Here was an easy way of repaying two of them. If they really
desired that wild land beyond the seas, where only savages lived,
and where the weed which his pompous grandfather had disliked so much
grew, why they should have it! So he carelessly signed his royal
name and for a yearly rent of forty shillings "all that dominion of
land and water commonly called Virginia" was theirs for the space
of thirty-one years.
It was but a scratch of the pen to the King. It was everything to
the Virginians, and when news of it reached them all Virginia was
ablaze. They who had clung to the King in his evil days, they who
had been the last people belonging to England to submit to the
Commonwealth to be thus tossed to his favourites like some useless
toy, without so much as a by your leave! They would not suffer it.
And they sent a messenger to England to lay their case before the
King.
As to Charles, he was lazily astonished to find that any one
objected to such a little trifle. And with his usual idle good nature
he promised that it should be altered. But he had no intention of
hurrying. Meanwhile out in Virginia events were hastening.
__________
Chapter 20 - Bacon's Rebellion
For some time now the Indians had been an increasing terror to
the white men. They had grown restless and uneasy at the constantly
widening borders of the settlements.
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