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27. References.

Bibliographies.—S. Kingsbury, Introduction to Records of Virginia Company, 207-214; P. Bruce, Economic History of Virginia, I. xv.-xix.; N. Mereness, Maryland, 521-524; E. Whitney, Government of South Carolina, footnotes; Avery, United States, II. 411-417, 434-438, III. 407-410, 412, 413; Larned, Literature of American History, 100-106; Winsor, III. 153-166, 553-562, V. 335-356; C. Andrews, Colonial Self-Government, 351-354; Channing and Hart, Guide, §§ 97-102.

Historical Maps.—Nos. 2 and 3, this volume (Epoch Maps, Nos. 2, 3); Doyle, English Colonies, I.; MacCoun, Winsor, and school histories cited in our ch. i.

General Accounts.—Lodge, English Colonies, chs. i., iii., v., vii.; Doyle, as above, I.; H. Osgood, American Colonies in Seventeenth Century; Avery, as above, II. chs. ix., x., III. chs. i.-iii.; Channing, United States, I. chs. v.-ix.; Andrews, as above, chs. ix., xiii.-xv.; Greene, Provincial America, chs. i.-v.; Winsor, as above, III. chs. v., xiii., V. ch. v.

Special Histories.—Virginia: Brown, First Republic in America, and English Politics in Early Virginia History; Bruce, as above; Fiske, Old Virginia and Her Neighbors; J. Cooke (Commonwealths); L. Tyler, Cradle of the Republic, and Williamsburg; R. Pryor, Birth of the Nation; J. Wayland, German Element in Shenandoah Valley.—Maryland: Browne (Commonwealths), Scharf, Bozman, Mereness, as above; C. Hall, Lords Baltimore; B. Steiner, Beginnings of Maryland.—Carolinas: J. Moore, I. chs. i.-iii.; C. Raper; E. McCrady, South Carolina under Proprietary Government; S. Ashe, North Carolina, I. Lives of Smith by Bradley, Roberts, and Smith.

Contemporary Accounts.—Reprints of Smith's True Relation, and other early documents: Force, Tracts; publications of historical societies and commissions of the several states; Carroll, Historical Collections; Brown, Genesis of United States; Kingsbury and Osgood, Records of Virginia Company; Jameson, Original Narratives of Early American History; American History told by Contemporaries, I. part iv; American History Leaflets, No. 27.

28. Reasons for Final English Colonization.

Over-population of England in the seventeenth century.

By the beginning of the seventeenth century it was quite evident to thoughtful men that England needed room for growth. The population of the island had greatly increased during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The extension of the wool trade had encouraged the turning of vast tracts of tillable ground into sheep-pastures, which elbowed large communities of farm-laborers out of their calling. England at large waxed great, the condition of the merchant and upper classes was improved, but the peasant remained where he was, the gulf widening between him and those above him. The growth of the merchant class and their appearance on the scene as large landholders, still further lessened the feudal sympathy between peasant and landlord. The land abounded with idle men. Everywhere was noticed the uneasiness which frets a people too closely packed to find ready subsistence. Starvation induced lawlessness. |Colonization as a means of relief.| Colonization was thought by many to be the only means of obtaining permanent relief from the pressing political and economic dangers of pauperism; and naturally America, from which Gosnold, Pring, and Weymouth had but recently brought favorable reports, was deemed most available for the planting of new English communities.

Chartered trading companies undertake the task.

But the temper of Englishmen had somewhat changed since the days of Raleigh's brilliant enterprises. A spirit of sober calculation had succeeded with the increase of the mercantile habit. Raleigh was out of favor, and there were no longer any private men who would undertake the task of colonization. If it were to be done at all, it must be by chartered trading companies; and naturally they looked upon all ventures with merchants' eyes rather than statesmen's. The career of the Muscovy Company, which had been profitably trading to Russia for a half century, and the rapid successes achieved by the East India Company, founded in 1599, were pointed to as examples of what could be done in this direction; although the obvious fact that Russia and India were old and wealthy countries, while America was a wilderness peopled by savages, appears not to have been considered.

29. The Charter of 1606.

Gosnold, returning from his voyage to New England, was ardent in the desire to establish a colony in the milder climate of Virginia, and easily won to his support six representative Englishmen,—Richard Hakluyt, then prebendary of Westminster, and now famous as an editor of the chronicles of early voyages; Robert Hunt, a clergyman; Sir Thomas Gates and Sir George Somers, two "brave and pious gentlemen;" a London merchant named Edward Maria Wingfield; and John Smith, a soldier. |The London and Plymouth Companies organized.| As a result of their endeavors,—seconded by Sir John Popham, chief justice of England, and Sir Ferdinando Gorges (page 41),—a charter was granted by King James (April 10, 1606) to a company with two subdivisions,—1. The London Company, composed of London merchants, who were to establish a colony somewhere between the 34th and 41st degrees of latitude; that is, between the southern limit of the North Carolina of to-day and the mouth of Hudson River. 2. The Plymouth Company, composed chiefly of traders and country gentlemen in the West of England, with chief offices at Plymouth, who were to plant a settlement somewhere between the 38th and 45th degrees; that is, north of the mouth of the Potomac, and south of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. But neither was to make a planting within one hundred miles of the other, although their assigned territories overlapped each other three degrees. Later (1609), the southern colony was given bounds in more specific terms,—it was to extend two hundred miles along the coast in either direction from Old Point Comfort, and "up into the land from sea to sea, west and northwest;" this latter phrase being the foundation of the later claim of Virginia to the Northwest.

How the colonies were governed.

King James, unlike Elizabeth, did not favor colonization; but he was induced to yield his consent to this undertaking. The colonies established under the charter were directly under the king's control, and not under that of Parliament. The government of the two proposed colonies was placed in the hands of two resident councils, of thirteen members each, nominated by the Crown from among the colonists; while above them was a general council of fourteen in England, also appointed by the king. Afterwards, eleven other persons, similarly selected, were added to the council in England.

Royal instructions to the Virginia colonists.

The resident council was to govern according to laws, ordinances, and instructions dictated by the Crown. The royal instructions sent out with the first colonists to Virginia stipulated that the Church of England and the king's supremacy must be maintained, but the president of the council must not be in holy orders. The land tenure was to be the same as in England. Jury trial was guaranteed. Summary punishment must be enforced for drunkards, vagrants, and vagabonds, while the death penalty was prescribed for rioting, mutiny, and treason, murder, manslaughter, and offences against chastity. The resident council might coin money and control the extraction of all precious metals, giving one fifth to the Crown. It might also make provisions for the proper administration of public affairs; but all laws were to remain in vogue only conditionally, till ratified by the general council in England or the Crown. In another clause the king declared that all ordinances should be "consonant to the laws of England and the equity thereof." All trade was to be public, and in charge of a treasurer or cape merchant,—an officer chosen by the resident council from its own membership. All the produce of the colony was to be brought to a magazine, from which settlers were to be supplied with necessaries by the cape merchant. Doyle says: "The company ... was to be a vast joint-stock farm, or collection of farms, worked by servants who were to receive, in return for their labor, all their necessaries and a share in the proceeds of the undertaking." As a pious afterthought, the colonists were admonished "to show kindness to the savages and heathen people in those parts, and use all proper means to draw them to the true knowledge and service of God."

The rights of the patentees.

The rights given to the patentees, represented in the general council in England, were: free transport of emigrants and goods, the right to exact a duty of two and one half per cent on trade with the colony by Englishmen, and five per cent on trade by foreigners. For twenty-one years the proceeds of the enterprise were to accrue to the company; after that, to the Crown.

The king is granted too much power.

It should be noted that this patent, given by James to the combined London and Plymouth companies, differed greatly from that granted by Elizabeth to Gilbert and Raleigh, for it prescribed a constitution for the colonies, and left but little to the judgment of the patentees. The latter, in their eagerness to get a commercial charter, had allowed the king to assume an undue political control over their establishment. It was fortunate for Englishmen, both in America and England, that James was a weak monarch. He might readily have used his supreme power over the Virginia colonists, not only to browbeat them at will, but to tax them unmercifully for the purpose of raising money, with which he would be the better enabled to bid the home Parliament defiance while attacking the liberties of his people. He did not lack desire, but was wanting in courage and astuteness, and allowed those shrewder than himself gradually to re-shape the American charter until, within twenty years, Virginia had emerged into practical independence.

30. The Settlement of Virginia (1607-1624).

The London Company first in the field.

The London Company, of which Hakluyt, Somers, and Gates were the most active spirits, was first in the field. A hundred and forty-three colonists were gathered aboard three ships,—the "Discovery," the "Good Speed," and the "Susan Constant,"—which on the 19th of December, 1606, sailed down the Thames, on the way to Virginia. The composition of the party was not promising. Most of them were "gentlemen," unused to and scorning manual toil; only twelve were laborers; and among the artisans were "jewellers, gold-refiners, and a perfumer." |Character of the colonists.| Adventure, mines, and golden sands were in the minds of the company, and the "gentlemen" doubtless thought they were out for a holiday excursion. The fact that there were neither women nor children in the expedition shows how little conception these people had of the true mission of a colony. The little fleet was in charge of Christopher Newport, a seaman of good reputation, with whom Gosnold was associated.

John Smith.

Among the party was one of the patentees,—Captain John Smith. He was the son of a Lincolnshire gentleman; and being a soldier of fortune, had travelled and experienced adventures in many European countries,—a brave, robust, self-reliant, public-spirited, enterprising, humane, and withal a boastful Englishman, he has come down to us as one of the most romantic figures in American history. Smith's active temperament was not at first appreciated by his fellow-colonists, and in a fit of jealousy on shipboard they put him into irons upon a silly charge of conspiracy; and though he had been named a councillor by the king, he was not allowed to participate in the government for nearly a month after landing.

Jamestown settled.

On the sixteenth of April, 1607, land was sighted, and the adventurers soon entered Chesapeake Bay, naming the outlying capes, Henry and Charles, after the king's sons, and the river, which they soon ascended, the James, in honor of the monarch himself. Fifty miles above the mouth of the river is "a low peninsula half buried in the tide at high water," which they unfortunately selected as the site of a town; and landing there on the thirteenth of May, they called the place Jamestown. Wingfield, one of the patentees, was chosen president of the resident council, exploring parties were sent out, fortifications were begun, and a few log-huts reared. The colonists had been instructed by the English council to search for water passages running through to the Pacific. A party soon set out, under Newport and Smith; but on reaching the falls of the James turned back. At first they were troubled by Indians; but peace had been made with the neighboring chief before Newport left for England, the twenty-second of June.

The marshes were rank, the water was bad, and food scanty at Jamestown. The colonists were for the most part a shiftless set, lacking the habit of industry. |A dismal summer.| The heat was so intense during the first summer that few houses were built, and the tents were rotten and leaky. The natives, being ill-treated, soon broke out again into hostilities. When autumn came, fifty of the colonists had died. "Some departed suddenly," wrote a chronicler, "but for the most part they died of mere famine. There were never Englishmen left in a foreign country in such misery as we were in this new discovered Virginia.... It would make ... hearts bleed to hear the pitiful murmurings and outcries." The only men in office who had not in some degree succumbed to the miseries of the situation were Gosnold, a man of really superior ability, and Smith himself, the latter having now attained to supreme control by common consent. Smith compelled his people to labor,—"he that will not work shall not eat," was his dictum,—maintained trade with the Indians, among whom he became popular, drilled the little garrison, kept up the fortifications, explored and mapped the country and the coast, wrote appeals for assistance to London, and was the life and soul of the colony for two years.

In 1609 Newport had come out with supplies and one hundred and twenty emigrants, who again were mainly "gentlemen, goldsmiths, and libertines;" and he promptly sailed back with a load of worthless shining earth. Smith found the new-comers seized with a frenzy for discovering gold mines, and his troubles increased. |Smith the savior of the colony.| The company, impatient for returns, were disappointed because he insisted on having the people cultivate the rich soil, build houses, trade with the natives, and explore, rather than go seeking for gold where there was none. He appears to have been the only man of authority in the enterprise who understood the true conditions of colonization. He had repeatedly urged the patentees in London to cease sending him gentlemen, idlers, and curious handicraftsmen, and instead of such to ship "carpenters, husbandmen gardeners, fishermen, blacksmiths, masons, and diggers up of trees' roots;" and insisted that they "as yet must not look for profitable returning." To Smith we owe it that Jamestown lived through all its early disasters, so that when he left it, in October, 1609, it had acquired a foothold and was the nucleus of permanent settlement in Virginia. He never again returned to the colony, although in later years we find him diligently exploring the New England coast.