ber of adventures both male and female. Capt. White was instructed to plant the colony on the Chesapeake, but arriving at Roanoke in the month of July, when everything combined to give the most favourable impressions of the station, he determined to remain there. The charter under which this colony was planted named them as "The Governor and assistants of the city of Raleigh in Virginia." Under it, Capt. White was appointed their Governor with twelve assistants, who together constituted a board, or Council, in whom resided executive and legislative powers. But the leaders of this enterprise had not profited by the experience and the fate of former adventurers, and, after the first flow of joyful emotion on account of their safe arrival had subsided, and they began to realize their true situation, they were surprised to find themselves on a shore covered with thick and interminable forests, inhabited by naked savage tribes, and that they were but poorly provided with the means of sustenance, or the appliances necessary for their settlement, safety, and comfort, in so wild a region. A request was unanimously made that Capt. White would return, and solicit from their patrons at home, such supplies as were needful for the maintenance and preservation of the colony. His appearance in England with this view, however, happened at a most unfavourable juncture, just as the famous Armada of the Second Philip of Spain was threatening the kingdom. Raleigh and his coadjutors were now occupied with the more thrilling and momentuous interests of their own country, the few and enfeebled adventurers who languished in the distant coast of America were forgotten or neglected, and left to perish without sympathy or consolation: Governor White came over again in the year 1590, with supplies

.

and recruits for the colony, but he found no one to tell the history or the fate of those he had left there, and he returned again to England.

Thus terminated the last attempt made during the reign of Elizabeth to settle Virginia. Sir Walter Raleigh, whose commanding genius and splendid accomplishments gave lustre and energy to whatever enterprise he extended his patronage, had conceived a new project of settling a large district in Ireland of which he had received a grant from the Queen. Other projects equally fascinating, and rendered the more attractive to his restless spirit because of the difficulty of their achievement, at the same time interested his attention and supplanted the late favourite idea of settling VIRGINIA. He transferred all his interest in the territory of that colony, by assigning his patent to Sir Thomas Smith and a company of merchants, under whose auspices several voyages were made for the purposes of traffic with the natives, but they were not attended with any praise-worthy attempts to meliorate the condition of the country. Thus at the decease of Elizabeth in the year 1603, notwithstanding all the enterprise that had been lavished, the lives which had been sacrificed, and the wealth which had been expended, there was not one white man living in Virginia: Without staying to speculate upon the various causes which had operated to prevent a permanent settlement in the country, the fact is one which addresses itself with a singular interest to the reflective mind. The conviction can hardly be resisted that this portion of the new world was marked out by the Omniscient Ruler of nations as a spot where should be witnessed the origin of a nation, the history of whose government and institutions should mark the developement of principles in

the human character, and in human government, such as the annals of mankind had never yet recorded. These shores did not, like those discovered by the Spanish and Portuguese navigators, abound in mines of gold or of silver ore; they presented only an extended, a luxuriant and fertile soil: they opened no fountains whence the possessors might draw instant wealth, without labour or industry, but their value was to be known, and their profit gathered only in the fulfilment of that anathema "in the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat thy bread." No votary of pleasure, no lover of indolence or of luxury, no effeminate scion of royalty, could find a place convenient for him on these shores. They were destined to be the abode of a mighty, magnanimous, and influential people, and must be settled by hardy, industrious, and well-bred adventurers.

CHAPTER VII.

IT is not till after the accession of the first James to the throne of England in 1606, that we find recorded any further attempts at a settlement of the Continent of North America. The first permanent one was made under the auspices of his reign. He divided that portion of the continent which lies between 34° and 45° of north latitude into two parts, nearly equal. The one he denominated the NORTH the other the SOUTH COLONY OF VIRGINIA. He made a grant of the latter division to Sir Thomas Gates and others, who were mostly residents at London; authorising them to settle any part of it they might choose. This portion was

included between 34° and 41° north latitude, and the jurisdiction of the company was to extend along the coast for fifty miles north and south of the spot where the colony should first locate, and back into the interior one hundred miles.-The northern division was comprehended between 38° and 45° north latitude, and was granted to "certain knights, gentlemen, merchants and others, adventurers, of Bristol, Exeter, Plymouth and elsewhere." Their jurisdiction extended over the territory in the same manner with the other, provided that the settlements of either company were made so that their respective plantations should be separate from each other about one hundred miles. These associations were incorporated into a company for the purposes of trade, with power to have a common seal, and also to act as a political body, and were denominated respectively-THE COLONY OF VIRGINIA, and THE PLYMOUTH COMPANY. It was provided that the supreme government of the Colonies. which these several associations should plant in America should be vested in a Council resident in England, and appointed by the crown. Subordinate jurisdiction was vested in a President and Council, resident in the Colony, who were appointed by the Crown, and required to exercise their functions in conformity with such regulations as might be devised by the crown and council in England. Their ordinances were not to extend to life or limb, were to be in conformity with the laws of England, and were to continue in force until made void by the crown and council in the mother country. High crimes, such as tumult, mutiny, murder, rebellion and incest, were to be punished in England, and lesser offences, by the President and Council of the Colony in their discretion. The colonists were

required to take an oath of allegiance to the crown, and of obedience to the colonial administration, and were to have and enjoy all the rights, privileges and immu nities of free-born natives of England; and were to hold lands upon the same tenure by which the same estates were held there. The Church of England was to be the established religion of the Colonies. It was also provided that exports necessary for the colonies should be sent to them free of duties for the space of seven years. The colonists were allowed to trade with foreign countries, and duties were to be levied on foreign commodities imported into them, to be appropriated for their special and sole benefit for the space of twenty-one years. "Thus," says Dr. Robertson, in commenting on this part of their history, "without hesitation or reluctance the proprietors of both colonies

Virginia and Plymouth-proceeded to execute their respective plans, and under the authority of a charter which would now be rejected with disdain, as a violent invasion of the sacred and inalienable rights of liberty, the first permanent settlements of the English in America were established."

It is easy for us, looking back to this period of our history upon these governmental regulations, to discover the origin of those principles which afterwards became so obnoxious to the colonists, and so fatal to the power of the crown in America. But while, to our view, they seem so wholly to disregard the actual political rights of the settlers, and so disastrously to invade their liberties, we are not surprised that they met with so ready an acquiescence among them. It should be remembered that the territory on which the settlements were to be made was claimed by, and it was admitted that the title resided in the crown, and it could