VI. CHAP. solved on one more attempt at a general massacre, believing that, by midnight incursions, the destruction 1644. of the cattle and the fields of corn, they might succeed in famishing the remnant of the colonists whom they should not be able to murder by surprise. On the eighteenth day of April,' the time appointed for the carnage, the unexpected onset was begun upon the frontier settlements. But hardly had the Indians steeped their hands in blood, before they were dismayed by the recollection of their own comparative weakness; and, trembling for the consequences of their treachery, they feared to continue their design, and fled to a distance from the colony. The number of victims had been three hundred. Measures were promptly taken by the English for protection and defence; and a war was vigorously conducted. The aged Opechancanough was easily made prisoner; and the venerated monarch of the sons of the forest, so long the undisputed lord of almost boundless hunting grounds, died in miserable captivity of wounds inflicted by a brutal soldier. In his last moments, he chiefly regretted his exposure to the contemptuous gaze of his enemies.2 So little was apprehended, when the English were once on their guard, that, two months after the massacre, Berkeley embarked for England, leaving Richard Kemp as his successor. A border warfare continued; marches up and down the Indian country were ordered; yet so weak were the natives, that though the 3 1 The reader is cautioned against the inaccuracies of Beverley, Oldmixon, and, on this subject, of Burk. See Winthrop's Journal, ii. 165. Compare the note of Savage, whose sagacious conjecture is confirmed in Hening, i. 290, Act 4, session of February, 1645. 2 On the massacre, there are three contemporary guides: the statutes of the time, in Hening, i.; The Perfect Description of Virginia, in ii. Mass. Hist. Coll. ix. 115-117; and the Reports of the exiled Puritans, in Winthrop, ii. 165. 3 Hening, i. 4. 282, and 286. PEACE WITH THE INDIANS. 209 VI. careless traveller and the straggling huntsman were CHAP long in danger of being intercepted,' yet ten men were considered a sufficient force to protect a place of danger.2 Oct. About fifteen months after Berkeley's return from 1646. England, articles of peace were established between the inhabitants of Virginia and Necotowance, the successor of Opechancanough.3 Submission and a cession of lands were the terms on which the treaty was purchased by the original possessors of the soil, who now began to vanish away from the immediate vicinity of the settlements of their too formidable invaders. It is one of the surprising results of moral power, that language, composed of fleeting sounds, retains and transmits the remembrance of past occurrences, long after every other monument has passed away. Of the labors of the Indians on the soil of Virginia, there remains nothing so respectable as would be a common ditch for the draining of lands; the memorials of their former existence are found only in the names of the rivers and the mountains. Unchanging nature retains the appellations which were given by those whose villages have disappeared, and whose tribes have become extinct. 4 Thus the colony of Virginia acquired the management of all its concerns; war was levied, and peace concluded, and territory acquired, in conformity to the acts of the representatives of the people. Possessed of security and quiet, abundance of land, a free market for their staple, and, practically, all the rights of an independent state, having England for its guar 1 Hening, i. 300, 301, Act 3. 2 Ibid. 285, 286, Act 5. 3 Ibid. 323-326. Compare Drake's Indian Biography, b. iv. 22 VOL. I. 27 -24; Johnson's Wonder-working CHAP. dian against foreign oppression, rather than its ruler, VI. the colonists enjoyed all the prosperity which a virgin 1646. soil, equal laws, and general uniformity of condition and industry, could bestow. Their numbers increased; the cottages were filled with children, as the ports were with ships and emigrants. At Christmas, 1648, there were trading in Virginia, ten ships from London, two from Bristol, twelve Hollanders, and seven from New England. The number of the colonists was already twenty thousand; and they, who had sustained no griefs, were not tempted to engage in the feuds by which the mother country was divided. They were attached to the cause of Charles, not because they loved monarchy, but because they cherished the liberties of which he had left them in the undis1649 turbed possession; and, after his execution, though there were not wanting some who, from ignorance, as the royalists affirmed, favored ernment recognized his son disasters of the Cavaliers in the party in the New World. 66 among the nobility, gentry, and clergy," struck "with horror and despair" at the execution of Charles I., and desiring no reconciliation with the unrelenting "rebels," made their way to the shores of the Chesapeake, where every house was for them a "hostelry," and every planter a friend. The mansion and the purse of Berkeley were open to all; and at the hospitable dwellings that were scattered along the rivers and among the wilds of Virginia, the Cavaliers, exiles like their monarch, met in frequent groups to recount their toils, to sigh over defeats, and to nourish. republicanism, the govwithout dispute. The England strengthened Men of consideration 1 New Description of Virginia, 15, in ii. Mass. Hist. Coll. ix. 118. 2 Hening, i. 359, 360, Act 1. PARLIAMENT ASSERTS ITS SUPREMACY. 211 VI. June. loyalty and hope.' The faithfulness of the Virginians CHAP did not escape the attention of the royal exile; from his retreat in Breda he transmitted to Berkeley a new 1650. commission; 2 he still controlled the distribution of offices, and, amidst his defeats in Scotland,3 still remembered with favor the faithful Cavaliers in the western world. Charles the Second, a fugitive from England, was still the sovereign of Virginia. "Virginia was whole for monarchy, and the last country, belonging to England, that submitted to obedience of the commonwealth."4 Oct. 3. But the parliament did not long permit its authority to be denied. Having, by the vigorous energy and fearless enthusiasm of republicanism, triumphed over all its enemies in Europe, it turned its attention to the colonies; and a memorable ordinance at once empowered the council of state to reduce the rebellious colonies to obedience, and, at the same time, established it as a law, that foreign ships should not trade at any of the ports "in Barbadoes, Antigua, Bermudas, and Virginia." Maryland, which was not expressly included in the ordinance, had taken care to acknowledge the new order of things; and Massachusetts, alike unwilling to encounter the hostility of parliament, and jealous of the rights of independent legislation, by its own enactment, prohibited all in- May tercourse with Virginia, till the supremacy of the commonwealth should be established; although the order, when it was found to be injurious to commerce, was 1 Norwood, in Churchill, vi. 160 --186. Hammond's Leah and Rachel, 16. 2 Chalmers, 122. 3 Norwood, in Ch., vi. 186. 4 Hammond's Leah and Rachel, 20; Ed. 1656. 6 5 Hazard, i. 637, 638. Parliamentary History, iii. 1357. The commentary of Chalmers, p. 123, is that of a partisan lawyer. 6 Langford's Refutation, 6, 7 1651 7. VI. Oct. CHAP. promptly repealed, even whilst royalty still triumphed at Jamestown.' But would Virginia resist the fleet 1651. of the republic? Were its royalist principles so firm, 14. that they would animate the colony to a desperate war with England? The lovers of monarchy indulged the hope, that the victories of their friends in the Chesapeake would redeem the disgrace, that had elsewhere fallen on the royal arms; many partisans of Charles had come over as to a place of safety; and the honest Governor Berkeley, than whom "no man meant better," was so confirmed in his confidence, that he wrote to the king, almost inviting him to America.2 The approach of the day of trial was watched with the deepest interest. But while the preparations were yet making for the reduction of the colonies, which still preserved an appearance of loyalty, the commercial policy of England underwent an important revision, and the new system, as it was based upon the permanent interests of English merchants and ship-builders, obtained a consistency and durability which could never have been gained by the feeble selfishness of the Stuarts. It is the ancient fate of colonies to be planted by the daring of the poor and the hardy; to struggle into being through the severest trials; to be neglected by the parent country during the season of poverty and weakness; to thrive by the unrestricted application of their powers and enterprise; and by their consequent prosperity to tempt oppression. The Greek colonies. early attained opulence and strength, because they were always free; the new people at its birth was independent, and remained so; the emigrants were dismissed, not as servants, but as equals. They were 1 Hazard, i. 553 and 558. 2 Clarendon, b. xiii. iii. 466. |