Part 2 — CHAPTER IV. Concerning the infallible teaching of the Roman Pontiff: (continued 79)

F. H. Hill, George Canning, chapter 20.

"The first business which presented itself to Mr. Cunning was to devise a system by which the Holy Alliance could be gradually dissolved, and England rescued from the consequences of her undefined relations with its members. The adjourned Congress was on the point of assembling at Verona, and as it was necessary to send a representative in place of Lord Castlereagh, who seems to have been terrified at the prospect that lay before him, the Duke of Wellington was selected, and dispatched without loss of time. … The very first blow he [Canning] struck in the Congress of Verona announced to the world the attitude which England was about to take, and her total denial of the rights of the Alliance to interfere with the internal affairs of any independent nation. It appeared that France had collected a large army in the south, and not having legitimate occupation for it, proposed to employ it in the invasion of Spain [see Spain: A. D. 1814-1827]. This monstrous project was submitted to Congress, and ardently approved of by Russia. It was now that England spoke out for the first time in this cabal of despots. … After some interchanges of notes and discussions agreed to by the allies, the British plenipotentiary, as he was instructed, refused all participation in these proceedings, and withdrew from the Congress. This was the first step that was taken to show the Alliance that England would not become a party to any act of unjust aggression or unjustifiable interference. A long correspondence ensued between Mr. Canning and M. de Chateaubriand. … The French king's speech, on opening the Chambers, revealed the real intentions of the government, which Mr. Canning had penetrated from the beginning. The speech was, in fact, a declaration of war against Spain, qualified by the slightest imaginable hypothesis. But, happily for all interests, there was no possibility of disguising the purpose of this war, which was plainly and avowedly to force upon the people of Spain such a constitution as the king (a Bourbon), in the exercise of his absolute authority, should think fit to give them. … Against this principle Mr. Canning entered a dignified protest. … Although he could not avert from Spain the calamity of a French invasion, he made it clear to all the world that England objected to that proceeding, and that she was no longer even to be suspected of favoring the designs of the Holy Alliance. The French army made the passage of the Bidassoa. From that moment Mr. Canning interfered no farther. He at once disclosed the system which he had already matured and resolved upon. Having first protested against the principle of the invasion, he determined to maintain the neutrality of England in the war that followed. {3622} By this course he achieved the end he had in view, of severing England from the Holy Alliance without embroiling her in any consequent responsibilities. … Mr. Canning's 'system' of foreign policy, as described in his own language, resolved itself into this principle of action, that 'England should hold the balance, not only between contending nations, but between conflicting principles; that, in order to prevent things from going to extremities, she should keep a distinct middle ground, staying the plague both ways.' … The development of this principle, as it applied to nations, was illustrated in the strict but watchful neutrality observed between France and Spain; and, as it applied to principles, in the recognition of the independence of the Spanish-American colonies. The latter act may be regarded as the most important for which Mr. Canning was officially responsible, as that which exerted the widest and most distinct influence over the policy of other countries, and which most clearly and emphatically revealed the tendency of his own. It showed that England would recognize institutions raised up by the people, as well as those which were created by kings. It gave the death-blow to the Holy Alliance." The logic and meaning of Mr. Canning's recognition of the Spanish American republics found expression in one famous passage of a brilliant speech which he made in the House of Commons, December 12, 1826, vindicating his foreign policy. "If France," he said, "occupied Spain, was it necessary, in order to avoid the consequences of that occupation, that we should blockade Cadiz? No, I looked another way—I sought materials of compensation in another hemisphere. Contemplating Spain such as our ancestors had known her, I resolved that if France had Spain, it should not be Spain with the Indies. I called the New World into existence to redress the balance of the Old."

R. Bell, Life of the Right Honourable George Canning, chapter 13.

ALSO IN: F. H. Hill, George Canning, chapter 20.

F. A. Châteaubriand, The Congress of Verona.

Sir A. Alison, History of Europe, 1815-1852, chapters 8 and 12 (volume l,—American edition).

S. Walpole, History of England, chapter 9 (volume 2).

VERRAZANO, Voyages of.

See AMERICA: A. D. 1523-1524.

—————VERSAILLES: Start————

VERSAILLES.

Louis XIV. "preferred Versailles to his other chateaux, because Fontainebleau, Chambord, Saint-Germain, were existences ready created, which Francois I. and Henri IV. had stamped with the ineffaceable imprint of their glory: at Versailles, everything was to be made, save the modest beginning left by Louis XIII. … At Versailles, everything was to be created, we say,—not only the monuments of art, but nature itself. This solitary elevation of ground, although pleasing enough through the woods and hills that surrounded it, was without great views, without sites, without waters, without inhabitants. … The sites would be created by creating an immense landscape by the hand of man; the waters would be brought from the whole country by works which appalled the imagination; the inhabitants would be caused, if we may say so, to spring from the earth, by erecting a whole city for the service of the chateau. Louis would thus make a city of his own, a form of his own, of which he alone would be the life. Versailles and the court would be the body and soul of one and the same being, both created for the same end, the glorification of the terrestrial God to whom they owed existence. … The same idea filled the interior of the palace. Painting deified Louis there under every form, in war and in peace, in the arts and in the administration of the empire; it celebrated his amours as his victories, his passions as his labors. All the heroes of antiquity, all the divinities of classic Olympus, rendered him homage or lent him their attributes in turn. He was Augustus, he was Titus, he was Alexander; he was thundering Jupiter, he was Hercules, the conqueror of monsters; oftener, Apollo, the inspirer of the Muses and the king of enlightenment. Mythology was no longer but a great enigma, to which the name of Louis was the only key; he was all the gods in himself alone. … Louis, always served in his desires by the fertility of his age, had found a third artist, Lenostre, to complete Lebrun and Mansart. Thanks to Lenostre, Louis, from the windows of his incomparable gallery of mirrors, saw nought that was not of his own creation. The whole horizon was his work, for his garden was the whole horizon. … Whole thickets were brought full-grown from the depths of the finest forests of France, and the arts of animating marble and of moving waters filled them with every prodigy of which the imagination could dream. An innumerable nation of statues peopled the thickets and lawns, was mirrored in the waters, or rose from the bosom of the wave. … Louis had done what he wished; he had created about him a little universe, in which he was the only necessary and almost the only real being. But terrestrial gods do not create with a word like the true God. These buildings which stretch across a frontage of twelve hundred yards, the unheard-of luxury of these endless apartments, this incredible multitude of objects of art, these forests transplanted, these waters of heaven gathered from all the slopes of the heights into the windings of immense conduits from Trappes and Palaiseau to Versailles, these waters of the Seine brought from Marly by gigantic machinery through that aqueduct which commands from afar the valley of the river like a superb Roman ruin, and later, an enterprise far more colossal! that river which was turned aside from its bed and which it was undertaken to bring thirty leagues to Versailles over hills and valleys, cost France grievous efforts and inexhaustible sweats, and swallowed up rivers of gold increasing from year to year. … Versailles has cost France dearly, very dearly; nevertheless it is important to historic truth to set aside in this respect too long accredited exaggerations. … The accounts, or at least the abstracts of the accounts, of the expenditures of Louis XIV. for building, during the greater part of his reign, have been discovered. The costs of the construction, decoration, and furnishing of Versailles, from 1664 to 1690, including the hydraulic works and the gardens, in addition to the appendages,—that is, Clagny, Trianon, Saint-Cyr, and the two churches of the new city of Versailles,—amount to about one hundred and seven millions, to which must be added a million, or a million and a half perhaps, for the expenses of the years 1661-1663, the accounts of which are not known, and three million two hundred and sixty thousand francs for the sumptuous chapel, which was not built until 1699-1710. {3623} The proportion of the mark to the franc having varied under Louis XIV., it is difficult to arrive at an exact reduction to the present currency. … The expenses of Versailles would represent to-day more than four hundred millions. This amount is enormous; but it is not monstrous like the twelve hundred millions of which Mirabeau speaks, nor, above all, madly fantastic like the four thousand six hundred millions imagined by Volney."

H. Martin, History of France: Age of Louis XIV., volume 1, chapter 3.

ALSO IN: L. Ritchie, Versailles.

VERSAILLES: A. D. 1789. Opening scenes of the French Revolution.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1789 (MAY), and after.

VERSAILLES: A. D. 1870. Headquarters of the German court and the army besieging Paris.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1870 (SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER).

VERSAILLES: A. D. 1871. Assumption of the dignity of Emperor of Germany by King William of Prussia.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1871.

—————VERSAILLES: End————

VERTERÆ.

A Roman city in Britain, which probably occupied the site of the modern town of Brough, in Westmoreland, where many remains of the Romans have been found.

T. Wright, Celt, Roman, and Saxon, chapter 5.

VERTURIONES, The.

A name by which one of the Caledonian tribes was known to the Romans.

VERULAMIUM. VERULAM.

"The 'oppidum' of Cassivelaunus [the stronghold which Cæsar reduced on his second invasion of Britain] is generally believed to have been situated where the modern town of St. Alban's now stands [but the point is still in dispute]. An ancient ditch can still be traced surrounding a considerable area on the banks of the River Ver, from which the Roman town of Verulam [Verulamium] took its name. This town, which probably originated in the camp of Cæsar, grew into an important city in Roman times. It stands on the opposite side of the River Ver, and is still known for its Roman remains."

H. M. Scarth, Roman Britain, chapter 2.

See BRITAIN: B. C. 55-54.

VERVINS, Treaty of (1598).

See FRANCE: A. D. 1593-1598.

VESONTIO.

Modern Besançon, in France; originally the largest of the towns of the Sequani.

G. Long, Decline of the Roman Republic, volume 4, chapter 2.

VESPASIAN, Roman Emperor, A. D. 69-79.

VESPUCIUS, Americus (or Amerigo Vespucci), The voyages of.

See AMERICA: A. D. 1497-1498; 1499-1500; 1500-1514; 1503-1504.

Also (in Supplement) AMERICA: THE ALLEGED FIRST VOYAGE OF VESPUCIUS.

VESTAL VIRGINS.

"The Vestals ('virgines Vestales,' 'virgines Vestæ') were closely connected with the college of pontifices. They are said to have come from Alba soon after the foundation of Rome: at first there were two Vestals for each of the two tribes, Ramnes and Tities; afterwards two others were added for the Luceres, and the number of six was exceeded at no period. The vestal, on being chosen, was not allowed to be younger than six or older than ten years. … She was clad in white garments and devoted to the service of Vesta for thirty years. … After this period she was at liberty either to remain in the service of the goddess (which was generally done) or to return to her family and get married. Her dress was always white; round her forehead she wore a broad band like a diadem ('infula'), with ribbons ('vittæ') attached to it. During the sacrifice, or at processions, she was covered with a white veil. … She was carefully guarded against insult or temptation; an offence offered to her was punished with death; … in public everyone, even the consul, made way to the lictor preceding the maiden. At public games and pontifical banquets she had the seat of honour; and a convicted criminal accidentally meeting her was released. Amongst her priestly functions was the keeping of the eternal fire in the temple of Vesta, each Vestal taking her turn at watching. … Breach of chastity on the part of the Vestal was punished with death."

E. Guhl and W. Koner, Life of the Greeks and Romans, section 103.

VESTINIANS, The.

See SABINES.

VESUVIUS: Great eruption. Destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum.

See POMPEII.

VESUVIUS, Battle of (B. C. 338).

See ROME: B. C. 339-338.

VETERA: A. D. 69. Siege and Massacre.

The most important success achieved by the Batavian patriot, Civilis, in the revolt against the Romans which he led, A. D. 69, was the siege and capture of Vetera,—a victory sullied by the faithless massacre of the garrison after they had capitulated.

C. Merivale, History of the Romans, chapter 58.

VETO, The Aragon.

See CORTES, THE EARLY SPANISH.

VETO: The Polish Liberum Veto.

See POLAND: A. D. 1578-1652.

VETO: Of the President of the United States.

See CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES, Article I., Section 7.

VETTONES, The.

A people who occupied the part of ancient Spain between the Tagus and the Upper Douro at the time of the Roman conquest of that country.

T. Mommsen, History of Rome, book 4, chapter 1.

VIA SACRA AT ROME, The.

"The Via Sacra began at the Sacellum Streniæ, which was on the part of the Esquiline nearest to the Colosseum; on reaching the Summa Via Sacra … it turned a little to the right, descending the Clivus Sacer; at the foot of the slope it passed under the arch of Fabius, by the side of the Regia; thence it ran in a straight line, passing by the Basilica Æmilia, the arch of Janus, the Curia Hostilia, till it reached the foot of the Capitoline Hill, where, turning to the left, it ascended the Clivus Capitolinus, and reached its termination at the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus. The Via Sacra, as Ovid tells us, took its name from the sacred rites which were performed on it. Along this road passed the processions of priests with the sacred animals to be sacrificed at the altar of Jupiter Capitolinus. … Along this road also passed the triumphal processions of the victorious Roman generals. The procession entered Rome by the Porta Triumphalis, passed through the Circus Maximus, then, turning to the left, proceeded along the road at the foot of the southeast slope of the Palatine, when it joined the Via Sacra, and again turned to the left and ascended the Velia; on reaching the Summa Via Sacra it descended the Clivus Sacer, and then passed along the rest of the Via Sacra till it reached its destination at the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, where the victorious general lay before the god the spoils of his conquests."

H. M. Westropp, Early and Imperial Rome, page 121.

ALSO IN: J. H. Parker, Archaeology of Rome, part 6.

{3624}

VICARS, or Vice-Præfects, of the Roman Empire.

See DIOCESES OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.

VICENZA: A. D. 1237. Pillage by Eccelino di Romano.

See VERONA: A. D. 1236-1259.

VICKSBURG: A. D. 1862-1863. The defense, the siege and the capture.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (MAY-JULY: ON THE MISSISSIPPI), and (DECEMBER: ON THE MISSISSIPPI); 1863 (JANUARY-APRIL: ON THE MISSISSIPPI): and 1863 (APRIL-JULY: ON THE MISSISSIPPI).

VICTOR II., Pope, A. D. 1055-1057.

Victor III., Pope, 1086-1087.

Victor Amadeus, Duke of Savoy, 1630-1637.

Victor Amadeus II., Duke of Savoy, 1675-1730: King of Sicily, 1713-1720; King of Sardinia, 1720-1730.

Victor Amadeus III., Duke of Savoy and King of Sardinia, 1773-1796.

Victor Emanuel I., Duke of Savoy and King of Sardinia, 1802-1821.

Victor Emanuel II., King of Sardinia, 1849-1861; King of Italy, 1861-1878.

VICTORIA, Queen of England, A. D. 1837.

VICTORIA: A. D. 1837. The founding of the colony.

See AUSTRALIA: A. D. 1800-1840.

VICTORIA: A. D. 1850-1855. Separation from New South Wales. Discovery of gold. Adoption of a Constitution.

See AUSTRALIA: A. D. 1839-1855.

VICTORIA: A. D. 1862-1892. Comparative view.

See TARIFF LEGISLATION (AUSTRALIA): A. D. 1862-1892; and AUSTRALIA: A. D. 1890.

VICTORIA CROSS, The.

An English naval and military decoration, instituted after the Crimean War, on the 29th of January, 1856, by the command of Queen Victoria.

VICUS.

According to Niebuhr, the term "Vicus" in Roman topography—about which there has been much controversy—"means nothing else but a quarter or district [of the city] under the superintendence of its own police officer."

B. G. Niebuhr, Lectures on Ancient Ethnography and Geography, volume 2, page 86.

See, also, GENS.

VIDOMME.

See GENEVA: A. D. 1504-1535.

—————VIENNA, Austria: Start————

VIENNA, Austria: Origin of.

See VINDOBONA.

VIENNA, Austria: 12th Century. Fortification and commercial advancement by the Austrian Dukes.

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 805-1246.

VIENNA, Austria: A. D. 1485. Siege, capture, and occupation by Matthias of Hungary.

See HUNGARY: A. D. 1471-1487.

VIENNA, Austria: A. D. 1529. Siege by the Turks.

See HUNGARY: A. D. 1526-1567.

VIENNA, Austria: A. D. 1619. Threatened by the Bohemian army.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1618-1620.

VIENNA, Austria: A. D. 1645. Threatened by the Swedes.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1640-1645.

VIENNA, Austria: A. D. 1683. Siege by the Turks. Deliverance by John Sobieski.

See HUNGARY: A. D. 1668-1683.

VIENNA, Austria: A. D. 1805. Surrendered to Napoleon.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1805 (MARCH-DECEMBER).

VIENNA, Austria: A. D. 1809. Capitulation to Napoleon.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1809 (JANUARY-JUNE).

VIENNA, Austria: A. D. 1848. Revolutionary riots. Bombardment of the city.

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1848-1849.

VIENNA, The Congress of.

"At the end of September [1814] the centre of European interest passed to Vienna. The great council of the Powers, so long delayed, was at length assembled. The Czar of Russia, the Kings of Prussia, Denmark, Bavaria, and Würtemberg, and nearly all the statesmen of eminence in Europe, gathered round the Emperor Francis and his Minister, Metternich, to whom by common consent the presidency of the Congress was offered. Lord Castlereagh represented England, and Talleyrand France. Rasumoffsky and other Russian diplomatists acted under the immediate directions of their master, who on some occasions even entered into personal correspondence with the Ministers of the other Powers. Hardenberg stood in a somewhat freer relation to King Frederick William: Stein was present, but without official place. The subordinate envoys and attaches of the greater Courts, added to a host of petty princes and the representatives who came from the minor Powers, or from communities which had ceased to possess any political existence at all, crowded Vienna. In order to relieve the antagonisms which had already come too clearly into view, Metternich determined to entertain his visitors in the most magnificent fashion; and although the Austrian State was bankrupt, and in some districts the people were severely suffering, a sum of about £10,000 a day was for some time devoted to this purpose. The splendour and the gaieties of Metternich were emulated by his guests. … The Congress had need of its distractions, for the difficulties which faced it were so great that, even after the arrival of the Sovereigns, it was found necessary to postpone the opening of the regular sittings until November. By the secret articles of the Peace of Paris, the Allies had reserved to themselves the disposal of all vacant territory, although their conclusions required to be formally sanctioned by the Congress at large. The Ministers of Austria, England, Prussia, and Russia accordingly determined at the outset to decide upon all territorial questions among themselves, and only after their decisions were completely formed to submit them to France and the other Powers. Talleyrand, on hearing of this arrangement, protested that France itself was now one of the Allies, and demanded that the whole body of European States should at once meet in open Congress. The four Courts held to their determination, and began their preliminary sittings without Talleyrand. But the French statesman had, under the form of a paradox, really stated the true political situation. The greater Powers were so deeply divided in their aims that their old bond of common interest, the interest of union against France, was now less powerful than the impulse that made them seek the support of France against one another. {3625} Two men had come to the Congress with a definite aim: Alexander had resolved to gain the Duchy of Warsaw, and to form it, with or without some part of Russian Poland, into a Polish kingdom, attached to his own crown: Talleyrand had determined, either on the question of Poland, or on the question of Saxony, which arose out of it, to break allied Europe into halves, and to range France by the side of two of the great Powers against the two others. The course of events favoured for a while the design of the Minister: Talleyrand himself prosecuted his plan with an ability which, but for the untimely return of Napoleon from Elba, would have left France, without a war, the arbiter and the leading Power of Europe. Since the Russian victories of 1812, the Emperor Alexander had made no secret of his intention to restore a Polish Kingdom and a Polish nationality. Like many other designs of this prince, the project combined a keen desire for personal glorification with a real generosity of feeling. Alexander was thoroughly sincere in his wish not only to make the Poles again a people, but to give them a Parliament and a free Constitution. The King of Poland, however, was to be no independent prince, but Alexander himself: although the Duchy of Warsaw, the chief if not the sole component of the proposed new kingdom, had belonged to Austria and Prussia after the last partition of Poland, and extended into the heart of the Prussian monarchy. Alexander insisted on his anxiety to atone for the crime of Catherine in dismembering Poland: the atonement, however, was to be made at the sole cost of those whom Catherine had allowed to share the booty. Among the other Governments, the Ministry of Great Britain would gladly have seen a Polish State established in a really independent form; failing this, it desired that the Duchy of Warsaw should be divided, as formerly, between Austria and Prussia. Metternich was anxious that the fortress of Cracow at any rate should not fall into the hands of the Czar. Stein and Hardenberg, and even Alexander's own Russian counsellors, earnestly opposed the Czar's project, not only on account of the claims of Prussia on Warsaw, but from dread of the agitation likely to be produced by a Polish Parliament among all Poles outside the new State. King Frederick William, however, was unaccustomed to dispute the wishes of his ally; and the Czar's offer of Saxony in substitution for Warsaw gave to the Prussian Ministers, who were more in earnest than their master, at least the prospect of receiving a valuable equivalent for what they might surrender. By the treaty of Kalisch, made when Prussia united its arms with those of Russia against Napoleon (February 27th, 1813), the Czar had undertaken to restore the Prussian monarchy to an extent equal to that which it had possessed in 1805. It was known before the opening of the Congress that the Czar proposed to do this by handing over to King Frederick William the whole of Saxony, whose Sovereign, unlike his colleagues in the Rhenish Confederacy, had supported Napoleon up to his final overthrow at Leipzig. Since that time the King of Saxony had been held a prisoner, and his dominions had been occupied by the Allies. The Saxon question had thus already gained the attention of all the European Governments. … Talleyrand alone made the defence of the King of Saxony the very centre of his policy, and subordinated all other aims to this. His instructions, like those of Castlereagh, gave priority to the Polish question; but Talleyrand saw that Saxony, not Poland, was the lever by which he could throw half of Europe on to the side of France; and before the four Allied Courts had come to any single conclusion, the French statesman had succeeded, on what at first passed for a subordinate point, in breaking up their concert. For a while the Ministers of Austria, Prussia, and England appeared to be acting in harmony; and throughout the month of October all three endeavoured to shake the purpose of Alexander regarding Warsaw. Talleyrand, however, foresaw that the efforts of Prussia in this direction would not last very long, and he wrote to Louis XVIII. asking for his permission to make a definite offer of armed assistance to Austria in case of need. Events took the turn which Talleyrand expected. … He had isolated Russia and Prussia, and had drawn to his own side not only England and Austria but the whole body of the minor German States. … On the 3rd of January, 1815, after a rash threat of war uttered by Hardenberg, a secret treaty was signed by the representatives of France, England, and Austria, pledging these Powers to take the field, if necessary, against Russia and Prussia in defence of the principles of the Peace of Paris. The plan of the campaign was drawn up, the number of the forces fixed. Bavaria had already armed; Piedmont, Hanover, and even the Ottoman Porte, were named as future members of the alliance. It would perhaps be unfair to the French Minister to believe that he actually desired to kindle a war on this gigantic scale. Talleyrand had not, like Napoleon, a love for war for its own sake. His object was rather to raise France from its position as a conquered and isolated Power; to surround it with allies. … The conclusion of the secret treaty of January 3rd marked the definite success of his plans. France was forthwith admitted into the council hitherto known as that of the Four Courts, and from this time its influence visibly affected the action of Russia and Prussia, reports of the secret treaty having reached the Czar immediately after its signature. The spirit of compromise now began to animate the Congress. Alexander had already won a virtual decision in his favour on the Polish question, but he abated something of his claims, and while gaining the lion's share of the Duchy of Warsaw, he ultimately consented that Cracow, which threatened the Austrian frontier, should be formed into an independent Republic, and that Prussia should receive the fortresses of Dantzic and Thorn on the Vistula, with the district lying between Thorn and the border of Silesia. This was little for Alexander to abandon; on the Saxon question the allies of Talleyrand gained most that they demanded. The King of Saxony was restored to his throne, and permitted to retain Dresden and about half of his dominions. Prussia received the remainder. In lieu of a further expansion in Saxony, Prussia was awarded territory on the left bank of the Rhine, which, with its recovered Westphalian provinces, restored the monarchy to an area and population equal to that which it had possessed in 1805. But the dominion given to Prussia beyond the Rhine, though considered at the time to be a poor equivalent for the second half of Saxony, was in reality a gift of far greater value. {3626} It made Prussia, in defence of its own soil, the guardian and bulwark of Germany against France. … It gave to Prussia something more in common with Bavaria and the South, and qualified it, as it had not been qualified before, for its future task of uniting Germany under its own leadership. The Polish and Saxon difficulties, which had threatened the peace of Europe, were virtually settled before the end of the month of January."

C. A. Fyffe, History of Modern Europe, volume 2, chapter 1.

"Prussia obtained Posen with the town of Thorn in the east, and in the west all that had been lost by the treaty of Tilsit, the duchies of Jülich and Berg, the old electoral territories of Cologne and Trier with the city of Aachen, and parts of Luxemburg and Limburg. Russia received the whole of the grand-duchy of Warsaw except Posen and Thorn, and Alexander fulfilled his promises to the Poles by granting them a liberal constitution. … Swedish Pomerania had been ceded by the treaty of Kiel to Denmark, but had long been coveted by Prussia. The Danish claims were bought off with two million thalers and the duchy of Lauenburg, but Hanover had to be compensated for the latter by the cession of the devotedly loyal province of East Friesland, one of the acquisitions of Frederick the Great. Hanover, which now assumed the rank of a kingdom without opposition, was also aggrandised by the acquisition of Hildesheim, Goslar, and other small districts. Austria was naturally one of the great gainers by the Congress. Eastern Galicia was restored by Russia, and the Tyrol, Salzburg, and the Inn district by Bavaria. As compensation for the Netherlands, Venetia and Lombardy became Austrian provinces. Bavaria, in return for its losses in the east, received Würzburg, Aschaffenburg, and its former possessions in the Palatinate. Long discussions took place about the constitution to be given to Germany, and here the hopes of the national party were doomed to bitter disappointment. … Finally a Confederation was formed which secured the semblance of unity, but gave almost complete independence to the separate states.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1814-1820.

The members numbered thirty-eight, and included the four remaining free cities, Frankfort, Hamburg, Lübeck, and Bremen, and the kings of Denmark and the Netherlands. … In Italy the same process of restoration and subdivision was carried out. Victor Emmanuel I. recovered his kingdom of Sardinia, with the addition of Genoa as compensation for the portion of Savoy which France retained. Modena was given to a Hapsburg prince, Francis IV., son of the archduke Ferdinand, and Beatrice the heiress of the house of Este. Tuscany was restored to Ferdinand III., a brother of the Austrian Emperor. Charles Louis, son of the Bourbon king of Etruria, was compensated with Lucca and a promise of the succession in the duchy of Parma, which was for the time given to Napoleon's wife, Maria Louisa. Pius VII. had already returned to Rome, and the Papal states now recovered their old extent. But Pius refused at first to accept these terms because he was deprived of Avignon and the Venaissin, and because Austrian garrisons were in occupation of Ferrara and Comacchio. Naples was left for a time in the hands of Joachim Murat, as a reward for his desertion of Napoleon after the battle of Leipzig. Switzerland was declared independent and neutral, but its feudal unity was loosened by a new constitution (August, 1815). The number of cantons were raised to twenty-two by the addition of Geneva, Wallis (Vallais), and Neufchâtel the last under Prussian suzerainty. The position of capital was to be enjoyed in rotation by Berne, Zurich, and Lucerne. The kingdom of the Netherlands was formed for the house of Orange by the union of Holland and Belgium and the addition of Luxemburg, which made the king a member of the German Confederation. The professed object of this artificial union of Catholics and Protestants was the erection of a strong bulwark against French aggressions."

R. Lodge, History of Modern Europe, chapter 24, section 52.

ALSO IN: E. Hertslet, The Map of Europe by Treaty, volume 1, number 27.

Prince Talleyrand, Memoirs, part 8 (volume 2).

Prince Talleyrand, Correspondence with Louis XVIII. during the Congress of Vienna.

Prince Metternich, Memoirs, volume 2, pages 553-599.

J. R. Seeley, Life and Times of Stein, part 8 (volume 3).

Sir A. Alison, History of Europe, 1789-1815, chapter 92 (volume 19).

VIENNA, Imperial Library of.

See LIBRARIES, MODERN: EUROPE.

VIENNA, Treaty of (1725).

See SPAIN: A. D. 1713-1725.

Treaty of (1735).

See FRANCE: A. D. 1733-1735.

Treaty of (1864).

See GERMANY: A. D. 1861-1866.

VIENNE, OR VIENNA, on the Rhone.

Vienne, on the Rhone, was the chief town of the Allobroges in ancient times,—subsequently made a Roman colony. It was from Vienne that Lugdunum (Lyons) was originally colonized.

VIENNE on the Rhone: A. D. 500. Under the Burgundians.

See BURGUNDIANS: A. D. 500.

VIENNE on the Rhone: 11th Century. Founding of the Dauphiny.

See BURGUNDY: A. D. 1032.

VIENNE on the Rhone: A. D. 1349. The appanage of the Dauphins of France.

See DAUPHINS; also, BURGUNDY: A. D. 1127-1378.

VIGILANCE COMMITTEE OF SAN FRANCISCO, The.

See CALIFORNIA: A. D. 1856.

VIGO BAY, The Destruction of Spanish treasure ships in.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1702.

VIKINGS.

See NORMANS.—NORTHMEN: 8-9TH CENTURIES.

VILAGOS, Hungarian surrender at (1849).

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1848-1849.

VILLA VICIOSA, VILLA VIÇOSA, Battle of (1665).

See PORTUGAL: A. D. 1637-1668.

VILLA VICIOSA: Battle of (1710).

See SPAIN: A. D. 1707-1710.

VILLAFRANCA. Peace of.

See ITALY: A. D. 1856-1859; and 1859-1861.

VILLALAR, Battle of (1521).

See SPAIN: A. D. 1518-1522.

VILLEIN TAX, OR TAILLE.

See TAILLE AND GABELLE.

VILLEINAGE. Tenure in.

See FEUDAL TENURES; and MANORS.

VILLEINS. VILLANI.

See SLAVERY, MEDIÆVAL AND MODERN (ESPECIALLY UNDER ENGLAND); also, DEDITITIUS.

VILLERSEXEL, Battle of (1871).

See FRANCE: A. D. 1870-1871.

VILLMERGEN, Battles of(1656, 1712, and 1841).

See SWITZERLAND: A. D. 1652-1789: and 1803-1848.

{3627}

VIMIERO, Battle of (1808).

See SPAIN: A. D.: 1808-1809 (AUGUST-JANUARY).

VIMINAL, The.

See SEVEN HILLS OF ROME.

VIMORY, Battle of (1587).

See FRANCE: A. D. 1584-1589.

VINCENNES, Indiana: A. D. 1735. Founded by the French.

See CANADA: A. D. 1700-1735.

VINCENNES, Indiana: A. D. 1778-1779. Taken and retaken from the British by the Virginian General Clark.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1778-1779 CLARK'S CONQUEST.

VINCENTIAN CONGREGATION, The.

See LAZARISTS.

VINCI, Battle of (A. D. 717).

See FRANKS: A. D. 511-752.

VINDALIUM, Battle at (B. C. 121).

See ALLOBROGES, CONQUEST OF THE.

VINDELICIANS, The.

See RHÆTIA.

VINDOBONA.

Vindobona, modern Vienna, on the Danube, originally a town of the Celts, in Pannonia, became a Roman military and naval station and a frontier city of importance. Marcus Aurelius died at Vindobona, A. D. 180.

VINEÆ.

The vineæ of Roman siege operations were "covered galleries, constructed of wicker work (vimina) generally, and sometimes of wood, for the purpose of covering the approach of the besiegers."

G. Long, Decline of the Roman Republic, volume 4, chapter 3, foot-note.

VINLAND.

See AMERICA: 10-11TH CENTURIES.

VIONVILLE, Battle of.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1870 (JULY-AUGUST).

VIRCHOW, and Cellular Pathology.

See MEDICAL SCIENCE: 19TH CENTURY.

VIRGATE.

See HIDE OF LAND; also, MANORS.

—————VIRGINIA: Start————

VIRGINIA. The aboriginal inhabitants.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES, POWHATAN CONFEDERACY, ALGONQUIAN FAMILY, IROQUOIS TRIBES OF THE SOUTH, and CHEROKEES.

VIRGINIA: A. D. 1584.

The name given first to Raleigh's Roanoke settlement, on the Carolina coast.

See AMERICA: A. D. 1584-1586.

VIRGINIA: A. D. 1606-1607. The Virginia Company of London and its charter. The colony planted at Jamestown.

"The colonization of the North American coast had now become part of the avowed policy of the British government. In 1606 a great joint-stock company was formed for the establishment of two colonies in America. The branch which was to take charge of the proposed southern colony had its headquarters in London; the management of the northern branch was at Plymouth in Devonshire. Hence the two branches are commonly spoken of as the London and Plymouth Companies. The former was also called the Virginia Company, and the latter the North Virginia Company, as the name of Virginia was then loosely applied to the entire Atlantic coast north of Florida. The London Company had jurisdiction from 34° to 38° north latitude; the Plymouth Company had jurisdiction from 45° down to 41°; the intervening territory, between 38° and 41° was to go to whichever company should first plant a self-supporting colony."

J. Fiske, The Beginnings of New England, chapter 2.

"The charter for colonizing the great central territory of the North American continent, which was to be the chosen abode of liberty, gave to the mercantile corporation nothing but a wilderness, with the right of peopling and defending it. By an extension of the prerogative, which was in itself illegal, the monarch assumed absolute legislative as well as executive powers. … The general superintendence was confided to a council in England; the local administration of each colony to a resident council. The members of the superior council in England were appointed exclusively by the king, and were to hold office at his good pleasure. Their authority extended to both colonies, which jointly took the name of Virginia. Each of the two was to have its own resident council, of which the members were from time to time to be ordained and removed according to the instructions of the king. To the king, moreover, was reserved supreme legislative authority over the several colonies, extending to their general condition and the most minute regulation of their affairs. … The summer was spent in preparations for planting the first colony, for which the king found a grateful occupation in framing a code of laws. The superior council in England was permitted to name the colonial council, which was independent of the emigrants, and had power to elect or remove its president, to remove any of its members, and to supply its own vacancies. Not an element of popular liberty or control was introduced. Religion was established according to the doctrine and rites of the church within the realm. … Then, on the 19th day of December, in the year of our Lord 1606, one hundred and nine years after the discovery of the American continent by Cabot, forty-one years from the settlement of Florida, the squadron of three vessels, the largest not exceeding 100 tons' burden, with the favor of all England, stretched their sails for 'the dear strand of Virginia, earth's only paradise.' … The enterprise was ill concerted. Of the 105 on the list of emigrants, there were but 12 laborers and few mechanics. They were going to a wilderness, in which, as yet, not a house was standing; and there were 48 gentlemen to 4 carpenters. Neither were there any men with families. Newport, who commanded the ships, was acquainted with the old passage, and sailed by way of the Canaries and the West India Islands. As he turned to the north, a severe storm, in April, 1607, carried his fleet beyond the settlement of Raleigh, into the magnificent bay of the Chesapeake. The headlands received and retain the names of Cape Henry and Cape Charles, from the sons of King James; the deep water for anchorage, 'putting the emigrants in good Comfort,' gave a name to the northern point; and within the capes a country opened which appeared to 'claim the prerogative over the most pleasant places in the world.' … A noble river was soon entered, which was named from the monarch; and, after a search of seventeen days, … on the 13th of May they reached a peninsula about 50 miles above the mouth of the stream, where the water near the shore was so very deep that the ships were moored to trees. {3628} Here the council, except Smith, who for no reason unless it were jealousy of his superior energy was for nearly a month kept out of his seat, took the oath of office, and the majority elected Edward Maria Wingfield president for the coming year. Contrary to the earnest and persistent advice of Bartholomew Gosnold, the peninsula was selected for the site of the colony, and took the name of Jamestown."

G. Bancroft, History of the United States, part 1, chapter 6 (volume 1).

ALSO IN: E. D. Neill, History of the Virginia Company of London, chapter 1, and Virginia Vetusta, chapters 1-2.

J. Burk, History of Virginia, volume 1, chapter 3.

E. M. Wingfield, Discourse of Virginia, edited by C. Deane (Archœologia Americana, volume 4).

H. W. Preston, Documents Illustrative of American History, page 1.

VIRGINIA: A. D. 1607-1610. The settlement at Jamestown and the services of Captain John Smith.

"Among the leaders of the expedition were Gosnold, the voyager and discoverer, and a prime mover in the affair; Wingfield, one of the first-named patentees, John Smith, Ratcliffe, Martin, Kendall, and Percy. Of these men John Smith has become famous. He has taken place among the founders of states, and a romantic interest has attached itself to his name. For centuries his character and deeds have been applauded, while in late years they have become a theme for censure and detraction. Modern investigation has relentlessly swept a way the romance, and torn in pieces many of the long accepted narratives in which Smith recorded his own achievements. Yet it was not wholly by a false and fluent pen that Smith obtained and held his reputation. He was something more than a plausible writer of fiction. He was the strongest and most representative man among the Virginian colonists. … With this hopeful company Newport left the Downs on the 1st of January, 1607. The worthy Richard Hakluyt sent them a paper containing much good advice and some ingenious geographical speculations, and Drayton celebrated their departure in clumsy verses filled with high-flown compliments. The advice of the priest and the praise of the poet were alike wasted. By an arrangement ingeniously contrived to promote discord, devised probably by royal sagacity, the box containing the names of the council was not to be opened until the voyagers reached their destination. Dissension broke out almost immediately. Whatever the merits of the differences, this much is certain, that Smith was the object of the concentrated jealousy and hatred of his companions. … On the 13th of May, 1607, the settlers landed at Jamestown, sent out exploring parties, and began fortifications. A fortnight later, under the command of Wingfield, they repulsed an attack by the Indians; and on the 22d of June Newport sailed for England, and left them to their own resources. The prospect must have been a dreary one: nothing answered to their expectations. Instead of valuable mines, the adventurers found only a most fertile soil; instead of timid, trusting South American Indians, they encountered wild tribes of hardy, crafty, and hostile savages; instead of rich, defenceless, and barbarian cities, an easy and splendid spoil, they found a wilderness, and the necessity of hard work. From the miserable character of the settlers, dangerous factions prevailed from the first, until Smith obtained control, and maintained some sort of order—despotically, perhaps, but still effectually. No one would work, and famine and the Indians preyed upon them mercilessly. A small fort and a few wretched huts, built after much quarrelling, represented for many months all that was accomplished. The only relief from this dark picture of incompetent men perishing, without achievement, and by their own folly, on the threshold of a great undertaking, is to be found in the conduct of Smith. Despite almost insurmountable obstacles, Smith kept the colony together for two years. He drilled the soldiers, compelled labor, repaired the fort, traded with the Indians, outwitted them and kept their friendship, and made long and daring voyages of discovery. He failed to send home a lump of gold, but he did send an excellent map of the Company's territory. He did not discover the passage to the South Sea, but he explored the great bays and rivers of Virginia. He did not find Raleigh's lost colonists, but he managed to keep his own from total destruction. The great result of all Smith's efforts was the character of permanency he gave to the settlement. Because he succeeded in maintaining an English colony for two consecutive years in America, the London Company had courage to proceed; and this is what constitutes Smith's strongest claim to the admiration and gratitude of posterity. To suppose that he had the qualities of a founder of a state is a mistake, although in some measure he did the work of one. … His veracity as a historian in the later years of his life has been well-nigh destroyed. But little faith can be placed in the 'Generall Historie,' and modern investigation has conclusively relegated to the region of legend and of fiction the dramatic story of Smith's rescue by Pocahontas. The shadow of doubt rests upon all his unsupported statements; but nothing can obscure his great services, to which the world owes the foundation of the first English colony in America. Yet, after all his struggles, Smith was severely blamed by the Company, apparently because Virginia was not Peru. In a manly letter he sets forth the defects of the colony, the need of good men with families, industrious tradesmen and farmers, not 'poor gentlemen and libertines.' Before, however, the actual orders came to supersede him, Smith resigned, or was forced out of the government, and returned to England. The feeble life of the colony wasted fast after his departure and during the sickness of Percy, who succeeded to the command."

H. C. Lodge, Short History of the English Colonies in America, chapter 1.

ALSO IN: Captain John Smith, General Historie of Virginia, books 2-3.

J. Ashton, Adventures and Discoveries of Captain John Smith, newly ordered, chapters 6-21.

W. C. Bryant and S. H. Gay, Popular History of the United States, volume 1, chapter 11.

E. Eggleston and L. E. Seelye, Pocahontas.

VIRGINIA: A. D. 1609-1616. The new Charter. The colony taking root. Introduction of Tobacco culture.

"The prospects of the colony were so discouraging at the beginning of the year 1609, that, in the hope of improving them, the Company applied for a new charter with enlarged privileges. This was granted to them, on the 23d of May, under the corporate name of 'The Treasurer and Company of Adventurers and Planters of the City of London for the first Colony in Virginia.' {3629} The new Association, which embraced representatives of every rank, trade, and profession, included twenty-one peers, and its list of names presents an imposing array of wealth and influence. By this charter Virginia was greatly enlarged, and made to comprise the coast-line and all islands within 100 miles of it,—200 miles north and 200 south of Point Comfort,—with all the territory within parallel lines thus distant and extending to the Pacific boundary; the Company was empowered to choose the Supreme Council in England, and, under the instructions and regulations of the last, the Governor was invested with absolute civil and military authority. … Thomas West (Lord Delaware), the descendant of a long line of noble ancestry, received the appointment of Governor and Captain-General of Virginia. The first expedition under the second charter, which was on a grander scale than any preceding it, and which consisted of nine vessels, sailed from Plymouth on the 1st of June, 1609. Newport, the commander of the fleet, Sir Thomas Gates, Lieutenant-General, and Sir George Somers, Admiral of Virginia, were severally authorized, whichever of them might first arrive at Jamestown, to supersede the existing administration there until the arrival of Lord Delaware, who was to embark some months later; but not being able to settle the point of precedency among themselves, they embarked together in the same vessel, which carried also the wife and daughters of Gates. … On the 23d of July the fleet was caught in a hurricane; a small vessel was lost, others damaged, and the 'Sea Venture,' which carried Gates, Somers, and Newport, with about 150 settlers, was cast ashore on the Bermudas. … Early in August the 'Blessing,' Captain Archer, and three other vessels of the delayed fleet sailed up James River, and soon after the 'Diamond,' Captain Ratcliffe, appeared, without her mainmast, and she was followed in a few days by the 'Swallow,' in like condition. The Council being all dead save Smith, he, obtaining the sympathy of the sailors, refused to surrender the government of the colony; and the newly arrived settlers elected Francis West, the brother of Lord Delaware, as temporary president. The term of Smith expiring soon after, George Percy—one of the original settlers, a brother of the Earl of Northumberland, and a brave and honorable man—was elected president. … Smith, about Michaelmas (September 29), departed for England, or, as all contemporary accounts other than his own state, was sent thither 'to answer some misdemeanors.' These were doubtless of a venial character; but the important services of Smith in the sustenance of the colony appear not to have been as highly esteemed by the Company as by Smith himself. He complains that his several petitions for reward were disregarded, and he never returned to Virginia. … At the time of his departure for England he left at Jamestown three ships, seven boats, a good stock of provisions, nearly 500 settlers, 20 pieces of cannon, 300 guns, with fishing-nets, working-tools, horses, cattle, swine, etc. Jamestown was strongly fortified with palisades, and contained between fifty and sixty houses. … No effort by tillage being made to replenish their provisions, the stock was soon consumed, and the horrors of famine were added to other calamities. The intense sufferings of the colonists were long remembered, and this period is referred to as 'the starving time.' In six months their number was reduced to 60, and such was the extremity of these that they must soon have perished but for speedy succor. The passengers of the wrecked 'Sea Venture,' though mourned for as lost, had effected a safe landing at the Bermudas, where, favored by the tropical productions of the islands, they, under the direction of Gates and Somers, constructed for their deliverance two vessels from the materials of the wreck and cedar-wood, the largest of the vessels being of 80 tons burden. … Six of the company, including the wife of Sir Thomas Gates, died on the island. The company of 140 men and women embarked on the completed vessels—which were appropriately named the 'Patience' and the 'Deliverance'—on the 10th of May, 1610, and on the 23d they landed at Jamestown. … So forlorn was the condition of the settlement that Gates reluctantly resolved to abandon it." The whole colony was accordingly embarked and was under sail down the river, when it met a fleet of three vessels, bringing supplies and new settlers from England, with Lord Delaware, who had resolved to come out in person, as Governor and Captain-General of Virginia. Gates and his disheartened companions turned back with these new comers, and all were set vigorously at work to restore the settlement. "The administration of Delaware, though ludicrously ostentatious for so insignificant a dominion, was yet highly wholesome, and under his judicious discipline the settlement was restored to order and contentment." His health failing, Lord Delaware returned to England the following spring, whither Sir Thomas Gates had gone. Sir Thomas Dale had already been sent out with the appointment of high marshal, bearing a code of extraordinary laws which practically placed the colony under martial rule. Gates returned in June, 1611, with 300 additional settlers and a considerable stock of cows and other cattle. During that year and the next several new settlements were founded, at Dutch Gap, Henrico, and Bermuda Hundred, individual grants of property began to be made, and many signs of prosperity appeared. The year 1612 "was a marked one, in the inauguration by John Rolfe [who married Pocahontas two years later, having lost his first wife] of the systematic culture of tobacco,—a staple destined to exert a controlling influence in the future welfare and progress of the colony, and soon, by the paramount profit yielded by its culture, to subordinate all other interests, agricultural as well as manufacturing." In the spring of 1613, Sir Thomas Gates left the colony, finally, returning to England, and the government fell to the hands of Dale, who remained at the head until 1616.

R. A. Brock, Virginia, 1606-1689 (Narrative and Critical History of America, volume 3, chapter 5).

ALSO IN: W. Stith, History of Virginia, book. 3.

J. H. Lefroy, Memorials of the Discovery and Early Settlement of the Bermudas, volume 1, chapter 1.

J. E. Cooke, Virginia, chapters 13-16.

H. W. Preston, Documents Illustrative of American History, page 14.

VIRGINIA: A. D. 1613. The French settlements in Acadia destroyed by Argall and the Dutch at New York forced to promise tribute.

See CANADA: A. D. 1610-1613; and NEW YORK: A. D. 1610-1614.

{3630}

VIRGINIA: A. D. 1617-1619. The evil days of Argall, and the better administration that followed. Meeting of the first provincial Assembly.

"A party of greedy and unprincipled adventurers headed by Lord Rich, soon after the Earl of Warwick, acquired sufficient influence in the Company to nominate a creature of their own as Deputy-Governor. Their choice of Argall [Samuel Argall] would in itself have tainted their policy with suspicion. Whether dealing with the Indians, the French, or the Dutch, he had shown himself able, resolute, and unscrupulous.

See CANADA: A. D. 1610-1613; and NEW YORK: A. D. 1610-1614.

To do him justice, he seems at least to have understood the principle of Tiberius, that a shepherd should shear his sheep, not flay them. His first measure was to provide a sufficient supply of corn for the maintenance of the colony. With that he appeared to think that his duty to the settlers was at end. … An event soon occurred which released Argall from the fear of a superior, and probably emboldened him in his evil courses. Lord Delaware, who had sailed in a large vessel with 200 emigrants," died on the voyage. "Argall now began to show that his care for the well-being of the colony was no better than the charity of the cannibal who feeds up his prisoner before making a meal on him. Trade with the Indians was withheld from individuals, but, instead of being turned to the benefit of the Company, it was appropriated by Argall. The planters were treated as a slave-gang working for the Deputy's own private profit. The Company's cattle were sold, and the proceeds never accounted for. During this time a great change had come over the Company at home. An energetic and public-spirited party had been formed, opposed alike to Sir Thomas Smith and to Lord Rich. Their leader was Sir Edwin Sandys, a member of that country party which was just beginning to take its stand against the corruptions of the court policy. Side by side with him stood one whose name has gained a wider though not a more honourable repute, the follower of Essex, the idol of Shakespeare, the brilliant, versatile Southampton. … The … year 1619 was remarkable in the annals of the colony. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that it witnessed the creation of Virginia as an independent community. From the beginning of that year we may date the definite ascendancy of Sandys and his party, an ascendancy which was maintained till the dissolution of the Company, and during which the affairs of Virginia were administered with a degree of energy, unselfishness, and statesmanlike wisdom, perhaps unparalleled in the history of corporations. One of the first measures was to send out Yeardley to supersede Argall. … When Yeardley arrived he found that Argall had escaped. No further attempt seems to have been made to bring him to justice. In the next year he was commanding a ship against the Algerines." Soon afterwards, Sir Edwin Sandys was placed officially at the head of the Company, by his election to be Treasurer, in the place of Sir Thomas Smith. "About the same time that these things were doing in England, a step of the greatest importance was being taken in Virginia. Yeardley, in obedience to instructions from the Company, summoned an Assembly of Burgesses from the various hundreds and plantations. At one step Virginia, from being little better than a penal settlement, ruled by martial law, became invested with important, though not full, rights of self-government. Though we have no direct evidence of the fact, there is every probability that during the administrations of Yeardley and Argall the number of independent planters possessing estates of their own, with labourers employed in the service of their masters, not of the Company, had increased. Unless such an influence had been at work, it is scarcely possible that the experiment of constitutional government should have succeeded, or even have been tried. On the 30th of July, 1619, the first Assembly met in the little church at Jamestown. … In England the Company under its new government set to work with an energy before unknown to it, to improve the condition of the colony. … To check the over-production of tobacco a clause was inserted in all fresh patents of land binding the holder to cultivate a certain quantity of other commodities. Everything was done to encourage permanent settlers rather than mere traders. Apprentices, unmarried women, and neat cattle were sent out. New forms of industry, too, were set on foot, such as timber yards, silk manufactures, iron foundries, and vineyards. … In the year 1619 alone over 1,200 persons were sent out, half as private settlers or servants, half at the expense of the Company."

J. A. Doyle, The English in America: Virginia, &c., chapter 6.

VIRGINIA: A. D. 1619. Introduction of Negro Slavery.

"In the month of August, 1619, five years after the commons of France had petitioned for the emancipation of every serf in every fief, a Dutch man-of-war entered James River and landed 20 negroes for sale. This is the sad epoch of the introduction of negro slavery; but the traffic would have been checked in its infancy had it remained with the Dutch. Thirty years after this first importation of Africans, Virginia to one black contained fifty whites; and, after seventy years of its colonial existence, the number of its negro slaves was proportionably much less than in several of the northern states at the time of the war of independence."

G. Bancroft, History of the United States (Author's last revision), part 1, chapter 8 (volume 1).

ALSO IN: G. W. Williams, History of the Negro Race in America, part 2, chapter 12 (volume 1).

G. P. Fisher, The Colonial Era, chapter 4.

VIRGINIA: A. D. 1622-1624. Plot and Massacre by the Indians. Arbitrary dissolution of the Virginia Company by King James.

"On the 22nd of March, 1622, a memorable massacre occurred in the Colony. … On the evening before, and on that morning, the savages as usual came unarmed into the houses of the planters, with fruits, fish, turkies and venison to sell. 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, sex, nor condition. Three hundred and forty-seven men, women and children fell in a few hours. … The destruction might have been universal but for the disclosure of a converted Indian, named Chanco, who, during the night before the massacre, revealed the plot to one Richard Pace, with whom he lived. {3631} Pace … repaired before day to Jamestown and gave the alarm to Sir Francis Wyatt, the Governor. His vigilance saved a large part of the Colony. … The court of James I., jealous of the growing power of the Virginia Company and of its too republican spirit, seized upon the occasion of the massacre to attribute all the calamities of the Colony to its mismanagement and neglect, and thus to frame a pretext for dissolving the charter." The Company, supported by the colonists, resisted the high-handed proceedings of the King and his officers, but vainly. In November, 1624, "James I. dissolved the Virginia Company by a writ of Quo Warranto, which was determined only upon a technicality in the pleadings. The company had been obnoxious to the ill will of the King on several grounds. The corporation had become a theatre for rearing leaders of the opposition, many of its members being also members of parliament. … Charles I. succeeding [1625] to the crown and principles of his father, took the government of Virginia into his own hands. The company thus extinguished had expended £150,000 in establishing the Colony, and transported 9,000 settlers without the aid of government. The number of stockholders, or adventurers, as they were styled, was about 1,000, and the annual value of exports from Virginia was, at the period of the dissolution of the charter, only £20,000. The company embraced much of the rank, wealth, and talent of the kingdom. … As the act provided no compensation for the enormous expenditure incurred, it can be looked upon as little better than confiscation effected by chicane and tyranny. Nevertheless the result was undoubtedly favorable to the Colony."

C. Campbell, Introduction to the History of the Colony and Ancient Dominion of Virginia, chapters 15-16.

ALSO IN: W. Stith, History of Virginia, books 4-5.

E. D. Neill, History of the Virginia Company of London, chapters 14-17.

VIRGINIA: A. D. 1628. Attempted settlement by Lord Baltimore.

See MARYLAND: A. D. 1632.

VIRGINIA: A. D. 1635-1638. The Clayborne quarrel with Lord Baltimore and the Maryland colony.

See MARYLAND: A. D. 1635-1638.

VIRGINIA: A. D. 1639-1652. Loyalty to King Charles. The Refuge of the Cavaliers.

"Under Charles I. little worthy of notice occurred in the political history of Virginia. … Attempts were made to raise a revenue on tobacco, and subsequently to establish a royal monopoly of the tobacco trade. The attempts were averted, and the king contented himself with the preemption of the Virginian tobacco, and with enacting that no foreign vessel should be allowed to trade with Virginia, or to carry Virginian goods. In 1639 an attempt was made to re-establish the authority of the company, but was strenuously and successfully opposed by the assembly. That the royal government sat lightly on Virginia may be inferred from the loyal tone which had thus early become a characteristic of the colony. After the establishment of the commonwealth, 'Virginia was whole for monarchy and the last country belonging to England that submitted to obedience to the commonwealth of England,' and under Berkeley's government the plantation was a safe refuge for the defeated cavaliers. … But as soon as two or three parliamentary ships appeared [1652] all thoughts of resistance were laid aside. Yet, whether from lenity or caution, the parliament was satisfied with moderate terms. The submission of the colonists was accepted as free and voluntary."

J. A. Doyle, The American Colonies, chapter 2.

VIRGINIA: A. D. 1644. Fresh Indian outbreak and massacre of whites.

"After a peace of five or six years, the Indians, provoked by continued encroachments on their lands, and instigated, it is said, by the aged chief Opechancanough, formed a new scheme for the extermination of the colonists. They were encouraged by signs of discord among the English, having seen a fight in James River between a London ship for the Parliament and a Bristol ship for the king. Five hundred persons perished in the first surprise, which took place, according to Winthrop, the day before Good Friday, appointed by the governor, 'a courtier, and very malignant toward the way of our churches,' to be observed as a fast for the good success of the king. For defense, the planters were concentrated in a few settlements; … forts were built at the points most exposed; and a ship was sent to Boston for powder, which, however, the General Court declined to furnish. This occasion was taken by 'divers godly-disposed persons' of Virginia to remove to New England. … The Indians were presently driven from their fastnesses. Opechancanough, decrepit and incapable of moving without assistance, … was taken prisoner and carried to Jamestown, where he was shot in the back by a vindictive soldier appointed to guard him. The Indian towns were broken up, and their 'clear lands possessed by the English to sow wheat in.' Opechancanough's successor submitted; and a peace was made by act of Assembly, the Indians ceding all the lands between James and York Rivers. No Indian was to come south of York River under pain of death. The Powhatan confederacy was dissolved. The Indians of lower Virginia sunk into servile dependence, and dwindled away, or, migrating to the south and west, were mingled and confounded with other tribes."

R. Hildreth, History of the United States, chapter 11 (volume 1).

ALSO IN: J. E. Cooke, Virginia, part 2, chapter 5.

VIRGINIA: A. D. 1650-1660. Under the Commonwealth and Cromwell, and the Stuart Restoration. Two sides of the story. Origin of the name of "The Old Dominion."

"After this, Sir William Berkeley [governor] made a new peace with the Indians, which continued for a long time unviolated. … But he himself did not long enjoy the benefit of this profound peace; for the unhappy troubles of king Charles the first increasing in England, proved a great disturbance to him and to all the people. They, to prevent the infection from reaching that country, made severe laws against the Puritans, though there were as yet none among them. But all correspondence with England was interrupted, supplies lessened, and trade obstructed. … At last the king was traitorously beheaded in England, and Oliver installed Protector. However, his authority was not acknowledged in Virginia for several years after, till they were forced to it by the last necessity. For in the year 1651, by Cromwell's command, Captain Dennis, with a squadron of men of war, arrived there from the Carribbee islands, where they had been subduing Bardoes. The country at first held out vigorously against him, and Sir William Berkeley, by the assistance of such Dutch vessels as were then there, made a brave resistance. {3632} But at last Dennis contrived a stratagem which betrayed the country. He had got a considerable parcel of goods aboard, which belonged to two of the Council, and found a method of informing them of it. By this means they were reduced to the dilemma, either of submitting or losing their goods. This occasioned factions among them; so that at last, after the surrender of all the other English plantations, Sir William was forced to submit to the usurper on the terms of a general pardon. However, it ought to be remembered, to his praise, and to the immortal honor of that colony, that it was the last of all the king's dominions that submitted to the usurpation; and afterwards the first that cast it off, and he never took any post or office under the usurper. Oliver had no sooner subdued the plantations, but he began to contrive how to keep them under, that so they might never be able for the time to come to give him farther trouble. To this end, he thought it necessary to break off their correspondence with all other nations, thereby to prevent their being furnished with arms, ammunition, and other warlike provisions. According to this design, he contrived a severe act of Parliament [1651], whereby he prohibited the plantations from receiving or exporting any European commodities but what should be carried to them by Englishmen, and in English built ships. …

See NAVIGATION ACT, ENGLISH.

Notwithstanding this act of navigation, the Protector never thought the plantations enough secured, but frequently changed their governors, to prevent their intriguing with the people. So that, during the time of the usurpation, they had no less than three governors there, namely, Diggs, Bennet and Mathews. The strange arbitrary curbs he put upon the plantations exceedingly afflicted the people … and inspired them with a desire to use the last remedy, to relieve themselves from this lawless usurpation. In a short time afterwards a fair opportunity happened; for Governor Mathews died, and no person was substituted to succeed him in the government. Whereupon the people applied themselves to Sir William Berkeley (who had continued all this time upon his own plantation in a private capacity) and unanimously chose him their governor again [March, 1660]. Sir William … told the people … that if he accepted the government it should be upon their solemn promise, after his example, to venture their lives and fortunes for the king, who was then in France. This was no great obstacle to them, and therefore with an unanimous voice they told him they were ready to hazard all for the king. … Sir William Berkeley embraced their choice, and forthwith proclaimed Charles II. king of England, Scotland, France, Ireland and Virginia, and caused all process to be issued in his name. Thus his majesty was actually king in Virginia before he was so in England. But it pleased God to restore him soon after to the throne of his ancestors."

R. Beverley, History of Virginia, book 1, chapter 4.

"The government of Virginia, under the Commonwealth of England, was mild and just. While Cromwell's sceptre commanded the respect of the world, he exhibited generous and politic leniency towards the infant and loyal colony. She enjoyed during this interval free trade, legislative independence and internal peace. The governors were men who by their virtues and moderation won the confidence and affections of the people. No extravagance, rapacity, or extortion, could be alleged against the administration. Intolerance and persecution were unknown, with the single exception of a rigorous act banishing the Quakers. But rapine, extravagance, extortion, intolerance and persecution were all soon to be revived under the auspices of the Stuarts. … Richard Cromwell resigned the protectorate in March, 1660. Matthews, governor-elect, had died in the January previous. England was without a monarch; Virginia without a governor. Here was a two fold interregnum. The assembly, convening on the 13th of March, 1660, declared by their first act that, as there was then in England 'noe resident absolute and generall confessed power,' therefore the supreme government of the colony should rest in the assembly. By the second act, Sir William Berkeley was appointed governor, and it was ordered that all writs should issue in the name of the assembly. … No fact in our history has been more misunderstood and misrepresented than this reappointment of Sir William Berkeley, before the restoration of Charles II. … Sir William was elected, not by a tumultuary assemblage of the people, but by the assembly; the royal standard was not raised upon the occasion, nor was the king proclaimed. Sir William, however, made no secret of his loyalty. … Sir William was elected on the 21st of the same month, about two months before the restoration of Charles II. Yet the word king, or majesty, occurs no where in the legislative records, from the commencement of the Commonwealth in England until the 11th of October, 1660—more than four months after the restoration. Virginia was indeed loyal, but she was too feeble to express her loyalty."

C. Campbell, Introduction to the History of the Colony and Ancient Dominion of Virginia, chapters 21-22.

"There is no doubt whatever that if the Virginians could have restored the King earlier they would have done so; and Berkeley, who is known to have been in close communication and consultation with the leading Cavaliers, had sent word to Charles II. in Holland, toward the end of the Commonwealth, that he would raise his flag in Virginia if there was a prospect of success. This incident has been called in question. It is testified to by William Lee, Sheriff of London, and a cousin of Richard Lee, Berkeley's emissary, as a fact within his knowledge. Charles declined the offer, but was always grateful to the Virginians. The country is said to have derived from the incident the name of the 'Old Dominion,' where the King was King, or might have been, before he was King in England."

J. E. Cooke, Virginia, part 2, chapter 10.

VIRGINIA: A. D. 1651-1672. The English Navigation Acts and trade restrictions.

See NAVIGATION LAWS; also UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1651-1672.

VIRGINIA: A. D. 1660-1677. The Restoration and its rewards to Virginia loyalty. Oppression, discontent, and Bacon's Rebellion.

At the time of the restoration of the English monarchy, in the person of Charles II., the colony of Virginia "numbered not far from 50,000 souls, a large proportion of whom, especially, we may suppose, those of middle life and most active habits, were natives of the soil, bound to it by the strongest ties of interest and affection, and by their hopes of what it was destined to become in the opening future. {3633} Here was a state of things, comprising, in the apprehensions of the people, many of the elements of the highest happiness and prosperity. … But all this was totally and suddenly changed, and universal distress brought upon the land, by the new restrictive clauses added to the original Navigation Act, by the first Parliament of Charles. By the act of the Long Parliament it had been simply provided that foreign vessels should import into England no other products than such as were grown or manufactured in their own country; a shaft aimed principally at the Dutch. … By Charles's Commons this first hint was … expanded into a voluminous code of monopolizing enactments, by which the trade of the world was regulated on the principle of grasping for England every possible commercial advantage, and inflicting upon all other nations the greatest possible commercial injury. … Upon the colonies, one and all, this cruel policy bore with a weight which almost crushed them. … From 1660, when this monopolizing policy took its beginning, the discontent of the people increased day by day, as each new prohibition was proclaimed. Commerce lay dead. Tobacco would no longer pay for its cultivation, much less enrich the laborious planter; manufactures, as that of silk, after being attempted, failed to bring the hoped-for relief, and there seemed no prospect but starvation and ruin. What wonder that mischief lay brewing in the hearts of a people who, for their almost slavish loyalty, met only these thankless returns of injury and injustice; for the Virginians of that day were monarchists in the full meaning of the term. … Other causes conspired with these purely political ones to bring the public mind of Virginia into such a state of deep exasperation as to find its relief only in insurrection. Of these, one was particularly a source of irritation; namely, the grants of vast tracts of territory, made by the wasteful and profligate King to his needy and profligate favorites, made wholly irrespective of present owners and occupiers, who were transferred, like serfs of the soil, to any great patentee to whom the caprice of Charles chose to consign them." The discontent culminated in 1676, under the influence of an excitement growing out of trouble with the Indians. After more than thirty years of quiet, the natives became hostile and threatening. "Various outrages were first committed by the Indians, on whom the whites, as usual, retaliated; murder answered to murder, burning to burning, till, throughout the whole border country, were kindled the flames of an exterminating Indian war, accompanied by all its peculiar horrors. In the excited state of the public mind, these new calamities were laid at the door of the government." Governor Berkeley was accused of having an interest in the profits of trade with the Indians which restrained him from making war on them. Whether the charge was true or false, he gave color to it by his conduct. He took no steps to protect the colony. Nor would he authorize any self-defensive measures on the part of the people themselves. They "went so far as to engage that, if the Governor would only commission a general, whomsoever he would, they would 'follow him at their own charge.' Still they were not heard. Under such circumstances of neglect and excessive irritation, they took the case into their own hands." They chose for their leader Nathaniel Bacon, a young Englishman of education, energy and talent, who had been in the colony about three years, and who had already attained a seat in the Governor's Council. Bacon accepted the responsibility, "commission or no commission," and, in the spring of 1676, put himself at the head of 500 men, with whom he marched against the Indians. The governor, after formally proclaiming him a rebel, raised another army and marched, not against the Indians, but against Bacon. He was hardly out of Jamestown, however, before the people of that neighborhood rose and took possession of the capital. On learning of this fresh revolt, he turned back, and found himself helpless to do anything but submit. The result was the summoning of a new Assembly, to which Bacon was elected from his county, and the making of some progress, apparently, towards a curing of abuses and the removing of causes of discontent. But something occurred—exactly what has never been made clear—which led to a sudden flight on Bacon's part from Jamestown, and the gathering of his forces once more around him. Re-entering the capital at their head, he extorted from Governor Berkeley a commission which legalized his military office, and armed with this authority he proceeded once more against the Indians. "But as soon as he was sufficiently distant to relieve the Governor and his friends from their fears, all that had been granted was revoked; a proclamation was issued, again denouncing Bacon as a rebel, setting a price upon his head, and commanding his followers to disperse." Again, Bacon and his army retraced their steps and took possession of Jamestown, the governor flying to Accomac. A convention of the inhabitants of the colony was then called together, which adopted a Declaration, or Oath, in which they fully Identified themselves with Bacon in his course, and swore to uphold him. The latter then moved once more against the Indians; Berkeley once more got possession of the seat of government, and, once more, Bacon (who had fought the Indians meantime at Bloody Run and beaten them) came back and drove him out. "The whole country … was with Bacon, and merely a crowd of cowardly adventurers about the Governor. Nothing would seem, at this moment, to have stood between Bacon and the undisputed, absolute control of the colony, had no unforeseen event interposed, as it did, to change the whole aspect of affairs." This unforeseen event was the sudden death of Bacon, which occurred in January, 1677, at the house of a friend. "Some mystery attaches to the manner of it," and there were, of course, sinister whispers of foul play. "But, however and wherever Bacon died, it could never be discovered where he was buried, nor what disposition had been made of his body. … The death of Bacon was, in effect, the restoration of Sir William Berkeley to his lost authority, and the termination of the war; there being not an individual, among either his counsellors or officers, of capacity sufficient to make good his place. … Berkeley, gradually subduing all opposition, and making prisoners of many of the prime movers of the revolt, in a short time saw the authority of his government completely reestablished. … The historians of the period inform us that no less than 25 persons were executed during the closing period of the rebellion and the few next succeeding months."

W. Ware, Memoir of Nathaniel Baron (Library of American Biographies, series 2, volume 3).

ALSO IN: J. A. Doyle, The English in America: Virginia, &c., chapter 9.

J. Burk, History of Virginia, volume 2, chapter 4.

G. Bancroft, History of the United States (Author's last revision), part 2, chapters 10-11.

E. Eggleston, Nathaniel Baron (Century Magazine, July, 1890).

{3634}

VIRGINIA: A. D. 1689-1690. King William's War. The first Colonial Congress.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1690; and CANADA: A. D. 1689-1690.

VIRGINIA: A. D. 1691. The founding of William and Mary College.

See EDUCATION, MODERN: AMERICA: A. D. 1619-1819.

VIRGINIA: A. D. 1696-1749. Suppression of colonial manufactures.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1696-1749.

VIRGINIA: A. D. 1710. Colonization of Palatines.

See PALATINES.

VIRGINIA: A. D. 1710-1716. Crossing the Blue Ridge. The Knights of the Golden Horseshoe. Possession taken of the Shenandoah Valley.

"Lord Orkney is made Governor, but as usual sends his deputy, and in the year 1710 appears the stalwart soldier and ruler, Sir Alexander Spotswood. Alexander Spotswood, or Spottiswoode, as his family were called in Scotland, rises like a landmark above the first years of the century. When he came to Virginia he was only 34 and in the bloom of his manhood. But he had already fought hard, and his faculties as a soldier and ruler were fully developed. … The Virginians received Spotswood with open arms. He was a man after their own heart, and brought with him when he came (June 1710) the great writ of Habeas corpus. The Virginia people had long claimed that this right was guaranteed to them by Magna Charta, since they were equally free Englishmen with the people of England. Now it was conceded, and the great writ came,—Spotswood's letter of introduction. It was plain that he was not a new Berkeley looking to the King's good pleasure as his law, or a new Nicholson ready to imprison people or put halters around their necks; but a respecter of human freedom and defender of the right. … In … 1716, Governor Alexander Spotswood set out on an expedition which much delighted the Virginians. There was a very great longing to visit the country beyond the Blue Ridge. That beautiful unknown land held out arms of welcome, and the Governor, who had in his character much of the spirit of the hunter and adventurer, resolved to go and explore it. Having assembled a party of good companions, he set out in the month of August, and the gay company began their march toward the Blue Ridge Mountains. The chronicler of the expedition describes the picturesque cavalcade followed by the pack-horses and servants,—'rangers, pioneers, and Indians'; how they stopped to hunt game; bivouacked 'under the canopy'; laughed, jested, and regaled themselves with 'Virginia wine, white and red, Irish usquebaugh, brandy, shrub, two kinds of rum, champagne, canary, cherry-punch, and cider.' In due time they reached the Blue Ridge, probably near the present Swift Run Gap, and saw, beyond, the wild valley of the Shenandoah. On the summit of the mountain they drank the health of the King, and named two neighboring peaks 'Mt. George' and 'Mt. Alexander,' after his Majesty and the Governor; after which they descended into the valley and gave the Shenandoah the name of the 'Euphrates.' Here a bottle was buried—there were, no doubt, a number of empty ones—containing a paper to testify that the valley of the Euphrates was taken possession of in the name of his Majesty, George I. Then the adventurers reascended the mountain, crossed to the lowland, and returned to Williamsburg. This picturesque incident of the time gave rise to the order of the 'Knights of the Golden Horseshoe.' The horses had been shod with iron, which was unusual, as a protection against the mountain roads; and Spotswood sent to London and had made for his companions small golden horseshoes set with garnets and other jewels, and inscribed 'Sic juvat transcendere montes.'"

J. E. Cooke, Virginia, part 2, chapters 21-22.

VIRGINIA: A. D. 1744. Treaty with the Six Nations and purchase of the Shenandoah Valley.

"The Six Nations still retained the right to traverse the great valley west of the Blue Ridge. Just at this inopportune moment [1743], some of their parties came into bloody collision with the backwoodsmen of Virginia, who had penetrated into that valley. Hostilities with the Six Nations, now that war was threatened with France, might prove very dangerous, and Clinton [governor of New York] hastened to secure the friendship of these ancient allies by liberal presents; for which purpose, in conjunction with commissioners from New England, he held a treaty at Albany. … The difficulties between Virginia and the Six Nations were soon after [1744] settled in a treaty held at Lancaster, to which Pennsylvania and Maryland were also parties, and in which, in consideration of £400, the Six Nations relinquished all their title to the valley between the Blue Ridge and the central chain of the Allegany Mountains."

R. Hildreth, History of the United States, chapter 25 (volume 2).

ALSO IN: B. A. Hinsdale, The Old Northwest, page 59.

VIRGINIA: A. D. 1748-1754. First movements beyond the mountains to dispute possession with the French.

See OHIO (VALLEY): A. D. 1748-1754.

VIRGINIA: A. D. 1754. Opposing the French occupation of the Ohio Valley. Washington's first service.

See OHIO (VALLEY): A. D. 1754.

VIRGINIA: A. D. 1755-1760. The French and Indian War. Braddock's defeat and after.

See OHIO (VALLEY): A. D. 1748-1754, 1754, 1755; CANADA: A. D. 1750-1753, to 1760; NOVA SCOTIA: A. D. 1749-1755, 1755; and CAPE BRETON ISLAND: A. D. 1758-1760.

VIRGINIA: A. D. 1756. Number of Slaves.

See SLAVERY, NEGRO: A. D. 1756.

VIRGINIA: A. D. 1759-1761. The Cherokee War.

See SOUTH CAROLINA: A. D. 1759-1761.

VIRGINIA: A. D. 1763. The Parsons' Cause and Patrick Henry.

"In Virginia as well as in Pennsylvania, a vigorous opposition to vested rights foreshadowed what was to come. A short crop of tobacco having suddenly enhanced the price of that staple, or, what is quite as like]y, the issue of paper money in Virginia, first made that same year [1755], having depreciated the currency, the Assembly had passed a temporary act, authorizing the payment of all tobacco debts in money at twopence per pound—the old rate, long established by usage. Three years after, under pretence of an expected failure of the crop, this tender act was renewed. {3635} Francis Fauquier, who had just succeeded Dinwiddie as lieutenant governor, a man of more complying temper than his predecessor, readily consented to it. The salaries of the parish ministers, some sixty-five in number, were payable in tobacco. They were likely to be considerable losers by this tender law; and, not content with attacking it in pamphlets, they sent an agent to England, and by the aid of Sherlock, bishop of London, procured an order in council pronouncing the law void. Suits were presently brought to recover the difference between twopence per pound in the depreciated currency and the tobacco to which by law the ministers were entitled. In defending one of these suits [1763], the remarkable popular eloquence of Patrick Henry displayed itself for the first time. Henry was a young lawyer, unconnected with the ruling aristocracy of the province, and as yet without reputation or practice. The law was plainly against him, and his case seemed to be hopeless. He had, however, a strong support in the prevailing prejudice in favor of the tender law, and in the dissatisfaction generally felt at the king's veto upon it. Addressing the jury in a torrent of eloquence as brilliant as it was unexpected, he prevailed upon them to give him a verdict. The Assembly voted money to defend all suits which the parsons might bring; and, notwithstanding their clear legal right in the matter, they thought it best to submit without further struggle."

R. Hildreth, History of the United States, chapter 27 (volume 2).

ALSO IN: W. Wirt, Life of Patrick Henry, chapter 1.

M. C. Tyler, Patrick Henry, chapter 4.

VIRGINIA: A. D. 1763-1766. The question of taxation by Parliament. The Stamp Act and Patrick Henry's resolutions. The First Continental Congress. The repeal of the Stamp Act and the Declaratory Act.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1760-1775; 1763-1764; 1765; and 1766.

VIRGINIA: A. D. 1766-1773. Opening events of the Revolution.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1766-1767, to 1772-1773; and BOSTON: A. D. 1770, to 1773.

VIRGINIA: A. D. 1768. The boundary treaty with the Six Nations at Fort Stanwix. Pretended cession of lands south of the Ohio.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1765-1768.

VIRGINIA: A. D. 1769. Attempted prohibition of Slave Trade nullified by George III.

See SLAVERY, NEGRO: A. D. 1713-1776.

VIRGINIA: A. D. 1769-1772. The first settlement of Tennessee. The Watauga Association.

See TENNESSEE: A. D. 1769-1772.

VIRGINIA: A. D. 1774. Western territorial claims of the Old Dominion. Lord Dunmore's War with the Indians.

See OHIO (VALLEY): A. D. 1774; and UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1781-1786.

VIRGINIA: A. D. 1774. The Boston Port Bill, the Massachusetts Bill, and the Quebec Act. The First Continental Congress.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1774.

VIRGINIA: A. D. 1775. The beginning of the War of the American Revolution. Lexington. Concord. The country in arms. Ticonderoga. The Siege of Boston. Bunker Hill. The Second Continental Congress.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1775.

VIRGINIA: A. D. 1775. The end of Royal Government. Lord Dunmore's flight.

Not long after the excited demonstrations which followed Governor Dunmore's removal of powder from the public magazine at Williamsburg, the governor received Lord North's "conciliatory proposition," and "he convened the House of Burgesses, on the 1st of June, to take it into consideration. This withdrew Peyton Randolph from Congress, as had been anticipated, and Mr. Jefferson succeeded to the vacancy. But the latter was not permitted to leave the Burgesses before an answer to the ministerial proposition was framed. … How much the answer was 'enfeebled' by the doubts and scruples of the moderate members, we cannot say, but it rings true revolutionary metal, and it was a noble lead off for the Assemblies of the other Colonies. … The House, after the customary expression of a desire for reconciliation, declare that they have examined it (the Ministerial proposition) minutely, viewed it in every light in which they are able, and that, 'with pain and disappointment, they must ultimately declare that it only changed the form of oppression without lightening its burden.' … In the meantime events had transpired which soon afterwards terminated the official career of the Earl of Dunmore, and with it the royal government in Virginia. On the 5th of June, three men who entered the public magazine were wounded by a spring gun placed there by the orders of the Governor, and on the 7th, a committee of the House, appointed to inspect the magazine, found the locks removed from the serviceable muskets, and they also discovered the powder which had been placed in mine. These things highly exasperated the multitude, and on a rumor getting abroad that the same officer who had before carried off the powder was again advancing towards the city with an armed force, they rose in arms. The Governor's assurance that the rumor was unfounded restored tranquillity. He, however, left the city in the night with his family and went on board the Fowey, lying at York, twelve miles distant. He left a message declaring that he had taken this step for his safety, and that thenceforth he should reside and transact business on board of the man of war! An interchange of messages, acrid and criminatory on his part, firm and spirited on the part of the House, was kept up until the 24th of June; when, on his final refusal to receive bills for signature except under the guns of an armed vessel, the House declared it a high breach of privilege, and adjourned to the 12th of October. But a quorum never afterwards attended. … We soon find the Earl of Dunmore carrying on a petty but barbarous predatory warfare against the people he had so lately governed."

H. S. Randall, Life of Jefferson, volume 1, chapter 3.

VIRGINIA: A. D. 1775-1776. Lord Dunmore's warfare. Norfolk destroyed.

"Having drawn together a considerable force, Dunmore ascended Elizabeth River to the Great Bridge, the only pass by which Norfolk can be approached from the land side; dispersed some North Carolina militia collected there; made several prisoners; and then, descending the river [November 1775], took possession of Norfolk. The rise of that town had been very rapid. Within a short time past it had become the principal shipping port of Virginia. {3636} Its population amounted to several thousands, among whom were many Scotch traders not well disposed to the American cause. Fugitive slaves and others began now to flock to Dunmore's standard. A movement was made in his favor on the east shore of Maryland, which it required a thousand militia to suppress. The Convention of Virginia, not a little alarmed, voted four additional regiments, afterward increased to seven, all of which were presently taken into continental pay. … Woodford, with the second Virginia regiment, took possession of the causeway leading to the Great Bridge, which was still held by Dunmore's troops. An attempt to dislodge the Virginians having failed, with loss, Dunmore abandoned the bridge and the town, and again embarked. Norfolk was immediately occupied by Woodford, who was promptly joined by Howe's regiment from North Carolina. After a descent on the eastern shore of Virginia [January, 1776], to whose aid marched two companies of Maryland minute men, being re-enforced by the arrival of a British frigate, Dunmore bombarded Norfolk. A party landed and set it on fire. … The part which escaped was presently burned by the provincials, to prevent it from becoming a shelter to the enemy. Thus perished, a prey to civil war, the largest and richest of the rising towns of Virginia. Dunmore continued, during the whole summer, a predatory warfare along the rivers, of which his naval superiority gave him the command, burning houses and plundering plantations, from which he carried off upward of 1,000 slaves. He was constantly changing his place to elude attack; but watched, pursued, and harassed, he finally found it necessary to retire to St. Augustine with his adherents and his plunder."

R. Hildreth, History of the United States, chapter 32 (volume 3).

ALSO IN: C. Campbell, Introduction to History of Virginia., chapter 33.

VIRGINIA: A. D. 1775-1784. The exercise of sovereignty over Kentucky.

See KENTUCKY: A. D. 1775-1784.

VIRGINIA: A. D. 1776. Independence declared and a Constitution adopted. Declaration of Rights.

"There was a sudden change in public sentiment; and the idea of independence, said to be alarming to Virginians in March [1776] was welcome to them in April. One writes on the 2d: 'Independence is now the talk here. … It will be very soon, if not already, a favorite child.' Another, on the 12th, writes: 'I think almost every man, except the treasurer, is willing to declare for independence.'" On the 23d, the Charlotte County Committee charged its delegates in convention to use their best endeavors "that the delegates which are sent to the General Congress be instructed immediately to cast off the British yoke." On the next day, a majority of the freeholders of James City took similar action. "In May, the avowals for independence were numerous. In this spirit and with such aims, a new convention was chosen, and on the 6th of May met in Williamsburg. It contained illustrious men,—among them, James Madison, in the twenty-fifth year of his age; George Mason, in the maturity of his great powers; Richard Bland, Edmund Pendleton, and Patrick Henry, rich in Revolutionary fame. … On the 14th of May the convention went into a committee of the whole on the state of the colony, with Archibald Carey in the chair; when Colonel Nelson submitted a preamble and resolutions on independence, prepared by Pendleton. These were discussed in two sittings of the committee, and then reported to the House. They were opposed chiefly by delegates from the Eastern District, but were advocated by Patrick Henry, and passed unanimously when 112 members were present,—about 20 absenting themselves. This paper enumerated the wrongs done to the colonies … and instructed the delegates appointed to represent the colony in the General Congress 'to propose to that respectable body to declare the United Colonies free and independent States,' and to 'give the assent of the colony to measures to form foreign alliances and a confederation,—provided the power of forming government for the internal regulations of each colony be left to the colonial legislatures.' The same paper also provided for a committee to form a plan of government for Virginia. This action was transmitted by the President to the other assemblies, accompanied by a brief circular. … It was hailed by the patriots in other colonies with enthusiasm. … The convention agreed (June 12) upon the famous Declaration of Rights declaring all men equally free and independent, all power vested in and derived from the people, and that government ought to be for the common benefit; also that all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion according to the dictates of conscience. It also complied with the recommendation of Congress, by forming a constitution and electing a governor and other officers."