s to realize how desperately concerned with their
security were the few thousand Englishmen who inhabited Virginia at this
time. Separated from the mother country by 3,000 miles of ocean, a
dangerous crossing usually taking two months, the settlers had only a
precarious toe hold on a vast continent. From the ocean side the
settlers feared possible attack from other European colonizing powers:
the Spanish, French, or Dutch. The Spanish ambassador in London in the
early period of the Virginia settlement had frequently urged his
government to wipe out the struggling colony. But the indecision of
Spain's monarch had saved the colony.

The Virginians themselves had engaged in expeditions against the French
settled in Maine, and spoke menacingly of the Dutch who had established
a settlement on the King's domain in Hudson's River in 1613. The claims
of the European monarchs to the American continent conflicted with one
another, and there seemed little chance that a resolution would come by
any other means than war. So it proved to be, later. In the meantime, at
home, Virginia settlers stood on guard. Governor Yeardley appointed
Capt. William Tucker, one of the Virginia Council, to check at Point
Comfort all ships entering the James River. Tucker was provided with a
well-armed shallop and absolute authority to check all ships arriving.
He could not do battle with an enemy warship, of course, but he could
give the alarm in case the enemy appeared. A few years later a fort was
built at Point Comfort to defend the entrance to Virginia's great river.
Although the channel was too wide ever to be adequately commanded by the
cannon of the day, the fort provided some protection to the colony.

Yeardley made similar efforts to strengthen Virginia's position on land
against the numerically superior Indians. Like Wyatt he urged the
necessity of "planting the forest" rather than jumping beyond it to
areas far from existing settlements. As a means of controlling the
population Yeardley issued a proclamation requiring that anyone who
desired to move his place of residence within the colony must obtain
prior permission from the Governor and Council. Even to be absent for a
short time from his place of residence, a planter was required to get
permission from his "plantation commander." As was pointed out earlier,
"plantations" in this early period were usually not the
individually-owned, individually-operated plantations of later times,
but "