upon that. There he showed his wisdom beyond all who had gone before him. Except perhaps the French settlers in Florida, no one there had thought of planting settlements save with an eye to gold and silver; for Gilbert's was hardly so much a regular settlement as an outpost against Spain. But Raleigh, though he probably had mines in view, yet took care to settle his colony where it might maintain itself by agriculture, and enrich both itself and England by manufacture and trade. In 1584 he obtained a patent in precisely the same terms as Gilbert's, and sent out two sea captains, Amidas and Barlow, to explore. They landed much further south than Gilbert, where climate and soil were both better. The natives received them with great kindness and hospitality, and two accompanied them back to England. Amidas and Barlow brought home a glowing account of the land they had found, and the queen named it Virginia. Next year Raleigh sent out a hundred and eight settlers. Sir Richard Grenville, one of the greatest sea captains of the age, was in command of the fleet. he was only to see them established, and then to leave them under the command of Ralph Lane, a soldier of some note. Heriot, a friend of Raleigh, and a man of great scientific learning, was sent out to examine the country. The colony was established in an island called Roanoke, off what is now the coast of North Carolina. At the very outset a mishap occurred which afterward did no small harm to the settlement. As Grenville was exploring the country, an Indian stole a silver cup from the English. In revenge Grenville burnt an Indian village.

But

In August Grenville sailed home, leaving Lane in full command. Lane set off in quest of mines. His party suffered great hardships, had to eat their dogs, and discovered no mines. Lane, on his return, found his settlement in great danger. The Indians were plotting against the colony. He at once fell upon the Indians, killing fifteen. The prospects of the settlers became very gloomy, when an English fleet appeared on its way back from a raid on the Spanish coast. After two attempts at relieving them the settlers in despair resolved to embark in Drake's fleet, and by the end of July, 1586, they landed in Portsmouth. A few days after they had sailed, a ship reached Virginia, sent out by Raleigh with provisions. After searching in After searching in vain for the settlers, it returned to England. About

a fortnight later, Grenville arrived with three ships well provisioned. Having spent some time in seeking for the settlement he landed fifteen men with supplies for two years, to keep possession of the country, and sailed home. This small colony was destroyed by the Indians.

All these disappointments did not withhold Raleigh from another and more determined attempt. In 1587 he sent out a fresh party of settlers. One White was to be governor, with a council of twelve assistants, and the settlement was to be called the City of Raleigh. Hitherto the Indians had received the English in friendship, but now they attacked the settlers at their first landing, and killed one of the assistants. In August two noteworthy events occurred; Manteo, one of the natives who had returned with Amidas and Barlow, was christened; and the wife of Ananias Dare bore a daughter, the first child of English parents born in the New World. Soon after this, White went to England to get supplies. Raleigh immediately fitted out a fleet under the command of Grenville. Before it could sail, tidings came that the Spanish Armada was ready to attack England, and every ship and sailor that could be put on the sea was needed. Nevertheless Raleigh contrived to send out White with two small vessels. But instead of relieving the colony, the crew betook themselves to piracy against the Spaniards, and, after sundry mishaps, returned to England without ever having reached Virginia. Raleigh had now spent £40,000 ($200,000) on his Virginia colony, and had got absolutely nothing in return. Moreover, he had just got a large grant of land in Ireland, and needed all his spare time and money for that. Accordingly, in March, 1589, he sold all his rights in the Virginia plantation to a company. At the same time he showed his interest in the colony by the gift of £100 ($500) to be spent in the conversion of the natives. The new company was slow in sending out relief. White sailed with three vessels. After much delay White reached Virginia, but the settlers had moved away, cutting the name Croatan, whither they had gone, on a tree. Raleigh sent out two more expeditions, one as late as 1602, but nothing was ever heard of these colonists.

By the end of the sixteenth century, Spain had thousands of miles of coast territory in America, with large and beautiful cities, and a mine yield of

The

$300,000 a year, while England had not so much as a single fishing village. In 1602 and the three following years voyages of discovery were sent out. The coast of America to the north of Chesapeake Bay was explored, and a favorable report brought back. The failures of Gilbert and Raleigh showed that a colony was too great an undertaking for a single man to carry out successfully. The northern expeditions in the previous century sent out by the Russian Company had been more prosperous. Accordingly, in 1606, a company was formed for the establishment of two settlements in America. Northern colony was to be managed by gentlemen and merchants from the west of England; the Southern by Londoners. A charter was obtained from the king, granting to each a tract on the coast at whatever spot it chose to settle, the Northern colony between thirty-four and forty-one degrees of latitude, the Southern between thirty-eight and forty-five. At the same time, it was provided that the colonies were to be one hundred miles apart. Each was to have a tract of fifty miles along the coast on each side of the settlement, and all islands within one hundred miles of the coast; and no other English colony was to be founded on the mainland behind them without express permission. Each was to be governed by a president, and council of thirteen in America, while these were to be under the control of a council in England. The members of these councils and the two presidents were to be appointed by the king. At the same time James drew up certain articles for the government of the colonies. All criminal cases involving life and death were to be tried by a jury; smaller offences by the president. The president and council of each colony had power to make ordinances; and these must agree with the laws of England, and were not to become law till approved of by the sovereign or the council at home. There was to be no private industry in the colony for the first five years, but the settlers were to bring all the fruit of their labor into a common store, whence food and other necessaries would be provided in return.

On Dec. 19, 1606, the Southern colony set out. Three ships sailed with one hundred and five emigrants. Among the colonists was one John Smith, an English yeoman by birth, who had spent his life. as a soldier of fortune. He had served in the Low Countries; he had been captured by Barbary pi

rates; he had fought against the Turks in Hungary; he was left for dead on the battle-field; he then escaped from a Turkish prison into Russia, and at length returned to England. On the 26th of April the colonists landed in Chesapeake Bay, and founded a settlement which they called Jamestown. Wingfield was elected president. The natives were friendly, but Newport, the captain of the ships, by his foolish liberality to the Indian king, Powhatan, made him hold the English goods cheap, and so prevented the settlers from buying corn as easily as they might have done. But for Smith's energy the colony could hardly have existed. He cruised about the coast, and explored the country, either conciliating or overawing the natives, and getting abundant supplies of corn from them. might have been expected, Smith and Wingfield soon quarrelled, and Wingfield was deposed. Smith did not at once become president, but he was practically the head of the colony. For a short time things went on better. The settlers built twenty houses, sowed some ground, set up a regular factory for trade with the Indians, and made some tar and other merchandise. But soon they fell back into their old state. So badly off were they for food, that they were forced to break up into three bodies and settle in different parts. Some even ran off to the Indians and lived among them.

As

In spite of the evil tidings which came from the colony, and the disappointment of all their hopes of gain, the company in England were not discouraged. In 1609, a new charter transferred to the company the powers of legislation and government which had by the first charter been reserved to the crown. The supreme council in England was to be elected by the stockholders themselves. The company now included some of the greatest men of the age; amongst others Lord Bacon. The new company at once sent out an expedition on a scale larger than the last. Nine ships sailed with five hundred settlers under the command of Sir Thomas Gates, an experienced soldier-and Sir George Somers, one of the bravest American adventurers in the days of Elizabeth. Lord Delaware was appointed governor of the colony. Gates and Somers got separated from the rest of the party, and were cast on the Bermuda Islands. Things were in a critical way in the colony, Smith having returned to England, when Gates and Somers arrived in a pinnace which

they had built in the Bermudas with their own hands. The settlers now embarked for England, and were about to set sail when Lord Delaware arrived with three ships, well supplied. He at once resettled the colony, and forced the colonists to till the ground and fortify the settlement against the Indians. From this time the history of Virginia as a settled country may be considered to begin.

Lord Delaware did not stay long in the colony, but left it under the government of Sir Thomas Dale, who, like Gates, had served as a soldier in the Netherlands. He was an able but a stern ruler. He enforced a code of laws copied in many points from the military laws of the Low Countries, so severe that it is wonderful how any community ever endured them. A few of the harshest will serve as specimens. A man was to be put to death for killing any cattle, even his own, without leave of the governor; so was anyone who exported goods without leave. A baker who gave short weight was to lose his ears, and on the third offence to be put to death. A laundress who stole linen was to be flogged. Attendance at public worship was enforced by severe penalties. We must not forget, however, that most of the colonists were no better than criminals; indeed the colony had got so evil a name in England by its disorders and misadventures that few respectable men would go out.

The settlers were of various classes: all who subscribed £12 10s. to the company, or sent out a laborer at their own expense, got shares of land, at first a hundred acres, afterwards, as the colony improved, fifty acres each. These farmed their land either by their own labor or by hired servants, and formed the class afterwards called planters. But the greatest part of the land was in the hands, not of private persons, but of the company itself. This was cultivated by public servants who had been sent out at the company's expense, and who were in great part maintained out of a public store, but were also allowed each a patch of ground. Under the government of Dale the condition of the colony improved. The Chickahominy Indians made a league with the settlers, and the chief body of the Indians, under a great and powerful chief, Powhatan, were also closely allied with the English. In 1612, one Captain Argall, an unscrupulous man with influence in the company, by a knavish scheme with Japazans, an Indian chief, kidnapped Pocahontas, the

were all for planting tobacco, and neglected the needful cultivation of corn. Yeardly had much trouble in bringing them under control. His first act was to form an independent legislature in Virginia. He called an assembly almost exactly modelled after the English parliament. It consisted of the council and a body of representatives, two from each of the eleven plantations into which the colony was divided. These representatives were elected by the freeholders. The assembly so formed imposed taxes, considered petitions, and passed several laws for the management of the colony. From this time the assembly met, if not every year, at least at frequent intervals, and the Virginians, though nominally dependent on the king and the company, had in most things an independent government of their own.

Under the new system the colony grew and flourished; vines were planted, and manufactories of iron and glass were set on foot. Guest-houses were built, in spots carefully chosen for healthfulness, for the emigrants when first they landed. The company exerted itself to supply the colony with clergymen and schoolmasters; business so increased that it was necessary to have law courts in the different plantations. The Indians came and went among the English, and were allowed to go in and out of their houses as they pleased. Many benevolent schemes had been proposed for converting and training up the Indian children. Unluckily for the English, Powhatan, who had ever been their fast friend, died in 1618. His successor, Opechancanough, was for some time suspected of enmity to the settlers. Yet they do not seem to have been in the least on their guard against an attack. In 1622 an Indian chief murdered an English planter, in revenge for which he was killed by two of the planter's servants. This supplied Opechancanough with a pretext for stirring up his people against the settlers. Till the very moment that they were ready for the attack the Indians kept up every appearance of friendship, and then suddenly fell upon the settlers and murdered every one they could. Had it not been that one converted Indian gave warning to the

English, few would have escaped. As it was, about three hundred and fifty perished.

This and other causes led to dissolution; the overthrow of the company was determined upon, and in 1632, after a life of sixteen years, they were summoned by an order of the Privy Council to surrender their charter. The effect of the dissolution was to leave the colony entirely dependent on the king. In May, 1635, he issued a proclamation settling the condition of Virginia.

In 1635, a dispute arose with the neighboring colony, Maryland, recently settled by Lord Baltimore. Harvey, the governor of Virginia, took part with Lord Baltimore against the Virginians. Enraged at this, the people rose against Harvey, arrested him, and sent him to England. He however defended himself successfully from the charges brought against him, and was restored. In 1639 proposals were set on foot in England for restoring the company, but these came to nothing, chiefly through the opposition offered by the colonists. They no doubt found that they enjoyed greater independence under the king, and feared that the restoration of the company would revive old claims. to land, and thus cause confusion.

When the civil war broke out in England, it seemed at first as if Virginia would be a stronghold of the Royalists. Berkeley, the successor of Harvey, was a staunch partisan of the king, and so were many of the chief inhabitants. During the supremacy of the Commonwealth the colonies were placed under the government of a special commission, with the Earl of Warwick at its head. In October, 1649, nine months after the death of Charles I., the Virginian assembly passed an act making it high treason to speak disrespectfully of the late king, to defend his execution, or to question Charles II.'s right to the crown.

The chief enactment made by the parliament during the Commonwealth with reference to the colonies was that no goods should be carried to and from the colonies except in English or colonial ships. The colonists, on the other hand, were given the monopoly of the tobacco trade.

The Restoration caused as little stir in Virginia as the overthrow of the monarchy had done. No attempt was made to resist it, and Berkeley was quietly reinstalled as governor. The colony seems about this time to have reached its most prosperous state.

The number of inhabitants had increased to forty thousand; of these, two thousand were negro slaves. Besides these there were many English convicts, who were condemned to serve as slaves for a certain time. Most of these were prisoners who had been sentenced to death, but whose punishment had been changed by special favor to transportation. In spite of the existence of this class, the colony seems to have been very free from crime. Houses were left open at night, and clothes allowed to hang on hedges in safety. This was probably due to the comfort and plenty that prevailed. A single man could, by his own labor, raise two hundred and fifty bushels of Indian corn in a year. Cattle required no attention, but were turned out into the woods and throve there. The forests swarmed with game, and the rivers with fish. Ever since 1643 the relations with the Indians had been friendly; in that year war had broken out. The Indians were easily subdued; Opechancanough was captured and put to death, and a firm peace made with his successor. For nearly thirty years from that time the peace remained unbroken. During this period, various laws were passed for the protection of the Indians. Efforts were made to convert and to teach their children, and the English tried to civilize them by offering them cows as a reward for killing wolves. The colonists were forbidden by law to enslave the Indians or to buy land from them. In 1660, two settlers, men of high position, were fined 15,000 pounds of tobacco each, and were disqualified from holding any office in the colony, because they had unlawfully kept an Indian as a prisoner.

About 1670 political discontent began to show itself. There were various causes for this: one cause lay in the fact that in 1669 Charles II. granted the whole domain of Virginia to Lord Culpepper and Lord Arlington for thirty-one years. The chief fear was lest the new proprietors should claim land as unappropriated which had already been granted to private persons. Everything was ready for a commotion, and a quarrel about some hogs with two tribes of Indians led to Indian retaliation. Three hundred English perished in this irregular warfare, the settlers all the while imploring of Berkeley to send out a force. One Bacon went against the Indians without a commission, backed by five hundred men. He burnt Jamestown, and took up arms against Berkeley. Bacon fell sick

and died, and Berkeley "made mince meat of the rebels." The succeeding governors, Lords Culpepper and Effingham, proved utterly unfit. To them succeeded Lord Orkney, who ruled by deputy.

We will now turn to the first Puritan settlers. The Virginia Company originally consisted, as we have seen, of two branches, one the South Virginia Company at London, the other the North Virginia Company at Plymouth. In 1607 the latter sent out forty-five settlers, who established themselves at the mouth of the river Kennebec. This attempt came to nothing. The winter was unusually cold; Popham, their leader, died, and the colony broke up. This failure kept Englishmen from making any attempt at settlement in that quarter for some years. Fishing voyages were made; and Smith, after his return from Virginia, explored the coast, gave it the name of New England, and did his best to persuade rich men in England to plant a colony there. Besides, Sir Ferdinando Gorges, who had taken a leading part in fitting out the expedition of 1606, had several times sent out ships to explore the coast. But for fourteen years after Popham's failure no settlement was made. One reason possibly was, that the Virginia Company took off all who had money and energy to spend on such enterprises. The colonization of Virginia was brought about by the pressure of poverty and the lack of food and employment in England. The colonization of New England was due to a totally different cause, namely, the ill-treatment which a particular sect received from the English government. During the reign of Elizabeth the English Protestants were divided into two parties. There were those who thought that the Reformation had gone far enough, or even too far, and who wished as much as possible, and in some cases even to restore, something of the ritual and the teaching of the Roman Catholic church. There were others who wanted to go much further than the English church had yet gone, and to abolish many things that reminded them of the old connection with Rome. This party was itself again divided into various bodies. There were those who wished to maintain the system of church-government by bishops, and only to change some of the forms of worship. Others wanted to introduce the Presbyterian system. A third party desired to introduce the Independent system, which existed in some parts of Germany. Under this system each

congregation was a separate body, having full control over its own religious affairs. Neither of these lastnamed parties, the Presbyterian or the Independent, obtained much importance under Elizabeth. But as James I. and Charles I., and the leading men among the bishops in their reigns, showed no readiness to yield anything to the reforming party in the church, many of those who had hitherto been in favor of keeping the existing church-government, gradually went over to the Presbyterians or Independents. During the reign of Elizabeth several severe measures were passed against the Independents, prohibiting them from holding religious meetings. Under James, yet harsher measures were enacted. The result was to drive many of them to Holland, where full toleration was granted to all sects. Among these refugees was an Independent congregation from Scrooby, a village in Nottinghamshire. They fled in a body in 1608, under the guidance of their minister, Robinson, one of the best and wisest of the English Independents, and established themselves at Leyden. There they sojourned for more than ten years, and were joined by many of their friends from England, so that they grew to be a great congregation. But though they prospered, they were not altogether satisfied with their abode in Holland. Their children were exposed to the temptations of a great city, and doubtless many longed for the quiet country life in which they had been bred. At length they bethought them of forming a settlement in America, to be a refuge from the temptations of the world, and perhaps the means of conveying Christianity to the heathen. They decided to settle, if they were allowed, as a separate community, on the lands of the Virginia Company. With this view they sent over to England two deputies to get a grant of land from the company and a charter from the king. The land was granted, but the charter was refused. The king, however, gave a general promise that, if they behaved peaceably, they should not be molested. At first they had some doubt about settling without a charter, but one of their leaders remarked, that "if there should be a purpose or desire to wrong them, though they had a seal as broad as the house floor, it would not serve the turn, for there would be means enough found to recall it or reverse it."

On the 5th of August, 1620, a hundred and twenty