University of Virginia Library

THE JEFFERSON LIBRARY IN THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

The records of the company under the administration of Sir Edwin Sandys and
the Earl of Southampton, or the copies of them so far as extant, are to-day scattered
among many public and private collections both in England and in America. The
Library of Congress at Washington possesses by far the largest and most impor-
tant collection in this country. It contains the contemporary certified copy of the
court book from 1619 to 1624, as well as a mass of original correspondence, or
contemporary copies of the same, between the company and the council in Virginia.

It also includes many original records of the colony, many eighteenth century tran-
scripts of the original commissions, patents, and other records, and many recent
transcripts and photographs of documents in the collections of England.

The eighteenth century transcripts and the original documents and contemporary
copies came to the Library of Congress from Thomas Jefferson's collection in two
different groups: the first in 1815, when his library, purchased "in a lump as
it stood on the catalogue,"[84] was secured by Congress for the sum of $23,950; the
second was secured when the books of Mr. Jefferson were sold at auction subsequent
to his death in 1826. The catalogue of the auction sale classified those acquired
by the Library of Congress at the latter date under two numbers as follows:[85]

"No. 121. Records of the Virginia Company, 2 vols., fol. MS. (the authentic
copy mentioned in Stith's History).

"No. 122. Old Records of Virginia, 4 vols. fol. MS. viz:

"A.

• Letters, proclamations in 1622–23, and correspondence 1625.

  (42) Transactions in council and assembly, their petition and his majesty's
  answer.[86]

"B.

• (9). Orders from Feb. 1622 to Nov. 1627.[87]

"C.

• (32) A. Foreign business and Inquisitions from 1665 to 1676.

Transactions of the council from Dec. 9, 1698, to May 20, 1700."[88]

The volumes of Jefferson manuscripts relating to the company, which became
the property of the Government in 1815, were as follows:

(1)

• First laws made by the Assembly in Va. anno 1623.[89] (Used by Hening.)

(2)

• Journal of the Council and Assembly, 1626–1634. (Used by Hening.)[90]

(3)

• Miscellaneous Records, 1606–1692, with a small quarto containing abstracts
  of Rolls in the offices of State bound into the volume. (Commonly known as the
  Bland copy, because so cited by Hening.)

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(4)

• Miscellaneous Papers, 1606–1683. Instructions, Commic̃ons letters of Advice
  and admonitions and Public Speeches, Proclamations &c. Collected, transcribed and
  diligently examined by the Originall Records, now extant, belonging to the Assemblie.

The entire set in the first group, acquired in 1829, is composed either of original
documents or of contemporary transcripts, while the second paper of the second
group belongs to the same period. The Miscellaneous Papers, 1606–1683, are a
seventeenth century transcript. The Laws of 1623 and the Miscellaneous Records,
1606–1692, are transcripts of the early eighteenth century and are attested by R.
Hickman, who was clerk of the general court in 1722. The origin and identification
of these various volumes, together with a later copy of the court book of the com-
pany, now in the library of the Virginia Historical Society and commonly known as
the [John] Randolph [of Roanoke] copy, has been a subject of doubt and discussion,
arising from the conflicting descriptions of the volumes by the early historians of
Virginia, William Stith and John D. Burk, and by the editor of many of the
documents in 1809, William Hening.

The following statements with regard to the first group made by Mr. Jefferson
in a letter to Hugh P. Taylor, October 4, 1825,[91] will serve as a basis for the attempt
to ascertain the history and authenticity of those manuscripts:

"The only manuscripts I now possess relating to the antiquities of our country
are some folio volumes: Two of these are the proceeding[s] of the Virginia company
in England; the remaining four are of the Records of the Council of Virginia, from
1622 to 1700. The account of the first two volumes, you will see in the preface to
Stiths History of Virginia. They contain the records of the Virginia Company,
copied from the originals, under the eye, if I recollect rightly, of the Earl of South-
ampton, a member of the company, bought at the sale of his library by Doctor
Byrd, of Westover, and sold with that library to Isaac Zane. These volumes
happened at the time of the sale, to have been borrowed by Col. R. Bland,[92] whose
library I purchased, and with this they were sent to me. I gave notice of it to Mr.
Zane, but he never reclaimed them.

"The other four volumes, I am confident, are the original office records of the
council. My conjectures are, that when Sir John Randolph was about to begin
the History of Virginia which he meant to write, he borrowed these volumes from
the council office to collect from them materials for his work. He died before he
had made any progress in that work, and they remained in his library, probably
unobserved, during the whole life of the late Peyton Randolph, his son. From his
executor, I purchased his library, in a lump, and these volumes, were sent to me as a
part of it. I found the leaves so rotten as often to crumble into dust on being
handled; I bound them, therefore together, that they might not be unnecessarily
opened; and have thus preserved them forty-seven years."

CONTEMPORARY COPY OF THE COURT BOOK

The two volumes referred to by Mr. Jefferson as the "proceedings of the
Virginia Company in England" are the contemporary copies of the court book
which were secured by the Hon. William Byrd, of Westover, Virginia, from the
estate of the Earl of Southampton, either at the time of his death in 1667 or
later. Since Mr. Byrd was a boy of 15 living in London in 1667, it may have
been when the Virginia estates were left him in 1671, or even in 1687 when he
made a visit to England, that he made the purchase.[93] That the books remained
in the possession of the descendants of Mr. Byrd for a century is proved by
the fact that they are mentioned in a manuscript catalogue of the library of the
third William Byrd, who died in 1777,[94] but these two volumes were not in the
library of Colonel Byrd, when it was sold by his widow in Philadelphia to Isaac
Zane. Mr. Jefferson's statement that he purchased them from Colonel Bland may
be accepted,[95] but it would be difficult to prove whether he is equally reliable when
he states that the volumes had been loaned to Colonel Bland and had not been
returned by him to Colonel Byrd, or whether Mr. Deane is correct in saying that
Colonel Bland, as an antiquary, had secured them. That Stith used these contempo-
rary copies of the court book in his History of Virginia is apparent from his
description of them, as also from his statement that they had been communicated
to him by the "late worthy president of our council, the Hon. William Byrd, esq."[96]

MANUSCRIPT RECORDS OF THE COMPANY, VOLUME III

The other manuscript volumes, which the Library of Congress acquired from
Mr. Jefferson and which are included under No. 122 of the Jefferson catalogue,
belong to the early seventeenth century. They are the documents which Mr.
Jefferson referred to in his letter to Mr. Taylor as having come from the library of the Hon. Peyton Randolph in such a fragile condition, and which in a letter to
Mr. Wythe, of January 16, 1795, urging the necessity of publishing the laws of
Virginia, he describes in a similar way.[97]

That these are the papers discussed by Stith is proved by comparing them with
the Hickman (Bland) transcripts. In his preface, Stith confirms the description
by Mr. Jefferson, but he apparently destroys the latter's theory that the papers
had been in the possession of Peyton Randolph since the death of Sir John Randolph
in 1736. Mr. Stith wrote his preface in 1746, and suggests that they were at that
time in the possession of the House of Burgesses, although he does not make a
positive statement to that effect. His assertions are worth recording, since they
carry the history of the volumes back thirty years and also throw light on the
Hickman transcripts.

"I must chiefly depend upon such of our Records, as are still extant. Many of
them doubtless perished in the State-house at James-Town, and by other Accidents;
and those, which have survived the Flames and Injuries of Time, have been so care-
lesly kept, are so broken, interrupted, and deficient, have been so mangled by Moths
and Worms, and lie in such a confused and jumbled State (at least the most ancient
of them) being huddled together in single Leaves and Sheets in Books out of the
Binding, that I foresee, it will cost me infinite Pains and Labour, to reduce and
digest them in any tolerable Order, so as to form from them a just and connected
Narration. And some of them have been lost, even since Mr. Hickman was Clerk of
the Secretary's Office. For I cannot find, among the Papers in our Offices, some old
Rolls, to which he refers. I have therefore been obliged, in a few Points, to depend
upon the Fidelity of that Gentleman's Extracts out of our oldest Records, made for
the Use of Sir John Randolph. But these things were so far from discouraging and
rebuffing me, that they were rather an additional Spur to my Industry. For I
thought it highly necessary, before they were entirely lost and destroyed, to apply
them to their proper Use, the forming a good History. But as the House of
Burgesses in a late Session, upon my shewing their moldering and dangerous State
to some of the Members, have justly taken them into their Consideration, and have
ordered them to be reviewed and fairly transcribed, I doubt not, by their Assistance,
and with the Help of the late Sir John Randolph's Papers, and such others, as are in
the Hands of private Gentlemen in the Country, and will undoubtedly be readily
communicated to further so noble and so useful a Design, to be able to collect and
compose a tolerably regular and complete History of our Country."[98]

Hence, we are again left in a quandary. The papers may have come into Peyton
Randolph's possession through the arrangement made by the burgesses for their
transcription; but no transcript made directly from the documents as late as 1746
is known to us. Whether they were borrowed from the province by Mr. Stith or
by Peyton Randolph, his brother-in-law, or by some other historian or antiquarian
is not yet proved; and our only evidence that Jefferson secured them from Peyton
Randolph's executor is his statement made twenty years after the date of the purchase.

The papers, after almost a century in the Capitol, were in a still more deplorable
condition in 1901 than that described by Mr. Stith, but the loose pages have now
been carefully and skillfully repaired. The order of contents of the volumes (while
not chronologically arranged) may be known from the abstracts made under the
direction of Hickman about 1722. This agrees with an arrangement determined by
the early pagination, the subject-matter, and the writing. That these manuscripts
are original records or contemporary copies is evidenced by the form of some of them,
by the signatures of others, and by the autographs of the secretaries and clerks of
the period. The supposition is that they escaped destruction when the Province
House was burned in Bacon's rebellion in 1678, during the administration of Gooch
in 1698, and again during the Revolution, only to be lost to the State in the latter
half of the eighteenth century.

The volume designated as 122, A, in the Jefferson catalogue, and there entitled
"Letters, proclamations in 1622–23, and correspondence 1625," is evidently the one
referred to by page in the Hickman abstract of the rolls as "the other side of No.
A 42."[99] This abstract is a quarto bound into the Miscellaneous Records, 1606–1692,
called by Hening the "Bland copy." In pages 1 to 14a of this volume are eighteen
letters from the colony to the King or to the company between 1621 and 1625, while
pages 15 to 30 contain nine letters from the company to the colony between 1621 and
August 6, 1623. The first group are holographs, but of a secretary or clerk not yet
identified. The second are doubtless in the autograph of Edward Sharpless.[100] Both
are contemporary copies of the originals.[101] The documents classed in the Jefferson
catalogue as 122 (42) form the balance of this volume and also probably include
the journal of the council and assembly, 1626–1634. The latter was evidently used by Hening in compiling his statutes.

Presuming that this fragile document, which is the only one concerning the
company and the colony while controlled by the company, formed one volume, its
contents was as follows:

No. A 42:

1. (a)

• Miscellaneous letters from the Privy Council to the governor and
  council in Virginia in 1623, pp. 1–3[99]. An unknown holograph.

(b)

• Declarations of the condition of the colony and answers thereto in
  1623/4, pp. 3[99]–7[99]. An unknown holograph.

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2.

• Fundamental orders, charters, ordinances, and instructions by the
  company in London and laws of the assembly in Virginia, pp. 8–21. Partly
  holographs as above.[102]

No. A 42. "The other side:"

1. (a)

• Letters from the colony to the King or to the company between
  1621 and 1625. An unknown holograph.

(b)

• Letters from the company to the colony between 1621 and August 6,
  1623. Holographs of Edward Sharpless.

2.

• Instructions, commissions, proclamations, orders, warrants, and letters
  of the governor and captain-general of Virginia and of the assembly, pp. 36–53.
  Partly the holograph of Edward Sharpless and partly perhaps of Christopher
  Davison, the secretary of the colony from November, 1621, until his death in
  the winter of 1623/4.[103]

4.

• Petitions to the governor and council in Virginia, pp. 58–63. Holo-
  graphs as of the preceding.

5.

• A miscellaneous collection of letters between the Privy Council and the
  Commissioners for Virginia on the one hand and the governor and council in
  Virginia on the other, in 1625/6, pp. 68–70; a letter from the Virginia Company
  of London in 1626, p. 71, and a census of 1624, pp. 71–75. Unknown holo-
  graphs similar to those in the first part of this end of the volume.[104]

The first part of the volume thus opens with the letters of the Privy Council
to the colony on April 28, 1623, when the King first began the action looking toward
the dissolution of the company, and with the first direct correspondence with the
officers of the colony. The writing and the dates place the documents as consecutive
through the entry of the acts of the assembly, March 5, 1623/4, when the assembly
seems to have ceased. After that page, copies of scattered documents appear in a
different writing, commencing on the back of the last assembly record. These are
largely fundamental or constitutional, including the instructions of November 20,
1606, the charter of 1606, the order of 1607 enlarging the council, and the oaths
administered to officials of the colony of the same period. The other part of the
volume opens with the correspondence between the colony and the home government.
After a hiatus of fifteen pages the documents of the governor and assembly begin
as indicated under the second division above. The writing is that of Edward Sharp-
less and Christopher Davison, and remains the same throughout the petitions of the
next group. The last group of miscellaneous documents agrees in subject with the

letters of the first part and in autograph with the first section of those letters. On
a fly leaf among the loose papers is inscribed the following: "Records of W. Clay-
bourne or Claiborne./ p̱ Joseph [Jokeg] / Tho Farloue & / Vpton gent / Thos.
Ba[u]rbag[e] / Cler̃ Conc̃"./ This may belong to the records of the period after
May 14, 1626, when William Claybourne was appointed secretary of the colony by
Charles I, or it may have been placed in an earlier volume, or it may indicate that a
part at least of the earlier volume was transcribed under his direction.

Section B (9) of No. 122 in the Jefferson catalogue, cited as orders from
February, 1622, to November, 1627, and including loose pages as late as 1634, is the
only octavo manuscript of these records and has been saved from its almost useless
condition by repair. That this is the original blotter of the court book of the gover-
nor and council in Virginia, containing the original record of suits tried before that
body and of orders issued by it, is proved by the hasty and brief entries, giving the
volume an entirely different character from those of the carefully elaborated tran-
scripts of the clerks. The records of twenty-three courts held as here given and of
the cases considered during the era of the authority of the company, consisting of
about forty-five pages of manuscript, are noted in the list of the records of the
company, but are not printed in this collection since they may be included more
properly in a publication of the "Records of the Colony."