VIRGINIA COLONY; SLAVES.

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of the settlement. His rule was just, being based on the principle that those who did not work should not eat; but this style of government did not suit the colonists, and in 1609 Captain Smith returned to England, his departure being made necessary, as he said, on account of a severe accident which had befallen him. Some modern investigators are of the opinion that the accident was by no means so severe as Smith reported, and that it was used by him as a pretext to escape from a trying and unprofitable position. While in Virginia Captain Smith explored Chesapeake Bay and published a careful map of it. This map is almost too accurate a one to have been made with the rude instruments and inefficient means at Smith's command.

CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH.

10. Virginia Colony; Slaves. (1609-1619.) - The colony suffered much, and very nearly came to a melancholy end. In 1609 the company received a new charter extending the limits north and south, and also from sea to sea, west and northwest. In these charters was the provision that the colonists and their children "shall have and enjoy all the liberties, franchises, and immunities of free denizens and natural subjects within any of our other dominions, to all intents and purposes as if they had been abiding and born within this our realm of England, or in any other of our dominions." It was largely upon this clause, and other similar ones repeated in later charters, that the American colonists rightly based their complaints of unjust treatment by the mother country.

In 1619 the Virginia colonists, who had been granted a partly representative government, elected a House of Burgesses, the first representative body that met in America. The same year in which this step towards free government was taken, a Dutch ship brought the first cargo of negro slaves to the colony.

11. Dutch Colonies; New Netherland. (1609-1626.)-Swedish Colonies. (1638.)- Holland was at this time a strong naval power, and in 1609 Henry Hudson, an Englishman in her service, discovered and sailed up the river which bears his name. He also explored the New Jersey coast to Delaware Bay. A small trading post was established in 1613 on Manhattan Island, and in 1614, at Fort Nassau, near where Albany now is. In 1621 the Dutch West India Company was organized, and under its auspices Fort Amsterdam, afterwards the city of New York, was established in 1626, the island of Manhattan, upon which it stood, having been purchased of the Indians the same year for about twenty-four dollars. The Dutch bought the land from the natives, whom they generally treated well; but owing to the obstinacy and want of tact of Governor Kieft, there was a terrible war with the Algonkin Indians (1643-1645). Fortunately for the Dutch, the Iroquois were not involved in this war. Anne Hutchinson (Sect. 19) was massacred in this war.

Sweden, which had become a great power under Gustavus Adolphus, determined also to send out colonists, and in 1638 established a settlement at Christina, near the site of Wilmington, Delaware, and later, other settlements along the Delaware River, as far as the site of Philadelphia, where the "Old Swedes' Church" still tells of their former presence. Thrust in as they were between the Dutch and the English settlements, the Swedish colonies amounted to but little.

PLYMOUTH COMPANY.

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12. Plymouth Company. (1607.)- The Plymouth Company had attempted to place a colony near the mouth of the Kennebec River in 1607, but the colony, like so many other similar attempts, was a failure. In 1620 a new company, under the name of "The Council of Plymouth for the governing of New England," was organized, and to this company was granted the land between the parallels of 40° and 48° north latitude, and westward to the south seas, but it sent out no expedition on its own account.

Captain John Smith (sect. 9), who had remained quietly in England since his return from Virginia, left England again in the year 1614, and sailed along the Atlantic coast from Penobscot to Cape Cod in search of fish and furs, and in his account of the voyage, which he published on his return, he gave the name of New England to the country. Previously it had been called Norumbega.

13. The Pilgrims. (1620.) It is an interesting and instructive circumstance that much of the territory of the present United States was settled by men who sought in a new world that liberty to worship God in their own way which was denied them at home. Outward conformity to a state church was one of the cardinal doctrines of the seventeenth century, and, to escape this, some men and women who did not agree with the practices of the Church of England, had emigrated to Holland to gain that liberty of worship refused to them in their English home. First at Amsterdam, and afterward at Leyden also, these refugees found safety. But not willing that their children should

grow up among strangers speaking a different language, and for other reasons, also, wishing to change their abode, they made application to the Virginia Company for land in America on which to settle. All arrangements having been completed, one hundred and two Pilgrims, as they are now called, set sail from Plymouth in England on the Mayflower for the new home. The voyage was a stormy one, and driven from their course, they reached Cape Cod instead of the coast belonging to the Virginia Company. They, however, decided to remain where they were. It seemed wise to provide for some government in the colony, and, before landing, there was drawn up in the cabin of their little ship the celebrated "Mayflower Compact," which was signed by all the men. In it they agreed to combine themselves into a "body politic," and to submit to such "just and equal laws" as might be framed for the general good of the colony. Appendix I.

14. Landing of the Pilgrims; Trials of the Colonists. (16201627.)- After examining the shore of Cape Cod, the Pilgrims chose a spot for their future home, and landed on Plymouth rock December 21, 1620.1

The colonists had a desperate struggle with the keenness of a New England winter; they suffered from ill health, and afterwards were at great disadvantage from the poverty of

1 Owing to a miscalculation, the 22d has been usually celebrated as the anniversary of the landing, but it is clear that the day was December the 11th, old style; and as in the seventeenth century there was a difference of ten days between the old and new mode of reckoning, the 21st is the correct date according to the new style.

the soil, from fewness of number, and from the payment of an exorbitant rate of interest (45 per cent) to the merchants who had provided the means for fitting out the expedition. Notwithstanding all these discouragements the band persevered. Unlike the colonists in Virginia, these Pilgrims had come to make their home in the new world, and we hear of no disputes like those in the southern colony, while their privations were borne with an heroic spirit. Among the company was Captain Myles Standish, not a member of their religious communion, and his presence illustrates the freedom which prevailed. He proved himself

of the greatest assistance to the suffering little band, particularly during the first trying winter, when half the little company died from disease and exposure. John Carver, the governor, was one of those who thus perished. William Bradford was chosen to succeed him, and so acceptable was his administration that he was re-elected annually for thirty years except when by "importunity he got off." In 1627 the colonists bought out the merchants' interest, and the colony became commercially, as it was politically, free. From this time the colony continued to advance, though but slowly.

15. Massachusetts Bay Colony. (1629.) In 1629 a charter was given to "the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England," granting them land from