ple, now that he possessed the empire of his brother. But to meet them in the field was impossible, the disparity in arms was too great, and the numbers in fighting men now equal,* the attempt would be madness and desperation, and lead to that extermination of his race which he wished to avoid. His only resource was to strike some great and sudden blow which should annihilate the power of the colony at once. He had applied to a king who resided on the Eastern Shore, to purchase a subtle poisont which grew only in his dominions, but this king being on good terms with the whites and wishing to enjoy their trade refused to gratify him. His next resource was in a general massacre, to take effect upon all of the scattered plantations on the same day. The situation of the whites favored this design, they not only placed confidence in the words of the savages which had now been so long faithfully kept, but in their weakness and cowardice. They had extended their plantations over a space of one hundred and forty miles, on both sides of James river, and made some settlements in the neigh borhood of the Potomac; in short wherever a rich spot invited to the culti vation of tobacco, there were they established, and an absence of neighbors was preferred.‡ The planters were careless with their arms, never using their swords, and their fire-arms only for game. The old law making it criminal to teach a savage the use of arms was forgotten, and they were fowlers and hunters, for many of the planters, by which means they became well acquainted with the use of arms and the places in which they were kept. One great object with the settlers, and with the company, in whose instructions we find it perpetually enjoined, had been the conversion of the Indians to the christian-religion. To promote this pious object, they had always been received in the most friendly manner, they became market people to the planters, and they were fed at their tables, and lodged in their bed-chambers as friends and brothers. Opechancanough had renewed the treaty with governor Wyatt, and took every other means in his power to avoid suspicion. He told a messenger about the middle of March, that the sky should fall ere he would violate the treaty of peace; only two days before the fatal 22nd, the English were guided in safety and kindness through the forest by the unsuspected Indians, and a Mr. Browne who had been sent to live among them to learn their language was sent safely to his friends,-nay, so well was the dread secret kept that the English boats were borrowed to transport the Indians over the river to consult on the "devilish murder that ensued," and even on the day itself, as well as on the evening before, they came as usual unarmed into the settlements with deer, turkies, fish, fruits and other provisions to sell. and in some places sat down to breakfast with the English. The concert and secrecy of this great plot is the more astonishing when we reflect that the savages were not living together as one nation, and did not have for most purposes, unity of action, but were dispersed in little hamlets containing from thirty to two hundred in a company; "yet they all bad warning given them one from another in all their habitations, though far. asunder. to meet at the day and hour appointed for the destruction March 22, 1622. of the English at their several plantations; some directed to one place, some to another, all to be done at the time appointed, which they did accordingly: some entering their houses under color of trading, so took their advantage; others drawing them abroad under fair pretences, and the rest suddenly falling upon those that were at their labors." They spared no age, sex, or condition, and were so sudden in their indiscriminate slaughter that few could discern the blow or weapon, which brought them to destruction. Their familiarity with the whites led them with fatal precision to the points at which they were certain to be found, and that "fatal morning fell under the bloody and barbarous hands of that perfidious and inhuman people, three hundred and forty seven men, women and children, principally by their own weapons." Not content with this destruction, they brutally defaced and mangled the dead bodies, as if they would perpetrate a new murder, and bore off the severed portions in fiendish triumph. Those who had treated them with especial kindness, and conferred many benefits upon them, who confided so much in them that to the last moment they could not believe mischief was intended, fared no better than the rest. The ties of love and gratitude,the sacred rights of hospitality and reciprocal frienship, oaths, pledges and promises, and even the recent and solemn profession of fidelity to an all-merciful and omnipotent God, were broken asunder or forgotten in obedience to the command of their chief for the execution of a great but diabolical stroke of state policy. With one and only one of all who had been cherished by the whites, did gratitude for their kindness and fidelity to his new religion prevail over his allegiance to his king, and affec tion for his people. A converted Indian who resided with a Mr. Pace, and who was treated by him as a son, revealed the plot to him in the night of the 21st. Pace immediately secured his house and rowed himself up to Jamestown, where he disclosed it to the governor, by which means that place and all the neigboring plantations, to which intelligence could be conveyed, was saved from destruction; for the cowardly Indians when they saw the whites upon their guard immediately retreated. Some other places were also preserved, by the undaunted courage of the occupants, who never failed to beat off their assailants, if they were not slain, before their suspicions were excited. By these means was Virginia preserved from total an nihilation in a single hour, by this well conceived, well concealed, and well executed plot of her weak and simple adversaries. The larger portion of the colony was saved; for a year after the massacre it contained two thousand five hundred persons; but the consternation produced by it, caused the adoption of a ruinous policy. Instead of marching at once boldly to meet the adversary and driving him from the country, or reducing him to subjection by a bloody retaliation, the colonists were huddled together from their eighty plantations into eight, the college, manufactories and other works of public utility, were abandoned, and cultivation confined to a space almost too limited, merely for subsistence. These crowded quarters produced sickness, and some were so disheartened that they sailed for England. In England this disastrous intelligence so far from dispiriting the com pany, excited their sympathies to such a degree, that it aroused them to renewed exertion, and a more obstinate determination to secure at all hazards a country which had cost so much blood and treasure. Supplies were promptly despatched, and even the king was moved to the generosity of giving some old rusty arms from the tower, which he never meant to use, and promising further assistance, which he never meant to render. Serious discussions now took place in the courts of the company as to the policy proper to be pursued with the Indians, and some advocated their entire subjection, in imitation of the example of the Spaniards, which poliey would surely have been more merciful than that war of extermination which was carried into effect, whether by deliberate design or a system of temporary expedients does not appear. Smith offered the company to protect all their planters from the James to the Potomac, with a permanent force of one hundred soldiers and thirty sailors, with one small bark, and means to build several shallops; and there is no doubt but that he would have accomplished it, by which means the planters could have employed themselves much more successfully in attending to their crops, than when they had to keep perpetual watch, and occasionally to take up arms to defend themselves, or make an attack upon the enemy. Smith received for answer that the company was impoverished, but that he had leave to carry his proposal into effect, if he could find means in the colony, and would give the company half the booty he should acquire; upon which answer he observes, that except some little corn, he would not give twenty pounds for all the booty to be made from the savages for twenty years. The colonists, although they could not be soon again lulled to their formor security, speedily recovered from their recent panic, and on July of the same year* sallied forth with three hundred men to seize the corn and inflict other punishment on the Indians; but they suffered themselves to be deceived by false pretences until the corn was removed from their reach so that they got but little; they succeeded however in burning many of their villages, and destroying much of their property, by which they said they were likely to suffer much during the ensuing winter. We find that a law was passed on the following session by the General Assembly, requiring that on the beginning of July next, the inhabitants of every corporation should fall upon the adjoining savages as had been done the last year; and enacting that those who were hurt should be cured at the public charge, and such as were maimed should be maintained by the country, according to their quality.† We find it also further enacted in 1630, "that the war begun upon the Indians be effectually followed, and that no peace be concluded with them; and that all expeditions undertaken against them should be prosecuted with dili gence. This state of fierce warfare continued to rage with uninterrupted fury until a peace was concluded in 1632, under the administration of governor Harvey. In the course of this warfare the Indians were not treated with the same tenderness, with which they had generally been before the massacre, but their habitations, cleared lands, and pleasant sites, when once taken possession of, were generally retained by the victors, and the vanquished forced to take refuge in the woods and marshes. Whilst these events were transpiring in the colony, an important change in the character of their government was about to take place in England. 1623 The company had been unsuccessful; the fact could no longer be denied. They had transported more than nine thousand persons, at an expense exceeding a hundred thousand pounds, and yet in nearly eighteen years there were only about two thousand persons in the colony, and its annual exports did not exceed twenty thousand pounds in value. The king took advantage * Mr. Bancroft makes this the following year, but if he will look to the date of the law to which he refers, he will find his error: (1 Hen, Stat. L., p. 123,-Aet No. 32.) : *+Henning, vol. I. p. 128. Henning, vol. 1. 153. 9 Burke, vol. II. p. 37, See an instance to the contrary in the case of the Appomattucks-ante pa. 561. of the present unfortunate state of affairs, to push his plans for the dissolution of the company. He carefully fomented the dissentions which arose, and encouraged the weaker party; which readily sought the aid of his powerful arm. He had long disliked the democratic freedom of their discussions, and had of late become envious of their little profits on the trade of the colonists, which he felt every disposition to divert into his own coffers; and determined to make good use of the present state of despondency in most of the company, and unpopularity with the public, to effect his designs. Wishing however to gain his end by stealth, and secret influence 1623 with their officers, rather than by open violence, he again tried his strength in the nomination of four individuals from whom the company were to choose their treasurer. But he was again signally defeated, and the earl of Southampton re-elected by a large majority, the king's candidates receiving only eight votes in seventy. Failing in this, it was manifest that the company was not to be browbeaten into submission to his dictation, and he only considered how the charter of the company might be revoked, with the least violation to the laws of England. To effect this with plausible decency some allegation of improper conduct was to be made, and some proof ferreted out: The first of these objects was effected by two long petitions by members of the Royal faction in the company, setting forth at full length every evil which had accrued to the colony, from its earliest establishment to that hour, and charging all upon the mismanagement of the company. For many of these charges there was too much truth, and the faults of the company could be easily seen after the accidents had happened, but whether they were not necessarily incidental to the situation of things in Virginia, or they might have been avoided by the king or a corporation differently constituted, are questions difficult to answer; but these. petitions contained, mingled with these truths, a great proportion of glaring falsehood as to the physical and moral condition of the colony. They had been prepared and presented with great secrecy; but the company contrived to obtain copies of them; and refuted their slanders by the most irrefragible testimony, many facts being in the cognziance of the members themselves, and others established by the evidence of respectable persons who had dong resided in Virginia. This mass of evidence was laid before the king, in the vain hope, that he might be induced to disregard the petitions; but part of his object was now gained, the charges were made, the next step was to procure a semblance of proof; for this purpose in a few days, in answer to the prayer in one of the petitions, he issued a commission under the great seal, to seven persons to enquire into all matters respecting Virginia, from the beginning of its' settlement. The better to enable these commissioners to conduct their investigations, by an order of the privy council, all the records of the company of whatsoever nature were seized, the deputy treasurer was imprisoned, and on the arrival of a ship from Virginia, all the papers on board were inspected. The report of these commissioners has never transpired, but it was without doubt, such as the king wished and expected; for by an October, 1623, order in council he made known, that having taken into his princely consideration, the distressed state of Virginia, occasioned by the ill-government of the company, he had resolved by a new charter, to appoint a governor and twelve assistants to reside in England; and a govern or and twelve assistants to reside in Virginia; the former to be nominated by his majesty in council, the latter to be nominated by the governor and assistants in England, and be appointed by the king in council; and that all proceedings should be subject to the royal direction. This was a return at one step to the charter of 1606. The company was called together to consider upon this arbitrary edict, under an alternative similar to the one given to witches upon their trial; if they could swim with a heavy weight about their necks, they were burned as guilty, if they sunk and drowned they were acquitted; the king gave the company the privilege of accepting his proposition and resigning its charter, or of refusing and having the charter annulled. The company which had refused to gratify the king in the choice of its officers, was less disposed to comply with this suicidal requisition. The astounding order was read over three several times before they could convince themselves that their ears informed them correctly of its purport. Atlength the vote was taken and one hundred and twelve votes were against the relinquishment, and twenty-six, the precise number of the king's faction, in favor of it. The company asked further time for a more deliberate decision, as there had not been sufficient notice, few members were present, and it was one of those matters of importance which could not be decided, by the terms of their charter, except at a regular quarterly meeting; but the council would not listen to the proposition, ordering the company to meet again in three days, and give a clear, direct and final answer. In obedience to this order an extraordinary court was summoned, and the question of surrender submitted to their consideration, upon which only nine of the seventy present voted in its favor; an answer was returned that they would defend their charter. The knowledge of these proceedings transpiring produced a shock to the credit of the company, which palsied for the time the spirit of commercial enterprise; to remedy this evil the privy council declared that the private property of every one should be protected, and secured by additional guarantees if necessary; that they should proceed with their regular business; and all ships bound for Virginia should sail. To endeavor to discover something more authentic against the company than his secret conclave of commissioners had yet been able to obtain, Oct. 24, 1623, the king now thought proper to send John Harvey, John Pory, Abraham Piersey, Samuel Matthews, and John Jef ferson, as commissioners to Virginia. "To make more particular and diligent enquiry touching divers matters, which concerned the state of Virginia, and in order to facilitate this enquiry, the governor and council of Virginia were ordered to assist the commissioners in this scrutiny, by all their knowledge and influence."* The commissioners early in the ensuing year arrived in the colony. In all of this controversy between the king and the company, the colony 1624 not supposing its chartered rights were likely to be violated by either party, and feeling little interest in the discussion of rights which belonged entirely to others, which they never supposed that they were to possess; had acted with entire neutrality, and cared little whether they were to be under the general superintendence of the courts of the company, or a council chosen by the king, so long as they could regulate their own affairs by their own General Assembly t *Burk I. 272.. The king and company quarrelled, and by a mixture of law and force, the latter were ousted of all their rights, without retribution, after having expended £100,000 |