James the First jealous of Virginia Company—Gondomar—The King takes Measures to annul the Charter—Commissioners appointed—Assembly Petitions the King—Disputes between Commissioners and Assembly—Butler's Account of the Colony—Nicholas Ferrar—Treachery of Sharpless, and his Punishment—The Charter of Virginia Company dissolved—Causes of this Proceeding—Character of the Company—Records of the Company—Death of James the First—Charles the First succeeds him—The Virginia Company—Earl of Southampton—Sir Edwin Sandys and Nicholas Ferrar—The Rev. Jonas Stockham's Letter—Injustice of the Dissolution of the Charter—Beneficial Results—Assembly of 1624.
The Court of James the First, already jealous of the growing power and republican spirit of the Virginia Company, was rendered still more inimical by the malign influence of Count Gondomar, the Spanish ambassador, who was jealous of any encroachment on the Spanish colony of Florida. He remarked to King James, of the Virginia Company, that "they were deep politicians, and had further designs than a tobacco-plantation; that as soon as they should get to be more numerous, they intended to step beyond their limits, and, for aught he knew, they might visit his master's mines." The massacre afforded an occasion to the enemies of the company to attribute all the calamities of the colony to its mismanagement and neglect, and thus to frame a plausible pretext for dissolving the charter.
Captain Nathaniel Butler, a dependent of the Earl of Warwick, had, by his influence, been sent out Governor of Bermudas for three years, where he exercised the same oppression and extortion as Argall had exhibited in Virginia. Upon finding himself compelled to leave those islands, he came to Virginia, in the midst of the winter succeeding the massacre. He was hospitably entertained by Governor Wyat, which kindness he proved himself wholly unworthy of, his conduct being profligate and disorderly. He demanded a seat in the council, to which he was in no way entitled. He went up the James as far as to the mouth of the Chickahominy, where "he plundered Lady Dale's cattle;" and after a three months' stay, he set sail for England. Upon his return, Butler was introduced to the king, and published "The Unmasked Face of our Colony in Virginia, as it was in the Winter of 1622," in which he took advantage of the misfortunes of the colony, and exaggerated its deplorable condition. The Rev. William Mease, (who had been for ten years resident in the colony,) with several others, replied to this defamatory pamphlet.[170:A]
The company was divided into two parties, the one headed by the Earl of Southampton, Lord Cavendish, Sir Edward Sackville, Sir John Ogle, Sir Edwin Sandys, with several others of less note; on the other side, the leaders were the Earl of Warwick, Sir Thomas Smith, Sir Nathaniel Rich, Sir Henry Mildmay, Alderman Johnson, etc. They appeared before the king, the Earl of Warwick's faction presenting their accusations against the company, and the other side defending it; and Sir Edward Sackville used such freedom of language that "the king was fain to take him down soundly and roundly." However, by the lord treasurer's intervention, the matter was reconciled on the next day.[170:B]
In May, 1623, a commission was issued authorizing Sir William Jones, a justice of the common pleas, Sir Nicholas Fortescue, Sir Francis Goston, Sir Richard Sutton, Sir William Pitt, Sir Henry Bourchier, and Sir Henry Spilman,[170:C] to inquire into the affairs of the colony. By an order of the privy council the records of the company were seized, and the deputy treasurer, Nicholas Ferrar, imprisoned, and on the arrival of a ship from Virginia, her packets were seized and laid before the privy council.
Nicholas Ferrar, Jr., was born in London in 1592, educated at Cambridge, where he was noted for his talents, acquirements, and piety.[171:A] Upon leaving the university he made the tour of Europe, winning the esteem of the learned, passing through many adventures and perils with Christian heroism, and maintaining everywhere an unsullied character. Upon his return to England, in 1618, he was appointed king's counsel for the Virginia Plantation. In the year 1622 he was chosen deputy treasurer of the Virginia Company, (which office his brother John also filled for some years,) and so remained till its dissolution. In the House of Commons he distinguished himself by his opposition to the political corruption of that day, and abandoned public life when little upwards of thirty years of age, "in obedience to a religious fancy he had long entertained," and formed of his family and relations a sort of little half-popish convent, in which he passed the remainder of his life.[171:B]
Carlyle[171:C] thus describes this singular place of retirement: "Crossing Huntingdonshire in his way northward, his majesty[171:D] had visited the establishment of Nicholas Ferrar, at Little Gidding, on the western border of that county. A surprising establishment now in full flower, wherein above fourscore persons, including domestics, with Ferrar and his brother, and aged mother at the head of them, had devoted themselves to a kind of Protestant monachism, and were getting much talked of in those times. They followed celibacy and merely religious duties; employed themselves in binding of prayer-books, embroidering of hassocks, in almsgiving also, and what charitable work was possible in that desert region; above all, they kept up, night and day, a continual repetition of the English liturgy, being divided into relays and watches, one watch relieving another, as on shipboard, and never allowing at any hour the sacred fire to go out."
In October, 1623, the king declared his intention to grant a new charter modelled after that of 1606. This astounding order was read three times, at a meeting of the company, before they could credit their own ears; then, by an overwhelming vote, they refused to relinquish their charter, and expressed their determination to defend it.
The king, in order to procure additional evidence to be used against the company, appointed five commissioners to make inquiries in Virginia into the state and condition of the colony. In November, 1623, when two of these commissioners had just sailed for Virginia, the king ordered a writ of quo warranto to be issued against the Virginia Company.
In the colony, hitherto, the proclamations of the governors, which had formed the rule of action, were now enacted into laws; and it was declared that the governor should no more impose taxes on the colonists without the consent of the Assembly, and that he should not withdraw the inhabitants from their private labor to any service of his; and further, that the burgesses should be free from arrest during the session of the Assembly. These acts of the legislature of the infant colony, while under the control of the Virginia Company, render it certain that there was more of constitutional and well-regulated freedom in Virginia then, than in the mother country.