University of Virginia Library

COLLECTIONS IN ENGLAND

FERRAR PAPERS

The most unique collection in England for the study of the Virginia Company
is that in the possession of Magdelene College, Cambridge. As the property of
Nicholas and John Ferrar, who were second only to Sir Edwin Sandys in their
activity in the company, it would be invaluable; but its importance is further
enhanced by the fact that it contains the correspondence and papers of Sir Edwin
Sandys himself. These seventy-eight papers, which are either records of the
company or vitally concern it, cover the period of the Sandys-Southampton influence
from 1617 to the summer of 1623. They were the property of Dr. Peckard,
master of Magdalene College in 1790, and were bequeathed to the college upon his
death. It is probable that the greater part of the collection came from the Ferrar
family through Dr. Peckard's wife, Martha Ferrar, the great granddaugher of
John Ferrar, since the Virginia papers form but one-third of the group. The remain-
ing papers concern family affairs only, and date from 1601 to the middle of the
eighteenth century. Some of them are doubtless those received from the Earl of
Dorset by Dr. Peckard, when he was preparing his Memoirs of Nicholas Ferrar.[135]

The first knowledge of the Ferrar papers in later years was communicated to
the Virginia Magazine of History by Michael Lloyd Ferrar, Little Gidding. Ealing,
England. He sent a number of transcripts and photographs of letters to the maga-
zine for publication, among which were some half dozen bearing on the affairs of
the company, but the number which he was permitted to reproduce was limited
by the college. While Mr. Ferrar was completing a history of the Ferrar family
the entire collection was deposited at his home, and it was therefore in Ealing in the
fall of 1903 that the Editor was first permitted by the authorities of the college to
"see and note the contents" of the papers. Before the following summer Mr. Ferrar
had died and the collection had been returned to Cambridge, where complete trans-
cripts of all letters and photographs of all documents relating to the Virginia
Company were made for the Library of Congress under the supervision of the
Editor.

These papers are loose, many of them being much damaged, and it is apparent
that they are a part of a larger collection which must have been neglected while in
the possession of the family. There are some envelopes without letters, many
rough memoranda by both Nicholas and John Ferrar, some account books, and some
rough drafts of petitions to the House of Commons and of discussions on the
silkworm. The autographs which they furnish of both Nicholas and John Ferrar
have been of no little interest, as well as value, for the identification of other papers
in the Public Record Office, and in the Library of Congress. Furthermore, the
proof that Nicholas Ferrar himself supervised the transcript of the court book is
thus gained.

In this collection are twenty-three papers which are veritable records of the
company.[136] Two documents give our only knowledge of the financial affairs of
Smythe's Hundred, slight indeed, but from them comes additional information
concerning the system of organization of the societies for private adventure. Sundry
other unique though scattered documents are among these papers, such as receipts
for money expended, showing the method of business, reports of committees, and of
proceedings of the commissioners, revealing the bitterness of the factions, drafts or
original records of certain courts, forming the only proof of the accuracy of the
copies of the court books, and three new proceedings of the courts of the Somers
Islands Company. One of the latter is evidently a blotter and reveals the methods
used in keeping the court book. The quo warranto in English, which was served
upon the treasurer and company, would have been of the greatest value had not the
original record of the suit in the King's Bench just been discovered. Another
document of great value is the receipt referred to above, which proves that a court
book was regularly kept by the company from its very beginning. It reveals how
much has been lost.

The series, consisting of twenty letters from Sir Edwin Sandys to John Ferrar,
shows more clearly than any other documents we possess[137] who the real managers of
the affairs were and what was the spirit of the Sandys faction. The absolute confidence
which Sir Edwin Sandys had in John Ferrar and his great love for both of the brothers
is significant. Moreover, the knowledge of the affairs of the company, the careful
watch over every act and movement affecting the business, the deep and earnest
plans for the advancement of its interests revealed in these letters prove that Sir
Edwin Sandys was the keen financial manager of the undertaking. It was evidently
he who determined what the policy should be; he was apparently the statesman

and the politician, directing the method of address to the lords of the council or the
attitude to be assumed toward the Crown, controlling the courts so that he might be
present when there was danger of faction, concealing the information received from
the colony when he feared it would entail criticism. Much of the personal feeling
and animosity that existed is here shown, and much also which reveals actual
financial conditions.

The last group of these papers comprises thirty-five letters, all but one or two
of which were written by planters or adventurers, resident in the colony, to Sir
Edwin Sandys.[138] Of these, five came from Governor Yeardley, ten from either John
Pory or George Thorpe, secretaries in the colony at different times, and two from
the cape merchant; of the remainder, at least ten are from colonists whose opinions
and reports have not reached us in any other way. These letters are as full of
complaint with regard to the insufficient supplies sent with new planters, as are the
letters in the Manchester papers which Sir Nathaniel Rich and the Earl of Warwick
used as a basis of accusation against the management of the company, but they
differ from the other complaints in that they are kindly in spirit. Mr. Pory's letters
are full of definite information concerning the affairs, needs, and hopes of the
colony, while Governor Yeardley also gives some valuable statements with regard to
new settlers, the council, the relations with the Indians, and the government of the
colony; both complain of the scant provisioning of the new settlers. The burden of
the Yeardley letters, however, is the investigation of the affairs of Captain Argall
and the consequent criticism drawn upon himself from Lord Rich. Unfortunately,
comparatively few additional data are afforded concerning the Argall affair either by
Pory or by Yeardley. The planters themselves tell much of their condition and of
the districts in which they have settled, but the theme of their letters is most likely
to be a demand for promised payments or a complaint as to the scarcity of provisions
and clothes. The attitude toward Yeardley is generally favorable, John Rolfe alone
supporting Argall and criticizing the governor. As from all correspondence of
such a character, new ideas are gained, new points of view, and often additional
knowledge of relations with the Indians and with one another. Many of these
letters are annotated by John Ferrar, revealing the degree of importance which he
attached to their various and often conflicting statements.

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE—MANCHESTER PAPERS

A class of documents, very similar in character but of quite different spirit is
the Manchester papers, now in the Public Record Office, London. Robert, Earl of
Warwick, and his cousin, Sir Nathaniel Rich, were both members of the company.

Sir Nathaniel was a leader in the Warwick faction, while Earl Robert, after the
dissolution of the company in 1624, became a member of the council for Virginia.
The third wife of the Earl was Eleanor, Countess of Sussex, daughter of Richard
Wortley, and she, after the death of the Earl of Warwick, married, as her fourth
husband, Edward Montague, second Earl of Manchester. Thus it is that the
Kimbolton manuscripts, which are the records of the Duke of Manchester, contain
a large collection of petitions, declarations, memoranda, letters, and lists which
emanated from the Warwick faction of the Virginia Company.[139] Many of these are
holographs of Nathaniel Rich and Alderman Johnson, prime movers in that conflict.
Henry Montague, Viscount Mandeville and later Earl of Manchester, was at one
time lord president of the Privy Council. Therefore many of the Manchester papers
may have belonged to him. The autographs, however, identify those which concern
the Virginia Company as having belonged to Nathaniel Rich.

The Manchester and the Ferrar papers therefore present the two sides of this
conflict, not in open court or even in private contest, but in the private documents
and memoranda of the leaders. The collections are of about the same size, there
being sixty-six papers in the Manchester series, to seventy-eight in the Ferrar group.
These, also, are unbound, but since the greater part are rough notes of documents,
or drafts of propositions or speeches, they are much more difficult to decipher than
the Ferrar papers. Indeed many of them are almost illegible, and not a few are
unintelligible, having no connecting thought.

A dozen of these papers may be considered documentary; that is, rough copies
of letters, petitions, and declarations, or of acts of the company, or of its members
and officers in an official capacity. A few of these only are to be found among the
other records of the company. Like the rest of the set, they, almost without
exception, concern the accusations against the Sandys-Southampton management.
Three of them are petitions or letters concerning the extent of the tobacco trade,
but the rest are petitions to the King against one faction or the other, and answers
to those petitions. Of these, one of the most important is a copy of the opinion
of counsel concerning the powers conferred on the Virginia Company by the
several letters patent.[140] Accusation and defense are set forth in these documents,
but the headings of speeches, the drafts of propositions, and the notes from docu-
ments on which the arguments are based proclaim the motives and methods of the
accusers. No proof could be clearer than these memoranda by Alderman Johnson
and Nathaniel Rich that the company was to be overthrown by fair means or foul.
In two or three papers are carefully prepared lists of alleged evil deeds of Sir

Edwin Sandys and catalogues of the faults and errors of the company, while the
criticisms of the policy and of the management of the company are set down in
order, based on letters from colonists, of which there are eleven in the collection.
In these criticisms and drafts of propositions much information is afforded
concerning the management, organization, and condition of the colony and com-
pany. Thus, various books kept by the company during Sir Thomas Smythe's
time, and not otherwise known, are mentioned.[141] Five or six rough drafts of
propositions concerning the tobacco and salary question are also to be found
here, as well as numerous statements of sums adventured, of the number of men
sent to the colony, lists of members favorable to one faction or the other and
candidates for office from both parties. Many of the rough notes of both Johnson
and Rich furnish the only source of information concerning the directions given
to the commissioners appointed by the Crown to investigate the condition of the
company and of the colony and their acts and reports, but a fact of greater sig-
nificance is this, that the Warwick collection contains a dozen rough drafts of
directions to those commissioners, of charges against the company to be sent to
that body, of preliminary reports concerning the government of Virginia, and of
projects for the settlement of the government and the colony. The source of the
schism is here revealed, and the accusation by Sandys that accuser and judge were
one is justified.[142]

COLONIAL AND DOMESTIC STATE PAPERS

The other large group of Virginia records, consisting of over one hundred
and twenty separate documents, is found among the colonial and domestic papers
deposited in the Public Record Office. The source of this collection is uncertain.
Much of it came from the Plantation Office, and perhaps from the Privy Council
Office. The consolidation of depositories took place in 1578, but the efforts of
Dr. Thomas Wilson, the first clerk of the papers, to force the previous and
incumbent magistrates to hand over all documents to the State, were evidently
often unavailing, and hence it was that the creation of a State Paper Office was
not really accomplished until the period of the company. After Sir Thomas
Wilson succeeded his uncle during the reign of James I the aid of the King was
much relied upon, and, though partially successful, the recent revelation of quasi-
public documents in private collections shows that not only earlier but later
officials considered papers of record private property.[143] Thus some of the Salis-

bury papers, which Wilson failed to secure, are now at Hatfield House; and others
have passed with the Lansdowne collection into the British Museum, where they
are known as the Burghley papers. Similarly, the Cottonian papers in the Museum
originally belonged to Sir Robert Cotton in the time of James I.

Among the State Papers deposited in the Record Office are the letters to
John Ferrar, dated from Virginia in April, 1623, which may have been seized by
the commission appointed on May 9, 1623, to investigate the affairs of the com-
pany. There, too, are found the attested copies of letters and records in the
colony which concern the Harvey Commission, sent to the commission in England
by Edward Sharpless. A few of these papers seem to have belonged to the
company, such as the documents pertaining to the Walloons and dated 1621;
Pory's report from Virginia, in the same year; and two copies of documents by
Collingwood, dated the latter part of 1623.[144] All of these facts lead to the con-
clusion that a part of the records of the commissions, and a part of the confis-
cated records of the company are here deposited. If so, where are the remainder
of these most valuable documents?[145]

The colonial papers and the domestic correspondence include about forty-eight
which are records, and about nineteen which are documentary in character.
The first group contains, among other papers, many of the petitions and letters
addressed to the King and to the Privy Council, and many others of the council. It
is thus apparent that the royal correspondence of the Privy Council and the Privy
Council papers which should accompany the register are in this collection. To the
second group belong those papers which contain projects presented by individuals and
answers to such propositions, lists of adventures for the company, and also lists
of men sent to the colony and of lands granted in Virginia. Among these papers
are seven letters from colonists, in addition to about fifty which may be consid-
ered subsidiary correspondence in that they refer incidentally to the affairs of
the company. Such are the Mandeville-Conway, Middlesex-Conway, Chamberlain-
Carleton, Conway-Calvert, and Nethersole-Carleton letters.

RECORDS OF COURTS

In the libels of the admiralty court, instance and prize, are found records of
suits in which the Virginia Company is plaintiff. As a part of the controversy in
which William Wye appears as defendant is the suit of Yonge vs. Roberts;
while the fragment of the record of the Earl of Warwick vs. Edward Bruister

concerning the trouble over the ships Neptune and Treasurer completes the list of
cases in that court which in any way affect the Virginia Company. The latter is so
torn and defaced that but for an occasional date or fact, it affords no information of
value. Among the other formal material of the suit against Wye are two valuable
documents, namely, the commission given to Wye and a letter from the treasurer
and council to Sir George Yeardley, dated June 21, 1619. In the latter are valuable
references to Argall, and the complaints against Wye, though torn and illegible,
reveal something of the loss estimated as resulting from the failure to settle the
passengers in Virginia. These records of the admiralty court have not hereto-
fore been published, although they were cited by R. G. Marsden in his discussion
of those documents.[146] But the chancery files, which have furnished the records
of suits by the Virginia Company, have only just been indexed, and hence the
documents have not heretofore been known.

The record of the quo warranto suit by which the Virginia Company was over-
thrown has been erroneously declared to be not extant, a mistake due to a differ-
ence in view with regard to the court out of which such a writ would be issued
and as to the court in which the writ would be returnable. Hence the search
for the document has hitherto been conducted in the Petty Bag of the Chancery
instead of in the coram rege roll of the King's Bench. It was in the latter roll that
the full record of the writ, the pleadings, and the judgment were discovered by the
Editor in the fall of 1903.[147] In A Guide to the Documents in the Public Record Office
Mr. Bird gives the following explanation of the placita de quo warranto: They
"consist of the pleadings and judgments on writs of 'quo warranto' in nature of
writs of right on behalf of the King against those who claimed or usurped any
office, franchise, or liberty. The pleadings and judgments on writs of 'quo war-
ranto' or of 'quo titulo clamat' took place in the King's Bench or the Exchequer
and are enrolled on the 'coram rege rolls' or the 'memoranda rolls' accordingly."[148]
The statement in the court book of the company is that the "company had been
served with process out of the King's Bench by virtue of a quo warranto." It was
this clue and that from Mr. Scargill-Bird that led the Editor to conduct the search
successfully in the coram rege roll.

In the Record Office are also the docquet books, which afford some knowledge
of the grants of the King affecting the customs on tobacco, and the patent rolls,

which contain the letters patent of 1606, 1609, and 1612. In the colonial entry
books and among the proclamations of the King are orders of the Privy Council
and of the King, all of which are recorded in the Privy Council register.

PRIVY COUNCIL REGISTER

Since the Privy Council took no direct part in the affairs of the company
between 1617 and the summer of 1622, its orders related to those regulations which
would enable the acts of the company to advance the interests of the kingdom, leaving
absolute power to the company as the proprietor. Thus fully one-half of its thirty
measures during those five years were reprieves of prisoners, with the warrants nec-
essary to send them to Virginia or orders enabling children to be transferred from
the cities of the kingdom to the colony. During this period the Crown commenced
its attempts to secure a revenue from the tobacco trade, and a series of orders finally
resulted in the approval of the contract with the company in February of 1622/3.
In its foreign and external relations the company was of course subject to the action
of the Privy Council, and hence the orders in council concerned the contest with
Spain over the attack of the Treasurer. Furthermore, the disagreement with the
northern colony concerning fishing privileges had to be adjusted by the council and
resulted in the renewal of the patent to the northern colony and in regulations as
to rights of fishing. It was in the summer of 1622 that the first movement was
made which brought the difficulties between the factions into the open board.
The petition of John Bargrave against Sir Thomas Smythe, Alderman Johnson,
and others, in which they were accused of mismanagement, resulted in the defeat of
Bargrave six months later, as was to have been expected from the hostility of the
Crown to the party in Parliament led by Sir Edwin Sandys, of which Bargrave
was evidently a member at that time. But the storm broke in the following April,
when the commission was appointed to inquire into the true state of the Virginia
and Somers Islands companies. From that date until the dissolution of the com-
pany in the summer of 1624 the council busied itself with the affairs of the company.
No less than 31 orders are recorded which create commissions and empower them
to investigate both the colony and the company and in the end to assume the
functions of government in the name of the Crown, while seven of these documents
pass directly between the council and the colony, and no other measures were con-
sidered except those which enabled the Warwick faction to tear down the work of
the adventurers and to take into its own hands the control of the entire business.
These forms of government, planned by the Crown and the commissions here
recorded, by which the authority was vested in the commissioners and later in a
committee of the Privy Council, stand for the beginning of royal control. Here-

tofore, with a few exceptions, these orders have been known only through the
calendar of state papers, and even then not more than one-half have been included.

The Privy Council Office and its records are located in the treasury building,
Whitehall, London; the registers of the council orders are kept in the clerk's office
but all of the early registers are properly about to be transferred to the Public
Record Office. These registers contain the orders of the council, and, after
Charles I, also the petitions received and the letters issued by the council. In
the earlier reigns such documents were not recorded; whether they were even
preserved as public documents is not certain, although, as stated above, many of
them have found their way to the Record Office and are there calendared among
the colonial, domestic, or foreign papers. There is a collection of such original
material, dating from the close of the seventeenth century, in the treasury building.[149]

BRITISH MUSEUM

The collection of manuscripts from which the most valuable returns might be
expected is in the British Museum. The documents there deposited are small in
number but they are of great value, and none of them have heretofore been printed.
The originals of the precedents for patents of the Virginia Company, which are now
noted for the first time, evidently formed a part of the records of the company, and
it may be that they are some of the copies of the records made under the supervision
of Nicholas Ferrar, or they may be the drafts of patents which were filed by the
company according to an order of its court. Not only is the writing similar to much
of that in the contemporary transcripts of the court book, but they are unsigned
copies, and the headings of a number of them seem to be in the autograph of Edward
Collingwood. The caption of the series shows that the copies were made for the sake
of preserving the form, and reads as follows: "Presidents of Patents, Grants &
Commissioners by the Virginia Company. 1621."[150] The company thus preserved the
legal form of the various grants. Four of them are of value not only for the form
but for the knowledge they furnish of the distinction made between the four classes
of adventurers: those who paid money into the treasury and agreed to plant one
hundred persons, those who established a private plantation, those who were private
planters, and those whose "shares exceedinge 50 acr̃ are exempted from payinge
any Rent to ye Company for the persons they transporte." In addition certain
knowledge is afforded concerning the grants. Two out of the other nine documents
are commissions granted to owners and masters of ships for voyages to Virginia, by

which they are to transport passengers to Virginia. Another is a covenant by the
company to pay for the victualing and transporting of passengers, while still another
is for the transporting of goods only. Other forms are those used for granting
rights of fishing on the coast of America, for voyages to Virginia, and free fishing
along the shores, and others still for discovery, fishing, and trading in furs in
Virginia. The covenant signed by William Ewens in which he agreed to fit out the
ship George reveals the form of contract required of the masters of ships by the
company.

These papers form the last group in a volume which contains "A Catalogue of
the Nobility of England in the time of King James the first," 1626, and "A list
of all the Officers belonging to Courts of Justice the Kings household & Reuenue
wth their seuerall fees." There are several signs for identification, but none which
indicate the original owner of the volume. It is a small quarto in leather, bearing
the signature, "H Cowle A. 29," on the inner cover, and also the arms of James
Bindley with the motto, "unus et idem." At the bottom of the same cover is
written the following: "Purchased at the sale of W. Berwicks library at Sotheby's,
27 Apr. 1863. (Lot 427)," while on the second fly leaf in the upper right-hand
corner is the inscription: "The gift of Mr Dan1 Prince, Bookseller. Oxford—July
23d. 1776." Farther than this the history of the papers is unknown.

Another set of documents in the Museum is also unique. One of these sup-
plies all that is known outside of the court book and a single reference in Argall's
register book regarding the controversy over the grant of land to John Martin in
Virginia. The other letters from Martin to his brother-in-law, Sir Julius Cæsar,
written in December, 1622, give startling suggestions with regard to an ideal policy
for the colony. "The manner howe to bringe in the Indians into subiection wth
out makinge an utter extirpation of them ..." is the heading of the paper in
which Martin proposes to disable the main body of the enemy by cutting them
off from their sources of supply at home and by destroying their trade. He would
thus require two hundred soldiers "Contynuallie harrowinge and burneinge all their
Townes in wynter." By this means and by gaining a store of grain for two years'
supply, he plans for the recovery from the massacre. In order to secure the entire
territory from the Indians, in a second letter he propounds a scheme by which the
Crown or the company can make a "Royall plantation for gods glory his Matie:
and Royall progenyes euer happines and the Companies exceedinge good." The
responsibility and control was to be thrown upon the shires of England. The
fact that the Martin letters have not heretofore been generally known may be due
to an error in the catalogue. They appear under the name "Tho. Martin" instead
of "Jho. Martin."[151]

Two other projects for the advancement of the colony are in the same collection
of papers; one by Captain Bargrave, brother of the Dean of Canterbury, is dated
December 8, 1623, and the other a year later. The latter relates to the division of
income from tobacco between the King, the planter, and the grower, with a reward
to those endeavoring to preserve the plantation, but approves the Ditchfield offer.
The Ditchfield offer itself is also in this collection.[152] Captain Bargrave's proposition
for the government of the colony stands midway between absolute royal control
and full autonomy of the planters, and holds an important place in the develop-
ment of the plans from the proprietary to the royal colony. Furthermore, it is
rather significant that in the collection of Sir Julius Cæsar are to be found the propo-
sitions of Martin, of Bargrave, and the document by which the commission was
finally appointed in 1624, to establish the government in Virginia under royal control.
Sir Julius Cæsar, having been a judge of admiralty under Elizabeth and chancellor
of the exchequer in the reign of James I, became master of the rolls on January
16, 1610/11, and one of the keepers of the great seal on May 3, 1621. His position
evidently enabled him to secure a large collection of valuable drafts of documents.
This was sold at auction in 1757. One-third of the collection was purchased by the
Earl of Shelburne (Lord Lansdowne) from Webb and came to the Museum among
the Lansdowne papers.

Two collections of printed material of the company are to be found in England,
the British Museum and the Society of Antiquaries. While the British Museum has
a large number of the earlier publications, it possesses only the declaration of June
22, 1620, and also the unique note of shipping of 1620, the only other copy of which
is owned by the Society of Antiquaries. The collection of that society is rich in
royal proclamations, besides possessing a copy of the Note of Shipping, 1621, and
of the Inconveniences of 1622. The scattering documents to be found in private
collections throughout England are often valuable, but nowhere else is to be found
any considerable number of papers or any that are of great importance.[153]