by the same body, and a house of burgesses, two members from each district, to be elected by the people. In making laws the councilors and burgesses sat together. When a new law was proposed, it was debated, and if passed received the governor's signature, then was transmitted to England and ratified or rejected by the company. The constitution also acknowledged the right of petition and of trial by jury, but the most remarkable and liberal concession was that which gave the burgesses the power of vetoing any objectionable acts of the company.

Governor Yeardley's administration ended in October of 1621. At that time Sir Francis Wyatt arrived, commissioned as governor and bearing the new constitution of Virginia. The colony was found in a very flourishing condition. The settlements extended for a hundred and forty miles along both banks of James River and far into the interior, especially northward toward the Potomac. There remained but one cause of foreboding and alarm. The Indians had seen in all this growth and prosperity the doom of their own race, and had determined to make one desperate effort to destroy their foes before it should be too late. To do this in open war was impossible; necessity and the savage impulse working together suggested treachery as the only means likely to accomplish the result. Circumstances favored the villainous undertaking. Pocahontas was dead. The peaceable and faith-keeping Powhatan had likewise passed away. The ambitious and crafty Opechancanough, who succeeded to his brother's authority in 1618, had ever since been plotting the destruction of the English colony, and the time had come for the bloody tragedy. The savages carefully concealed their murderous purpose. Until the very day of the massacre they continued on terms of friendship with the English. They came unmolested into the settlements, ate with their victims, borrowed boats and guns, made purchases, and gave not the slightest token of hostility. The attack was planned for the 22d of March, at mid-day. At the fatal hour the work of butchery began. Every hamlet in Virginia was attacked by a band of yelling barbarians. No age, sex or condition awakened an emotion of pity. Men, women and children were indiscriminately slaughtered, until three hundred and forty-seven had perished under the knives and hatchets of the savages.

But Indian treachery was thwarted by Indian faithfulness. What was the chagrin and rage of the warriors to find that Jamestown and the other leading settlements had been warned at the last moment, and were prepared for the onset? A converted Red man, wishing to save an Englishman who had been his friend, went to him on the night before the massacre and revealed the plot. The alarm was spread among the settlements, and thus the greater part of the colony escaped destruction. But

the outer plantations were entirely destroyed. The people crowded together on the larger farms about Jamestown, until of the eighty settlements there were only eight remaining. Still, there were sixteen hundred resolute men in the colony; and although gloom and despondency prevailed for a while, the courage of the settlers soon revived, and sorrow gave place to a desire for vengeance.

It was now the turn of the Indians to suffer. Parties of English soldiers scoured the country in every direction, destroying wigwams, burning villages and killing every savage that fell in their way, until the tribes of Opechancanough were driven into the wilderness. The colonists, regaining their confidence and zeal, returned to their deserted farms, and the next year brought such additions that the census showed a population of two thousand five hundred.

Meanwhile, difficulties arose between the corporation and the king. Most of the members of the London Company belonged to the patriot party in England, and the freedom with which they were in the habit of discussing political and governmental matters was very distasteful to the monarch. A meeting of the stockholders, now a numerous body, was held once every three months, and the debates took a wider and still wider range. The liberal character of the Virginia constitution was offensive to King James, who determined by some means to obtain control of the London Company, or else to suppress it altogether. A committee was accordingly appointed to look into the affairs of the corporation and to make a report on its management. The commissioners performed their duty, and reported that the company, in addition to being a hot-bed of political agitation, was unsound in every part, that the treasury was bankrupt, and especially that the government of Virginia was bad and would continue so until a radical change should be made in the constitution of the new State.

Legal proceedings were now instituted by the ministers to ascertain whether the company's charter had not been forfeited. The question came before the judges, who had no difficulty in deciding that the violated patent was null and void. In accordance with this decision, the charter of the corporation was canceled by the king, and in June of 1624 the London Company ceased to exist. But its work had been well done; a torch of liberty had been lighted on the banks of the James which all the gloomy tyranny of after times could not extinguish. The Virginians were not slow to remember and to claim ever afterward the precious rights which were guaranteed in the constitution of 1621. And the other colonies would be satisfied with nothing less than the chartered privileges which were recognized in the laws of the Old Dominion.

CHAPTER XII.

VIRGINIA.-THE ROYAL GOVERNMENT.

ROYAL government was now established in Virginia. To the colonists themselves the change of authorities was scarcely perceptible. The new administration consisted of a governor and twelve councilors appointed by the crown. The General Assembly of the colony was left undisturbed, and all the rights and privileges of the colonists remained as before. The king's hostility had been directed against the London Company, and not against the State of Virginia; now that the former was destroyed the latter was left unmolested. Governor Wyatt was continued in office; and in making up the new council the king wisely took pains to select the known friends of the colony rather than certain untried partisans of his own court. The Virginians found in the change of government as much cause of gratitude as of grief.

King James of England died in 1625. His son, Charles I., a young, inexperienced and stubborn prince, succeeded to the throne. The new king paid but little attention to the affairs of his American colony, until the commerce in tobacco attracted his notice. Seeing in this product a source of revenue for the crown, he attempted to gain a monopoly of the trade, but the colonial authorities outwitted him and defeated the project. It is worthy of special note that while conferring with the colony on this subject the king recognized the Virginia assembly as a rightfully constituted power. The reply which was finally returned to the king's proposal was signed not only by the governor and council, but by thirty-one of the burgesses.

In 1626 Governor Wyatt retired from office, and Yeardley, the old friend and benefactor of the colonists, was reappointed. The young State was never more prosperous than under this administration, which was terminated by the governor's death, in November of 1627. During the preceding summer a thousand new immigrants had come to swell the population of the growing province.

The council of Virginia had a right, in case of an emergency, to elect a governor. Such an emergency was now present, and Francis

West was chosen by the councilors; but as soon as the death of Yeardley

was known in England, King Charles commissioned John Harvey to assume the government. He arrived in the autumn of 1629, and from this time until 1635, the colony was distracted with the presence of a most unpopular chief magistrate. He seems to have been disliked on general principles, but the greatest source of dissatisfaction was his partiality to certain speculators and land monopolists who at this time infested Virginia, to the annoyance and injury of the poorer people. There were many old land grants covering districts of territory which were now occupied by actual settlers, and between the holders of the lands and the holders of the titles violent altercations arose. In these disputes the governor became a partisan of the speculators against the people, until the outraged assembly of 1635 passed a resolution that Sir John Harvey be thrust out of office, and Captain West be appointed in his place "until the king's pleasure may be known in this matter." A majority of the councilors sided with the burgesses, and Harvey was obliged to go to England to stand his trial.

King Charles treated the whole affair with contempt. The commissioners appointed by the council of Virginia to conduct Harvey's impeachment were refused a hearing, and he was restored to the governorship of the unwilling colony. He continued in power until the year 1639, when he was superseded by Wyatt, who ruled until the spring of

1642.

And now came the English Revolution. The exactions and tyranny of Charles at last drove his subjects into open rebellion. In January of 1642, the king and his friends left London, and repairing to Nottingham, collected an army of royalists. The capital and southern part of the country remained in the power of Parliament. The High Church party and the adherents of monarchy took sides with the king, while the republicans and dissenters made up the opposing forces. The country was plunged into the horrors of civil war. After a few years of conflict the royal army was routed and dispersed ; the king escaped to Scotland, and the leading royalists fled to foreign lands. On the demand of Parliament Charles was given up and brought to trial. The cause was heard, a sentence of death was passed, and on the 30th of January, 1649, the unhappy monarch was beheaded.

Monarchy was now abolished. Oliver Cromwell, the general of the Parliamentary army, was made Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England. By him the destinies of the nation were controlled until his death, in 1658, when he was succeeded by his son Richard. But the latter, lacking his father's abilities and courage, became alarmed at the dangers that gathered around him, and resigned. For a few months the

country was in anarchy, until General Monk, who commanded the English army of the North, came down from Scotland and declared a restoration of the monarchy. The exiled son of Charles I. was called home and proclaimed king, the people acquiesced, Parliament sanctioned the measure, and on the 18th of May, 1660, Charles II. was placed on the throne of England.

These were times full of trouble. Virginia shared in some degree the distractions of the mother-country, yet the evil done to the new State by the conflict in England was less than might have been expected. In the first year of the civil war Sir William Berkeley became governor of the colony, and, with the exception of a brief visit to England in 1645, remained in office for ten years. His administration, notwithstanding the commotions abroad, was noted as a time of rapid growth and development. The laws were greatly improved and made conformable to the English statutes. The old controversies about the lands were satisfactorily settled. Cruel punishments were abolished and the taxes equalized. The general assembly was regularly convened to bear its part in the government, and Virginia was in all essential particulars a free as well as a prosperous State. So rapid was the progress that in 1646 there were twenty thousand people in the colony.

But there were also drawbacks to the prosperity of Virginia. Religious intolerance came with its baleful shadow to disturb the State. The faith of the Episcopal Church was established by law, and dissenting was declared a crime. The Puritans were held in contempt by the people, who charged them with being the destroyers of the peace of England. In March of 1643 a statute was enacted by the assembly declaring that no person who disbelieved the doctrines of the English Church should be allowed to teach publicly or privately, or to preach the gospel, within the limits of Virginia. The few Puritans in the colony were excluded from their places of trust, and some were even driven from their homes. Governor Berkeley, himself a zealous churchman, was a leader in these persecutions, by which all friendly relations with New England were broken off for many years.

A worse calamity befell in a second war with the Indians. Early in 1644, the natives, having forgotten their former punishment, and believing that in the confusion of the civil war there still remained a hope of destroying the English, planned a general massacre. On the 18th of April, at a time when the authorities were somewhat off their guard, the savages fell upon the frontier settlements, and before assistance could be brought murdered three hundred people. Alarmed at their own atrocity, the warriors then fled, but were followed by the English forces and