bark of Dartmouth, called the Concord, sett forward, holding a course for the north part of Virginia....Capt. Gosnoll did determyne, with eleven more besides himself, [Archer says twenty,] who promised to tarry with him, to sitte downe and fortefye, purposing to send the pynnace home into England by Capt. Gilbert, for new and better preparations, to be returned the next yeare againe, and for the same purpose he built a large house....much commended was the diligence and relation of Capt. Gosnoll," which induced the Earl of Southampton "with his brother in lawe Tho. Arundell, Baron of Warder " to send out Weymouth on his voyage of 1605. "Upon his returne, his goodly report joyning with Capt. Gosnoll's, caused the business with soe prosperous and fair starres to be accompanied ....yt well pleased his majestie....to cause his letters to be made patent...10 April, 1606, ....for two colonyes," the London and Plymouth colonies. Purchas' Pilgrims, iv., 1646 -1653. Mass. Hist. Col., xxviii., 69-123.

E. p. 143.

"Disastrous," because it placed the nationality of the country in the utmost hazard. The President and council of New England, in their Brief Relation, published in 1622, say, "Our people abandoning the plantation in this sort....the Frenchmen immediately took the opportunity to settle within our limits, which being heard by those of Virginia, that discreetly took to their consideration the inconveniences that might arise by suffering them to harbor there, they dispatched Sir Samuel Argall with commission to displace them, which he performed." Purchas' Pilgrims, iv., fol. 1828. The same is stated by Gorges' America painted to the Life, London, 1659, p. 19. "They abandoned the colonie and returned for England in those ships that had been sent them with succours, at which unexpected return, the Patrons of the designe were so offended, that for a certaine time they desisted from their enterprises, in the mean while the French making use of this occasion, placed colonies in divers places, until such time as Argall coming from Virginia disturbed their designs, overthrew their Colonies, and brought away Prisoners, all he could lay hand on.". Another says, "their coming home so discouraged all the first undertakers, that here seemed to be a full stop to the New England affair, and there was now no longer so much as any discourse about settling a plantation. The English thus, as it were, quitting their pretensions to that country, the French pres

ently came and made theirs, fixing themselves within our limits."

Such was the sequence of this unhappy attempt by Chief Justice Popham, to cleanse England by colonizing the North with men "pressed to that enterprize, as endangered by the Law," yet, in opposition to these contemporary official statements, Mr. Poore, in the Christian Mirror, September 16, 1862, ventures the assertion, that "the Popham settlement" actually "determined whether New England should pass under the dominion of Protestant England, or of Roman Catholic France." Further he styles it "the primal act of possession of the Country," nay, loftier yet, "the consummation of the title of England to the New World"! and thus asserts "its true historic position regardless of its theologi cal character;" why not add, and of its moral relations! Now it is a matter of common school learning, that the "primal act of possession," was by Sir Humphrey Gilbert, in 1583, under his patent from Queen Elizabeth and Popham's attempt to realize at Sagadehoc, the peculiar system of colonization "first invented" by him, was simply one of the intermediate and cumulative acts of possession, between 1583, and the permanent occupation at Jamestown in 1607, and at Plymouth in 1620, showing the intent of the English Crown to perfect the title by discovery, by possession. Johnson v. McIntosh, 8 Wheaton's Rep., 583. Story's Commentaries on the Constitution, Chap. i. Kent's Commentaries, Lecture LI.

As the mode of exercising the royal prerogative, whether by grants to individuals, as Gilbert, Raleigh, or Baltimore, or to resident Corporations, as the London, Plymouth, or Massachusetts Companies, could not touch the rights of their several colonies to protection under the flag of England, all ultimately resting in the Crown, it is obvious that any pretence of superiority or significance, of one above another, by reason of these accidental differences, is wholly fallacious, as affecting their nationality. Thus the acts of possession by Gilbert, Gosnold or Popham, were of equal value, as instances of national jurisdiction.

F.-p. 144.

The real history of Segadahoek is given in "The Mapp and Description of New England," pp. 30-32, published in 1630 by Sir William Alexander, Earl of Stirling, the Patentee of Nova Scotia, who lived 1580-1640. (Allibone's Dictionary.) His interest in New England colonization was, he says "much encouraged by Sir Ferdinando Gorge and some others of

wandering as Souldiers or Mariners which will not settle themselves to work.... shall in all these cases suffer as Felons, without benefit of clergy." And section V. provides that incorrigible rogues shall be banished "to such parts beyond the Seas, as shall by six or more of the Privy Council for that purpose be assigned." Wingate's Abridgement, 1670, 558, 560. This is the class of persons mentioned by Sir Ferdinando Gorges, Maine Hist. Coll., ii. 16,-as furnishing "the reasons" for the Popham Colony, and for whose benefit, Lloyd says, Popham "invented the plan." He was appointed Chief Justice of the King's Bench, in 1592, and probably * the Statute was enacted at his suggestion. As far as known to Chalmers-Political Annals of America, 1781, p. 46,-this was first enforced in 1619, when King James wrote to the Treasurer and Council, commanding them "to send a hundred dissolute persons to Virginia, whom the Knight Marshall shall deliver to them." Probably a more critical inquiry would have furnished Chalmers with earlier instances, as appears by the foregoing authorities.

But such was not to be the unhappy fate of New England; the winter at Sagadehoc was cold; Gilbert, the "Admiral," hastened home to prove his brother's will; Seymour, "the preacher," found, perhaps, a more hopeful charge; all hopes of "mynes," or gold, was dead; Popham, the "President," was deadPopham, the Judge, terrible to "vagabonds," was dead-and they of Sagadehoc, "pressed to that enterprize as endangered by the Law... suddenly abandoned "the country, leaving it to the nobler mission of the "May Flower," 1620, the chosen theme of philosophers, statesmen, poets, painters, and historians. Chief Justice Popham died June 10th, 1607, before any tidings from his "convicts" at Sagadehoc reached him, but the peculiar colonial policy, "invented" by him, happily and forever defeated in the North, was fully adopted in the Southern Colony.

In a work entitled "Nova Britannia, offer

* Since writing the above, an examination of D'Ewes' Journal of Parliament, fol. 531-543, more than confirms my conjecture, and shows that Popham himself was the real framer of the Act. It was before Parliament two months, Dec. 5, 1597-February, and after consideration by several Committees of Conference of the two Houses, which Chief Justice Popham was 66 appointed to attend," specially in this matter and many Amendments which he was "required to consider," "The Bill for Punishment of Rogues, Vagabonds, &c., was brought into the House by the Lord Chief Justice [Popham] with certain Amendments," &c.

ing most Excellent fruites by planting in Virginia," published in London in 1609, and dedicated to Sir Thomas Smith, "one of his Maiesties Councell for VIRGINIA," is this passage: as for "people to make the plantation wee neede not doubt; our land abounding with swarms of idle persons, which having no meanes of labour to releeue their misery, doe likewise swarme in lewd and naughtie practices, so that if we seeke not some waies for their forreine employment, we must prouide shortly more prisons and corrections for their bad conditions,....most profitable for our State, to rid our multitudes of such as lie at home, pestering the land with pestilence and penury, and infecting one another with vice and villanie, worse than the plague itself: whose very miseries driues many of them, by meanes to be cutte off, as bad and wicked members, or else both them and theirs to be releeued at the common charge of others. Yet I do not meane, that none but such unsound members, and such poore as want their bread, are fittest for this employment."

Mr. Major in his preface to Strachey's Historie, p. xxxii., gives a letter from "that rank 'High-Churchman,' "" Lord Delaware, in Virginia, dated at "Jamestown, July 7, 1610," in which the writer speaks of the colonists as "men of such distempered bodies and infected mindes, whome no examples dayly before their eyes, either of goodness or punishment, can deter from their habitual impieties, or terrifie from a shameful death." Chalmers, the historian, quotes the king's command in 1619 "to send a hundred dissolute persons to Virginia whom the knight marshall shall deliver." Capt. John Smith, in his New England's Trials, 1622, in a digression " about Virginia, says, "since I came from thence, the honorable Company haue bin humble suiters to his Maiestie to get vagabonds and condemned men to go thither; nay, so much scorned was the name of Virginia, some did chuse to be hanged ere they would go thither, and were... yet....there is more honest men now suters to go, than ever hath bin constrained knaves."

Dr. John Donne, the poet, Dean of St. Paul's, in a sermon "preached to the Honourable Company of the Virginian Plantation, 13 November, 1622," 2d edition, London, 1624, pp. 21, 22, said, "the Plantation shall redeeme many a wretch from the Lawes of death, from the hands of the executioner...It shall sweepe your streetes, and wash your doores, from idle persons, and the children of idle persons, and imploy them; and truely, if the whole Countrey were but such a Bride

well, to force idle persons to work, it had a good vse. But it is alreadie not only a Spleene, to drayne the ill humors of the body" politic. Sir Josiah Child, in his Discourse of the Trade of the Plantations, London, 1668, says that, "Virginia and Barbadoes were first peopled by a sort of loose vagrant People....had it not been for our Plantations, they must have come to be hang'd, or starved....or sold for soldiers."

Such was the policy, the philanthropy, the people, which Popham had in view for the North, but God averted the evil. "The Planter's Plea," published in 1630, in behalf of the Massachusetts Colony, considering "what persons may be fit to be employed in this worke of planting a colony," says, "It seemes to be a common and grosse errour, that Colonies ought to be Emunctories, or sinckes of States; to drayne away their filth,....this fundamentall errour hath been the occasion of the miscarriage of most of our Colonies." The writer argues that the colonists should "bee of the more sufficiency, because the first fashioning of a politicke body is a harder task than the ordering of that which is already framed," and such the Colonists of the North were. The abortion at Sagadahocke was the first, the last, the only attempt of the English corporation to fasten a moral pestilence on our northern shores. The deplorable results of the system in the South, are very mildly stated in Bancroft's Hist. U. S., vol. i., chap. xiv. John Randolph, of Roanoake, mourned over the ruin of its "aristocracy," effected by the legislation of Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry, in the Spirit of the Revolution.

G-pp. 144, 146.

Their story about suffering was discredited by Gorges and his associates. Mr. Sewall (Ancient Dominions of Maine, 93–95) speaks of their "lawlessness and recklessness" and finds "sufficient reason for their early departure" in their outrages upon the natives; indeed, except those killed by the exasperated savages, only one, George Popham, died, but even that, says Gorges, "was not so strange, in that he was well stricken in years before he went, and had long been an infirm man.... The miseries they had passed were nothing to that they suffered by the disastrous news of the death of the Lord Chief Justice"!-Maine Hist. Coll., ii., 22. They returned in the very ships that were "sent to them, with succors,' and which had "arrived in good season," "laden full of victuals, arms, instruments and tools," and when "all things were in

good forwardness" in the colony.-Brodhead's New York, 14, 15, 64. Maine Hist. Coll., ii., 21, 22. Mr. Folsom, of New York, pertinently remarks, "How superior was the spirit exhibited twelve years after by the Pilgrim emigrants at Plymouth, nearly half of whose number perished within four months after their landing, yet animated by a settled religious purpose, no one of the survivors entertained a thought of relinquishing their design. Had a tithe of their energy and resolute spirit animated the Kennebec colonists, whose resources were so much superior, a more grateful task might have awaited the pen that should relate the story of this enterprise. The Massachusetts colonists scarcely suffered a less mortality than the Pilgrims, although they arrived early in summer."-Discourse before the Maine Hist. Soc., 1846, Hist. Coll., ii., 31. The only direct report we have from the Colony is a letter of December 13, 1607, as follows: "At the feet of His Most Serene King humbly prostrates himself George Popham, President of the Second Colony of Virginia....if it may please you to keep open your divine eyes,....there are in these parts ....nutmegs and cinnamon,....Brazilian cochineal and ambergris,....and these in great abundance."(!) Your admirable justice and incredible constancy....gives no small pleasure to the natives of these regions, who say moreover that there is no God to be truly worshipped but the God of King James, [not of the French,] under whose rule and reign they would gladly fight." With all this very credible information, the "most observant" Popham says nothing of "extremities" of cold; perhaps a prudent silence, considering the "nutmegs and cinnamon....in greatest abundance," in this latitude. The original, "in barbarous Latin," with translation, is in Maine Hist. Coll., v., 357-360. [See also note K.]

44

H.-p. 144.

In his Holy Warre, written in 1622, Lord Bacon, a good "churchman," says: "It cannot be affirmed (if one speak ingenuously) that it was propagation of the Christian faith that was the adamant of that discovery, entry, and plantation, [of English America,] but gold, silver, and temporal profit and glory, so that what was first in God's providence, was but second in man's appetite and intentions." In his introduction to Strachey's Historie, Hakluyt Society, 1849, p. ix., Mr. Major says: "It is to be deplored, however, that gold, and not the permanent establish

ment of the Colony, appears to have been the predominant incentive, inasmuch as according to Chalmers, the Company's instructions which were sent with this Expedition, imperatively required that the interior should be explored for gold; and threatened that in the event of failure, the colonists' should be allowed to remain as banished men in Virginia.' Bancroft (Hist. U. S., i., ch. iv.,) says, "It was evident a commercial, not a colonial establishment was designed by the projectors." So that Popham's simple idea of a mining speculation by enforced convict labor, as attempted at Sagadehoc in 1607, was a general characteristic. Too much stress may be laid on their stereotyped professions of "true zeal of promulgating God's holy church....to be their sole interest." See Church of England and American Discovery, Portland, 1863, p. 5,

I. p. 144.

In his Lives of the Chief Justices of England, ed. 1849, vol. i., pp. 209, 210, 219, 229, Lord Campbell, Chief Justice of the Queen's Bench, devotes many amusing pages to Popham's memory. The biographer says: "It seems to stand on undoubted testimony that at this period of his life, [his thirtieth year] besides being given to drinking and gaming,—either to supply his profligate expenditure, or to show his spirit, he frequently sallied forth at night from a hostel in Southwark, with a band of desperate characters, and that planting themselves in ambush on Shooter's Hill, or taking other positions favourable for attack and escape, they stopped travellers, and took from them not only their money but any valuable commodities which they carried with them,boasting that they were always civil and generous, and that to avoid serious consequences, they went in such numbers as to render resistance impossible.... If Popham's raids had been a little later, they might have been imputed to the First Part of Henry IV., which must have had at least as much effect as the Beggar's opera, in softening the horror excited by highway robbery Although at one time in the habit of taking purses on the highway, instead of expiating his offences at Tyburn, he lived to pass sentence of death upon highwaymen, and to be a terror to evil-doers, all over the kingdom. He left behind him the greatest estate that had ever been amassed by any lawyer, but it was not supposed to be honestly come by, and he was reported even to have begun to save money when the 'Road did him Justice.'.... His portrait represented

....

....

him as a 'hudge, heavy, ugly man,' and I am afraid he would not appear to great advantage in a sketch of his moral qualities, which, lest I should do him injustice, I will not attempt. In fairness, however, I ought to mention that he was much commended in his own time for the number of thieves and robbers he convicted and executed. He was notorious as a

....

....

hanging judge.' Both Lord Holt and Chief Justice Hyde considered his 'Reports' as of no authority. We should have been much better pleased if he had given us an account of his exploits when he was Chief of a band of free-booters." Fuller, Worthies of England, 1662, ed. 1811, ii., 284, says: "In his youthful dayes he was as stout and skilful a man at Sword and Buckler, as any in that age, and wild enough in his recreations," and significantly adds, "But, Oh! if Quicksilver could be really fixed, to what a treasure it would amount!" The concurrent testimony of writers of all times renders but one verdict of his private and public life. Enc. Brit. xviii. 1859, article Popham. See also Barrington on the Statutes, 1796, 537.

J.-P. 144.

The late Macvey Napier, editor of the Edinburg Review, in his admirable essay on Sir Walter Raleigh, reprinted, 1853, p. 185, says, "The Lord Chief Justice Popham, before pronouncing sentence, addressed Raleigh in one of those unwarrantable harangues, in which the elevation and impunity of the judgementseat have often, in bad times and by unworthy natures, been taken advantage of to insult the defenceless. In particular, he adverted, in the ranting phraseology peculiar to such places and occasions, to an imputation which Raleigh seems, most unjustly, to have incurred, of being an atheist. You have been taxed by the world,' said this dignified dispenser of Justice, 'with the defence of the most heathenish and blasphemous opinion, which I list not to repeat, because Christian ears cannot endure to hear them, nor the authors and maintainers of them be suffered to live in any Christian Commonwealth. You shall do well, before you go out of this world to give satisfaction therein; and let not Harriot or any such doctor persuade you there is no eternity in heaven, lest you find an eternity of hell torments.' The man thus maligned is the author of some of the most striking observations in the language on the being and attributes of the Deity, the grandeur and immortality of the soul, and the Christian religion. The other object of this barbarous attack-the more barbarous as