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IV.

Frenchmen were allowed to seek a passage home in the CHAPTER French fishing vessels; the others were carried to Virginia; among the rest, one of the Jesuits, the other hav- 1613. ing been killed in the attack.

With three vessels and sixty men, piloted by his Jesuit prisoner, Argall soon after visited Port Royal, which he burned; but the dispersed settlers found shelter in the woods. On his homeward voyage the English commander entered the mouth of the Hudson, and compel- Nov. led the Dutch traders, lately established on the island of Manhattan, to acknowledge the authority of the English. England was at peace both with France and Holland, but the English claimed all that coast as a part of Virginia. This expedition, forerunner of future bloody contests for the possession of North America, had no immediate results. Upon the departure of Argall, the Dutch flag was again hoisted at Manhattan. The French also

re-established themselves at Port' Royal, where they continued to carry on a prosperous fur trade; and they soon occupied other points of the neighboring coast.

By the original proposals of the company, all persons coming to Virginia, or transporting others thither, were entitled, for each person so introduced, to an hundred acres of land. This allowance was now limited to fifty acres, at which amount it remained fixed so long as Virginia continued a British colony, subject, like all grants of land in Virginia, to an annual quit-rent, at the rate of two shillings for every hundred acres. Most of the indented servants of the company were now settled as tenants at a corn-rent. The governor had for his support a plantation cultivated by an hundred of these tenants; and the salaries of other colonial officers were paid by similar assignments. Besides the grants to actual settlers, the members of the company had received large

CHAPTER tracts of land in consideration of their payments into the IV; treasury; and other large grants had been made for mer1615. itorious services, real or pretended. This engrossment

of lands very early became a subject of complaint in the colony. Meanwhile, the cultivation of corn had so increased, that, from buyers, the colonists became sellers to the Indians. They also had turned their attention to the cultivation of tobacco. The Virginia tobacco, though esteemed far inferior to that of the West Indies, sold, however, for three shillings, nearly three quarters of a dollar, per pound; and, stimulated by this high price, the colonists entered into its cultivation with such extreme zeal as soon to be in danger of a dearth of provisions.

Dale, who had resumed the government after the de1616. parture of Gates, gave it up to George Yeardley, and, returning to England, took with him Pocahontas, known since her marriage as the Lady Rebecca. Her husband went with her, and several Indian followers; among the rest, a chief sent by her father to count the people of England. Pocahontas attracted admiration by her modest and graceful demeanor, and was greatly caressed, being recommended to the queen's notice in a petition from Captain Smith, in which he recounted her services to the colony, and especially to himself. In those days, in which the genius of a Bacon worshiped at the feet of a James I., royalty even in a savage was thought to have something sacred about it, and Rolfe, we are told, came near being called to account for having presumed, being a mere private person, to marry a princess. To make some provision for him, he was appointed secretary to the colony, an office now first created. When about to return to Virginia, Pocahontas died, leaving an infant son, who was educated in England, and became afterward a pros perous person in the colony. Through him and his de

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scendants, the Bollands and Randolphs of Virginia have CHAPTER been proud to trace their pedigree from the Indian princess.

By the influence of Lord Rich, afterward Earl of 1616. Warwick, a nobleman much engaged in nautical enterprises, and a large stockholder in the Virginia Company, but accused of sacrificing its interests to private trading speculations of his own, the office of deputy governor of Virginia was conferred on Captain Argall, already repeatedly mentioned, a kinsman of the treasurer, and an agent or partner in the speculations of Rich. When Argall arrived at Jamestown to enter upon his office, he 1617. found the public buildings fallen to decay, and only five May. or six houses fit to be inhabited. The planters, who did not exceed four hundred in number, were chiefly employed in the cultivation of tobacco, and were scattered about as best suited their convenience. Argall governed with severity, and, as the colonists alleged, with a single eye to private emolument, assuming for his own use the goods of the company, and extorting labor and service in the company's name, but really for his own benefit. He caused the manager of the estate, which by right of his office appertained to Lord de la War, to be tried by martial law, under Sir Thomas Smith's harsh code, and to be condemned to death for disrespectful words. An appeal was allowed to the company, and along with it came loud complaints of Argall's misbehavior. De la War was earnestly entreated to resume the personal exercise of his authority; and with that intent he sailed for Virginia, but died on the passage off the entrance of the bay, thenceforth known among the English by his name.

After a warm struggle in the company, Yeardley, the former deputy, was appointed governor, and, to give 1619. greater dignity to the office, the honor of knighthood was January.

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CHAPTER obtained for him. Yeardley had orders to sequester the goods of Argall, and to make an inquiry into his conduct; 1619. but Lord Rich dispatched a vessel with timely notice to his confederate, and a few days before Yeardley's arrival, Argall escaped to the West Indies with his property. Presently he returned to England, but, through the support of his patrons, evaded all attempts to call him to account.

April 28.

Another controversy had arisen which aggravated the dispute growing out of the conduct of Argall. Though Sir Thomas Smith had disbursed £80,000, nearly $400,000, of the company's money, with all this expenditure and after twelve years' struggle there were but six hundred colonists in Virginia. Some fault was found with the treasurer's vouchers, and when he offered to resign the company took him at his word. At this he was very much offended, and a violent quarrel ensued between his friends and opponents.

The vacant post of treasurer was conferred on Sir Edwin Sandys, a man of energy and liberal ideas, who entered with zeal on the discharge of his office. The holders of grants of land in Virginia were induced to send out settlers, and to establish plantations at their private expense. The cultivation of tobacco seemed to promise a profitable return; and the vessels engaged in the Newfoundland fisheries were availed of to transport the emigrants at a moderate cost.

Yeardley found in the colony seven distinct plantations, to which he presently added four more, composed of new emigrants. At the head of each plantation was a commandant, at once chief of the militia and civil magistrate. The tyranny of Argall had induced the company to reestablish a local council as a check upon the governor, and Yeardley presently called the first colonial assembly of Virginia, composed of the governor, the council, and

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deputies from the eleven plantations. These deputies CHAPTER were called burgesses-a name which they continued to retain after the representation was distributed by coun- 1619. ties. The acts of this assembly are not extant, but they are said to have given great satisfaction. Another popular measure, suggested by the extortions of Argall, was a full release, on the part of the company, of all claims of service from any of the old planters.

During the year that Sandys held office, he sent to Virginia twelve hundred emigrants-twice as many as there were inhabitants in the colony when he became treasurer. Among them were ninety young women, "pure and uncorrupt," who were disposed of for the cost of their passage, as wives to the planters. The price of a wife was an hundred pounds of tobacco, worth then about seventy-five dollars. But half as much more was obtained for those of a second cargo sent out a year or two after.

There were other emigrants of a sort less desirable. By the king's special order, an hundred dissolute vagabonds, the sweepings of the prisons, familiarly known among the colonists as "jail-birds," were sent to Virginia to be sold as servants-a practice long continued as a regular item of British criminal jurisprudence, in spite of the repeated complaints of the colonists, and their efforts to prevent it.

By the free consent and co-operation of the colonists 1620. themselves, another and still more objectionable species of population was introduced into Virginia, not without still enduring and disastrous effects upon the social condition of the United States. Twenty negroes, brought to Jamestown by a Dutch trading vessel, and purchased by the colonists, were held, not as indented servants for a term of years, but as slaves for life.

Even so late as the first English migrations to Amer

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