[258] A gentleman of the honorable family of Beverstone Castle, County Gloucester.
[259] He was the brother of Sir Edwin Sandys, the late Treasurer of the Company. He was born in 1577, and in 1610 visited Turkey, Palestine, and Egypt. An account of his travels was published at Oxford in 1615.
[260] Chalmers’ Introduction, i. 13-16. The Ordinance and Wyatt’s Commission may be seen in Hening’s Statutes, i. 110-113.
[261] In the Indian massacre of March 22, 1622, Daniel Gookin bravely maintained his settlement. He served as a burgess from Elizabeth City, and later returned to Ireland. His son, of the same name, becoming a convert to the missionaries sent from New England in 1642, and declining to take the oath of conformity, removed in May, 1644, to Boston. He afterwards became eminent in New England, was the author of several historical works, and held various offices of dignity and importance.
[262] In 1687, and again in 1696, Colonel William Byrd, the first of the name in Virginia, undertook the revival of the iron-works at Falling Creek; but there is no record preserved of his plans having been successfully carried out. New iron-works were, however, erected here by Colonel Archibald Cary prior to 1760, which he operated with pig-iron from Maryland, but in the year named he abandoned the forge because of its lack of profit, and converted his pond to the use of a grist-mill. The site of the works of 1622 on the western bank of the creek, and that of Cary’s forge of 1760 on the opposite side of the same water, have both been identified by the present writer by the scoriæ remaining about the ground. The manufacture of iron in Virginia was revived by Governor Alexander Spotswood at Germanna about 1716.
[263] [See chapter xiii.—Ed.]
[264] These were James City, Henrico, Charles City, Elizabeth City, Warwick River, Warrosquoyoke, Charles River, and Accomac.
[265] These magnates, who were called colonels were usually members of the Council, and their functions were magisterial as well as military.
[266] Hening states that “there is a patent granted by Harvey 13th April, 1636.”—Statutes at Large, i. 4.
[267] It was fully three quarters of a century thereafter before Dissent became appreciable in the colony. Governor Spotswood wrote the Bishop of London, Oct. 24, 1710: “It is a peculiar blessing to this Country to have but few of any kind of Dissenters;” and adds the following, which may be taken in refutation of many gross misrepresentations of the moral and social condition of the colonists at the period: “I have observed here less Swearing and Prophaneness, less Drunkenness and Debauchery, less uncharitable feuds and animositys, and less Knaverys and Villanys than in any part of the world where my Lot has been.” He also wrote to the Council of Trade, Dec. 15, 1710: “That happy Establishment of the Church of England, which the Colony enjoys with less mixture of Dissenters than any other of her Majesty’s plantations;” and to the Earl of Rochester, July 30, 1711, in ample confirmation of his earlier judgment, he wrote: “This Government, I can joyfully assure your Lordship, is in perfect peace and tranquility under a due Obedience to the Royal Authority and a Genll. Conformity to the Established Church of England.” See The Official Letters of Governor Alexander Spotswood, 1710-1722, published by the Virginia Historical Society, with Introduction and Notes by R. A. Brock, vol. i. pp. 27 and 108.