VIRGINIA AND ITS INHABITANTS. 249 VI. established a nearly independent democracy. Pros- CHAP. perity advanced with freedom; dreams of new staples and infinite wealth were indulged; while the population of Virginia at the epoch of the restoration, may have been about thirty thousand. Many of the recent emigrants had been royalists in England, good officers in the war, men of education, of property, and of condition. But the waters of the Atlantic divided them from the political strifes of Europe; their industry was employed in making the best advantage of their plantations; the interests and liberties of Virginia, the land, which they adopted as their country, were dearer to them than the monarchical principles, which they had espoused in England; and therefore no bitterness could exist between the partisans of the Stuarts and the friends of republican liberty. Virginia had long been the home of its inhabitants. 66 Among many other blessings," said their statute book,3 "God Almighty hath vouchsafed increase of children to this colony; who are now multiplied to a considerable number;" and the huts in the wilderness were as full as the birdsnests of the woods. The genial climate and transparent atmosphere delighted those, who had come from the denser air of England. Every object in nature was new and wonderful. The loud and frequent thunder-storms 1E. Williams' Virginia, and Virginia's Discovery of Silkworms, 1650, quarto. 2 Clarendon, b. xiii. v. iii. p. 466. 467; Walsh's Appeal, p. 31. 3. Hening, v. i. 336. "A very VOL. I. numerous generation of Christian children born in Virginia, who naturally are of beautiful and comely persons, and generally of more ingenious spirits than those of England." Virginia's Cure, p. 5. 32 VI. CHAP. were phenomena, that had been rarely witnessed in the colder summers of the north; the forests, majestic in their growth and free from underwood, deserved admiration for their unrivalled magnificence; the purling streams and the frequent rivers, flowing between alluvial banks, quickened the ever pregnant soil into an unwearied fertility; the strangest and the most delicate flowers grew familiarly in the fields; the woods were replenished with sweet barks and odors; the gardens matured the fruits of Europe, of which the growth was invigorated and the flavor improved by the activity of the virgin mould. Especially the birds with their gay plumage and varied melodies inspired delight; every traveller expressed his pleasure in listening to the mockingbird, which carolled a thousand several tunes, imitating and excelling the notes of all its rivals. The humming-bird, so brilliant in its plumage and so delicate in its form, quick in motion yet not fearing the presence of man, haunting about the flowers like the bee gathering honey, rebounding from the blossoms out of which it sips the dew, and as soon returning "to renew its many addresses to its delightful objects," was ever admired as the smallest and the most beautiful of the feathered race. The rattlesnake, with the terrors of its alarms and the power of its venom; the opossum, soon to become as celebrated for the care of its offspring as the fabled pelican; the noisy frog, booming from the shallows like the English bittern; the flying squirrel; the myriads of pigeons, darkening the air with the im VIRGINIA AND ITS INHABITANTS. 251 VI. mensity of their flocks, and, as men believed, break- CHAP. ing with their weight the boughs of trees on which they alighted, were all honored with frequent commemoration and became the subjects of the strangest tales. The concurrent relation of all the Indians justified the belief, that, within ten days' journey towards the setting of the sun, there was a country, where gold might be washed from the sand; and where the natives themselves had learned the use of the crucible; but definite and accurate as were the accounts, inquiry was always baffled; and the regions of gold remained for two centuries an undiscovered land. Various were the employments by which the calmness of life was relieved. One idle man, who had been a great traveller, and who did not remain in America, beguiled the ennui of his seclusion by translating the whole of Ovid's Metamorphoses. To the man of leisure, the chase furnished a perpetual resource. It was not long before the horse was multiplied in Virginia; and to improve that noble animal was early an object of pride, soon to be favored by legislation. Speed was especially valued; and the planter's pace became a proverb. Equally proverbial was the hospitality of the Virginians. Labor was valuable; land was cheap; competence promptly followed industry. There was no need of a scramble; abundance gushed from the earth for all. The morasses were alive with water 1 E. Williams, Virginia, &c. p. 17. Comp. Silliman's Journal, on the mines of N. C. v. xxiii. p. 8, 9, VI. CHAP. fowl; the forests were nimble with game; the woods rustled with covies of quails and wild turkies, while they rung with the merry notes of the singing-birds; and hogs, swarming like vermin, ran at large in troops. It was "the best poor man's country in the world." "If a happy peace be settled in poor England," it had been said, "then they in Virginia shall be as happy a people as any under heaven." But plenty encouraged indolence. No domestic manufactures were established; every thing was imported from England. The chief branch of industry, for the purpose of exchanges, was tobacco planting; and the spirit of invention was enfeebled by the uniformity of pursuit. 1 ii. M. Hist. Coll. v. ix. p. 116, CHAPTER VII. COLONIZATION OF MARYLAND. VII. THE limits of Virginia, by its second charter, CHAP. extended two hundred miles north of Old Point Comfort; and therefore included all the soil, which 1609. subsequently formed the state of Maryland. It was long before the country towards the head of the Chesapeake was explored; settlements in Accomack were extended; and commerce was begun with the tribes which Smith had been the first to visit. Porey, the secretary of the colony, "made a dis- 1621. covery into the great bay," as far as the river Patuxent, which he ascended; but his voyage probably extended no further to the north. The English settlement of a hundred men, which he is represented to have found already established,' was rather a consequence of his voyage; and seems to have been on the eastern shore, perhaps within the limits of Virginia. The hope "of a very good trade of furs," animated the adventurers; and if the plantations advanced but slowly, there is yet evidence, that commerce with the Indians was earnestly pursued under the sanction of the colonial government.3 2 Chalmers, p. 206. 3 Relation of Maryland, p. 4; 2 Purchas, v. iv. p. 1784; Smith, Smith's History of Virginia, v. ii. v. ii. p. 61–64. p. 63 and 95. |