After solemn religious service, Lord De la Ware read his commission. A consultation was held for the good of the colony; government was organised with mildness but decision. The terrible crisis through which the colony had passed, like the effect of severe fever on the human frame, had left it at first weak perhaps, but renovated as by a new principle of life; the disease—the moral disease—was gone from the colony. The colonists now performed, with obedience and alacrity, their duties in truth and piety, assembling every morning before commencing the labours of the day in the little church, which was kept neatly trimmed with the wild flowers of the country, after which they returned home and received their allowance of food. Labour went on with cheerfulness; the houses were made warm and home-like. Comfort and prosperity returned to the colony.
In the dawn of this better day the health of the excellent Lord De la Ware declined. His mild virtues had been as efficient in the milder elements now composing the colony, as the higher character of Smith had been on its more turbulent elements; and his loss at this time was very great. He returned to England within less than a year of his arrival, leaving Percy, as Smith had done before him, as his deputy. The colony now consisted of 200 men, and the departure of their beloved governor cast a gloom on all hearts.
Fortunately Sir Thomas Dale, a worthy and experienced soldier in the Low Countries, had been already despatched from England with supplies; and he arriving in the colony very soon after Lord De la Ware’s departure, assumed the government, which he administered well, though with severity, and more according to martial than civil law. Dale, nevertheless, was a judicious governor; he saw the wants of the colony, and he strenuously endeavoured to remedy them. As regarded the small number and ill-provided condition of the colonists, he wrote home entreating that these things should be cared for, assuring the company that their purses and their endeavours would never open nor travel in a more meritorious enterprise. “Take four of the best kingdoms of Christendom,” says he, “and put all together, they may in no way compare with this country, either for commodities or goodness of soil.” And Lord De la Ware in England testified to the same effect. In consequence of these representations, really efficient aid came. Sir Thomas Gates, now appointed governor, conducted six ships to Virginia, with 300 emigrants, 100 head of cattle, and other liberal supplies. And as “to oblige quickly is to oblige twice,” this aid was doubly welcome, because it was promptly given. Dale wrote his letter in May, and on the last day of August Sir Thomas Gates and his ships were seen advancing towards Jamestown. The colonists, who least of all expected so ready a response to their wishes, seeing what appeared a large fleet advancing, dreaded that an enemy might be at hand. This was a new terror, a new misfortune. As the fleet approached, however, they perceived, with unspeakable joy, that they were friends.
Sir Thomas Gates assumed his government with an act of solemn thanksgiving; and so deep was the sentiment of gratitude in the hearts of the colonists for this real, and, as it seemed, generous aid, that for a long time the morning and evening prayer of the colonists was, “Lord, bless England, our sweet native country!”
The colony now numbered 700. New settlements were formed, one situated up the river, called Henrico, after Prince Henry; and here, on the frontiers of the Indians, Alexander Whitaker, the “Apostle of Virginia,” preached the word of God to the natives. But perhaps the most efficient change which occurred in the colony had reference to the now established law of private property. To each man was allotted a few acres of land for a garden and orchard. Hitherto the land had all been worked in common, and the produce deposited in public stores. The excellent results of the new arrangement were soon apparent in the increased industry of all. To this shortly followed larger assignments of land, and before long the mode of common labour in the common field, to fill the public stores, was wholly abandoned. From this time the sanctity of private property, at least as regarded the colonists, was recognised. The colonists themselves still made free with the possessions of the Indians; as regarded them, might, which was strong in their hands, was right, as is too often the case where the civilised man deals with the savage.
In March, 1612, a new charter was obtained by the London company for Virginia, which produced an important change in the constitution of the colony, and through which the first seed of democracy was introduced into the government of Anglo-America. Hitherto, as we have seen, all power had been vested in the council, which under the first charter was appointed by the king; now the control of the company’s affairs was removed from the council, and placed in the hands of the stockholders themselves, who were empowered to convene meetings for the transaction of the lesser business, whilst a great and general court was held once a quarter for important business. This charter also allowed the company to raise money by means of lotteries; but this liberty, after a few years, was withdrawn as a public evil.
The powers of the company were increased by the new charter, and the affairs of the colony assumed an aspect of stable prosperity. As in the days of Smith, the Indians entered into treaties of alliance, nay, even went beyond it, declaring themselves tributaries of the English.
A marriage now took place in the colony, which forms an important event in its annals, and the details of which we must give somewhat at length. Captain Argall, an adventurer, who had come to Virginia in a trading ship, being on one occasion sent up the Potomac to trade for corn, fell in with the young Indian girl, Pocahontas, who had at that time been absent from the colony of Jamestown for two years. Aided by a chief of the district, whom Argall had bribed with a brass kettle, Pocahontas was induced to go on board his ship, when he carried her off to Jamestown. Powhatan demanded the restoration of his daughter, which Argall refused without ransom. The naturally indignant chief prepared for war, when a deliverer appeared for the young Indian girl in the person of John Rolfe, an honest and discreet young Englishman. I will give the narrative in the words of Bancroft. “Rolfe was an amiable enthusiast, who had emigrated to the forests of Virginia, daily, hourly, and as it were in his very sleep, hearing a voice crying in his ears that he should strive to make Pocahontas a Christian. With the solicitude of a troubled soul, he reflected on the true end of his being. ‘The Holy Spirit,’ such are his own expressions, ‘demanded of me why I was created? and conscience whispered, that, rising above the censure of the low-minded, I should lead the blind in the right paths.’ After a great struggle of mind, and daily and believing prayers, he resolved to labour for the conversion of the unregenerated maiden, and winning the favour of Pocahontas herself, he desired her in marriage. Quick of comprehension, the Indian girl received instruction readily, and soon, in the little church of Jamestown, which rested on rough pine columns, fresh from the forest, and was in a style of rugged architecture as wild, if not as frail, as an Indian wigwam, she stood before the font which had been hollowed from the trunk of a tree, and, renouncing her country’s idolatry, professed the faith of Jesus Christ, and was baptized.” The gaining of this one soul, the first-fruits of Virginian conversion, was followed by her nuptials with Rolfe. In April, 1613, to the joy of Sir Thomas Dale, with the approbation of her father and her friends, Opachisco, her uncle, gave the bride away; and she stammered before the altar her marriage-vows according to the rites of the English church.
Every historian of Virginia commemorates the marriage of Rolfe to the Indian Pocahontas with approbation. In the year 1616, the Indian wife, instructed in the English language, and bearing the English name of Rebecca, the very first Christian of her nation, in company with Dale, who had resigned his office of governor, sailed with her husband for England. The daughter of the wilderness possessed the mild elements of female loveliness, rendered still more beautiful by the child-like simplicity with which her education in the savannahs of the New World had invested her. In London she had the pleasure of meeting with her old friend, John Smith, and by him she was recommended to the notice of the Queen. She was caressed at court, and admired in the city. Nevertheless, so absurd were the prevailing notions at that time regarding royalty in England, that Rolfe narrowly escaped being called to account, because he, a commoner, had married a princess!
“As a wife and a young mother, Pocahontas was exemplary; she had been able to contrast the magnificence of European life with the freedom of the western forest, and now, as she was preparing to return to America, at the age of twenty-two, she fell a victim to the English climate, saved, as by the hand of mercy, from beholding the extermination of the tribes whence she sprung; leaving a spotless name, and surviving in memory under the form of perpetual youth.” The Bollands and the Randolphs, two of the most distinguished families of Virginia, are proud to trace their descent from this marriage.