, the ancient seat on James River, may be traced to this source.
* Stith, 147.
į Anderson's Hist. of Col. Church, i. 271-311.
¡ Belknap, ii. 115.
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.
Martial law had already been established in Virginia by Dale; Argall came over invested with powers to make the government still more arbitrary and despotic, and bent upon acquiring gain by all possible means of extortion and oppression. He decreed that. goods should be sold at an advance of twenty-five per cent., and tobacco rated at the Procrustean value of three shillings- the penalty for rating it either higher or lower being three years slavery to the colony; that there should be no trade or inter- course with the Indians, and that none of them should be taught the use of fire-arms; the penalty for violating which ordinance was death to teacher and learner. Yet it has been contended by some, that the use of fire-arms by the savages hastened their ex- termination, because they thus became dependent on the whites for arms and ammunition; when their guns came to be out of order they became useless to them, for they wanted the skill to repair them; and, lastly, fire-arms in their hands when effective, were employed by hostile tribes in mutual destruction.
" The white faith of history cannot show That e'er a musket yet could beat a bow."*
Argall also issued edicts that no one should hunt deer or hogs without his leave; that no man should fire a gun before a new supply of ammunition, except in self-defence, on pain of a year's slavery; absence from church on Sundays or holidays, was punished by confinement for the night and one week's slavery to the colony; for the second offence the offender should be a slave for a month; and for the third, for a year and a day. Several of these regulations were highly judicious, but the penalties of some of them were excessive and barbarous, and the vigorous enforcement of these, and his oppressive proceedings, rendered Argall odious to the colony, and a report of his tyranny and ex- tortions having reached England, Sir Thomas Smith, Alderman Johnson, deputy treasurer, Sir Lionel Cranfield, and others of the council, addressed a letter dated August 23, 1618, to him, in which they recapitulated a series of charges against him of dis- honesty, corruption, and oppression. At the same time a letter,
* Cited in Logan's Scottish Gaël, 223.
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of the same purport, was written to Lord Delaware, and he was told, that such was the indignation felt by the stockholders in the Virginia Company against Argall that they could hardly be re- strained from going to the king, although on a distant progress, and procuring his majesty's command for recalling him as a male- factor. The letter contained further instructions to Lord Dela- ware to seize upon all the goods and property in Argall's posses- sion. These letters, by Lord Delaware's death, fell into Argall's hands, and finding his sand running low, he determined to make the best of his remaining time, and so he multiplied his exactions, and grew more tyrannical than ever. The case of Edward Brew- ster was a remarkable instance of this. A person of good repute in the colony, he had the management of Lord Delaware's estate. Argall, without any rightful authority, removed the servants from his lordship's land, and employed them on his own. Brewster endeavored to make them return, and upon this being flatly re- fused by one of them, threatened him with the consequences of his contumacy. Brewster was immediately arrested by Argall's order, charged with sedition and mutiny, and condemned to death by a court-martial. The members of the court, however, and some of the clergy, shocked at such a conviction, interceded earnestly for his pardon, and Argall reluctantly granted it on con- dition that Brewster should depart from Virginia, with an oath never to return, and never to say or do anything to the disparage- ment of the deputy governor. Brewster, nevertheless, upon his return to England, discarding the obligation of an oath ex- torted under duress, appealed to the Company against the tyranny of the deputy governor, and the inhuman sentence was reversed. John Rolfe, a friend of Argall, made light of the affair .*
During this year, 1618, a ship called the Treasurer was sent out from England by Lord Rich, who had now become Earl of Warwick, a person of great note afterwards in the civil wars, and commander of the fleet against the king. This ship was manned with recruits from the colony, and dispatched on a semi-piratical cruise in the West Indies, where she committed some depreda- tions on the Spanish possessions.
* Smith, ii. 37.
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Upon receiving intelligence of the death of Lord Delaware, the Virginia Company appointed Captain George Yeardley, who was knighted upon this occasion, Governor and Captain-General of Virginia. Before his arrival in the colony Argall embarked for England, in a vessel laden with his effects, and being a rela- tion of Sir Thomas Smith, and a partner in trade of the profligate Earl of Warwick, he escaped with impunity. In 1620 Argall commanded a ship-of-war in an expedition fitted out against the Algerines, and in 1623 was knighted by King James. Argall's character has been variously represented; he appears to have been an expert mariner of talents, courage, enterprise, and energy, but selfish, avaricious, unscrupulous, arbitrary and cruel.
In April, 1618, Powhatan died, being upwards of seventy years of age. He was, perhaps, so called from one of his places of residence ;* he was also sometimes styled Ottaniack, and sometimes Mamanatowick, ; but his proper name was Wahunsonacock. The country subject to him was called Pow- hatan, as was likewise the chief river, and his subjects were called Powhatans. His hereditary domain consisted only of Powhatan, Arrohattox, Appamatuck, Youghtanund, Pamunkey, and Matapony, together with Werowocomoco and Kiskiack. All the rest were his conquests, and they consisted of the country on the James River and its branches, from its mouth to the falls, and thence across the country to the north, nearly as high as the falls of all the great rivers over the Potomac, as far as to the Patuxent in Maryland. Some nations on the Eastern Shore also owned subjection to this mighty werowance. In each of his several hereditary dominions he had houses built like arbors, thirty or forty feet long, and whenever he was about to visit one of these, it was supplied beforehand with provision for his enter- tainment. The English first met with him at a place of his own name, (which it still retains,) a short distance below the falls of James River, where now stands the picturesque City of Rich- mond .¿ His favorite residence was Werowocomoco, on the east
* Stith, 53.
+ Strachey.
į In an act, dated 1705, found in the old "Laws of Virginia," mention is made of a ferry from Powhatantown to the landing at Swineherd's. The site of this
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bank of what is now known as Timberneck Bay, on York River, in the County of Gloucester; but in his latter years, disrelishing the increasing proximity of the English, he withdrew himself to Orapakes, a hunting-town in the "desert," as it was called, more properly the wilderness, between the Chickahominy and the Pamunkey. It is not improbable that he died and was buried there, for a mile from Orapakes, in the midst of the woods, he had a house where he kept his treasure of furs, copper, pearl, and beads, "which he storeth up against the time of his death and burial."* This place is about twelve miles northeast from Rich- mond.
At the time of the first settlement of the colony, Powhatan was usually attended, especially when asleep, by a body-guard of fifty tall warriors; he afterwards augmented the number to about two hundred. He had as many wives as he pleased, and when tired of any one of them, he bestowed her on some favorite. In the year 1608, by treachery, he surprised the Payanketanks, his own subjects, while asleep in their cabins, massacred twenty-four men, and made prisoners their werowance with the women and chil- dren, who were reduced to slavery. Captain Smith, himself a prisoner, saw at Werowocomoco the scalps of the slain suspended on a line between two trees. Powhatan caused certain malefac- tors to be bound hand and foot, then a great quantity of burning coals to be collected from a number of fires, and raked round in the form of a cock-pit, and the victims of his barbarity thrown in the midst and burnt to death. ; He was not entirely destitute of some better qualities; in him some touches of princely magna- nimity are curiously blended with huckstering cunning, and the tenderness of a doating father with the cruelty of an unrelenting despot.
Powhatan was succeeded by his second brother, Opitchapan, sometimes called Itopatin, or Oeatan, who, upon his accession, again changed his name to Sasawpen; as Opechancanough, upon
Powhatantown is on the upper part of Flower de Hundred Plantation. Nume- rous Indian relics have been found there, and earthworks, evidently thrown up for fortification, are still extant. The name of Powhatantown was given to this spot by the whites. Near Jamestown is the extensive Powhatan Swamp.
* Smith, i. 143. + Smith, i. 144.
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the like occasion, changed his to Mangopeomen. Opitchapan being decrepid in body and inert in mind, was in a short time practically superseded in the government by his younger, bolder, and more ambitious brother, the famous Opechancanough ; though for a time he was content to be styled the Werowance of Chicka- hominy. Both renewed the assurances of continued friendship with the English.
CHAPTER X.
Sir Walter Raleigh-His Birth and Parentage-Student at Oxford-Enlists in Service of Queen of Navarre-His stay in France-Returns to England-At the Middle Temple-Serves in Netherlands and Ireland-Returns to England- His Gallantry-Undertakes Colonization of Virginia-Member of Parliament- Knighted-In Portuguese Expedition-Loses Favor at Court-Retires to Ire- land-Spenser-Sir Walter in the Tower-His Flattery of the Queen-She grants him the Manor of Sherborne-His Expedition to Guiana-Joins Expe- dition against Cadiz-Wounded-Makes another Voyage to Guiana-Restored to Queen's Favor-Contributes to Defeat of Treason of Essex-Raleigh made Governor of Jersey-His Liberal Sentiments-Elizabeth's Death-Accession of James the First-Raleigh confined in the Tower-Found guilty of High Treason-Reprieved-Still a Prisoner in the Tower-Devotes himself to Study -His Companions-His "History of the World"-Lady Raleigh's Petition- Raleigh Released-His Last Expedition to Guiana-Its Failure-His Son killed-Sir Walter's Return to England-His Arrest, Condemnation, Execu- tion, Character.
DURING the same year, 1618, died the founder of Virginia colonization, the famous Sir Walter Raleigh. He was born at Hayes, a farm in the Parish of Budley, Devonshire, 1552, being the fourth son of Walter Raleigh, Esq., of Fardel, near Ply- mouth, and Catharine, daughter of Sir Philip Champernon, and widow of Otho Gilbert, of Compton, Devonshire. After passing some time at Oriel College, Oxford, about the year 1568, where he distinguished himself by his genius and attainments, at the age of seventeen he joined a volunteer company of gentlemen, under Henry Champernon, in an expedition to assist the Pro- testant Queen of Navarre. He remained in France five years, and while in Paris, under the protection of the English embassy, he witnessed the massacre of St. Bartholomew's day. On re- turning to England he was for a while in the Middle Temple; but whether as a student is uncertain. His leisure hours were devoted to poetry. In the year 1578 he accompanied Sir John Norris to the Netherlands. In the following year he joined in Sir Humphrey Gilbert's first and unsuccessful voyage. Now, when at the age of twenty-seven, it is said that of the twenty- (132)
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four hours he allotted four to study and only five to sleep; but this is rather improbable, for so much activity of employment as always characterized him, demanded a proportionate degree of repose. In 1580 he served in Ireland as captain of horse, under Lord Grey, and became familiar with the dangers and atrocities of civil war. In 1581, the following year, he became acquainted with the poet Spenser, then resident at Kilcolman. Disgusted with a painful service, Raleigh returned to England during this year, and it was at this period that he exhibited a famous piece of gallantry to the queen. She, in a walk, coming to a "plashy place," hesitated to proceed, when he "cast and spread his new plush cloak on the ground" for her to tread on. By his graceful wit and fascinating manners, he rose rapidly in Eliza- beth's favor, and "she took him for a kind of oracle." His munificent and persevering efforts in the colonization of Virginia ought to have moderated the too sweeping charge of levity and fickleness brought against him by Hume.
During the year 1583 Raleigh became member of Parliament for Devonshire; was knighted, and made Seneschal of Cornwall and Warden of the Stanneries. Engaged in the expedition whose object was to place Don Antonio on the throne of Portu- gal, Sir Walter for his good conduct received a gold chain from the queen. The rivalship of the Earl of Essex having driven Raleigh into temporary exile in Ireland, he there renewed his acquaintance with the author of the "Faëry Queen," who accom- panied him on his return to England.
Sir Walter was arrested in 1592, and confined in the Tower, on account of a criminal intrigue with one of the maids of honor, who was imprisoned at the same time; and this incident is alluded to in Sir Walter Scott's "Fortunes of Nigel." The lady was Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, and a cele- brated beauty, whom Raleigh afterwards married. In a letter written from the Tower, and addressed to Sir Robert Cecil, Raleigh indulged in a vein of extravagant flattery of the queen: "I that was wont to behold her riding like Alexander, hunting like Diana, walking like Venus-the gentle wind blowing her fair hair about her pure cheeks like a nymph; sometime sitting in the shade like a goddess; sometime singing like an angel; sometime
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playing like Orpheus." Elizabeth was at this time about sixty years old.
In 1593 she granted him the Manor of Sherborne, in Dorset- shire. About this period he distinguished himself in the House of Commons. In 1595 he commanded an expedition to Guiana, in quest of the golden El Dorado, and another in the following year. In an expedition against Cadiz he led the van in action, and received a severe wound in the leg. Upon his return to Eng- land he embarked in his third voyage to Guiana. In 1597 he was restored to his place of captain of the guard, and entirely reinstated in the queen's favor.
Essex having engaged in a rash treasonable conspiracy, the ob- ject of which was to seize upon the queen's person, so as thereby to control the government, Raleigh aided in defeating his de- signs. But after the execution of his popular rival, Raleigh's fortune began to wane. Nevertheless, in 1600 he was made Go- vernor of the Isle of Jersey. In the following year, in a speech made in Parliament on an act for sowing hemp, Sir Walter said: "For my part, I do not like this constraining of men to manure or use their grounds at our wills, but rather let every man use his ground to that which it is most fit for, and therein use his discretion." Queen Elizabeth died in 1603, and Raleigh's happi- ness ended with her life.
James the First came to the throne of Great Britain prejudiced against Raleigh. He was also at this time extremely unpopular, and especially odious to the friends of the highly gifted, but rash and unfortunate Earl of Essex. In three months after the arrival of King James in England, Sir Walter was arrested on a charge of high treason, in conspiring with the Lords Cobham and Grey to place the Lady Arabella Stuart on the throne. Arraigned on charges frivolous and contradictory, tried under circumstances of insult and oppression, he was found guilty without any suffi- cient evidence. By their conduct on this occasion, Sir Edward · Coke, Lord Chief Justice Popham, and Sir Robert Cecil proved themselves fit tools for the abject and heartless James. Raleigh, though reprieved, remained a prisoner in the Tower at the king's mercy.
Lady Raleigh and her son were not excluded from the Tower,
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and Carew, the youngest, was born there. During his long con- finement, Sir Walter devoted himself to literature and science, and enjoyed the society of a few friends, among them Hariot and the Earl of Northumberland, who was likewise a State prisoner. Sir Walter was also frequently visited by Prince Henry, the heir- apparent, who was devotedly attached to him, and who said that "none but his father would keep such a bird in a cage." Prince Charles, on the contrary, appears to have entertained a strong dislike to him. In the Tower Raleigh composed his great work, the "History of the World," the first volume of which appeared in the year 1614; it extended from the creation to the close of the Macedonian war, and embraced a period of about four thou- sand years. It was dedicated to Prince Henry. Raleigh in- tended to compose two other volumes, but owing to the untimely death of that prince, and to the suppression of it by King James, on the ground that it censured princes too freely, and perhaps to the magnitude of the task, he proceeded no further than the first volume. Oliver Cromwell recommended this work to his son.
During his confinement the king gave away Raleigh's estate of Sherborne to his favorite, Sir Robert Carr, afterwards the in- famous Viscount Rochester and Earl of Somerset, who swayed the influence at Court from 1611 to 1615, when he was supplanted by the equally corrupt George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham.
When Lady Raleigh, with her children around her, kneeling in tears, besought James to restore this estate, the only answer she received was, "I maun have the land, I maun have it for Carr." At length, owing in part to the death of some of his enemies, and in part to the influence of money, Sir Walter Raleigh was re- leased from the Tower for the purpose of making another voyage to Guiana. The expedition failed in its object, and Sir Walter, after losing his son in an action with the Spaniards, returned to England, where he was arrested.
James was now wholly bent on effecting a match between his son, Prince Charles, afterwards Charles the First, and the Spanish Infanta, and to gratify the Court of Spain and his own malignity, he resolved to sacrifice Raleigh. He was condemned, after a most eloquent defence, under the old conviction of 1603, notwith- standing that he had been recently commissioned commander of
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a fleet and Governor of Guiana, which had unquestionably an- nulled that conviction. "He was condemned (said his son Carew) for being a friend of the Spaniards, and lost his life for being their bitter enemy."
Queen Anne, then in declining health, interceded for him, not long before his execution, in the following note, addressed to the Marquis of Buckingham :-
"MY KIND DOG :-
"If I have any power or credit with you, in dealing sincerely and earnestly with the king, that Sir Walter Raleigh's life may not be called in question. If you do it so that the success answer my expectation, assure yourself that I will take it extraordinarily kindly at your hands, and rest one that wisheth you well, and desires you to continue still (as you have been) a true servant to your master.
"ANNE R."*
Sir Walter Raleigh was executed on the twenty-ninth day of October, 1618, in the Old Palace Yard. He died with Christian heroism. Distinguished as a navigator and discoverer, a naval and military commander, an author in prose and verse, a wit, a courtier, a statesman and philosopher, there is perhaps in Eng- lish history no name associated with such lofty and versatile genius, so much glorious action, and so much wise reflection. He was indeed proud, fond of splendor, of a restless and fiery ambition, sometimes unscrupulous. An ardent imagination, excited by the enthusiasm of an extraordinary age, infused an extravagance and marvellousness into some of his relations of his voyages and dis- coveries, that gave some occasion for distrust. The ardor of his temperament and an over-excited imagination involved him in several projects that terminated unhappily. But with his weak- nesses and his faults he united noble virtues, and Virginia will ever be proud of so illustrious a founder. t
* Miss Strickland's Lives of Queens of England, vii. 357.
¡ Oldy's Life of Raleigh, 74; Belknap, i. art. Raleigh, 289, 370; "A Brief Relation of Sir Walter Raleigh's Troubles," Harleian Mis., No. 100. There are also lives of Raleigh by Birch, Cayley, Southey, and Mrs. Thompson.
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The Queen Anne, of Denmark, who had in vain employed her kind offices in his behalf, did not long survive him; she died in March, 1619. Without any extraordinary qualities, she was ac- complished, distinguished for the easy elegance of her manners, amiable, and the generous friend of the oppressed and unfortu- nate.
CHAPTER XI.
1619.
Sir Edwin Sandys, Treasurer of London Company-Powell, Deputy Governor- Sir George Yeardley, Governor-First Assembly meets-Its Proceedings.
SIR THOMAS SMTIH, Treasurer or Governor of the Virginia Company, was displaced in 1618, and succeeded by Sir Edwin Sandys .* This enlightened statesman and exemplary man was born in Worcestershire, in 1561, being the second son of the Archbishop of York. Educated at Oxford under the care of "the judicious Hooker," he obtained a prebend in the church of York. He afterwards travelled in foreign countries, and pub- lished his observations in a work entitled "Europæ Speculum, or a View of the State of Religion in the Western World." He resigned his prebend in 1602, was subsequently knighted by James, in 1603, and employed in diplomatic trusts. His appoint- ment as treasurer gave great satisfaction to the colony; for free principles were now, under his auspices, in the ascendant. His name is spelt sometimes Sandis, sometimes Sands. Sir Thomas Smith was shortly after reappointed, by the Virginia Company, President of the Somers Islands.
When Argall, in April, stole away from Virginia, he left for his deputy, Captain Nathaniel Powell, t who had come over with Captain Smith in 1607, and had evinced courage and discretion. He was one of the writers from whose narratives Smith compiled his General History. Powell held his office only about ten days, when Sir George Yeardley, recently knighted, arrived as Go- vernor-General, bringing with him new charters for the colony. He added to the council Captain Francis West, Captain Nathaniel
* Court and Times of James the First, i. 161.
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