sassafras produced in Virginia, the sales being probably made in a majority of instances by himself, as he had drawn into his own hands all the resources of the Colony, the object for which the magazine was established, and upon the success of which the welfare of the population was so dependent, was practically frustrated.[1] When he absconded from Virginia in 1619, by the connivance of his patron, the Earl of Warwick, the leader of the faction which was to be so bitterly hostile to the new government, he left the Colony in a state of thorough exhaustion, although its prosperity would have been assured had it been maintained in the condition to which the firm and sagacious administration of Sir Thomas Dale had raised it. The area of ground known as the common garden had fallen into complete neglect, and was doubtless already springing up in that thick array of bushes which, as was observed, had overgrown the deserted fields at Paspaheigh. There were no tenants or servants at work for the Company. No stores of corn were to be found resembling the granary at Charles Hundred which Argoll had appropriated when he arrived in Virginia. The Indians had ceased to furnish a supply of grain by way of tribute. The maize obtained from the tenants and savages, as we have seen, amounted to twelve hundred bushels annually previous to the administration of Argoll. It had now fallen off apparently to nothing. Beginning his control of the affairs of Virginia with the strict enforcement of the regulation that every cultivator
- ↑ See letter from a committee of the Company in England printed in the Abstracts of Proceedings of the Virginia Company of London, vol. II, p. 31. It is a fact worthy of attention that this letter, which was expressed in terms of the strongest indignation, was signed by Thomas Smith, Lionel Cranford, and Robert Johnson, who were so soon to be associated with the faction of which Argoll was to become a prominent member.
