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CHAPTER ica, there might have remained, in obscure corners of IV. England, some few hereditary serfs attached to the soil, 1620. faint remnants of that system of villanage once universal throughout Europe, and still prevalent in Hungary and Russia. But villains in gross-slaves, that is, inheriting from their parents the condition of servitude, and transferable from hand to hand-had entirely disappeared from England, not by any formal legislative act, but as the joint result of private emancipations and the discouragement long given by the English courts to claims so contrary to natural right. It had come, indeed, to be an established opinion throughout western Europe that Christians could not be held as slaves-an immunity, however, not thought to extend to infidels or heathen. The practice of buying negroes on the coast of Africa, introduced by the Portuguese, had been adopted by the Spanish, English, and Dutch. There was little inducement to bring them to Europe, where hired laborers might be abundantly obtained; but in the Spanish and Portu guese colonies in America, especially after the introduction of the sugar manufacture, the slave traders found a ready market, and the cultivation of tobacco began now to open a like market in Virginia. In buying and holding negro slaves, the Virginians did not suppose themselves to be violating any law, human or divine. Whatever might be the case with the law of England, the law of Moses, in authorizing the enslavement of "strangers," seemed to give to the purchase of negro slaves an express sanction. The number of negroes in the colony, limited as it was to a few cargoes, brought at intervals by Dutch traders, was long too small to make the matter appear of much moment, and more than forty years elapsed before the colonists thought it necessary to strengthen the system of slavery by any express enactments.

IV.

After a year's service Sandys was succeeded as treas- CHAPTER urer by the Earl of Southampton; but the same policy was persevered in, and during the two following years 1620. twenty-three hundred immigrants were sent to Virginia. The trade of the colony had hitherto been a close monopoly in the hands of a joint stock called "The Magazine," annually formed by subscriptions on the part of the company and its members. Goods sent by this joint stock to an agent in the colony, known as the "Cape merchant," were exchanged by him for tobacco and other produce. This trade had proved a losing concern, and had occasioned great disputes and dissatisfaction. - It was now abandoned, and the supply of the colony thrown open to private enterprise.

With this access of population, new plantations were established on James and York River; and some adventurers, for convenience of trade with the Indians, fixed themselves on the Potomac. It was about this time that John Pory penetrated across the neck of land which separates the Chesapeake from the Delaware. He also explored the country south of the Chesapeake, as far as the banks of the Chowan.

An estate of ten thousand acres near the falls of James River, with a number of indented tenants to cultivate it, was assigned by the company toward the endowment of a college for the education of Indians ast well as of colonists. The money contributed for the same object by some philanthropic individuals in England was invested by the treasurer in the establishment of iron works, from which great benefits were hoped to the colony, and increase to the fund.

The cultivation of tobacco had given a sudden impulse to Virginia; but the use of it was still quite limited, and the English market was soon overstocked. The

CHAPTER price began to fall, and great anxiety was evinced by IV. the enlightened treasurer for the introduction into the 1620. colony of other staples-flax, silk, wine, and the prepa

ration of lumber. New attempts were made at the manufacture of glass, pitch, tar, and potashes, and some Italians and Dutch were sent out to instruct the colonists in these operations.

That leaven which presently produced so remarkable 1621. a revolution against monarchical authority was already working in England, and James's third Parliament, which met after an interval of seven years-the same which impeached Lord Bacon-protested against the Virginia Company's lotteries as an illegal raising of money without parliamentary sanction. The lotteries were stopped in consequence by order in council, and that resource came to an end. The colony still remained a losing concern. The disputes between the adherents of Sir Thomas Smith and the present administration grew every day more vehement. The stockholders had become quite numerous, and the affairs of the company gave rise, in the courts of proprietors, to very lively debates. The king wished to dictate the choice of a treasurer more courtly than Southampton, and less an opponent of royal prerogative. The farmers of the customs attempted to levy an excessive duty on tobacco, and the company, to escape it, sent theirs to Holland. order in council forbade the exportation of colonial produce to foreign countries unless it had first paid duties in England-the first germ of that colonial system afterward sanctioned by parliamentary enactment, and one of the principal features in the subsequent relations of the mother country to the colonies. Other orders in council, more favorable to Virginia, but having in view the same object of augmenting the royal revenue, pro

An

IV.

hibited the importation of Spanish tobacco, or its cultiva- CHAPTER tion in England.

Southampton and his adherents in the Virginia Com- 1621. pany belonged to the rising party in favor of parliamentary and popular rights as opposed to the royal prerogative. With more conformity to their principles than is always displayed in like cases, they induced the company to confirm, by special ordinance, the privilege of a General Assembly, already conceded to the colony by Yeardley, probably at their suggestion. This ordinance, sent out by Sir Francis Wyatt, appointed to supersede Yeardley as governor, granted a constitution to Virginia, modeled after that of the mother country, and itself the model, or at least the prototype, of most of the governments of English origin subsequently established in America. For the enactment of local laws, the governor and council appointed by the company were to be joined by delegates chosen by the people, the whole to be known as the General Assembly. For many years. they sat together as one body, but for the passage of any law the separate assent of the deputies, the council, and the governor was required. Even enactments thus sanctioned might still be set aside by the company. The governor and council acted as a court of law, and held quarterly sessions for that purpose; but an appeal lay to the General Assembly, and thence to the company. The laws of England were considered to be in force in the colony, the colonial legislation extending only to local

matters.

Simultaneously with this civil constitution an ecclesiastical organization was introduced.. The plantations were divided into parishes, for the endowment of which contributions were collected in England. A glebe of an hundred acres, cultivated by six indented tenants, was

IV.

CHAPTER allowed by the company to each clergyman, to which was added a salary, to be paid by a parish tax. The 1621. governor was instructed to uphold public worship according to the forms and discipline of the Church of England, and to avoid "all factious and needless novelties"

-a caution, no doubt, against Puritan ideas, at this time much on the increase in England, and not without partisans even in Virginia.

A plantation of fifteen hundred acres, cultivated by fifty indented tenants, was assigned as a salary to the colonial treasurer; an office filled by George Sandys, known in English literature as the translator of Ovid, and for some years a resident in Virginia. A like salary was appointed for the marshal, the chief executive officer of law and police. Five hundred acres, with twenty indented tenants, were assigned to the colonial physician. When Wyatt came to take over the plantation which constituted, in whole or in part, the gov ernor's salary, only forty-six tenants out of the hundred were found upon it-a deficiency, however, which Yeardley declined to make up.

The new governor was instructed to restrict the planters to a hundred weight of tobacco for each man employed in its cultivation; to turn the attention of the colonists to corn, mulberry trees, vines, and cattle; and to look after the glass and iron works. He was also to cultivate a good understanding with the natives; but this injunction, unfortunately, came too late.

Powhatan was dead. His successor was Opechancanough, a bold and cunning chief, always hostile to the English. Blood had several times been shed on both sides, especially in the earlier years of the colony, but as yet there had been no formidable or protracted hostilities. The colonists, confident in their fire-arms, re

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