Effects of tobacco culture.
In Virginia the first settlers found the Indians cultivating tobacco in small gardens. The first Englishman to make experiments with it is said to have been John Rolfe in 1612. Under Yeardley's first administration, in 1616, the cultivation of tobacco became fairly established, and from that time forth it was a recognized staple of the colony. The effects of this were very notable. As the great purchasing power of a tobacco crop came to be generally known, the people of Virginia devoted themselves more and more to its cultivation, until nearly all other crops and most other forms of industry were neglected. Thus the type of society, as we shall hereafter see, was largely determined by the cultivation of tobacco. Moreover a clear and positive inducement was now offered for emigration such as had not existed before since the first dreams of gold and silver were dispelled. After the first disappointments it became difficult to persuade men of hard sense to go to Virginia, and we have seen what a wretched set of people were drawn together by the Company's communistic schemes. But those who came to acquire wealth by raising tobacco were of a better sort, men of business-like ideas who knew what they wanted and how to devote themselves to the task of getting it. With the establishment of tobacco culture there began a steady improvement in the characters and fortunes of the colonists, and the demand for their staple in Europe soon became so great as forever to end the possibility of perishing from want. Henceforth whatever a Virginian needed he could buy with tobacco.
The London Company's third charter, 1612.
Lotteries.
We have now to see how Virginia, which was fast becoming able to support itself, became also a self-governing community. The administrations of Lord Delaware, of Dale, of Yeardley, and of Argall, were all despotisms, whether mild or harsh. To trace the evolution of free government, we must take our start in the year 1612, when the London Company obtained its third charter. The immediate occasion for taking out this charter was the desire of the Company to include among its possessions the Bermuda Islands, and they were now added to Virginia. At the same time it was felt that the government of the Company needed some further emendation in order to give the members more direct and continuous control over its proceedings. It was thus provided that there should be weekly meetings, at which not less than five members of the council and fifteen of the Company must be present. Besides this there were to be held four general courts or quarter sessions in the course of each year, for electing the treasurer and council and passing laws for the government of the colony. At these quarter sessions charges could be brought against delinquent servants of the Company, which was clothed with full judicial powers of hearing and deciding such cases and inflicting punishments. A good many subscribers had been alarmed by evil tidings from Virginia so that they would refuse or more often would simply neglect to pay in the amount of their subscriptions. To remedy these evils the Company was empowered to expel delinquent members or to bring suits in law and equity against them to recover damages or compel performance. Furthermore, it was allowed to replenish its treasury by setting up lotteries, a practice in which few people at that time saw anything objectionable. Such a lottery was held at a house in St. Paul's Churchyard, in July, 1612, of which the continuator of Stow's Chronicle tells us: "This lottery was so plainly carried and honestly performed that it gave full satisfaction to all persons. Thomas Sharplisse, a tailor of London, had the chief prize, viz., 4,000 crowns in fair plate, which was sent to his house in very stately manner. During the whole time of the drawing of this lottery, there were always present divers worshipful knights and esquires, accompanied with sundry grave discreet citizens." In September the Spanish ambassador, Zuñiga, wrote home that "there was a lottery on foot to raise 20,000 ducats [equivalent to about $40,000]. In this all the livery companies adventured. The grocers ventured £62 15s., and won a silver [dish] and cover valued at £13 10s."[92]
The Company becomes an important force in politics.
Opposition to the charter: Middleton's speech.
This remodelling of the Company's charter was an event of political importance. Formerly the meetings of the Company had been few and far between, and its affairs had been practically controlled by the council, and in many cases by its chief executive officer, the treasurer, Sir Thomas Smith. Now the weekly meetings of the Company, and its courts of quarter sessions, armed with such legislative and judicial powers, put a new face upon things. It made the Company a democratic self-governing body, and when we recall the membership of the Company we can see what this meant. There were fifty-six of the craft-guilds or liveried companies of the city of London, whose lord mayor was also a prominent member, and the political spirit of London was aggressively liberal and opposed to high prerogative. There were also more than a hundred London merchants and more than two hundred persons belonging to the nobility and gentry, including some of the foremost peers and knights in the party hostile to the Stuart king's pretensions. The meetings of the Company were full of discussions which could not help taking a political turn, since some of the most burning political questions of the day—as, for example, the great dispute over monopolies and other disputes—were commercial in character. Men's eyes were soon opened to the existence of a great deliberative body outside of Parliament and expressing itself with much freedom on exciting topics. The social position and weighty character of the members drew general attention to their proceedings, especially as many of them were also members of either the House of Lords or the House of Commons. We can easily believe the statement that the discussions of the Company were followed with even deeper interest than the debates in Parliament. It took a few years for this aspect of the situation to become fully developed, but opposition to the new charter was soon manifested, even by sundry members of the Company itself. Some of them agreed with Sergeant Montague that to confer such vast and vague powers upon a mercantile corporation was unconstitutional. In a debate in Parliament in 1614 a member of the Company named Middleton attacked the charter on the ground that trade with Virginia and agriculture there needed more strict regulation than it was getting. "The shopkeepers of London," he said, "sent over all kinds of goods, for which they received tobacco instead of coin, infinitely to the prejudice of the Commonwealth. Many of the divines now smell of tobacco, and poor men spend 4d. of their day's wages at night in smoke. [He] wished that this patent may be damned, and an act of Parliament passed for the government of the colony by a company."[93]
Mr. Martin forgets himself,
and has to apologize.