History of the Colony and Ancient Dominion of Virginia Part 11

The peers engaged in the trial of the Earls of Ess.e.x and Southampton smoked much while they deliberated on their verdict. It was alleged against Sir Walter Raleigh that he used tobacco on the occasion of the execution of the Earl of Ess.e.x, in contempt of him; and it was perhaps in allusion to this circ.u.mstance that when Raleigh was pa.s.sing through London to Winchester, to stand his trial, he was followed by the execrations of the populace, and pelted with tobacco-pipes, stones, and mud. On the scaffold, however, he protested that during the execution of Ess.e.x he had retired far off into the armory, where Ess.e.x could not see him, although he saw Ess.e.x, and shed tears for him. Raleigh used tobacco on the morning of his own execution.

As early as the year 1610 tobacco was in general use in England. The manner of using it was partly to inhale the smoke and blow it out through the nostrils, and this was called "drinking tobacco," and this practice continued until the latter part of the reign of James the First. In 1614 the number of tobacco-houses in or near London was estimated at seven thousand. In 1620 was chartered the Society of Tobacco-pipe Makers of London; they bore on their s.h.i.+eld a tobacco-plant in full blossom.

The "Counterblast against Tobacco," attributed to James the First, if in some parts absurd and puerile, yet is not without a good deal of just reasoning and good sense; some fair hits are made in it, and those who have ridiculed that production might find it not easy to controvert some of its views. King James, in his Counterblast, does not omit the opportunity of expressing his hatred toward Sir Walter Raleigh, in terms worthy of that despicable monarch. He continued his opposition to tobacco as long as he lived, and in his ordinary conversation oftentimes argued and inveighed against it.

The Virginia tobacco in early times was imported into England in the leaf, in bundles, as at present; the Spanish or West Indian tobacco in b.a.l.l.s. Mola.s.ses or other liquid preparation was used in preparing those b.a.l.l.s. Tobacco was then, as now, adulterated in various ways. The nice retailer kept it in what were called lily-pots, that is, white jars. The tobacco was cut on a maple block; juniper-wood, which retains fire well, was used for lighting pipes, and among the rich silver tongs were employed for taking up a coal of it. Tobacco was sometimes called the American Silver Weed.

The Turkish Vizier thrust pipes through the noses of smokers; and the Shah of Persia cropped the ears and slit the noses of those who made use of the fascinating leaf. The Counterblast says of it: "And for the vanity committed in this filthy custom, is it not both great vanity and uncleanness, that at the table--a place of respect of cleanliness, of modesty--men should not be ashamed to sit tossing of tobacco-pipes and puffing of smoke, one at another, making the filthy smoke and stink thereof to exhale athwart the dishes, and infect the air, when very often men who abhor it are at their repast? Surely smoke becomes a kitchen far better than a dining-chamber; and yet it makes the kitchen oftentimes in the inward parts of man, soiling and infecting them with an unctuous and oily kind of soot, as hath been found in some great tobacco-takers that after their deaths were opened."

"A Counterblast to Tobacco," by James the First, King of England, was first printed in quarto, without name or date, at London, 1616. In the frontispiece was engraved the tobacco-smoker's coat of arms, consisting of a blackamoor's head, cross-pipes, cross-bones, death's-head, etc. It is not improbable that it was intended to foment the popular prejudice against Sir Walter Raleigh, who first introduced the use of tobacco into England, and who was put to death in the same year, 1616. King James alludes to the introduction of the use of tobacco and of Raleigh as follows: "It is not so long since the first entry of this abuse among us here, as that this present age cannot very well remember both the first author and the form of the first introduction of it among us. It was neither brought in by king, great conqueror, nor learned doctor of physic. With the report of a great discovery for a conquest, some two or three savage men were brought in together with this savage custom; but the pity is, the poor wild barbarous men died, but that vile barbarous custom is still alive, yea, in fresh vigor; so as it seems a miracle to me how a custom springing from so vile a ground, and brought in by a father so generally hated, should be welcomed upon so slender a warrant."

The king thus reasons against the Virginia staple: "Secondly, it is, as you use or rather abuse it, a branch of the sin of drunkenness, which is the root of all sins,[156:A] for as the only delight that drunkards love any weak or sweet drink, so are not those (I mean the strong heat and fume) the only qualities that make tobacco so delectable to all the lovers of it? And as no man loves strong heavy drinks the first day, (because nemo repente fuit turp.i.s.simus,) but by custom is piece and piece allured, while in the end a drunkard will have as great a thirst to be drunk as a sober man to quench his thirst with a draught when he hath need of it; so is not this the true case of all the great takers of tobacco, which therefore they themselves do attribute to a bewitching quality in it? Thirdly, is it not the greatest sin of all that you, the people of all sorts of this kingdom, who are created and ordained by G.o.d to bestow both your persons and goods for the maintenance both of the honor and safety of your king and commonwealth, should disable yourself to this shameful imbecility, that you are not able to ride or walk the journey of a Jew's Sabbath but you must have a reeky coal brought you from the next poor-house to kindle your tobacco with? whereas he cannot be thought able for any service in the wars that cannot endure oftimes the want of meat, drink, and sleep; much more then must he endure the want of tobacco." A curious tractate on tobacco, by Dr. Tobias Venner, was published at London in 1621. The author was a graduate of Oxford, and a physician at Bath, and is mentioned in the Oxoniae Athenienses.[157:A]

The amount of tobacco imported in 1619 into England, from Virginia, being the entire crop of the preceding year, was twenty thousand pounds.

At the end of seventy years there were annually imported into England more than fifteen millions of pounds of it, from which was derived a revenue of upwards of 100,000.[157:B]

In April, 1621, the House of Commons debated whether it was expedient to prohibit the importation of tobacco entirely; and they determined to exclude all save from Virginia and the Somer Isles. It was estimated that the consumption of England amounted to one thousand pounds per diem. This seductive narcotic leaf, which soothes the mind and quiets its perturbations, has found its way into all parts of the habitable globe, from the sunny tropics to the snowy regions of the frozen pole.

Its fragrant smoke ascends alike to the blackened rafters of the lowly hut, and the gilded ceilings of luxurious wealth.

FOOTNOTES:

[154:A] Introduction to "A Counterblast to Tobacco, by James the First, King of England," published at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 1843.

[156:A] And one from which the king himself was not free.

[157:A] A copy of this rare pamphlet was lent me by N. S. Walker, Esq., of Richmond.

[157:B] Chalmers, Introduc. to Hist. of Revolt of Amer. Colonies, i. 13.

CHAPTER XV.

1621-1622.

Silk in Virginia--Endowment of East India School--Ministers in Virginia--Sermon at Bow Church--Corporation of Henrico.

IN November and December, 1621, at an a.s.sembly held at James City, acts were pa.s.sed for encouraging the planting of mulberry-trees, and the making of silk; but this enterprise, so early commenced in Virginia, and so earnestly revived of late years, is still unsuccessful; and it may be concluded that the climate of Virginia is unpropitious to that sort of production.

The Rev. Mr. Copeland, Chaplain on board of the Royal James, East Indiaman, on the return voyage from the East Indies, prevailed upon the officers and crew of that s.h.i.+p to contribute seventy pounds toward the establishment of a church and school in Virginia, and Charles City County was selected as the site of it, and it was to be called the East India School, and to be dependent upon the college at Henrico. The Virginia Company allotted one thousand acres of land for the maintenance of the master and usher, and presented three hundred acres to Mr.

Copeland. Workmen were accordingly sent out early in 1622, to begin the building. The clergymen in Virginia at this time were Messrs. Whitaker, Mease, Wickham, Stockham, and Bargrave.[158:A]

Early in 1622 very favorable intelligence from Virginia reached England, and upon this occasion, on the seventeenth of April, the Rev.

Mr. Copeland, by appointment, preached before the Virginia Company, at Bow Church. He was shortly afterwards appointed a member of the Virginia Council and rector of the college established for the conversion of the Indians; but all these benevolent purposes and hopeful antic.i.p.ations were suddenly darkened and defeated by the news of a catastrophe which had, in a few hours, blasted the labors of so many years.

FOOTNOTES:

[158:A] The following is found in the early records:--

THE CORPORATION OF HENRICO.

On the northerly ridge of James River, from the falls down to Henrico, containing ten miles in length, are the public lands, surveyed and laid out; whereof, ten thousand acres for the university lands, three thousand acres for the company's lands, with other lands belonging to the college. The common land for that corporation, fifteen hundred acres.

On the southerly side, beginning from the falls, there are there patented, viz.:--

Acres.

John Petterson 100 Anthony Edwards 100 Nathaniel Norton 100 John Proctor 200 Thomas Tracy 100 John Vithard 100 Francis Weston 300 Phettiplace Close 100 John Price 150 Peter Nemenart 110 William Perry 100 John Plower 100 Surveyed for the use of the iron-work.

Edward Hudson 100 Thomas Morgan 150 Thomas Sheffield 150

Cosendale, within the Corporation of Henrico:--

Acres.

Lieut. Edward Barckley 112 Richard Poulton 100 Robert a.n.a.land 200 John Griffin 50 Peter Nemenart 40 Thomas Tindall 100 Thomas Reed 100 John Laydon 200

CHAPTER XVI.

1622.

The Ma.s.sacre--Its Origin, Nemattanow--Opechancanough--Security of Colonists--Perfidy of the Indians--Particulars of Ma.s.sacre-- Its Consequences--Brave Defence of some--Supplies sent from England--Captain Smith's Offer.

ON the twenty-second day of March, 1622, there occurred in the colony a memorable ma.s.sacre, which originated, as was believed, in the following circ.u.mstances: There was among the Indians a famous chief, named Nemattanow, or "Jack of the Feather," as he was styled by the English, from his fas.h.i.+on of decking his hair. He was reckoned by his own people invulnerable to the arms of the English. This Nemattanow coming to the store of one of the settlers named Morgan, persuaded him to go to Pamunkey to trade, and murdered him by the way. Nemattanow, in two or three days, returned to Morgan's house, and finding there two young men, Morgan's servants, who inquired for their master, answered them that he was dead. The young men, seeing their master's cap on the Indian's head, suspected the murder, and undertook to conduct him to Mr. Thorpe, who then lived at Berkley, on the James River, since well known as a seat of the Harrisons, and originally called "Brickley." Nemattanow so exasperated the young men on the way that they shot him, and he falling, they put him into a boat and conveyed him to the governor at Jamestown, distant seven or eight miles. The wounded chief in a short time died.

Feeling the approaches of death, he entreated the young men not to disclose that he had been mortally wounded by a bullet: so strong is the desire for posthumous fame even in the breast of a wild, untutored savage!

Opechancanough, the ferocious Indian chief, agitated with mingled emotions of grief and indignation at the loss of his favorite Nemattanow, at first muttered threats of revenge; but the retorted defiance of the English made him for a time smother his resentment and dissemble his dark designs under the guise of friends.h.i.+p. Accordingly, upon Sir Francis Wyat's arrival, all suspicion of Indian treachery had died away; the colonists, in delusive security, were in general dest.i.tute of arms; the plantations lay dispersed, as caprice suggested, or a rich vein of land allured, as for as the Potomac River;[161:A]

their houses everywhere open to the Indians, who fed at their tables and lodged under their roofs. About the middle of March, a messenger being sent upon some occasion to Opechancanough, he entertained him kindly, and protested that he held the peace so firm that "the sky should fall before he broke it." On the twentieth of the same month, the Indians guided some of the English safely through the forest, and the more completely to lull all suspicion, they sent one Brown, who was sojourning among them for the purpose of learning their language, back home to his master. They even borrowed boats from the whites to cross the river when about holding a council on the meditated attack. The ma.s.sacre took place on Friday, the twenty-second of March, 1622. On the evening before, and on that very morning, the Indians, as usual, came unarmed into the houses of the unsuspecting colonists, with fruits, fish, turkeys, and venison for sale: in some places they actually sate down to breakfast with the English. At about the hour of noon the savages, rising suddenly and everywhere at the same time, butchered the colonists with their own implements, sparing neither age, nor s.e.x, nor condition; and thus fell in a few hours three hundred and forty-nine men, women, and children. The infuriated savages wreaked their vengeance even on the dead, dragging and mangling the lifeless bodies, smearing their hands in blood, and bearing off the torn and yet palpitating limbs as trophies of a brutal triumph.

Among their victims was Mr. George Thorpe, (a kinsman of Sir Thomas Dale,) who had been of the king's bedchamber, deputy to the college lands, and one of the princ.i.p.al men of the colony--a pious gentleman, who had labored zealously for the conversion of the Indians, and had treated them with uniform kindness. As an instance of this, they having at one time expressed their fears of the English mastiff dogs, he had caused some of them to be put to death, to the great displeasure of their owners. Opechancanough inhabiting a paltry cabin, Mr. Thorpe had built him a handsome house after the English manner.[162:A] But the savage miscreants, equally deaf to the voice of humanity and the emotions of grat.i.tude, murdered their benefactor with every circ.u.mstance of remorseless cruelty. He had been forewarned of his danger by a servant, but making no effort to escape, fell a victim to his misplaced confidence. With him ten other persons were slain at Berkley.

Another of the victims was Captain Nathaniel Powell, one of the first settlers, a brave soldier, and who had for a brief interval filled the place of governor of the colony. His family fell with him. Nathaniel Causie, another of Captain Smith's old soldiers, when severely wounded and surrounded by the Indians, slew one of them with an axe, and put the rest to flight. At Warrasqueake a colonist named Baldwin, by repeatedly firing his gun, saved himself and family, and divers others. The savages at the same time made an attempt upon the house of a planter named Harrison, (near Baldwin's,) where were Thomas Hamor with some men, and a number of women and children. The Indians tried to inveigle Hamor out of the house, by pretending that Opechancanough was hunting in the neighboring woods and desired to have his company; but he not coming out, they set fire to a tobacco-house; the men ran toward the fire, and were pursued by the Indians, who pierced them with arrows and beat out their brains. Hamor having finished a letter that he was writing, and suspecting no treachery, went out to see what was the matter, when, being wounded in the back with an arrow, he returned to the house and barricaded it. Meanwhile Harrison's boy, finding his master's gun loaded, fired it at random, and the Indians fled. Baldwin still continuing to discharge his gun, Hamor, with twenty-two others, withdrew to his house, leaving their own in flames. Hamor next retired to a new house that he was building, and there defending himself with spades, axes, and brickbats, escaped the fury of the savages. The master of a vessel lying in the James River sent a file of musqueteers ash.o.r.e, who recaptured from the enemy the Merchant's store-house. In the neighborhood of Martin's Hundred seventy-three persons were butchered; yet a small family there escaped, and heard nothing of the ma.s.sacre until two days after.

Thus fell in so short a s.p.a.ce of time one-twelfth part of the colonists of Virginia, including six members of the council. The destruction might have been universal but for the disclosure of a converted Indian, named Chanco, who, during the night preceding the ma.s.sacre, revealed the plot to one Richard Pace, with whom he lived. Pace, upon receiving this intelligence, after fortifying his own house, repaired before day to Jamestown, and gave the alarm to Sir Francis Wyat, the Governor; his vigilance saved a large part of the colony from destruction.[163:A]

Eleven were killed at Berkley, fifty at Edward Bonit's plantation, two at Westover, five at Mac.o.c.ks, four on Appomattox River, six at Flower-de-Hundred, twenty-one of Sir George Yeardley's people at Weyanoke, and seventy-three at Martin's Hundred, seven miles from Jamestown.

The horrors of famine threatened to follow in the train of ma.s.sacre, and the consternation of the survivors was such that twenty or thirty days elapsed before any plan of defence was concerted. Many were urgent to abandon the James River, and take refuge on the eastern sh.o.r.e, where some newly settled plantations had escaped. At length it was determined to abandon the weaker plantations, and to concentrate their surviving population in five or six well fortified places, s.h.i.+rley, Flower-de-Hundred, Jamestown, with Paspahey, and the plantations opposite to Kiquotan, and Southampton Hundred. In consequence a large part of the cattle and effects of the planters fell a prey to the enemy.

Nevertheless, a planter, "Master Gookins," at Newport's News, refused to abandon his plantation, and with thirty-five men resolutely held it.

The family of Gookins is ancient, and appears to have been found originally at Canterbury, in Kent, England. The name has undergone successive changes--Colkin, c.o.c.kin, c.o.c.kayn, Cocyn, c.o.kain, c.o.kin, Gockin, Gokin, Gookin, Gookins, Gooking, and others. The early New England chroniclers spelled it "Goggin."[164:A] Daniel Gookin removed to County Cork, in Ireland, and thence to Virginia, arriving in November, 1621, with fifty men of his own and thirty pa.s.sengers, exceedingly well furnished with all sorts of provision and cattle, and planted himself at Newport's News. In the ma.s.sacre he held out with a force of thirty-five men against the savages, disregarding the order to retire. It is probable that he affected to make a settlement independent of the civil power of the colony, and it appears to have been styled by his son a "lords.h.i.+p." It was above Newport's News, and was called "Mary's Mount."[164:B]

To return to the incidents of the ma.s.sacre. Samuel Jordan, with the aid of a few refugees, maintained his ground at Beggar's Bush;[164:C] as also did Mr. Edward Hill, at Elizabeth City. "Mrs. Proctor, a proper, civil, modest gentlewoman," defended herself and family for a month after the ma.s.sacre, until at last constrained to retire by the English officers, who threatened, if she refused, to burn her house down; which was done by the Indians shortly after her withdrawal. Captain Newce, of Elizabeth City, and his wife, distinguished themselves by their liberality to the sufferers. Several families escaped to the country afterwards known as North Carolina, and settled there.[164:D]

When intelligence of this event reached England, the king granted the Virginia Company some unserviceable arms out of the Tower, and "_lent_ them twenty barrels of powder;" Lord St. John of Basing gave sixty coats of mail; the privy council sent out supplies, and the City of London dispatched one hundred settlers.[165:A]