MARRIAGE OF POCAHONTAS; HER FATE. hontas, but when her father demanded that she be returned, Argall refused.* This incident broke the previously friendly relations between the English and Powhatan, and hostilities were about to break out, but one of the Englishmen, Rolfe, had succeeded in winning the favor of Pocahontas and asked her in marriage. Powhatan, after much persuasion, consented, and after Pocahontas had been instructed in the Christian faith and in the spring of 1613 had received baptism at the hands of Rev. Alexander Whitakert the marriage ceremony was performed by Whitaker on April 5, 1614. At the same time, the Chicahominies also sought the friendship of the English§ and it was thought that inter-marriages with the Indians might become frequent, and thus render less liable any conflict between the two nations, but the marriage of Rolfe was the only one that occurred Argall's letter regarding this is published in Purchas's Pilgrimes, vol. iv., p. 1764. In the picture of the baptism of Pocahontas in the capitol at Washington a mistake was made by the painter in depicting Dr. Whitaker as clothed in a surplice. Dr. Whitaker himself says in a letter written in June, 1614, that no surplices were used in Virginia. (Purchas, His Pilgrimes, iv., 1771). Hugh Jones (in his Present State of Virginia, 1724, p. 69) says that surplices did not come into use until about 1724, and J. H. Latané (Early relations of Maryland and Virginia, in Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science, series xiii., nos. iii-iv., p. 64) says that their use did not become general until the 19th century. Hawks, Protestant Episcopal Church in Virginia, p. 28; Cooke, Virginia, pp. 93-97. § Cooke, p. 98. 171 for a long time and the Indians were compelled to nurse their vexation and wrath for a fitting revenge. Regarding the fate of Pocahontas, only a few words are necessary. In 1617 she went to England with her husband where she became a favorite and was much lionized in society. At London she renewed her previous friendship with Smith, who she supposed had long been dead. Smith left us an interesting account of his interview with her: " 'Being about this time preparing to set sail for New England, I could not stay to do her that service I desired and she well deserved; but hearing shee was at Branford with divers of my friends, I went to see her. After a modest salutation, without any word, she turned about obscured her face, as not seeming well contented; and in that humor, her husband with divers others, we all left her two or three houres, repenting myselfe to have writ she could speake English; but not long after, she began to talke. and remembered mee well what courtesies she had done, saying, 'You did promise Powhatan what was yours should bee his, and he the like to you; you called him father, being in his land a stranger and by the same reason so must I doe you'; which though I would have excused, I durst not answer of that title, because she was a king's daughter; with a well-set countenance, she said, 'Were you not afraid to come into my father's countrie, and caused feare in him and all his people but mee, and feare you here I should call you father? I tell you, then, I will, and you shall call mee child, and so I will bee for ever and ever your countrieman. They did tell us alwais you were dead, and I knew no other till I came to Plimoth; yet Powhatan did command Uttamatomakkin to seeke you and know the truth, because your countriemen will lie much.' # The treasurer, councell, and companie having well furnished Captaine Samuel Argall, the Lady Pocahontas, alias Rebecca, with her husband and others, in the good ship called the George, it pleased God, at Gravesend, to take this young lady to his mercie, where shee made not more sorrow for her unexpected death, than joy to the beholders to hear and see her make so religious an end." * In March, 1617, when about twentythree years of age, Pocahontas passed Pocahontas passed away, leaving an infant son, through whom several families in Virginia claim direct descent from Powhatan.† Meanwhile the right of private property had been established in the colony, and in addition a number of respectable young women from England had arrived, which resulted in marriages among the colonists. Dale remained in the colony five yearsfrom 1611 to 1616— and in 1613 during his term of office, Argall made a cruise along the New England coast which was little less than privateering; he fell upon a colony which the French had just established on the Penobscot and entirely destroyed it, which Cooke (Virginia, p. 108) says was simple buccaneering." Argall again sailed north on a piratical expedition and destroyed the fortifications which De Monts had erected on the isle of St. Croix and then set fire to the deserted settlement of Port Royal.‡ He then turned his ship homeward and it is supposed that he entered the mouth of the Hudson and compelled the Dutch on Manhattan island to acknowledge the authority 66 *Smith, History of Virginia, p. 121. See Meade, Old Churches and Families in Virginia; Cooke, Virginia, pp. 100-104. Doyle, English Colonies, vol. i., pp. 148-150; Parkman, Pioneers of France in the New World, pp. 304-317, and authorities cited; Bancroft, vol. i., pp. 105-106. and claims of England, but this statement lacks authority and is probably fictitious.* In 1614 Gates returned to England to be followed two years later by Dale, who left George Yeardley in the colony as deputy-governor.† Yeardley's government was lenient, in fact, too much so for the good of the colony, and he committed the error of allowing the colonists to plant tobacco to the exclusion of corn even in the streets of Jamestown,‡ and the evil effects of this error were felt for many years after. The colonists were now divided into hostile political factions, and in 1617 one of these factions succeeded in displacing Yeardley, and Argall, an active but tyrannical man ("a human hawk, peering about in search of some prey to pounce upon "- Cooke, Virginia, P. 111), was appointed deputy-governor and also admiral of the country His raand the neighboring seas. pacity and tyranny, however, caused great discontent among the colonists and complaints were sent home to the Company against him. Lord Delaware was therefore requested to re *Brodhead positively asserts its falsity. See his History of the State of New York, First Period, p. 54. Under Dale's administration the economic condition of the colony had become much better, the general conditions being given in Osgood, American Colonies, vol. i., p. 75 et seq. See also Page, The Old Dominion, pp. 120, 124; Cooke, Virginia, p. 109. Howe, Historical Collections of Virigina, pp. 39-40. ARGALL DEPOSED; FIRST COLONIAL ASSEMBLY. sume his former office.* In the spring of 1618 Delaware sailed for the colony, but at the entrance of the bay which bears his name he died. This event released Argall from the restraint and fear of a superior, and undoubtedly emboldened him to proceed still further with his excesses and evil practices. So brutal and indefensible did his conduct finally become that he was accused of dis honesty as a technical and specific charge on which he might be removed. Sir Edwin Sandys, who in the meantime had become more powerful in the affairs of the Company, removed Argall in 1619 and sent Yeardley to supersede him. Before *Records of the Virginia Company, vol. ii., p. 35. Sir Edwin Sandys describes Argall's adminis tration of the public gardens as follows: "The Deputy Governor, on his arrival at that place, which was in or about May, 1617, hath left and delivered to him by his predecessor a portion of public land called the Company's garden, which yielded unto them in one year about £300 profit. Fifty-four servants employed in that same garden and in salt-works set up for the service of the colony; tenants, eighty-one yielded a yearly rentcorn and services, which rent-corn, together with the tribute-corn from the barbarians, amounted to above twelve hundred of our bushels by the year; kine, eighty; goats, eighty-eight. About two years after-viz., Easter, 1619-at the coming away of the said Deputy Governor, his whole estate of the public was gone and consumed, there being not left at that time to the Company either the land aforesaid or any tenant, servant, rent or tribute-corn, cow or salt-work, and but six goats only, without one penny yielded to the Company for their so great loss in way of account or restitution to this very day."— Records of the Virginia Company, vol. i., p. 65. See also Eggleston, Beginners of a Nation, p. 50 et seq.; Bancroft, vol. i., p. 109; Page, The Old Dominion, pp. 126127. VOL. I 12. 173 Yeardley arrived, however, Argall had fled.* Meanwhile, Sandys was exerting all his influence to secure to Virginians the rights of freeborn Englishmen by a grant of a representative legislature. Though the king did all in his power to prevent it, the Liberal party on November 13, 1618, committed the Company to the "Great Charter or Commissions of Privi ledges, Orders and Laws."+ Yeardley, therefore, soon after his arrival, called together the first colonial assembly of Virginia,‡ composed of the governor, the council and two depu Doyle, English Colonies, vol. i., pp. 156-158; Smith, Thirteen Colonies, vol. i., pp. 81-82; Fiske, Old Virginia, vol. i., pp. 183-185; Cooke, Virginia, p. 112. The colonists were mostly agreeably surprised when Yeardley informed them "that those cruell lawes by which the ancient planters had soe longe been governed were now abrogated" to be replaced by "those free lawes which his Majesties subjects lived under in England"; and "that they [the planters] might have a hande in the governinge of themselves, yt was graunted that a general Assemblie shoulde be helde yearly once, whereat were to be present the govr and counsell, with two Burgesses from each Plantation, freely to be elected by the Inhabitants thereof, this Assemblie to have power to make and ordaine whatsoever lawes and orders should by them be thought good and profitable for our subsistence."Bancroft, vol. i., p. 111. The functions of this assembly are given in Doyle, English Colonies, vol. i., p. 159 et seq. See also Fiske, Old Virginia, vol. i., p. 186 et seq.; Hurlburt, Britain and Her Colonies, pp. 2, 31-34; Bancroft, vol. i., pp. 110-113; Brown, First Republic, pp. 309, 313-323, 456; Smith, Thirteen Colonies, vol. i., pp. 86-87; Collections of the New York Historical Society, 2d series, vol. iii., p. 335 et seq.; Richard Frothingham, The Rise of the Republic of the United States, p. 17 et seq.: Brown, English Politics in Early Virginia History, pp. 27-29. ties from each of the eleven plantations: James City, Charles City, the City of Henricus, Martin Brandon, Martin's Hundred, Lawne's Plantation, Ward's Plantation, Argall's Gift, Flowerdieu Hundred, Smith's (or Smythe's) Hundred and Kecoughtan, the two last being changed to Southampton and Hampton, respectively. These deputies were called burgesses, a name of note in Virginia history, and they assembled on June 30, 1619, in the little church at Jamestown. "Among the important acts was one stating that since the London Company insisted upon approving the laws of the Virginia Assembly, the Virginia Assembly should likewise have the privilege of approving the acts of the London Company resistance to legislation without representation. The London Company was also requested to send over laborers and workmen to build a college at Henrico." the early beginnings of "Thus was formed and established the first representative legislature that ever sat in America. And this example of a domestic parliament to regulate all the internal concerns of the country was never lost sight of but was ever afterwards cherished On the manner in which these hundreds or plantations were formed, see Osgood, American Colonies, vol. i., pp. 84-87, 90-91, and authorities cited. For the proceedings see Osgood, American Colonies, vol. i., pp. 92-94; Bancroft, vol. i., p. 112 et seq.; Cooke, Virginia, pp. 115-117. The South in the Building of the Nation, vol. i., p. 18. throughout America as the dearest birthright of freemen." * Two years later, July 24, 1621, when Sir Francis Wyatt succeeded Yeardley, the Company issued the "Great Charter, the Ordinance, and Constitution of the Treasurer, Council, and Company in England for a Council of State and General Assembly in Virginia," which confirmed the laws passed by the burgesses and gave a permanent government to the colony. At the same time, the plantations were divided into parishes, each clergyman being allowed a glebe of 100 acres with six servants to work it; a salary tax was allowed; and the Company positively enjoined the colonists to worship according to the usages of the Church of England. The salaries of all new officers were provided for by grants of lands and servants, in some instances as much as 1,500 acres and 50 servants being allowed. Meanwhile in England Sir Thomas Smith had been succeeded in the office of treasurer of the Company Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, vol. i., p. 21, § 46. See also C. E. Stevens, Sources of the Constitution of the United States Considered in Relation to Colonial and English History, pp. 10-12; F. N. Thorpe, The Story of the Constitution of the United States, pp. 25-26. On the political situation in England affecting Virginia see Brown, English Politics in Early Virginia History, chap. vii. For text of these Ordinances see Thorpe, Federal and State Constitutions, vol. vii., pp. 3810-3812; Hening, Statutes of Virginia, vol. i., pp. 113-114. See also Appendix II. at the end of present chapter. Hurlburt, Britain and Her Colonies, p. 3; Bancroft, vol. i., pp. 117-118. ་ |