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CHAPTER II

VIRGINIA AS A PROPRIETARY PROVINCE. EXPERIMENTS UNDER THE CHARTER OF 1606

THE voyages of discovery, the commercial enterprises, the single experiment in colonization of the reign of Elizabeth, were the results of private enterprise. Individuals, associations, or companies furnished the means, the state giving the requisite authority and verbal encouragement or guidance. Its financial resources, especially when administered with the caution that characterized Cecil and the queen, were husbanded for purposes of more direct and pressing utility. From the standpoint of the government discovery and colonization were as yet remote interests. Attention was being directed to them through the conflict with Spain, but the pressing need was the maintenance of English national independence, of that system of relations in church and state which it was hoped had been definitively established when Elizabeth came to the throne. During the early stages of the war with Spain, even naval operations had been left to a considerable extent to individual initiative—a survival of mediæval conditions, when the state and its resources were relatively weak. It was therefore scarcely to be expected that a different policy would be pursued in the domain of colonization. If it should ever be adopted, it must be under the pressure of commercial or political rivalry, and after transmarine interests of magnitude and generally recognized value had developed.

Still, however, with the accession of the Stuarts to the throne an experiment was tried which suggested, not the assumption by the exchequer of responsibility for the expense of colonization, for its losses or gains, but a much more systematic control over it than had ever characterized

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Elizabethan policy. Though some of the features of this, and some of its consequences, will best be understood when presented in another connection, yet it must be discussed at this point in order that its place in the development of the forms of colonial government may be seen. I refer to the system inaugurated under the charter of 1606, which resulted in the permanent colonization of Virginia. In this the private or proprietary element appears in the form of a body of patentees, much like the Southampton Associates of Sir Humphrey Gilbert, or the freemen of the city of Raleigh, but they are brought for practically all purposes under the control of a special royal council. The following events brought together the patentees, and committed them to the enterprise.

During the three or four years before this charter was issued, several private voyages of discovery were sent to the coast of Northern Virginia, later New England. These were commanded by Bartholomew Gosnold, Martin Pring, George Weymouth. Henry Challons was also despatched on a similar errand, but he fell into the hands of the Spaniards and suffered a long imprisonment. Besides the aid given by certain Bristol, and possibly London, merchants, these voyages were made chiefly under the patronage of the Earl of Southampton, Baron Arundel of Wardour, Sir John Popham, Chief Justice of King’s Bench, and Sir Ferdinando Gorges. Toward their success Richard Hakluyt had contributed the help of his enthusiasm, and his wide knowledge of geography and of the history of discovery and colonization. The voyages were made partly with and partly without the consent of Raleigh, whose rights¹ prior to his attainder had not been expressly extinguished, though they might have been held to have lapsed. The result of these voyages was to reveal more clearly the nature of the American coast north of the fortieth degree of latitude, the value of the fisheries and fur trade available there, the resources of the region in timber and other naval stores. Certain natives who were carried to England by Weymouth

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also greatly interested Gorges. These causes aroused anew the interest of influential private parties in American colonization, and brought together the London and Plymouth patentees of 1606. The moving spirits in this enterprise at the outset are supposed to have been Chief Justice Popham and Sir Ferdinando Gorges, though their names do not appear among those of the petitioners for the charter. But of these petitioners, all except Richard Hakluyt had seen service either by land or sea in the recent war with Spain. One was a son of Sir Humphrey Gilbert, and another a brother of Sir John Popham. Still another, Sir George Somers, had repeatedly served under Raleigh. Thus a close connection existed between this group and the earlier generation of seamen and discoverers.

At about the time when the charter of 1606 was issued, a paper¹ was prepared setting forth reasons for raising a public fund to be used in aid of discovery and colonization. After referring to some of the advantages, chiefly commercial, which colonies would bring to England, the writer affirms that it were better if the state would directly support their establishment, than if it secured this by granting private monopolies. A prestige would thus be given to colonization which otherwise it could never attain. Contributions toward it would come in much more freely from the nation at large, and foreign nations would be less likely to threaten or otherwise injure the colonies. The author therefore proposed that commissioners should be appointed under an act of parliament, who should collect money for the purpose, drawing it so far as possible from the superfluous expenditures of the nation. Privileges and license to transport colonists should be procured from the king, and his honor should be pledged to assist and protect the project. Parliament was not at this juncture to share in the work of colonization, and when its period of activity did come it assumed a form quite different from the one here suggested. But the paper expresses a desire for governmental backing which

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was an advance on anything that Elizabeth had offered, and which, in a certain form, James I was quite ready to grant. It is supposed that Sir John Popham prepared the first draft of the charter of 1606, and Sir Edward Coke was attorney-general when it passed the seals. The recipients of the grants were two groups of adventurers, or would-be settlers, one resident at London and the other at Plymouth. To the activities of these men which preceded the issue of the charter reference has already been made. The usual words of incorporation do not appear in the charter, but instead only the expressions “first colony,” “second colony,” “adventurers,” “associates.” In the first set of instructions issued by the king concerning this enterprise—and the only set preserved—it is said that the king had “given license” to sundry of his “loving subjects” and “to their associates,” “to deduce and conduct two several colonies or plantations of settlers to America.” To these patentees, as in the charters issued to Gilbert and Raleigh, permission was granted to establish settlements within a specified territory. The choice of a place for a colony was to secure to the grantees possession of a tract one hundred miles square, so located that the settlement should lie in the middle of the eastern or coast line of the tract. As there were two groups of patentees and presumably at least two colonies would be established, and as a middle region three degrees broad was left open for joint settlement, the further provision became necessary that the colonies should be located at least one hundred miles apart. But this bestowment of land was not made in such way that the patentees could grant it out to settlers. In the eighteenth and nineteenth clauses of the charter it was provided that such grants should be made by the king through letters patent under the great seal, and to those persons in whose behalf a petition should be presented by the council of the colony in which they were resident, or with which they were connected.

The right to transport settlers and their supplies into the colonies, with the power to defend them, was given to the patentees, and by implication also the right to trade with them, though the latter was not bestowed in monopolistic

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form. Subjects other than adventurers or planters could trade with the colonists on the payment of a duty of two and one-half per cent, and foreigners on the payment of five per cent, on imports and exports, the revenue during the first twenty-one years to go to the colonies and afterward to the king. In the instructions it was prescribed that for five years trade should be carried on jointly, or in two or three stocks, and that all products of the colonies and all commodities from England should pass through magazines or storehouses, of which in the colonies a cape-merchant should have charge. Each body of patentees was authorized during the period of five years to select three from its own number to serve as factors in England, receiving commodities from the colonies, sending out goods, and guarding the interests of the adventurers. Though the existence in the colonies of individual property in land was not forbidden, the joint system of trade was almost inconsistent with its development, and we know that it did not develop till several years later.

Such were the functions of the patentees in the scheme of 1606. They were proprietary, that is, industrial and commercial, in their character. This group of men furnished the capital for the enterprise, procured settlers, had immediate charge of trade, and expected a profit as the result of their efforts. These are the functions which in all cases, though with varying degrees of effectiveness, proprietors have performed. The colonies which they founded were plantations, worked by servants and laborers under various forms of contract, and managed by overseers or factors. The functions of these proprietors were similar to those of Gilbert, Raleigh, and their associates, and to the work performed by many other individuals and groups that were to follow. Such bodies of men were the prime movers in the initial stage of colonization. They embodied the power of private initiative, and, impelled by desire for gain, the spirit of adventure, or religious zeal, they started a movement toward colonization which was gradually to become national.

But in the system of 1606 was another element, the royal or governmental, which must now be described. Powers of

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government were not directly bestowed on the grantees. Instead, provision was made for three councils, one resident in England and one in each of the two colonies. The first was called the Royal Council for Virginia. Its members were appointed by the crown. The charter provided that they should be thirteen in number, but the first instructions reveal the fact that there were fourteen.¹ They were, however, selected partly from the patentees for the first colony and partly from those of the second. Experience soon revealed the fact that it was very difficult to bring enough of these together to do business, and for that reason, by an ordinance issued in March, 1607, the number was increased, at the request of the patentees themselves, to about forty.² In both these documents, also, it was stated that the king might increase or change the membership at will. The council was then his creature, though the members actually appointed were patentees. Each of the other two councils consisted of thirteen members, appointed by the royal council under instructions from the king, but endowed with power to choose their own president and fill vacancies among their own number.³ They likewise, being planters, were either patentees or closely connected therewith. Through these bodies, and by means of instructions given to them, the king governed the colonies. Each council had a seal, which was the seal not of the patentees, but “of the king for his council.” To the royal council was given control “of and for all matters that shall or may concern the government,” not only within the colonies, but throughout the territory between the thirty-fourth and forty-fifth parallels. To the local councils was given power to regulate the internal affairs of the colonies in pursuance of such instructions as should be issued to them under the sign manual and privy seal of the king. The oath which was formulated for the president of the local council contained a promise of fidelity not to the patentees, but to the king.⁴ By his firs set of instructions the king prescribed what judicial powers⁵ the local council should exercise and how they should be

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exercised, decreed what punishments should be inflicted for the more serious offences, and authorized the president to reprieve, but not to pardon. By the same authority, as we have seen, the entire industrial and commercial system of the colonies was prescribed. Even directions as to the place and method of settlement were issued by the royal council.

We have thus under the charter and instructions of 1606 a mixed form of organization. On the one side it was private or proprietary; on the other side it was public or royal. It was neither wholly the one nor wholly the other. The assumption of strict royal control—presumably as a condition of the grant—prevented the system from being wholly proprietary; the need which the king had of the resources of the patentees made their function indispensable. While founding a royal colony he made use of the patentees, and of no others, as his agents or appointees for the work. They thus not only managed the trade of the colonies, but governed them, though they performed the latter function as the immediate representatives of the king. If we call Virginia under this charter a royal province, we must remember that it had peculiar features, unlike the royal provinces of later times and such as were characteristic of the earliest stage of colonization. It was, in other words, a rudimentary or transitional form of organization, which was destined to give way to others that were more self-consistent.

The problem which now confronted the patentees of 1606 was briefly this: with the limited capital at their disposal they must procure a sufficient number of colonists for their purpose, convey them in the small sailing craft of the time across the ocean, establish them in chosen sites on the western shore of the Atlantic, and maintain and protect them there until they should become self-supporting. As precedents to guide them in this task they had the experience of various European nations, especially Spain and Portugal, so far as it had then gone; the history of the plantations which had been established or were in process of establishment in Ireland; and the recent experiment of Raleigh in

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trans-oceanic colonization. It is to be noted that very much of the experience upon which they could draw for examples had been gained by purely commercial companies, which had limited their efforts to the founding of trading factories in the East. The dreams of the discoverers concerning the wealth of the Indies and the routes which might lead to it also influenced their minds at the outset, as did, even to a larger extent, the success of the Spanish in working the Mexican and Peruvian mines.

These precedents had an influence in determining the selection of colonists, the form of the colonies planted, and the objects toward which in the early years the efforts of the colonists were directed. To Spain, to mines and possible routes to the South Sea, we find abundant reference both in the instructions of the early patentees and in the writings of the first generation of colonizers. The impulse to exploration among the early settlers and their patrons was due largely to the example of Spain and to the hypothesis of Verrazano concerning the location of the Western Sea. But these explorations failed to reveal a second Potosi, while from any mountain top which they could reach it was impossible to discern the shores of that ocean concerning which the natives and the early navigators told such alluring tales. The Alleghanies presented an obstacle to discovery and cut off access to the interior of the continent. Aversion to life among the Indians had a similar confining effect. Hence, mining and discovery on an ambitious scale soon faded out of English-American colonization, and left colonies of the agricultural type, with commercial, political, and social interests which grew up in connection therewith.

The form assumed by these colonies was the resultant of the combined action of the patentees or proprietors who were resident in England, and of the settlers who took up their residence in America. The proprietors planned the enterprises, selected the colonists, appointed and instructed the officials and factors who had immediate charge of the work of settlement, furnished the vessels which transported the settlers across the ocean and which carried supplies and products of the colonies to and fro for an indefinite period

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thereafter. The proprietors were the investors in these enterprises, and, under the more or less rigid supervision of the crown, their administrators; resources and administrative direction, in the full sense of the term, though to varying degrees, came from them. Being at the outset merchants, or knights and noblemen who were acting under the commercial impulse, they were guided, as we have said, to an extent by the experience of older commercial companies. But in the main we must suppose that their plans involved an immediate adaptation of means to ends. They attempted to give such form to their colonies, and to support them in such way, as seemed best adapted to the conditions as they found them. Perhaps the influence of earlier experience is seen more clearly in the organization assumed by the patentees themselves, than in any of the colonies which they founded.

The colonists, with their resident officials, furnished the labor power and superintending skill which constituted the essence of the colony itself. They faced the perils of the outward voyage, and the still greater risk of famine, disease, and death in the new settlements. Their labor cleared the forests, built the towns, cultivated the fields, and established all the relations through which the food supply of the colony was procured. Such returns, in agricultural products, lumber, furs, dyestuffs, ores, fish, as the proprietors might hope to receive from their investment, came directly from the efforts of the colonists. The knowledge of the new country by which the proprietors must be guided in the development of their policy came from the labors and observations of the colonists. Though they were under direction from home, yet the colonists must in the main provide for their own defence, develop relations with the natives, give spirit and extension to the institutions of government which had been mapped out for them by the proprietors. In such close interaction between proprietors and planters as has just been indicated, appears the essential nature of colonization under the earliest proprietary form. Then economic interests were of prime importance, and the connection between the colony and its proprietors was especially close. Later, the

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colony became economically more independent, and developed a more than rudimentary political organism. With these changes the proprietary province in its later form appears, and exists under conditions of greater freedom and with characteristics different from those of the mere plantation. Reference to these general facts will, it is believed, contribute to a clearer understanding of the nature of the earliest English colonies.

By the patentees of 1606 two colonies were planted, one at Jamestown in South Virginia and the other at Sagadahoc in North Virginia; the former by the London group of adventurers, the latter by the Plymouth group. Sir Thomas Gates, Sir George Somers, Richard Hakluyt, Bartholomew Gosnold, and a little later Sir Thomas Smith, were the leading patrons of the first colony, while Chief Justice Popham and Sir Ferdinando Gorges most actively promoted the interests of the second. The great majority of the patentees—who were at the same time councillors of both colonies—belonged to the English knighthood, the names of only a few merchants appearing among them. They belonged distinctively to the English official and military class, though many of them were deeply interested in discovery, trade, and colonization, and were members of companies which were engaged in such enterprises in Europe and the East. One of their number, Richard Hakluyt, was a systematic student of geography and colonization, and could bring to their attention such useful precedents as history afforded.

An “instruction by way of advice,” thought to have been prepared by Hakluyt, under the direction of the royal council,¹ was given to the first body of colonists that was sent out, for their guidance in selecting a place of settlement. With the resolve perhaps that the errors of Raleigh’s colonists should not be repeated, Newport and his followers were directed to settle on the bank of some navigable river. That they might be the better protected against possible attack by the Spanish, they should establish their colony

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some distance inland, but should have a small outpost near the sea to warn the main settlement of approaching danger. With a view to the possible discovery of a route to the South Sea—a prominent object of pursuit now as in the time of Gilbert—a river should be selected whose source was far inland, and if they chanced upon several rivers with branches, let them choose the one which “bendeth most toward the northwest, for that way you shall soonest find the other sea.” The importance of selecting a healthy location for the settlement was enforced, and directions given respecting the opening of trade and other relations with the natives. That the colonists were regarded as a unit under centralized control, and that they should be manipulated so as best to secure the objects of the managers, is shown by the advice concerning the method of settlement. They were told that, after their food and munitions had been landed, it would be well to divide the colonists into three groups, one to build and fortify the town, attention being first paid to the storehouse; the second to clear and prepare ground for planting; the third to explore the river above the settlement. Dispersion of the colonists was not contemplated. The establishment of a single fortified post which should serve as a centre for exploration, for the discovery of mines, for trade with the Indians, and the exploiting of the resources of the country for the support of the colonists and the benefit of the adventurers, is the type of colonization suggested by the “advice.” Captain Newport, the commander of the expedition, would soon return to England for additional supplies and colonists; he would carry with him specimens of the products of the colony, and as full information as it was possible to secure respecting the country and its resources. He would thus act as an intermediary between the colony and those who supported and governed it; but no one was to be allowed to return without a passport, and nothing should be written which might discourage others. “The way to prosper and achieve good success is to make yourselves all of one mind for the good of your country and your own.” Of the issue of similar instructions to those who settled in North Virginia

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we have no record, but it is not improbable that such were issued, as they proceeded from the council which had jurisdiction over both colonies, and since also the type of colony formed at Sagadahoc was the same, so far as the nature of the country would admit, as that established at Jamestown.

Of the methods used by the adventurers at the outset to procure colonists we have no information, but the lists given by Smith for the Jamestown settlement show that from one-third to one-half bore the designation of gentlemen, while the rest were artisans and laborers. During the early years no women were employed and only a few boys. An effort was made to have each of the important trades represented in the colony, but agriculture became by the force of circumstances so predominant and inclusive as an occupation, that it absorbed the services of gentlemen as well as laborers. Among the gentlemen were doubtless some of decayed fortune and doubtful reputations, but the positively criminal element in this emigration was probably small. The laborers came largely from the yeomanry of England, the agricultural tenants and laborers who, owing to persistently low wages or displacement by war or other cause, had become so reduced in circumstances as to look upon removal to a new and distant continent as likely to result in gain.

The colonies which were founded at Sagadahoc and Jamestown were both plantations, owned, officered, and managed by the proprietors or company.¹ The colonists were servants of the company. They were freely transported to Virginia in its vessels, and there worked for the company under prescribed regulations. They were fed and housed out of the products of the total labor of the colony, supplemented by cargoes of provisions received from home. When, if ever, the colony became able to furnish a surplus product,—lumber, furs, tobacco,—it was sent home in the vessels of the company and sold for the benefit of the adventurers. A profit, supposedly large, was also made by the adventurers and officers of their vessels on European goods taken to the colony and sold. These, as well as supplies of provisions

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from England, were regularly stored in a magazine or storehouse, under the charge of a cape-merchant, whence they were delivered to the colonists. The magazine, and the wharf where the supplies from England were loaded and whence the products of the colony were shipped, were the economic centres of the settlement. The ships which brought out colonists and transported cargoes back and forth, were most important connecting links between the colony and its proprietors. Until the colony became self-supporting, its very existence depended on the prompt arrival of supplies. At Jamestown, under the first charter, they measured time by the intervals between “supplies”; later the periods in the history of the colony were measured by governorships. At this early period the duties of the colonial officials were more economic than political. They had to attend to a hundred petty details of colony housekeeping, and these overshadowed in number and importance the political, military, or judicial functions which they had to perform. They were more truly overseers and factors than governors, councillors, and judges in the later meaning of those terms. The captains who commanded the vessels which brought supplies, by virtue of this function, and independent of any office which they might hold, exerted a great influence over the fortunes of the colony.

Much light will be thrown on the nature of these settlements by studying the form in which they were made. As we have seen, in selecting a site, reference was had to necessities of defence, healthfulness, and accessibility to navigable water. Jamestown was located on a peninsula which extended into the James river from its northern bank, and where the adjacent channel was broad and so deep that ships could be moored to trees on the shore. As it was more than thirty miles from the mouth of the river, it was thought to be sufficiently protected against Spanish attack, while it was accessible to the interior of the country which the colonists wished to explore and with which they desired to open relations of various kinds. The result proved that healthfulness was, perhaps, not sufficiently considered in the selection of the site, while there was no cleared land in the vicinity, and

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much exhausting labor in felling trees was at once imposed on the settlers.

A location was selected at Sagadahoc which, so far as the region admitted or necessitated, was similar to that chosen for Jamestown. A sandy and rocky peninsula on the western bank of the Kennebec river near its mouth was selected for the purpose. In the channel opposite, or in an inlet adjacent to the peninsula, vessels could be anchored or moored. The situation was healthful, and the labor of clearing not so great as on the James river. The remoteness of the Spaniard from latitude forty-three and one-half degrees made it unnecessary to settle far inland, and the Frenchman, who was establishing himself at Port Royal and other points to the eastward, had not then developed activity as a colonist sufficient to make his presence seem dangerous.

On both rivers the first work of the colonists after landing and clearing sufficient ground was the building of a fort. These were rectangular or triangular palisaded enclosures, so situated that one or more sides were adjacent to the water. Of the one at Sagadahoc, named Saint George, a contemporary plan¹ has been preserved, which shows that walls surrounded the entire settlement. Within it were located about nine dwellings, besides a chapel, a storehouse, munition house, court of guard, kitchen, buttery, bakehouse, smithery, and cooperage. That all of these were actually built cannot be affirmed, but they were planned, while provision was made that the leading officials should have separate dwellings. At the angles of the fort small cannon were placed. Outside the walls space was cleared for gardens and cultivated fields. This drawing throws a more vivid light on the character of this settlement than any other source of information we have concerning it. It suggests a communal group like a trading factory in the East Indies. Of the fort at Jamestown no plan or drawing of date earlier than 1620 has been preserved.² But from contemporary descriptions we know in general the form and character of the settlement. “The fifteenth day of June” (1607),

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writes George Percy, “we¹ had built and finished our fort, which was triangle wise, having three bulwarks at every corner like a half-moon, and four or five pieces of artillery mounted in them.” Smith states that when autumn came no houses for the settlers had been built, their cabins were worse than naught,” and the tents, under which many had probably lived, were rotten.² But we know that by January, 1608, several buildings had been erected within the fort, among which were a storehouse³ for provision and ammunition, a chapel, and dwellings for at least a part of the colonists. On the arrival of Newport with the first supply from England, early in January, a fire broke out which consumed a part of the palisade and all the buildings in the fort with the exception of three. Clothing and provisions were destroyed, and the minister, Mr. Hunt, lost his library. But with the assistance of Newport and his men the damage was soon repaired and the houses and chapel were rebuilt in somewhat improved fashion and arrangement.

William Strachey has left a description⁴ of Jamestown fort as it was when Gates and Somers, and later Lord Delaware, arrived in 1610, and we may be certain that it pictures the settlement substantially as it was during all the early years of its existence. The fort was triangular in shape, one side of the triangle being parallel and adjacent to the river. It was surrounded with a palisade of planks and strong posts of oak, walnut, and other woods, all driven four feet into the ground. The palisade extended along the river bank 140 yards, accommodating itself thus to the nature of the ground, while the palisade on each of the other sides of the triangle was only one hundred yards in length.⁵ At every one of the three angles a bulwark,

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or watch-tower, was built, in each of which one or two small cannon were mounted. Within the palisade and along each of its three sides was “a settled street of houses,”¹ or more properly “cabins covered with clapboard and thatched with reeds or covered with bark.” In the middle of the enclosure was a market-place, storehouse corps de garde, and chapel. At each of the bulwarks was a gate defended by a demi-culverin, but the principal gate was the one which opened toward the river, through which passed to and fro the chief traffic of the settlement. During the administration of Smith a well had been dug in the fort but the water from it proved to be brackish and unwholesome. From these statements and descriptions the substantial identity of the fort at Jamestown with that at Sagadahoc is evident.

The first settlers landed at Jamestown in May, 1607, while the landing at Sagadahoc was not effected till near the close of August. The result of this was that the northern colony could raise nothing for its subsistence during the first winter and had to depend wholly on the supplies they brought with them, additional supplies from England and such food as they could procure by hunting, fishing and trading with the Indians. The number of colonists who came out on the first vessels was about 120, substantially the same numerically as those who accompanied Newport on his first voyage. But a great mistake had been made in the timing of the voyage to Sagadahoc, and this probably contributed as much toward the failure of that enterprise as any other cause. Apparently by the middle of December it had become evident that the full number of colonists could not find subsistence till the following summer. Hence at that time all except forty-five of the colonists returned to England, accompanied by complaints of the severity of the climate. This was the beginning of

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the end. Those who remained seem to have been adequately supplied with food, and there was not much sickness; but the suspension of their activities during the long, cold winter proved too much for the weakened resolution of the forty-five who remained. It is probable that during the next spring one or more small tracts were planted, but Sagadahoc was abandoned before it became in any true sense an agricultural settlement. A pinnace was built, and with it a few voyages of discovery were made up the river and along the coast to the east and west. Traffic on a small scale was opened with the Indians, and in the main friendly relations seem to have been established with them. But beyond this the Sagadahoc colonists did nothing to make themselves self-supporting.

Acting under the “advice” from the royal council, the officers at Jamestown at the very outset set a part of the labor force of the community at work sowing wheat on the area of four acres or less, from which the trees used in the construction of the fort had just been removed.¹ The seed for this had been brought from Europe. Seeds of fruits and vegetables, brought also from Europe, were planted in this limited area, the colony garden. A part of the sustenance of the colony for the first year was secured in this way. The second year, more land having been cleared, the experiment with English wheat was tried a second time, but without conspicuous success. In 1609, while John Smith was at the head of affairs, the lesson of cultivating maize was learned from the Indians, forty acres were planted with it, and in this way the food-producing capacity of the colony was greatly increased.² The supply of fish and game in the fall was very large. The soil was found to be exceedingly fertile. But still the colony had not become self-supporting or free from the danger of famine. Moreover, while taking these preliminary steps, more than one serious crisis was passed, when the colony seemed on the verge of destruction.

These small efforts had therefore to be supplemented by

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trade with the Indians. They, in that climate and from soil of such fertility as that of Virginia, were able to harvest considerable quantities of maize.¹ The Accomac Indians produced enough to supply their needs for the entire twelvemonth. Though this was not the case with those who lived on the mainland, yet the authorities agree in the statement that the voyages made to the Indian settlements during the fall and early winter found them well supplied with corn, from which purchases were readily made by the English. The trade thus opened served a threefold purpose; it brought to Jamestown supplies of food without which its continued existence would have been impossible, it opened up friendly relations with the natives, and it facilitated and encouraged discovery. The chief service rendered by John Smith to the colony is to be found in the fact that when, on the death of Studley, he became cape-merchant, he instituted trading expeditions for the purpose of procuring corn, and continued them at intervals during the two winters he was in the colony. His first expedition for this purpose was to Kecoughtan (Hampton), near the mouth of the river. Upon this he says he “was sent.”² Later, in the autumn and early winter, Smith made his three famous journeys up the Chickahominy. On the first two of these he was moderately successful and found the natives eager to trade. The third brought him intimately into connection with Indian life, for as a captive he was taken through a large extent of country and brought even to the residence of the Powhatan himself. From a later expedition, to the York River with Captain Newport, he returned with 250 bushels of corn, and this exploit was repeated on two or three other occasions. In the spring of 1608 a quantity of corn is said to have been extorted³ from the Nansemond Indians as a condition of peace. In the early winter of 1609 another notable trading expedition was made to the residence of the Powhatan and of Opechancanough on the York river. By means of all of these the

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store of food at the fort was increased, while Smith’s energy as a leader and his skill in dealing with the natives was clearly revealed.

To the importance of the supplies periodically received from England as an additional source whence the colonists at Sagadahoc, as well as Jamestown, procured sustenance, reference has already been made. The name was applied, at least in Jamestown, not only to the commodities brought, but to the vessels bringing them. Using the term in the latter sense, only one supply, properly speaking, was sent to Sagadahoc. It consisted of two vessels despatched by the adventurers in the spring of 1608, followed the next summer by a third vessel. These were loaded with commodities, sent out with a view to insure the permanence of the colony; but these same vessels on their return voyage carried back the entire body of colonists to England.

At Jamestown under the first charter two such supplies arrived, while in the summer of 1609 came a third, being part of the large fleet sent out immediately after the issue of the second charter. The commander of all three, while at sea, was Captain Christopher Newport, and his authority there was supreme. The first supply consisted of two vessels, the John and Francis and the Phœnix. Of these the former arrived at Jamestown about the middle of January, 1608, while the latter, having wintered in the West Indies, did not reach port till the close of the following April. Newport remained with his vessel at Jamestown till April 20, when, thinking his consort lost, he sailed for England. Captain Nelson, with the Phœnix, remained at Jamestown till June 12, when he began his return voyage. The second supply consisted of only one ship, in which Newport arrived early in October, 1608. He now remained in the colony two months, when he returned to England. Nothing more was received or heard from the mother country till seven storm-beaten vessels came straggling in during the latter half of the summer of 1609.¹

The vessels were small, more likely to be under than over

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one hundred tons burden. Their voyages were few and long; the vessels might be injured or destroyed by storms, captured by pirates or by the Spaniards; disease usually prevailed to an extent on board, yellow fever if they delayed long in the tropics. Besides the officers and crew, they carried, for their size, a considerable number of colonists. Their outward cargoes consisted of a variety of supplies for the colony. Medicines, spirits, beer, clothing, household furniture and utensils, tools, arms and ammunition, seeds, domestic animals, were brought to the colony in these vessels. And in addition a variety of articles of food were brought, such as meal, bread, butter, cheese, salted meat and fish, pease, preserved fruits. These, if they arrived in good condition, added not only to the amount, but especially to the variety, of colonial fare.

But we often hear not only that they were injured on shipboard, but that they were partly or wholly destroyed while in the storehouse at Jamestown awaiting consumption. The officers and crew of the vessels had also to be supported out of the total resources of the colony during their long sojourns at Jamestown. Of this feature of the system Smith and his writers loudly and repeatedly complain. They also declare that the mariners seriously interfered with the course of Indian trade by ruthlessly bartering the tools, arms, and other possessions of the colonists for whatever the savages had which awakened their fancy or cupidity.¹ It is stated that during the fourteen weeks when the vessel which brought the second supply lay at Jamestown, nearly all the beef, pork, oil, aqua vitæ, fish, butter, cheese, beer, and other similar articles of food which had been brought over for the colonists, were consumed. Smith’s indictment is repeated for a later time by Strachey, and the truth of it is admitted by the company itself.² Strachey charges the mariners with greatly cheapening the value of English commodities by their reckless trading with the natives.³ Goods which were to be sold in the colony seem also to have been consigned

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to masters and pursers of the vessels, and they refused to part with them except at enormous profits. The most which in the long run the system of supplies, with the magazine, could do for the colony was to furnish it to an extent with salted provisions, spirits, and certain foreign luxuries. The staple articles of food the colonists must produce from the soil, or procure by hunting, fishing, or traffic with the natives.

The supply, however, was more than merely a phase of the economic life of the colony. It served as the means of communication between the colony on the one side and the proprietors and home government on the other. Its commander performed in a rude way a function analogous to that of the later colonial agents. Not only did his ships carry letters, pamphlets, instructions, and other communications to and from the colony, but he himself laid before the authorities at home his view of the situation and needs of the plantation. He doubtless communicated in a similar way to the colonists the views and plans of the patentees. Newport at least performed to its full extent the function as an intermediary, and might well do it, for he was a member of the plantation council. Later commanders lacked the official prestige of Newport.

The early colonists at Jamestown, as elsewhere, had to struggle not only against famine, but against disease. Smith states, as we have seen, that, when the first autumn came, suitable shelter had not been provided by the settlers. For such neglect, which the warmth of the climate and natural inertia permitted, the settlement paid dearly in the death of nearly forty of its members and the paralysis of effort through the sickness of the rest. At one time during this first visitation there were but six healthy men in the fort. Gosnold, the most trusted member of the council, died, and nearly all the other councillors were seriously ill. Industry almost ceased, and the leaders were driven to Indian trade as the only escape from certain destitution. Heat, the miasma of the swamps, the general unsanitary conditions of the settlement, poor and insufficient food, combined in their effect on the untrained bodies of the colonists to

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produce this result. It is only the first of a hundred such phenomena which have appeared not only in the early settlements, but in the military camps of the colonial wars, and in those of later conflicts down even to our own times. The death-rate among the first generation of Europeans who attempted to settle America was enormous, and it required a high birth-rate and frequent reënforcements from home to counterbalance the loss. Nearly all of those who came to Southern Virginia during the first two years of its existence as a colony perished in the process of becoming acclimated. The liabilities to sickness and death in the earliest settlements were among the greatest obstacles to colonization. They occasioned great losses to proprietors, and furnished, as in this case, a strong temptation to the abandonment of colonies during the early years of their existence. But after a few colonies had been founded, which became subsidiary food centres, and a degree of experience had thus been gained, suffering in this form greatly, decreased, and does not constitute a prominent feature in the history of the later colonies.

Life in the compact settlements and under the trying circumstances which have been described, soon tested the wisdom of the plan which the crown and patentees had devised for the government of the colonies, and proved it to be ill adapted to the purpose. The executive power was lodged in the council; the president was its creature, and of himself had no special independence or authority. Dissensions naturally soon broke out in the council, and these contributed materially to the defeat of the enterprise. Of such dissensions we hear something in Sagadahoc. In the case of both colonies the crown had ordered that the instructions designating who the councillors were should not be opened till the vessels arrived at their destination. Thus the possibility of such conflicts as that which may have occurred between Sir Richard Grenville and Ralph Lane was avoided. On the arrival at Sagadahoc it was found that six—or possibly eight—out of the thirteen required by the charter had been designated as councillors. They elected George Popham, brother of the chief patron, and himself already an old man,

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to be president. A long list of subordinate officials were also appointed, among whom Tudor military titles appear with great prominence. The list included an admiral, vice-admiral, marshal, master of the ordnance, sergeant major, captain of the fort, corporal, secretary, chaplain, and searcher. These offices were distributed chiefly among the councillors.

We hear later that the president was charged with weakness and lack of proper self-assertion. Raleigh Gilbert also became impressed¹ with the idea that the colony lay within the territories formerly granted to his father, and, thinking that the charter of 1574 had not lapsed, sought to raise a faction in England and the colony in support of his claims under it. Sir Ferdinando Gorges presently learned of this, and in his irritation suggested to Robert Cecil, the secretary of state, that the king should take the colony into his own hands. But intervention by the government did not come. In the course of the winter George Popham died, and Gilbert was chosen as his successor. When, the next season, the vessels brought from England the news of the death of Chief Justice Popham and of Sir John Gilbert, elder brother of Raleigh Gilbert, the president thought it necessary that he should return home. No one was left who was willing to take his place. This then became an added reason for the abandonment of the colony.

But in the history of Jamestown and under the severer tests which its fortunes imposed, we can clearly trace the progress of dissensions in the council and the elimination of one member after another until a practical autocracy was the result. While the first expedition under Newport was at sea, rumors of an intended mutiny were circulated, and John Smith, for alleged concealment of this, or other connection with it, was kept in restraint for some four months, not being fully released till some six weeks after the colonists arrived in Virginia. Smith declared that in this he suffered gross injustice. But Wingfield apparently believed to an extent in the complicity of Smith, for he was later fined two hundred pounds for saying that Smith “did conceal

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an intended mutiny.”¹ In this affair, whatever it was, the seed of further dissension was sown.

On the arrival of the colonists in Virginia the seals were broken, and it was found that the members of the council were Bartholomew Gosnold, Edward Maria Wingfield, Christopher Newport, John Smith, John Ratcliffe,² John Martin, and George Kendall. Smith was not admitted to his place on the board till his release from detention. Wingfield was chosen president for the first year. Of the pretentious list of official titles which appears at Sagadahoc we hear almost nothing.³

We soon learn that Kendall was removed from the council and imprisoned, “for that it did manifestly appeare he did practice to sowe discord between the president and councell.”⁴ But serious troubles began during the first period of sickness in the colony. President Wingfield was not a man of great energy. He did not join the exploring expeditions, or try very actively to open trade with the Indians. Toward some of the serious problems which the colonists were facing he maintained a passive attitude, remaining quietly at Jamestown and administering affairs there. Though a man of scrupulous honor, he was not fitted for the rough task of piloting the colony through to a condition of economic stability, and he probably knew it. We can hardly imagine him disciplining the indolent colonists as Smith did at a later time, and to skill in dealing with the natives he seems to have made no pretension. Free and easy administrative methods, characteristic of the time and of colonial life everywhere, were also tolerated. The cape-merchant⁵ received merchandise from the vessels in gross, and delivered it in such instalments as the president desired without preparing itemized lists. “I likewise,” says Wingfield, “as occation moved me, spent them (i.e. commodities) in trade or by guift amongst the Indians. So likewise did Captain Newport take

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of them, when he went up to discover the King’s river, what he thought good, without any noate of his hand mentioning the certainty; and disposed of them as was fitt for him. Of these likewise I could make no accompt; only I was well assured I had never bestowed the valewe of three penny whitles to my own use, nor to the private use of any other; for I never carryed any favorite over with me, or intertayned any there.”

But, as the period of sickness progressed, Wingfield felt compelled to keep a strict watch over the limited stores of spirits, oil, vinegar, and similar articles. He refused some informal applications from councillors for such articles, but declared that he would not do so if warrants were duly presented, or if the council voted for an increase of allowances to all members alike; but this it would not do. The president’s sudden demand for vouchers provoked charges that he was keeping the supplies for his own use. Because of the administrative looseness which had prevailed, the written proofs were lacking, and it was difficult for him to do more than assert his innocence.

As soon as Wingfield felt that he was being criticised, he offered to resign. Presently, however, it appeared that Ratcliffe, Martin, and Smith, influenced by Gabriel Archer, who was not a member of the council, had formed a plan to depose the president. This plan they executed very informally and without resistance on the part of Wingfield, electing Ratcliffe in his place. At an equally informal hearing, which took place the next day, Archer was appointed recorder, and in that capacity read a list of charges against Wingfield, and the others presented certain personal complaints against him. Except in the case of Smith, these referred to the alleged niggardliness of Wingfield in dispensing the common store, while he lived in plenty himself. The charges, so far as they implied wrong on his part, Wingfield stoutly¹ denies. Smith said that the president charged him with falsehood and twitted him of his humble origin. During the hearing Wingfield declared that he would appeal to the king, and was detained as a prisoner in

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the pinnace till Newport on his second voyage took him back to England.

Owing to the death of Gosnold, the absence of Newport, the removal of Kendall, and the suspension of Wingfield, the number of the council in Virginia was now reduced to three, Ratcliffe as president, Smith, and Martin. For some time no effort was made to fill the vacancies. Wingfield was tried under two suits for damages, found guilty, and heavily fined. “Then Mr. Recorder did very learnedly comfort me, that, if I had wrong, I might bring my writ of error in London; whereat I smiled.”¹ Further light was soon thrown on the functions of the president, as well as on the bitterness of faction, by the statement that Ratcliffe beat James Read, that Smith and Read struck him in turn.² For this, by a jury, Read was found guilty and condemned to be hanged. But just before he was to be turned off, he accused Kendall privately before the president of a mutiny, “and so escaped himself.” Kendall, whose mutiny seems to have taken the form of an attempt to abandon the colony and return to England,³ was found guilty and shot. In all these events Archer doubtless bore a prominent part, as he was now apparently the chief authority among the colonists on legal and political forms.

As one member after another of the council was eliminated and the power to fill vacancies was left dormant, Smith begins to appear in the foreground. To him now came the opportunity to show the talent which he thought till this time had been unjustly obscured. On the most famous of his journeys up the Chickahominy, two of his companions were slain. Four weeks elapsed before he was able to

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return to Jamestown. In the meantime Ratcliffe, on his own responsibility and contrary both to the king’s instructions and to the agreement previously reached by the councillors, had admitted Archer to the council.¹ The new councillor, with far more than Puritan rigor, had Smith indicted for murder on the ground that he was responsible for the death of his two followers who had been slain by the Indians, and the Levitical law required that “he that² killeth a man, he shall be put to death.” “He had his trial,” says Wingfield, “the same day of his return, and, I believe, his hanging the same or the next day, so speedy is our law there. But it pleased God to send Captain Newport unto us the same evening, to our unspeakable comfort; whose arrival saved Mr. Smith’s life and mine, because he took me out of the pinnace” (where because of exposure Wingfield’s health was suffering) “and gave me leave to lie in the town.” Such occurrences as these make the reader wonder whether this settlement should be regarded as a military camp or a tropical plantation, and of what avail in remote Virginia was the guaranty in the charter that subjects dwelling in the colony should enjoy all the rights and immunities which were possessed by those living within the realm. Individual property did not as yet exist at Jamestown, and life was subject to the whim of one or two councillors.

Yet Gabriel Archer, who, though a judge, was calmly ignoring the precedents of English criminal law, was at the same time talking about calling a “parliament” in the little village of Jamestown. Wingfield states that, by the arrival of Newport, “was prevented a parliament, which the new councillor, Mr. Recorder, intended there to summon.” We may suppose that his innovating zeal was quenched when he found the membership of the council suddenly increased and himself excluded on the ground of irregular appointment.³

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Newport, on his arrival with the first supply, again took his seat as councillor. He brought with him Matthew Scrivener, who had received appointment as councillor in England. Smith and Wingfield were released and took their seats. The advice of Wingfield may be supposed to have again carried some weight. So long as Newport remained, the revival of government according to the charter and instructions was assured.

Newport, on his return to England, took Wingfield and Archer with him. Martin returned on the Phœnix. Ratcliffe was left as president, with Smith and Scrivener as the only two councillors. After further explorations up the James river had been abandoned, Smith made his first voyage along the shores of Chesapeake bay. While he was absent, if we are to believe the account of Smith’s friends, Ratcliffe was guilty of wastefulness and extravagance. On Smith’s return, in July, in response, it is said, to a general demand, the second president was deposed, and, if we are right in our interpretation, Scrivener was made president by Smith¹ for the unexpired term. On Smith’s return, in September, from his second voyage up the Chesapeake, Scrivener gave way to him, and the hero of Werowocomoco became president of Virginia. He was not president in the original sense, as provided in the charter and instructions, but autocrat of the colony. Of opposition on the part of the other two councillors there was practically none. Conciliar government had again practically disappeared.

But in less than three weeks it was revived again by the arrival of Newport with the second supply. As in the previous January, so now, the autocratic power of the president, or of the president and one or two councillors, was broken by the arrival of additional councillors² and instructions from England. The control of the proprietors and crown over the remote settlement was thus periodically reasserted, while during the intervals between it drifted along under exclusively local influences. The arrival of Newport with the first supply saved Smith’s life; his arrival with the

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second supply curtailed Smith’s power. This, it is believed, should be borne carefully in mind by those who would explain aright the criticisms, in the later writings which go under Smith’s name, of those who planned and brought the second supply. Little or no criticism of Newport’s course prior to this time appears, while what he now attempted to do was in many respects only a continuation of what Smith himself had undertaken. The statement in the Generall Historie¹ that, “although Smith was President, yet after the arrival of the second supply, the Major part of the Councell had the authoritie and ruled it as they listed,” throws much light on what followed.

Judging from events, one must infer that Newport’s second return from the colony had occasioned a forward movement on the part of the patentees in England. Seventy new colonists, among whom were three women, were procured; two councillors, captains Richard Waldo and Peter Wynne, were appointed, while Francis West, brother of Lord Delaware, now came to the colony for the first time.² A refiner of metals appears. Eight Hollanders and Poles, skilful in the production of naval stores, were sent out to instruct the colonists in that form of production. Under orders also from England the Powhatan was to be crowned by Newport, and the James river explored for some distance above the falls. It is stated in Smith’s writings that Newport had been instructed to find the South Sea, a mine of gold, or Raleigh’s lost colonists. If the instruction had been given in this form, it was certainly somewhat absurd; but still it included two of the objects which from the first had been prominently before the minds of the proprietors, and in the work of exploration Smith had certainly always been willing to share. He had twice taken a considerable body of men to explore the shores of the Chesapeake, when the demand for their aid in procuring a food supply for the colony was as great as it was after Newport’s second return. But if we are to trust his later compilations, he now opposed such projects, and insisted that all measures which did not lead directly to the procuring of a food supply

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should be avoided. The colony he thought not sufficiently far advanced to engage in the production of naval stores. He properly regarded the coronation of the Indian chief as an idle show. It is no doubt true that the presence of seventy more mouths to fill in the colony, and that on the approach of winter, increased the seriousness of the food problem. Neither mines, nor western seas, nor lost colonists were found, though the march of four days above the falls was in itself a commendable achievement. Newport, as a matter of course, could take back to England only specimens of pitch,¹ tar, glass, and potash made in the colony, and with them a cargo of clapboard and wainscot. The results were small, but the policy was certainly not mistaken, even though the Dutchmen did later barter away a few firearms to the natives.

If the document which we possess is a correct copy, Smith sent to the royal council by Newport’s returning vessel a letter² the equal of which for rude frankness and imperious self-conceit it would be difficult to find in the whole body of American correspondence. In reply to alleged criticisms by the council of factional strife in the colony and of a project of Ratcliffe to divide the country, and to a command that they obey Newport and defray the cost of his voyage by the return cargo or “remain as banished men,” Smith sharply criticised almost every phase of the council’s policy, and in effect told them that they knew nothing of the conditions in the colony except from the information which he by his writings and map had conveyed to them. He heavily discounted the value of Newport’s cargo to the colonists, complained of the amount consumed by his mariners, declared that the colony was not prepared to produce naval stores, and roundly asserted that he was opposed to obeying Newport’s instructions, though he was overruled in the matter by the council. The implication of this letter is that, if knowledge, experience, and practical insight entitle one to; leadership in an enterprise, Smith, rather than the members of the royal council, had the right to instruct. With that idea in mind, he entreated them, in the oft-quoted passage,

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to send thirty artisans, fishermen, and farmers, rather than a thousand inexperienced and unseasoned men, of whom there were far too many at Jamestown.

This was excellent advice, and, like many other passages in Smith’s writings, it shows that he was by instinct a good colonizer. And yet, though a few months later the publications of the company were filled with the same sentiment, it is by no means necessary to suppose that the patentees were indebted to Smith for the idea. How much weight his representations may have had with them it is quite impossible to affirm. The judicious critic, however, will not be inclined to overestimate¹ it.

In the course of the winter of 1609 the three councillors who were left, on Newport’s departure, as Smith’s associates, died. Scrivener and Waldo were drowned in the James river, while we are informed only of the fact, and not of the circumstances, of Captain Wynne’s death.² Thus Smith was again left as the sole magistrate and overseer in the colony, and so continued till May, 1609. Taking advantage of this fact, in a speech to the settlers he told them that laziness would no longer be tolerated as in the days when the council held authority. “Seeing nowe the authoritie resteth wholly in my selfe, you must obay this for a law, that he that will not worke shall not eat, except by sicknesse he be disabled.”³ The letters patent should be read to them each week, that they might know the president’s power extended even to life and death; and now that “there are no more councils to

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protect you, nor curb my endeavors,” let every offender “assuredly expect his due punishment.” These Statements would indicate that Smith was ready to imitate the summary measures which had nearly cost him his own life, and that he was not going to allow the settlers even the benefit of jury trial, a right which was granted to them by the royal instructions. But his threatened severity does not seem to have banished indolence or faction from the settlement, for later the president, in his famous speech to the drones,¹ had to declare that every one who gathered not every day as much as he himself did, should be banished from the fort and sent across the river, there to support himself or starve. Notwithstanding these severe orders, it is stated that only about one-fourth of the settlers were vigorous workers. By them the Indian trade was continued and the settlement defended against the attacks of the hostile savages who lived in its immediate vicinity. Within the space of three months, three or four lasts of pitch, tar, and potash were made, and a trial of glass produced; also a well was dug in the fort, twenty dwellings were built, the church was newly covered, a blockhouse was built on the Neck for protection against the Indians, and thirty or forty acres of ground were planted. The domestic animals in the colony were also rapidly multiplying. But as the supply of grain brought from England was eaten by the rats, the settlers had to rely almost wholly on the country for supplies. Many were sent down the river for oysters and fish, and others, under West, to the region of the Falls. Some also were billeted among the savages. Thus under the vigorous rule of Smith, in which he himself set the example of activity, the colony survived the winter in fair condition. But it was still confined to Jamestown and its immediate vicinity, was not self-supporting or beyond the possibility of ultimate failure.² Internal dissensions and sloth had not been removed and could not be, so long as the system of joint management was maintained. Friendly relations with the Indians had not been securely

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established. Government through a council had broken down, and autocratic administration had proved under the circumstances inadequate to meet the needs of the colony. What it needed was a larger investment in the enterprise, a larger population, with such components as would make the formation of homes possible, the multiplication of settlements in more healthful localities, the development of a free tenantry, or better a yeomanry of freeholders. As the result of the reports brought back by Newport on his last voyage, steps were being taken in England which were gradually to make these changes possible.