I conceive that by the dispersion of the Plantations the Savage hath the advantage in this warre and that by theire suddaine assaultes they doe vs more harme then wee doe them by our sett voyages.

fault was not in the writ, but in the constitution of the courts of justice. The judges all held their places on the bench, at the pleasure or caprice of the king; and, wherever the official existence, and, possibly, daily bread of these administrators of justice, depend on the favor of either a monarch or people, it is certain that justice will often, as in the present instance, be sacrificed to expediency and self-interest. The second error committed by Stith, is in representing (p. 328), that the report of the commissioners, Harvey and Pory, which he assumes to be unfavorable to the charter government, had led the king to recall the patent and dissolve the Company; as was done by his proclamation of the 15th of July, 1624, transferring the management and control of the colony to Lord Viscount Mandeville, and above fifty other commissioners, one of whom was John Pory. But the king's determination to do all this, so far from being the effect of the report, had been announced by the king, as Stith himself relates (p. 303, signature U.), on the 8th of October, in the preceding year, before the commissioners left England. It was repeated in the king's letter of the 26th of April, to the Speaker, and again, in his message to the Committee of Grievances, on the 25th of May, only four days before the end of the session of 1624. (Chalmers's MS. Notes, English St. Papers; Peckard's Ferrar, pp. 149–152.)

The proceedings on the Quo Warranto were a farce. The judges were morally constrained to do what their king and master desired, but was ashamed to do himself by proclamation. When the cause came on, the argument of Coventry, the king's Attorney-General, against the patent, was, that "it was, in general, an unlimited vast patent. In particular, the main inconvenience was, that by the words of the charter the Company had power given them to carry away and transport to Virginia as many of the king's loving subjects as were desirous to go thither; and consequently, said he, they may, in the end, carry away all the king's subjects into a foreign land, and so leave his Majesty a kingdom here indeed, but no subjects in it. And if this should be the case, what will then become of him or us? This is certainly a strange clause; and the patent wherein it is contained, ought to be forfeited."

"This weighty argument extorted a smile even from the judges and the lawyers employed to carry on the prosecution. Nevertheless, it was admitted; for the determination was made, previous to entering upon the merits of the cause, what the decree should be. The Attorney-General then proceeded, and said he had found a flaw in the Company's answer, which, if admitted, contained, on the one hand, too much; and, on the other, too little; and therefore, being such a nicety in law, he craved sentence upon it, as insufficient."

"Sentence was thereupon given, that the Patent, or Charter, of English merchants trading to Virginia, and pretending to exercise a power and authority over his Majesty's subjects there, should be thenceforth null and void." (Peckard's Ferrar, pp. 145-147.)

This decision took place in the King's Bench, in Trinity term, before Chief-Justice Ley, the 16th of June, 1624. We do not find it noticed in any of the English Reports. (Edward D. Neill, Boston Transcript, 21st April, 1869.)

The king thus, at the sacrifice of all justice and honor, succeeded in wresting the charter from the Virginia Company; but, to his sorrow, found that, after all, he had only gained a shadow for the substance he had so greedily coveted. The revenue he had hitherto extorted from tobacco, was not now to be hoped for. Virginia tobacco was so low in price that it would no longer bear the old duty of twelvepence a pound; nor even the ninepence to which the duty had been reduced in April, 1623; and Spanish tobacco, which could well bear it, and had been a profitable source of revenue, was entirely prohibited. To add to his disappointment, at the instigation of his faithless favorite, Buckingham, the unscrupulous Cranfield, Earl of Middlesex, who suggested and managed his fiscal robberies, was impeached, among other charges, for his criminal oppression of Virginia in despoiling her of

Remedies against the daunger from the Savages and meanes to advaunce the Plantation.

To strengthen the weaker and more remote plantations with newe Commers.

To plant Chiskiake scituat vpon the Pamunkey river very strongly, and to run a pale from thence to Martins hundred, which will add safety, strength, plenty, and increase of cattle to the plantation and greate advantage from that place to assaile the Enemy in his Cheifest strength.

To maintaine by land and by water a little body of two hundred men for two or three yeares continually to infest the Indians and to destroye theire houses, corne, weares canooes. The Planters to bee exercised in armes by the Cheifes of each Plantation (a thinge neglecte[d] duringe my aboad there) for the effectinge whereof the Countrey must bee stored sufficiently with armes and munition which must not bee wasted unnecessarily in triumphes, entertaynments and the like.

For the future advancement of the Plantation there must bee an established forme of government setled amoungst them there, and another here in England; both managed by such men as maie bee subiect & answerable i[n] theire perticular persons for all theire proceedinges to his Majestie and the Lords of his Majesties privy Counsell.

The immoderate plantinge of tobacco must bee restrained

the patent, and dissolving the Company, upon fabulous and shallow pretexts; and, after a trial which lasted a month, was deprived of his office of Lord Treasurer, fined fifty thousand pounds, and committed prisoner to the Tower of London. The king himself lived only a few days more than nine months longer, to enjoy the fruits of his perfidy. (Peckard, ut supra. II. Birch, James, p. 455-457; Stith, p. 328; Order in Council, 28th April, 1623; Clarendon I. p. 22.)

Lord Southampton, the late Treasurer, in August, 1624, was appointed to the chief command of the English troops in the Netherlands. In deference to his military merit, he was allowed to have place and precedence over his senior, the Earl of Oxford, in the field, and in martial operations. Having first lost his eldest son, he was attacked with a fever, which proved fatal in the winter following. (II. Birch, James, p. 470; Stith, p. 331.)

and the people inforced to plant more necessary commodities most agreeable to the severall grounds they live on.

People must not bee permitted to passe to Virginia in too greate numbers for certaine yeares to come because there are no publique guest houses, and men in theire private houses are not able to rec[eive] them. And those that are to goe must bee largely provided with armes munition tooles victualls & apparell for one whole yeare. And for prevention of infection in the passage and in the Countrey the shipps must not bee pestered with multitudes.

There must better Care bee had of the expendinge of the publique stocke then formerly hath bynn for of all that which within these last six yeares hath bynne disbursed there remaines noe publique worke, as guest house, bridge, store house, munition house, publique granary, fortification, church or the like, the whole remainder beinge a fewe tennants at halves whose time[s] are nere expired.

The rumors of plenty to bee found at all time[s] in Virginia which of late yeares haue bynne published in printe and privately informed and assured by some persons here, thereby to incourage men to goe over vnprovided must no longer bee permitted. Of which divers in the Countrey haue complayned to mee.

destroyed. The words omitted are probably "of the Plantation."]

This short and true relation of the present St[ate] [a line what meanes are to bee vsed for the advauncing of that Plantation, I humbly present and submitt to your Lordshipps better Judgment, Only this I will adde that there is not a Countre[y] in the same Climate throughout the whole world that gives better hopes of benefitt then Virginia if it bee well vndertaken & diligently followed.

VIRGINIA COUNCIL'S LETTER TO THE LORDS OF TRADE AND PLANTATIONS. 1626.

RIGHT HONOURABLE, - Thee 23th of March, arrived the good Shipp, the Virgine of Southampton, with letters from your Lordshipps of the 24th of October last, whereby wee vnderstand his Majesties Royall Care of this Plantacion, as well in present supplie of our wants, as in taking order for the full and perfect setling of the afaires therof to the greate incouragement of the whole Collony. Shee brings vs an earnest of those larger supplies gratiously promised by his Majestie in Comodities, though in proportion not answerable to our greate wants, yet all very vsefull, and well Condicioned for which wee must acknowledge, our greate bond to your Lordshipps & in perticuler, to our singular good Lord, the lord high Treasurer.

Wee must euer acknowledge it a singular favour from his Majestie that hee hath bine pleased to remitt the im

NOTE. - Charles succeeded to the throne at the death of his father, on the 27th of March (6 April N.S), 1625. In the second week of his reign, on the 9th of April, he confirmed by proclamation the existing prohibition of the import, sale, or use of Spanish tobacco, and of all other kinds, except that of Virginia and Bermuda. Export, duty free, of such prohibited tobacco, was permitted until the 4th of the following May.

On the 13th of May, a second proclamation announced his intention to exercise his sovereign power, in framing for the colony of Virginia a new government, immediately dependent on himself, and not on any company or corporation, to consist of two councils; the first, in England, subordinate to his Privy Council; the second, in Virginia, under the control of the first. The import and sale of the colonial tobacco was to be entirely under his own control and management; he paying the colonial owners such prices as might give them reasonable satisfaction and encouragement. The manner, however, in which these intentions were to be carried into effect, was to be determined at some future period of greater leisure. Owing to the plague then in London, the summons of a new parliament, the approaching marriage of the king with the sister of Louis XIII., and his subsequent civil, political, ecclesiastical, and domestic cares and troubles, this interval of leisure did not occur for several years. Sir Francis Wyatt and his Council were left, with little interference, to administer the colonial government almost at their own discretion, under the commission given them by King James. All official correspondence with the colony was intrusted to the Privy Council, of which Lord Mandeville, now created Earl of Manchester, continued to be the President; although the Mandeville Board of Commissioners, created by King James, was not formally dissolved, or even superseded, until the 27th of June, 1631. At that time, a special commission was issued to the Earl of Dorset, and twenty-two associates, conferring on them no civil authority, or control over the administration of affairs in Virginia, but simply power to examine, consider, and report to the Council upon the past and present state of the colony

position vppon Tobacco in Consideracion of Supplyeing of the Collony, and wee humbly desire that your Lordshipps wilbe pleased to take order that it may bee as well performed on their partts as promised, since wee vnderstand not as yet of any shipp, sett out by them, except it should bee the William & John which is a smale Shipp, and her Course by the West Indies, as the tymes are full of hazard, and makes our Supplie by her vncertaine, neither can it bee greate as well in respect of the passengers, which shee is to land their, as of the Comodities, which may bee likelie to bee vented their.

Nothing hath bine longe more earnestly desired, then the setling of the affaires of the Collony, as well for the gouerment as other wayes neither could ther have bine a greater incouragment to the Planter, then to vnderstand it to bee his Majesties gratious pleasure that no person of whom they have heretofore iustlie complayned should

and its productions; and likewise "to propose by what good ways the colony might be better advanced and settled in future times,". -"to the end," says the commission, "that we may declare our further pleasure concerning the premises, as we shall see best." (I. Hazard, pp. 202, 203, 312; II. Burke, pp. 8, 11; Campbell, p. 379.)

The proclamation, above-mentioned, of the 9th of April, was designed, not so much to express the king's particular concern for the welfare of Virginia, as to avow his fixed determination to pursue the hostile policy towards Spain which the two houses of the last parliament, in conference soon after the return of Charles from Madrid, had, by the representations of Buckingham, been led, in a moment of excitement, to uphold and recommend to King James. The ardor of Charles was quickened by the capture, a few days before, of three English ships by some of the Spanish Dunkirkers then infesting the English coast and channel. Although the Spanish resident hastened to excuse the affair, and to assure the King that most ample indemnity should instantly be made, he only obtained a cold refusal of all indemnity, followed by the King's intimation that "he should find time to make himself amends." (I. Clarendon, p. 20, Oxford ed. 1705; I. Birch, Charles, p. 5.)

The first parliament of Charles, however, was not so eager for a war with Spain, as the last of James had been. The temporary popularity of Buckingham had vanished; and he was now an object of general distrust and hatred. He was looked upon as a vain, presumptuous adventurer, without the virtues of a patriot, or the qualities of a statesman; and, for the purpose of keeping himself in power, ready at all times to compromise the interests of the sovereign and the nation. To him, as the favorite and unscrupulous adviser of Charles, the faults and mischiefs of the early part of the reign of the latter were constantly ascribed. The king's habitual and almost defiant assertion of his own absolute sovereignty, had also created in the community great apprehension and anxiety for the safety of the rights of the people, and of their representatives in parliament.

The royal proclamation of the 13th of May, noticed above, was purely a work of supererogation in all points but that of publicly declaring his determination to reign as an absolute monarch, whose will was law. Forewarned by this and other avowals of similar import,