The following outline of colonial history, from the first landing at Jamestown to the year 1750, and slight reference to French explorations and settlements in the West, will enable the reader to understand the condition of affairs in the colony and western country generally at the period Lewis entered, took possession of, and settled Augusta. It exhibits also the position of Virginia in her connection with the various colonies which afterwards united together to resist the tyranny of Great Britain and found the United States, and will enable the reader to understand any points of general history which may be touched upon in the progress of this work.

The closing years of the fifteenth century saw the theater of history suddenly enlarged. The history of the world, as embracing all parts of the globe, commenced with the discoveries of Columbus and Vasco da Gama. To within a century of the end of the Moorish kingdom in Spain, and of that ten centuries of mediaeval times, the first six of which are known as the "dark ages" the settlement of Virginia carries us back. The earliest incidents in her career belong to that European era which witnessed the massacre of St. Bartholomew, the independence of the United Provinces under William of Orange, the destruction of the Spanish Armada, and the persecution of the Puritans in England. They belong also to that Elizabethan era of English history so remarkable for literary first and for the spirit of commercial adventure which pervaded all classes. It was from the England of Raleigh, Gilbert, Marlowe, Shakespeare, Burleigh, Walsingham, Essex, Leicester, Sidney and Francis Bacon that came the men who undertook to found colonies on our shores and to build up political communities in the New World. The most remarkable of these men was the "learned and valiant" Sir Walter Raleigh, whose name is indissolubly associated with the first efforts at English colonization in America.

Upon the unsuccessful efforts of Raleigh to make a settlement on Roanoke Island, we cannot dwell. He had undertaken a task beyond the strength of a single individual, and met the common lot of enthusiasts. His failures did not deter others, and a few years later James I granted charters to the London and Plymouth companies for " deducing colonies and making habitation and plantation in that part of America commonly called Virginia." Under these charters all the coast was embraced lying between Florida and Nova Scotia.

These charters are long and tedious documents, which possess no intrinsic merit are just such stupid papers as one might expect from the narrow mind of James. By virtue of them a complicated form of government was framed. For each colony separate councils, appointed by the King, were instituted in England, and these councils were in turn to name resident councilors for the colonies. Thirteen members constituted the resident council. They had power to choose their own president, to fill vacancies in their numbers, and, a jury being required only in capital cases, to act as a court of last resort in all other causes. Religion was established in accordance with the forms and doctrines of the Church of England. The adventurers, as the company were called, had power to coin money and collect a revenue for twenty one years from all vessels trading to their ports, and they were also freed from taxation for a term of years. One article, and only one, in the most general terms, provided for the liberty of the subject. Another clause provided for community of goods.

A worse system of government could not have been devised. Two arbitrary and irresponsible councils one in England and the other in America the legislative power reserved to the King the governing body commercial monopoly, and the chief principle of society a community of property. Such was the government elaborated in the charter. With such a frame of government the first colonists, composed of men who cared little for forms of government, set forth for Virginia.

The colony consisted of 105 persons, who sailed from the Downs, Jan. 1,1507, for Virginia under command of Capt. Newport, who landed them at Jamestown on the 13th May, 1607. The men composing the expedition were wretched material for founding a State. There were seventy men in the party, of whom fifty four were gentlemen, four carpenters and twelve laborers or, as Capt. Smith describes them. l% poor gentlemen, tradesmen, serving men and libertines." The first President of the Colony, appointed in London, was Wingfield, a man of wealth and social position, but incapable and unfit for governing. He was soon superseded by the strongest man among the colonists a man to whose name a romantic interest attaches the celebrated Capt. John Smith. Smith has been described as an adventurer of a high order in an age of adventurers. He had all the faults of his time and class in full measures, but he had also their virtues, and it was here that he surpassed his companions. He was arbitrary, jealous of power, quarrelsome and despotic, ready to lie audaciously to serve his own ends, and rashly overconfident. But he was also brave, energetic, quick-witted, and full of resource. By his energy and wisdom he preserved the colony from impending ruin and improved its condition. What we would call now-a-days a many sided man, he made himself familiar, by repeated explorations, with the country and its products, became well acquainted with the aborigines, with whom he opened a trade, and in various ways displayed his superior qualities, and an earnest desire to promote the interest of the colony. A small fort was erected, and a few log huts, and in these the colonists were kept together by Smith for two years, in the presence of a subtle and ferocious enemy, who, within a fortnight of the first landing, made an attack upon them, evidently with a view to their extermination. This attack of the Indians was repelled by the colonists under Wingfield, who was an old soldier, having served many years in the European wars. Notwithstanding Smith's efforts, the colony languished, and matters grew so much worse that the settlement was abandoned, and the colony would have been broken up but for the arrival of Lord Delaware, as Governor, with five hundred fresh men and supplies, in 1609 - 1610.

Lord Delaware, who received the appointment of Governor for life, surrounded himself with stately officers and liveried servants, and assumed the demeanor of the ruler of an opulent empire. He was an able man, and might have rendered valuable service, but unfortunately was forced, by disease brought on by the climate, to return to England. He committed the government to Mr. Percy, who was supplanted by Sir Thomas Dale in 1611, to whom the government granted authority to rule by martial law. Dale exercised his arbitrary powers with prudence and moderation, and to him Virginia is more indebted than to any of her early Governors. He established and maintained order, and extended the settlements into the interior, forming a colony of 350 men at a point up the James river, called Henrico. But the chief good of his administration consisted in breaking up the system of community of property and introducing individual proprietorship. On his departure, in 1616, he left the colony firmly established and under the protection of Sir Thos. Yeardley, whose administration was not unlike that of his predecessors, but he was soon superseded by Capt. Samuel Argall, a rough sea captain, accustomed to command respect, of a cruel, covetous and tyrannical disposition, with a decided taste for piracy. He made an energetic and active Governor, carrying out the military code in the spirit of a buccaneer. He oppressed and robbed the colonists, his greed lighting especially on the friends of Lord Delaware. Complaints went to England, and the Virginians awakened to the fact that they were shockingly misgoverned ; that they were left at the mercy of one man's rule, and that man a tyrant; that their rights were unknown. The period of political development had, however, now began.

The indignation in London at Argall's misconduct led to a new and representative government in Virginia, granted under the influence of the Earl of Southampton, Sandys, Digges, Selden and others. Argall was recalled, and a new form of political organization was granted to the colonists. The Governor's power was in future to be limited by a council, and the assemblage of a representative body was authorized. Under this new order of things the first General Assembly was held at James City in June, 1619, and in May, 1620, a second Assembly convened. In order to give the reader, better than an elaborate disquisition would do, an idea of the spirit and character of the early settlers and of their sufferings and difficulties, more particularly with the Indians, we append the commission to Sir Francis Wyatt, Governor, and the Council, of date July 24, 1621. The object of the assembly was " to assist the Governor in the administration of justice, to advance Christianity among the Indians, to erect the colony in obedience to his Majesty, and in maintaining the people in justice and Christian conversation, and strengthening them against enemies. The said Governor, Council, and two burgesses out of every town, hundred or plantation, to be chosen by the inhabitants to make up a General Assembly, who are to decide all matters by the greatest number of voices; but the Governor is to have a negative voice, to have power to make orders and acts necessary, wherein they are to imitate the policy of the form of government, laws, customs, manner of trial, and other administration of justice used in England, as the company are required by their letters patent No law to continue or be of force until ratified by a quarter court to be held in England, and returned under seal. After the colony is well framed and settled, no order of quarter court in England shall bind till ratified by the General Assembly."

From the first, the Burgesses sought to obtain equal rights for all men before the law, by praying the company not to violate that clause in the . charter by which they were guaranteed. After passing various sumptuary and police laws, laws for the government of ministers and raising taxes on tobacco, &c, they adjourned. But this year marks an era in Virginian annals the dawn of representative government and constitutional freedom. It is memorable also for the introduction of the first slaves in America, and of a forced class of immigrants boys and girls seized by the press gang in the streets of London, and shipped, as if they were felons, to Virginia.

At this Assembly eleven boroughs were represented by twenty two Burgesses, and this constituted the great State of Virginia in 1619. But the prospects of the future were bright Immigration increased, and was now composed, not of adventurers, but of " prudent men with families," and in 1623, under the governorship of Sir Francis Wyatt, the population consisted of 4,000 persons, and the massacre of 350 by the Indians did not destroy the colony. Under the system which prevailed in Virginia, freedom of debate and love of independence were fostered.

To the form of government established by the colony July, 1621, was added the proviso, as mentioned above, that no order of the Council in England should bind the colony, unless ratified by the General Assembly of Virginia. Thus early in our country's history was introduced those principles of republicanism which eventually secured to us our present government. James became jealous at what he considered an invasion of prerogative, and denounced the Company which gave a democratic constitution to Virginia " as a seminary for a seditious Parliament," and also said he would rather they " chose the devil as treasurer than Sir Edwyn Sandys." The Company was firm, and refused his claim to nominate their officers, and from the struggle and the feelings it excited, the colony derived solid advantages.

But the Company was doomed. James pursued them unrelentingly. A royal commission was sent to Virginia to gather material for its destruction. The commissioners, reaching Virginia, demanded the records of the Assembly, which were refused. The clerk was bribed to give them up by the commissioners. The Assembly stood their clerk in the pillory and cut off his ears. The patriotic resistance of the colonists was fruitless. A quo warranto was tried in the King's Bench, and the charter was annulled. The dissolution of the London Company was a distinct benefit to the colonists, by relieving the settlers from the cumbrous, complicated and uncertain government of a mercantile corporation, and placing them in the same relation to the King as his other subjects.

The five years which now followed of Sir Francis Wyatt's continuance in office were characterized for their legislative activity, for the formation of political habits, and for the first opposition to the home government, which strengthened and confirmed the independent spirit of the colonists During the session of 1623-24, Royal Commissioners came to Virginia to assist in ruining the Company. This period is marked in the statute book by the definition and declaration of certain guiding political principles which were never afterwards shaken. The Governor's power was limited. He was not " to lay any taxes or impositions upon the colony, their lands, or other way than by the authority of the General Assembly, to be levied and employed as the said Assembly shall appoint." The Governor was not to withdraw the inhabitants from their labors for his own service, and the Burgesses attending the Assembly were to be free from arrest These were the great and fundamental principles for which patriotic men were then contending in England. James I died March 25, 1625, and Charles I succeeded him and took the government in his own hands. He granted large plantations in Virginia to his favorites, Lords Baltimore and Fairfax. Shortly afterwards Wyatt departed, and George Yeardley was appointed his successor. He lived but a short time, when the Council chose Francis West as Governor. Subsequently, John Pott was appointed, who was soon superseded by Sir John Harvey. The latter quarreled with the colonists, was thrust out of the government, was reinstated by the King, and in 1639 the King reappointed Sir Francis Wyatt.

Two important events occurred during Harvey's administration the settlement of Maryland by Lord Baltimore, and the rise of the Puritan party in Virginia. The Virginia colonists considered Maryland as a part of Virginia, and resented the course of Lord Baltimore. Quarrels about jurisdiction soon broke out, and all parties suffered. Attached to the Church of England, Virginia was not a promising field for Puritans, but a community of them had settled in Virginia years before.

Wyatt was replaced in 1642 by Sir William Berkeley, who governed well at first, but his accession brought no increase of political freedom to Virginia. The first step toward federation was taken about this time, in the passage of an act ratifying and regulating commerce with Maryland. The prosperity of the colony increased rapidly, interrupted only by a second outbreak of Indians, which was quickly quelled.

The execution of Charles I, 1649, filled Virginians with horror and indignation, and the well known sympathy of Virginia with the unhappy King drew many exiled cavaliers to America. The Governor invited Charles II to come to and be King of Virginia, but on the eve of his embarking from Holland for Virginia, in 1660, he was recalled to the throne of England. After he ascended the throne, Charles II, desirous of giving a substantial proof of the profound respect he entertained for the loyalty of Virginia, caused her arms to be quartered with those of England, Ireland, and Scotland, as an independent member of the Empire. This fact, and because Virginia was the first of the English settlements in the limits of the British colonies, led to her being styled " The Old Dominion."

During the administration of Cromwell, Virginia enjoyed a free and independent government under three Governors, Bennet, Digges, and Mathews all Puritans, who were chosen by the Assembly. An old historian tells us that Mathews was " a most deserving Commonwealth's man, who kept a good horse, lived bravely, and was a true lover of Virginia." Under these three men the political rights of the people were firmly established and their commercial interests protected and extended by the commencement of treaties with New England, New York, and the cultivation of closer relations with Maryland. General prosperity consequently prevailed.

After the Restoration, the Virginia Assembly elected Berkeley Governor, an address was voted to the King, and Berkeley was sent to England to protest against the enforcement of the Navigation Act; the Church of England was re-established, and severe laws passed against Disaenters. The Navigation Act was enforced; tobacco fell in price, and imports rose. The return of the Royalist party to power soon led to trouble, and as early as 1663 an outbreak, led by some of Cromwell's soldiers, occurred, which, however, miserably failed, and four of the conspirators were executed.

Under the profligate government of Charles II, the trade of Virginia was almost extinguished; the titles of the colonists were endangered, if not destroyed, by royal grants to Lords Arlington and Culpepper; the justices levied taxes for their own emolument; the Indians were treated with severity; the Church fell into contempt; the rectors and curates were licentious and incompetent; and corruption and extortion prevailed.

A second outbreak threatened in 1674, but partial reforms and the want of a leader quieted the people, though everything was In a combustible condition.

The unwise policy of severity towards the Indians led to a war, and Berkeley, for some unknown reason, disbanded the force which ought to have been used to repel the enemy.

At this moment, the leader, whom the people had before wanted, appeared in Nathaniel Bacon, a young, popular, wealthy, brave and patriotic man. Bacon was aided, if not instigated, by two planters, Drummond and Lawrence, who evidently wished to effect a general reform of all abuses, as well as put down the Indians. Bacon, having vainly sought a commission, marched against the Indians at the head of a few brave volunteers, which gave Berkeley the opportunity to proclaim them rebels. The Governor started in pursuit of Bacon, not the Indians, with troops, but the revolt becoming general in his rear, he retreated. Aware now of the rising storm, the Governor issued writs for a new Assembly, to which Bacon was elected. On his way to James City, Berkeley caused his arrest, but released him on parole, and Bacon read at the bar of the house a written confession and apology, and was thereupon pardoned and readmitted to the Council, of which he had previously been a member. Shortly after, Bacon fled on a suspicion that his life was threatened, and returned to Jamestown with a large force. He appealed to the Assembly, who made him their General, vindicated his course, and sent a letter to England approving him. While the Assembly was engaged in the correction of abuses, Berkeley dissolved them. Bacon, now too strong to be resisted, extorted the necessary commissions from the Governor, and again marched against the Indians. Availing himself of his absence, Berkeley proclaimed him a rebel. On hearing this news, Bacon retraced his steps, when Berkeley fled to Accomac, thus leaving Bacon supreme. Bacop immediately summoned a convention of all the principal men to replace the House of Burgesses, pledged them to his support, and even to resistance to England, if their wrongs were not redressed. Bacon now again moved against the Indians, but in his absence, the fleet, which he had sent to capture Berkeley, was betrayed, and the Governor returned to Jamestown at the head of his would-be captors. Bacon's friends in Jamestown made terms with the Governor, and Bacon returned a second time. Berkeley fled again to Accomac, and Bacon captured and burnt Jamestown. About this time he became ill of fever, and died shortly afterwards in Gloucester county. The hero dead, his followers scattered. The leaders were caught in detail and executed. Thus ended the so-called Rebellion.

Nothing was gained by Bacon's course, and for a hundred years the people sunk into apathy. Berkeley was recalled, and died soon after his return to England. He was a covetous, dishonest, bloodthirsty, cowardly impotent, whose life was stained with crime. He was succeeded by Col. Herbert Jeffreys who died a year later, in 1677, and was followed by Sir Henry Chicheley, and he by Lord Culpepper, upon whom the Governorship was conferred for life in 1675. Culpepper arrived in Virginia in 1680. His administration was, on the whole, one of simple greed and violent exaction's. He came to Virginia to make his fortune, and stopped at no act to accomplish his purpose. He was one of the most cunning and covetous men in England. He was succeeded by Lord Howard, of Effingham. He also came to make his fortune, and as he became richer, Virginia became poorer. During his time immigration almost ceased. Howard returned to England to find James driven from the throne, which ended the Stuart domination. The reign of Charles was contemptible for its meanness and corruption, and that of James the basest and most barren in English history. Charles debauched and debased England, and Culpepper and Effingham degraded their governments and almost ruined Virginia.

The only political events of these times of any significance were the sending of delegates, in 1684, from Virginia to Albany to meet the Governor of New York and certain agents sent from Massachusetts to discuss Indian affairs. This was a move in the direction of confederation.

Virginia derived little benefit from the revolution of 1689, which placed William and Mary upon the throne, and shortly after that event, a war breaking out between the allied powers and Louis XIV of France, the colony was ordered to place itself in the best posture for defense.

The continued complaints of the Virginia Legislature led to the recall of Howard, and Sir Francis Nicholson succeeded him. Nicholson was an arbitrary man. and practiced the arts of a demagogue, but was not a corrupt man. His administration is marked for the establishment of William and Mary College, under Dr. James Blair, an active and energetic Scotchman, who became one of the most serviceable men in Virginia.

Sir Edward Andros came after Nicholson, and was actuated in his government by a sound judgment and a liberal policy. In 1698, Andros retired and Nicholson was reappointed and served seven years without accomplishing any good except what grew out of his own negligence. From his indifference, the Burgesses made the treasurer of the colony an officer of their own, and thus obtained control of the public purse.

In 1704, Edward Nott became deputy governor under the Earl of Orkney, but the history of Virginia, more particularly Eastern Virginia, Iron this time, is little more than a list of Governors.

The period from 1704 to 1776, barren as it is in political events, was socially a period of great importance. The social elements, which h id gathered in Virginia from its foundation, crystallized, and the fabric of society, as seen in 1776, was built up. In 1710, Alexander Spotswood became Governor. He was an accomplished and enterprising man, the best of the eighteenth century Governors. He thus describes in his day the state of affairs in Virginia: " This government is," says he, " in perfect peace and tranquility, under a due obedience to the Royal authority, and a gentlemanly conformity to the Church of England." The Virginians at this day were living in the forests, but were men who had inherited the culture and intelligence of the seventeenth century. They cherished personal freedom, secure possession, and legislative power. They soon manifested at the polls some uneasiness at royalist principles and the prospects of an aristocracy. " The inclinations of the country," says Governor Spotswood, " are rendered mysterious by a new and unaccountable humor, which hath obtained in several counties, of excluding gentlemen from being Burgesses, and choosing only persons of mean figure and character." From this it appears that in 1710-23, no less than in 1882, the post of honor was the private station ; that instead of political positions being conferred upon the good and wise, they were, in Spots-wood's day, as now, more frequently the rewards of greed and incompetency. Many reforms were introduced by Spotswood, and among his benevolent schemes was one for civilizing and christianizing the Indians. With this view he undertook his expedition to the interior in 1716, of which we shall anon speak more freely. In 1723, Spotswood was succeeded by Sir Hugh Drysdale, and he, in 1727 by William Gooch, who, during his term, commanded the expedition against Carthagena. This expedition was the most important event of Gooch's administration, as, taken in connection with the other colonies, it was another step in the development of union.

Gooch was a man of firmness and moderation, and ruled Virginia for twenty two years much to the satisfaction of the people. During his time, wealth and population increased, printing was introduced, education became diffused, and its improving effects were felt in all, particularly the upper classes. But the loose and licentious character of the clergy made the Established Church but a feeble bulwark against the tide of religious enthusiasm which swept in with Whitfield, and the old cry was raised against Dissenters by those who conformed from habit or worldly interest to the Established Church. Gooch attempted to suppress heterodox opinions by all the powers of the State, and there was much petty persecution, which left the Church weaker and more unpopular even than before. In April, 1745, in his charge to the Grand Jury of the General Court, he said of the Presbyterians and other religious sects, " that false teachers had lately crept into this government, who, without order or license, or producing any testimonial of their education or sect, professing themselves ministers under the pretended influence of new light, extraordinary impulse, and such like satirical and enthusiastic knowledge, lead the innocent and ignorant people into all kind of delusion." And he called upon the jury to present and indict the offenders.

While England was colonizing in Virginia, New England, and at other points on the Atlantic coast, and sending into the interior hardy pioneers, the descendants of her two earliest colonies, the French were making explorations along the coast and into the backwoods. As far back as 1534, Jacques Carrier, at the head of a French expedition, entered the St. Lawrence and claimed the territory on both sides for France. In 1608, Quebec was founded by the French, and French immigrants arrived in succeeding years, until the dominion claimed by the French extended, as previously mentioned, from the St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico. In 1673, the Upper Mississippi was discovered by Father Marquette, a monk of the reformed order of Franciscans, called Recollects. In 1679, the French sent a second expedition to the West under La Salle. It reached through the lakes the Chicago river, passed down the Illinois to where Peoria now stands, and there La Salle erected a fort called Creve Cruel, or broken heart, on account of the hopeless difficulties he encountered. In 1682, La Salle sailed down the Mississippi to the Gulf and called the country Louisiana, in honor of Louis XIV.

In 1700, the population of Virginia was 22,000, and in 1716 did not exceed 30,000. It was principally seated on the rivers and streams of Eastern Virginia and the Atlantic coast No county had been organized west of the 780 of longitude, nor were there any white settlements further west The exploring party which discovered the Valley made its way from Germany over a hundred miles through a trackless forest.

The progress of the population in the colony is indicated by the figures below: In 1607 it was 105; in 1609 it was 490; in 1617 k was 400; in 1622 it was 3,800; in 1628 it was 3,000; in 1632 it was 2,000; in 1644 it was 4,812; in 1645 it was 5,000; in 1652 it was 7,000; in 1703 it was 22,000 ; in 1748 it was 82,000.

From these matters of colonial history, so briefly recapitulated, the reader will understand the causes of the subsequent conflicts between the French and English colonists, the progress of the colony of Virginia, and its actual condition in 1716, when the Valley was discovered, and became a few years later the seat of an English settlement.