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CHAPTER II

THE DISSOLUTION OF THE VIRGINIA COMPANY OF LONDON

To the royal officials who were seeking to establish or maintain control over colonial affairs, the place of residence of those who received proprietary grants was a matter of great moment. Both judicial and administrative control could be much more easily exercised over a corporation or proprietors resident within the realm than it could over those resident on a distant continent. The form under which land, and especially trade, was managed was also of some importance. The government first came into prominent and significant relations with the Virginia company and the New England Council. Both were corporations located within the realm, but at the same time proprietors of provinces. Because located within the realm they were subject to the same regulation and interference, both from king and parliament, as that to which corporations generally were liable. The experience of the Virginia company, together with the little we at present know concerning other companies at that time, would lead to the inference that the tinkering came more from the executive than from the legislature. The present chapter will be devoted to a discussion of the relations between the crown and the Virginia company, as an illustration of British colonial policy in its earliest phase. It will be observed that the transactions occurred chiefly between the king and the company, and not between the king and the colonists. The latter were affected indirectly and through the fate of the company. So long as the work of colonization was in the hands of corporations resident in England, this was necessarily the form which the exercise of royal control assumed.

It is true that during the early years of the Virginia enterprise, while the colony existed under the charter of 1606, as well as later, the activity of the king and his ministers was

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enlisted to prevent Spain from ascertaining the location of the new colony, and from attacking or destroying it.¹ This was effected through diplomatic delays and avoidance, so far as possible, both of discussion of the enterprise and of the assumption of direct responsibility for it, while at the same time friendly relations were maintained with Spain. All the time, however, with the knowledge and often with the direct assistance of the government, the patentees were striving to so establish their colony and strengthen their hold on Virginia that Spain could not dislodge them. It was a quiet but persistent struggle to nullify, so far as eastern North America was concerned, the provisions of the papal bull. The protection which in indirect ways the government afforded, contributed toward the successful result. While the government was serving the interests of the colony in the diplomatic sphere, its directive influence was doubtless exerted upon the company itself; but, owing to the dearth of records, the history of its activity during the administration of Sir Thomas Smith cannot be traced. By the time the Sandys-Southampton party came into control, Virginia and the Somers islands had become large producers of tobacco. That made them important, both from the commercial and the fiscal points of view. The fact that the majority of the officials and active shareholders of these companies were not in sympathy with the court, introduced a political element into the situation. These conditions, when taken together, occasioned the persistent and hostile interference of the king with the affairs of the company, which finally resulted in its dissolution.

The attitude of the king toward the company under its new management was first shown in connection with the election of treasurer in 1620. When Sandys’s term of office had closed and he had submitted his report on the work of the year, a message ² was received from the king signifying

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his pleasure that the company should choose as its treasurer one of four men named by himself, Sir Thomas Smith, Sir Thomas Roe, Alderman Robert Johnson, Maurice Abbot. This was an application to the company of the congé d’élire, the instrument by which the Tudors had humbled the cathedral chapters and annulled their rights of election, and apparently its object was to prevent the reelection of Sandys, who was leader of the country party in the house of Commons, or the choice of any offensive member of the opposition. The company was brought to a strait by this message. After much debate they voted to adjourn the election till the next quarter court, and appointed a committee, headed by the Earl of Southampton, to petition the king that he would not deprive the company of the right of free election to which by charter it was entitled.

At the next quarter court Southampton reported that the king had said he did not intend to limit their choice to the names he had mentioned, but simply to recommend them as desirable candidates. Also he said it was necessary to have as treasurer one who could freely approach the royal person. The company thereupon¹ chose the Earl of Southampton treasurer, with John Ferrar as deputy. This, while intended to meet some of the objections of the king, also insured the continuance of the same methods of administration as those which Sandys had followed; and, indeed, his influence when out of office continued to be almost as great as it had been when he held the treasurership.

In 1622 the king once more presented candidates for treasurer, and for deputy as well.² But they were again passed over, Southampton and Ferrar being reelected. A committee headed by Lord William Cavendish was then sent to explain this conduct to the king. His majesty seemed not well satisfied that, out of the ten candidates whom he had named, not one had been chosen. He expressed the opinion that merchants were fittest for the government of the company, and instanced Sir Thomas Smith as one by whom the production of staple commodities had been begun, while now the colony exported only cotton. Lord Cavendish replied, though

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with the same sort of exaggeration which the king had shown, that the introduction of tobacco and neglect of staples had been the work of the Smith and Johnson administration. Since that time the company had labored to erect iron mills, plant vineyards, produce silk and a variety of other commodities. They hoped to give his majesty proof of this ere long. Since the time of Smith the colony had grown to almost as many thousands, as it then had hundreds, of people. With an expenditure of £10,000 more had been accomplished than by Smith with £80,000. In the same strain Sandys wrote to the Duke of Buckingham and asked for the help of the favorite, in promoting the cause of the company at court. Thus stood relations when tobacco became an important subject of negotiation with the king.

In those early days of its history the feeling that tobacco was a noxious, or at least a useless, product was stronger and more widespread in England than it is at present. The attitude of James I toward the weed is well known from the “counter-blast” which he directed against it. The attitude of Charles I was not very different. English statesmen of the time always deprecated the fact that the Virginians devoted so much of their labor to the raising of tobacco, and spoke with regret or protest against a plantation being founded so largely on smoke. In the many royal proclamations which were issued concerning the tobacco culture the same opinions were expressed. As late as 1637 the privy council wrote that the king expected some better fruit than tobacco to be returned from Virginia. During a debate in the house of Commons in 1621 on the subject of tobacco there was a general and spontaneous outburst of feeling against the weed. Member after member inveighed against it as “vile,” and an object of their abhorrence, and insisted that it should be entirely excluded from the realm. Resort, they declared, should be had to something else for the support of colonists in Virginia. But tobacco was already a source of revenue which could not easily be spared. It was also raised in England and Ireland and used for medicinal purposes. Merchants were interested in its transportation and sale and colonists in its production. An increasing

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proportion of the people, at home and abroad, were becoming its consumers. The Spanish product of superior quality commanded a high price in the market. Interests had gathered about the product which insured the continuance of its use on a large scale, and for a long time to come it received a large share of that attention which the English government was able to give to the colonies in general. It appears that Spanish tobacco, which was of superior quality, was the first to recommend itself to the English market. Later came the product from the English colonies—Virginia and the Somers islands—followed by that from Barbadoes and the Leeward islands, from Maryland and North Carolina. By 1619 both the Virginia and Somers islands companies had begun to import considerable quantities of tobacco, of poor or medium quality, into England. At the same time it was being raised as a garden product or even on a somewhat larger scale within the realm. Here was a new industry, the fiscal possibilities of which were attractive; but its moral and other social tendencies were viewed with suspicion. With it were involved interests in the colonies and in the realm, while it affected foreign relations as well. Conditions such as these called imperatively for regulation, especially with a government which was controlled by the traditions of the early seventeenth century. In 1619 two royal proclamations were issued providing that no tobacco should be sold in England until the custom and impost on it was paid and until it was officially inspected and sealed.¹ The duty at the time on tobacco of the quality which came from Virginia was 6d. per pound. As Virginia tobacco was then selling for about 5s. per pound, the duty was the equivalent of an ad valorem rate of about ten per cent. The sealing of the tobacco, which was referred to in the proclamation, implied a guaranty of its quality. This was arrived at by the process of separating the good from the poor quality, which was then known as “garbling.” It occasioned an additional impost which, at the time of which we are speaking, whether just or not, was fixed at 6d. per pound. The total

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impost, then, on Virginia tobacco was 12d. per pound. But there was a clause in the charter of the Virginia company (1609) which exempted them from the payment of any duty in excess of five per cent on commodities which they should import into the realm or the colonies.¹ It also provided that on the payment of this duty they might freely reëxport their products from England to foreign markets. These provisions, of course, would not avail against an act of parliament, and by the government at the time were evidently regarded as inferior in validity to orders in council and such other administrative acts as, under the Tudors and early Stuarts, gave rise to the book of rates or customs tariff.

In the summer of 1619 the Virginia company had its first encounter with the government on the subject of tobacco. Abraham Jacob was then a farmer of the customs. He refused to permit the delivery of a cargo which had recently come from Virginia unless the impost, above referred to, of 12d. per pound was paid. The officers of the company urged as a plea against this demand the provision of their charter, and petitioned the treasury board.² This resulted in the despatch of a letter from the privy council to Jacob instructing him to deliver the goods, the adventurers even offering to leave one-half the cargo with him if they might offer the rest for sale and thus save it from perishing. But Jacob, who was later called by Sandys a “tough adversary,” refused to do this, unless the company brought him a full discharge from the council, which it could not then procure. Hence the goods were detained for more than four months, and at an estimated damage to the company of £2500. The Somers islands company had been treated in the same way, though the period during which it was exempted by charter from imposts had not elapsed. Because of these acts a petition was sent by the Virginia company directly to the privy council. This resulted in a hearing, at which the attorney general declared that the company was free by its

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patent from the imposition. The council now ordered Jacob to deliver the tobacco, the company paying only the duty to which it was legally subject.

Shortly after came a suggestion from the king that the company should farm the impost on tobacco, but continue to pay the 12d. duty, that is to say, 3d. as provided by the charter, and 9d. additional for five years in consideration of the issue of a royal order that no more tobacco should be raised in the realm.¹ On December 30 a proclamation prohibiting the industry at home was issued.

Thus was initiated a course of action which was to be maintained by the British government during most or all of the century. Though in its early stages this policy was probably the outgrowth of moral considerations, it soon came to be regarded in the light of a partial compensation for the various restrictions which were laid on the tobacco industry of the colonies. But the government found it an extremely difficult, if not an impossible, task to enforce this regulation. This is proven by the long series of proclamations on the subject which were issued during this and the succeeding reign. In the spring of 1620 the company learned that tobacco was again being planted in the realm, and plead for a mitigation of the impost,² but this does not appear to have been secured. The continuance of that part of it which was popularly known as a “garbling duty” was insured by a proclamation of April 2, 1620, designating a commission of eight members, who should prepare rules for “distinguishing of the aforesaid Drug . . ., whereby the Goodness or Badness of the said tobacco may be discerned.” It was provided that when such rules were perfected and enrolled in the chancery, they should be duly enforced.³

By a proclamation of June 20, 1620, “for restraint of disordered trading in tobacco,” provision was made not only for the enforcement of the earlier orders against the raising of the weed in England, but that no one who was not authorized

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by patent so to do should import any tobacco into the realm. With this act the policy was inaugurated of bestowing on private parties the monopoly of the importation of the commodity for limited periods. This was in full harmony with the administrative methods of the time, and a patent for one year was granted to Sir Thomas Roe, Abraham Jacob, and others, they paying the king a rent of £10,000 for the privilege. All tobacco which was legally imported was commanded to be sealed, in order to distinguish it from that which was smuggled. None whatever should be sold which was not sealed, and full powers of search and seizure,¹ under general warrants with writs of assistance, were given the customs officers as an aid in enforcing the proclamation. The Virginia and Somers islands companies could now import tobacco only in such quantities as the latter chose to admit. As the result of an application to the king, the two companies were permitted by the undertakers to import and sell in the realm during the year 55,000 pounds of tobacco. As this was about the amount which the Somers islands company alone could import, and since the production and sale of tobacco was its only resource, the Virginia company resolved for the coming year to vacate the field in the interest of the sister company, and to bring no tobacco to the English market. It arranged, instead, to dispose of its product on the Continent, and to make Middleburg² in the Netherlands its port of entry and sale. A factor was appointed to act as agent for the company at that place, and when, in July, 1621, the magazine ship Bona Nova returned from Virginia loaded with 40,000 or 50,000 pounds of tobacco, the master was ordered to depart at once for Middleburg and deliver the cargo to the factor and consignees. A part of this cargo had been shipped on the account of the subscribers to the old magazine and a part belonged to the magazine of 1620.

But this plan the company found it impossible to execute, for it violated what, under the influence of mercantilist conceptions,

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were understood to be the interests of England. These indicated that a colonial product so valuable as tobacco should be landed wholly in the realm. Presently complaint¹ was made to the privy council that the company was setting up a trade in the Netherlands and was transporting its commodities thither. An inquiry was at once sent by the board to the company to know whether it proposed to continue this trade or not. A court was called, and “after much dispute and many reasons given of the impossybillyty of beinge bound to bring in all their comodities into England without fallinge into great inconvenyencies,” an answer was prepared and sent to the council. In this the company claimed that the restraints to which it was subjected were greater than those imposed on the Muscovy company or on any other corporation; that several of the patents which it had granted in Virginia contained clauses guarantying freedom of trade with other nations, a privilege which the company itself had previously enjoyed; that the company did not feel itself empowered to limit the trading privileges of private planters or to prescribe the business for about a thousand adventurers who were resident in England. A direct trade, they said, had also arisen between Virginia and Ireland, by which the colony was being supplied with cattle and other necessities, and this would be destroyed by the regulations which had been suggested. The claim to freedom of trade in general was urged by the company. But the council was imperative, and on October 24, 1621,² an order was issued forbidding the export of any Virginia commodities to foreign parts until they had been landed in England and had paid the duties there. This order was repeated in March, 1623, thus clearly revealing the fact, even at this early date, that it was the intention of the government to make the ports of the realm the staple ports for colonial trade. The two companies thus became subject to the stint and to the conditions established by the contractors or monopolists who were recognized by the government, among which was a garbling duty. For the year 1622

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Jacob received the monopoly¹ of importation, and the companies were ordered to bring in all their tobacco subject to his privileges. But as a partial compensation the crown prohibited the planting of tobacco within the realm, and in return for this favor the companies consented to the doubling of their duties for five years.

But soon plans were under discussion which were intended to transfer the monopoly that Jacob held to the companies themselves. “The variety of crosses,” said Sandys later,² “advised them to listen to the making of some settled contract with his Majesty, as well for his Majesty’s profit, as for the benefit of the plantations, thereby to exclude new practices of the same or other new projectors.” Thus some of the principal members of the companies conceived the idea of a contract with the crown. It was discussed by Sir Arthur Ingram and Sir Edwin Sandys with Lord Treasurer Middlesex. The lord treasurer had long been a member of the Virginia company and one of its councillors, and it was probably by him that the suggestion was brought before the privy council. Middlesex in preliminary discussions³ with Sir Arthur Ingram and Sir Edwin Sandys suggested that a contract should be arranged according to which the London and Somers islands companies should take the place of the existing patentees and themselves enjoy the monopoly of the importation of tobacco into the realm and Ireland. In this way they would have full control of their commodity, and, judging from the large bonuses which recent monopolists had paid, Middlesex thought that the companies could afford to pay a considerable rent to the crown. At his request Sandys and Ingram considered what terms the companies could afford to make, and concluded that they could pay the king one-fourth of the tobacco imported. The lord treasurer, however, thought that, in view of the large sale of tobacco and its price, a proper grant to the king would be a third, while in addition the existing rates of duty—6d. per pound for roll tobacco and 4d. for leaf—must be paid.

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The lord treasurer’s proposition was submitted by Sandys to the two companies and it was by them entertained. Committees were appointed to further consider it. The first proposition¹ of the companies was that, in return for the grant of the sole right of importation for seven years, they would pay the king £20,000 per annum. This they estimated would be the value of one-fourth of the commodity imported. That should go directly to the king, and if it yielded less than the amount named, the difference should be made good by the companies. They would also pay the duty of 6d. per pound for roll tobacco and 4d. per pound for leaf, as specified in the book of rates, but they asked that this be fixed by computation at an average sum. Owing to the superior quality of Spanish tobacco and to the demand for it in England, coupled also with the strong Spanish influence at court, a concession in favor of that product was made by the companies. The amount of Spanish tobacco which should be annually imported was fixed at not more than 60,000, nor less than 40,000 pounds, provided the prices at which it was being sold in Spain were not increased, and that the market for tobacco were left as free there as formerly it was.² Of the importation and sale of Spanish tobacco, of the disposition of the product of private planters in Virginia as well as their own product, officers appointed by the companies should have exclusive control. Expenses should be charged proportionately upon the king’s share and that of the companies. Finally, the king was asked to limit by proclamation both the wholesale and retail prices of the commodity and to forbid the planting of tobacco both in England and Ireland. After considerable discussion, as a result of which the companies abandoned their insistence on the issue of a proclamation fixing the prices of tobacco in England, and unwillingly accepted a clause which required them to import during the first three years 80,000 pounds of the best Varina tobacco or be answerable to the king for

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every pound that was lacking, the contract seemed to have been reduced to a form which was satisfactory to the government. The contract was to continue for seven years.¹

When this point had been reached, a committee which had been appointed for the purpose reported on the administrative organization that was necessary for executing the contract. It recommended that a director of the enterprise should be appointed, and that associated with him should be a deputy, a treasurer, and a committee. A bookkeeper, a solicitor, an husband, and a beadle should be appointed, while the appointment of two cashiers and a clerk was to be left to the treasurer. The officers were all to be salaried, and for the sake of economy it was suggested that for the first year the same individual might perform the duties of both deputy and treasurer.² It was estimated that the total salary list would be about £2500 per annum. The report of the committee met with the general approval of both companies, the opinion being held that the business could not be well managed with a smaller number of officials or at much less cost. Sandys was therefore chosen director and John Ferrar deputy, though both men sought on various pleas to excuse themselves. Had this plan been carried into execution, its administrative relation to the company would apparently have been like that which was borne by the later magazines, to which reference has been made in an earlier volume.

At this point the case against ex-governor Argall,³ a protégé of the Earl of Warwick, to which extended reference

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has been made in the first volume of this work, came up for final decision by the company. Sandys led in the prosecution of Argall and formulated the charges against him with his usual ability. Opinion among the members of the company ran strongly against the ex-governor, and the verdict of his court-martial against Edward Brewster was declared unlawful and of no validity.¹ A committee was also appointed to examine his accounts. When the case had proceeded thus far, Samuel Wrote, a cousin of the Earl of Middlesex, but one who had hitherto been a respected member of the company and was now in its council, burst forth in severe denunciation of its management.² This was directed against Sandys, Southampton, and Ferrar, and what some jealously regarded as their overweening influence. Some began to say that members were prevented from speaking their minds, and that measures were carried with a high hand. One of the chief points also against which Wrote inveighed was the salaries which it was proposed to pay the officials who had been appointed to manage the tobacco monopoly. He charged that they were extravagant in amount, and that this, like other matters, had been too exclusively under the management of Sandys. When Wrote after a stormy meeting of the council had not only refused to withdraw his utterances, but continued his insolent bearing, especially toward the Earl of Southampton, and after for a time he had absented himself from meetings of the council and committees, he was suspended from the company. His conduct throughout was such as to indicate that be was the mouthpiece of a faction which was forming against the existing management. It soon appeared that the king and lord treasurer were interesting themselves in Wrote’s charges,³ that they were perhaps watching the discussions with a view to the possibility of utilizing them as an excuse for again interfering in the internal affairs of the company. The friends of Sir Thomas Smith and Alderman Johnson were ready to avail

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themselves of this as a means of recovering control of the company or of destroying it.

There is evidence that almost from the start the administration of Sandys and Southampton had been viewed with aversion. Those whom it had supplanted would naturally so regard it. The knighting of Yeardley, who stood near to Sandys, greatly offended Sir Thomas Smith in 1619, and some other members of the company are said to have felt bitterly toward the governor. Sandys wrote, in September, 1619, that he had to meet much malignity in connection with accounting, before which he believed he would have quailed if it had not been for the support of the Earl of Southampton. As we know from his own statement, expenditures under the management of Sandys and his associates were most liberal. Large numbers of colonists were sent to Virginia, and the scale on which business was managed by the company was enlarged upon with pride by Sandys and the Ferrars in all their statements. But this had its unfavorable and dangerous tendency. Yeardley, in the summer of 1620, warned Sandys not to send over colonists faster than they could be cared for, not to undertake works greater than Virginia could bear. Mortality among settlers, he said, was great, and at times they were in danger of famine. There is some evidence, though of course it does not appear in the formal records of the company, that their heavy expenditures involved its managers in some financial embarrassment. This fact helped to give currency to many exaggerated or false statements by enemies of Sandys and the Ferrars. They charged that the resources of the company were being wasted by the wholesale; that one Gabriel Barber, whom Sandys is said to have employed as a secretary, was deeply involved in this; that incriminating letters had been destroyed and false entries made. It was also said that Sandys and the Ferrars owned little or no land in Virginia, and thus had no stake in the colony which they were recklessly mismanaging. Wrote is mentioned as among those who were circulating these complaints. The fact seems to be that the charges were being used to an extent by the Smith-Warwick faction at the time when the question of expenditures under the tobacco

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contract came up, and even when Wrote launched his accusations publicly against the management.¹

An immediate consequence of Wrote’s outburst was that a proposition, emanating from him and his friends, for the reduction of the salary list proposed for the officials who were to administer the tobacco monopoly, was submitted to the companies and debated at length.² It was claimed that the companies themselves by means of extraordinary courts could perform the functions of a director. A merchant could be appointed treasurer at a salary of £100. The salaries of others might be fixed at lower rates, and in this way it was estimated that £1300 per year might be saved to the two companies. In the very interesting debates upon these proposals Sandys and his friends, supported by nearly all the members who were in attendance, argued that it was impossible to secure good service, of the difficult and responsible nature that was required, for less than the specified sum. The proposition to substitute courts or a board for a single director was condemned as not only a departure from the practice of other companies and joint stocks, but as bad policy in itself. Sir Edwin Sandys³ said, “that in a body consisting of many members, which must all concur in one action, there must be by necessity of nature and reason one head to contain and direct them unto unity, that to make this one head two courts, to be assembled upon every needful occasion, was a thing not only repugnant to the celerity of despatch, but also of insupportable toil both to the Governor, Council, and Company.” A case was also cited from the experience of the Somers islands company, where a question, which had passed two ordinary courts, had been much debated in a preparative court, and concluded in a greater court, because of the demand of one man who had not been present, had to be again read and argued.

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Upon the question, whether or not £100 was a sufficient salary for the treasurer of the tobacco monopoly, it was stated that it was not safe to commit stock to one who would accept the office for so small a salary, and that he must give security for heavy money transfers. The experience of the East India company was cited to the effect that it had just paid a salary ranging from £300 to £500 to its treasurer.

After all the proposals of Wrote and his friends on preliminary debate had been most carefully examined, weighed, and rejected by overwhelming adverse votes, in a joint meeting¹ of the two companies the contract, as signed for seven years by the lord treasurer and approved² by the privy council, was submitted and accepted. Then the question of salaries was taken up for final settlement. Several of the opponents of the scheme sought to stave this off by declaring that they were not ready for debate. Southampton marvelled at this, inasmuch as they had begun the trouble. Sandys, who had now resigned the directorship, spoke his mind, setting forth the heavy duties of a director in such an enterprise, and stating that two men instead of one were needed. Sir Nathaniel Rich and Alderman Johnson then presented some more objections which, though indirectly relating to salaries, concerned directly the division of expense between the two companies. These were all termed generalities by the majority and rejected.

Thereupon an effort was made to induce some one to take the place of director. Sir Nathaniel Rich, Sir Thomas Wroth, Edward Johnson,³ were offered the place, but all professed themselves unequal to it. It was then voted not to accept Sandys’s resignation, and he was earnestly entreated not to retire, as such a course was likely to prove fatal to the enterprise. Deputy Ferrar then presented a plan,⁴ which was carefully worked out in every detail, for the care of the tobacco after it arrived in port and while it was on sale, the object being to prevent smuggling and losses of all kinds to the company, and to secure just returns to each private planter

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whose crop was imported and sold under the auspices of the company. This involved the difficult problem of fixing prices, and it was resolved that in this, as in all other matters which concerned the contract, the two companies must act jointly and that nothing should be determined without the joint consent of both.

At this juncture the malcontents complained to the king and council of alleged dissensions and suppression of free discussion in the Virginia company.¹ Wrote and Bing were put forward for this purpose, while Sir Nathaniel Rich enlarged upon the injustice of granting so large a proportion of the tobacco to the king. The king at once took advantage of this to state that, in consideration of the license for lotteries and of many other favors which he had done for the company, contract or no contract, the company ought to bring all their commodities into the king’s dominions, so that they might pay custom there. The opposers were elated by this, and Wrote stated that a petition from Virginia in favor of the policy to which the king referred had been suppressed by Deputy Ferrar. The truth, however, was that the petition² contained simply an appeal from the colonists for liberty to send their tobacco to England, that product having at the time been excluded from English ports by royal proclamation.

But the evil was done. The privy council summoned representatives of both parties in both companies to appear before it and settle the tobacco business. At the hearing which followed, and which was numerously attended, Lord Cavendish, treasurer of the Somers island company, was chief spokesman for the two companies. Bing made a long and violent speech against the contract, alleging oppression in the passing of it, and using such insulting language about the Earl of Southampton as to call forth a severe rebuke from the lords of the council, and to result in his subsequent imprisonment.³ The most that he could make out was, that the rank

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of Southampton and his associates had overawed some of the generality, and that an expression of Southampton to the effect that they must accept the contract or do worse had been misinterpreted. The point was also raised that the contract would be injurious to the plantation; but to this the company had a ready answer, that it had accepted the contract not as perfect, but as the best that could be had.

Though the lords of the council seemed to have been favorably impressed by the representations of the company, they renewed the demand that all the products of the colonies should be brought to England, and seemed still to feel offended because, a year and a half before, an attempt had been made to carry some of them to the Netherlands. On March 4, 1623,¹ this sentiment found decisive expression in the renewal of the order of October 24, 1621, that all Virginia commodities should be landed first in England. This was at once interpreted as the work of the “opposers,” and Sandys was set about the preparation of a reply to the council.² In this he argued that the Virginia company was engaged not merely in trade, but in colonization as well, and, as a result of its work as a colonizer, a large number of private planters had settled in Virginia. They enjoyed freedom of production and trade and should continue to do so. Over their industry the company had no control. Many of the commodities which they produced, like fish, caviar, pipe staves, sassafras, salt, “and the meaner quality of tobacco, would not be salable at any saving price” in England, but might be somewhat profitably marketed elsewhere. The ships which went to Virginia usually made profitable indirect voyages. A remunerative trade had sprung up between Ireland and Virginia, whereby the colony secured cattle and other necessaries cheaply, and paid for them in tobacco. If the policy of the order in council was followed, all these profitable lines of trade would be ruined. But Sandys’s paper did not occasion a recall of the order in council, while the order itself indicated that the tobacco contract was being abandoned by the government. Indeed a

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proposal was now somewhat debated to allow free importation of tobacco from all quarters, a policy which Sandys at once denounced as sure to so depress the price as to ruin the tobacco industry in the colonies. At this juncture, however, the subject of tobacco in general was lost sight of in the discussion of other questions that directly concerned the relations, as a whole, which existed between the company and its province.

In April, 1623, Alderman Johnson, as a representative of the opposition within the company, presented a petition¹ to the king, in which he contrasted the prosperity of Virginia under the administration of Sir Thomas Smith with the alleged discord, abuses, and lack of proportionate returns under the existing management. He asked that a commission under the great seal be appointed to inquire into the condition of the colony when Smith’s administration closed, including the expenditures and abuses which had arisen since that time; and to recommend such changes in the government of Virginia as would bring contentions to an end, punish the authors of evil, and best secure the prosperity of the undertaking. The commission was immediately appointed,² with Sir William Jones, a justice of common pleas, at its head. This body was ordered to inquire into the past business transactions of the company, to find out what moneys it had received or collected, and how they had been spent. With special care it should inquire after alleged misuse of private parties, to the loss or injury either of the company or the plantation. They were to ascertain what orders or laws had been made which were inconsistent with the charters; of what misgovernment the company had been guilty, and what injury adventurers had suffered in consequence of it. If unnecessary hindrances to trade within Virginia existed, these were to be investigated. The commission was finally to ascertain by what means contentions

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might be stopped, and both the business affairs and government of Virginia improved. In the performance of this duty the commission was given power to send for persons and papers and to examine under oath. It was to report to the privy council.

The companies were also ordered to write a general letter to the colonists, exhorting them to live together in concord, and no private letters referring at all to dissensions were to be sent. The privy council was also to write to both plantations, assuring them of the king’s solicitude and of his purpose to make better provision for them. By an order in council of April 28, the letters of the companies were disallowed because they failed to certify the king’s grace and favor to the plantations. The tobacco contract was by the same order dissolved. The company was told to bring all its tobacco to England, and 3d. in the pound was abated from the customs. But as Spanish tobacco was also freely admitted, the company found it far from possible to market all their products.¹

In the spring of 1622, more than a year before the occurrence of the events just related, the hatred with which Opechancanough and his followers had always regarded the English had culminated in a massacre² of the inhabitants of the upper settlements of Virginia. Three hundred and forty-seven had perished, among them being six councillors, George Thorpe, deputy of the college lands, John Berkeley, master of the iron works, and others upon whom depended the execution of the company’s cherished plans. Jamestown and the lower settlements were saved by a timely revelation of the plot, for which the English were indebted to a converted Indian. The massacre greatly reduced the productive power of the colony, and disappointed to an extent the hopes of the company for a steadily increasing return. It also contributed to increase the complications in which the company was becoming involved at home.

Soon after the massacre Captain Nathaniel Butler, who had been governor of the Somers islands, but had been forced

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to leave them in order to avoid examination into certain misdemeanors which he was charged with committing while in office, came to Virginia.¹ He found the province depressed and suffering from the effects of the massacre. Collecting all the unfavorable characteristics of the climate, soil, and settlements, as he saw them, he set them forth in a dismal picture of the province, which was circulated on his return to England under the title of “The Unmasked Face of our Colony in Virginia, as it was in the Winter of the year 1622.”² He found the plantations seated in unhealthy places, the settlements unprovided with wharves where landings could be safely effected, no inn where newcomers could find entertainment, food scarce and high, sickness prevalent, the dwellings no better than the meanest cottages in England, no fortification, and not a serviceable piece of ordnance in the province. In government the colonists had wilfully strayed from the law and customs of England. So great was the mortality among the inhabitants, arising from abuses and neglect, from the self-seeking of some of the company, and the poor administration of their agents in Virginia, that unless the evils were “redressed with speed by some divine and supreme hand, instead of a plantation it will get the name of a slaughter-house, and so justly become both odious to ourselves and contemptible to all the world.” This was the conclusion to which Captain Butler came after dwelling on all the unfavorable aspects of Virginia life and excluding everything which indicated improvement. That there was much truth in Butler’s account is proven from other sources. Several of the company’s plans for establishing new industries had been wrecked by the massacre or by adverse natural conditions. Sickness was still prevalent, and Jamestown was in an unhealthy location. Sandys and the Ferraris had never visited Virginia, and their plans were in some respects unpractical. But many of the defects to which Butler called attention were unavoidable, and their presence in Virginia is traceable long after the dissolution of the company. His

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statement, however, served the purpose of the clique which was striving to manufacture a case against the company, and or a time it played an important part in their agitation.

To the charges preferred by Alderman Johnson, as well as the pamphlet of Captain Butler, the company made several replies.¹ For this purpose its active members resolved themselves into a large committee, and this held frequent sessions. The documents were formulated chiefly by Sandys and the two Ferrara, and set forth not only the just and able management of affairs within the company itself, but the progress which had attended its policy in the colony since the retirement of Sir Thomas Smith. A statement was procured from the colonists themselves that proved the exaggeration in the assertions which Butler had made. “A Declaration made by the council . . . of their Judgments touching one original great cause of the dissentions in the Companies and present oppositions,”² is a specially suggestive statement of what the company believed to have been the personal and political motives which gave rise to the attack upon it.³ It represents the Earl of Warwick as the prime mover, and his friend Argall, with Sir Nathaniel Rich, Johnson, Dory,—the late secretary of Virginia,—and the rest, as his supporters or instruments in the work. Their purpose was alleged to be either to control the company or ruin it. So sharp was the arraignment of the Earl and his party in this that Warwick procured an order by which Cavendish, Sandys, and the two Ferrara were confined for a time to their houses.⁴ Southampton may also have received the same treatment. An attempt was made to attract Nicholas Ferrar away from the service of the company by the offer o a clerkship to the council, or the position of envoy to the court of Savoy, but these he declined.

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The later career of the Earl of Warwick indicated that personal rather than political motives were at the foundation of his quarrel with Sandys.

The company soon found that its most important powers had passed to the council and the royal commission, and that it was left with the task of defending itself against charges and executing a few orders of the commission. Conditions similar to those which existed under the charter of 1606 had returned. Not only had the privy council taken charge of all correspondence with the colony, but the king ordered¹ that all complaints against the company should be submitted to the commissioners, so that controversies should no longer occur in its courts. He also ordered the election² of officers to be postponed and those who were already in office were continued until April, 1624, when the company held its last election. Reports of lack of food arriving from the colony, the council directed the company to supply what was necessary, and a sum was raised by subscription for the purpose.³ The royal commissioners instituted a prolonged investigation, examining the company’s papers and hearing witnesses. Their sessions were often held at the house of Sir Thomas Smith. The report which they made, while moderate in tone, was less favorable to the contentions of the company than to those of its opponents, and confirmed the king in his resolve to change the government of the colony.⁴ Captain John Harvey, John Pory, Abraham Peirsey, and Captain Samuel Mathews, men who were later described by Sandys and his friends as “certayne obscure persons” “found out by the Earl of Middlesex,” were appointed as commissioners to Virginia and instructed to report fully on its condition. This was probably the first royal commission ever sent to an English colony in America.

The really decisive blow against the company was struck on October 8, 1623.⁵ The deputy (Nicholas Ferrar) and several members of the company were called before the privy

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council and told that the king had resolved, by a new charter, to appoint a governor and twelve assistants to be resident in England, to whom, in subordination to the privy council, he would commit the government of the colony and company. Provision was also made for the appointment by the king of a governor and assistants for the colony on nomination by the superior board in England. The company was ordered to assemble and resolve whether it would surrender its former charters and accept a new one with the changes just described. It was a measure which probably originated in political motives, though they might be veiled under the phrase “considerations of public policy,” and its effect would be to leave the patentees with the trading privileges which they had under the charter of 1606 and nothing more. But a decision must be promptly reached, as the king had determined, in case the submission was not forthcoming, “to proceed for the recalling of the said former charters in such sort as shall be just.” This course of action was adopted in accordance with advice which had been given by the law officers of the crown more than two months before.¹

It is not surprising that when this command was read in an ordinary court of the company, and even after it had been read three several times, “the Company seemed amazed at the proposition, so as no man spake thereunto for a long time.” Finally the members who were present were roused from their stupor by the statement of the deputy that an answer was expected by the council on the following Friday. After considering that important business like this could be transacted only in a quarter court, they resolved to petition the council for respite until the order could be submitted to the entire company. A call was at the same time issued for a quarter court to meet on the 19th of November. But the king would not allow the decision to be postponed until that time, and called² for a final answer on the 20th of October. Thereupon, at a meeting attended by almost seventy members of the company, it was resolved,

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with only nine dissenting votes, not to surrender the charter. Within a brief time after this reply was received from the company, quo warranto proceedings were instituted by Attorney General Coventry before the King’s Bench. Early in November an information was served on the company.¹

As was customary in such cases, both the information and the reply of the company were formal. They recited the powers which had been bestowed by charter. The information closed with the statement that these liberties had been usurped to the damage and prejudice of the king and the great contempt of the sovereign, and with the demand that the patentees show by what warrant they were using the same. The prayer of the company in its reply was that the suit might be dismissed, since they had never used or claimed other privileges than those to which they were legally entitled by the charter.

The members who were in attendance when the writ was read immediately resolved to stand suit. When the quarter court met, on November 19, the course pursued by the ordinary and preparative courts which had preceded it was submitted and approved, and a grand committee was chosen to take charge of the defence of the company’s interests before the King’s Bench. A resolution that the expenses of the suit be paid from the general funds of the company was met by a petition from Alderman Johnson to the privy council, that the charges be borne by those members who opposed the surrender of the charter, and to that end that all goods and public stock of the company which should be imported be sequestered at the custom house for the general uses of the plantation. To this, however, the council refused to assent.

In March, 1624, the royal commissioners, having reached Virginia, asked the governor and assembly to give them information concerning the defences of the colony, its relations with the Indians, and its prospects in general. After reply had been made to these inquiries,² the commissioners

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presented a form which they wished the members of the assembly to subscribe. It expressed gratitude to the king for his care of the colony and willingness that the old charter should be revoked and a new one given. The governor and assembly replied that they conceived the resolve of the king to change the government proceeded from misinformation, which they hoped might be removed. They would consent to the surrender of the patent when required so to do by the proper authorities. They also wished to know whether the commissioners were authorized to demand that the declaration which had been presented should be subscribed. The commissioners confessed that they had no such authority, but made the proposal “by way of counsel for the good of the plantation.” In a letter to the privy council the governor and assembly said that they saw no prospect of ruin if government by the company was continued. They had no accusation to bring against those who had managed it since Sir Thomas Smith’s time. The slavery they then suffered had since been converted into freedom. Had it not been for the massacre, there would have been no reason to complain of the condition of the colony. But if they were to be placed under the immediate control of the crown, they begged that the assembly might be retained. In July, 1624, a long¹ petition was sent by Governor Wyatt and the assembly to the king, in which the evils suffered by the colonists during the administration of Sir Thomas Smith were fully set forth and contrasted with the freedom and prosperity which, it was claimed, had succeeded it. They prayed, that if the government was to be changed, they might not fall into the hands of Sir Thomas Smith or his confidants.

These utterances conclusively proved, if such proof was necessary, that the administration of the province under Sandys and Southampton had been satisfactory to the ruling body of the colonists, and that Johnson and his friends could get no comfort from that quarter. But this made no difference with the result, for, when the plans of the government were matured, the commissioners were ordered

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to return the papers of the company, the pretence of an investigation ceased, and the case was prepared for trial before the King’s Bench.

While the company was struggling with the English executive for existence, the parliament which impeached Lord Treasurer Middlesex and passed the act against monopolies was in session. It was believed that the house of Commons could be induced to actively support the cause of the company, a cause which had so much in common with its own. For this reason Nicholas Ferrar, in April, 1624, drafted a petition¹ for a hearing before the house, which, when approved by the company, was sent to the Commons. It was received and a select committee was appointed to sit in the Star Chamber and hear testimony bearing on the company’s case. Preparation was made for a full presentation of facts and arguments by representatives of the company, and such as would bear with special weight against Middlesex and Sir Nathaniel Rich. But when the king heard that the Commons were about to investigate the charges, he forbade them to proceed,² saying that such matters were the special business of the council. The house yielded, though with expressions of discontent, and thus ended one of the earliest efforts to draw parliament actively into the work of colonial administration.

Judgment was rendered in the suit against the company by Sir James Ley, Chief Justice of King’s Bench, in Trinity Term (May and June), 1624. It was to the effect that the plea of Nicholas Ferrar and the attorneys of the company was not sufficient to preclude the king from declaring that their privileges had been usurped. They were judged to have been convicted of said usurpation and—in the words of the decree—the “said privileges taken and seized into the hands of the king and the said N. Ferrar and others shall not intermeddle but from use and claim of the same

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shall be excluded. . . .”¹ So far as the judgment and other entries on the record indicate, no attempt was made by the presentation of evidence on either side to prove or disprove the allegations of the government. The judgment simply rehearses the pro forma charges in the information and pronounces them sufficient to justify the forfeiture of the franchise. The impression given is that the king was so sure of his case and of his judge that more than this was not deemed necessary.

The effect of an adverse judgment under a writ of quo warranto was not to cancel the charter, but to restore the liberties which existed under it into the hands of the king.² This is probably the reason why the charter does not appear as cancelled or vacated on the Patent Roll.³ Under that condition it was quite possible that the patent might again be granted with such modifications as should appear wise to the king and his advisers. A result such as this was regarded by both parties at the time as possible. The supporters of Sandys and the Ferrars desired that the new grant should be modelled on the old—but with the removal of its imperfections—and that it should be confirmed by act of parliament. As will appear, the discussion of a possible reissue of the charter was prolonged well into the next period; but the decisive step was never taken, and Virginia passed the remainder of its existence as a colony under the forms of a royal province. Although, because of its place of residence, the dissolution of the Virginia company was

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more closely connected with English than American history, yet it marked the first step in that long process by which the crown continued to resume the authority over colonization which at the outset it had granted to individuals or corporations. In the event itself we may well consider that the company was treated summarily and with scant justice. But the process of development which was begun by its dissolution was a natural one, though it marked the end of the romantic period of Virginia history and removed from connection with that province some of the most attractive personalities who ever interested themselves in American colonization.