to its interests than to those of the college; they allotted for the maintenance of the master and usher one thousand acres of land, with five servants and an overseer. The school was to have dependance on the college, into which, as soon as it should be sufficiently endowed and fit for the reception of students, pupils were to be admitted from the school, and advanced according to their proficiency in learning.*

It cannot, therefore, with propriety be charged upon either the Company or the colonists that they were unmindful of the importance of education to the advancement of Christianity and the prosperity of the little community. And it is but justice to the good men of a former age to record this instance of their pious zeal, in the effort which they made to cause God's "way to be known upon earth," his "saving health among all nations."

Sir George Yeardly having expressed a wish to retire from the office of governor, in 1621 Sir Francis Wyatt was appointed to succeed him; and it is to be presumed that the enactments of the legislature of 1619 had not been carried into full effect; for in the instructions of the Company to the new governor, he was directed "to take into especial regard the service of Almighty God and the observance of his divine laws, and that the people should be trained up in true religion and virtue. And since their endeavours for the establishment of the honour and rights of the church and ministry had not yet taken due effect," the Company required of the governor and assembly "to employ their utmost care to advance all things appertaining to the order and administration of divine service, according to the form of the Church of England; carefully to avoid all factious and needless novelties, which only tended to the disturbance of peace and unity; and to cause that the ministers. should be duly respected and maintained, and the churches

* Stith, 204; 1 Holmes, 173.

or places appointed for divine service decently accommodated, according to former order in that behalf."*

The spiritual good of the natives seems also to have been an object of deep solicitude; for in the same body of instructions, the Company pressed upon the governor and assembly, in a particular manner, "the using all probable means of bringing over the natives to a love of civilization, and to the love of God, and his true religion." To this purpose a pious example among the English in their own persons and families was strongly recommended; and the employment of the natives as labourers for hire was directed, to familiarize them to the customs of civilized life, and thus gradually to bring them to a knowledge of Christianity, that they might be employed as instruments “in the general conversion of their countrymen, so much desired." It was also recommended "that each town, borough, and hundred, should procure, by just means, a certain number of Indian children, to be brought up in the first elements of literature; that the most towardly of these should be fitted for the college, in building of which they purposed to proceed as soon as any profit arose from the estate appropriated to that use; and they earnestly required their earnest help and furtherance in that pious and important work; not doubting the particular blessing of God upon the colony, and being assured of the love of all good men upon that account."+

But these prosperous beginnings and commendable efforts were destined soon to be entirely defeated by causes from which no danger was apprehended. The whites (ever since the marriage of Pocahontas) had lived on terms of amity with the natives, nor had anything of recent date occurred to interrupt the harmony. The peace existing between the parties was the result of solemn treaty, and repeated assurances to the English of entire ↑ 1 Burk, 225, 226

Stith, 194; 1 Henings's Statutes, at large, 114.

friendship on the part of their savage neighbours completely disarmed suspicion. "Sooner shall the sky fall," said the wily Indian chief, "than the peace shall be violated on my part." But in the midst of all these professions, a conspiracy, consisting of no less than thirty Indian nations, was for nearly four years maturing its plans for the utter extirpation of the English at a single blow; and its proceedings were marked by that characteristic cunning, and consummate duplicity so well understood by him who has studied the savage of North America. Not a word was said, nor a sign given, which could betray the secrets of the confederacy; and of all the thirty nations, not a single Indian was found for four years to violate his engagements. They kept their counsel but too well for the unfortunate colony; for, on the 22d of March, 1622, hordes of savages burst upon the unsuspecting and defenceless whites, and, involving in indiscriminate slaughter all whom they met, without distinction of age or sex, in the short space of one hour, murdered no less than three hundred and forty-seven men, women, and children. The attack was made simultaneously at thirty-one different settlements, and of the labourers on the lands of the college, seventeen were slain. The inhabitants who escaped sought of course the protection of James Town, where the governor concentrated the remains of the colony; the plantations were abandoned, and to the horrors of massacre were soon superadded the miseries of famine. Of eighty plantations which were advancing to completion, eight only remained; and of twenty-nine hundred and sixty inhabitants, eighteen hundred were all that were left.* These survivors turned their thoughts on vengeance towards their foes, and the affairs of the college were forgotten.

"A declaration of the state of the colony and affairs in Virginia, with a relation of the barbarous massacre in the time of peace and league, treacherously executed by the native

infidels upon the English, the 22d of March last," p 13. Purchas, book ix. ch. xv.; 1 Burk, 240; 1 Holmes's Annals, 178.

The massacre of Opecancanough thus gave a death-blow to the first efforts made in America for the establishment of a college, and years elapsed before the attempt was renewed.

As connected with the slaughter of the whites, an incident occurred which should find a place in this narrative, because it affords proof of the success with which the clergy of the colony had laboured for the conversion of some, at least, of the heathen around them. The preservation of that portion of the colony which escaped, was owing solely to the affection and fidelity of a Christianized native. This Indian, by name Chanco, lived with Richard Pace, and was beloved by his master with an affection at once Christian and parental.

On the night preceding the massacre, the brother of Chanco slept with him, and enjoining secrecy, communicated to him the intended massacre, with a command from his chief Opecancanough, that he should murder his master. The grateful Indian, immediately on his brother's departure, hastened to Pace, and disclosed what had been communicated to him. His master knew him too well to doubt his information for a moment, and instantly, before day, repaired to the governor at James Town, which, with the adjoining settlements, was put in a posture of defence, and so escaped the threatened ruin. “And thus," says a contemporary, who furnishes this account, "the rest of the colony, that had warning given them, by this means was saved. Such was (God be thanked for it) the good fruit of an infidel converted to Christianity; for though three hundred and more of ours died by many of these pagan infidels, yet thousands of ours were saved by the means of one of them alone which was made a Christian."*

It has been remarked, by a European annalist,† that "the emigrants, notwithstanding the humane instructions of their + Chalmers, b. 1. 58.

4 Purchas, p. 1790; 1 Burk,

sovereign, and the prudent orders of the Company, had never been solicitous to cultivate the good-will of the aborigines." However true this assertion may be in many instances, it is gratifying to find, in the history of Chanco, that it is not true in all. A reflection here presents itself, not unworthy of a passing notice. We have now twice seen the colony saved through the agency, direct or indirect, of the clergy. In the commencement of the enterprise, the piety of Mr. Hunt was exerted to appease the quarrels of the rival leaders of the colony; and it was the Christianity taught by the clergy which induced the native convert to become an inmate, an affectionate servant, and a Christian friend in the habitation of an English settler. That Christian friendship saved the colony from destruction. It will not, therefore, be deemed rash to conclude that the clergy were not the most useless members of the infant settlement; and that they did not deserve to be so considered is attested by a modern historian, who, while he sneers at Christianity, yet describes the clergy of this day as "pious missionaries, with a temper and demeanour truly Christian."* To the ingenuity of the same historian must be left the task of reconciling the declaration just quoted, with a statement elsewhere made by him, that "the clergy had very early been regarded with a jealousy which checked their aspiring pretensions."† Aspiring pretensions belong not to pious men, with a temper and demeanour truly Christian; nor is it creditable to the characters of the founders of Virginia to represent them as having been roused to jealousy by the exhibition of humble piety. The fact is, that the clergy and the colony are both misrepresented, if the "early" period here spoken of is meant to embrace the time prior to 1622, for there is no evidence to establish the fact of jealousy on the one hand, or ambition on the other.

* 1 Burk, 250.

† 2 Burk, appendix, xxxi.