VIRGINIA AND ITS INHABITANTS. VI. The genial climate and transparent atmosphere de- CHAP lighted those who had come from the denser air of England. Every object in nature was new and wonderful. The loud and frequent thunder-storms were phenomena that had been rarely witnessed in the colder summers of the north; the forests, majestic in their growth, and free from underwood, deserved admiration for their unrivalled magnificence; the purling streams and the frequent rivers, flowing between alluvial banks, quickened the ever-pregnant soil into an unwearied fertility; the strangest and the most delicate flowers grew familiarly in the fields; the woods were replenished with sweet barks and odors; the gardens matured the fruits of Europe, of which the growth was invigorated and the flavor improved by the activity of the virgin mould. Especially the birds, with their gay plumage and varied melodies, inspired delight; every traveller expressed his pleasure in listening to the mocking-bird, which caroled a thousand several tunes, imitating and excelling the notes of all its rivals. The humming-bird, so brilliant in its plumage, and so delicate in its form, quick in motion, yet not fearing the presence of man, haunting about the flowers like the bee gathering honey, rebounding from the blossoms into which it dips its bill, and as soon returning "to renew its many addresses to its delightful objects," was ever admired as the smallest and the most beautiful of the feathered race. The rattlesnake, with the terrors of its alarms and the power of its venom; the opossum, soon to become as celebrated for the care of its offspring as the fabled pelican; the noisy frog, booming from the shallows like the English bittern; the flying squirrel; the myriads of pigeons, darkening the air with the immensity of their flocks. 30 VOL. I. VI. CHAP. and, as men believed, breaking with their weight the boughs of trees on which they alighted,-were all honored with frequent commemoration, and became the subjects of the strangest tales. The concurrent relation of all the Indians justified the belief, that, within ten days' journey towards the setting of the sun, there was a country where gold might be washed from the sand, and where the natives themselves had learned the use of the crucible; but definite and accurate as were the accounts, inquiry was always baffled; and the regions of gold remained for two centuries an undiscovered land. Various were the employments by which the calmness of life was relieved. George Sandys, an idle man, who had been a great traveller, and who did not remain in America, a poet, whose verse was tolerated by Dryden and praised by Izaak Walton, beguiled the ennui of his seclusion by translating the whole of Ovid's Metamorphoses. To the man of leisure, the chase furnished a perpetual resource. It was not long before the horse was multiplied in Virginia; and to improve that noble animal was early an object of pride, soon to be favored by legislation. Speed was especially valued; and “the planter's pace" became a proverb. Equally proverbial was the hospitality of the Virginians. Labor was valuable; land was cheap; competence promptly followed industry. There was no need of a scramble; abundance gushed from the earth for all. The morasses were alive with water-fowl; the creeks abounded with oysters, heaped together in inexhaustible beds; the rivers were crowded with 1 E. Williams, Virginia, &c. 17. Comp. Silliman's Journal, on the mines of N. C. xxiii. 8, 9. 2 Rymer, xvii. 676, 677. Walton's Hooker, 32. VIRGINIA AND ITS INHABITANTS. 235 VI. fish; the forests were nimble with game; the woods CHAP rustled with coveys of quails and wild turkeys, while they rung with the merry notes of the singing-birds; and hogs, swarming like vermin, ran at large in troops. It was "the best poor man's country in the world." "If a happy peace be settled in poor England," it had been said, "then they in Virginia shall be as happy a people as any under heaven." But plenty encouraged indolence. No domestic manufactures were established; every thing was imported from England. The chief branch of industry, for the purpose of exchanges, was tobacco-planting; and the spirit of invention was enfeebled by the uniformity of pursuit. 1 ii. Mass. Hist. Coll. ix. 116. 106. Hammond's Leah and Rachel, 9, 0, 5. 236 CHAPTER VII. COLONIZATION OF MARYLAND. VII. CHAP. THE limits of Virginia, by its second charter, extended two hundred miles north of Old Point Com1609. fort, and therefore included all the soil which subsequently formed the state of Maryland. It was not long before the country towards the head of the Chesapeake was explored; settlements in Accomack were extended; and commerce was begun with the tribes which Smith had been the first to visit. Porey, the 1621. secretary of the colony, "made a discovery into the great bay," as far as the River Patuxent, which he ascended; but his voyage probably reached no farther to the north. The English settlement of a hundred men, which he is represented to have found already established,' was rather a consequence of his voyage, and seems to have been on the eastern shore, perhaps within the limits of Virginia. The hope "of a very good trade of furs," animated the adventurers; and if the plantations advanced but slowly, there is yet evidence, that commerce with the Indians was earnestly pursued under the sanction of the colonial government.3 2 An attempt was made to obtain a monopoly of this commerce by William Clayborne, whose resolute and 1 Chalmers, 206. 1635. Smith's History of Virginia, 2 Purchas, iv. 1784. Smith, ii. ii. 63 and 95. 61-64. 3 Relation of Maryland, 4; ed. 4 Rel. of Maryland, 1635, p. 10. EARLIEST SETTLEMENTS IN MARYLAND. 2 237 VII. to enterprising spirit was destined to exert a powerful CHAP. and long-continued influence. His first appearance in America was as a surveyor,' sent by the London com- 1621 pany to make a map of the country. At the fall of the corporation, he had been appointed by King James a 1624 member of the council; and, on the accession of Charles, was continued in office, and, in repeated com- 1625. missions, was nominated secretary of state.3 At the 1627 same time, he received authority from the governors 1629 of Virginia to discover the source of the Bay of the Chesapeake, and, indeed, any part of that province, from the thirty-fourth to the forty-first degree of latitude. It was, therefore, natural that he should become familiar with the opportunities for traffic which the country afforded; and the jurisdiction and the settlement of Virginia seemed about to extend to the forty-first parallel of latitude, which was then the boundary of New England. Upon his favorable representation, a company was formed in England for trading with the natives; and, through the agency of 1631 Sir William Alexander, the Scottish proprietary of Nova Scotia, a royal license was issued, sanctioning the commerce, and conferring on Clayborne powers of government over the companions of his voyages.5 Harvey enforced the commands of his sovereign, and 1632 confirmed the license by a colonial commission. The 8. Dutch plantations were esteemed to border upon Virginia. After long experience as a surveyor, and after years employed in discoveries, Clayborne, now acting under the royal license, formed establishments, not only on Kent Island, in the heart of Maryland, but 1 Hening, i. 116. 2 Hazard, i. 189. 3 Ibid. 234 and 239 4 Papers in Chalmers, 227. 5 Chalmers, 227, 228. 6 Ibid. 228, 229. May 16. Mar |