three severall times of the yeare," and also "that there be an especiall
care taken by all commanders and others that the people doe repaire to
their churches on the Saboth day, and to see that the penalty of one
pound of tobacco for every time of absence, and 50 pounds for every
month's absence... be levyed, and the delinquents to pay the same."
About this time we read: "Dr. John Pott, late Governor, indicted,
arraigned, and found guilty of stealing cattle, 13 jurors, 3 whereof
councellors. This day wholly spent in pleading; next day, in unnecessary
disputation."

These were moving times in the little colony whose population may by now
have been five thousand. Harvey, the Governor, was rapacious; the King
at home, autocratic. Meanwhile, signs of change and of unrest were not
wanting in Europe. England was hastening toward revolution; in Germany
the Thirty Years' War was in mid-career; France and Italy were racked
by strife; over the world the peoples groaned under the strain
of oppression. In science, too, there was promise of revolution.
Harvey--not that Governor Harvey of Virginia, but a greater in England
was writing upon the circulation of the blood. Galileo brooded over
ideas of the movement of the earth; Kepler, over celestial harmonies and
solar rule. Descartes was laying the foundation of a new philosophy.

In the meantime, far across the Atlantic, bands of Virginians went out
against the Indians--who might, or might not, God knows! have put in a
claim to be considered among the oppressed peoples. In Virginia the
fat, black, tobacco-fields, steaming under a sun like the sun of Spain,
called for and got more labor and still more labor. Every little sailing
ship brought white workmen--called servants--consigned, indentured,
apprenticed to many-acred planters. These, in return for their passage
money, must serve Laban for a term of years, but then would receive
Rachel, or at least Leah, in the shape of freedom and a small holding
and provision with which to begin again their individual life. If they
were ambitious and energetic they might presently be able, in turn, to
import labor for their own acres. As yet, in Virginia, there were few
African slaves--not more perhaps than a couple of hundred. But whenever
ships brought them they were readily purchased.

In Virginia, as everywhere in time of change, there arose anomalies.
Side by side persisted a romantic devotion to the King and a
determination to have popul