University of Virginia Library

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.