THE PERIOD OF BEGINNINGS
31
and this clime here but a little searching them renders them so unhable fainte and desperate of recoverie, as of three hundred not three score may be called forth or imploied upon any labour or service.”
To improve the fortunes of the Company at home a new 1612. Charter was obtained in 1612. By this the Bermudas or vh-ginia° f Somers Islands were added to the Company’s domains. Company. Special provisions were made relating to the business of the Company, and it was empowered to increase its funds by establishing lotteries. No less a sum than £29,000 was raised by this means. Meanwhile the state of things in the Colony slowly improved. De La Warr had brought out with him a code compiled from the martial laws enforced in the Low countries. To a modern reader it doubtless would seem merciless enough, but it must be remembered that at the time in England no less than three hundred separate offences were punishable by death, and that the material with which the Virginian Governors had to deal was very difficult.
There seems good evidence to shew that the administration under De La Warr and Dale 1 was, on the whole, upright and wise. They had been themselves soldiers, and doubtless looked on the settlement too much in the light of a penal Colony. Thus, we find Dale 2 urging that for three years condemned criminals might be reprieved for Virginia to supply the pressing need of two thousand men. This severity, however, was relaxed under Dale’s successor, Yeardly, 3 1616. to whom belongs the credit of having first enfranchised the labourers who had served their three years indentures. 1617. Argali, his successor, was able to report great abundance in the Colony, and, at first, the new Governor seems to have adopted wise measures in the interests of agriculture. His private greed, however, led him to treat the colonists as so many instruments for his personal needs, and the years 1617 to 1619, during which he governed, have been described as memorable for the ill-treatment of the settlers. In 1619, however, Yeardley returned as Governor, and a new order of
1 See note on p. 220 of Vol. I. of Bruce’s Economic History of Virginia, See.
2 Dale to Salisbury as ante. 3 Econ. Hist, of Vir., Vol. I. p. 221