el,* John Pory,† John Ralfe, William Wick

turned to Jamestown, having lost many of his men, and set out on a trading voyage in a small ship with thirty or forty men, and, being unsuccessful, set sail for England. He seems from the text to have returned to Virginia, but was living in England in 1622 (Smith, 72, 90-2, 105. New-England's Trials, p. 15), and perhaps remained there till he was appointed one of the council of Sir Francis Wyat (but see Prince, 218). He seems to have been an amiable but inefficient man. Smith ascribes to him a "gentle nature."

He was named a councillor under Yeardley, and in the commission to Harvey in 1627.-Hazard, i., 232, 234. After the death of Yeardley in the latter part of 1627, he was chosen by the council to succeed him, and, having held the government a few months, is presumed to have died early in 1628.—Burk, ii., 21, 2.-H.]

* [Nathaniel Powel came to Virginia with Captain Smith in 1607, and his name occurs among the "gentlemen" in the catalogue of the first planters.-Smith, 43. He accompanied Smith in several of his exploring journeys, was employed by him, sometimes alone, in services requiring both courage and discretion, and wrote some of the narratives from which his History of Virginia was compiled. When Argal stole away from the colony in 1619, he left Powel, who has now the title of captain, for his deputy. He held this office but ten or twelve days, till Yeardley arrived, who, as is stated in the text, chose him into his council.-Ib., 126. He was slain, with his family, and his body "butcher-like haggled," in the general massacre of March 22, 1622. Smith, p. 145, calls him "a valiant soldier, and not any in the country better known among them."-H.]

† [Master John Porey, as he wrote his name, was one of the grantees in the Virginia patent of 1609 (Hazard, i., 61), was educated at Cambridge, and had been in Parliament. He was not one of the adventurers, at least his name is not on the list of them in 1620, and probably not one of the planters, but em

ham, and Samuel Maycock.* The next was to publish his intention of calling a General Assembly, the privileges and powers of which were defined in his commission. He also granted to the oldest planters a discharge from all service to the colony but such as was voluntary, or obligatory by the laws and customs of nations, with a confirmation of all their estates real and personal, to be holden in the same manner as by English subjects.

ployed by the company for his intelligence and supposed integrity. He made some pretensions to religion (Smith, 142, and Morton's Memorial, 84), but was of an intriguing, restless spirit. He was appointed secretary of state in Virginia on the recommendation of the Earl of Warwick, who doubtless thought him, as he proved, a fit instrument for his purposes.-Burk, i., App., 322. It may not be amiss to say, that the secretary's place was one of some consequence. In 1691, the company, in their instructions, gave order that the secretary should have twentyfive men "to serve and attend" him.-Smith, 127. After intercepting the proofs of Argal's misconduct, the company could not have longer employed him. He was a member of the temporary commission appointed by the king, July 15, 1624, after he had suppressed the meetings of the company.-Hazard, i., 183. Some curious letters of his are preserved in the Ellis Collection of Original Papers, iii., 237, seqq.-H.]

* [Of Samuel Maycock I find little, except that he was slain by the Indians, March 22, 1622. In the list of the slain he is called Captain Macock. He had a plantation of 1000 acres on the south side of James River, in the corporation of Henrico.-Burk, i., 333. The date of his arrival is uncertain, and his name is not among those who came before 1609.-H.]

Finding a great scarcity of corn, he made some amends for his former error by promoting the cultivation of it. The first year of his administration (1619) was remarkable for very great crops of wheat and Indian corn, and for a very great mortality of the people, not less than 300 of whom died.

In the month of July of this year, the first General Assembly of the colony of Virginia met at Jamestown.* The deputies were chosen by the townships or boroughs, no counties being at that time formed. From this circumstance, the Lower House of Assembly was always afterward called the House of Burgesses till the revolution in 1776. In this Assembly, the governor, council, and burgesses sat in one house, and jointly "debated all matters thought expedient for the good of the colony." The laws then enacted were of the nature of local regulations, and were transmitted to England for the approbation of the treasurer and company. It is said that they were judiciously drawn up; but no vestige of them now remains.

Thus, at the expiration of twelve years

* Beverley (p. 35) says that the first Assembly was called in 1620. But Stith, who had more accurately searched the records, says that the first was in 1619, and the second in 1620.P. 160.

from their settlement, the Virginians first enjoyed the privilege of a colonial Legislature, in which they were represented by persons of their own election.* They received as a favour what they might have claimed as a right, and, with minds depressed by the arbitrary system under which they had been held, thanked the company for this favour, and begged them to reduce to a compendium, with his majesty's approbation, the laws of England suitable for Virginia; giving this as a reason, that it was not fit for subjects to be governed by any laws but those which received an authority from their sovereign.

It seems to have been a general sentiment among these colonists not to make Virginia the place of their permanent residence, but, after having acquired a fortune by planting and trade, to return to England.† For this reason most of them were destitute of families, and had no natural attachment to the country. To remedy this material defect, Sir Edwin Sandys, the new treasurer, proposed to the company to send over a freight of young women to make wives for the plant

ers.

This proposal, with several others made by that eminent statesman, was received with + Stith, 165.

Chalmers, 44.

universal applause; and the success answered their expectations. Ninety girls, "young and uncorrupt," were sent over at one time* (1620); and sixty more, "handsome and wellrecommended," at another (1621).† These were soon blessed with the object of their wishes. The price of a wife at first was one

* Purchas, v., 1783.

t [The following remnant of the early times, when women were willing to get married and not ashamed to own it, is a letter accompanying a shipment of marriageable ladies made from England to the colony in Virginia. It is dated

"London, August 21, 1621.

"We send you a shipment, one widow and eleven maids, for wives of the people of Virginia: there hath been especial care had in the choice of them, for there hath not one of them been received but upon good commendations.

In case they cannot be presently married, we desire that they may be put with several householders that have wives until they can be provided with husbands. There are nearly fifty more that are shortly to come, and are sent by our honourable lord and treasurer, the Earl of Southampton, and certain worthy gentlemen, who, taking into consideration that the plantation can never flourish till families be planted, and the respect of wives and children for their people on the soil, therefore having given this fair beginning; reimbursing of whose charges, it is ordered that every man that marries them give one hundred and twenty pounds of best leaf tobacco for each of them.

"We desire that the marriage be free, according to nature, and we would not have those maids deceived and marry to servants, but only to such freemen or tenants as have means to maintain them. We pray you, therefore, to be fathers of them in this business, not enforcing them to marry against their wills." -H.]