Page:Cambridge Modern History Volume 7.djvu/39

 The Company extinguished. opinion distrustful of everything which savoured of commercial privilege. Meanwhile the government of Spain was watching the progress of the colony with jealous vigilance, and using whatever influence it possessed at the English Court for the overthrow of the Company. In 1623 the King, acting under the advice of the law-officers of the Crown, demanded from the Company a surrender of its charter. This was refused. Thereupon a writ of quo warranto was issued, requiring the Company to justify its privileges as being for the public good. This, in the judgment of the Court before which the case was tried, they failed to do ; and the charter was declared null and void. Liberal and public- spirited though the policy of the Company was in its later days, and little justice as there was in its overthrow, yet in all likelihood the colony was a gainer. The rule of a trading company in England must have fettered the free growth of the colony and sacrificed the permanent welfare of the planter to the temporary advantage of the merchant. Meanwhile the colony had passed through a serious danger. At the outset the relations with the savages had been cordial. This was largely due to the personal influence of the Indian Chief, Powhatan, who was attached to Smith and whose daughter Pocahontas married an English husband and visited England. But in 1618 Powhatan died. His brother and successor Opechancanough had no friendly feeling to the whites. As so often happened, a personal quarrel between a savage and a settler kindled the flame. Fortunately an Indian convert gave warning ; and an assault, which might have well-nigh extinguished the colony, ended in the loss of three hundred and seventy English. Persis- tency in attack, especially against anything like a fortified place supplied with fire-arms, was not in the nature of the savage ; and the outbreak soon spent its force and subsided. With the extinction of the Company the appointment of the governor and council devolved unchallenged, one may almost say of necessity, on the Crown. Thus the constitution assumed that form which henceforth became the normal type for British colonies, of a governor and two chambers, one nominated and one popularly elected. The economy of the colony soon put on that special form which it permanently retained. Those varied industries which the Company had endeavoured to foster came to nothing : tobacco became the one staple product of the country. The rapidity with which this article superseded all others was due to two special causes, over and above the natural aptitude of the soil. Intersected as the colony was with broad tidal rivers and creeks, water- carriage was brought readily to the door of every planter. He was therefore not controlled in the matter of exports and imports by any difficulties of carriage. Every planter had his own landing-stage, and was thus, without any elaborate machinery of warehouses or middlemen, brought into direct contact with the trade of the mother-country. The system of industry was already becoming that of the slave-gang. It is