§ 38] FIRST REPRESENTATIVE ASSEMBLY 33 plantations. In some of these, the only voters must have been the foreman and employees of a rich proprietor. The Assembly opened with prayer, and slipped with amaz ing ease into the forms of an English parliament. It "verified credentials" of the delegates; it gave all bills "three readings”; and, in two cases, it acted as a court of justice, trying ordinary criminals. Laws which to-day would be stigmatized as "Blue Laws" were passed against drunkenness, gambling, idleness, absence from church, "excess in apparel," and other misdemeanors. For that age, the penalties were light. The Church of England was made the established church; and aid was asked from the Company toward setting up a college. With all this business, the Assembly sat only six days. This beginning of representative government in the wilderness has a simple grandeur and a striking significance. Virginia had been transformed from a "plantation colony," ruled by a despotic overseer, into a self-governing political community. The pioneers manifested an instinct and fitness for representative government, a zest for it, and a deep sense of its value. It came as a gift; but, once given, it could not be withdrawn. Jury trial and representative government were both established upon a lasting foundation in America in 1619, while Virginia was the only English colony. These two bulwarks of freedom were not then known in any large country except in England; and they were not to take root in the colonies of any other country until more than two hundred years later. Their establishment in Virginia made them inevitable in all other English colonies. 38. Two charters to the settlers established still more firmly the grant of self-government. Yeardley put before the Assembly a long document from the Company. The Assembly called it a "Great Charter," and examined it carefully, "because [it] is to binde us and our heyers forever." This "charter of 1618" has been lost, but the Assembly's Records show that it guaranteed a representative Assembly. Two years later, Francis Wyatt became governor, and the Company sent over by him a brief confirmation of the right of representative government in a second "charter," known as the Ordinance of 1621 (Source Book). These “charters" of 1618 and 1621 were wholly different from royal grants to proprietors in England. They were the first of many charters and "concessions" issued by the proprietors of various colonies to settlers in America, in order to set up ideals of government or to attract settlers. 39. The new management of the Company bestirred itself to build up the colony on the material side also. To supply the labor so much needed, Sandys (the "Treasurer"; § 32) sought throughout England for skilled artisans and husbandmen, and shipped to Virginia many hundred "servants." Several cargoes of young women, too, were induced to go out for wives to the settlers; and supplies of all kinds were poured into the colony with a lavish hand. This generous paternalism was often unwise. Effort and money were wasted in trying to produce glass, silk, and wine;1 while the main industry that was to prove successful, tobacco raising, had to win its way against the Company's frowns. Moreover, pestilence and hardship continued to kill off a terrible proportion of the people. In the first three years after Yeardley's arrival, more than three thousand new settlers landed; but in March, 1622, of the population old and new, only some twelve hundred survived, and that spring an Indian massacre swept away a third of that little band. 40. In spite of all this, Virginia became prosperous under the Company's rule. Two years after the massacre, when the Company was overthrown (§ 43), the population had risen again to twelve hundred, and the number of settlements had become nineteen. The Indians had been crushed. Fortunes were being made in tobacco, and the homes of the colonists were taking on an air of comfort. The period of experiment was past, and the era of rapid growth had just been reached. During the following ten years (1624–1634) the population grew fourfold, to more than 5000 people, organized in eight counties. 1 Englishmen valued colonies, on the economic side, mainly on the ground that they might furnish England with those products which she had been compelled to buy from foreigners. § 42] UNDER THE LIBERAL LONDON COMPANY 35 41. Tobacco for export was first grown in 1614, on the plantation of John Rolfe who had married the Indian girl Pocahontas. The Company always discouraged its cultivation - on moral as well as business grounds- and even later King Hat the manifold abufes of this vile cu- and great Perfonage,are cuer,and moft iuftly, holden in great and reuerent BEGINNING OF KING JAMES' TRACT AGAINST TOBACCO. Facsimile from the Complete Works of James I, published in London in 1616. Charles warned the Virginians not to "build on smoke." Tobacco, however, found a steady sale in Europe at high prices; and before 1624 Virginians knew they had found a paying industry. Thereafter the colony needed no coddling. 42. Meanwhile King James became bitterly hostile to the liberal management of the Company. Sandys was particularly 1 Smoking was long looked upon much as drunkenness is now. King James wrote a tract against the practice. obnoxious. He was prominent in parliament in opposing the King's arbitrary policy, and was reported to be "the king's greatest enemye." More than once he had been committed to custody by royal order. An envious business associate testified that "there was not any man in the world that carried a more malitious hearte to the government of a Monarchie than Sir Edwin Sandys did," and that Sandys had said repeatedly that he "aymed . . . to make a free popular state there [in Virginia] in which the people should have noe government putt upon them but by their owne consents." When Sandys' term expired, in 1620, the King sent to the "General Court" of the Company the names of four men from whom he ordered them to elect a new Treasurer. The Company (some hundreds of the best gentlemen of England present) remonstrated firmly against this interference with the freedom of election guaranteed by their charter; and James yielded, exclaiming petulantly, "Choose the Devil, an ye will; only not Sir Edwin Sandys!" Sandys then withdrew his name; and the Company sent a committee to his friend, the Earl of Southampton — who was little more to the royal taste — to inquire whether he would accept the office. "I know the King will be angry," said the Earl to his friends, "but, so this pious and . . . glorious work be encouraged, let the Company do with me as they think good." Then, "surceasing the ballot," the meeting elected him "with much joy and applause, by erection of hands." 1 Sandys was chosen Deputy Treasurer and remained the real manager. When Southampton's second term expired (1622), James again sent to the Court of Election five names. It would be pleasing to him, he said, if the Company would choose a new Treasurer from the list; but this time he carefully disclaimed 1 Southampton was the liberal leader in the House of Lords. He had been a friend and patron of Shakspere. These spicy anecdotes of the election come from the private papers of the Ferrars brothers, who were high officials in the Company. The official records are in the Source Book, No. 20. There the language is more courtly, but the spirit is equally definite. $ 431 THE KING OVERTHROWS THE COMPANY 37 any wish to infringe their "liberty of free election." The Company reëlected Southampton by 117 ballots, to a total of 20 for the King's nominees. Then they sent a committee to thank James “with great reverence" for his "gracious remembrance" and for his “regard for their liberty of election!" It is reported that the King "flung away in a furious passion." Small wonder that he listened to the sly slur of the Spanish ambassador who called the London Company's General Court" the seminary for a seditious parliament." 43. Since James could not secure control of the Company, he decided to overthrow it. A revival of the old factions within it, and the Indian massacre of 1622 in Virginia, furnished a pretext. James sent commissioners to the colony, to gather further information unfavorable to the Company's rule; but the Virginians supported the Company ardently and made petition after petition to the King in its favor. The Company made a strong defense. The charter could be revoked only by a legal judgment. But just at this time the English courts were basely subservient to the monarch,1 and, in 1624, the King's lawyers secured judgment that the charter was void. Thus ended the London Company," the greatest and noblest association ever organized by the English people." - EXERCISE. Note a passage in this chapter that contains evidence that voting by ballot was usual with the London Company. (Further proof may be found in the Source Book, No. 23.) Note the two distinct periods in the history of the Company, and the character of its rule in Virginia in each period. Compare the meanings of " Virginia" on maps on pages 24 and 29. Suggestions for library work will be found at the close of chapter v. 1 Sir Edward Coke, the great Chief Justice, had been dismissed from office by James for refusing to degrade his position by consulting the King's will in his decisions. Such interference with the courts was a new thing in England, and was never to recur after the Stuart reigns. |