ow an untimely death; the feebleness of his constitution threatened to confirm these fears, and may have had its share in inducing him to abandon a career full of promise for a life of religious seclusion. The foreign travels which followed upon a brilliant career at Cambridge are told by his biographer with a graphic fidelity which makes even commonplace incidents picturesque; and the whole narrative might serve as a fitting comment on Bacon's Essay on Travel at a time when a visit to foreign countries was in reality a branch of liberal education. In 1618 Ferrar returned to England, and even then, at the age of twenty-six, he would have preferred the seclusion of college life to the public employment which his family connection soon forced upon him. His father's age, however, made it almost needful that the son should share the burden imposed by the affairs of the Virginia Company; and when in the following year the elder Ferrar died, the son at once stood forward among the leading members. Immediately upon his return he had been appointed to a position of trust in the Company, and in 1622 he was elected Treasurer in the stead of his brother. To this appointment we owe a large share of our existing information as to the latter days of the Company, preserved, as I have before said, by the kinsman and biographer of Ferrar, rather for the sake of its personal than its historical interest. Tobacco We have already seen how the Virginia tobacco trade had been the means of entangling the Company in its first dispute with the crown. In 1622 a fresh difficulty arose. contract.1 That crafty and unprincipled statesman, Lord Middlesex, told certain members of the Company that evil reports about them were on foot, and that the king had been set against them, and that it would be best to anticipate mischief and to propitiate the court by offering a large percentage on all tobacco brought into the kingdom, while the Company, in return, should be granted a monopoly of importation. The Company at first, in their own language, "refused the gilded pill," but at length the wish to avert the king's displeasure and the temptation of the monopoly were too much for them. Although the king inserted the monstrous condition that the Company should import at least forty thousand pounds weight of Spanish tobacco, a condition doubtless intended to gratify the Spanish Court, the Com 1 I have taken this account from the Discourse of the Old Company and from Stith. THE TOBACCO CONTRACT. 175 pany, after some discussion, accepted the agreement. Its principal conditions were: 1. That no tobacco should be grown in England or imported by any person except the Virginia and Somers Island Companies. 2. That in consideration of this the Company should grant the King a third of the proceeds of all their tobacco. 3. That they should also import not more than sixty, nor less than forty, thousand pounds of Spanish tobacco. in the For the time being the Company might well suppose that they had bribed their great enemy into acquiescence, and that they Factions had in some measure identified their own interests with Company. those of the Spanish court. Events soon showed how ill-founded were such hopes. From the very outset the new contract was a fruitful source of disaster. As might be supposed, so substantial an addition to the business of the Company could not be undertaken without an immediate increase of the working staff, and the offices which had to be called into existence involved the payment of two thousand a year in salaries. This at once gave rise to a series of disputes whose precise nature may be involved in some uncertainty, but whose pernicious effect can be a matter of no doubt. A certain Mr. Wrote, hitherto, it is said, a loyal and zealous member of the Company, felt aggrieved at the additional expense involved in the new contract. It is difficult to say whether Wrote was really one of the faction of Sir Thomas Smith, Lord Warwick, and Argall, a faction which now almost openly lent itself to the court in its designs upon the Company, or whether, as seems rather more probable, he was really an honest but violent and wrong-headed man. If the latter, one can easily see how valuable a tool he might be to the opponents of the Company. The characters of Smith and Argall were already tainted, and their relations to the Company were such that they could make no pretense of impartiality in their dealings with it. A member of the Company who honestly believed that the leading men, Southampton and supporters, were using the Company as an instrument to increase their own patronage and profit, was exactly the tool needed by the court to give a semblance of fairness to their attacks. Whatever might be the purity of Wrote's intentions, there seems little doubt of the violence with which he expressed his views, or of the fairness with which Southampton 1 Virginia Company, p. 385. Stith, p. 254 dealt with him. A scheme of financial reform which Wrote brought forward was partially discussed, and at length rejected by the unanimous vote of the Company. Unreasonable as Wrote was, it is easy to see how his action might prejudice the Company in public estimation. It needs little experience of a corporation to know how one factious member can drag the whole body into a series of conflicts, in which it is scarcely possible for the majority to always preserve the appearance of fairness, even when there is no substantial ground for complaint against them. pany The Com- Privy The Company now obtained the name out of doors of a very hot-bed of quarrels, whose meetings were rendered unseemly by the wranglings and recriminations of its members. At length the two factions were summoned before the Lord Treasurer. The only result of these meetings seems to have been to give opportunity for an attack upon Southampton and for an easily refuted charge against the members of the Company. The matter soon reached a further stage. Johnson, who, as we have seen, was one of the foremost among the enemies of the Company, lodged a petition with the Privy Council, calling attention to various alleged defects in the management of the Company.3 Probably in consequence of this attack the Company were summoned before the Privy Council to answer various charges brought against them. The principal subject discussed was the tobacco contract. The Company suggested various amendments whereby the business might be made. more profitable to all parties. The meeting apparently ended satisfactorily, when suddenly all further concern about the matter was stopped by an order from the king annulling the contract. The events which followed, and the dealings of the Privy Council with the Company, were so complicated, and the records of them are so fragmentary, that it is impossible to present them in the form of a consecutive narrative. It must be enough to give the leading features of the struggle, and to single out a few episodes which illustrate the spirit in which the attack was conducted. From the outset the court manifestly hoped that the matter would be ended by a surrender of the Company's patent; a step which, whatever its formal results. Further attacks. 'Chamberlain to Carleton, Colonial Papers, 1623, April 19 and July 26. • Peckard, p. 168. They were accused of sending inflammatory letters to the authorities in Virginia. When brought before the Privy Council, the charge at once fell to the ground. Johnson's petition is published by Mr. Neill, Virginia Company, p. 387 ATTEMPTS TO CRIPPLE THE COMPANY. 177 might have been, would have practically signed the death-warrant of the corporation. With this view, the Company was more than once brought before the Privy Council. Distracted as it was by internal divisions, it might well have been expected that the Company would have given way, but it was not so. The courage with which they fought out their hopeless battle forms a fitting end to a glorious career. Members As I said before, a few leading episodes will serve to illustrate the temper in which the contest was conducted. The court attempted to seduce Ferrar by offers of high preferment, imprisoned. but in vain.1 Persuasion having failed, force was tried. On the strength of a memorial presented by Lord Warwick, accusing the opposite party of intemperate language and misrepresentation, the two Ferrars, Sandys, and Lord Cavendish, who were now taking a prominent part in the councils of the Company, were confined to their separate houses by an order of the Privy Council, and thus deprived of all opportunity of conference or united action. There is some reason, too, to think that a like measure was adopted for incapacitating Southampton from further activity.3 of indict Other measures were taken to cripple the Company for selfdefense. On Thursday, the 13th of April, a document was laid The articles before the Company, containing thirty-nine articles of ment. indictment, and an answer required. In spite of all the representations of the Company, the Council insisted on receiving the answer before Monday, the 17th. The task seemed hopeless, but the energy of the Treasurer and his friends was equal to the need. The charges were divided into three heads, and the duty of answering them was apportioned to Ferrar, Sandys, and Cavendish. Six copying clerks were employed day and night, and by the required time an answer was produced.* Another proof of the spirit in which the court dealt with the Company was shown by the selection of Commissioners to inquire into the affairs of Virginia. The first Commissioners were appointed early in 1623, with full instructions to investigate the 1 Peckard, p. 165, states that Ferrar was offered his choice of the clerkship to the Council, or the embassy to the court of Savoy. 2 Virginia Company, p. 411. Colonial Entry Book, lxxix. p. 205. Peckard, p. 165. I can find no direct proof of Southampton's imprisonment in the State Papers. At the same time Peckard's statement is confirmed, or at least rendered probable, by Southampton's absence on one or two important occasions. 4 Peckard, D. 174. Appointment of Commis sioners. whole management of the colony. In the selection of these Commissioners there was, as far as our present knowledge enables us to judge, nothing to which the friends of the Company could reasonably object. We cannot now trace the precise steps by which the commission was enlarged, or whether it was reconstituted with fresh powers, but this much, at least, is certain, that at a later day it contained among its members Argall, Johnson, Pory, and Sir Thomas Smith,' all of them personally hostile to the Company, and with characters blemished by their previous dealings with the affairs of the colony. As if to declare the open and avowed unfairness of their proceedings, they met at the house of Sir Thomas Smith, who had been for six years the vindictive enemy of the party of Southampton and Sandys. The colo port the The best evidence perhaps on behalf of the Company is the unanimous support which it received from the settlers in Virginia. Had the enemies of the Company received the least nists sup- semblance of support from the settlers, we may be cerCompany. tain it would have been ostentatiously paraded. In such a case the absence of evidence is in itself the best evidence that can be had. We cannot doubt that it was a knowledge of the feeling prevalent in the colony, which induced the Privy Council to issue an order that all letters sent thence should be intercepted and laid before them.3 It is therefore no matter for surprise that we have no documents setting forth the views of individuals which can be opposed to those of Butler and Johnson. But though no expressions of individual feeling were permitted to become public, the colonists were able to make known their views. Two documents were sent home by them. One was that general report of the state of the colony to which I have already referred. That which accompanied it was even more striking. It was an address to the Privy Council drawn up by the Governor, Council, and Assembly of Virginia. This address, after exonerating the colonial government, and indirectly the Company, from various charges of mismanagement, expressed an opinion that there was no need for any change. The circumstances under which this address was drawn up increase its value. 1 Their names will be found appended to various documents in the Colonial Papers. Colonial Papers, 1624, July. 8 Colonial Entry Book, lxxix. p. 210. 4P. 171. Virginia Company, p. 407. Colonial Papers, 1623, February. This document is entitled The Tragical Declaration of the Virginia Assembly |