1

itaker.

ernor

3.

means the body of the plantation was now augmented with such numbers of irregular persons . . . they displayed their condition in all kinds of looseness." To such admission of "irregular persons," who would not scruple at the oath of supremacy, the government attempted shortly afterward to add the forcible importation of convicts. 1 Setting out to enforce the Act 39 Eliz., "that such rogues as are dangerous to the common people be banished the realm," the king commanded the Virginia company to receive one hundred “dissolute persons" and send them to Virginia. The company resisted, but the transportation of at least fifty was insisted on. Later, in 1617, there was an order in council for the delivery of five prisoners in Oxford gaol to Sir Thomas Smyth, for transportation to Virginia. 2 On this policy wrote Stith, "It hath laid the finest countries in America under just scandall of being a mere hell upon earth."

There is no need for us to follow the general fortunes of the infant colony. The short ministerial service of Hunt was followed by the ministry of Alexander Whitaker, “the Apostle of Virginia," who wrote the "Good News from Virginia." Of him, W. Crashawe, in the "Epistle Dedicatorie," says that he was "a scholler, a graduate, a preacher, wellborne and friended in England; not in debt or disgrace, but competently provided-for; not in want, but rich in possession and more in possibility; of himself, without any persuasion (but God's and his own heart), he did voluntary leave his warme nest, and undertooke this hard-heroical resolution to go to Virginia and helpe to beare the name of God unto the Gentiles." 8

Whitaker's "Good News" was published in 1612, the year after Sir Thomas Dale came to the governor's office. Dale was sent out by the company to correct the disorders which jealousies, a false system, and lax morality had caused in the

1 Anderson, Colonial Church, I, 324.

2 Massachusetts Historical Collections, IV, 9; I.

8 Force, Historical Tracts; Hawks' Contributions to Ecclesiastical History.

colony, a work to which the stern soldier set himself with a firm hand. Whitaker describes him as "a man of great knowledge in divinity, and of a good conscience in all things, both which be rare in a martial man." The first act of Dale was to destroy the communal system of land tenure and labor, and by giving personal titles to land and to rewards of labor to infuse life and hope into an almost dying community.

Divine.

The next step was the attempted correction of the moral and religious slackness of the settlers, to accomplish which he ordained the "Lawes Divine, Moral and Martial." These Lawes laws "had been copied, for the most part, from the Laws observed during the wars in the Low Countries, in which Dale had himself served." Like the laws of Draco, they were of a severity far exceeding any of the more famous Puritan restrictions in New England. The extreme harshness of them can only be accounted for by the supposition of the great laxity in the young community, described in "Virginia's Cure"-a letter written by R. G. to the Bishop of London: "Through the licentious lives of many of them the Christian religion is like still to be dishonored, and the name of God blasphemed among the Heathen, who are near them and oft among them, and consequently their conversion hindered.” 2

1 Force, Historical Tracts, III; Anderson, History of Colonial Church, I, 282.

2 Force, Tracts, III. It is notable that, while Dale was sent to Virginia with a purpose of reforming abuses, by reason of which "the plantation had fallen into discredit" at home, he yet brought with him a large instalment of the class of people whose errors he was to correct. Himself writes that the people were "Such as they were enforced to take — gathering them in riotous, lazy, and infected places; such disordered persons, so profane, so riotous, so full of mutiny and treasonable intendments, that in a parcel of three hundred not many gave testimony, beside their names, that they were Christians." (Massachusetts Historical Collections, IV, 9; I, note.) Sir Thomas Smyth vindicates the severity of Dale's code as needful to keep the disorderly elements in check. He speaks of many among them as dissolute and convicts, and states that, so late as 1620, the city of London contributed £500 toward the expense of transporting one hundred youth, "in order to rid itself of the burden of them." In fact, this compulsory colonization was frequent until the end of the century, though, happily, its victims were not always of the disorderly class.

i

The sections of Dale's Code, which have reference to religion, are briefly as follows:1_

1. To speak impiously of the Trinity or one of the Divine Persons, or against the known articles of Christian faith, was punishable with death.

2. The same penalty of death was to avenge "blaspheming God's holy Name."

3. To curse or "banne - for the first offence some severe

punishment; for the second a "bodkin should be thrust through the tongue"; if the culprit was incorrigible, he should suffer death.

4. To say or do anything "to the derision or despight of God's holy word," or in disrespect to any Minister, exposed the offender to be "openly whipt 3 times, and to ask public forgiveness in the assembly of the congregation, 3 several Saboth daies."

5. Non-attendance on religious services entailed a penalty,

for the first offence, of the stoppage of allowance; for

the second, whipping; for the third, the galleys for six months.

6. For Sabbath-breaking the first offence brought the stoppage of allowance; the second, whipping; and the third, death. 7. Preachers and ministers were enjoined to faithfulness in the conduct of regular services on pain "of losing their entertainment."

8. Every person in the colony, or who should come into it, was required to repair to the Minister for examination in the faith. If he should be unsound, he was to be instructed. If any refused to go to the minister, he should be whipt; on a second refusal he should be whipt twice and compelled to "acknowledge his fault on Saboth day in the assembly of the congregation"; for a third refusal he should be "whipt every day until he makes acknowledgment."

1 Force, Historical Tracts, III.

Notwithstanding the atrocity of these requirements, it does not appear that their severer penalties were ever enforced by Dale. His "bark was worse than his bite,” and the fulmination of such orders was doubtless with the view of frightening the lawless elements into decency.

Dale's successor, Argal, who came to office in 1616, a man Argal. of "indiscriminate rapacity and vices," was not so gentle. The "bloody code" spoke his mind, and he made use of its severity, and more, to further his own greed and passion. "The condition of Virginia became intolerable; the labor of the settlers was perverted to the benefit of the governor; servitude for a limited period was the common penalty annexed to trifling offences; life itself was insecure against his capricious passions."1 Finally, his ferocity in condemning Captain Brewster to death brought a general outcry from the colonists. Appeal was taken to England, the "Lawes Divine, Moral and Martial," were abrogated by the company, and Argal was superseded by Yeardley, whose inefficient administration was, after three years, terminated by the appointment of Sir Francis Wyatt.

Hitherto, the government of Virginia had been a practical Wyatt. despotism by the company in London and by the governors. Wyatt brought with him in 1621 new ordinances of government, which transformed the entire system. Adding to the governor a council and a general assembly, meeting annually, the new system was practically as free and self-governing as that established by the Massachusetts Puritans. Nor was it in any essential particular modified by the abrogation of the company's patent in 1624 and the assumption of the colony as a royal province. It was meant to conserve "the great- Royal est comfort and benefit of the people, and the prevention of province. injustices, grievances, and oppressions."

The first article of "Instructions" to the new government,

as of prime importance, directs the authorities "to take into Care for t their special regard the service of Almighty God and the Church.

ligious

islation.

observance of His divine Laws; and that the people should be trained up in true religion and virtue . . . to the Order and Administration of Divine Service according to the form and discipline of the Church of England; carefully to avoid all factions and needless novelties, which only tended to the disturbance of peace and unity; and to cause that the Ministers should be duly respected and maintained." 1

Under these ordinances, which also provided that no decree from England should have the force of law in Virginia until ratified by the general assembly, the care for religion and the establishment was made a prime duty of the government-a duty which the legislature set itself repeatedly to perform.

The first assembly, whose acts have been preserved, was that of 1623. Among its earliest actions was a rather comprehensive measure in regard to religious matters. 2 It enacted that "there should be in every plantation, where the people are to meet, for the worship of God, a house or room sequestered for that purpose, and not to be for any temporal use whatever." Also, "there should be a uniformity in our Church as near as may be to the Canons in England, both in substance and in circumstance, and that all persons yield readie obedience under pain of censure.” 3

1 Anderson, Colonial Church, I, 328.

2 Hening, Statutes, I, 122.

The act provided penalties: for absence of one Sunday from Church a fine of five pounds of tobacco; for speaking "disparagingly of any minister without proof," a fine of 500 pounds of tobacco. The act also forbade ministers to be absent from their parishes, under penalty; and forbade the people to sell any tobacco or corn until the claims of the minister were paid out of the best of both crops.

The care which the assembly thus assumed for things ecclesiastical finds constant expression in after years. As to the clergy, it took many measures for their support and behaviour. It gave them glebes, "which glebes were, in the first instance, to be cultivated by six tenants placed on each of them at the public expense." The annual support of a minister was fixed at 1500 pounds of tobacco and 16 barrels of corn, to be assessed at the rate of 10