en cloths and other
ornaments, all to be placed within a church for Indians to be built
under another bequest. This communion chalice and paten are owned
today by one of the oldest parishes in Virginia, and are in St. John's
Church, of Elizabeth City Parish, at Hampton.

On one of the ships sailing from England to the East Indies an appeal
was made by the chaplain in behalf of the university in Virginia and
gifts were made in such large amount that when they were sent to
Virginia they sufficed for the erection of "a publique free schoole" to
be connected with the university. They named it "The East India
School." The General Assembly, when it first met in July 1619, adopted
a resolution urging English families to take promising Indian youths
into their homes to teach them the fundamentals and prepare them for
the opening of the college.

The work of establishing the university was already proceeding; land
was being cleared; farm houses were being erected; more than one
hundred artisans and workmen had been sent from England and the college
buildings were under construction when on Good Friday, March 22,
1621/22, the great Indian massacre occurred. A full third of all the
English people in Virginia were killed by Indians in one fatal day. The
buildings at the university were burned to the ground, and every
English man, woman and child in every family of the artisans and
workmen was killed. The East India School was burned to the ground.
Indeed the only thing that saved the colony from utter extermination
was that Chanco, an Indian who had become a Christian, had learned of
the plot the night before the massacre and warned the Englishman,
Richard Pace, with whom he lived. Pace crossed the James River and
warned the residents of Jamestown. So it was that Jamestown and some of
the adjoining settlements were warned in time to protect themselves.

The massacre was of course a terrific catastrophe to the whole colony.
Outlying settlements had to be abandoned and the colony was engaged in
war with the Indians for several years. Then a second catastrophe
occurred. King James became dissatisfied with the independent attitude
of the London Company and personally secured its dissolution in 1624.
He then took control of Virginia as a Royal Colony and he himself
appointed the Governor and Council of the colony.

This ended all plans for the opening of the university. The King died
in the following year and his son, King Charles I