TYRANNY OF ARGALL.

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Brewster to death for contumely, gave occasion to the first appeal ever made from America to England. It came before the London company, by whom the sentence of Argall was reversed.

The following extract from Judge Marshall's history, shows the arbitrary and vexatious nature of the laws which this governor enforced at the point of the bayonet :

'While martial law was, according to Stith, the common law of the land, the governor seems to have been the sole legislator. His general edicts mark the severity of his rule. He ordered that merchandise should be sold at an advance of twenty-five per centum, and tobacco taken in payment at the rate of three shillings per pound, under the penalty of three years' servitude to the company; that no person should traffic privately with the Indians, or teach them the use of fire arms, under pain of death; that no person should hunt deer or hogs without the governor's permission; that no man should shoot, unless in his own necessary defence, until a new supply of ammunition should arrive, on pain of a year's personal service; that none should go on board the ships at Jamestown, without the governor's leave; that every person should church on Sundays and holidays, under the penalty of slavery during the following week for the first offence, during a month for the second, and during a year and a day for the third. The rigour of this administration necessarily exciting much discontent, the complaints of the Virginians at length made their way to the company. Lord Delaware being dead, Mr. Yeardley was appointed captain-general, with instructions to examine the wrongs of the colonists, and to redress them.'

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CHAPTER VI.

VIRGINIA ACQUIRES CIVIL FREEDOM.

THE new governor arrived in April, 1619; and began his administration by granting privileges of great importance to the colonists. He abolished the practice of labouring for the common stock of the colony, a most inconvenient and onerous method of raising a revenue; he confirmed the early planters in the possession of their estates; he removed the

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THE VIRGINIANS ACQUIRE HOMES.

burdens imposed by the tyrannical Argall; and he abolished martial law.

By order of the London company, the power of the governor was limited by a council, which acquired the right to redress any wrongs which he might commit. Last, and greatest of all, the people of the colony were admitted to a share in legislation by the institution of a COLONIAL ASSEMBLY. The first colonial assembly ever convened in America assembled at Jamestown, on the 19th of June, 1619. This may, therefore, be considered the birth-day of civil freedom in our country.

The members were elected by the different boroughs, and the representative or popular branch of the legislature was therefore called the House of Burgesses, a name which it retained so long as Virginia remained a colony of England.

The entire legislature or assembly, composed of the governor, the council, and the burgesses, met together in one apartment, and there transacted the public business of the colony. The laws which they then enacted were sent to England for the approbation of the London company.

Hitherto but a small number of females had emigrated to Virginia. The colonists, therefore, could hardly be said to have their home in the country. Those domestic ties, which attach men most firmly to the soil they inhabit, did not exist; and each man directed his thoughts towards the mother country, as the retreat of his old age. A new state of things now ensued, by the arrival of a large number of females, ninety of whom were sent out from England in 1620, and sixty more the next year. Being persons of irreproachable character they were married by the planters; and the colony thus acquired the best of all guarantees of permanence in its institutions and patriotism in its citizens.

The necessity of establishing seminaries of learning was now apparent, and preparations were made for founding the college afterwards established by William and Mary.

About the same time one hundred convicts were transported from England to Virginia, being the first persons of this class sent to America by order of the government. Removed from the temptations which had been too strong for their virtue at home, and placed in a new scene of action, many of them became honest men and useful citizens.

The colonial assembly convened by Sir George Yeardley had not yet received the express sanction of the London

INTRODUCTION OF SLAVERY.

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company. This was granted July 24th, 1621, by an ordinance which may be considered as the written constitution of the colony. It was the model on which, with some modifications, the political systems of the other colonies were founded. It provided for the appointment of a governor and a permanent council by the company; it ordained a general assembly, consisting of this council, and two burgesses from each borough to be elected by the people, with power to enact laws subject to the veto of the governor and the ratification of the company in England. Orders of the court in London were not to be binding on the colony, unless ratified by the general assembly-a very important concession. The trial by jury, and the other judicial rights of Englishmen, were also granted to the colonists. This constitution was brought over by Sir Francis Wyatt, who had been appointed to succeed governor Yeardley.

Thus the Virginians had acquired civil freedom. The rights, secured by this, their fourth charter, were sufficient to form the basis of complete political liberty. Representative government and trial by jury are justly regarded as the elements of freedom; and when a community has acquired these, its future destinies depend, in great measure, on the virtue, intelligence, and patriotism of its citizens.

The year 1620, so fruitful in interesting events, was marked by one which will long exert a momentous influence on our destinies. This was the introduction of negro slavery. The commerce of Virginia, which had before been entirely monopolized by the London company, was now thrown open to free competition; and in the month of August, a Dutch man of war sailed up the James river, and landed twenty negroes, for the purpose of having them sold into slavery. Although domestic slavery was thus introduced into the colony, its increase was very slow; the traffic in slaves was almost entirely confined to the Dutch; and laws of the colony discouraged its progress by taxation.

At this period the colony was in a highly flourishing state. The inhabitants enjoyed civil rights, free commerce, peace, and domestic happiness. The cultivation of tobacco and cotton, hereafter to become so important to the southern country, had already been introduced; and the Indians, their most powerful neighbours, were their friends and allies. Indeed, they had never regarded the Indians with much apprehension. They were not supposed to be very nume

rous; only five thousand souls or fifteen hundred warriors being found within sixty miles of Jamestown; and the use of fire-arms by the English had enabled fifteen of them, headed by Smith, to put to flight seven hundred of the savages. They were therefore regarded with contempt; and no care was taken to preserve their friendship, or guard against their enmity. A law, which had made it penal to instruct them in the use of fire-arms, had become a dead letter.

Security is too often the parent of danger. In the present instance, it was the cause of a terrible calamity. The Indians had secretly become hostile to the colonists. Powhatan, the old king, had died in 1618; and his son, Opechancanough, did not inherit the friendly dispositions of his father. A deliberate plan was concerted for annihilating the colony at a blow, and it nearly succeeded.

The story is thus told by an old writer:

Upon the loss of one of their leading men (a war captain, as they call him,) who was supposed to be justly put to death, however, their king, Oppaconcanough, appeared enraged, and in revenge laid the plot of a general massacre of the English, to be executed on the 22nd of March, 1622, a little before noon, at a time when our men were all at work abroad in their plantations, dispersed and unarmed. This conspiracy was to have taken effect upon all the several settlements at one and the same instant, except on the eastern shore, whither this plot did not reach. The Indians had been made so familiar with the English as to borrow their boats and canoes to cross the river, when they went to consult with their neighbouring Indians upon this execrable conspiracy; and to colour their designs the better, they brought presents of deer, turkeys, fish, and fruits, to the English, the evening before. The very morning of the massacre, they came freely and unarmed among them, eating with them, and behaving themselves with the same freedom and friendship as formerly, till the very minute they were to put their plot in execution; then they fell to work all at once, everywhere surprising and knocking the English on the head, some with their hatchets, which they call tomahawks, others with the hoes and axes of the English themselves, shooting at those who escaped the reach of their hands; sparing neither age nor sex, but destroying man, woman, and child, according to their cruel way of leaving none behind to resent the outrage. But whatever

THE GREAT MASSACRE.

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was not done by surprise that day, was left undone, and many that made early resistance escaped.

'By the account taken of the Christians murdered that morning, they were found to be three hundred and fortyseven, most of them falling by their own instruments and working tools.

'The massacre would have been much more general had not the plot been providentially discovered to the English some hours before the execution. It happened thus :

'Two Indians, that used to be employed by the English to hunt for them, happened to lie together the night before the massacre in an Englishman's house, where one of them was employed. The Indian that was the guest fell to persuading the other to rise and kill his master, telling him that he would do the same by his own the next day; whereupon he discovered the whole plot that was designed to be executed on the morrow. But the other, instead of entering into the plot and murdering his master, got up (under pretence of going to execute his comrade's advice), went into his master's chamber and revealed to him the whole story that he had been told. The master hereupon arose, secured his own house, and before day got to Jamestown, which, together with such plantations as could receive notice time enough, were saved by this means; the rest, also, who happened to be watchful in their defence, escaped. Captain Croshaw, in his vessel at Pawtomack, had notice given him by a young Indian, by which means he came off untouched.

'The occasion of Oppaconcanough's furious resentment was this:-The war captain, mentioned before to have been killed, was called Nemattanow. He was an active Indian, a great warrior, and in much esteem among them; insomuch that they believed him to be invulnerable and immortal, because he had been in many conflicts, and escaped untouched from them all. He was also a very cunning fellow, and took great pride in preserving and increasing this their superstition concerning him; affecting everything that was odd and prodigious to work upon their admiration; for which purpose he would often dress himself up with feathers, after a fantastic manner, and, by much use of that ornament, obtained among the English the nickname of Jack-of-theFeather.

'This Nemattanow, coming to a private settlement of one Morgan, who had several toys, he had a mind to persuade

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