III. Second Colony of Virginia, might plant any where be- CHAPTER tween the thirty-eighth and forty-fifth degrees of north latitude, or between Delaware Bay and Halifax; but 1606. neither company was to begin its settlement within a hundred miles of any spot previously occupied by the other. Each colony was to extend along the coast fifty miles either way from the point first occupied, and from the same point inland and seaward, either way, one hundred miles, including all islands within that distance, and embracing ten thousand square miles of continental territory. A council, resident in each colony, to be composed of thirteen members nominated by the king, was to manage local affairs. No settlement was to be allowed inland of either colony without the express consent of its council. A "Council of Virginia," resident in England, its members also appointed by the king, was to exercise a general superintendence over both colonies. The two companies were authorized to search for mines, paying the king a fifth of all gold and silver, and a fifteenth of all copper. They were empowered to coin money, to invite and carry over adventurers, to repel intruders, to levy duties for their own use during twentyone years, and to export goods from England free of all imposts for seven years. Lands in the colony were to be held of the king, on the most favorable tenure; the colonists and their children to have all the rights of native-born Englishmen. If any of them committed robbery or piracy on vessels of other nations at peace with England, and, being required by proclamation, omitted to make full restitution, they might be put out of the king's allegiance and protection, and left to the spoil of the people they had plundered. This clause, borrowed from Gilbert's patent, and copied into several subsequent charters, evinces the prevalence of piracy in that age, and the very ineffectual means adopted to suppress it. CHAPTER A few months after the grant of this charter, James issued "Instructions for the government of Virginia," in 1606. which he appointed a council, as provided for in the Nov. 20. charter, to be increased or altered at the king's pleas ure, and authorized to nominate and superintend the local councils, reduced by these instructions to seven members each. These seven were to choose a president from their own number, with power to suspend him or any counselor for good cause, and to fill vacancies till new appointments came from England; the president to have a double vote. It was made the especial duty of these councils to provide that "the true word and service of God, according to the rites and service of the Church of England, be preached, planted, and used in the colonies and among the neighboring savages." Tumults, rebellion, conspiracy, mutiny, and sedition, along with seven other offenses, all triable by jury, were declared capital; lesser offenses were to be tried summarily, and punished by the local councils at their discretion; all laws enacted by these councils not touching life or limb, to remain in force till set aside by the king or the council for Virginia. For five years after their first plantation, the trade and industry of the colonists were to remain a common stock, or "two or three stocks at the most," to be managed, in each colony, by a factor selected annually by the local council, and in England by committees appointed for that purpose. A knowledge of these provisions is necessary to make the early history of Virginia intelligible. The French adventurers, meanwhile, were not idle. Poutrincourt obtained in France a confirmation of the grant he had received from De Monts; and, cotemporaneously with the first enterprises of the London and 1607. Plymouth Companies, he established at Port Royal the III. first permanent French settlement in America. The CHAPTER year after, Champlain, whom we have seen participating in the enterprises of Chauvin and De Monts, obtained 1608. an outfit from some merchants of St. Malo and Dieppe, and planted on the St. Lawrence the post of Quebec. He was joined in the spring by Pontgravé, and himself, 1609. joining a party of Hurons and Algonquins in a war expedition against the Iroquois or Five Nations, ascended the Sorel, and, first of white men, entered the lake which still bears the name Champlain. A series of explora tions presently followed, whence arose the French claim to that vast tract of interior America, comprehended, along with Canada and Acadie, under the general name of NEW FRance. Almost cotemporaneously with the first French exploration of Lake Champlain, another celebrated discoverer was penetrating from an opposite direction toward the same point. Henry Hudson, an enterprising English navigator, who had made two voyages, in the employ of London merchants, in search of a north or northwest passage to India, not finding further encouragement at home, had passed over to Holland, where he obtained from the Amsterdam chamber of the Dutch East India Company a small vessel called the Half Moon, in which he undertook a third voyage. Hudson seems to have March. entertained the project of sailing directly across the north pole to India; but, finding his track to the north impeded by ice, he turned to the southwest, ran along the coast of Acadie, entered Penobscot Bay, where he traded with the Indians, and basely robbed them at his July. departure; made the land of Cape Cod, which he took for an island, and named New Holland; stretched thence to the entrance of Chesapeake Bay, where the London Virginia Company, as he knew, already had a colony; CHAPTER turned again to the north, looked into the bay afterward III. called the Delaware, and presently discovered and en1609. tered the river now so familiarly known as the HudAug. son, which he ascended to the head of tide water. So Sept. far as is known, the Bay of New York had remained unvisited by Europeans since the time of Verrazzani. The natives on the banks of the river, struck with wonder at Hudson's vessels, were easily induced to a friendly intercourse, repaid by Hudson with reckless cruelty, like that which had disgraced his conduct at Penobscot. On her passage home the Half Moon entered an English port. The ship was at length allowed to depart; but Hudson was detained by a royal order, and presently 1610. fitted out for a fourth voyage. Having penetrated into the great bay which still bears his name-though Cabot seems to have entered it a century before he passed the winter frozen up in the ice. On his return homeward in the spring, his crew, provoked by his hard and stern temper, revolted, and set him adrift in an open boat with his young son and eight others. In virtue of the discovery made by Hudson while sailing under their flag, the Dutch, now fast coming forward as the leading commercial people of Europe, claimed the North American coast, under the name of NEW NETHERLAND, from the South Bay, which the English called the Delaware, as far east as Cape Cod, and, indeed, to Passamaquoddy Bay. Virginia, New France, and New Netherland thus overlapped each other; and to the natural and inevitable difficulties of that colonization which now first began to be successfully attempted, were added territorial disputes, national rivalries, religious antipathies, and all the petty hatreds and jealousies of trade, conducted at that time on much narrower principles than at present. CHAPTER IV. SETTLEMENT OF VIRGINIA. THE persons named in the charter of Virginia, as CHAPTER IV. founders of the London Company, were Sir Thomas. Gates, Sir George Somers, Richard Hakluyt, and Ed- 1606. ward Maria Wingfield. Others were persuaded, or had previously agreed to take part in the enterprise, especially Sir Thomas Smith, an eminent merchant of London, one of the assignees of Raleigh's patent, who was chosen treasurer of the new company. For every sum of £12 10s., about sixty dollars, paid into the company's treasury, the contributor was entitled to an hundred acres of land, and as much more when the first lot was cultivated. This was called "the adventure of the purse." Under the head of "personal adventure," whosoever emigrated to Virginia, or carried others thither at his own expense, was to be allowed an hundred acres for each person so transported. It was expected by this allowance not only to encourage the voluntary emigration of persons able to pay their own expenses, but to promote the transportation, at the expense of private individuals, of servants indented or bound for a term of years a species of emigrants esteemed essential to the industry of the colony, and which we shall find as a distinct class in all the Anglo-American settlements. all grants of land a quit-rent was reserved. On The company thus organized fitted out three vessels, under the command of Christopher Newport, who had |