III

THE PROBLEM OF THE ENGLISH POOR

The development of sheep raising in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and the consequent use of plow land for pasturage and sheep-walks had thrown many agricultural laborers out of employment. There was, moreover, an industrial and social change going on in England, which was entering on her great career as a sea power with extensive foreign trade. In this time of transition, as small land holding was disappearing, laborers did not readily find their place in the industrial system, but prowled about we are told, till the gallows did eat them." America offered an outlet, a chance for the unemployed. The facts of the existence of this class are summarized in the following extract. The New World from the beginning till now has been the place to which the poorer people of Europe have looked as a place where they might get on and up.

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The problem of England in the days of James I was how to be rid of its poor. They had, many of them, been turned out of a living by the inclosure of commons in the mania for sheep husbandry, and some of them had had the villages pulled down about their ears. They were sent a-wandering, living as they could live by hook or by crook. Necessity made many of them rogues, and the desire to have done with rogues was so intense that England hanged its thieves out of hand. Henry VIII thought to be rid of such vermin of society, and he hanged, if we may believe Harrison, two and seventy thousand, including great theeves, pettie theeves and roges." In Elizabeth's reign three or four hundred felons were eaten up annually by the gallows, and James I merrily carried on the work of extermination; one reads of "twenty hanged up at a clap," in one place. But the vagabonds did not grow fewer.

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He

Recent serfdom had left its mark on the poor man. had been freed, not from benevolence, nor from any motive

having regard to the personality of the serf. Wickliffe and others had taught that it was meritorious to free a man from bondage who was a Christian that is, who had been baptized. This scruple fitted to the churchly conscience of the age; it grew more and more exigeant. “We think it pious and meritorious with God to make certain persons absolutely free from the yoke of servitude who are at present under villenage to us," said Henry VIII. Elizabeth and James, less scrupulous on this point, proposed to sell to those whose blood was tainted with slavery the privileges of freedom. It was not till the eighteenth century had dawned that Chamberlayne's State of England, an annual publication, could drop its set phrase, "but few now in England," and say, "Now slavery is entirely thrown away and every Servant Man or Woman are properly hired Servants." But the habit of regarding the peasant as a recent serf had its influence in the treatment of him.

The "spirit," who was later called a crimp, was on the watch for him. Did they need more soldiers in Flanders? The spirit, by means best known to himself, packed off the poor man to Flanders. He was equally ready to ship him to any other country for a reward. The Virginia colony began to ask for people. The wilderness was hungry for laborers. The spirit shipped little children by the score down the Thames and off for America. Parents followed the vessels all the way to Gravesend, but the law would not help them; Virginia wanted laborers. Sometimes a parent could pay enough to get the lad released. Men were carried also to that abode of hopelessness. From the first there were two general classes: free apprentices, and convicts mostly for petty crimes. "Apprentices," says Chamberlayne, are a sort of servant that carry the mask of Pure villains or Bond slaves, differing however in that Apprentices are slaves only for a term and by covenant."

Edward Eggleston: The Transit of Civilization, pp. 293-295, passim.

QUESTIONS

How had the numbers of the English poor been increased? How were they dealt with by the government? How did the presence of serfdom in England account for the presence of the poor? How did the "spirits" prey on this class in the community?

IV

THE FIRST LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY IN
AMERICA

This assembly was called by virtue of an order to that effect passed by the Virginia Company in London. It was not at the beginning recognized or authorized by the King; the right to make laws was the gift of the Company. The striking thing about the assembly as here described, is the readiness it showed and the capacity to perform its duties, as well as the orderliness with which it worked.

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The English colonists who first settled in America at Jamestown brought with them, by their charter, all the rights of Englishmen. But local self-government 1 was not accorded to the Virginians at first. They suffered great hardships for twelve years under what resembled a military government, until the year 1619, when the colony was deemed sufficiently grown to warrant an assembly. In that year Sir George Yeardley arrived with the commission of governor-general from the London Company, which had planted and governed the colony. Among his instructions. was one, also called a commission, that brought joy to the hearts of the colonists. It was, as they described it, “that they might have a hande in the governinge of themselves, it was granted that a general assemblie should be helde yearly once, whereat were to be present the Gov. and Counsell, with two Burgesses from each plantation freely to be elected by the inhabitants thereof; this Assembly have power to make and ordaine whatsoever laws and 1 The right to govern the colony themselves.

orders should by them be thought good and proffittable for our subsistance.'

This commission, the real Magna Charta of Virginia, was issued in London, the 28th of November, 1618. That night a flaming comet appeared in the heavens, which was considered then an ill omen, but which might more properly have been taken as a heavenly recognition of the great boon which had been bestowed on America. The comet was visible till the 26th of December, and the prevailing superstition prevented the sailing of Governor Yeardley till it was safely departed. He, therefore, sailed with his commission and instructions the 29th of January, 1619, more than a year before the sailing of the Pilgrims.

In accordance with this commission, in June Governor Yeardley sent his summons all over the country, as well to invite those of the Council of State that were absent, as for the election of two burgesses from each of the plantations, to meet at Jamestown on the 30th of July, 1619. (O. S.) As this was the first legislative assembly which met in America, antedating by fifteen years the assembly of any other colony,2 and was the beginning of the free institutions which we now enjoy, I have thought it would be of interest to give some account of it and of its proceedings.

The place of meeting was the Episcopal Church, a wooden building 60 feet long and 24 wide. Its communion table was of black walnut; its pulpit, chancel, and pews, of cedar. It had handsome wide windows, also made of cedar, which could be shut and opened according to the weather. A green velvet chair was placed in the choir, in which the governor sat. The building was SO constructed as to be very light within, and we are told that the governor caused it to be kept passing sweet and trimmed up with divers flowers." The native Virginia flowers in season were doubtless used. There might be

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2 But business was transacted in the assembly of the men of Plymouth Colony long before the fifteen years had passed.

seen festoons of the trumpet creeper, with its splendid scarlet flower, mingled with sweet-smelling white honeysuckle and clematis, some of the latter with beautiful white clusters, and others with lovely bell-shaped leathery flowers, cream colored and touched with purple; while the pulpit and communion table were decked with pink sweetbrier and swamp roses, and red swamp lilies.

On the memorable morning of the 30th of July, 1619, the governor went in state to the church. He was accompanied by the councilors and officers of the colony, with a guard of halberdiers dressed in the governor's livery. Behind them walked, with becoming dignity, the 22 newly elected burgesses.

In the contemporaneous account sent to England by the speaker, we are told: "The most convenient place we could finde to sitt in was the Quire3 of the Church, where Sir George Yeardley, the Governour, being sett down in his accustomed place, those of the Counsel of Estate sate nexte him on both handes, excepte only the Secretary, then appointed Speaker, who sate right before him, John Twine, Clerke of the General Assembly, being placed nexte the Speaker, and Thomas Pierse, the Sergeant, standing at the barre, to be ready for any service the Assembly shoulde command him. But forasmuche as men's affaires doe little prosper where God's service is neglected, all the Burgesses tooke their places in the Quire till a prayer was said by Mr. Bucke, the minister, that it would please God to guide and sanctifie all our proceedings to his owne glory, and the good of his plantation. Prayer being ended, to the intente that as we had begun at God Almighty, so we might proceed with awful and due respecte towards the Lieutenant, our most gratious and dread Soveraigne, all the Burgesses were intreated to retyre themselves into the body of the Churche, which being done, before they were freely admitted, they were called to order and by name, and so 3 Same as choir.