USA > Virginia > Virginia, a history of the people > Part 14
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Here he found the Assembly sitting, but they gave him scant welcome. The same stubborn spirit of intol- erance met him, which afterwards drove away the Puri-
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tan dissenters. The Assembly required him to take the oath of allegiance and supremacy, which he naturally declined to do, and a disgraceful scene followed. A crowd had assembled, and fierce opposition was shown to the Baron's further tarrying at Jamestown. - A man insulted and threatened him, but at this treatment of a guest, the Virginians suddenly revolted. The records tell us what followed: "March 25, 1630, Thomas Tindall to be pilloried two hours, for giving my Lord Baltimore the lie and threatening to knock him down." It was the pen- dant of that other decree of the Burgesses (1640), that Stephen Reekes should be pilloried, fined, and impris- oned, for uttering the puritanic scoff, that " His Majesty was at confession with the Lord of Canterbury," Arch- bishop Laud. There was thus no doubt at all about the religious sentiments of the Virginians. Papists were to be given the lie, and good citizens ought to knock them down. Some Irishmen had just been banished to the West Indies, for professing the Romish faith, and now the presence of his Roman Catholic Lordship was really too much. The Assembly might put them in the pillory for insulting and threatening him ; but he had warning.
There was some reason, on other grounds, for not welcoming the good Baron Baltimore very warmly. He had come to explore Virginia with the view of pos- sessing himself of a part of it. After his Jamestown experience, he sailed up Chesapeake Bay, found the country attractive, and returning to England obtained from the King a grant of the territory, now the State of Maryland. He died in London soon afterwards, but the patent was confirmed to his son Cecilius, the second Lord Baltimore; and Cecilius sent out his brother Leonard Calvert (1634) with twenty "gentlemen " and
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two or three hundred " laborers " who founded a Ro. man Catholic colony on the banks of the Chesapeake, and named it Maryland after " Queen Mary," as the Cavaliers called Queen Henrietta Maria.
Trouble followed. The Virginians cried out that the Maryland grant was an invasion of their vested rights under their charter. It was impracticable to declare war on the King and drive out the intruders ; but when a great public sentiment moves a people, leaders are ready. There was living at the time, in Virginia, a certain gentleman named William Clayborne, a man of resolute temper and great ability. That is the true portrait of the famous " Rebel" who now grew so prominent ; and it would be amusing, if it were not so tiresome, to read all the caricatures of the worthy his- torians who have professed to draw his likeness. In the eyes of Mr. Burk, he is " an unprincipled incendi- ary, and an execrable villain ; " in the estimation of Mr. Howison, " a turbulent character who was captured, brought to trial, and found guilty on the grave charges of murder and sedition ; " and cven worthy Dr. Hawks calls him " a felon-convict who had escaped from justice in Maryland during the reign of Charles I."
It will probably surprise the reader to hear that this felon-convict, found guilty of murder, piracy, and other crimes, was a prominent gentleman of the King's Coun- cil, " Secretary of State of this Kingdom " of Virginia, and the owner of land in Maryland, by indubitable pat- ent from King Charles I., addressed (1631) to "our trusty and well-beloved William Clayborne " of our Council in Virginia. Not to busy ourselves further with the historians, this William Clayborne was a gen- tleman of position, a man of energy, with strong pas-
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sions, thought himself wronged, and never rested in harrying his enemies. Under the King's patent he made a settlement on Kent Island in the Chesapeake, opposite the present city of Annapolis, "with a band," says a modern writer ; but the object of the band was simply to trade with the Indians. The band must have been numerous, since this "Isle of Kent " speedily (1632) sent a Burgess to the Virginia Assembly. But suddenly arose misunderstandings between the resolute " Rebel " and Leonard Calvert. The Rebel must go away from Kent Island ; it was part of Maryland. True, " the right of his Lordship's patent was yet un- determined in England," - but the Rebel must go away.
Clayborne resisted. He was in his right, he said. He was on Virginia territory by the King's patent, the owner of Kent Island, and he meant to stay there. He would also sail to and fro in his trading-ship, the Long- tail, to traffic with the Indians ; if he was attacked he would defend himself. The moment came that was to decide matters. Leonard Calvert suddenly seized the Longtail, and Clayborne sent a swift pinnace with fourteen fighting men to recapture her. A battle fol- lowed in the Potomac River (1634). Two Maryland pinnaces came to meet Clayborne's ; sudden musket- shots rattled ; three of his men were killed, and the Calvert fleet went back in triumph, with the captured Kent Island pinnace, and the remnant of its crew, to St. Mary's, the Maryland capital.
Thus the fates had frowned on the Rebel. He was driven from Kent Island, and escaped to Virginia, but Sir John Harvey refused to surrender him. Then he went to England ; and it was during his absence there,
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that he was indicted and tried, on the very " grave charges " indeed, of murder and piracy, by Calvert, and became a rebel and felon-convict.
This is the first act of the drama of Clayborne the Rebel ; the second will not take up much space; and the third and last will be reserved for its proper place in this narrative. This was the second : the energetic rebel improved his stay in England. He so arranged matters there, that his Majesty warned Cecilius, Lord Baltimore (1638), that " William Clayborne and other planters in Kentish Island, should in no sort be inter- . rupted by you, or any other in your right, but rather encouraged to proceed in so good a work." His Maj- esty is a little irate. His Lordship's people have " slain three of our subjects there" (in the fight of the pin- naces), " and by force possessed themselves, by night, of that (Kent) Island," -all which sounds very much as if the Rebel were standing behind his Majesty, and prompting him. But the rosy dreams of Clayborne were as suddenly dispelled. In the very next year the Lords Commissioners of Plantations decide point-blank against his claims ; and he is back in Virginia nursing his wrath to keep it warm. Calvert is in possession of Maryland, but his enemy is dangerous. The times in England are out of joint, and there is little leisure there to think of the far colonies. Also, Berkeley, the Virginia Governor, has gone to sce the King, and Clayborne suddenly strikes at Calvert. At the head of a band of "insurgents," he attacks Maryland (1645), drives out Leonard Calvert, seizes the government of the province, and is lord and master - for a time. Calvert flies to Virginia, a poor viceroy without a kingdom; but again the scenes shift. Governor Berkeley has returned,
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and sides with Calvert against Clayborne. Calvert goes back to Maryland, and violently expels the Rebel Clay- borne : and here, as we are told, " this singular contest ended," - at least for the time.
These incidents have been dwelt on in some detail. If this " singular contest " had been simply the struggle of one man against his enemies, for profit or revenge, the subject would not be worth so much notice. The important fact is, that, under the surface, was the bitter antagonism between the Maryland Roman Catholics and the Puritan refugees from Virginia. The political passions and agitations of that time were bad enough, but the religious hatreds were far worse. Never was social fabric established on a larger or more liberal foundation than that of Maryland. All sects were pro- tected, and the very oath of the Governor was : "I will not, by myself, or any other, directly or indirectly, mo- lest any person professing to believe in Jesus Christ, for or in respect of religion." This had naturally attracted the Puritans, both of New England and Virginia ; and their first act in Maryland was to come to blows with their hosts. It was natural, if not commendable. In England the non-conformists were attacking the Estab- lishment and the King. In Maryland they were attack- ing Popery and Calvert, the King's friend.
The explanation of Clayborne's success in his " singu- lar contest " with the Marylanders, was simply the fact that he had become the leader of the Puritan party, and wielded its full power. He made religious hatred the instrument of his private vengeance ; and whether " rebel " as his enemies called him, or not, was a far- sighted leader. His adversaries had triumphed for the moment, but he was not at all disheartened. Far from
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yielding, he was to nurse his enmity and reappear in due time as one of the Parliamentary Commissioners to receive the surrender of Virginia ; then to set out once more, in the bustling times of the Commonwealth, for Maryland, thirsting for vengeance for his lost pinnace and his Kent Island.
V.
THE LAST EMPEROR.
SIR WILLIAM BERKELEY came to Virginia in 1642 - the era of convulsions. He was thenceforth for about thirty-five years, with short intermissions, to be the chief Virginia actor. His personnel and character are thus interesting.
He was at this time about forty, and a man of charm- ing manners. His politeness was proverbial, and de- lighted the Virginians, who had a weakness for courtli- ness. He belonged to an ancient English family ; believed in monarchy, as a devotee believes in his saint ; and brought to the little capital at Jamestown all the graces, amenities, and well-bred ways which at that time were articles of faith with the Cavaliers. He was certainly a Cavalier of cavaliers, taking that word to signify an adherent of monarchy and the Established Church. For these, this smiling gentleman, with his easy and friendly air, was going to fight like a tiger or a ruffian. The glove was of velvet, but under it was the iron hand which would fall inexorably alike on the New England Puritans and the followers of Bacon. He had the courage of his convictions, as such men generally have. Banishment for dissenters ; shot and the halter for rehels; that was his theory of right. In the
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nature of things such people deserved swift and bloody punishment, and Berkeley inflicted it without pity. For the rest, he was a man of culture, with a fondness for literary composition. He wrote a " Discourse and View of Virginia," and Pepys saw his tragi-comedy, " The Lost Lady," acted in London. Thus the Cavalier ruler was an author also.
He lived at "Greenspring," an estate of about a thou- sand acres, not far from Jamestown. Here he had plate, servants, carriages, seventy horses, and fifteen hundred apple-trees, besides apricots, peaches, pears, quinces, and "mellicottons." When afterwards, in the stormy times, the poor Cavaliers flocked to Virginia to find a place of refuge, he entertained them after a royal fash- ion in this Greenspring manor-house. As to the Vir- ginians, they were all welcome, so that they did not belong to the Independents, haters of Church and King. The " true men" he received gladly, welcoming them with courtly smiles, bowing low in silk and lace ; and the portly planter, as much an " aristocrat " perhaps as himself, would be ushered in and feasted ; and over the canary there would be vituperation of the enemies of his Majesty and the Church, which the malignants were even now seeking to overthrow.
He was not at all a small or mean man, this Sir William Berkeley, who enjoys now but an indifferent reputation ; he was simply a merciless zealot. He slew Bacon's followers without pity, and would have hung Bacon himself, - he was the King's representative. As a man he was very much liked, and some of the best of the Virginians were his warm friends. He loved his wife with a lasting affection ; she was a lady of War- wick County whom he had married soon after his ar-
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rival ; and left all his property, real and personal, to this "dear and most virtuous wife, the Lady ffrances Berkeley ; " adding in the fullness of his heart, " If God had blessed me with a far greater estate I would have given it all to my Most Dearly beloved wife."
With the coming of this passionate royalist came also the full and formal recognition of free government. Both James and Charles had looked sidewise at the Virginia Assembly, and merely tolerated. it. Now a movement was begun to reestablish the old London Company ; the Virginians protested hotly ; and Charles I., who had fled to York for refuge from his angry Par- liament, wrote (July 5, 1642) to his good Virginians that they should not be alienated from his "immediate protection." This was flattering, but would have been unsatisfactory save for a single circumstance. The King's letter was addressed to " Our trusty and well-beloved our Governor, Council and Burgesses of the Grand As- sembly of Virginia." Thus the grant of free government made to Virginia by the Company was for the first time formally recognized in an official paper from the King, promising that the Company should never be restored.
Soon Berkeley gave the Puritan pastors due notice what they had to expect from him. He promptly issued his proclamation in accordance with the act of expul- sion against them passed by the Assembly. Thence- forth he was regarded by them, and very justly, as their most dangerous adversary. "The hearts of the people," they said, " were much inflamed by desire after the ordinances," but the Governor, Sir William Berke- ley, was " a courtier and very malignant toward the way of the churches." The malignant courtier was unfortunately the executive ; and had we in those days
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visited Nansemond, on lower James River, we might have witnessed a singular spectacle.
A crowd of stern-faced people are gathered in their log meeting-house around their pastors, who read to them the Governor's proclamation, that they are not permitted to "teach or preach publicly or privately," and shall "depart the colony with all convenience." So decrees the Virginia Assembly, and we may see the angry faces and hear the muttered anathemas. They must go, but there is a place of refuge, they are told by the resolute-looking man yonder, William Clay- borne, the Rebel, who goes about among them. Mary- land is a free country, for all its Romish abominations, if Protestant Virginia is so hostile to them. If they will come with him, he will show them where they may live in peace, - which ends unfortunately, however, in hot conflict with the Marylanders, Clayborne leading the guests against their entertainers.
And now an event took place which was to test the energy of the smiling courtier of Greenspring. The Indians had not gone yet. In spite of all, they still occupied the country along the York and Pamunkey. They had looked on at the gradual extension of the English power with the old fierce jealousy ; and now, more than twenty years after the massacre of 1622, resolved to repeat that stern protest against the ex- tinction of their race. Their leader was the same Ope- chancanough, called the brother of Powhatan by some, but by others said to be a mysterious stranger from Mexico, or other remote locality. He had wrested the rule from old Opitchapan, to whom Powhatan had left his kingdom, and though nothing is heard of him in the great battle of the eight hundred bowmen with Wyat,
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he was still Emperor. He was now nearly a hundred years old, and greatly emaciated. His eyes had closed from age, and he could only see when one of his people raised his eyelids. He was not able to walk, and was carried about in a litter. It is a striking pic- ture. His old unshrinking courage still burned in the breast of the savage Emperor, and his twenty years of brooding in the York woods brought him to the resolu- tion to make a last attack on the English.
The attack was made (April 18, 1644).1 Those searching for grounds to explain it have found them in the encroachments of Sir John Harvey on the Indian territories ; others said that some of the colonists told Opechiancanough of the civil war in England, and that " now was his time or never, to root out all the Eng- lish." The latter seems absurd, whether the crime is attributed to Cavalier or Puritan, since the Indian hatchet would have spared neither. No doubt the affair was the result of blind hatred, and Opechancanough's age warned him not to defer it. He suddenly threw him- self on the settlers along the upper waters of the York and Pamunkey, and before the English could resist, about three hundred of them were killed. But that was the end of it. Either from the resolute stand made, or Opechancanoughi's loss of efficiency, the In- dians retreated. Meantime couriers had carried the news to Berkeley, at Jamestown. He got together a body of horse, marched rapidly to the scene, and pur- suing the savages into the woods, routed them every- where, and captured Opechiancanough. He was carried
1 The date of this onslaught is variously given in the histories. It is verified by the law of the Burgesses in the spring of 1645 "that the eighteenth day of April be yearly celebrated by thanksgiving for our deliverance from the hands of the savages."
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in his litter to Jamestown, and Berkeley intended to send him to England as a trophy of his prowess. But this last indignity was spared the old ruler : his life suddenly ended. He was fierce and unsubdued to the last. When a crowd gathered round him, at James- town, to stare at him, he resented it as an affront to a man of his dignity ; and said to Berkeley, with august pride, that if it " had been his fortune to take Sir Wil- liam Berkeley prisoner, he would have disdained to make a show of him." He was, soon afterwards, shot in the back, by one of his guards, to revenge some per- sonal spite, it seems ; and of this wound he died, - an ignoble fate for the great successor of Powhatan.
This ended, for the time at least, the long struggle of nearly forty years, between the English and the Indians.
The man just dead at Jamestown, had seen the begin- ning and the ending, and after him there was no one of sufficient ability to carry on an offensive war. His suc- cessor, Necotowance, styling himself " King of the In- dians," - for even the old imperial title seemed to have gone with the last Emperor, - made a treaty by which he agreed to liold his authority from the King of Eng- land, and deliver to Berkeley an annual tribute of twenty beaver skins, at the " going of the geese," which was winter. The tribes were to hold, as their hunting ground, the lands north of York River ; and no Indian was to come south of it, except as a messenger, wearing a badge of striped cloth ; if any did so, the punishment was death. It is true that for a white man to be found on Indian ground was felony ; but that was soon con- veniently forgotten. The Indian power in Virginia was again broken for the time, and then all again was quiet until the Commonwealth ships came to cannonade Jamestown.
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VI.
A PERFECT DESCRIPTION OF VIRGINIA.
IT was a prosperous and thriving society, this little colony of Virginia, as the half century was coming to an end. We have a picture of it in “ A Perfect De- scription of Virginia " (London, 1649) ; a full-length portrait drawn by one who had lived in the colony.
The writer glows with enthusiasm; Virginia is the earthly Paradise. It is "full of trees," and the hum of bees; of "rare colored parraketoes, and one bird we call the mockbird, for he will imitate all other birds' notes ; yea, the owls and nightingales." In this happy Virginia there is " nothing wanting to produce plenty, health, and wealth." As to the bleak outside country of New England, " there is not much in that land." It is so fearful a desert, that, " except a herring be put into the hole you set the corn or maize in, it will not come up !" Why do people continue to go to this frightful region, when the southern Paradise awaits them ?
In this Eden of Virginia, according to the enthusiastic writer, there were now (about 1648) fifteen thousand Englishmen, and three hundred imported African slaves ; twenty thousand head of cattle, plenty of horses and other stock ; and the inhabitants were busy with their large crops of wheat, tobacco, and Indian corn, which yielded " five hundred fold." There were great hopes of making the best silk ; and mulberry trees must be planted, and a certain " George, the Armenian," was to be rewarded by the Burgesses, for instructing people in the silk manufacture. A thousand colonists lived on
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A PERFECT DESCRIPTION OF VIRGINIA. 189
the Eastern Shore, and the bay and rivers were white with ships : at Christmas, 1647, there were in James River, ten vessels from London, two from Bristol, twelve from Holland, and seven from New England. A regu- iar trade had begun with the northern Virginians of Massachusetts Bay. The hardy " Pilgrims " had come thither in 1620, and founded their polity, as they had the right to do; what the elder Virginia of the south grumbled at was, that intruders had occupied the coun- try south of Cape Cod, her northern boundary. The obstinate Dutchmen who had defied Argall, and re- mained at Albany, had come down to Manhattan Island ; and in fact all that region, extending into Connecticut, was claimed by them. At this the Virginians cry out. These " Hollanders have stolen into a river called Hud- son's River, in the limits of Virginia ; have built forts there, called Prince Maurice and New Netherlands," and defy all comers. They trade in furs to the value of £10,000 sterling ; and " thus are the English nosed and out-traded by the Dutch." Then a colony of Swedes had settled on the Delaware ; and Maryland, like the rest, was an invasion of Virginia right.
Thus the once great empire of Virginia was falling a prey to these strangers ; dissent on one hand and papacy on the other, were attacking the Church; and none could tell how this unhappy state of affairs would end. As late as the spring of 1660, Virginia makes her pro- test against this disintegration. Governor Stuyvesant, of " Knickerbocker " fame, writes from Fort Amster- dam, to the Governor of Virginia, proposing a friendly league, and the acknowledgment of the Dutch title by Berkeley. But that gentleman replies, in guarded phrase, with his most charming courtesy, that he shall
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be "ever ready to comply with Governor Stuyvesant in all acts of neighborly friendship ; but truly, Sir, you desire me to do that, concerning your letter, and claims to land, in the northern part of America, which I am in- capable to do." He is " the servant of the Assembly," he says : when God shall be pleased in his mercy to dissipate the unnatural troubles in England, his Majesty will attend to matters, and decide to whom Manhattan belongs.
Virginia remains quiet and prosperous in spite of the furious conflict in England. Hearts burn, no doubt, when those ships from London and Bristol bring tidings of the great wrestle between King and Parliament, which is yet doubtful. But the King's strength is plainly failing, and the Virginia royalists go about with hanging heads, sad at heart; and the heads of the other faction who sympathize with the Parliament, begin to rise joyfully. The times are gloomy for the old Cava- liers of the King ; above all for Sir William Berkeley, who has been to England (1644) to see the King in his dark hour, and now, at his Greenspring country house, broods over the coming fate. But he does not lose heart, and is going to stand or fall for the object of his idolatry, - the jus divinum. When the end comes, and the great tide of fugitive cavalierdom rolls toward Vir- ginia, he will receive the desolate exiles with open arms and purse. His friends will be as ardent ; for " refu- gees " are the representatives of a cause, and are to be welcomed. Colonel Norwood, of the King's party, flies from England (1649) and comes to the Eastern Shore ; and thenceforward makes a sort of progress through the old plantations. Stephen Charlton, of Northampton, dresses him up in a suit of his own clothes. Captain
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Yeardley receives him joyfully ; so do Squire Ludlow, and Captain Wormley, who makes him royally welcome at his house in York. A company of guests are already " feasting and carousing there ; " Sir Thomas Lunsford, Sir Henry Chicheley, Sir Philip Honeywood, and Colo- nel Hammond, - friends of the King. All this we read in the "Voyage of Colonel Norwood," written by the Colonel himself, who then goes on to Greenspring, well " mounted " by his friend Wormley, - he knows he will find the friend of friends there. Berkeley, his near relation, takes him into his house as an honored guest, and will soon send him off to Holland to solicit from his Majesty, Charles the Second, the place of Treasurer of Virginia ; which Clayborne, the rebel and Puritan, shall hold no longer.
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