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Not an incident is related of him which does not illustrate the possession of a Christian spirit. The wholesome influence by which he was enabled to control the angry passions of his companions, was probably founded in their respect for his consistent piety: and as we hear of no efforts made to enrich himself in the colony, it is not difficult to believe that his emigration resulted from an honest desire to supply the ministrations of the gospel to the destitute and benighted. This, it should be recollected, was one of the avowed objects expressed in the king's instructions to the Company, "That the said presidents, councils, and the ministers should provide that the true word and service of God be preached, planted, and used, not only in the said colonies, but also as much as might be among the savages bordering upon them, according to the rites and doctrines of the Church of England." Indeed, by those who made the first efforts to colonize Virginia, the diffusion of Christianity was always held forth as one of the objects of the enterprise. As far back as 1588, when Sir Walter Raleigh made an assignment of his patent to Thomas Smith and others, he accompanied it with a donation of one hundred pounds, " for the propagation of the Christian religion in Virginia." It was also enjoined in the royal instructions, issued in 1606, "that all persons should kindly treat the savage and heathen people in those parts, and use all proper means to draw them to the true service and knowledge of God." And the first charter assigns as one of the reasons for the grant, that the contemplated undertaking was "a work which may, by the providence of Almighty God, hereafter tend to the glory of his divine majesty, in propagating of Christian religion to such people as yet live in darkness and miserable ignorance of the true knowledge and worship of God."+

* Burk's Hist. of Virginia, vol. i.

p. 66.

+ Ibid. p. 91.

1 Charter-1 Hazard's State Pa

pers, 51.

On the 26th of April, 1607, the little fleet of three ships entered the Chesapeake; and on the 13th of May the colonists landed. Upon a peninsula which projects from the northern shore of James River may still be seen the ruins of a tower which once formed part of a Christian church; and this, with its surrounding graveyard, is now almost the only memorial left to mark the site of what once was James Town. Here it was that the emigrants debarked, and on this ground was erected the first church in Virginia. Scarcely, however, had the colonists landed, before the pious interposition of Mr. Hunt again became necessary to appease the animosity of the president of the council and the celebrated Captain Smith. His effort proved successful. Smith was received into the council; and on the 14th of May partook, with his rival, of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, which was then administered for the first time in Virginia. James Town was the first permanent habitation of the English in America; and Virginia commenced its career of civilization with one of the most impressive solemnities of the Christian church.

To trace the gradual progress of this little band of pioneers, in the establishment of a colony which "grew up in misery," might afford matter of painful interest; but it comports not with the purpose of this narrative to allude to any transactions in the infant settlement, other than those which are connected with the condition and progress of the church. The piety of the emigrants, stimulated by the exhortations of their teacher, led to the almost immediate erection of an edifice, humble, indeed, as were the rude habitations by which it was surrounded, but hallowed as the place dedicated to the worship of the Almighty. A few months only had elapsed before a fire accidentally commencing in the storehouse, speedily communicated to the other buildings of the village, (for the whole town was thatched with reeds,) and the church shared in the common calamity. The incident served to bring out into bolder

relief the Christian virtues of the worthy clergyman. Mr. Hunt had taken with him his library, which, though not. large, was, under the circumstances, doubly valuable; and this, together with every thing he had, was consumed. With the church destroyed and the town in ashes, without a shelter for his head or clothing for his nakedness, deprived of a source of enjoyment which the man of books knows how to appreciate, and with the sorrows and sufferings of his fellow-creatures to excite his warmest sympathies, it would not have been wonderful had the weakness of human nature been heard in the murmurs of despondency; but no groan escaped him. Disease also was added to the list of afflictions; for between the months of May and September no less than one-half of the colonists died; and yet it is recorded of this excellent man that he never was heard to repine,* but, meeting with a submissive and cheerful spirit these successive visitations of Providence, he encouraged his drooping companions; and supported by the persevering energy of Captain Smith, the true father of Virginia, he exhorted the wavering and comforted the despairing; so that in the spring of 1608 he found the reward of his labours in the town rebuilt and the church restored.†

Of such a man, it is natural to lament that more is not known. How long he lived in the colony, is a point on which there exists no certain information. But little trace has been found of Mr. Hunt after this period; it is known, however, that he never left Virginia: he literally gave his life to the cause in which he had embarked. Had nothing more been related of him than that he was twice able to reconcile the discords of angry rulers, without being claimed as a partisan by either,

* Stith's Virginia, 59. † Ibid. 76.

Captain John Smith's "Advertisements for the inexperienced Plan

ters of New-England, or anywhere," &c. Mass. Historical Collections, vol. iii. series 3.

he would have left behind him a reputation becoming the minister of Him who said, "Blessed are the peace-makers." But though more cannot with certainty be affirmed of the conduct of Mr. Hunt, the conjecture is not improbable that he lived for some time in the colony, and that the first recorded marriage in Virginia was solemnized by him.* It was in the year 1608 that a white woman was first seen in the colony; and the historians of that day relate the fact of her marriage soon after her arrival.†

The next record with which we meet of the presence of a clergyman in the colony is found in the history of the providential arrival of Lord De la War at the moment when the inhabitants had embarked for England, with a determination to forsake the country for ever. The circumstances which prompted the colonists to this abandonment form a sorrowful page in the early history of Virginia. When the four small vessels in which they had embarked fell down James River with the tide, it is recorded that "none dropped a tear, because none had enjoyed one day of happiness." Famine had done its fearful work so effectually, that in the short space of six months five hundred had been reduced to sixty; and the horrors of this eventful period of suffering were for years remembered and perpetuated in the expressive phrase," The starving time." It was on the 10th of June, 1610, that Lord De la War arrived; he had brought with him a chaplain; and the incidents which immediately followed his landing are best related in the language of an eyewitness, whose narrative has been preserved by Purchas: "We cast anchor before James Towne, where we landed; and our much grieved governour first visiting the church, caused the bell to be rung, at which all such as were able to come forth of their houses repayred to church, where our minister, Master Bucke, made a zealous and sorrowfull.prayer; finding all

* See Holmes's Annals, vol. i. p. 132, note 1.

† Beverly's Hist. of Virginia, 19;

1 Holmes's Annals, 132.

things so contrary to our expectations, so full of misery and misgovernment."*

Up to the time of Lord De la War's arrival, the colony had been governed by a president and council. In 1609 the Company in England had obtained from the king another charter, by which the form of government was in some measure altered, and the affairs of the colony placed under the direction of certain officers, to be elected and sent out by the Company. And it is worthy of note that such was the dread of popery, that it was declared in the new charter that no person should pass into Virginia but such as should first have taken the oath of supremacy.† Under the new charter, Lord De la War was chosen to be the first governor of Virginia, an officer before unknown in the colony; and under his judicious direction affairs were soon re-established.

This change in the government, from an aristocracy to the dominion of one, is mentioned, because, prior to this time, there does not seem to have been any interference by the Company in England with the religious affairs of the colony. The adventurers were left to their own sense of piety and the instructions of their spiritual teachers, as being sufficient to prompt them to a proper care of the institutions of religion; and nothing more definite had been said than that the exercise of Christianity in the New World should conform to the rites, ceremonies, and doctrines of the Church of England. But after this period we find more specific instructions sent from the mother country; and religion began to form one of the subjects of the very imperfect legislation of the Company for their distant colony. The ill health of Lord De la War was such that in a few months he was obliged to leave his government in the hands of a substitute, until the 10th of May, 1611, when Sir Thomas Dale, the new governor, arrived.

* 4 Purchas, book ix. chap. vi.

+ 2d Charter, 1 Hazard's State Papers, 72.

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