CHAPTER XIX.

1624-1632.

Charles the First commissions Sir Thomas Wyat, Governor-Assemblies not allowed-Royal Government virtually established in Virginia-Other Colonies on Atlantic Coast-Wyat returns to Ireland-Succeeded by YeardleyYeardley succeeded by West-Letter of Charles the First directing an Assembly to meet-Assembly's Reply-John Pott, Governor-Condition of ColonyStatistics-Diet--Pott superseded by Harvey-Dr. John Pott Convicted of Stealing Cattle-Sir John Harvey-Lord Baltimore visits Virginia-Refuses to take the Oaths tendered to him-Procures from Charles the First a Grant of Territory-Acts relative to Ministers, Agriculture, Indians, etc

In August, 1624, King Charles the First granted a commission appointing Sir Thomas Wyat Governor, with a council during pleasure, and omitting all mention of an assembly, thinking so "popular a course" the chief source of the recent troubles and misfortunes. The eleven members of the council were, Francis West, Sir George Yeardley, George Sandys, Roger Smith, Ralph Hamor, who had been of the former council, with the addition of John Martin, John Harvey, Samuel Matthews, Abraham Percy, Isaac Madison, and William Clayborne. Several of these were then, or became afterwards, men of note in the colony. This is the first mention of William Clayborne, who was destined to play an important part in the future annals of Virginia.

Thus in effect a royal government was now established in Virginia; hitherto she had been subject to a complex threefold government of the company, the crown, and her own president or governor and council.*

* Chalmers' Introduction, i. 22. Beverley, B. i. 47, says expressly that an assembly was allowed. Burk, ii. 15, asserts that "assemblies convened and deliberated in the usual form, unchecked and uninterrupted by royal interference, from the dissolution of the proprietary government to the period when a regular constitution was sent over with Sir W. Berkeley in 1639." For authority reference is made to a document in the Appendix, which document, however, is not to be found there. The opinions of Chalmers-who, as clerk of the privy

From 1624 to 1628 there is no mention in the statute-book of Virginia, or in the journal of the Virginia Company, of any assembly having been held in the colony, and in 1628 appeals were made to the governor and council; whereas had there been an assembly, it would have been the appellate court.

The French had established themselves as early as 1625 in Canada; the Dutch were now colonizing the New Netherlands; a Danish colony had been planted in New Jersey; the English were extending their confines in New England (where New Plymouth numbered thirty-two houses and one hundred and eighty settlers) and Virginia; while the Spaniards, the first settlers of the coast, still held some feeble posts in Florida.

Sir Thomas Wyat, the governor of the colony of Virginia, on the death of his father, Sir George Wyat, returning, in 1626, to Ireland, to attend to his private affairs there, was succeeded by Sir George Yeardley. He, during the same year, by proclamation, which now again usurped the place of law, prohibited the selling of corn to the Indians; made some commercial regulations, and directed houses to be palisaded. Yeardley dying, was succeeded in November, 1627, by Francis West, elected by the council. He was a younger brother of Lord Delaware.*

At a court held at James City, November the sixteenth, Lady Temperance Yeardley came and confirmed the conveyance made by her late husband, Sir George Yeardley, knight, late governor, to Abraham Percy, Esq., for the lands of Flowerdieu Hundred, being one thousand acres, and of Weanoke, on the opposite side of the water, being two thousand two hundred acres. This lady's Christian name is Puritanical; another such was Obedience Robins, a burgess of Accomac in 1630.

James the First had extorted a revenue from the tobacco of Virginia by an arbitrary resort to his prerogative, and in violation of the charter. Charles the First, in a letter dated June, 1628, proposed that a monopoly of the tobacco trade should be granted to him, and recommended the culture of several new pro

council, had access to the archives in England-and Hening, confirmed by a corresponding hiatus in the records, appear conclusive against the unsupported statements of Beverley and Burk.

* Belknap, art. WYAT, errs in making Sir John Harvey the successor.

ducts, and desired that an assembly should be called to take these matters into consideration. The ensuing assembly replied, demanding a higher price and more favorable terms than his majesty was disposed to yield. As to the introduction of new staples, they explained why, in their opinion, that was impracticable. This letter was signed by Francis West, Governor, five members of the council, and thirty-one members of the House of Burgesses.

Sir George Yeardley, the late governor, with two or three of the council, had resided for the most part at Jamestown; the rest of the council repaired there as occasion required. There was a general meeting of the governor and council once in every three months. The population of the colony was estimated at not less than fifteen hundred; they inhabited seventeen or eighteen plantations, of these the greater part, lying toward the falls of the James River, were well fortified against the Indians by means of palisades. The planters dwelling above Jamestown, found means to procure an abundant supply of fish. On the banks of that river the red men themselves were now seldom seen, but their fires were occasionally observed in the woods.*

There was no family in the colony so poor as not to have a sufficient stock of tame hogs. Poultry was equally abundant; bread plenty and good. For drink the colonists made use of a home-made ale; but the better sort of people were well supplied with sack, aqua-vitæ, and good English beer. The common diet of the servants was milk-hominy, that is, bruised Indian-corn, pounded and boiled thick, and eaten with milk. This dish was also in esteem with the better sort. Hominy, according to Strachey, is an Indian word; Lord Bacon calls it "the cream of maize," and commends it as a nutritious diet. The planters were generally provided with arms and armor, and on every holiday each plantation exercised its men in the use of arms, by which means, together with hunting and fowling, the greater part of them became excellent marksmen. Tobacco was the only staple cultivated for sale. The health of the country was greatly im

* The number of cattle amounted to several thousand head; the stock of goats was large, and their increase rapid; the forests abounded with wild hogs, which were killed and eaten by the savages.

proved by clearing the land, so that the sun had power to exhale up the humid vapors. Captain Francis West continued governor till March, 1628, and he then being about to embark for England, John Pott was elected governor by the council.

In the year 1629 most of the land about Jamestown was cleared; little corn planted; but all the ground converted into pasture and gardens, "wherein doth grow all manners of English herbs and roots and very good grass." Such is the cotemporaneous statement, but after the lapse of more than two centuries Eastern Virginia depends largely on the Northern States for her supply of hay. The greater portion of the cattle of the colony was kept near Jamestown, the owners being dispersed about on plantations, and visiting Jamestown as inclination prompted, or, at the arrival of shipping, come to trade. In this year the population of Virginia amounted to five thousand, and the cattle had increased in the like proportion. The colony's stock of provisions was sufficient to feed four hundred more than its own number of inhabitants. Vessels procured supplies in Virginia; the number of arrivals in 1629 was twenty-three. Salt fish was brought from New England; Kecoughtan supplied peaches.

Mrs. Pearce, an honest industrious woman, after passing twenty years in Virginia, on her return to England reported that she had a garden at Jamestown, containing three or four acres, where in one year she had gathered a hundred bushels of excellent figs, and that of her own provision she could keep a better house in Virginia, than in London for three or four hundred pounds a year, although she had gone there with little or nothing. The planters found the Indian-corn so much better for bread than wheat, that they began to quit sowing it.

An assembly met at Jamestown in October, 1629; it consisted of John Pott, Governor, four councillors, and forty-six burgesses, returned from twenty-three plantations. Pott was superseded in the same year by Sir John Harvey, at some time between October and March. In March, the quarter court ordered an assembly to be called, to meet Sir John Harvey on the twenty-fourth of that month; and nothing was done in Pott's name after October, so far as can be found in the records.

The late governor was, during the ensuing year, Rob-Roy-like,

convicted of stealing cattle. The trial commenced on the ninth of July, 1630; the number of jurors was thirteen, of whom three were members of the council. The first day was wholly spent in pleading, the next in unnecessary disputations, Dr. John Pott endeavoring to prove Mr. Kingsmell, one of the witnesses against him, a hypocrite by the story of "Gusman of Alfrach, the Rogue." Pott was found guilty, but in consideration of his rank and station, judgment was suspended until the king's pleasure should be known; and all the council became his security.

Sir John Harvey, the new governor, had been one of the commissioners sent out by King James to Virginia, in 1623, for the purpose of investigating the state and condition of the colony, and of procuring evidence which might serve to justify the dissolution of the charter of the Virginia Company. Harvey had also been a member of the provisional government in the year 1625. Returning now to Virginia, no doubt with embittered recollections of the collisions with the assembly in which he had been formerly involved, he did not fail to imitate the arbitrary rule that prevailed "at home," and to render himself odious to the inhabitants of the colony.

Sir George Calvert, the first Lord Baltimore, descended from a noble family in Flanders, born at Kipling, in Yorkshire, England, was educated partly at Trinity College, Oxford, and partly on the continent. Sir Robert Cecil, lord treasurer, employed him as his secretary, and he was promoted to the clerkship of the council. In 1618 he was knighted, and in the succeeding year he was made a secretary of state, and one of the committee of trade and plantations, with a pension of one thousand pounds. Through the influence of Sir Thomas Wentworth, afterwards Earl of Strafford, he was chosen a member of Parliament. Receiving a patent for the southeastern peninsula of Newfoundland, he undertook to establish, in 1621, the plantation of Ferryland, which he called the Province of Avalon-a name derived from some mediæval legend. In 1624 he professed the Romish faith, and resigned his place of secretary of state; but James the First still retained this strenuous defender of royal prerogative as a member of his privy council, and created him* Baron of Balti

* 1625.