EXCESSIVE PRODUCTION OF TOBACCO. 193 The doctrine that each country should produce what it is best fitted for, and that the inhabitants may be trusted to discover that for themselves, is a thoroughly sound doctrine as applied to settled communities, where both capital and enterprise are abundant; but it does not apply to a new country where forms of industry, which may in time become profitable, or needful to the independence of the community, must often at the outset be guarded and nursed into life. There were other reasons, too, political rather than economical, which made it specially dangerous for the colonists to build their prosperity on this one product. The Virginian tobacco. trade might almost be said to exist by sufferance. If the planter was to have a profitable market in England, he must be in some measure protected against his Spanish rival, and the English. grower must be wholly excluded. Thus the colonial tobacco trade depended both on the favor of the court and on the foreign policy of the home government. There was, too, the danger, and, as the last reign had shown, a very real danger, of being sacrificed to some greedy monopolist, or being loaded with an excessive duty to replenish the royal exchequer. Accordingly, it was in no spirit of undue interference or protection that the legislature of Virginia made constant efforts to limit the production of tobacco, and to urge the colonists to other forms of industry. As early as 1619 Yeardley had endeavored to check this evil by proclamation. In 1623 it had become an established custom among the planters to make their contracts and to keep their accounts in tobacco instead of money. Owing to the fluctuations in value this was found inconvenient, and in 1633 a law was passed enforcing cash payment. Notwithstanding this attempt, the lack of specie brought society back to a system of barter, and tobacco became ultimately the recognized currency of Virginia. Other attempts were made, as we have seen, to limit tobacco-planting by establishing rival industries, and producing cotton, silk, and iron. Whatever promise of success might have attached to these attempts was overthrown by the dissolution of the Company. Not long after that event, direct measures were taken to restrain the planting of tobacco. In 1 In the proceedings of 1623 (Hening, vol. i. p. 122), all contracts and dues are estimated in tobacco instead of money. 3 Hening, vol. i. p. 216. 1629 an Act was passed by which new-comers were forbidden to grow this crop at all, while every planter was definitely limited to two thousand plants, a restriction which was not to be evaded by growing slips or a second crop.1 To enforce this inspectors were appointed, and delinquents were debarred from further cultivation. This system of limitation, however, was not considered wholly satisfactory. Owing to differences of soil two thousand plants did not represent the same amount of produce in every locality. Moreover, the planter was tempted to increase his quantity by growing too many leaves on each plant or by culti vating inferior sorts, and thus to lower the general character of Virginian tobacco.2 In spite of these complaints we may suppose that the system was found on the whole successful, inasmuch as it was carried still further four years later by an enactment limiting each planter to fifteen hundred plants. At the same time the cultivation of certain inferior sorts was altogether prohibited. These provisions were enforced by the establishment of a system of inspection with seven public warehouses. The effect of this must have been to drive the occupants of certain inferior soils out of the market altogether, to the temporary injury of individuals, but to the ultimate gain of the community. These were not the only legislative restrictions imposed on the tobaccogrower. The statesmen of the seventeenth century were for the most part still in bondage to the idea that prices must be artificially restricted by law. In 1631 the Virginian legislature, acting on this principle, fixed sixpence a pound as the price of tobacco. Two years later, when the whole question of the tobacco laws was reopened, the price was raised to ninepence. In 1639 a still further limitation was introduced, and it was resolved to copy the policy of the Dutch spice-growers and to enhance the value of the crop by destroying half of it. We may suppose that the settlers were satisfied with the result of this legislation, as the question was now suffered to slumber for twenty-three years. Not for a long while do we find any trace of party politics, or of anything like systematic opposition to government. But withDisputes out these the Virginian colonists showed that they had between Governor no lack of independence or of that spirit by which the Harvey political life of a young state is fashioned and animated. and the settlers. As is usually the case in a newly-formed community, 1 Hening, vol. i. p. 141. • Ib., p. 210. 2 Ib., vol. i. pp. 164, 188. $ Ib., p. 205. 1 Ib., p. 225. DIFFICULTIES WITH GOVERNOR HARVEY. 195 the earliest disputes turned on personal issues. I have already spoken of the character of Harvey, a character which made it likely that he would before long find himself embroiled with the settlers. At the very outset of his career he came into conflict with a leading planter, Dr. John Pott. During the interregnum between Yeardley's departure and Harvey's arrival, Pott had been elected by the council to act as Deputy-Governor. Immediately on Harvey's landing Pott was charged with various crimes. The chief of them was having pardoned a murderer, apparently for a corrupt motive. Besides this official misconduct, he was accused of having stolen other men's hogs and cattle. The petty scale of colonial politics is quaintly illustrated by the fact that he was the only physician who understood the diseases peculiar to the colony. Accordingly after a protracted dispute he was released, mainly, it would seem, in consideration of his utility.' A dispute of this kind was an unfavorable opening to Harvey's career. A far more serious conflict, however, was at hand. In October, 1629, during the Deputy-Governorship of Pott, George Calvert, Lord Baltimore, had made an attempt to settle in Virginia. He and his followers, as being Papists, refused to take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, and were accordingly not allowed to stay in the colony.2 In the next year Lord Baltimore died and was succeeded by his son Cecilius. He obtained from Charles a grant of territory forming the colony of Maryland. The whole question of this grant, of the American career of the two Calverts, and of their disputes with Virginia, will come before us more fully hereafter. For the present we may confine ourselves to that side of the question which touches the history of Virginia. The territory granted to Calvert, though it did not encroach upon that actually inhabited by the Virginians, included a portion of that which lay within the bounds of the original Virginian patent. This difficulty is only the first of a whole series that we shall meet with, having their origin in the reckless profusion and disregard of geographical accuracy with which territory in the New World was granted. This dispute, naturally enough, bred ill blood between Baltimore and the Virginians. We can easily see how this might be without moral blame attaching to either party. The Virginians had certainly no claim on the forbearance of Baltimore, and without imputing to him a 1 For this dispute with Pott see Colonial Papers, 1630, May 29 and July 16. specially vindictive temper, we may suppose that he would feel some satisfaction in maintaining his legal rights at the expense of the men who had banished his father from among them. The king and those who sympathized with Baltimore might reasonably feel that a tract of fertile land had better be in the hands of an active and intelligent colonizer than be kept empty by an unemployed claim. On the other hand, the Virginians might well think that their right was a moral as well as a legal one. They might reasonably dislike the prospect of a colony on their borders differing from them in religion and wholly independent of them in politics, commerce, industry, and, above all, in dealings with the savages. Accordingly, in order, as it would seem, to be in a better position to assert their territorial rights, the Virginian Assembly sent a surveyor, William Clayborne, to take possession of a part of the disputed territory, the Isle of Kent, to which they claimed a title, not only by royal grant, but by purchase from the Indians. The hostilities to which this measure led will be best treated of in the history of Maryland, since they are intimately connected with that State. For the present it is enough to consider them as they bore on the relations of Harvey and the Virginians. That Harvey should have sympathized with Baltimore was but natural. The Governor was openly and avowedly a courtier, and Baltimore was acting under the special favor and approval of the court. What was the precise nature and extent of Harvey's services to the Maryland settlers does not appear. At least they were such as to earn the special thanks of the king, with a request that he would continue his assistance against Clayborne. What seemed to the king and Privy Council good and loyal service, was in the eyes of the Virginians, treachery to the colony. So far from showing any sympathy with Baltimore, the members of the Council openly denounced him and his plantation at their meetings, and declared that they would rather knock their cattle on the head than sell them into Maryland. There were other circumstances which imbittered the Virginians against their Governor. A certain Captain Young had been sent to Virginia by the king on an errand of which it is impossible to discover the nature. The colonists probably looked with suspicion 1 Colonial Papers, 1634, March 14. Letters from Baltimore to Secretary Windebank, and from Windebank to Harvey, Co lonial Papers, 1634, September 15 and 18. Harvey to Windebank, Colonial Papers, 1634, December 16. The original commission to Young (Colonial Papers, 1633, September 23) empowers him to discover places not yet inhabited in Virginia and other parts of America. INSURRECTION AGAINST HARVEY. 197 on this somewhat mysterious emissary. Whatever his object was, it led him to build two shallops in Virginia before resuming his voyage. One of the leading colonists, Mathews, who seems to have been a somewhat hot-headed man, unfriendly to the Governor and suspicious of royal interference in any form, accused Young of having illegally impressed a ship's carpenter.1 In the quarrel which ensued, Harvey took the part of Young.2 Nothing came of the matter, but the episode illustrates the relations between the Governor and the settlers, and probably had its share in imbittering the dispute which followed. Another charge brought against Harvey was that he had asserted his own right as the representative of the crown to put his veto on the proceedings of the Assembly.3 tion against In April, 1635, the ill feeling against the Governor came openly to a head. A meeting of the Council was held, at which the Insurrec- popular party, under Mathews, seems to have come Harvey. prepared for hostilities, if, at least, it be true that the leaders were armed, and that they had forty musketeers in readiness. Harvey seems to have opened the attack by threatening to arrest Minifie, in reality one of the least decided of his opponents, for high treason, on the ground of some language which he had used on a previous occasion. Mathews thereupon retorted the charge of treason; at a signal from one of the ring-leaders, the musketeers marched up, and Harvey was arrested and sent off to England, apparently in honorable confinement. We can hardly suppose that the insurgents really expected the English government to support them against Harvey. If the attack upon him was anything more than an outburst of passion, it must have been meant to intimidate Harvey, possibly to deter 1 Young's own version of the story is told in a statement signed by him and three witnesses, who profess to have been present at the dispute. Colonial Papers, 1634, July 10. 2 Windebank to Harvey, Colonial Papers, 1635, May 22. 3 Letter from Mathews to Sir John Wolstenholme (Colonial Papers, 1635, May 25). According to this, Harvey told the council that "they were to give their attendance as assistants only to advise with him which it liked should pass, otherwise the power lay in himself to dispose of all matters as his Majesty's substitute." Our knowledge of the deposition of Harvey is derived: 1. From a letter from Zouch, a colonist, to his father, Sir John Zouch. This letter was kindly shown to me by Mr. Sainsbury. By some accident it was omitted from his calendar. 2. A letter from Kemp, the Secretary for Virginia, to the Lords Commissioners for Plantations, Colonial Papers, 1635, May 17. 3. A letter from Mathews to Sir John Wolstenholme, Colonial Papers, 1635, May 25. 4. Harvey's own statements in a letter to Windebank, and in his formal declaration to the Commissioners. (Colonial Papers, 1635, April 3, July 14, and July.) We have no formal statement of the case against Harvey, but no doubt the letters of Zouch and Mathews practically embody all that could be said against him. |