Page:History of the United States of America, Spencer, v1.djvu/98

 towns and villages gradually began to Assume a settled appearance. Intercourse, however, between the settlements, was mostly carried on by coasting, in consequence of the forests and uninhabited regions intervening. Probably no plantation in America had made as safe and substantial progress as this, during the time that the energetic sons of England had been on the soil of the New World.

The cost of New England colonization thus far, according to Mr. Hildreth, has been estimated at a million of dollars, which, although a great sum, is probably short of the truth. There were now east of the Hudson twelve independent communities, comprising some fifty towns or settlements; soon after, however, the separate jurisdictions were reduced to six.

 

1625—1660.

the accession of Charles I, in 1625, although Sir Francis Wyatt's commission as governor of Virginia, was renewed in the same terms as under James, he soon after returned to England, and Yeardley was appointed his successor. Yeardley died the next year, much lamented by the colonists, and the Council elected Francis West governor pro ternpore. From a letter addressed to the king by West and the Council, we learn that the industry and energy of the colony were hardly equal to what might have been expected. War against the Indians was still existing; there was but little enterprise and capital; and, in fact, the staple product was that "nauseous, unpalatable weed, tobacco, neither of necessity nor ornament to human life." Notwithstanding, however, these and similar disadvantages to which Virginia was subjected, the population continued to increase with rapidity, and in 1628, more than a thousand emigrants arrived from Europe.

Dr. John Potts was elected by the Council, in 1629, in place of West, which office he held for a short time, until the arrival of John Harvey, who had recently been appointed to the 