CHAPTER II. Voyage of captain Newport....Colony settled at Jamestown ....Distress of the colonists.... Influence and activity of captain Smith....He is captured by the Indians....Condemned to death by Powhatan...Saved by Pocahontas.... Returns to Jamestown....Newport arrives with an additional supply of settlers....Smith explores the Chessapeake.... Is chosen president....New charter... Third voyage of Newport...Smith sails for Europe....Condition of the colony...Determination to abandon the colony...Stopped by the arrival of lord Delawar, the governor general....Sir Thomas Dale....New charter....Captain Argal seizes Pocahontas....She marries Mr. Rolfe....Separate property in lands and labour in some degree established ....Expedition of captain Argal against the French colony at Port Royal....Against the Dutch at Manhadoes.... Fifty acres of land laid off for each settler....Tobacco.... Sir Thomas Dale....Mr. Yeardly....First colonial assembly....First arrival of females in the colony....And of convicts....First importation of African slaves.... Two councils established....Prosperity of the colony....Attempt of the Indians to massacre all the whites....General war....Dissension and dissolution of the company....Colony taken into the hands of the king....Arbitrary measures of the crown....Sir John Harvey....Sir William Berkeley....Provincial assembly restored....Virginia declares in favour of Charles II....Grant to lord Baltimore ....Arrival of a colony in Maryland under Calvert.... Assembly composed of all the freemen....William. Clayborne.... Assembly composed of representatives.... Divided into two branches.... Tyranical proceedings. ALTHOUGH several men of rank, and fortune, were concerned in the companies which had been formed in England, for colonizing America, their funds appear to have been very CHAP. II. limited, and their first efforts were certainly 1606. extremely feeble. The first expedition for the southern colony consisted of one vessel, of a hundred tons, and two barks, with a hundred and five men, destined to remain in the country. Captain The command of this small embarkation voyage of was given to captain Newport, who sailed Newport. therewith from the Thames, the 19th of December. At the same time that his instructions were received, three packets sealed with the seal of the council, were delivered, one to captain Newport, a second to captain Bartholomew Gosnald, and a third to captain John Ratcliffe, containing the names of the council for the colony. These packets were accompanied with instructions, directing that they should be opened, within twenty-four hours, after their arrival on the coast of Virginia, and not before; and that the names of his majesty's council should then be proclaimed. The council were then to proceed to the choice of a president, who should have two votes. To this singular, and unaccountable concealment have been, in a great degree, attributed the dissensions which distracted the colonists on their passage, and which afterwards considerably impeded the progress of their infant settlement. CHAP. II. Newport, whose place of destination was 1606. Roanoke, took the circuitous route by the West India islands, and had a long passage of four months. The reckoning had been out for three days, without perceiving land, and serious propositions were made for returning to England, when they were overtaken by a storm, which fortunately drove them to the mouth of the Chessapeake. 1607. Colony settled at On the 26th of April they descried cape Henry, and soon afterwards, cape Charles. Impatient to land, a party of about thirty men went on shore at cape Henry; but they were immediately attacked by the natives, who considered them as enemies, and in the skirmish which ensued, several were wounded on both sides. The first employment of the colonists, was to Jamestown. explore the adjacent country, with the appearance of which they were greatly delighted, and to select a spot on which their settlement should be made. They proceeded up a large beautiful river, called by the natives, Powhatan, and to which they gave the name of James: on a peninsula on the north side of which, they unanimously agreed to make the first establishment of their infant colony. This place, as well as the river, they named after their king, and called it Jamestown. Here they debarked on the 13th of May, and the sealed packets delivered to them in England being opened, mr. Wingfield was, by CHAP. II. the council, elected their president; but under 1607. frivolous, and unjustifiable pretexts, they excluded from his seat among them, John Smith, whose courage and talents seem to have excited their envy, and who, on the passage, had been imprisoned, on the improbable and unsupported charge, of intending to murder the council, usurp the government, and make himself king of Virginia. The colonists soon found themselves embroiled with the Indians, who attacked them suddenly while at work, but were frightened by the fire from the ship; and, in some short time, a temporary accommodation with them was effected. Although Newport was named of the council, he was ordered to return with the vessels to England, and the time of his departure approached. The accusers of Smith, affecting a degree of humanity which they did not feel, proposed that he should return with Newport, instead of being prosecuted in Virginia; but with the pride of conscious innocence, he demanded his trial, and, being honourably acquitted, took his seat in the council. About the 15th of June, Newport sailed for England, leaving behind him one of the barks, and about a hundred persons, the only English then on the continent of America. CHAP. II. Thus about one hundred and ten years after 1607. this continent had been discovered by Cabot; and twenty-two years after a colony had been conducted to Roanoke, by sir Richard Grenville; the English possessions in America, designed soon to become a mighty empire, were limited to a peninsula of a few thousand acres of land; held by a small body of men, who with difficulty maintained themselves against the paltry tribes which surrounded them; and looked, in a great measure, to the other side of the Atlantic for the bread on which they were to subsist. Distress of the colonists. The stock of provisions for the colony had been very improvidently laid in. It was entirely inadequate to their wants, and, in addition to this original error, it had sustained great damage in the holds of the vessels, during their long passage. On the departure of Newport (during whose stay they managed to partake of the superfluity of the sailors) they were reduced to the necessity of subsisting on the distributions from the public stores. These were at the same time scanty and unwholesome. They did not amount to more, per man, than a pint of worm eaten wheat, and barley, boiled in a common kettle. This wretched food increased the malignity of the diseases generated by a hot, and, at that time (the country being entirely uncleared and undrained) a damp climate, among men exposed, from their situation |