The Jamestown Experiment Read Online Free Page B

the dismal state of Virginia and added to the bad news coming out ofthe colony. He related to them the difficulties that he had had with President John Smith and delivered Smith’s letter, which was highly critical of Newport and the Virginia Council itself. The leaders of the anti-Smith faction, Gabriel Archer and John Ratcliffe, returned with Newport and also met with Smythe. They harshly censured Smith in no uncertain terms, blaming him for the problems of the colony.
    Yet after Smythe listened to the complaints of Smith’s enemies, he and the other members of the council did not place the blame entirely on Smith. Removed from Virginia by thousands of miles and receiving only limited reports, they were intelligent men who appreciated that significant problems would not be resolved by the removal of a single overbearing leader. It was terribly unsettling, but they were honest enough to concede that fundamental changes were necessary. And they were flexible enough to see the changes through to protect their investment. Indeed, they were planning a massive restructuring and sharpening of their vision that they hoped would result in an influx of settlers that would finally establish Jamestown as a permanent colony.
    By mid-February, King James granted Smythe and his allies a new second charter, completing reorganizing the Virginia Company. The Crown relinquished its authority over the council and invested the company with full powers to appoint the members of the council. Under the terms of the charter, the Virginia Council of London was expanded to fifty members that read like a who’s who of the nation’s rich and powerful. These included Francis Bacon, Oliver Cromwell (uncle of the future lord protector), Lord De La Warr, Edwin Sandys, the Earl of Pembroke, and William Shakespeare’s patron, the Earl of Southampton. Smythe continued to run the operations of the colony as treasurer.
    The Virginia Council assumed “full and absolute power and authority, to correct, punish, pardon, govern and rule” the colony.It was bound to follow the laws of England, but the members of the council were otherwise granted autonomy to use their wisdom and good discretion to do whatever they “shall think to be fittest for the good of the adventurers and inhabitants there.” This time they would take no chances that those they appointed to govern in the colony would fail to follow the will of the council in London. 218
    The faith of the Virginia Council in the system of rule conducted by the local council in Jamestown and its removable president was shattered. After all, overwhelming evidence from the experience of the past two years had led to follies, outrages, and mismanagement by the councilors who were continuously divided by “dissention and ambition among themselves.” Factional government that split the colony led to “idleness and bestial sloth, of the common sort, who were active in nothing but adhering to factions and parts, even to their own ruin.” 219
    Their solution was to invest “one able and absolute governor” with total authority to rule the colony. When the governor reached Jamestown, the government constituted under the first patent would be thereby abolished, and all documents held by the council were to be handed over to the governor. The Virginia Council would still appoint a local council, but now it was to play only an advisory role to the governor. The council did not have, “single or together, any binding or negative voice or power upon your conclusions, but do give you full authority.” The council would be able neither to overrule the governor nor to depose him at their whim, as had happened previously. The governor’s authority was absolute, and this included the power to declare martial law if necessary. 220
    The new charter also expanded the territory of Jamestown two hundred miles north and south of Point Comfort, extending across the continent from the Atlantic to the elusive Pacific Ocean.