2

and pay a nominal rent to the King yearly "at the feast of St. Michael the Archangel," as the old deeds ran. Any one paying into the treasury the sum of twelve pounds ten shillings should be entitled to one hundred acres, to be located where he pleased. And whoever performed a public service to the Company or the colony was to be rewarded with a grant not to exceed two thousand acres.

Thus began in Virginia the absolute tenure of real estate. It rested on a respectable basis: the men who labored and did the state service were to be the landholders.

When, in 1616, Sir Thomas Dale returned to England, in the same ship with Pocahontas, his strong hand had left its impress on the whole fabric of Virginia society. Order everywhere reigned, and the land was at peace. It contained three hundred and fifty inhabitants, or, probably, heads of families, and a chain of settlements extended from Varina to the ocean: Henrico, Bermuda, West and Shirley Hundreds, Jamestown, Kiquotan, and Dale's Gift on the sea-coast, near Cape Charles. There was a college for Indian children at the City of Henricus, where the Rev. William Wickham officiated as minister; and Governor George Yeardley, left in charge of the colony, had a house, and for the most part of the time resided there. At the capital, Jamestown, were fifty settlers, under Captain Francis West, and the Rev. Mr. Bucke, of the Sea-Venture, was the minister.

Thus Virginia was growing and developing. The new Governor, Yeardley, was a man of mild character and respectable ability; and in the year 1616 introduced the cultivation of tobacco, which John Rolfe had experi

mented with some years before. The Indians smoked it, but were obliged to cultivate it, as it did not grow wild; and finding that it was prized in Europe, the settlers began to plant it. The demand steadily increased with the habit of using it, and a few years afterwards it became the great staple of Virginia.

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Suddenly Yeardley's rule, which had been "temperate and just, too mild indeed for many of this colony," ended. He was replaced by a personage whose rule was not going to be temperate or mild - Captain Samuel Argall, of Acadian memory. Argall is one of the most dramatic figures of that dramatic age wily, energetic, rapacious, a human hawk, peering about in search of some prey to pounce on. He was trader, fisherman, intriguer, and a little of the buccaneer; ever going to and fro in search of something to profit by; ready to capture Indian girls, or burn settlements, or run" a cargo of slaves. He performed this latter exploit, and was nearly the author of the introduction of slavery into America; for he had sailed to the West Indies, captured a number of negroes from the Spaniards, and they were landed in the Bermudas instead of Virginia, only by accident. Argall's restless spirit had carried him back to England, after the Acadian business. There he had intrigued with the Earl of Warwick, the head of the court party, and the result was that in 1617 he was sent to supersede Yeardley, with the title of Deputy Governor and Admiral of Virginia.

When he took the reins it was seen that the days of "temperate and mild" rule had passed away. He revived martial law, and ruled the colony with a rod of iron. He fixed the percentage of profit on goods and

regulated the price of tobacco, attaching the penalty of three years' "slavery to the colony," or public labor, to violations of his edicts. For teaching the Indians the use of fire-arms, the punishment was death to teacher and pupil. Absence from church was visited with a night's imprisonment and a week's "slavery;" for the second offense, a month of slavery; and for the third, a year and a day. These regulations were severe, but the "unruly" element probably required severity, and Argall was not the man to shrink from it. Unfortunately for his good name, he was grasping and unscrupulous in whatever concerned his own private interests. The case of Brewster, manager of Lord Delaware's Virginia estates, is an example. Argall ordered the laborers on the estate to labor on his own, and when Brewster demurred Argall arrested him for mutiny, tried him by court-martial, and condemned him to death. He barely escaped from the hawk's clutches, and got back to England; but once there, he made such an outcry that the Company lost all patience with Argall. He was superseded, but acted with his usual decision. Before the arrival of the new Governor, he loaded a vessel with the proceeds of his "plunder," and sailed away from the colony. To the last, fortune befriended him. He was knighted by James I., as a reward for his public services otherwise his close adherence to the court party in the Company. The portrait drawn of him here is that which appears on the face of the record. There is no doubt at all that he was rapacious and despotic, but both Dale and Hamor had a high opinion of him. His ability and energy were unquestionable; and he was perhaps only another example of the singular contrasts presented in the characters of the strong men of that strong age.

George Yeardley came back (April 19, 1619) as Sir George Yeardley, Governor-General of Virginia. His friends must have welcomed his mild and honest face, after the hawk visage of Argall; but he brought with him certain documents which made him thrice welcome in Virginia. When their contents were proclaimed, a thrill ran through the colony, and shouts and cheers must have risen from the Varina settlement all along James River to Dale's Gift on the ocean.

Virginia, thenceforward, was to have representative government.

XIX.

THE FIRST AMERICAN ASSEMBLY AND CONSTITUTION.

THIS wonder was the unconscious work of that bitter enemy of free discussion and popular right, King James I.

When the ship bearing the body of the good Admiral Somers from Bermuda reached England, the crew brought with them a large lump of ambergris, which they had found on the islands, and gave glowing descriptions of their fertility and value. This account excited the Company, and they petitioned the King to include the Bermudas in the territory of Virginia. He did so by a new charter in March, 1612, and this was the remote cause of free government in Virginia. The charter, which was the old one of 1609 remodeled, had far more important provisions than the concession of the right to the Bermudas. Virginia had hitherto been governed by the London Council. The Company met only at long intervals, and thus the Council were the real administrators. Now all was changed. Authority

was given the Company to sit once a week, or as often as they chose, and to hold four "General Courts" ip the year for the consideration of affairs. It was a dangerous force which the King had unloosed. A little reflection might have shown him that the times were dangerous; that the royal prerogative and popular right were at issue; and that the creation of a great democratic assembly for free discussion was a perilous step. By the charter the Company had "full powers and authority to make such laws and ordinances for the good and welfare of the said plantation as to them, from time to time, should be thought requisite and meet," always provided that the laws and ordinances were not contrary to "the laws and statutes of this our realm of England."

The occasion was tempting. A great question was then agitating the realm of England: whether the will of the King or the rights of the people were to be the "law." The new world was coming, and its shadow ran before. The great quarterly courts met, and the aspiring spirits of the Company, restive under the old order of things and sworn foes to the absolutist principle, proceeded to open and turbulent discussion of the great issue. The King had raised a storm which he could not control. Loudon rang with the proceedings of this great parliament of Virginia adventurers. The meetings were thronged, and the debates were tumultuous. It was a power within a power, and foretold the Long Parliament. "The Virginia Courts are but a seminary to a seditious parliament," the Spanish ambassador told James; and twenty years afterwards the words were seen to be true.

The result of the struggle was a triumph of the Vir