48 



FIRST GENERAL PLANTING. 



no man hath laboured to his power there, and worthy incour- 

 agement unto England, by his letters than he hath done, 



JOHN ROLFE. 



witness his marriage with Powhatan's daughter one of rude 

 education, manners barbarous, and cursed generation merely 

 for the good and honor of the plantation." 



The first general planting of tobacco by the colony began 

 according to this writer "at West and Sherley Hundred 

 (seated on the north side of the river, lower than the Ber- 

 mudas three or four myles) where are twenty-five commanded 

 by capten Maddeson who are imployed onely in planting 

 and curing tobacco." 



This was in 1616, when the colony numbered only three 

 hundred and fifty-one persons. Kolfe, in his relation of the 

 state of Virginia, written and addressed to the King, gives 

 the following description of the condition of the colony in 

 1616 : 



