USA > Virginia > Old Virginia and her neighbours > Part 17
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21
239
THE KINGDOM OF VIRGINIA.
by the Company to governors appointed by the crown was a relaxation of the supervision which England exercised over Virginia. For the Com- pany could devote all its attention to the affairs of the colony, but the crown could not. Especially in such reigns as those of the two Charleses, the attention of the crown was too much absorbed with affairs in Great Britain to allow it to inter- fere decisively with the course of events in Vir- ginia. The colony was thus in the main thrown back upon its own resources, and such a state of things was most favourable to its wholesome development. The Company, after all, was a commercial corporation, and the main object of its existence was to earn money for its shareholders. The pursuit of that objeet was by no means always sure to coincide with the best interests of the colony. Moreover, although the government of the Company from 1619 to 1624 was conducted with energy and sagacity, disinterestedness, hon- esty, and breadth of view such as history has sel- dom seen rivalled, yet there was no likelihood that such would always be the case. Such a com- bination of men in responsible positions as South- ampton and Sandys and Ferrar is too rare to be counted upon. The Company might have passed for a weary while under the. control of incom- petent or unscrupulous men, and to a young colony like Virginia such a contingency would have been not only disagrecable but positively dangerous. No community, indeed, can long afford to have its affairs administered by a body of men so far away as to be out of immediate
240 OLD VIRGINIA AND HER NEIGHBOURS.
touch with it. On the other hand, even if we could suppose a commercial company to go on year after year managing a colony with so much intelligence and sympathy as the London Com- pany showed in its last days, such a situation would not be permanently wholesome for the col- ony. What men need is not fostering or coddling, but the chance to give free play to their individual capacities. If coddling and fostering could make a colony thrive, the French in Canada ought to have dominated North America. From all points of view, therefore, it seems to have been well for Virginia that the Company fell when it did. It established self-government there, set its machin- ery successfully to work, and then vanished from the scene, like the Jinni in some Oriental tale, leaving its good gift behind.
The boon of self-government was so congenial to the temper of the Virginians that they would doubtless have contrived somehow to obtain it sooner or later. Hutchinson tells us that when the second American house of representatives was instituted, namely, that of Massachusetts Bay in 1634, the people were well aware that no provi- sion for anything of the sort had been made in
their charter, but they assumed that the
The virus of
liberty. right to such representation was implied by that clause of the charter which reserved to them the natural rights of Englishmen ; 1 and else- where the same eminent historian quaintly speaks of a House of Burgesses as having broken out in Virginia in 1619, as if there were an incurable
1 Hutchinson, Hist. Mass. Bay, i. 37.
241
THE KINGDOM OF VIRGINIA.
virns of liberty in the English blood, as if it were something that must come out as inevitably as original sin. But if James I. had lived longer, as I have already observed, he would undoubtedly have made an effort to repress this active spirit of lib- erty. The colonists, on hearing of the downfall of the Company, were in great alarm lest they should lose their House of Burgesses, and have some arbitrary governor appointed to rule over them, perhaps the hated Argall himself, whom we have seen King James selecting as one of a board of commissioners to investigate affairs in Virginia. In 1621, when for some reason or other the amia- ble and popular Yeardley had asked to be relieved of the duties of governor, Argall had tried to get himself appointed in his place, but the Company had chosen Sir Francis Wyatt, who held the office until 1626, while Yeardley remained in Virginia as a member of the council. In 1625, as soon as the assembly heard of King James's death, they sent Yeardley to England to pay their respects to King Charles and to assure him that the people of Virginia were thoroughly satisfied with their government and hoped that no changes would be made in it.
Now it happened that Charles had a favour to ask of the settlers in Virginia, and was in the right sort of mood for a bargain. He was no more in love than his father with the many- tongued beast called Parliament, he saw how com -. fortably his brother-in-law of France was getting along without such assistance, and he was deter- mined if possible to do likewise. But to get along
242 OLD VIRGINIA AND HER NEIGHBOURS.
without parliaments a poor king must have some means of getting money. The Virginia
Charles I. and the to- tobacco crop was fast becoming a great
bacco trade. source of wealth ; why should not the king himself go into the tobacco trade? If all tobacco brought to England from Virginia could be consigned to him, then he could retail it to consumers at his own price and realize a gigantic profit ; or, what was perhaps still better, having obtained this monopoly, he could farm it out to various agents who would be glad to pay roundly for the privilege. Now the only way in which he could treat with the people of Virginia on such matters was through the representatives of the people. Accordingly, when Governor Wyatt in 1626 had occasion to return to England, the king sent back Sir George Yeardley as royal governor, which under the circumstances was a most em- phatic assurance that the wishes of the settlers should be granted. Furthermore, in a message to their representatives Charles graciously addressed them as " Our trusty and well-beloved Burgesses of the Grand Assembly of Virginia," and thus officially recognized that house as a coordinate branch of the colonial government. Some arrange- ments made with regard to the tobacco trade were calculated to please the colonists. James I., under the influence of his mentor, Count Gondo- mar, had browbeaten the Company into an ar- rangement by which they consented to import into England not more than 60,000 or less than 40,000 pounds of tobacco yearly from the Spanish colonies. Charles I. on the other hand prohibited
243
THE KINGDOM OF VIRGINIA.
the importation of Spanish tobacco, so that Vir- ginia and the Bermudas had a monopoly of the market. In spite of this friendly attitude of the king toward the colonists, he never succeeded in becoming the sole purchaser of their tobacco at a stipulated price. The assembly was ready from time to time to entertain various proposals, but it never went so far as that : and if Charles. in sanctioning this little New World parliament, counted upon getting substantial aid in ignoring his Parliament at home, he was sadly disap- pointed.
It is now time for us to attend a session of this House of Burgesses, to make a report of its work, and to mention some of the vicissitudes which it encountered in the course of the reign of Charles I. The place of meeting was the wooden The first church at Jamestown, 50 feet in length American legislature.
by 20 in width, built in 1619, for Lord
Delaware's church had become dilapidated : a solid brick church, 56 feet by 28, was built there in 1639. From the different plantations and hun- dreds the burgesses came mostly in their barges or sloops to Jamestown. In 1634 the colony was organized into counties and parishes, and the bur- gesses thenceforth represented counties, but they always kept their old title. At first the governor, council, and burgesses met together in a single assembly, just as in Massachusetts until 1644, just as in England the Lords and Commons usually sat together before 1339.1 A member of this Vir-
1 Skottowe, Short History of Parliament, p. 19; Taswell- Langmead, English Constitutional History, p. 262.
244 OLD VIRGINIA AND HER NEIGHBOURS.
ginia parliament must take his breakfast of bacon and hoe-cake betimes, for the meeting was called together at the third beat of the drum, one hour after sunrise. The sessions were always opened with prayers, and every absence from this service was punished with a fine of one shilling. The fine for absence during the whole day was half a crown. In the choir of the church sat the gov- ernor and council, their coats trimmed with gold lace. By the statute of 1621, passed in this very church, no one was allowed to wear gold lace except these high officials and the commanders of hundreds, a class of dignitaries who in 1634 were succeeded by the county lieutenants. In the body of the church, facing the choir, sat the burgesses in their best attire, with starched ruffs, and coats of silk or velvet in bright colours. All sat with their hats on, in imitation of the time-honoured custom of the House of Commons, an early illus- tration of the democratic doctrine, "I am as good as you." These burgesses had their speaker. as well as their clerk and sergeant-at-arms. Such was the first American legislature, and two of its acts in the year 1624 were especially memorable. One was the declaration, passed without any di- senting voice, "that the governor shall not lay any taxes or impositions upon the colony, their lands or commodities, otherway than by the authority of the general assembly, to be levied and employed as the said assembly shall appoint." The other was the punishment of Edward Shar- pless, clerk of the house. When the king's.com- missioners to inquire into the affairs of Virginia
245
THE KINGDOM OF VIRGINIA.
asked for the public records of the colony the assembly refused to show them, albeit they were ready to answer questions propounded in a becom- ing temper. But the commissioners practised upon Sharpless and induced him to furnish them with a copy of the records, whereupon the assem- bly condemned the said Sharpless to stand in the pillory and have half of one ear cut off.
This general assembly was both a legislative and a judicial body. It enacted laws and pre- scribed the penalties for breaking them, it tried before a jury persons accused of crime and saw that due punishment was inflicted upon those who were adjudged guilty, it determined eivil causes, assessed the amount of damages, and saw that they were collected. From sweeping principles of con- stitutional law down to the pettiest sumptuary ediets, there was nothing which this little parlia- ment did not superintend and direct. On Martin's one occasion, " the delegates from Cap- case.
tain John Martin's plantation were excepted to because of a peculiar clause in his patent releasing him from obeying any order of the colony except in times of war." A few days afterward the said Captain Martin appeared at the bar of the house, and the speaker asking whether he would relin- quish the particular clause exempting him from colonial authority, replied that he would not yield any part of his patent. The assembly then re- solved that the burgesses of his plantation were not entitled to seats.1 Such exemptions of indi- vidual planters by especial license from the home
1 Neill's Virginia Company. p. 140.
246 OLD VIRGINIA AND HER NEIGHBOURS.
government, although rare, were of course anom- alies not to be commended ; in some cases they proved to be nuisances, and in course of time all were got rid of. From this constitutional ques- tion the assembly turned to the conversion of the red men, and enacted that each borough or hun- dred should obtain from the Indians by just and fair means a certain number of Indian children to be educated "in true religion and a civil Education of Indians, course of life; of which children the most towardly boys in wit and graces of nature [are] to be brought up by them in the first ele- ments of literature, so as to be fitted for the col- lege intended for them, that from thence they may be sent to that work of conversion." Few enact- ments of any legislature have ever been better intended or less fruitful than this.
It was moreover enacted that any person found drunk was for the first offence to be pri-
Drunkards. vately reproved by the minister ; the second time this reproof was to be publicly admin- istered ; the third time the offender must be put in irons for twelve hours and pay a fine; for any subsequent offences he must be severely punished at the discretion of the governor and council.
To guard the community against excessive van- ity in dress, it was enacted that for all Dress. public contributions every unmarried man must be assessed in church " according to his own apparel ; " and every married man must be assessed " according to his own and his wife's ap- parel."
Not merely extravagance in dress, but such
247
THE KINGDOM OF VIRGINIA.
social misdemeanours as flirting received due legis- lative condemnation. Pretty maids were Flirting. known to encourage hopes in more than
one suitor, and gay deceivers of the sterner sex would sometimes seek to win the affections of two or more women at the same time. Wherefore it was enacted that "every minister should give notice in his church that what man or woman soever should use any word or speech tending to a contract of marriage to two several persons at one time . . . as might entangle or breed scruples in their consciences, should for such their offense, either undergo corporal correction [by whipping] or be punished by fine or otherwise, according to the quality of the person so offending." 1
Men were held to more strict accountability for the spoken or written word than in these shame- less modern days. One of the most prominent settlers we find presenting a petition to the as- sembly to grant him due satisfaction against a neighbour who has addressed to him a letter "wherein he taxeth him both unseemly and amiss of certain things wherein he was never faulty." Speaking against the governor or any Scandal. member of the council was liable to be
punished with the pillory. It was also imprudent to speak too freely about clergymen, who were held in great reverence. No planter could dispose of so much as a pound of tobacco until he had laid aside a certain specified quantity as his Clergymen. assessment toward the minister's salary, which was thus assured even in the worst times, so
1 Cooke's Virginia, p. 140.
248 OLD VIRGINIA AND HER NEIGHBOURS.
far as legislation could go. It was enacted that "noe man shall disparage a mynister whereby the myndes of his parishoners may be alienated from him and his mynistrie prove less effectuall, upon payne of severe censure of the governor and coun- cell." 1 At the same time clergymen were warned against unseemly practices in terms so concrete as to raise a suspicion that such warning may have been needed. "Mynisters shall not give them- selves to excesse in drinking or ryott, spending their tyme idelie by day or by night playing at dice, cards, or any other unlawfull game, but at all tymes convenient they shall heare or reade somewhat of the holy scriptures, or shall occupie themselves with some other honest studies or ex- ercise, alwayes doinge the things which shall apperteyne to honestie and endeavour to profitt the church of God, having alwayes in mind that they ought to excell all others in puritie of life, should be examples to the people, to live well and christianlie." 2
The well-being of Virginia society was further protected by sundry statutes such as the one which punished profane swearing by a fine of one shil- Sabbath- ling per oath. "For the better observa-
breaking. tion of the Saboth " it was enacted that no person " shall take a voyage vppon the same. except it be to church or for other causes of extreme necessitie," under penalty of forfeiting twenty pounds of tobacco for each offenee. 1 similar fine was imposed for firing a gun upon
1 Hening's Statutes at Large, i. 150.
2 Hening, i. 158, 183.
249
THE KINGDOM OF VIRGINIA.
Sunday, unless it might be for defence against the Indians. Selling arms or ammunition to Indians was punished by imprisonment for life, with con- fiscation of goods. Every master of a family was required, under penalty of ten pounds of tobacco. to bring with him to church every Sunday a ser- vieeable gun with plenty of powder and shot.
Stringent legislation protected the rights of thirsty persons. " Whereas there hath Strong
been great abuse by the vnreasonable drink.
rates enacted by ordinary keepers, and retaylers of wine and strong waters," maximum prices were established as follows : for Spanish wines 30 lbs. of tobacco per gallon, for Madeira 20 lbs., for French wines 15 lbs .. for brandy 40 lbs., for " the best sorte of all English strong waters " 80 lbs. ; and any vender charging above these rates was to be fined at double the rate. For corrupting or "sophisticating " good liquor by fraudulent admix- tures, a fine was imposed at the discretion of the commissioners of the county courts. The inn- keeper who sold wines and spirits to his guests did so at his own risk, for such debts were not recov- erable at law.1
The ancient prejudice against forestalling sur- vives in the following statute, which would make havoc of the business of some modern brokers : " Whatsoever person or persons shall buy
or cause to be bought any marchandize, Forestaller s. vietualls, or any other thinge, comminge by land or water to the markett to be sold, or make any bargaine, contract or promise for the haveinge or
1 Hening, i. 104, 219, 261, 263, 300, 319, 350.
-
250 OLD VIRGINIA AND HER NEIGHBOURS.
buyinge of the same . . . before the said mar- chandize, victualls, or other thinge shall bee at the markett readie to be sold; or make any motion by word, letter or message or otherwise to any person or persons for the enhaunsing of the price, or dearer sellinge of any thinge or thinges above mentioned. or else disswade, move, or stirr any person or persons cominge to the marquett. to abstaine or forbeare to bringe or conveye any of the things above rehearsed to any markett as aforesayd, shall be deemed and adjudged a fore- staller. And sf any person or persons shall offend in the things before recited and beinge thereof dulie convicted or attaynted shall for his or theire first offence suffer imprisonment by the space of two mounthes without baile or maine- prize, and shall also loose and forfeite the value of the goods soe by him or them bought or had as aforesayd; and for a second offence . . . shall suffer imprisonment by the space of one halfe yeare . . . and shall loose the double value of all the goods . . soe bought . . and for the third
offence . . shall be sett on the pillorie . . . and loose and forfeit all the goods and chattels that he or they then have to theire owne use, and also be committed to prison, there to remayne duringe the Governor's pleasure." 1
Edmund Spenser, in his dedication of the " Faëry Queene," in 1590, calls Elizabeth th . queen of England, France, and Ireland, and vi Virginia, thus characterizing as a kingdom th-
1 Hening, i. 194.
251
THE KINGDOM OF VIRGINIA.
vast and vague domain in the New World which she was appropriating. Soon after the downfall of the Virginia Company, the document contain- ing Charles I.'s appointment of William Claiborne as secretary of state in the colony men- The king-
tioned it as " our kingdom of Virginia ; " doin of Vir- gunia.
and the phrase occurs in other writing's of the time. It is a phrase that seems especially appropriate for the colony after it had come to be a royal province, directly dependent upon the king for its administration. During the reign of Charles I. the relations of the kingdom of Vir- ginia to the mother country were marked by few memorable incidents. In this respect the contrast with the preceding reign is quite striking. One must read the story in the original state papers, correspondence, and pamphlets of the time, in order to realize to what an extent the colony was cut loose by the overthrow of the Company. The most interesting and important questions that came up were connected with the settlement of Mary- land, but before we enter upon that subject, a few words are needed on the succession of royal gov- ernors in Virginia.
The commission of Yeardley in 1626 named Sir John Harvey as his successor. When Yeardley died in 1627, Harvey had not arrived upon the scene, and needed to be notified. In such cases it was the business of the council to appoint a gov- ernor ad interim, and the council appointed one of the oldest and most honoured settlers, Francis West, brother of the late Lord Delaware. After one year of service business called West to Eng-
252 OLD VIRGINIA AND HER NEIGIIBOURS.
land, and his place was taken by Dr. John Pott, who held the government until Sir John Harvey's arrival in March, 1680. This Dr. Pott is described as " a Master of Arts, . . . well practised in chi- rurgery and physie, and expert also in distilling of waters, [besides ] many other ingenious devices." 1 A convivial It seems that he was likewise very fond
governor. of tasting distilled waters, and at times was more of a boon companion than quite com- ported with his dignity, especially after he had come to be governor. A letter of George Sandys to a friend in London says of Dr. Pott. "at first he kept company too much with his inferiors. who hung upon him while his good liquor lasted. After, he consorted with Captain Whitacres, a man of no good example, with whom he has gone to Kecoughtan." 2 What was done by the twain at Kecoughtan is not matter of record, but we are left with a suggestion of the darkest possibilities of a carouse.
After Harvey's arrival ex-Governor Pott was arrested, and held to answer two charges: one was for having abused the powers entrusted to him by pardoning a culprit who had been convicted of wilful murder : the other was for stealing cattle. The first charge was a matter of common noto- riety ; on the second Dr. Pott was tried by a jury and found guilty. The ex-governor was not only a pardoner of felony, but a felon himself. The affair reads like a scene in comic opera. Some reluctance was felt about inflicting vulgar punish-
1 Noill's Virginia Company, p. 221.
2 Neill's Virginia Carolorum, p. 79.
253
THE KINGDOM OF VIRGINIA.
ment upon an educated man of good social posi- tion : so he was not sent to jail but confined in his own house, while Sir John Harvey wrote to the king for instructions in the matter. He informed the king that Dr. Pott was by far the best phy- sician in the colony, and indeed the only one "skilled in epidemicals," and recommended that he should be pardoned. Accordingly the doctor was set free and forthwith resumed his practice.
Soon it was Governor Harvey's turn to get into difficulties. How he was "thrust out" from his government in 1635 and restored to it by Charles I. in 1637 will best be told in a future chapter in connection with the affairs of Maryland. After Harvey's final departure in 1639, Sir Francis Wyatt was once more governor for three years, and then came the famous Sir William Berkeley, who remained for five-and-thirty years the most conspicuous figure in Virginia. Growth of Virginia.
When Berkeley arrived upon the scene, in 1642, on the eve of the great Civil War, he received from Wyatt the government of a much greater Virginia than that over which Wyatt was ruling in 1624. Those eighteen years of self-government had been years of remarkable prosperity and pro- gress. Instead of 4,000 English and 22 negroes. the population now numbered 15,000 English and 300 negroes. Moreover, Virginia was no longer the only English colony. In 1624 there were no others. except the little band of about Other
200 Pilgrims at Plymouth. In 1642 the colonies.
population of New England numbered 26,000, distributed among half-a-dozen self-governing col-
254 OLD VIRGINIA AND HER NEIGHBOURS.
onies. There was also a community of Dutch- men laying claim to the whole region between the Mohawk valley and Delaware Bay. with a flourishing town on Manhattan Island in the finest commercial situation on the whole Atlantic coast. The Virginians did not relish the presence of these Dutchmen, for they too laid claim to that noble tract of country. The people of Virginia had made the first self-supporting colony and felt that they had established a claim upon the middle zone. The very name Virginia had not yet ceased to cling to it. In books of that time one' may read of the town of New Amsterdam upon the island of Manhattan in Virginia. In 1635 a party of Vir- ginians went up to the Delaware River and took possession of an old blockhouse there, called Fort Nassau, which the Dutch had abandoned; but a force from New Amsterdam speedily took them prisoners and sent them back to Virginia,1 with a polite warning not to do so any more. They did not.
Still nearer at hand, by the waters of the Poto- mac and Susquehanna, other rivals and competi- tors, even more unwelcome to the Virginians, had lately come upon the scene. The circumstances of the founding of Maryland, with its effects upon the kingdom of Virginia, will be recounted in the two following chapters.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.