IN the year 1612 the London Company obtained from the king a third patent, by which the government was again changed. The Superior Council was abolished, and the stockholders were authorized to elect their own officers and to govern the colony on their own responsibility. The new patent was a great step toward a democratic form of government in Virginia.

2. In 1613 Captain Samuel Argall, on an expedition up the Potomac, learned that Pocahontas was residing in that neighborhood. He enticed the girl on board his vessel and carried her captive to Jamestown. It was decided that Powhatan should pay a heavy ransom for his daughter's liberation. The king refused, and ordered his tribes to prepare for war. Meanwhile, Pocahontas was converted to the Christian faith and became a member of the Episcopal Church.

3. Soon afterwards John Rolfe, of the colony, sought the hand of the princess in marriage. Powhatan gave his consent, and the nuptials were celebrated in the spring of the next year. Three years later, Pocahontas, while visiting in England, fell sick and died. There was left of this marriage a son, who came to Jamestown, and to whom several families of Virginians still trace their origin. John Randolph of Roanoke was a descendant of Pocahontas.

4. Captain Argall was next sent with an armed vessel to the coast of Maine, to protect the English fishermen, and to destroy the colonies of France, if any should be found within the territory claimed by England. The French authorities of Acadia were building a village near the mouth of the Penobscot. The settlement was pillaged and the houses burned. The French colony at the mouth of the St. Croix was attacked, and the fort cannonaded and destroyed; the hamlet at Port Royal was burned. By these outrages, the French settlements in America were confined to the banks of the St. Lawrence.

5. In March of 1614 Sir Thomas Gates returned to England, leaving the government with Dale. In these times the laws of the colony were much improved, and the industry took a better form. Hitherto the settlers had engaged in planting vineyards and in the manufacture of soap, glass, and tar. The managers of the company had at last learned that these articles could be produced more cheaply in Europe than in America, while some products of the New World might be raised and exported with great profit. The chief of these was the tobacco-plant, the use of which had become fashionable in Spain, England, and France. This, then, became the leading staple of the colony, and was even used for money. So entirely did the settlers give themselves to the cultivation of the weed that the streets of Jamestown were plowed up and planted with it.

6. In 1617 the unprincipled Captain Argall was elected governor. When the news of his fraudulent and violent proceedings reached England emigration ceased, and Lord Delaware embarked for Virginia, in the hope of restoring order. But he died on the voyage, and Argall continued in office until 1619, when Sir George Yeardley was appointed to succeed him.

7. Martial law was now abolished. Taxes were repealed, and the people freed from many burdens. Governor Yeardley divided the plantations into eleven boroughs, and ordered the citizens of each to elect two of their number to take part in the government. The elections were duly held, and on the 30th of July, 1619, the Virginia House of Burgesses was organized—the first popular assembly in the New World. In this body there was freedom of debate but very little political power.

8. The year 1619 was also marked by the introduction of slavery. The servants at Jamestown had hitherto been English or Germans, whose term of service had varied from a few months to many years. No perpetual servitude had thus far been recognized. In the month of August a Dutch man-of-war sailed up the river to the plantations, and offered by auction twenty Africans. They were purchased by the wealthier class of planters, and made slaves for life.

9. There were now six hundred men in the colony, for the most part rovers who intended to return to England. Very few families had emigrated. In this condition of affairs, Sir Thomas Smith was superseded by Sir Edwyn Sandys, a man of prudence and integrity. In the summer of 1620, the new treasurer sent to America a company of twelve hundred and sixty-one persons. Among the number were ninety young women of good breeding and modest manners. In the following spring, sixty others of similar good character came over, and received a hearty welcome.

10. When Sandys sent these women to America, he charged the colonists with the expense of the voyage, as the company was bankrupt. An assessment was made, and the rate fixed at a hundred and twenty pounds of tobacco for each passenger—a sum which the settlers cheerfully paid. There were merry marriages at Jamestown, and the social condition was much improved. When the second shipload came, the cost of transportation was a hundred and fifty pounds for each passenger, which was also paid without complaint.

11. In July of 1621 the London Company gave to Virginia a code of written laws, and in October Sir Francis Wyatt, who had been commissioned as governor, began to administer the new constitution. The colony was found in a flourishing condition. The settlements extended for a hundred and forty miles along the banks of James River, and far into the interior. But the Indians had grown jealous of the colonists. Pocahontas was dead. The peaceable Powhatan had likewise passed away. Opechancanough, who succeeded him in 1618, had long been plotting the destruction of the English, and the time had come for the tragedy.

12. Until the very day of the massacre, the Indians continued on terms of friendship with the colonists. On the 22d of March, at midday, the work of butchery began. Every hamlet in Virginia was attacked. Men, women, and children were indiscriminately slaughtered, until three hundred and forty-seven had perished under the hatchets of the savages.

13. But Indian treachery was thwarted by Indian faithfulness. A converted Red man, wishing to save an Englishman who had been his friend, went to him on the night before the massacre and revealed the plot. The alarm was spread, and thus the greater part of the colony escaped destruction. But the outer plantations were entirely destroyed. The people crowded together on the larger farms about Jamestown, until of the eighty settlements there were only eight remaining. Still, there were sixteen hundred brave men in the colony; and the next year the population increased to two thousand five hundred.

14. The liberal constitution of Virginia soon proved offensive to King James. A committee was appointed to look into the affairs of the London Company. The commissioners performed their duty, and reported that the company was unsound in its principles, that the treasury was bankrupt, and that the government of Virginia was very bad.

15. Legal proceedings were now instituted against the company, and the judges decided that the patent was null and void. The charter was canceled by the king, and in June of 1624 the London Company ceased to exist. But its work had been well done. A torch of liberty had been lighted on the banks of the James, which all the tyranny of after times could not extinguish.