cultural resources of a fertile country. They then numbered 350 and were well supplied with cattle and hogs. It was within this period that the possibilities of tobacco were discovered. Virginia now had a profitable money crop, great estates became possible, and the early aristocratic impulses of the settlers might reassert themselves. Changes in the Company. BETTER TIMES IN THE COLONY Meanwhile the London Company cast off its early enthusiasm. The public-spirited gentlemen who founded it soon ceased to contribute to its support. Threatened with failure, its friends attempted to make it a national trading company. The clergy lent their influence on missionary grounds, with the result that the membership grew to 765, only 225 of whom were of the gentry. A share cost twelve pounds and ten shillings, and in 1612 the king permitted all important business to be transacted by a majority of the stockholders. Now appeared at the quarterly meetings a group in support of the king's ideas and a popular party who declared that prosperity would not come to the colony until self-government was granted. Such a suggestion was abhorrent to James I, but the misery under the king's plan was evident and the liberals triumphed in 1618. They were ably led by Sir Edwin Sandys, ever the friend of liberal ideas. Self- Sir George Yardley, governor, arrived at Jamestown April 19, 1619, announcing the permanent end of common property and the beginning of self-government. Each colonist was to have an assignment of land one hundred acres for those who came before 1616 and fifty for those who came afterwards. The laws were to be made by an assembly composed of a governor and six councillors appointed by the company and two representatives elected by each town, hundred, or plantation. The governor and council had executive functions, assigned land, sat as a high court of justice, and composed the upper house of the assembly. The most honorable position in Virginia next to the governor was the councillor. The representatives made the House of Burgesses, or lower house. The assembly was to make laws not contrary to English laws and subject to veto in England. In the main, this was the frame of government for Virginia and the other royal colonies until the revolution. Charter Annulled. Tobacco was now worth five shillings a pound in London, but the price fell rapidly. One man on cleared ground could raise, in 1649, about 2000 pounds. Fifty acres of land, known as a head right, was given to each adult immigrant who settled in the colony, and fifty to a master for each servant. Sir Edwin Sandys, the Company's treasurer, worked indefatigably to bring people to a country where wealth and liberty were FALL OF THE COMPANY 51 promised, and his success was marked. But the court party intrigued against him. They convinced the king that Virginia was a nest of sedition, and he set himself to defeat the reëlection of the treasurer. "Choose the devil if you will," he said to the stockholders, "but not Sir Edwin Sandys." This warning was too plain to be mistaken, and the liberal faction elected the Earl of Southampton, as progressive as his predecessor. James's suspicions were not allayed, and many advisers incited his anger, among them the Spanish minister, Gondomar, who resented the intrusion of the settlement into what he considered Spanish territory. In 1623 one of his tools published a paper called "The Unmasking of Virginia," bitterly attacking the company and the colony. James sent a biased commission to Virginia to investigate, and on its report brought suit to annul the charter. All the past misfortunes were laid at the door of the London Company, and June 16, 1624, the Company fell, Virginia passing into the hands of the king. He probably intended to undo the liberal reforms, but he died within a year, and Charles I, more friendly than his father, allowed them to continue. Thus the first law-making assembly established in America remained as a model for the colonies not yet created, and liberal government under royal supervision became firmly rooted in our life. Royal The governors sent by Charles were no worse than those sent by the Company. They had frequent quarrels with the assembly, which became the defender of colonial rights against the royal prerogative. Sometimes the council sided with them, and in 1635 it even deposed Governor Harvey, who tried to lay taxes without an act of assembly and to remove officials by his mere word. He was promptly restored by King Charles, who resented the unmaking of a governor. But the king was greatly beset by his own enemies, and vacillated from party to party. He soon sent a liberal governor, and then changing again, sent in 1642 a supporter of the royal prerogative, Sir William Berkeley, destined to rule long in Virginia. Berkeley was a stout aristocrat and a supporter of the king's prerogative, but he was honest, and his administration was a period of economic prosperity. Planting the first permanent colony cost the English stock dearly. When it ceased to exist in 1624 the London Company had expended 200,000 pounds, equal to $5,000,000 in American values of to-day, and from this large expenditure the return was very slight. In the same period it sent to Virginia over 14,000 persons, nearly 13,000 of whom died from exposure and disease. But in spite of this waste of money and life the first lessons of colonization were learned for the benefit of colonies to be established in the future, and Virginia remained a permanent home of white men. Two Indian wars fell heavily on the colony within the early period of its existence, one in 1622 and another in 1644. Each marked an attempt of the natives to save their land from the occupation of the strangers. Before the first of these attacks relations with the savages were peaceful, owing in the first instance to the exertions of Captain Smith and after that to the good will of Powhatan, head chief of a confederacy which included at least thirty-four tribes. His good will was much influenced by his daughter Pocohontas, who probably saved the life of Smith, made many visits to Jamestown, and finally married Rolfe, one of the colonists. In 1618 Powhatan died, and his able brother, Opechancanough, who disliked the English and wished to expel them before it was too late, began to plot war. In March, 1622, the tribes generally went on the warpath, and swept through the outlying plantations with a trail of blood. Nearly 400 persons perished, and the planters who survived the first attack fled to the older settlements. They were compelled to leave their cattle behind, which, with their homes, were destroyed. As soon as the spring crops were planted the whites divided in bands and took a terrible vengeance. For twenty-two years there was peace. But Opechancanough, at last the head chief, only waited an opportunity. In 1644 there was civil war in England, and he thought the expected moment was at hand. Old and blind as he was he acted with energy, and in two days over 300 settlers were slain. Again the whites took up arms, and in 1646 the aged head chief himself was taken and killed. In this struggle the savages lost heavily and were forced to make a treaty by which they retired from the region between the James and the York rivers. Thenceforth tidewater Virginia had peace. Virginia THE SETTLEMENT OF MARYLAND In 1609 the London Company's jurisdiction was fixed at 200 miles north and south of Old Point Comfort, and it was to extend westward through this region to the Mississippi. The Jamestown settlement was not thought to have jurisdiction over all this area; for in 1619 the Company granted privileges to the Pilgrims from Leyden, which, but for the unfavorable voyage of the Mayflower, would have resulted in a coördinate colony near the Delaware. With the fall of the Company, 1624, all Virginia again became the king's, and soon afterwards he cut off from it two great proprietary provinces. One, lying on the south of Virginia proper, he gave to Sir Robert Heath, 1629, who did not improve it, and the other was given to George Calvert, Lord Baltimore, who thus became the founder of Maryland. The Grant to Lord Baltimore. Calvert was a member of the London Company and a favorite with the king. In 1625 he announced himself a Catholic, resigned the principal secretaryship of state, and gave himself up to colonization. His first attempt was in Newfoundland, but it failed through the cold climate, and he MARYLAND PROJECTED 53 turned to Virginia, asking in the first instance for a grant of the lands between the James river and Albemarle Sound. To this request the friends of Virginia objected, and he was satisfied with a grant north of the Potomac, extending as far as the fortieth degree of latitude. To the colony, the charter of which was signed June 20, 1632, the king gave the name Maryland, in honor of his queen, Henrietta Maria. The Gov ernment in Maryland. By the Maryland charter a government was created less liberal than that of the London Company. The model on which it was formed was the County Palatine of Durham, in northern England. The proprietor, Baltimore, was to have in the colony the same authority as the Bishop of Durham had in the county, of whom the old motto of law ran, Quicquid Rex habet extra, Episcopus habet intra. Thus the proprietor, besides having possession of the land, was the head of the administrative, judicial, and military functions. The legislative function had no place in the system in force in Durham, and in this respect the Maryland system was more liberal; for it provided that the proprietor might make laws in keeping with those of England "with the advice, assent, and approbation of the freemen or the major part of them or their representatives." The inhabitants were thus to have a share in law making, but the proprietor could have the initiative and might exercise a veto. By the charter the church of Maryland was to conform to the laws of England, and the right to nominate clergymen was reserved to the proprietor. He was to hold his estate at only a nominal rent, and without taxes to the royal treasury. Religious George Calvert, first Lord Baltimore, died as his charter was about to be signed, and Maryland passed to his son, Cecilius, a wise and liberal-minded man. He proceeded with the work of colonization, and in October, 1633, sent two ships with twenty gentlemen and about two hundred laborers to make the first settlement. With them went his brother, Leonard, as governor. He and most of the gentlemen were Catholics, and most of the laborers Protestants. In a country as strongly anti-Catholic as England it behooved the Calverts to be tolerant, but there is no reason to think that the liberty of conscience which they granted in Maryland did not arise from their sense of justice and liberality. At any rate, at a time when Virginia drove out non-conformists and Massachusetts persecuted Roger Williams, Maryland was the home. of religious freedom. Toleration attracted to Maryland people of varying religious belief. Unfortunately, they were not so liberal as the proprietor, and when strong enough began to persecute one another, until civil war at last appeared in the colony. English Catholics suffered much from the laws against their faith, and it was thought that they would gladly seek an asylum in America. They were fined for not attending the established church, keeping Would the arms in their houses, educating their children abroad, maintaining Catholic schoolmasters, and converting Protestants to Catholicism. They might not be legally married by their own clergy, serve as executors, or be buried in their own churchyards. Fines were collected from them persistently: even James I, who had sympathy for their faith, took thirtysix thousand pounds a year in this way. For these reasons Catholics were deeply discouraged. But when Baltimore's charter was at length signed, King James was dead, and the English church seemed tending toward Catholicism. Laud was establishing high church practices and harrowing the Puritans, and the new king was giving willing approval. So hopeful were the Catholics of better times in England that the expected emigration did not occur, and Baltimore, who wished to see the colony grow, was the more willing to receive settlers of other faiths. The settlement at St. Mary's. The first colony entered Chesapeake Bay late in February, 1634, giving thanks to Providence for bringing them through many storms. They were struck with admiration for the Potomac, "in comparison with which the Thames seemed a rivulet." Near its mouth was a tributary which they called St. George: nine miles up its course they laid out a town and called it St. Mary's. The site was occupied by the Indians. Mindful of Captain Smith's experience in Virginia the Marylanders resorted to trade, and for some axes, knives, cloth, and hoes purchased the village. The neighboring savages were weak, and, suffering much from the Susquehannas, who lived near the mouth of the river which now bears their name, received the whites gladly, and were converted to Christianity by the Jesuits. Leonard Calvert took up the work of establishing his colony in an orderly manner, profiting by Virginia's experience. The Indian fields were put in corn and tobacco and other land was cleared, the location selected was dry and healthy, and land was assigned individually from the first. The delusion of goldhunting never troubled the colony. The result was that the first year a shipload of corn could be sent to New England to exchange for salt fish. Maryland was planted without a "starving time." February 26, 1635, the colonists held an assembly. They were not authorized to do it by the proprietor, but thought the charter gave them permission. They sent a number of laws to England, where Baltimore disallowed them because he intended to have the initiative in law making. Three years later he sent a body of laws which were submitted to a second assembly. He now learned how little the right of initiating law is worth when the representatives are in a bad humor; for the assembly was overwhelmingly against his code. Baltimore was a wise ruler and would not press his point. He authorized his brother, Governor Calvert, to allow the assembly to make laws as they desired, Independ ence of the Assembly. |