CHAPTER XXXII.

1675.

The Reverend Morgan Godwyn's Letter describing Condition of the Church in Virginia.

THE Bishop of Winchester, during the whole negotiation, lent his assistance to the agents; he also brought to their notice a libel which had been published against all the Anglo-American plantations, especially Virginia. It was written by the Rev. Morgan Godwyn, who had served some time in Virginia; and he had given a copy of it to each of the bishops. The agents make mention of him as "the fellow," and "the inconsiderable wretch." They sent a copy of it to Virginia, thinking it necessary that a reply should be prepared, and addressed to the Bishop of Winchester and the Archbishop of Canterbury. It is probable that this pamphlet is no longer extant; but the character of its contents may be inferred from a letter addressed by the author to Sir William Berkley, and appended to a pamphlet published by him in 1680, entitled the "Negro's and Indian's Advocate." Indeed this letter may have been itself the libellous pamphlet circulated in England in 1674, and referred to by the Virginia agents. In this letter Godwyn gives the following account of the state of religion, as it was in that province some time before the late rebellion, i.e. Bacon's, which occurred in 1676. Godwyn acknowledges that Berkley had, "as a tender father, nourished and preserved Virginia in her infancy and nonage. But as our blessed Lord," he reminds him, "once said to the young man in the gospel, 'Yet lackest thou one thing;' so," he adds, "may we, and I fear too truly, say of Virginia, that there is one thing, the propagation and establishing of religion in her, wanting." And this he essays to prove in various ways: saying that "the ministers are most miserably handled by their plebeian juntos, the vestries, to whom the hiring (that is the usual word there) and ad

mission of ministers is solely left. And there being no law obliging them to any more than to procure a lay reader, (to be obtained at a very moderate rate,) they either resolve to have none at all, or reduce them to their own terms; that is, to use them how they please, pay them what they list, and to discard them whensoever they have a mind to it. And this is the recompense of their leaving their hopes in England, (far more considerable to the meanest curate than what can possibly be apprehended there,) together with the friends and relations and their native soil, to venture their lives into those parts among strangers and enemies to their profession, who look upon them as a burden; as being with their families (where they have any) to be supported out of their labor. So that I dare boldly aver that our discouragements there are much greater than ever they were here in England under the usurper." After citing various evidences in support of these statements, among which he specifies the hiring of the clergy from year to year, and compelling them to accept of parishes at under-rates, Godwyn thus proceeds: "I would not be thought to reflect herein upon your excellency, who have always professed great tenderness for churchmen. For, alas! these things are kept from your ears; nor dare they, had they opportunity, acquaint you with them, for fear of being used worse. And there being no superior clergyman, neither in council nor any place of authority, for them to address their complaints to, and by his means have their grievances brought to your excellency's knowledge, they are left without remedy. Again, two-thirds of the preachers are made up of leaden lay priests of the vestry's ordination; and are both the shame and grief of the rightly ordained clergy there. Nothing of this ever reaches your excellency's ear; these hungry patrons knowing better how to benefit by their vices than by the virtues of the other." And here Godwyn cites an instance of a writing-master, who came into Virginia, professing to be a doctor in divinity, showing feigned letters of orders, and under different names continuing in various places to carry on his work of fraud. He states also that owing to a law of the colony, which enacted that four years' servitude should be the penalty exacted of any one who permitted himself to be sent thither free of charge, some of the

clergy, through ignorance of the law, were left thereby under the mastery of persons who had given them the means of gratuitous transport; and that they could only escape from such bondage by paying a ransom four or five times as large as that to which the expenses of their passage would have amounted. Moreover, he describes the parishes as extending, some of them, sixty or seventy miles in length, and lying void for many years together, to save charges. Jamestown, he distinctly states, had been left, with short intervals, in this destitute condition for twenty years. "Laymen," he adds, "were allowed to usurp the office of ministers, and deacons to undermine and thrust out presbyters; in a word, all things concerning the church and religion were left to the mercy of the people." And, last of all: "To propagate Christianity among the heathen-whether natives or slaves brought from other parts-although (as must piously be supposed) it were the only end of God's discovering those countries to us, yet is that looked upon by our new race of Christians, so idle and ridiculous, so utterly needless and unnecessary, that no man can forfeit his judgment more than by any proposal looking or tending that way." Such is the Rev. Mr. Godwyn's account of the state of religion and the condition of the clergy in Virginia during Sir William Berkley's administration.*

* Anderson's Hist. of Col. Church, first edition, ii. 558, 561.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

1675.

Lands at Greenspring settled on Sir William Berkley-Indian Incursions Force put under command of Sir Henry Chicheley-Disbanded by Governor's Order The Long Parliament of Virginia-Colonial Grievances-Spirit of the Virginians-Elements of Disaffection.

THE lands at Greenspring, near Jamestown, were settled during this year on Sir William Berkley, the preamble to the act reciting among his merits, "the great pains he hath taken and hazards he has run, even of his life, in the government and preservation of the country from many attempts of the Indians, and also in preserving us in our due allegiance to his majesty's royal father of blessed memory, and his now most sacred majesty, against all attempts, long after all his majesty's other dominions were subjected to the tyranny of the late usurpers; and also seriously considering that the said Sir William Berkley hath in all time of his government, under his most sacred majesty and his royal father, made it his only care to keep his majesty's country in a due obedience to our rightful and lawful sovereign," etc. The Rev. John Clayton, (supposed to be father of the Virginia naturalist,) writing in 1688, says: "There is a spring at my Lady Berkley's called Green Spring, whereof I have been often told, so very cold, that 'tis dangerous drinking thereof in summer time, it having proved of fatal consequence to several. I never tried anything of what nature it is of."

The Indians having renewed their incursions upon the frontier, the people petitioned the governor for protection. Upon the meeting of the assembly, war was declared against them in March, 1676; five hundred men enlisted, and the forts garrisoned. The force raised was put under command of Sir Henry Chicheley, who was ordered to disarm the neighboring Indians. The forts were on the Potomac, at the falls of the Rappahannock, (now Fredericksburg,) on the Matapony, on the Pamunkey, at the falls

of the Appomattox, (now Petersburg,) either at Major-General Wood's, or at Fleets', on the opposite side of the river, on the Blackwater, and at the head of the Nansemond. Provision was made for employing Indians; articles of martial law were adopted; arms to be carried to church; the governor authorized to disband the troops when expedient; days of fasting appointed. The Indians having been emboldened to commit depredations and murders by the arms and ammunition which they had received, contrary to law, from traders, a rigorous act was passed to restrain such. When Sir Henry Chicheley was about to march against the Indians he was ordered by Sir William Berkley to disband his forces, to the general surprise and dissatisfaction of the colony.

There had now been no election of burgesses since the restoration, in 1660, the same legislature since that time having continued to hold its sessions by prorogation. It may be called the Long Parliament of Virginia in respect to its duration. Among its members may be mentioned Colonel William Clayborne, Captain William Berkley, Captain Daniel Parke, Adjutant-General Jennings, Colonel John Washington, Colonel Edward Scarburgh. Robert Wynne was made speaker shortly after the restoration, and so continued until 1676, when he was succeeded by Augustine Warner, of Gloucester. James Minge, of Charles City, was now the clerk, and had been for several years.

The price of tobacco was depressed by the monopoly of the English navigation act, and the cost of imported goods, enhanced. Duties were laid on the commerce between one colony and another, and the revenue thence derived was absorbed by the collecting officers. The planters, it is said,* had been driven to seek a remedy by destroying the crop in the fields, called "plant cutting." The endeavors of the agents in England to obtain a release from the grants to the lords and a new charter, appeared abortive. The Indian incursions occurring at this conjuncture, filled the measure of panic and exasperation. Groaning under exactions and grievances, and tortured by apprehensions, the Virginians began to meditate violent measures of relief. Many of the feudal institutions of England, the hoary buttresses of mediæ

* Account of Bacon's Rebellion, in Va. Gazette, 1766.