y for twelve years; but as he was also president of four
other companies some thought that he did not give the proper attention
to Virginia matters. For this reason, and because he was considered
responsible for the selection of Argall, the leaders of his party
determined to elect a new treasurer; and a private quarrel between
Smith and the head of the court party, Lord Rich, helped matters to
this end. To gratify a temporary spleen against Smith, Lord Rich
consented to vote for Sir Edwin Sandys, and April 28, 1619, he was
accordingly elected treasurer with John Ferrar as his deputy. Smith
was greatly piqued, abandoned his old friends, and soon after began to
act with Rich in opposition to Sandys and his group of supporters.[11]

Sandys threw himself into his work with great ardor, and scarcely a
month passed that a ship did not leave England loaded with emigrants
and cattle for Virginia. At the end of the year the company would have
elected him again but for the interference of King James, who regarded
him as the head of the party in Parliament opposed to his prerogative.
He sent word to "choose the devil if you will, but not Sir Edwin
Sandys." Thereupon Sandys stepped aside and the earl of Southampton,
who agreed with him in all his views, was appointed and kept in office
till the company's dissolution; and for much of this time Nicholas
Ferrar, brother of John, acted as deputy to the earl.[12] The king,
however, was no better satisfied, and Count Gondomar, the Spanish
minister, took advantage of the state of things to tell James that he
had "better look to the Virginia courts which were kept at Ferrar's
house, where too many of his nobility and gentry resorted to accompany
the popular Lord Southampton and the dangerous Sandys. He would find
in the end these meetings would prove a _seminary for a seditious
parliament_."[13] These words, it is said, made a deep impression upon
the king, always jealous for his prerogatives.

For two years, however, the crown stayed its hand and the affairs of
Virginia greatly improved. Swarms of emigrants went out and many new
plantations sprang up in the Accomack Peninsula and on both sides of
the James. The most striking feature of these settlements was the
steady growth of the tobacco trade. In 1619 twenty thousand pounds
were exported, and in 1622 sixty thousand pounds. This increasing
importation excited the covetousness of the king, as well as the
jealousy of the Spanish governme