who had been sent and maintained at the exclusive cost of the company, and were its servants, one month of their time and three acres of land were set apart for them, besides an allowance of two bushels of corn from the public store; the rest of their labor belonged to their employers. This number gradually decreased; and, in 1617, there were of them all, men, women, and children, but fifty-four. Others, especially the favorite settlement near the mouth of the Appomattox, were tenants, paying two and a half barrels of corn as a yearly tribute to the store, and giving to the public service one month's labor, which was to be required neither at seed-time nor harvest. He who came himself, or had sent others at his own expense, had been entitled to a hundred acres of land for each person; now that the colony was well established, the bounty on emigration was fixed at fifty acres, of which the actual occupation and culture gave a right to as many more, to be assigned at leisure. Besides this, lands were granted as rewards of merit; yet not more than two thousand acres could be so appropriated to one person. A payment to the company's treasury of twelve pounds and ten shillings likewise obtained a title to any hundred acres of land not yet granted or possessed, with a reserved claim to as much more. Such were the earliest land laws of Virginia: though imperfect and unequal, they gave the cultivator the means of becoming a proprietor of the soil. These changes were established by Sir Thomas Dale, a magistrate who, notwithstanding the introduction of martial law, has gained praise for his vigor and industry, his judgment and conduct. Having remained five years in America, he appointed George Yeardley deputy governor; and with Pocahontas and her husband as the companions of his voyage, in June, 1616, he arrived in his native country. The Virginia princess, instructed in the English language, and bearing an English name, "the first Christian ever of her nation," was wondered at in the city; entertained with unwonted festival state and pomp by the bishop of London, in his hopeful zeal by her to advance Christianity; and graciously received at court, where, on one of the holidays of the following Christmas season, she was 1617.

1616.

an honored guest at the presentment of a burlesque masque, which Ben Jonson had written to draw a hearty laugh from King James. A few weeks later, she prepared to return to the land of her fathers; but died at Gravesend as she was bound for home.

1613 to 1617.

With the success of agriculture, the Virginians, for the security of property, needed the possession of political rights. From the first settlement of Virginia, Sir Thomas Smythe had been the presiding officer of the London company; and no willingness had been shown to share the powers of government with the emigrants, who had thus far been ruled as soldiers in a garrison. Now that they had outgrown this condition of dependency, and were possessed of the elements of political life, they found among the members of the London company wise and powerful and disinterested friends. Yet in the appointment of a deputy governor the faction of Smythe still prevailed; and Argall, who had been his mercantile agent, was elected by ballot to supersede Yeardley as deputy governor of the colony. He was further invested with the place of admiral of the country and the adjoining seas; an evidence that his overthrow of the French settlements in the north was approved.

In May, 1617, Argall arrived in Virginia, and assumed its government. Placed above immediate control, he showed himself from the first arrogant, self-willed, and greedy of gain. Martial law was still the common law of the country, and his arbitrary rule "imported more hazard to the plantation than ever did any other thing that befell that action from the beginning." He disposed of the kine and bullocks belonging to the colony for his own benefit; he took to himself a monopoly of the fur-trade; he seized ancient colony men, who were free, and laborers who were in the service of the company, and forced them to work for himself.

Before an account of his malfeasance in office reached England, Lord Delaware, the governor-general, had been despatched by the company with two hundred men and supplies for the colony. He was followed by orders to ship the deputy governor home, where he was " to answer every thing that should be laid to his charge."

The presence of Lord Delaware might have restored tranquillity; his health was not equal to the voyage, and he did not live to reach Virginia. Argall was therefore left unrestrained to defraud the company, as well as to oppress the colonists. The condition of Virginia be- 1618. came intolerable; the labor of the settlers continued to be perverted to the benefit of the governor; servitude, for a limited period, was the common penalty annexed to trifling offences; and, in a colony where martial law still continued in force, life was insecure against his capricious passions. The first appeal ever made from America to England, directed not to the king, but to the company, was in behalf of one whom Argall had wantonly condemned to death, and whom he had with great difficulty been prevailed upon to spare. The colony was fast falling into disrepute, and the report of the tyranny established beyond the Atlantic checked emigration; but it also happily roused the discontent of the best of the adventurers. When on the fifth of October, 1618, the news of the death of Lord Delaware reached London, they demanded a reformation with guarantees for the future. After a strenuous contest on the part of rival factions for the control of the company, the influence of Sir Edwin Sandys and his friends prevailed; Argall was displaced, and the mild and popular Yeardley was elected governor in his stead, with higher rank. On Nov. 22. the twenty-second of November the king gave him audience, knighted him, and held a long discourse with him on the religion of the natives. Vessels lay in the Thames ready for Virginia; but before the new chief magistrate could reach his post, Argall had withdrawn, having previously, by fraudulent devices, preserved for himself and his partners the fruits of his extortions.

On the nineteenth of April, 1619, Sir George 1619. Yeardley entered on his office in the colony. Of April. the emigrants who had been sent over at great cost, not one in twenty then remained alive. "In James citty were only those houses that Sir Thomas Gates built in the tyme of his government, with one wherein the governor allwayes dwelt, and a church, built wholly at the charge of

the inhabitants of that citye, of timber, being fifty foote in length and twenty in breadth." At Henrico, now Richmond, there were no more than "three old houses, a poor ruinated church, with some few poore buildings in the islande." "For ministers to instruct the people, only three were authorized; two others had never received their orders." "The natives were upon doubtfull termes;" and the colony was altogether "in a poore estate."

From the moment of Yeardley's arrival dates the real life of Virginia. Bringing with him "commissions and instructions from the company for the better establishinge of a commonwealth," he made proclamation "that those cruel! lawes, by which the ancient planters had soe longe been governed, were now abrogated, and that they were to be governed by those free lawes, which his majesties subjectes lived under in Englande." Nor were these concessions left dependent on the good-will of administrative officers. "That the planters might have a hande in the governing of themselves, yt was graunted that a generall assemblie shoulde be helde yearly once, whereat were to be present the governor and counsell with two burgesses from each plantation, freely to be elected by the inhabitantes thereof, this assemblie to have power to make and ordaine whatsoever lawes and orders should by them be thought good and profitable for their subsistence."

In conformity with these instructions, Sir George Yeardley "sente his summons all over the country, as well to invite those of the counsell of estate that were absente, as also for the election of burgesses."

Nor did the patriot members of the London company leave him without support. At the great and general court of the Easter term, Sir Thomas Smythe, having reluctantly professed a wish to be eased of his office, was dismissed; and Sir Edwin Sandys elected by a great majority governor and treasurer. For deputy, John Ferrar was elected by a like majority; and Nicholas Ferrar, the younger brother of the deputy, just turned of six-and-twenty, one of the purest and least selfish men that ever lived, who a few months before had returned from an extensive tour on the continent

of Europe, was made counsel to the corporation. The conduct of business gradually fell into the hands of the latter, who proved himself able and indefatigable in business, devoted to his country and its church, at once a royalist, and a wise and firm upholder of English liberties. In the early history of American colonization the English character nowhere showed itself to better advantage than in the Virginia company after the change in its direction.

It was therefore without any danger of being thwarted at home that on Friday, the thirtieth day of July, 1619, delegates from each of the eleven plantations of Virginia assembled at James City.

The inauguration of legislative power in the Ancient Dominion preceded the introduction of negro slavery. The governor and council sat with the burgesses, and took part in motions and debates. John Pory, a councillor and secretary of the colony, though not a burgess, was chosen speaker. Legislation was opened with prayer. The assembly exercised fully the right of judging of the proper election of its members; and they would not suffer any patent, conceding manorial jurisdiction, to bar the obligation of obedience to their decisions. They wished every grant of land to be made with equal favor, that all complaint of partiality might be avoided, and the uniformity of laws and orders never be impeached. The commission of privileges sent by Sir George Yeardley was their "great charter," or organic act, which they claimed no right "to correct or control;" yet they kept the way open for seeking redress, "in case they should find ought not perfectly squaring with the state of the colony."

Leave to propose laws was given to any burgess, or by way of petition to any member of the colony; but, for expedition's sake, the main business of the session was distributed between two committees; while a third body, composed of the governor and such burgesses as were not on those committees, examined which of former instructions "might conveniently put on the habit of laws." The legislature acted also as a criminal court.

The church of England was confirmed as the church of