In the month of August, 1620, fourteen months before the sitting of the first representative assembly in Virginia, about four months before the landing of the pilgrim fathers in America, a century after the last hereditary serfdom had been abolished in England, and six years after the commons of France had petitioned for the emancipation of every serf in any fief, a Dutch man-of-war entered James River, bringing in twenty negroes for sale. The necessity for labourers seems to have been the first cause of the introduction of negro slaves into Virginia, and the Dutch were for many years the principal slave traders. The cultivation of silk and of the vine had been introduced, but scarcity of labourers caused these branches of cultivation to languish; cotton, on the other hand, soon engaged attention. In 1621, the first seeds were sown as an experiment, and their “plentiful coming up” promised the most successful results. Wyatt found the colony in a high degree of prosperity. The English had extended their plantations considerably inland, along the banks of the James River and the Potomac; wherever rich ground invited, there they established themselves, no longer fearing the solitude of the forest, because they no longer dreaded the power of the Indians. The Indians were regarded with contempt or pity; a single mastiff would put many to flight; seven hundred armed savages had on one occasion been routed by fifteen armed men; no care was taken to conciliate their good will, although in many cases their condition was improved by the introduction of some of the arts of civilised life. Their simple, child-like state may be exhibited by one small circumstance. A house had been built for the great chief Opechancanough, successor of Powhatan, according to the English style, and so delighted was he with the lock on the door, that he locked and unlocked it a hundred times a day, and regarded it as a triumph of skill.