loaded, which was a great advantage to commerce, although having in one respect a bad effect upon the colony. Every place being so readily reached by water, there was no necessity felt for building good roads, and, as a result, the road system remained primitive.

The boroughs from which the burgesses were to be chosen were more numerous than might be supposed. It is true the corporation of Henricus made up one borough, embracing the settlements known as Arrahattock, Coxendale, and Henrico, while, on the other hand, Charles City contained five electoral boroughs. One of these was made up of the plantations of Bermuda Hundred, Shirley Hundred, and Charles City; the second was Smith's Hundred; the third, Flowerdue Hundred; the fourth, Ward's Plantation, the last three being new settlements; and the fifth, Martin's Brandon, having a special patent, and on that account not to be recognized by the general assembly. The corporation of James City contained the four boroughs of James City, Argall's Gift, Martin's Hundred, and Lawne's Plantation, the last two being new settlements. Kiccowtan made up

only one borough.

The legislative body was composed of the council of state and the General Assembly, and met in the church at Jamestown, Friday, August 9, 1619, there being twenty members of the assembly. The secretary of the council of state, John Pory, an ex-member of Parliament, was appointed speaker, the proceedings were opened by prayer, and all took the oath of supremacy. The speaker seems to have divided up the business in a convenient manner, and committees acted promptly. The Great Charter was considered and gave satisfaction, some details being the subject of representations to the Company, and was passed with the general assent and applause of the whole assembly. Their laws, as sent to England for approval, related to the treatment of Indians, the Church, planting corn, mulberry trees, flax, vines, and tobacco, to patents, tradesmen, the magazine, against idleness, gaming, drunkenness, excess in apparel, and

to similar subjects. Rents and taxes were to be paid in commodity, there being no mint and no money, and therefore the price of tobacco was fixed at three shillings a pound for the best and eighteen pence for the second grade. All of less value was to be burned before the owner's face,-the first, and, as it proved, a temporary, inspection law. On account of the weather and of the illness of members, the assembly was soon prorogued and then dissolved.

For sickness still afflicted the colonists, particularly the newcomers; and in 1620, of twelve hundred people sent out to Virginia no less than one thousand died. It was almost of necessity that the Company turned to less desirable classes and imported some of the malefactors granted by the Privy Council. A lot of boys were also sent, called "Duty boys from the ship in which they came; but the most interesting of the colonists were those due to the foresight of the Earl of Southampton. Many women had come before as wives. and daughters, and even as colonists, but now they were imported systematically. From this time several cargoes of maids, and some widows besides, were sent over as wives "in order to make the men feel at home." To repay the outlay involved in this commendable enterprise, the colonists desiring helpmeets had to pay one hundred and twenty pounds of the best leaf tobacco per wife, and they do not seem to have been considered high at that.

A number of interesting provisions date from this time. For instance, the Great Charter directed that the officials should be supported out of the proceeds of the lands allotted to the several officers and distributed among the different boroughs, thus easing the inhabitants of taxes, and the governor in particular had the further advantage of the house at Jamestown previously erected by Gates. The education of the Indians was not neglected, for lands were set apart for a college, and collections were made in England to such good purpose that the bishops received there some £1,500.

On the whole, the term of Yeardley can fairly be regarded as closing the experimental period of the colony.

With the establishment of the Great Charter, the remunerative cultivation of tobacco, the institution of a general assembly, the as yet unappreciated importation of Africans, and the provision for home life in the systematic bringing over of women, we have reached a time of stability. England had at last learned how to colonize; but the great Virginia Company was, like many a mother, to die in giving life to her child.

CHAPTER V

THE END OF THE COMPANY

WE have reached a time when it becomes possible in some measure to dissociate the Virginia Company from the history of Virginia. And yet, it would be a mistake to consider either by itself. When the Company began to lay more stress upon its political powers, it was doing so not only as a corporation for its own ends, but also for the country it was founding over sea. When such features were added to commercial functions, it came in conflict with the crown, and there was precipitated a battle between liberty and prerogative. In this the Company went down, but went down in a good cause and one which was ultimately to be victorious, first on British and then on American soil. Let us briefly trace the steps and do tardy justice to the Virginia Company.

Toward the end of the reign of Elizabeth the popular and intellectual agitation of earlier years was gradually changing into political channels. Thanks to the internecine strife of the nobility in the Wars of the Roses and to Tudor ability, royalty had overthrown the worst features of aristocracy, and a movement began looking to the enfranchisement of the people as against the crown itself. If they had the right of private judgment in religion, the same principle was sure to be applied sooner or later to politics. Elizabeth had the good sense with her last parliament to bow to the coming storm, although she could not tell what