*

so that the security of life depended on the discretion of the magistrate, restricted only by the necessity of a trial by jury. All civil causes requiring corporal punishment, fine, or imprisonment might be summarily determined by the president and council, who also possessed full legislative authority in cases not affecting life or limb. Kindness to the savages was enjoined, with the use of all proper means for their conversion. It was further and most unwisely, though probably at the request of the corporation, ordered, that the industry and commerce of the respective colonies should for five years at least, be conducted in a joint stock. The King also reserved for himself the right of future legislation."+

Severe misfortunes attended the infant colony; the practical proceedings of its founders being no wiser than their scheme of its political institutions. Visions of glory and of gain-sanguine hopes of great wealth and honour attained without labour, and at once, led the daring, the reckless, and the idle-broken-down spendthrifts, and gay gallants of the court, to form part of the company of emigrants by whom the new community was to be established. The celebrated Captain John Smith, the real practical founder and saviour of this the first settlement, knew well what was the class of man needed for the work-and clearly understood the benefit that would follow well-selected emigrants-" When you send again," said Smith, in a letter written to his supe

*This is a curious description of civil causes; punishment being that thing which is the essence of criminal, as distinct from civil jurisdiction.

Bancroft, History of America, vol. i. p. 123.

riors at home, "I entreat you rather send but thirty carpenters, husbandmen, gardeners, fishermen, blacksmiths, masons, and diggers up of trees' roots, well provided, than a thousand of such as we have."* He was averse to all schemes for the attainment of sudden wealth by gold finding and mining-"Nothing," said he, "is to be expected from Virginia but by labour."

The misfortunes of the first attempts stimulated the nation to yet greater efforts. Raleigh, who had originally conceived the scheme, and laboured with great patience and energy in the cause which had excited his sanguine and enthusiastic spirit, was now a ruined man and a prisoner. But Cecil, his enemy, adopted his plans, and brought all his own influence in aid of the company. The company itself was enlarged, powerful nobles and rich citizens were added to the list of its shareholders, and as they supposed that the previous failure had resulted from defective institutions, they desired to have supreme power in their own hands. Their wishes were gratified and the power of supervision and legislation, which the King had reserved to himself, he now gave to the corporation. This alteration rendered the political constitution (if I may use the term) under which the scheme of colonizing was to be attempted, as inefficient and mischievous as possible. The supreme power was in the hands of a body of persons in England, whose great object was to attain wealth and influence in England, by means of the power which, through others, they were to exercise in America. These others-viz., their

* Bancroft, vol. i. p. 135.

servants and officers, appointed by them to rule over the emigrants—were responsible in name to the supreme council in London; but exercised, in reality, uncontrolled authority over the emigrants. These last, through whose labour and skill the colony was to be actually founded, were left wholly out of consideration. They had no means of checking the governors and other officers of the company, but were obliged to submit in silence to every species of oppression and cruelty, and injury, which cupidity, tyranny, and ignorance could bring upon an unhappy people. The necessary result was dissensions, open quarrels, violence, and failure.

After many valuable lives had been lost, many terrible hardships undergone by the survivors, and constant and large additions had been made to the numbers of the colonists, by direct importation from England into the colony of men and means, the first step was taken in the right direction-private property was established. "But the greatest change in the condition of the colonists resulted from the incipient establishment of private property. To each man a few acres of ground were assigned for his orchard and his garden, and to plant at his pleasure and for his own use. So long as industry had been without its special reward, reluctant labour, wasteful of time, had been followed by want. Henceforward the sanctity of private property was recognised as the surest guarantee of order and abundance."*

Another change was made, and, in a certain sense, for the better, in what I have called the political constitu

Bancroft, History of America, vol. i. p. 145.

tion of the colonizing body. The supreme council in England was made responsible to the majority of the corporation. Vacancies in the council were now to be filled by those who obtained the majority of votes given by members of the corporation, and four several courts of the body of proprietors were directed to be held during the year, in order to elect officers and make laws. In fact, the company-that is, the colonizing body,had now a democratic in place of an aristocratic government. This was an improvement, but the colonists themselves seemed as far from having a voice in their own concerns as ever. These courts of the company were afterwards employed by the great liberal party of those days as a means of opposition to the arbitrary measures of the king; the debates which took place in these assemblies being made subsidiary to the debates in parliament. But whatever influence these courts might have in aiding the establishment of English liberty, they lent very little assistance, did very little if any good, to the colony which they attempted to govern. That colony, though it might seem firmly established, and since private property had been re-instituted, appeared in some measure to thrive, was still, in fact, endowed with but very little vitality, and threatened every hour to droop and fade away from the land. "In May, 1614, a petition for aid was presented to the House of Commons, and was received with unusual solemnity. It was supported by Lord Delaware, whose affection for Virginia ceased only with his life. "All it requires," said he, "is but a few honest labourers burdened with children,' and he moved for a committee to consider of relief.

But disputes with the monarch led to a separation of the Commons, and it was not to tottering or privileged companies, to parliaments or to kings, that the new State was to owe its prosperity. Private industry, directed to the culture of a valuable staple, was more productive than the patronage of England, and tobacco enriched Virginia."*

The manner of this statement may not be agreeable to the taste of Englishmen, and probably would not have been adopted by Mr. Bancroft were he an Englishman, even though he were as deeply versed as he now is in all that appertains to the early history of his country. He would nevertheless have expressed the same opinions, and would have insisted as urgently as at present on the importance of the conclusion to which he had been forced by a study of this history; and now, when we see attempts making to revive that old form of company, by which our forefathers vainly endeavoured in ancient days to found colonies; when we hear the final success of those colonies attributed to this mode of directing the enterprise, and skill, and energy of our people, when laying the foundations of what are now mighty states, it behoves all who really know how false are these statements, and how mischievous these companies were in fact, how seriously they impeded the progress of adventure, and retarded the growth of the colonial communities, to lay this experience with earnestness before the world;-not to be nice as to phrase while insisting upon the value of the knowledge which

* Bancroft.