USA > Virginia > Old Virginia and her neighbours > Part 6
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As for the northern and southern limits of Vir- ginia, they were evidently prescribed with a view
62 OLD VIRGINIA AND HER NEIGHBOURS.
to arousing as little antagonism as possible on the
Northern part of Spain and France. Expressed in and south- ern limits of terms of the modern map, the 34th paral- Virginia. lel cuts through the mouth of the Cape Fear River and passes just south of Columbia, the capital of South Carolina ; while the 45th par- allel is that which divides Vermont from Canada. English settlers were thus kept quite clear of the actual settlements of Spaniards in Florida, and would not immediately be brought into collision with the French friars and fur-traders who were beginning to find their way up the St. Lawrence.
The Virginia thus designated was to be open for colonization by two joint-stock companies, of which the immediate members and such The twin joint-stock companies, and the as should participate with them in the enterprise should be called respectively three zones. the First Colony and the Second Col- ony. The First Colony was permitted to occupy the territory between the 34th and the 41st par- allels, while the Second Colony was permitted to occupy the territory between the 38th and the 45th parallels. It will thus be observed that the strip between the 38th and 41st parallels was open to both, but it was provided that neither colony should make a plantation or settlement within a hundred miles of any settlement already begun by the other. The elaborate ingenuity of this arrangement is characteristic of James's little de- vice-loving mind; its purpose, no doubt, was to quicken the proceedings by offering to reward whichever colony should be first in the field with a prior claim upon the intervening region. The
A DISCOURSE OF WESTERN PLANTING. 63
practical result was the division of the Virginia territory into three strips or zones. The southern zone, starting from the coast comprised between the mouth of the Cape Fear River and the mouth of the Potomac, was secured to the First Colony. The northern zone, starting from the coast com- prised between the Bay of Fundy and Long Island Sound, was secured to the Second Colony. The middle zone, from the lower reaches of the Hud- son River down to the mouth of the Potomac, was left open to competition between the two, with a marked advantage in favour of the one that should first come to be self-supporting.
It is a curious fact that, although the actual course taken by the colonization of North America was very different from what was contemplated in this charter, nevertheless the division of our terri- tory into the three zones just mentioned The three zones in American history. has happened to coincide with a real and very important division that exists to-day. Of our original thirteen states, those of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut were founded in the northern zone, and within it their people have spread through central New York into the Far West. In the middle zone, with the exception of a few northerly towns upon the Hudson, were made the beginning3 of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Dela- ware, and Maryland. In the southern zone were planted Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia. Be- tween the three groups the differences in local government have had much significance in the history of the American people. In the northern
3
: :
64 OLD VIRGINIA AND HER NEIGHBOURS.
zone the township system of local government has prevailed, and in the southern zone the county system, while in the middle zone the mixed town- ship - and - county system has exhibited various phases, here and there reaching a very high stage of development.1
To return to King James's charter, the govern- ment which it provided for his two American colo-
Government nies was such as he believed would prove
of the two simple and efficient. A Royal Council colonies. of Virginia, consisting of thirteen per- sons, was created in London, and its members were to be appointed by the king. It was to exercise a general supervision over the two colonies, but the direct management of affairs in each colony was to be entrusted to local resident councils. Each local council was to consist of thirteen persons, of whom one was to be president, with a casting vote. The council in London was to give the wheels of government a start by appointing the first mem- bers of the two colonial councils and designating that member of each who should serve as presi- dent for the first year. After that the vehicle was to run of itself ; the colonial council was to elect its president each year, and could depose him in case of misconduct ; it could also fill its own vacan- cies, arising from the resignation, deposition, de- parture, or death of any of its members. Power was given to the colonial council to coin money for trade between the colonies and with the natives, to invite and carry over settlers, to drive out intrud- ers, to punish malefactors, and to levy and collect
1 See my Civil Government in the United States, chap. iv.
....
A DISCOURSE OF WESTERN PLANTING. 65
duties upon divers imported goods. All lands within the two colonies were to be held in free and common socage, like the demesnes of the manor of East Greenwich, in the county of Kent ; and the settlers and their children forever were to enjoy all the liberties, franchises, and immu- nities enjoyed by Englishmen in England, -- a clause which was practically nullified by the fail- ure to provide for popular elections or any expres- sion whatever of public opinion. The authority of the colonial councils was supreme within the colo- nies, but their acts were liable to a veto from the Crown.
This first English attempt at making an outline of government for an English colony can never fail to be of interest. It was an experimental treatment of a wholly new and unfamiliar problem, and, as we shall hereafter see, it was soon proved to be a very crude experiment, needing much mod- ification. For the present we are concerned with the names and characters of the persons to whom this ever-memorable charter was granted.
The persons interested in the First Colony, in that southern zone which had been the scene of Raleigh's original attempts, were repre- sented by some eminent citizens of Lon- Persons chietly inter- ested in the First Col- don and its neighbourhood, so that they came afterward to be commonly known ony ; the London Company. as the London Company. The names mentioned in the charter are four: the Rev. Rich- ard Hakluyt, who had lately been made a preben- dary of Westminster; Sir Thomas Gates, Sir George Somers, and Captain Edward Maria Wing-
:
66 OLD VIRGINIA AND HER NEIGHBOURS.
field. Gates was a Devonshire soldier who had been knighted in 1596 for brave conduct in the battle of Cadiz, and had afterward served in the Nether- lands. Somers was a native of Dorsetshire, and had received knighthood for eminent services as commander in several naval expeditions against the Spaniards. Captain Edward Maria Wing- field, of Stoneley Priory, in Huntingdonshire, was of a very ancient and honourable Catholic family ; Queen Mary Tudor and Cardinal Pole had been sponsors for his father, which accounts for the feminine middle name; he had served in the Netherlands and in Ireland ; among his near rela- tives, or connections by marriage, were Shake- speare's Earl of Southampton, the lords Carew and Hervey, and John Winthrop, of Groton, after- wards governor of Massachusetts. But the name which, after Hakluyt's, has been perhaps most closely identified with the London Company is that of Sir Thomas Smith, the eminent London citizen who was its first treasurer. From the time of his student days at Oxford Smith felt a strong interest in "western planting," and we have al- ready met with his name on the list of those to whom Raleigh in 1589 assigned his trading inter- ests in Virginia. He was knighted in 1596 for gallantry at Cadiz, was alderman and sheriff of London, and first governor of the East India Company in 1600. He was at various times a member of Parliament, served as ambassador to Russia, and was especially forward in promoting Arctic discovery. He was one of those who sent Henry Hudson in 1610 upon his last fatal voyage,
A DISCOURSE OF WESTERN PLANTING. 67
and it was under his anspices that William Baffin was sailing in 1616 when he discovered that re- mote strait leading to the Polar Sea which has ever since been known as Smith's Sound. Few men of that time contributed more largely in time and money to the London Company than Sir Thomas Smith.
The persons interested in the Second Colony, in that northern zone to which attention had recently been directed by the voyages of Gosnold, Pring, and Weymouth, were represented Persons chiefly inter- ested in the Second Col- ony ; the Plymouth Company. by certain gentlemen connected with the western counties, especially by Sir Fer- dinando Gorges, governor of the garrison at Plymouth in Devonshire, who was afterwards to be Lord Proprietor of the Province of Maine, and to play a part of some importance in the early history of New England. This company came to be known as the Plymouth Company. The four names mentioned in the charter are Raleigh Gil- bert, William Parker, Thomas Hanham, and George Popham. The name of the first of these gentlemen tells its own story; he was a younger son of Sir Humphrey Gilbert and named for his unele. William Parker was son and heir of Lord Morley, and commonly known by his courtesy title as Lord Monteagle. It was he who received the anonymous letter which led to the detection of the Gunpowder Plot, in which his wife's brother was concerned. George Popham was a nephew,1 and Thomas Hanham was a grandson, of Sir John
1 He is commonly but incorrectly called the brother of the Chief Justice.
68 OLD VIRGINIA AND HER NEIGHBOURS.
Popham, Chief Justice of the King's Bench. They were a Somersetshire family. In securing the charter incorporating the London and Plym- outh companies nobody was more active or in- fluential than the chief justice, whom we have seen singled out for mention by the Spanish am- bassador.
Among other persons especially interested in the colonization of Virginia, one should mention
Other emi- George Abbot, Master of University
nent persons College, Oxford, one of the translators
interested in
the scheme. of the common version of the Bible, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury ; and Sir Julius Cæsar, member of Parliament for West- minster and Chancellor of the Exchequer, son of Julius Cæsar Adelmare, Queen Elizabeth's Italian physician ; his strong interest in maritime discov- ery and western planting may have been due to the fact that, after the death of his father and while he was still a child, his mother married the celebrated geographer, Dr. Michael Lok. We should not forget Sir Maurice Berkeley, two of whose sons we shall meet hereafter, one of them, Sir William Berkeley, the most conspicuous figure among the royal governors of Virginia, the other, Lord Berkeley of Stratton, one of the proprietors of Carolina. An important subscriber to the com- pany was Sir Anthony Ashley, grandfather of the famous Earl of Shaftesbury, who was also one of the Carolina proprietors ; another was William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, nephew of Sir Philip Sidney and devoted friend of Shakespeare ; an- other was Sir Henry Cary, father of the pure and
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A DISCOURSE OF WESTERN PLANTING. 69
high-minded statesman, Lucius, Viscount Falk- land. Of more importance for Virginian history than any of the foregoing was Sir Edwin Sandys, son of Edwin Sandys, Archbishop of York. Sir Edwin was a pupil of the great Richard Hooker, and learned from him principles of toleration little understood in that age. After his travels on the continent he published in 1605 a treatise entitled " Europæ Speculum, a relation of the state of reli- gion in . . . these Western Parts of the World ; " its liberal opinions gave so much offence that about four months after its publication it was burned in St. Paul's Churchyard by order of the Court of High Commission. At that very time Sandys was one of the most admired and respected members of the House of Commons, and it was on his motion that the House first began keeping a regular jour- nal of its transactions. He was associated with Sir Francis Bacon in drawing up the remonstrance against King James's behaviour toward Parlia- ment. In later years he was an active friend of the Mayflower Pilgrims and gave them valuable aid in setting out upon their enterprise. But his chief title to historic fame consists in the fact that it was under his auspices and largely through his exertions that free representative government was first established in America. How this came about will be shown in a future chapter. For the pres- ent we may note that at least half a dozen of his immediate family were subscribers to the London Company ; one of his brothers had for godfather Sir Thomas Lney, of Charlecote Hall, the Puritan knight who figures as Justice Shallow in the
70 OLD VIRGINIA AND HER NEIGHBOURS.
" Merry Wives of Windsor;" there were at least two intermarriages between this Sandys family and that of Lawrence Washington, of Sulgrave, ances- tor of George Washington. It is pleasant to trace the various connections, near and remote, whether in blood-relationship or in community of interests and purposes, between the different personages of a great era that has passed away ; for the more we come to discern in its concrete details the intricate web of associations running in all directions among the men and events of the vanished age, the more vividly is that age reproduced in our minds. the closer does it come to the present, the more keenly does it enlist our sympathies. As we contemplate the goodly array here brought forward of person- ages coneerned in the first planting of an English nation in America, the inquiry as to what sort of men they were, for intelligence and character, is one that can be answered with satisfaction.
In accordance with the provisions of the charter, both London and Plymouth companies made haste to organize expeditions for planting their colonies in the New World. The London Company was the first to be ready, but before we follow its ad- ventures a word about the Plymouth Company seems called for. On the last day of May, 1607, two ships - the Gift of God, commanded by George Popham, and the Mary and John, Expedition of the Plym- outh Com- pany ; fail- ure of the commanded by Raleigh Gilbert - set sail from Plymouth with a hundred set- tlers. In August, after some exploration Popham Colony. of the coast, they selected a site by the mouth of the Kennebec River, and built there a
A DISCOURSE OF WESTERN PLANTING. 71
rude fort with twelve guns, a storehouse and church, and a few cabins. They searched diligently but in vain for traces of gold or silver ; the winter brought with it much hardship, their storehouse was burned down, and Captain Popham died. In the spring a ship which arrived with supplies from England brought the news of two deaths, that of Chief Justice Popham, and that of Gilbert's elder brother, to whose estates he was heir. The enter- prise was forthwith abandoned and all returned to England with most discouraging reports. The further career of the Plymouth Company does not at present concern us. It never achieved any notable success. When the colonization of New England was at length accomplished it was in a manner that was little dreamed of by the king who granted or the men who obtained the charter of 1606.
The expedition fitted out by the London Com- pany was in readiness a little before Christmas, 1606, and was placed under command of Expedition of the Lon- Captain Christopher Newport, the stout don Com- sailor who had brought in the great pany.
Spanish carrack for Raleigh. IIe was one of the most skilful and highly esteemed officers in the English navy. Of the three ships that were to go to Virginia his was the Susan Constant. The Godspeed was commanded by Bartholomew Gos. nold, and the Discovery by John Ratcliffe. Be- sides their crews, the three ships carried 105 col- onists. By some queer freak of policy the names of the persons appointed to the colonial council were carried in a sealed box, not to be opened
72
OLD VIRGINIA AND HER NEIGHBOURS.
until the little squadron should arrive at its des- tination. An important paper of instructions was drawn up for the use of the officers on landing. Hakluyt was commonly called upon to prepare such documents, and the style of this one sounds like him. The suggestions are those of a man who understood the business.1
" When it shall please God to send you on the coast of Virginia, you shall do your best endeavour to find out a safe port in the entrance
Instructions to the colo- nists. of some navigable river, making choice of such a one as runneth farthest into the land. . . . When you have made choice of the river on which you mean to settle, be not hasty in landing your victuals and munitions, but first let Captain Newport discover how far that river may be found navigable, that you make election of the strongest, most wholesome and fertile place. for if you make many removes, besides the loss of time, you shall greatly spoil your vietuals and your casks.
"But if you choose your place so far up as a bark of 50 tons will float, then you may lay all your provisions ashore with ease, and the Where to
choose a site better receive the trade of all the coun- for a town. tries abont you in the land ; and such a place you may perehance find a hundred miles from the river's mouth. and the further up the better, for if you sit down near the entrance, except it be in some island that is strong by nature, an enemy that may approach you on even ground may easily
1 The original is in the MS. Minutes of the London Company. in the Library of Congress, 2 vols. folio.
A DISCOURSE OF WESTERN PLANTING. 73
pull you out ; and [i. e. but] if he be driven to scek you a hundred miles the [i. e. in]land in boats, you shall from both sides of the river where it is narrowest, so beat them with your muskets as they shall never be able to prevail against you."
That the enemy in the writer's mind was the Spaniard is clearly shown by the next paragraph, which refers expressly to the massacre of the Hu- guenot colony in Florida and the vengeance taken by Dominique de Gourgues.
" And to the end that you be not surprised as the French were in Florida by Melindus [i. e. Menen- dez] and the Spaniard in the same place by the French, you shall do well to make Precautions against a surprise. this double provision : first erect a little store at the mouth of the river that may lodge some ten men, with whom you shall leave a light boat, that when any fleet shall be in sight they may come with speed to give you warning. Sec- ondly, you must in no case suffer any of the native people to inhabit between you and the sea-coast, for you cannot carry yourselves so towards them but they will grow discontented with your habita- tion, and be ready to guide and assist any nation that shall come to invade you ; and if you neglect this you neglect your safety.
" You must observe if you can whether the river on which you plant doth spring out of mountains or out of lakes. If it be out of any lake the passage to the other sea [i. e. the You must try to find the Pacific Ocean. Pacific Ocean] will be the more easy ; and [it] is like enough that out of the same lake you shall find some [rivers] spring which run the
.
74 OLD VIRGINIA AND HER NEIGHBOURS.
contrary way toward the East India Sea, for the great and famous rivers of Volga, Tanais, and Dwina have three heads near joined, and yet the one falleth into the Caspian Sea, the other into the Euxine Sea, and the third into the Polonian Sea.
". . . You must have great care not to offend the naturals, if you can eschew it, and employ some few of your company to trade with them
Do not of-
fend the for corn and all other lasting victuals . . . , natives, or put much trust in and this you must do before that they them. perceive you mean to plant among them. Your discoverers that pass over land with hired guides must look well to them that they slip not from them, and for more assurance let them take a compass with them, and write down how far they go upon every point of the compass. for that country having no way or path, if that your guides run from you in the great woods or desert. you shall hardly ever find a passage back. And how weary soever your soldiers be, let them never trust the country people with the carriage of their weap- ons, for if they run from you with your shot which they only fear, they will easily kill them [i. e. you] all with their arrows. And whensoever any of yours shoots before them, be sure that they be chosen out of your best marksmen, for if they see your learners miss what they aim at, they will think the weapon not so terrible, and thereby will be bold to assault you.
" Above all things, do not advertise the killing of any of your men [so] that the country people may know it. If they perceive that they are but
A DISCOURSE OF WESTERN PLANTING. 75
common men, and that with the loss of many of theirs they may diminish any part of Conceal from them your weak- nesses. yours, they will make many adventures upon you. . . . You shall do well also not to let them see or know of your sick men, if you have any. . . .
"You must take especial care that you choose a seat for habitation that shall not be overburthened with woods near your town, for all the . men you have shall not be able to cleanse .woodland Beware of twenty acres a year. besides that it may coverts. serve for a covert for your enemies round about.
" Neither must you plant in a low or moist place, because it will prove unhealthful. You shall judge of the good air by the people, for some part of that coast where the lands are
Avoid mala- ria. low have their people blear eyed, and with swollen bellies and legs, but if the naturals be strong and clean made it is a true sign of a wholesome soil.
"You must take order to draw up the pinnace that is left with you under the fort, and Guard take her sails and anchors ashore, all but against desertion. a small kedge to ride by, lest some ill-disposed persons slip away with her."
The document contains many other excellent suggestions and directions, two or three of which will suffice for the purposes of our narrative.
"Seeing order is at the same price with confu- sion it shall be advisably done to set your houses even and by a line, that your streets may have a good breadth and be carried Build your town care- fully. square about your market - place, and every street's end opening into it, that from thence
76 OLD VIRGINIA AND HER NEIGHBOURS.
with a few field - pieces you may command every street throughout. . . .
" You shall do well to send a perfect relation by Captain Newport of all that is done, what height Do not send you are seated, how far into the land, home any
discouraging what commodities you find. what soil. news. woods and their several kinds, and so of all other things else, to advertise particularly ; and to suffer no man to return but by passport from the President and Council, nor to write [in] any letter of anything that may discourage others.
"Lastly and chiefly, the way to prosper and achieve good success is to make yourselves all of one mind for the good of your country and your own, and to serve and fear God. the Giver of all goodness, for every plantation which our Heavenly Father hath not planted shall be rooted out."
The allusion to the Florida tragedy, in this charming paper, was by no means ill considered. For in March, 1607, the King of Spain wrote from Madrid to Zuñiga in London as follows: " You will report to me what the English are doing in the matter of Virginia ; and if the plan What Spain thought of progresses which they contemplated. of it. sending men there and ships ; and there- upon it will be taken into consideration here what steps had best be taken to prevent it."1 A few days after this letter Philip III. held a meeting 'with his council to discuss measures which boded no good to Captain Newport's little company. We do not know just what was said and dene, but we hardly need to be told that the temper of Spain 1 Brown's Gonesis, i. 91.
A DISCOURSE OF WESTERN PLANTING. 77
was notably changed in the forty-two years since Menendez's deed of blood. How to ruin the Vir- ginia enterprise without coming to blows with Eng- land was now the humbler problem for Spain to solve, and it was not an easy one.
Meanwhile Newport's little fleet was half way on its voyage. It started down the Thames from Blackwall on the 19th of December, but by reason of "unprosperous winds " it was obliged A poet lau- to keep its moorings "all in the Downs," reate's fare- well bless- ing. as in the ballad of " Black-eyed Susan," until New Year's Day, 1607, when it finally got under way. A farewell blessing was wafted to them in Michael Drayton's quaint stanzas : 1 __
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