ished with death; and for these offences the criminal was to be tried by a jury. Inferior crimes were to be punished in a summary way, at the discretion of the president and council.

Lands were to be holden within the colony, as the same estates were enjoyed in England. Kindness towards the heathen was enjoined; and a power reserved to the king, and his successors, to ordain further laws, so that they were consonant to the jurisprudence of England."

Under this charter and these laws, which manifest at the same time a total disregard of all political liberty, and a total ignorance of the real advantages which may be drawn from colonies by a parent state; which vest the higher powers of legislation in persons residing out of the country, not chosen by the people, nor affected by the laws they make; and yet leave commerce entirely unrestrained, the patentees proceeded to execute the arduous and almost untried task, of peopling a strange, distant, and uncultivated land, covered with woods and marshes, and inhabited only by a few savages, easily irritated, and when irritated, more fierce than the beasts they hunted.

u Robertson.

CHAPTER II.

Voyage of captain Newport....Colony settled at Jamestown.... Distress of the colonists.... Influence and activity of captain Smith....He is captured by the Indians....Condemned to death by Powhatan....Saved by Pocahontas.... Returns to Jamestown....Newport arrives with an additional supply of settlers....Smith explores the Chesapeak.... Is chosen president....New charter.... Third voyage of Newport....Smith sails for Europe....Condition of the colony...Determination to abandon the colony...Stopped by the arrival of lord Delawar, the governor general....Sir Thomas Dale....New charter....Captain Argal seizes Pocahontas....She marries Mr. Rolf.... Separate property in lands and labour in some degree established....Expedition of captain Argal against the French colony at Port Royal....Against the Dutch at Manhadoes....Fifty acres of land laid off for each settler....Tobacco....Sir Thomas Dale....Mr. Yeardly....First colonial assembly....First arrival of females in the colony....And of convicts.... First importation of African slaves....Two councils established....Prosperity of the colony....Attempt of the Indians to massacre all the whites....General war.... Dissension and dissolution of the company....Colony taken into the hands of the king....Arbitrary measures of the crown....Sir John Harvey....Sir William Berkeley....Provincial assembly restored....Virginia declares in favour of Charles II....Grant to lord Baltimore....Arrival of a colony in Maryland under Calvert....Assembly composed of all the freemen.... William Clayborne.... Assembly composed of representatives....Divided into two branches.... Tyrannical proceedings.

ALTHOUGH several men of rank and fortune were concerned in the companies which had been formed in England, for colonising America, their funds appear to have been very limited, and their first efforts were certainly extremely feeble.

The first expedition for the southern colony consisted of one vessel of a hundred tons, and two barks, with a hundred and five men destined to remain in the country.

The command of this small squadron was given to captain Newport, who, on the 19th of December, (1606), sailed therewith from the Thames. At the same time that his instructions were received, three packets sealed with the seal of the council, were delivered, one to captain Newport, a second to captain Bartholomew Gosnald, and a third to captain John Ratcliffe, containing the names of the council for the colony. These packets were accompanied with instructions, directing that they should be opened within twenty-four hours after their arrival on the coast of Virginia, and not before; and that the names of his majesty's council should then be proclaimed. The council were then to proceed to the choice of a president, who should have two votes. this singular and unaccountable concealment have, in a great degree, been attributed those dissensions which distracted the colonists on their passage, and which afterwards considerably impeded the progress of their infant settlement.a

Το

Newport, whose place of destination was Roanoke, took the circuitous route by the West India islands, and had a long passage of four months. The reckoning had been out for three days, without perceiving land, and serious pro

a Robertson.... Chalmer...Stith.

positions were made for returning to England, when he was overtaken by a storm, which fortunately drove him to the mouth of the Chesapeak.

On the 26th of April, (1607) he descried cape Henry, and soon afterwards, cape Charles. Impatient to land, a party of about thirty men went on shore at cape Henry; but they were immediately attacked by the natives, who considered them as enemies, and in the skirmish which ensued, several were wounded on both sides.

The first employment of the colonists, after exploring the adjacent country, with the appearance of which they were greatly delighted, was to select a spot on which their settlement should be made. They proceeded up a large beautiful river, called by the natives, Powhatan, to which they gave the name of James: on a peninsula on the north side of which, they unanimously agreed to make the first establishment of their infant colony. This place, as well as the river, they named after their king, and called it Jamestown.

Here they debarked on the 13th of May, and the sealed packets delivered to them in England being opened, and the members of the council made known, they proceeded to elect a president, when Mr. Wingfield was chosen. But under frivolous and unjustifiable pretexts, they excluded from his seat among them, John Smith, whose courage and talents seemed to have excited their envy, and who, on the passage, had been imprisoned, on the improbable and unsupported charge

of intending to murder the council, usurp the government, and make himself king of Virginia.b

The colonists soon found themselves embroiled with the Indians, who attacked them suddenly while at work; but the fire from the ship drove them terrified into the woods; some short time after which, a temporary accommodation with them was effected.

Newport, although named of the council, was ordered to return with the vessels to England, and the time of his departure approached. The accusers of Smith, affecting a degree of humanity which they did not feel, proposed that he should return with Newport, instead of being prosecuted in Virginia; but with the pride of conscious innocence, he demanded his trial, and, being honourably acquitted, took his seat in the council.

About the 15th of June, Newport sailed for England, leaving behind him one of the barks, and about one hundred persons, the only English then on the continent of America.

Thus, about one hundred and ten years after this continent had been discovered by Cabot; and twenty-two years after a colony had been conducted to Roanoke, by sir Richard Grenville; the English possessions in America, designed soon to become a mighty empire, were limited to a peninsula of a few thousand acres of land; held by a small body of men, who with difficulty maintained

b Robertson.... Chalmer.... Stith.