6 The growth of Virginia. [i6ii-9 accounts of the natural resources of the colony so enthusiastic that the energy of the shareholders was reawakened. A fresh expedition was sent out under Sir Thomas Dale, who was appointed High Marshal of Virginia. Dale's one experience of public life was as a soldier in the Netherlands; and he came to Virginia authorised to administer a military code of appalling severity. In June, 1611, Delaware left the colony. He was replaced by Gates ; and in the interregnum Dale acted as governor, drilling the colonists into thrift and industry with such merciless severity as to provoke an insurrection, which was promptly and severely quelled. In August, 1611, Gates returned with a reinforcement of three hundred emigrants. He moved the settlers from Jamestown to a more secure and wholesome site, where a town called Henrico, with brick houses, a church, and a hospital, was built. A fresh plantation was established further inland and guarded with a palisade. Henceforth, to whatever hardships and dangers the colony might be exposed, there was no thought of departure or dispersion. It is clear too, though no precise statistical details can be had, that the colony was now attracting a different and a better class of emigrants, independent landholders exporting their own servants, and freemen living by the labour of their own hands. Thus by 1619, the governor, George Yeardley, a liberal-minded and humane man, though, as it would seem, a little apt to err on the side of laxity, ventured to summon a representative assembly. Each plantation and each of the counties into which the colony was divided returned two members. But it is not clear what constituted a plantation, nor who enjoyed the franchise. The assembly took upon itself certain judicial business; but its chief occupation was to pass, not a code of laws, but a system of regulations adapted to the special wants of the colony and supplementing the common law of England under which they lived. Meanwhile it is clear that a new spirit was at work within the Company. The control of its affairs was passing into the hands of men of wide social and political interest, such as Shakespeare's friend the Earl of Southampton, John Ferrars, the brother of Nicolas, founder of Little Gidding, and Sir Edwin Sandys. Under them the affairs of the colony were administered with great energy and with a view rather to its ultimate prosperity than to immediate profit. Silk and iron were manufactured, and an attempt was made to cultivate vines. In spite of the increased prosperity of the colony, it was urged against the Company that whereas more than five thousand persons had gone to Virginia, there were less than a thousand inhabitants, and that either there had been heavy mortality or many settlers had returned. The Company was torn asunder by internal dissensions; and an influential party was formed against Sandys, Southampton and Ferrars. The King looked with suspicion and jealousy on the power and independent attitude of the Company ; and the abuse of monopolies had made public
