But at that time there was a strong party in England who called themselves Puritans, because they insisted on purifying, as they said, the national Church from some of its ceremonies and methods to which they were conscientiously opposed. That party was also opposed to the king, who endeavored in many respects to rule the country contrary to law, and in direct violation of the expressed will of the majority of the people. Many of the Puritans left their native land and sought refuge in New England, where they founded the city of Boston (1630). Next, a body of English Catholics settled Maryland (1634), and the Virginians, who were jealous of the new-comers, made them no little trouble. Later, the English drove the Dutch out of New York and New Jersey and took possession of the country. But before this last event civil war had broken out in England between the king, supported by the Royalists, or Cavaliers, as they were called, and the Puritans, many of whom had left the national Church, and, under the name of Separatists or Independents, had set up a form of worship their own.

The war went against the king. He was taken captive and beheaded. England was then declared a republic under Oliver Cromwell, and Governor Berkeley retired from office. Most of the leading Cavaliers were men of rank, and before the war had been men of property. As they found the new order of things very uncomfortable, hundreds of them emigrated to Virginia, where they knew the Puritans and republicans were few, and the Royalists numerous, rich, and influential.

Some of the most illustrious names in Virginia history are those of Cavalier emigrants. Lee was one, and Washington was probably another.1

The first was a friend of the late king; and members of the family of the second may have fought for him. The descendants

1 It seems to be now admitted that the genealogy of the Washington family cannot be fully traced in England. There is, however, a strong probability that George Washington's ancestors belonged to the Cavalier or Aristocratic party.

of these men-Richard Henry Lee and George Washingtongave their strength, heart and soul, to the establishment of the United States of America.

56. Governor Berkeley again in Power; the Navigation Laws; the King gives away Virginia. — When monarchy was restored in England (1660), Sir William Berkeley put on the governor's silk robe of office again. For sixteen years he, with an Assembly that was in sympathy with him, ruled the country according to his own imperious will. During that long period no new elections were held, and consequently the mass of the people had no voice in the government.

This grievance was not all. During Cromwell's time certain laws called Navigation Laws1 had been enacted which forbade the Virginians to send any tobacco out of the country except in English vessels going to England, or to purchase any foreign goods except those brought over in English vessels. The new king, Charles II., now determined to revise and enforce these laws. Governor Berkeley protested, and all the planters with him; but it was useless. The result was that Virginia's chief trade was almost ruined; for the planters had to sell their tobacco for whatever English merchants saw fit to offer them, and then buy their sugar and their cloth at whatever price those merchants pleased to demand.

This was bad enough, but there was worse to come. In 1673 the wasteful and profligate king, with one stroke of his pen, gave away the whole of Virginia—a territory then having a population of 40,000 for thirty-one years, to the Earl of Arlington and Lord Culpepper, two of his favorites. At last the matter was settled in favor of the colonists, but for a long time it caused great anxiety and distress.

1 The original purpose of the Navigation Laws was not to restrict or injure the foreign trade of the American colonists, but to prevent the Dutch from competing with England in commerce.

2 The population consisted of 32,000 freemen, 2000 negro slaves, and 6000 "apprentices" or white servants.

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Meanwhile, as we have seen, English emigrants, mainly Puritans, had established flourishing colonies in New England; the Dutch had been forced to give up New York, and English Quakers had bought New Jersey. In the South, English Catholics had settled in Maryland, and colonies of Englishmen had also been founded in the Carolinas. Thus by 1675 an English-speaking population practically held control of the whole Atlantic coast of America from Maine nearly to the borders of Florida.

57. Deplorable State of the Colonists; the Bacon Rebellion. The people of Virginia were now in a deplorable state. They had no homes that they could certainly call their own, they had no Assembly that represented them, the taxes were enormous, and they could get scarcely anything for the tobacco they exported. Still their lives were safe, and while life was left hope was left. But in 1676 the Indians suddenly rose, as they had just done in New England, and began massacring the inhabitants. It was not the first attack, but it was the most terrible. The people begged Governor Berkeley's help, but he did nothing. Then a wealthy planter named Nathaniel Bacon raised a force, and took decided action against the Indians. His influence finally became so great with the colonists that Governor Berkeley was obliged to allow the people to elect a new Assembly.

They did so, chose Bacon for one of their representatives, and enacted a series of reform measures known as the "Bacon Laws." But as Bacon distrusted the governor, civil war soon broke out, and the "Virginia rebel," as he was called by those in authority, marched on Jamestown. Seizing a number of the wives of the governor's friends, he placed them in front of his troops. This "White Apron Brigade " saved him from the fire of the governor's guns. That night Jamestown was abandoned. In the morning Bacon entered it, and applying the torch, burned the place to the ground. It was never rebuilt. As you go up the James River to-day you see the ruined tower of the old brick church standing a melancholy memorial of the first English town settled in America.

Bacon soon after died; but one of his chief supporters, named Drummond, fell into the governor's hands. "Mr. Drummond," said the governor, "you are very welcome. I am more glad to see you than any man in Virginia. Mr. Drummond, you shall be hanged in half an hour." He was executed forthwith. In all, Governor Berkeley put to death over twenty persons. When

Ruins of Jamestown.

Charles II. heard of it, he said, "That old fool has hung more men in that naked country than I did for the murder of my father."

1

But the colony never wholly forgot the meaning of the Bacon rebellion, and its protest against tyrannical government. The people's Assembly that enacted the "Bacon Laws" met in June, 1676. Just a century later their descendants met at Williamsburg, nearly in sight of the ruins of Jamestown, and there declared themselves independent of Great Britain.

58. Summary. - Jamestown, the first English town

permanently settled in the New World, was founded in 1607. There the first American legislative assembly met in 1619. Negro slaves were introduced the same year. The cultivation of tobacco built up commerce and largely increased the population but did not favor the growth of towns. The colony was strongly Royalist,

1 King Charles II. had tried and executed only six out of the fifty-nine judges who had sentenced his father (Charles I.) to death.

NEW NETHERLAND.

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and received many Cavaliers from England. Later, the Navigation Laws injured its prosperity. There was a period of bad government, and Bacon attempted reform. His undertaking failed. But the people remembered the man and his work, and Virginia, a hundred years later, was the first colony to declare itself independent of the king and his governors.

II. NEW NETHERLAND, OR NEW YORK (1614).

59. Henry Hudson's Expedition. In 1609 Captain Henry Hudson, an Englishman, then in the employ of Holland, crossed the Atlantic in the hope of finding a passage by water through or round America to China and India.

With his Dutch crew he entered what is now New York Bay, and was the first Englishman who sailed up that noble river which to-day bears his name. He reached a point about 150 miles from the mouth of the river, at or near where Albany now stands. It was the month of September, and Hudson had good reason for saying, "It is as beautiful a land as one can tread upon." About a month before, Champlain1 had come almost as far south as that, on an exploring expedition from Quebec. He gave his own name to the lake, since known as Lake Champlain, and claimed the country for France.

60. The Indians give Hudson a Reception on Manhattan Island; the Strange Drink. The Indians thought that the English captain, in his bright red coat trimmed with gold lace, must be the Great Spirit or his direct representative. They gave him a formal reception on Manhattan Island. In the course of the interview Hudson drank the chief's health in a glass of brandy, and then offered him a glass. The chief took it, smelt of it, and passed it to his warriors. Thus it went from hand to hand. At last it came to one more daring than the rest. He thought the

1 See Paragraph 50.