estate, and who only sought to prevent Argall from utterly despoiling it, that neither the colony nor company could bear his tyranny longer, but he was deposed and Sir George Yeardley sent in his place. Yet he contrived to escape punishment, by the mismanagement of some and the connivance of others, and preserved all of his ill-gotten booty.

One of the first acts of Yeardley was to emancipate the remaining servants of the colony. The labor now being free, each man enjoying the fruits of his own industry, and anxious to increase his store, there was no fear of scarcity, and no time or 1619. opportunity for mutiny among the scattered and industrious planters. With the increasing strength and independence* of the colony, all fear of the savages had vanished. It is manifest that in these altered circumstances, a modification of the despotic government ought to have been made, because its severity was no longer necessary, and while the power existed it might be abused, as the colony seriously experienced in the case of Argall. The only use of government is to ensure the safety of the state from external foes, to secure justice and the free disposition of person and property to each individual, and sometimes to aid in the prosecution of such objects of general utility as individual enterprise cannot accomplish. The moment the colonists began to take an interest in the country, by the enjoyment of their own labor, and the possession of property, it was right that they should have some share in that government, in the prudent conduct of which they were most interested. Yeardley was aware of this, for without any authority from home which we can trace, he called together a General Assembly consisting of two members from every town, borough, or hundred, besides the governor and council, which met at Jamestown, near the end of June, 1619. In this assembly seven corporations were represented, and four more were laid off in the course of the same summer.

In this first North American legislature, wherein were "debated all matters thought expedient for the good of the colony," several acts were passed which were pronounced by the treasurer of the company to be "well and judiciously carried," but which are unfortunately lost to posterity. This was an eventful year to the colony, for in addition to their assembly, a college was established in Henrico, with a liberal endowment. King James had exacted £15,000 from the several bishops of his kingdom for the purpose of educating Indian children, and 10,000 acres of land were now added by the company; and the original design was extended to make it a seminary of learning also for the English. One hundred idle and dissolute persons, in custody for various misdemeanors, were transported by the authority of the king and against the wishes of the company to Virginia. They were distributed through the colony as servants to the planters; and the degradation of the colonial character produced by such a process, was endured for the assistance derived from them in executing the various plans of industry, that were daily extending themselves. This beginning excited in the colonists a desire for using more extensively other labor than their own, an opportunity for the gratification of which, unfortunately, too soon occurred. In this eventful year, too, a new article was introduced into the trade of the company with the colony, by the good policy of the treasurer, Sir Edward Sandys, which produced a material change in the views and feelings of the colonists with regard to the country. At the accession of Sir Edwin to office, after twelve years labor, and an expenditure of eighty thousand pounds by the company, there were in the colony no more than six hundred persons, men, women, and children. In one year he provided a passage for twelve hundred and sixty-one new emigrants. Among these were ninety agreeable young women, poor but respectable and incorrupt, to furnish wives to the colonists. The wisdom of this policy is evident, the men had hitherto regarded Virginia only as a place of temporary sojourn for the acquisition of wealth, and never dreamed of making a permanent residence in a place where it was impossible to enjoy any of the comforts of domestic life. They had consequently none of those endearing ties of home and kindred to bind them to the country, or attach them to its interests, which are so necessary to make a good citizen. This new commodity was transported at the expense of the colony, and sold to the young planters, and the following year another consignment was made of sixty young maids of virtuous

*The savages now sometimes purchased corn of the English, instead of supplying them as formerly.

education, young, handsome, and well recommended. A wife in the first lot sold gen erally for one hundred pounds of tobacco, but as the value of the new article became known in the market, the price rose, and a wife would bring a hundred and fifty pounds of tobacco. A debt for a wife was of higher dignity than other debts, and to be paid first. As an additional inducement to marriage, married men were generally preferred in the selection of officers for the colony. Domestic ties were formed, habits of thrift ensued, comforts were increased, and happiness diffused; the tide of emigration swelled: within three years fifty patents for land were granted, and three thousand five hundred persons found their way to Virginia.

In the month of August of this year an event occurred which stamped its impress upon the constitution of Virginia, and indeed of the whole southern portion of

1620. America so deeply, that it will be difficult to erase it save by the destruction of society. This was the introduction of twenty African slaves by a Dutch vessel, which availed itself of the freedom of commerce, which had been released from the shackles of the company's monopoly in the early part of this year, to rivet forever the bonds of slavery upon a portion of their fellow-creatures and their descendants. The indented and covenanted servants which had been long known in Virginia, and whose condition was little better than that of slavery, was a small evil and easily removed, because they were of the same color and country with their masters; when they were emancipated they leaped at once from their shackles to the full dignity of freedom. No one scorned to associate with them, and no one spurned their alliance; if honorable and worthy in other respects, they were equal to their masters, and might even rise to distinction. But not so the poor African. Nature has fixed upon him a stamp which cannot be erased or forgotten, the badge of his bondage is borne with him, when his fetters have crumbled to the dust.

The overbearing disposition of King James created a powerful popular party in England, which being unable to establish a liberal government at home, was determined to secure for free principles a safe asylum in the colonies. The accomplishment of this determination was accelerated by the disposition of the king to intermeddle with this very subject. He was exceedingly jealous of the company, in which the patriot party prevailed, and suspicious of the liberal principles discussed in its meetings with uncontrolled freedom: he feared it as the school of debate, and nursery of parliamentary leaders. Upon the resignation of Sir Edwin Sandys of his office as treasurer, the king determined to try the extent May 17, 1620. of his influence in the election of a successor to this first office in the company. He accordingly sent in a nomination of four individuals, to one of whom he desired the office to be given; but he proved unsuccessful in his attempt at dictation, and none of his nominees were elected, but the choice fell upon the Earl of Southampton.

The company having thus vindicated its own privileges, proceeded next to guaranty freedom to the colonists, by a constitution remarkably liberal for the time and circumstances. This charter of freedom, the principles of which the Virginians never could be brought subsequently to relinquish, has been preserved to posterity in "Summary of the ordinance and constitution of the treasurer, council and company in England, for a council of state, and another council to be called the General Assembly in Virginia, contained in a commission to Sir Francis Wyatt (the first governor under that ordinance and constitution) and his council," dated July 24, 1621.

The council of state was to be chosen by the treasurer, council

and company in England, with the power of removal at pleasure; their duty was to advise and assist the governor, and to constitute a portion of the General Assembly. This General Assembly was to be called by the governor once a year, and not oftener, unless on very extraordinary and important occasions; it was to consist, in addition to the council of state, of two burgesses, out of every town, hundred, or other particular plantation, to be respectively chosen by the inhabitants; in which council all matters were to be decided, determined, d ordered, by the greater part of the voices then present, reserving to the governor always a negative voice. "And this General Assembly was to have full power, to treat, consult, and conclude, as well of all emergent occasions concerning the public weal of the said colony, and every part thereof, as also to make, ordain, and enact such general laws and orders,' for the behoof of said colony, and the good government thereof, as from time to time might seem necessary."

The General Assembly and council of state were required to imitate and follow the policy of the form of government, laws, customs, and manner of trial, and of the administration of justice, used in the realm of England, as near as might be, as the company itself was required to do, by its charter. No law or ordinance was to continue in force or validity unless it was solemnly ratified in a general quarterly court of the company, and returned under seal; and it was promised that as soon as the government of the colony should once have been well framed and settled, that no orders of court should afterwards bind the colony, unless they were ratified in the same manner by the General Assembly.

When Sir Francis arrived, he found that negligence and security among the colonists, which is the inevitable consequence of a long peace. Old Powhatan had died in 1618, honored by the esteem and respect of all who knew him-his own people holding in grateful remembrance his prowess and policy in youth, and his mildness in age-and his English friends and brethren admiring his firm support of his dignity, his paternal affection, his mild simplicity, and his native intelligence. He was succeeded in his power by Opechancanough, his younger brother, who was cunning, treacherous, revenge. ful, and cruel. He renewed the former treaties, with every assurance of good faith, and wore the mask of peace and friendship so successfully as completely to lull the whites to security. But this crafty prince had always viewed with peculiar jealousy and hate the progress of the colony. He had given much trouble, and engaged in frequent hostilities, while he was king of Pamunkee, and it was not to be supposed that he would patiently submit to the continued and rapid encroachments of the whites upon his lands, to the entire extermination or banishment of his people, now that he possessed the empire of his brother. But to meet them in the field was impossible, the disparity in arms was too great, and the numbers in fighting men now equal; the attempt would be madness and desperation, and lead to that extermination of his race which he wished to avoid. His only resource was to strike some great and sudden blow which should annihilate the power of the colony at once. He had applied to a king who resided on the Eastern Shore, to purchase a subtle poison which grew only in his dominions, but this king being on good terms with the whites, and wishing to enjoy their trade, refused to gratify him. His next resource was in a general massacre, to take effect upon all of the scattered plantations on the same day. The situation of the whites favored this design; they not only placed confidence in the words of the savages, which had now been so long faithfully kept, but in their weakness and cowardice. They had extended their plantations over a space of one hundred and forty miles, on both sides of James River, and made some settlements in the neighborhood of the Potomac; in short, wherever a rich spot invited to the cultivation of tobacco, there were they established, and an absence of neighbors was preferred. The planters were careless with their arms,

never using their swords, and their fire-arms only for game. The old law making it criminal to teach a savage the use of arms was forgotten, and they were fowlers and hunters for many of the planters, by which means they became well acquainted with the use of arms and the places in which they were kept. One great object with the settlers, and with the company, in whose instructions we find it perpetually enjoined, had been the conversion of the Indians to the Christian religion. To promote this pious object, they had always been received in the most friendly manner; they became market people to the planters, and they were fed at their tables, and lodged in their bedchambers as friends and brothers.

Opechancanough had renewed the treaty with Governor Wyatt, and took every other means in his power to avoid suspicion. He told a messenger, about the middle of March, that the sky should fall ere he would violate the treaty of peace; only two days before the fatal 22d, the English were guided in safety and kindness through the forest by the unsuspected Indians; and a Mr. Browne, who had been sent to live among them to learn their language, was sent safely to his friends;-nay, so well was the dread secret kept, that the English boats were borrowed to transport the Indians over the river to consult on the "devilish murder that ensued;" and even on the day itself, as well as on the evening before, they came as usual unarmed into the settlements with deer, turkeys, fish, fruits, and other provisions to sell, and in some places sat down to breakfast with the English. The concert and secrecy of this great plot is the more astonishing, when we reflect that the savages were not living together as one nation, and did not have for most purposes unity of action, but were dispersed in little hamlets containing from thirty to two hundred in a company; "yet they all had warning given them one from another in all their habitations, March 22, 1622. though far asunder, to meet at the day and hour appointed for the destruction of the English at their several plantations; some directed to one place, some to another, all to be done at the time appointed, which they did accordingly some entering their houses under color of trading, so took their advantage; others drawing them abroad under fair pretences, and the rest suddenly falling upon those that were at their labors." They spared no age, sex, or condition, and were so sudden in their indiscriminate slaughter that few could discern the blow or weapon which brought them to destruction. Their familiarity with the whites led them with fatal precision to the points at which they were certain to be found, and that "fatal morning fell under the bloody and barbarous hands of that perfidious and inhuman people, three hundred and forty-seven men, women, and children, principally by their own weapons." Not content with this destruction, they brutally defaced and mangled the dead bodies, as if they would perpetrate a new murder, and bore off the several portions in fiendish triumph. Those who had treated them with especial kindness, and conferred many benefits upon them, who confided so much in them that to the last moment they could not believe mischief was intended, fared no better than the rest. The ties of love and gratitude, the sacred rights of hospitality and reciprocal friendship, oaths, pledges, and promises, and