It was not the intention of James I. that the overthrow of the Company should contribute in any way to increase the liberties of the colony of Virginia. All colonizable territory claimed by Great Britain was, in his opinion, just so much royal domain, something which came to him by inheritance like the barony of Renfrew or the manor of Windsor; it was his to do what he liked with it, and for settlers in such territory no better law was needed than such as he could make for them himself. A shadow of doubt as to his own omniscience was never one of James's weaknesses, and no sooner had the Company's charter been annulled than he set himself to work to draw up a constitution for Virginia. It was work of a sort that he thoroughly enjoyed, but what might have come of it will never be known, for while he was busy with it there came upon him what the doctors called a tertian ague, which carried him off in March, 1625.
Effect of the downfall of the Company.
In the history of England no era is marked by the accession of Charles I. In its policy and methods, and in the political problems at issue, his reign was merely the continuation of his father's. But in the history of Virginia his accession marks an important era. For if James had lived to complete his constitution for Virginia he would in all probability have swept away the representative government introduced by Sir Edwin Sandys; but Charles allowed it to stand. As the situation was left by the death of James, so it remained without essential change until 1776. The House of Burgesses was undisturbed, but the governor and council were thenceforth appointed by the crown. The colony was thus left less independent than it would have been if the Company, with its power of electing its own executive officers, could have been transferred bodily to Virginia; but it was left more independent than it would have been if the existence of the Company had been continued in London. The change from governors appointed by the Company to governors appointed by the crown was a relaxation of the supervision which England exercised over Virginia. For the Company could devote all its attention to the affairs of the colony, but the crown could not. Especially in such reigns as those of the two Charleses, the attention of the crown was too much absorbed with affairs in Great Britain to allow it to interfere decisively with the course of events in Virginia. The colony was thus in the main thrown back upon its own resources, and such a state of things was most favourable to its wholesome development. The Company, after all, was a commercial corporation, and the main object of its existence was to earn money for its shareholders. The pursuit of that object was by no means always sure to coincide with the best interests of the colony. Moreover, although the government of the Company from 1619 to 1624 was conducted with energy and sagacity, disinterestedness, honesty, and breadth of view such as history has seldom seen rivalled, yet there was no likelihood that such would always be the case. Such a combination of men in responsible positions as Southampton and Sandys and Ferrar is too rare to be counted upon. The Company might have passed for a weary while under the control of incompetent or unscrupulous men, and to a young colony like Virginia such a contingency would have been not only disagreeable but positively dangerous. No community, indeed, can long afford to have its affairs administered by a body of men so far away as to be out of immediate touch with it. On the other hand, even if we could suppose a commercial company to go on year after year managing a colony with so much intelligence and sympathy as the London Company showed in its last days, such a situation would not be permanently wholesome for the colony. What men need is not fostering or coddling, but the chance to give free play to their individual capacities. If coddling and fostering could make a colony thrive, the French in Canada ought to have dominated North America. From all points of view, therefore, it seems to have been well for Virginia that the Company fell when it did. It established self-government there, set its machinery successfully to work, and then vanished from the scene, like the Jinni in some Oriental tale, leaving its good gift behind.
The virus of liberty.
The boon of self-government was so congenial to the temper of the Virginians that they would doubtless have contrived somehow to obtain it sooner or later. Hutchinson tells us that when the second American house of representatives was instituted, namely, that of Massachusetts Bay in 1634, the people were well aware that no provision for anything of the sort had been made in of their charter, but they assumed that the right to such representation was implied by that clause of the charter which reserved to them the natural rights of Englishmen;[111] and elsewhere the same eminent historian quaintly speaks of a House of Burgesses as having broken out in Virginia in 1619, as if there were an incurable virus of liberty in the English blood, as if it were something that must come out as inevitably as original sin. But if James I. had lived longer, as I have already observed, he would undoubtedly have made an effort to repress this active spirit of liberty. The colonists, on hearing of the downfall of the Company, were in great alarm lest they should lose their House of Burgesses, and have some arbitrary governor appointed to rule over them, perhaps the hated Argall himself, whom we have seen King James selecting as one of a board of commissioners to investigate affairs in Virginia. In 1621, when for some reason or other the amiable and popular Yeardley had asked to be relieved of the duties of governor, Argall had tried to get himself appointed in his place, but the Company had chosen Sir Francis Wyatt, who held the office until 1626, while Yeardley remained in Virginia as a member of the council. In 1625, as soon as the assembly heard of King James's death, they sent Yeardley to England to pay their respects to King Charles and to assure him that the people of Virginia were thoroughly satisfied with their government and hoped that no changes would be made in it.
Charles I. and the tobacco trade.
Now it happened that Charles had a favour to ask of the settlers in Virginia, and was in the right sort of mood for a bargain. He was no more in love than his father with the many-tongued beast called Parliament, he saw how comfortably his brother-in-law of France was getting along without such assistance, and he was determined if possible to do likewise. But to get along without parliaments a poor king must have some means of getting money. The Virginia tobacco crop was fast becoming a great source of wealth; why should not the king himself go into the tobacco trade? If all tobacco brought to England from Virginia could be consigned to him, then he could retail it to consumers at his own price and realize a gigantic profit; or, what was perhaps still better, having obtained this monopoly, he could farm it out to various agents who would be glad to pay roundly for the privilege. Now the only way in which he could treat with the people of Virginia on such matters was through the representatives of the people. Accordingly, when Governor Wyatt in 1626 had occasion to return to England, the king sent back Sir George Yeardley as royal governor, which under the circumstances was a most emphatic assurance that the wishes of the settlers should be granted. Furthermore, in a message to their representatives Charles graciously addressed them as "Our trusty and well-beloved Burgesses of the Grand Assembly of Virginia," and thus officially recognized that house as a coördinate branch of the colonial government. Some arrangements made with regard to the tobacco trade were calculated to please the colonists. James I., under the influence of his mentor, Count Gondomar, had browbeaten the Company into an arrangement by which they consented to import into England not more than 60,000 or less than 40,000 pounds of tobacco yearly from the Spanish colonies. Charles I. on the other hand prohibited the importation of Spanish tobacco, so that Virginia and the Bermudas had a monopoly of the market. In spite of this friendly attitude of the king toward the colonists, he never succeeded in becoming the sole purchaser of their tobacco at a stipulated price. The assembly was ready from time to time to entertain various proposals, but it never went so far as that; and if Charles, in sanctioning this little New World parliament, counted upon getting substantial aid in ignoring his Parliament at home, he was sadly disappointed.
The first American legislature.
It is now time for us to attend a session of this House of Burgesses, to make a report of its work, and to mention some of the vicissitudes which it encountered in the course of the reign of Charles I. The place of meeting was the wooden church at Jamestown, 50 feet in length by 20 in width, built in 1619, for Lord Delaware's church had become dilapidated; a solid brick church, 56 feet by 28, was built there in 1639. From the different plantations and hundreds the burgesses came mostly in their barges or sloops to Jamestown. In 1634 the colony was organized into counties and parishes, and the burgesses thenceforth represented counties, but they always kept their old title. At first the governor, council, and burgesses met together in a single assembly, just as in Massachusetts until 1644, just as in England the Lords and Commons usually sat together before 1339.[112] A member of this Virginia parliament must take his breakfast of bacon and hoe-cake betimes, for the meeting was called together at the third beat of the drum, one hour after sunrise. The sessions were always opened with prayers, and every absence from this service was punished with a fine of one shilling. The fine for absence during the whole day was half a crown. In the choir of the church sat the governor and council, their coats trimmed with gold lace. By the statute of 1621, passed in this very church, no one was allowed to wear gold lace except these high officials and the commanders of hundreds, a class of dignitaries who in 1634 were succeeded by the county lieutenants. In the body of the church, facing the choir, sat the burgesses in their best attire, with starched ruffs, and coats of silk or velvet in bright colours. All sat with their hats on, in imitation of the time-honoured custom of the House of Commons, an early illustration of the democratic doctrine, "I am as good as you." These burgesses had their speaker, as well as their clerk and sergeant-at-arms. Such was the first American legislature, and two of its acts in the year 1624 were especially memorable. One was the declaration, passed without any dissenting voice, "that the governor shall not lay any taxes or impositions upon the colony, their lands or commodities, otherway than by the authority of the general assembly, to be levied and employed as the said assembly shall appoint." The other was the punishment of Edward Sharpless, clerk of the house. When the king's commissioners to inquire into the affairs of Virginia asked for the public records of the colony the assembly refused to show them, albeit they were ready to answer questions propounded in a becoming temper. But the commissioners practised upon Sharpless and induced him to furnish them with a copy of the records, whereupon the assembly condemned the said Sharpless to stand in the pillory and have half of one ear cut off.
Martin's case.