Part 8 (1/2)

[Footnote 35: In 1624 the crop was three hundred thousand pounds, the total importations from Virginia, Bermuda, and Spain four hundred and fifty thousand pounds, and the profit in customs to the crown was 93,350.]

[Footnote 36: _Cal. of State Pap., Col._, 1574-1660, p. 89.]

[Footnote 37: Ibid., 88.]

[Footnote 38: Hening, _Statutes_, I., 147, II., 20.]

[Footnote 39: _Cal. of State Pap., Col._, 1574-1660, p. 133.]

[Footnote 40: Hening, _Statutes_, I., 208, 257; Ma.s.s. Hist. Soc., _Collections_, 4th series, IX., III.]

[Footnote 41: _Cal. of State Pap., Col._, 1574-1660, p. 130.]

[Footnote 42: _Cal. of State Pap., Col._, 1574-1660, pp. 136, 177.]

[Footnote 43: Hening, _Statutes_, I., 171.]

[Footnote 44: _Va. Magazine_, I., 416, 425, VIII., 299-306; Neill, _Virginia Carolorum_, 118-120.]

[Footnote 45: _Cal. of State Pap., Col._, 1574-1660, pp. 216, 217.]

[Footnote 46: Wyatt's commission, in _Va. Magazine_, XI., 50-54; _Cal.

of State Pap., Col_., 1574-1674, p. 83.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: VIRGINIA IN 1652. Showing the Counties and Dates of their Formation.]

CHAPTER VI

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC CONDITIONS OF VIRGINIA

(1634-1652)

During the vicissitudes of government in Virginia the colony continued to increase in wealth and population, and in 1634 eight counties were created;[1] while an official census in April, 1635, showed nearly five thousand people, to which number sixteen hundred were added in 1636. The new-comers during Harvey's time were princ.i.p.ally servants who came to work the tobacco-fields.[2] Among them were some convicts and s.h.i.+ftless people, but the larger number were persons of respectable standing, and some had comfortable estates and influential connections in England.[3] Freed from their service in Virginia, not a few attained positions as justices of the peace and burgesses in the General a.s.sembly.[4]

The trade of Virginia was become so extensive that Dutch as well as English s.h.i.+ps sought the colony. The princ.i.p.al settlements were on the north side of James River, and as the voyager in 1634 sailed from Chesapeake Bay he pa.s.sed first the new fort at Point Comfort lately constructed by Captain Samuel Matthews. About five miles farther on was Newport News, chiefly remarkable for its spring, where all the s.h.i.+ps stopped to take in water, at this time the residence of Captain Daniel Gookin, a prominent Puritan, who afterwards removed to Ma.s.sachusetts. Five miles above Newport News, at Deep Creek, was Denbeigh, Captain Samuel Matthews's place, a miniature village rather than plantation, where many servants were employed, hemp and flax woven, hides tanned, leather made into shoes, cattle and swine raised for the s.h.i.+ps outward bound, and a large dairy and numerous poultry kept.

A few hours' sail from Denbeigh was Littletown, the residence of George Menifie. He had a garden of two acres on the river-side, which was full of roses of Provence, apple, pear, and cherry trees, and the various fruits of Holland, with different kinds of sweet-smelling herbs, such as rosemary, sage, marjoram, and thyme. Growing around the house was an orchard of peach-trees, which astonished his visitors very much, for they were not to be seen anywhere else on the coast.[5]

About six miles farther was Jamestown, a village of three hundred inhabitants, built upon two streets at the upper end of the island.

There the governor resided with some of his council, one of whom, Captain William Pierce, had a garden of three or four acres, from which his wife a few years before obtained a hundred bushels of figs.[6] The houses there as elsewhere were of wood, with brick chimneys, but architecture was improving.

In 1637 the General a.s.sembly offered a lot to every person who should build a house at Jamestown Island; and in pursuance of the encouragement given, ”twelve new houses and stores were built in the town,” one of brick by Richard Kempe, ”the fairest ever known in this country for substance and uniformity.” About the same time money was raised for a brick church and a brick state-house.[7] As to the general condition of the colony in 1634, Captain Thomas Young reported that there was not only a ”very great plentie of milk, cheese, and b.u.t.ter, but of corn, which latter almost every planter in the colony hath.”[8]

Such a ”plentie of corn” must be contrasted with the scarcity in 1630, for the current of prosperity did not run altogether smoothly. The mortality still continued frightful, and ”during the months of June, July, and August, the people died like cats and dogs,”[9] a statement especially true of the servants, of whom hardly one in five survived the first year's hards.h.i.+ps in the malarial tobacco-fields along the creeks and rivers.[10] In 1630 tobacco tumbled from its high price of 3s. 6d. to 1d. per pound, and the colony was much ”perplexed” for want of money to buy corn, which they had neglected to raise. To relieve the distress, Harvey, the next year, sent several s.h.i.+ps to trade with the Indians up Chesapeake Bay and on the coast as far south as Cape Fear.[11]

Tobacco legislation for the next ten years consisted in regulations vainly intended to prevent further declines. Tobacco fluctuated in value from one penny to sixpence, and, as it was the general currency, this uncertainty caused much trouble. Some idea of the general dependency upon tobacco may be had from a statute in 1640, which, after providing for the destruction of all the bad tobacco and half the good, estimated the remainder actually placed upon the market by a population of eight thousand at one million five hundred thousand pounds.[12]

The decline in the price of tobacco had the effect of turning the attention of the planters to other industries, especially the supply of corn to the large emigration from England to Ma.s.sachusetts. In 1631 a s.h.i.+p-load of corn from Virginia was sold at Salem, in Ma.s.sachusetts, for ten s.h.i.+llings the bushel.[13] In 1634 at least ten thousand bushels were taken to Ma.s.sachusetts, besides ”good quant.i.ties of beeves, goats, and hogs”;[14] and Harvey declared that Virginia had become ”the granary of all his majesty's northern colonies,”[15] Yet from an imported pestilence, the year 1636 was so replete with misery that Samuel Maverick, of Ma.s.sachusetts, who visited the colony, reported that eighteen hundred persons died, and corn sold at twenty s.h.i.+llings per bushel.[16]

Sir Francis Wyatt arrived in the colony, November, 1639, and immediately called Harvey to account for his abuse of power. The decree against Panton was repealed, and his estate, which had been seized, was returned to him, while the property of Harvey was taken to satisfy his numerous creditors.[17] The agitation for the renewal of the charter still continued, and Wyatt called a general a.s.sembly January, 1640, at which time it was determined to make another effort.