IV. garded with contempt the bows and clubs of the Indians. CHAPTER The Indian villages, with their corn-fields of cleared lands, fertile spots along the banks of the rivers, offered tempt- 1621. ing locations to the new comers. Quite unsuspicious of danger from a people whose simplicity they derided, and whose patience they despised, the colonists had neglected their military exercises, and had dropped all precautions for defense. In disregard of the proclamations which forbade teaching the Indians the use of fire-arms, they were employed as fowlers and huntsmen by the colonists, and freely admitted to the plantations. Provoked by the murder of one of their principal warriors, and taking ad- 1622. vantage of this carelessness and familiarity, at an hour March 22. appointed beforehand they fell at once upon every settlement. A converted Indian gave warning the night before, in season to save Jamestown and a few of the neighboring plantations, otherwise the massacre might have been much more extensive. As it was, three hundred and fifty persons perished in the first surprise, including six counselors. Several settlements, though taken unawares, made a brave resistance, and repulsed the assailants. A bloody war ensued, of the details of which we know. little. Sickness and famine added their horrors, and within a brief period the colonists were reduced from four thousand to twenty-five hundred, concentrated, for convenience of defense, in six settlements. The university estate was abandoned, the glass and iron works were destroyed. But the white men soon recovered their wonted superiority. The Indians, treacherously entrapped, were slain without mercy. Driven from the James and York Rivers, their fields and villages were occupied by the colonists. Greatly reduced in number, they were soon disabled from doing much damage, but no settled peace was made till fourteen years had expired. CHAPTER The breaking out of this war and the threatened ruin of the colony served to aggravate the dissensions of the 1623. company, which presently reached a high pitch. The minority appealed to the king, who ordered the records May to be seized, and appointed commissioners to investigate Oct. the company's affairs. Other commissioners were soon after appointed, to proceed to Virginia, to examine on the spot the condition of the colony, the control of which the king had determined to assume. 1624. About the time of the arrival of these commissioners March. the first extant laws of Virginia were enacted. Thirtyfive acts, very concisely expressed, repealed all prior laws, and shed a clear and certain light upon the condition of the colony. The first acts, as in many subsequent codifications of the Virginia statutes, relate to the Church. In every plantation there was to be a room or house "for the worship of God, sequestered and set apart for that purpose, and not to be for any temporal use whatsoever;" also a place of burial, "sequestered and paled in." Absence from public worship, "without allowable excuse," exposed to the forfeiture of a pound of tobacco, or fifty pounds if the absence continued for a month. The celebration of Divine service was to be in conformity to the canons of the English Church. In addition to the usual Church festivals, the 22d of March was to be annually observed in commemoration of the escape of the colony from Indian massacre. No minister was to be absent from his parish above two months annually, under pain of forfeiting half his salary, or the whole of it, and his cure also, if absent four months. He who disparaged a minister without proof was to be fined five hundred pounds of tobacco, and to beg the minister's pardon publicly before the congregation. The ministers' salaries were to be paid out of the first gathered and best tobacco IV. and corn; and no man was to dispose of his tobacco be- CHAPTER fore paying his Church dues, under pain of paying double. The proclamations formerly set forth against drunken- 1624. ness and swearing were confirmed as law, and the churchwardens were to present all such offenders. The governor was to lay no taxes of any kind, except by authority of the assembly; and the expenditure, as well as levy of all public money, was to be by order of that body only. The governor was not to withdraw the inhabitants from their private employments for any work of his own, under any color; and if, in the intervals of the assembly, men were needed for the public service, the whole council must concur in the levy. The old planters, before Sir Thomas Gates's last coming, "and their posterity," were to be exempt from personal service in the Indian war except as officers-a provision afterward several times re-enacted, with the omission, however, of the hereditary clause. The burgesses were privileged from arrest going to, coming from, and during the assembly. For convenience of "the more distant parts," Elizabeth City, at the mouth of James River, and Charles City, at the junction of the Appomattox, monthly courts were to be holden by special commissioners, as an intermediate tribunal between commanders of plantations and the quarterly courts held by the governor and counEvery private planter's dividend of land was to be surveyed and the bounds recorded. To encourage the production of corn, its price was to be unrestricted, but all other prices were to remain as fixed by existing proclamations. In every parish was to be a public granary, to which each planter above eighteen was to bring yearly one bushel of corn, to be disposed of for the public use by the vote of the major part of the freemen, or, if not used, to be returned to the owner when the new bushel cil. IV. CHAPTER was brought in. Three sufficient men were to be sworn in each parish, to see that every settler planted and tended 1624. corn enough for his family. All trade in corn with the Indians was prohibited. Every freeman was to fence in a garden of a quarter of an acre, for the planting of grapevines, roots, herbs, and mulberry trees. Men were to be appointed in each parish to "censure" the tobacco-the first trace of the tobacco inspections. Ships were to break bulk only at James City. Weights and measures were to be sealed. Every dwelling-house was to be palisadoed for defense; and none were to go abroad, except in parties and armed, not even to work; nor were the inhabitants of any plantation to go on board ships, or elsewhere, in such numbers as to leave their houses exposed to attack. Each commander was to keep his plantation supplied with arms and ammunition; and watch was to be kept at night. No powder was to be spent unnecessarily at drinking frolics or other entertainments. Delinquent "persons of quality, not fit to undergo corporeal punishment," might be imprisoned by the commanders at their discretion, or fined by the monthly courts. Every planter who had not found a man for the castle was to pay for himself and servants five pounds of tobacco per head. At the beginning of July, the inhabitants of every plantation were to fall upon "their adjoining salvages," as they did last year. Any persons wounded in this service were to be cured at the public charge, and if permanently lamed, were to have a maintenance suitable to their quality. To pay the expenses and debts occasioned by the war, ten pounds of tobacco per head were to be levied on each male colonist.. Evident allusion appears in this code to the controversy then pending between the king and the company. No IV. person, upon rumor of supposed change, was to presume CHAPTER to be disobedient to the present government, nor servants to their masters, "at their uttermost peril." The last 1624. law of the code levies a tax of four pounds of tobacco per head, to pay the expense of sending an agent to England to look after the interests of the colony, and to solicit the exclusion of foreign tobacco. The king's commissioners to examine into the state of the colony seem to have been looked upon with some suspicion; and the clerk of the assembly, for betrayal of his trust in furnishing them with copies of certain papers, was punished with the loss of his ears. The colonists had some reason to fear lest the recall of the company's charter might deprive them of their share in colonial legislation, so recently granted, or might even endanger their titles to land. The reports of the commissioners were as unfavorable as the king could desire. In vain the stockholders appealed to James's fourth Parliament, then in session, little sympathy being felt in that body for monopolies or exclusive corporations of any sort. The action of the company suspended by proclamation, it was soon called upon to answer to a process of Quo Warranto-a legal inquiry, that is, into its conduct and pretensions. The respondents had little to hope from judges who held office at the pleasure of the royal complainant, and the proceedings were soon closed by a judgment of forfeit ure. Thus fell the Virginia Company, after spending 1625. £150,000, nearly $700,000, in establishing the colony. This did not include the expenditures of private individuals to a large amount, some of whom obtained, perhaps, a return for their money, while the outlay of the company was a dead loss. The agent sent to England on behalf of the colonists died on his passage; but it was the policy of the king |