Part 10 (1/2)

[Sidenote: Advent of Puritanism.]

In the very years during which the Ferrars were most active on behalf of Virginia the earliest Puritan movement toward America set in. The attenuated mediaevalism of the Ferrars did not lack a certain refined beauty, but it was hardly suited to the rough work of hewing a road along which civilization might march into a savage wilderness. The Puritans, with their robust contempt for aesthetic considerations--making firewood of organs with delight, and feasting without scruple on the sheep of those whom they esteemed idolaters--were much the fitter to be champions against the American Canaanites.

ELUCIDATIONS.

[Sidenote: Note 1, page 74.]

Two of the chapter heads to Hakluyt's Westerne Planting, printed in 2d Maine Historical Collections, ii, sufficiently indicate the views prevailing at the time:

”V. That this voyadge will be a greate bridle to the Indies of the Kinge of Spaine, and a meane that wee may arreste at our pleasure for the s.p.a.ce of tenne weekes or three monethes every yere, one or two hundred saile of his subjectes s.h.i.+ppes at the fyss.h.i.+nge in Newfounde lande.

”VI. That the mischefe that the Indian threasure wroughte in time of Charles the late Emperor, father to the Spanishe Kinge, is to be had in consideration of the Queens moste excellent Majestie, least the contynuall comynge of the like threasure from thence to his sonne worke the unrecoverable annoye of this realme, wherof already wee have had very dangerous experience.”

The heading of the first chapter should be added: ”I. That this westerne discoverie will be greately for thinlargemente of the gospell of Christe whereunto the princes of the refourmed relligion are chefely bounde, amongst whome her Majestie ys princ.i.p.all.”

It would be foreign to the purpose of the present work to tell the story of Spanish jealousy of Virginia, and of the diplomatic intrigues for the overthrow of the colony. See doc.u.ments in Mr. Alexander Brown's Genesis of the United States. One can not but regret that Mr.

Brown did not give also the original of his Spanish papers; no translation is adequate to the use of the historian.

[Sidenote: Note 2, page 78.]

This method was recommended to the colonists as late as 1753 in Pullein's Culture of Silk for the Use of the American Colonies, and it had probably long prevailed on the continent of Europe.

[Sidenote: Note 3, page 79.]

The authorities on the early efforts to raise silk, in addition to those cited in the text and the margin, are too numerous to find place here. The most valuable of all is, of course, the copy of the Records of the Virginia Company after April, 1619, in the Library of Congress, _pa.s.sim_. See, for example, under date of December 13, 1620, and June 11, 1621. See also A Declaration of Virginia, 1620, and Purchas, pp.

1777-1787, Hamor's True Discourse, Smith's General History, Book II, Anderson's Commerce under 1620, and various state papers abstracted by Sainsbury, with Sainsbury's preface to the first volume of his Calendar, and Hening, _pa.s.sim_. The reader is also referred to Mr.

Bruce's Economic History of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century, issued as these pages are pa.s.sing into the hands of the printer. The wildness of some of the proposals for the production of Virginia silk in the Commonwealth period is almost surpa.s.sed by other projects of the time. In Virginia Richly Valued, 1650, perfume was to be extracted from the muskrat, and the James River sturgeon were to be domesticated. Fishes may be ”unwilded,” says the author. Besides feeding silkworms, the Indians were to be used in pearl fisheries in Virginia waters. Wyckoff on Silk Manufacture, Tenth Census, says that experimental silkworms had been taken to Mexico by the Spaniards in 1531, without any permanent results.

[Sidenote: Note 4, page 82.]

Even in Elizabeth's time efforts had been made to procure naval stores without the intervention of foreign merchants. As early as 1583, Carlisle, who was son-in-law to Secretary Walsingham, had subscribed a thousand pounds toward an American colony, which it was urged would buy English woolens, take off idle and burdensome people, and, among other things, produce naval stores. In 1601 Ralegh had protested eloquently against the act to compel Englishmen to sow hemp. ”Rather let every man use his ground to that which it is most fit for,” he said. Edwards, Life of Ralegh, p. 272.

[Sidenote: Note 5, page 83.]

Why Germans were sent it is hard to say, as gla.s.s was made in England as early as 1557. Gla.s.s was produced in Virginia, according to Strachey, who says: ”Although the country wants not Salsodiack enough to make gla.s.se of, and of which we have made some stoore in a goodly howse sett up for the same purpose, with all offices and furnases thereto belonging, a little without the island, where Jamestown now stands.” History of Travaile into Virginnia Brittannia, p. 71. The house appears to have been standing and in operation in 1624. Calendar of Colonial Doc.u.ments, January 30, February 16, and number 20, pp. 38, 39.

[Sidenote: Note 6, page 83.]

Purchas, p. 1777, says that one hundred and fifty persons were sent over two years earlier to set up three iron works, but the statement seems hardly credible. In the midst of the misery following the ma.s.sacre of 1622, and notwithstanding the imminent probability of the overthrow of the company, which was already impoverished, some of the adventurers or shareholders sent nine men to Virginia to try a different method of making iron from the one that had previously been used. Letter of August 6, 1623, in Ma.n.u.script Book of Instructions in Library of Congress, fol. 120. Having ”failed to effect” the making of iron ”by those great wayes which we have formerly attempted,” the undiscouraged visionaries ”most gladly embraced this more facile project” of making iron ”by bloom,” but with a like result, of course.

[Sidenote: Note 7, page 84.]