Thus books, the acted drama, the thirst for knowledge, the ardent desire of the human mind to expand in all directions, made the last years of the sixteenth century and the beginning of the seventeenth a new era in the history of the human race. Men longed for new experiences, to travel and discover new countries, to find some outlet for the boiling spirit of enterprise which had rushed into and overflowed the time. The adventurous sea voyages of the period were the direct outcome of this craving; suddenly a passion for maritime exploration had developed itself. We have the record of what followed in the folios of Hakluyt and Purchas "Divers Voyages touching the Discovery of America," "Navigations, Voyages, and Discoveries made by the English Nation," "Purchas, his Pilgrimage," and other works of the same character. Magellan circumnavigated the world, and Sir Francis Drake doubled Cape Horn, coasted northward to the present Alaska, attempted the northwest passage, and finding it impracticable, crossed the Pacific, traversed the Indian Ocean, and returned to England by the Cape of Good Hope. The English flag was thus carried into every sea, and wherever the flag of Spain was encountered, it was saluted with canFor a whole generation these adventurous voyages and hard combats went on without ceasing, and on the continent of Europe another outlet was presented to the fierce ardor of the times. Flanders was an incessant battle-ground; and in Transylvania the Christians were making war on the Turks. English soldiers of fortune flocked to the Christian standard, and fought among the foremost, winning fortune and renown, or "leaving their bodies in testimony of their minds."

non.

At the end of the century this long period of fierce

struggle ended the foes seemed to have exhausted themselves. But the enterprise of the time was still unsated and demanded new fields. In spite of the disastrous ending of the Roanoke experiment, longing eyes had continued to be fixed on America, and the same glamour surrounded "Virginia" for the new generation as for the old. Beyond the Atlantic was the virgin Continent, unexplored by Englishmen, awaiting brave hearts and strong hands. To a people so ardent and restless the prospect was full of attraction. Virginia was the promised land, and they had only to go and occupy it. There the fretting cares and poverty of the Old World would be forgotten, and stirring action would replace the dull inaction of peace at the end of so much fighting. For the daring there was the charm of adventure in an unexplored world; for the selfish the hope of profit, and for the pious the great work of converting the Indian "heathen." The first charter expressed this longing—"that so noble a work may by the providence of God hereafter tend to the glory of His Divine Majesty in propagating of the Christian religion to such people as sit in darkness and miserable ignorance of the true knowledge and worship of God.". "This is the work that we first intended," says a writer of the time, "and have published to the world to be chief in our thoughts, to bring the infidel people from the worship of Devils to the service of God." And worthy Mr. Crashaw exhorted the adventurers, about to embark for Virginia, to "remember that the end of this voyage is the destruction of the Devil's kingdom."

These were some of the causes which led to the settlement of America by the English.

III.

THE OLDEST AMERICAN CHARTER.

AT last, in 1606, the ardent desire of the Englishmen of the time to settle Virginia began to take shape. A brave sea captain, Bartholomew Gosnold, was the mainspring of the enterprise. He had made the first direct voyage across the Atlantic to New England, and meant now to establish a colony, if possible in the milder south. He found sympathizers in Sir Thomas Gates and Sir George Somers, two brave and pious gentlemen, Richard Hakluyt, prebendary of Westminster, Robert Hunt, an exemplary clergyman, Edward Maria Wingfield, a London merchant, and John Smith, an English soldier.

This famous chevalier, who was to become the soul of the enterprise and the founder of Virginia, was born in Willoughby, England, in January, 1579. His family were connected with the Lancashire gentry, but he was left a poor orphan, and before he had grown to manhood had served as a private soldier in the Flanders wars. He then wandered away like a knight-errant in search of adventures; joined the forces of Sigismund Bathori, who was making war on the Turks in Transylvania; slew three Turkish "champions" in single combat, for which he was knighted; was captured and reduced to slavery by the Turks, but escaped to Russia; and thence returned by way of Germany, France, Spain, and Morocco, to England, which he reached in 1604, when he was twenty-five. He had left home an unknown youth, and returned a famous man. He was young in years, but old in experience, in suffering, and in those elements which lie at the foundation of greatness. His

portrait, with sweeping mustache and frank glance, is the portrait of a fighting man; but under it may be discerned the administrator and ruler.

When Smith came back to England, Elizabeth was dead and the reign of James I. had just begun. The city of London was full of soldiers returned from the Continental wars, and this restless social element gladly welcomed the Virginia enterprise. They were men of every character brave soldiers and the scum of war; frequented the "Mermaid" and other taverns; jostled the citizens; and flocked to the theatres, where Shakespeare's plays were the great attraction. The dramatist had not yet retired to Stratford, and it is probable that Smith made his acquaintance then or afterward, as he wrote "they have acted my fatal tragedies on the stage." The stage in London meant the Globe or Blackfriars, in which Shakespeare was a stockholder; and Smith made his complaint to William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, the "W. H." of the Shakespearean sonnets. This personal acquaintance of the soldier and the writer is merely conjectural, but it is interesting to fancy them together at the "Mermaid," talking, perhaps, of the Virginia enterprise and the strange stage of the "Tempest," written a few years afterwards. Smith and Gosnold became friends, and the wandering soldier caught the fever of exploration and adventure in America. When the scheme at last took form, he had become a prominent advocate of the enterprise, and was appointed by the King one of the first counsellors.

James I. had authorized the undertaking, and it was now launched. He busied himself in drawing up his royal charter for the government of the colony, and April 10, 1606, the paper was ready.

By this oldest of American charters two colonies were directed to be established in the great empire of Virginia. The southern colony was intrusted to Sir Thomas Gates, Sir George Somers, and others, and was to be "planted" anywhere between thirty-four and forty-one degrees of north latitude, corresponding to the southern limits of North Carolina, and the mouth of the Hudson River. It was to extend fifty miles north and fifty miles south of the spot selected for the settlement; one hundred miles into the land; and to embrace any islands within the same distance of the coast.

The association governing the southern colony was styled the London Company; the northern colony was intrusted to the Plymouth Company; and a strip of territory one hundred miles broad was to intervene between the two. Three years afterwards (1609) the boundaries of the southern colony were enlarged and exactly defined. It was to embrace the territory two

River, and to

hundred miles north and two hundred miles south of Old Point Comfort, the mouth of James reach "up into the land from sea to sea." This was the original charter under which Virginia held at the time of the formation of the Federal Constitution in 1788.

The plan of government for the colony was simple. Everything began and ended with the King. A great council of thirteen in London, appointed by himself, was to govern. A subordinate council in Virginia, appointed by the greater, was to follow his instructions. Thus the colony of Virginia was to be ruled and directed in all its proceedings by the royal will, since the King appointed its rulers, and directed under his sign-manual in what manner they were to rule. The details were generally judicious. The Christian religion was to be