Before we join our colonists in their perilous enterprise we briefly sketch some of the peculiarities of the life whence they came. This will help to account for some things that follow. Of the political and literary aspects of the times, we must be allowed a short notice, in order that the ensuing story may be better understood.
A great convulsion, incident upon the Reformation, had passed over the world. It raged on the Continent, and then extended to England and Scotland, where it lasted until the death of Queen Elizabeth and the accession to the throne of James the First, when Protestantism was firmly established. The Roman Catholics were in high disfavour. The dreadful Gunpowder Plot had aggravated the bitterness against them. England, all the corruption at court notwithstanding, was full of religious enthusiasts. With them the experiment in Virginia was only the beginning of the conversion of a great multitude of savages. The first charter expressed[8] a pious longing that "so noble a work may by the providence of God hereafter tend to the glory of His Divine Majesty in the propagating of the Christian religion to such people as sit in darkness and miserable ignorance of the true knowledge and worship of God." "This is the work we first intended," says a writer of the time, "and have published to the world to be chief in our thoughts; to bring the infidel people from the worship of Devils to the service of God." "The end of this voyage is the destruction of the Devil's Kingdom," said the good clergyman who preached to the adventurers on the eve of their embarkation.
A more restless, inconsistent age cannot possibly be imagined. In literature a race of giants appeared whose works were the expression of the times. The epoch flowered in the great names which have made the age of Elizabeth so illustrious. Bacon had published his "Advancement of Learning," Spenser his "Faerie Queene," Shakespeare was at the head of a great group of literary giants. A fine stage was set for the monarch, just three years on his throne. He might have been the central jewel of a splendid setting! He might have been the inspiration of a noble era. All the material was at his hand. As it was, it is marvellous he did not plunge the country into ruin. Old England owes much to her House of Commons: "A troublesome body," said James, "but how can I get rid of it? I found it here!"
When Bartholomew Gosnold, Richard Hakluyt, Robert Hunt, John Smith, and others succeeded in obtaining a royal charter from the King, he busied himself in drawing up the instrument for the government of the colony.[9] "Everything began and ended with the King." A council of thirteen in London, appointed by himself, was to govern, controlling a subordinate council in Virginia. Trial by jury was allowed to criminals. The Christian religion was to be preached to the Indians. In other respects, the colony would have no rights other than those which King James the First chose to allow it. There were to be two colonies, one hundred miles to intervene between the boundaries of the two. The boundaries of the southern colony were enlarged and exactly defined in 1609. It was to embrace the territory two hundred miles north and two hundred miles south of the mouth of James River, and "to reach up into the land from sea to sea."
This vast territory was coolly claimed by the King of England, without the slightest regard to the present sojourners on the soil. Had they been wandering tribes never remaining long in one place, had the area of country been a debatable land, the claim might have been reasonable, but it soon appeared that the kingdom of Powhatan had descended to him from generation to generation, or been acquired by conquest. The land was accurately measured and "staked out," and was owned by his captains, who knew and respected their boundaries.
All these things combined, we can better understand the disasters and sufferings which ensued upon the landing of our adventurers.
CHAPTER IV
The most momentous hour in the history of this country was when three small ships "fell down the Thames from London," freighted with one hundred and five Englishmen on their way to plant England's first colony.
"This was the event," said a great American, "which decided our own fate; which guided our destiny before we were born, and settled the conditions in which we should pass that portion of our existence which God allows to men on earth."
The story of the company which was organized in London for this expedition, of the charter granted by James the First, of the means adopted to insure its success, and the mistakes we can now so easily perceive—all this has been told in many histories. It is a long story; also one involving side issues not within the scope of this writing. It is sufficient to say that the emigrants were subjected[10] to the ordinances of a commercial corporation of which they could not be members; to the dominion of a domestic council in the appointing of which they had no voice; to the control of a superior council in England which had no sympathy with their rights; and finally to the arbitrary legislation of the sovereign.