Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 1.djvu/61

 COLOXIAL PRESIDEXTS AXD GOXERXORS

43

ClaihoriK'. surveyor-general : and ( icorge Sandys, uncle of his wife, who acted as treas- urer of the colony. I le brought with hini also an ordinance of the London Company, con- tirniing the government and freedom granted under Vardley in ihn). \\ yatt had not long arrived before a great calamity befell the col- ony. Powhatan had died in 1618. and the real head of the Indians in Virginia was his brother, the ferocious Opechancanough. lie arranged a massacre of the whites, and the blow fell March 22. 1622. One-fourth of the settlers were destroyed, and the number would have been much larger had not ( iovernor W'vatt received news through a Christian In- dian named Chanco of the impending massacre in time to save Jamestown and put the neigh- boring settlements on their guard. After the massacre the colonists concentrated for some time the surviving population in five or six well fortified places. Jamestown Peninsula was one of these, and as the old quarters were over- crowded. Claiborne, the surveyor, laid out in 1623 a new section for habitation on the river side, eastward of the old stockade. The addi- tions were called "New Town." where already stood, it is believed, the governor's house, built by Gates in 1614. enlarged by Argall in 1617. and granted by the London Company in 1618 to the use of ("lovernor Yardley and his successors forever. "Xew Town" never became a town of much size, for the settlers soon drove the Indians into the forests, and it was not long before the abandonerl plantations were rees- tablished.

The Indian massacre was speedily followed by the revocation of the charter of the London Company, which ^^'yatt and other leaders in Virginia regarded as a dire calamity, though time proved the contrary. In January. 1624.

they signed a protest called the "Tragicall Relation," denouncing the administration of the London Company by Sir Thomas Smythe and extolling that of Sandys and Southamp- ton and asking for the old charter. The father of Governor \\'\att died in September, 1625, and he asked permission of the king to return to Rngland. which was granted, and Sir George Vardley became governor in May, 1626. Wyatt remained in England till iC^^g. when he returned once more as governor. His appoint- ment seems to have been due to the efforts of the leaders of the old London Company, who had never ceasefl their work for restoration of the charter. His administration was a reaction against that of Sir John Harvey. He reversed the edit of banishment against Rev. Anthony Panton. and Harvc\- himself was broken with suits in the courts. George Sandys, his wife's uncle, was sent to England to voice the wishes of the governor and assem- bly for the restoration of the old London Company charter. He could get no direct promise from the king, and so he had recourse to parliament, which did in fact reissue the old charter of 1609, though it never went into effect in X'irginia. i.efore that time Wyatt was recalled, and Sir William Perkeley arrived as governor in 1642.

The Wyatt faniil\- to which Sir l-'rancis be- longed was one of great anti(|uity and of much renown. His great-great-grandfather. Sir Henry Wyatt. had taken a leading part in favor of Henry \'H. against Richard III., and his grandfather. Sir Thomas, had been exe- cuted for raising a rebellion against Queen Mary. Sir Erancis died in 1644. at Boxley. the home of the Wvatts, in county Kent, Eng- land. His brother. Rev. Hawte Wyatt. has many descendants in Virginia.