In the charter granted to Sir Thomas Gates and his associates, it was provided that the colony should have a council of its own, subject to a superior council in England. The subordinate council was authorized to search for and dig mines, coin money, carry over adventurers, and repel intruders. The president and council were authorized to levy duties on foreign commodities; the colonists were invested with all the rights and privileges of English subjects, and the lands granted to settlers in free and common soccage.[36:B]
On the 20th of November, 1606, instructions were given by the crown for the government of the two colonies, directing that the council in England should be appointed by the crown; the local council by the superior one in England; the local one to choose a president annually from its own body; the Christian religion to be preached; lands to descend as in England; trial by jury secured in criminal causes; and the council empowered to determine all civil actions; all produce and goods imported to be stored in magazines; a clerk and treasurer, or cape-merchant, to be appointed for the colony. The stockholders, styled adventurers, were authorized to organize a company for the management of the business of the colony, and to superintend the proceedings of the local council. The colonists were enjoined to treat the natives kindly, and to endeavor by all means to convert them to Christianity.[37:A] Sir Thomas Smith was appointed treasurer of the company, and the chief management of their affairs intrusted to him. He was an eminent London merchant; had been chief of Sir Walter Raleigh's assignees; was about this time governor of the East India Company, and had been ambassador to Russia.[37:B]
The frame of government thus provided for the new colony was cumbrous and complicated, the legislative and administrative powers being so distributed between the local council, the crown, and the company, as to involve the danger of delays, uncertainty, conflict, and irresponsibility. By the words of the charter the colonists were invested with the rights of Englishmen; yet, as far as political rights were concerned, there being no security provided by which they could be vindicated, they might often prove to be of no more real value than the parchment on which they were written. However, the government of such an infant colony must, of necessity, have been for the most part arbitrary; the political rights of the colonists must, for a time, have lain in abeyance. Their civil rights were protected in criminal causes by the trial by jury, and lands were to be held by a free tenure.
At length three vessels were fitted out for the expedition, one of twenty tons, one of forty, the third of one hundred tons, and they were put under the command of Captain Christopher Newport, a navigator experienced in voyages to the New World. Orders being put on board inclosed in a sealed box, not to be opened until their arrival in Virginia, they set sail from Blackwall on the 19th of December, 1606. For six weeks they were detained by headwinds and stormy weather in the Downs, within view of the English coast, and during this interval, disorder, threatening a mutiny, prevailed among the adventurers. However, it was suppressed by the interposition of the clergyman, Robert Hunt. The winds at length proving favorable, the little fleet proceeded along the old route by the Canaries, which they reached about the twenty-first of April, and on the twenty-sixth sailed for the West Indies, upon arriving at which it appears that Captain Smith was actually in command of the expedition, for,[38:A] writing afterwards in 1629, he says: "Because I have ranged and lived among those islands, what my authors cannot tell me, I think it no great error in helping them to tell it myself. In this little Isle of Mevis, more than twenty years ago, I have remained a good time together, to wood and water, and refresh my men." This isle was, on this occasion, the scene of a remarkable incident in his life, and one which appears to have escaped the notice of our historians. "Such factions here we had as commonly attend such voyages, that a pair of gallows was made; but Captain Smith, for whom they were intended, could not be persuaded to use them. But not any of the inventors but their lives by justice fell into his power to determine of at his pleasure, whom, with much mercy, he favored, that most basely and unjustly would have betrayed him."
After passing three weeks in the West Indies they sailed in quest of Roanoke Island, and having exceeded their reckoning three days without finding land, the crew grew impatient, and Ratcliffe, captain of the pinnace, proposed to steer back for England.
At this conjuncture a violent storm, compelling them to scud all night under bare poles, providentially drove them into the mouth of Chesapeake Bay. The first land that they came in sight of, April 26th, 1607, they called Cape Henry, in honor of the Prince of Wales, eldest son of King James, as the opposite point, Cape Charles, was named after the king's second son, then Duke of York, afterwards Charles the First. A party of twenty or thirty, with Newport, landing here, found a variety of pretty flowers and goodly trees. While recreating themselves on the shore they were attacked by five of the savages, who came creeping upon all-fours from the hills like bears, and with their arrows wounded two, but retired at the discharge of muskets.[39:A]
That night the sealed box was opened, when it appeared that the members of council appointed were—Bartholomew Gosnold, John Smith, Edward Maria Wingfield, Christopher Newport, John Ratcliffe, John Martin and George Kendall. They were instructed to elect, out of their own number, a president for one year; he and the council together were invested with the government; affairs of moment were to be examined by a jury, but determined by the council.
Seventeen days were spent in quest of a place for the settlement. A point on the western side of the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay they named Point Comfort, because they found a good harbor there, which, after the recent storm, put them in good comfort. Landing there, April 30th, they saw five Indians, who were at first alarmed; but seeing the captain lay his hand upon his heart, they came boldly up and invited the strangers to Kecoughtan, now Hampton, their town, where they were entertained with corn-bread, tobacco and pipes, and a dance. May 4th, the explorers were kindly received by the Paspaheghs. The chief of a neighboring tribe sent a guide to conduct the English strangers to his habitation. Percy calls them the Rappahannas; but as no such tribe is mentioned by Smith as being near the James River, they were probably the Quiqoughcohanocks, who dwelled on the north side of the river, about ten miles above Jamestown.[39:B] Upon the arrival of the English this chief stood on the bank of the river to meet them, when they landed, "with all his train," says Percy, "as goodly men as any I have seen of savages, or Christians, the Werowance [chief] coming before them, playing on a flute made of a reed, with a crown of deer's hair, colored red, in fashion of a rose, fastened about his knot of hair, and a great plate of copper on the other side of his head, with two long feathers, in fashion of a pair of horns, placed in the midst of his crown. His body was painted all with crimson, with a chain of beads about his neck; his face painted blue, besprinkled with silver ore, as we thought; his ears all behung with bracelets of pearl, and in either ear a bird's claw through it, beset with fine copper or gold. He entertained us in so modest a proud fashion, as though he had been a prince of civil government, holding his countenance without laughter, or any such ill behavior. He caused his mat to be spread on the ground, where he sate down with a great majesty, taking a pipe of tobacco, the rest of his company standing about him. After he had rested awhile he rose, and made signs to us to come to his town: he went foremost, and all the rest of his people and ourselves followed him up a steep hill, where his palace was settled. We passed through the woods in fine paths having most pleasant springs, which issued from the mountains [hills.] We also went through the goodliest corn-fields that ever were seen in any country. When we came to Rappohanna town, he entertained us in good humanity." While this hospitable, unsophisticated chief was piping a welcome to the English strangers, how little did he anticipate the tragic scenes of war and blood which were so soon to ensue!
On the 8th of May the English went farther up the river to the country of the Appomattocks, who came forth to meet them in a most warlike manner, with bows and arrows, and formidable war-clubs; but the whites, making signs of peace, were suffered to land unmolested.[40:A] At length they selected for the site of the colony a peninsula lying on the north side of the James River, and about forty miles from its mouth. The western end of this peninsula, where it is connected by a little isthmus with the main land, was the spot pitched upon for the erection of a town, which was named, in honor of the king, Jamestown. Some contention occurred between Wingfield and Gosnold in regard to the selection of this place, Gosnold objecting to it. Smith conceived it a fit place for a great city. Gosnold exhibited in this matter the better judgment. The situation, eligible in some points, was extremely unhealthy, being low and exposed to the malaria of extensive marshes covered with water at high-tide. The bank of the river there is marked by no striking or picturesque feature. According to the terms of the charter, the territory now appropriated to the colony comprised a square of a base of one hundred miles, and including an area of ten thousand square miles, of which Jamestown was the centre, so to speak.
The settlers landed at Jamestown on the 13th day of May, 1607. This was the first permanent settlement effected by the English in North America, after the lapse of one hundred and ten years from the discovery of the continent by the Cabots, and twenty-two years after the first attempt to colonize it, made under the auspices of Walter Raleigh. Upon landing, the council took the oath of office; Edward Maria Wingfield was elected president, and Thomas Studley, cape-merchant or treasurer of the colony.[41:A] Smith was excluded from the council upon some false pretences. Dean Swift says: "When a great genius appears in the world, the dunces are all in confederacy against him."