University of Virginia Library

THE EXTANT RECORDS—THE COURT BOOK

HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPORARY COPY

The paucity of the actual extant documents of the company has made the
circumstances of the transcription of the court book the more interesting and
its authenticity the more important.

As the growing controversy between the two factions of the company resulted
in serious accusations of mismanagement by sundry adventurers and planters, the
Crown soon appointed a commission to investigate the affairs of the company, with a
consequent sequestering of all of the company's court books in May, 1623.[180] The
clear mind of Nicholas Ferrar immediately foresaw the danger of a seizure of the
documents of the company, and appreciating full well the value of the "court books,
registers and writings, instructions, letters, etc.," as political papers and also as
evidences of the possession of land and investment of capital, upon their return by
the Privy Council, he "did fairly copy out all the court books, etc. (which cost
50li) and carried them to the noble Earle of Southampton."[181]

During the following year the activities of Nicholas Ferrar, as well as the
attention of other members of the company, must have been under great strain.
The time not taken in attendance "twice or thrice a week"[182] upon the Privy
Council, and in the attempts to defend the company against the charges of "abuse
of its privileges," was evidently devoted to supervising the transcript of the com-
pany's records. The attestation at the end of each volume shows that the first
was completed January 28, 1623/4, and the second June 19, 1624.[183] This was none
too soon, for just a week later the Privy Council ordered Deputy Ferrar to bring
to the council chamber all patents, books of accounts, invoices of the company,
and lists of settlers in the colony, to be retained by the Privy Council chest
until further notice.[184] A commission had been appointed two days before to take
into their hands all "charters, letters patent, grantes and instructions, bookes,
orders, letters, advices and other writings concerning the company."[185] The com-
pany urged in these words that the council should permit the books to remain invio-
late: "So by this meanes [that is, by the transcripts] have the Original Court
bookes yet escaped purging: And wth all duety wee humbly beseech yor Lops that
they may hereafter be protected from it: And that howsover yor Lops shall please
for the future to dispose of the Companie, that the records of their past Actions
may not be corrupted & falsified." Further, when the council demanded that the
Earl of Southampton should surrender to the commissioners his copies of the
records, before he sailed for the Netherlands in August, he sent them word, "that
he would as soon part wth the evidences of his Land, as wth the said copies, being
the evidence of his honour in that Service."[186]

How these transcripts were made, and especially what became of them at that
time, and where they remained for the following half century can be a matter of

conjecture only, based on the divers statements of contemporary authorities. These
are three in number:

(1)

• The Discourse of the Old Company of Virginia addressed to the Privy
  Council, May, 1625.

(2)

• The Memoirs of the Life of Nicholas Ferrar by Dr. Peckard in 1790.

(3)

• A Short Collection of the Most Remarkable Passages from the originall
  to the dissolution of the Virginia Company, by Arthur Woodnoth, written
  between 1635 and 1645, and printed in 1651 by Richard Cotes.[187]

The Discourse of the Old Company gives much the same history of the
records as does Dr. Peckard. The facts set forth by the latter were taken from
the "Memoirs of Nicholas Ferrar" by his brother John, about 1654, and therefore
this work may be considered as based on contemporary authority. According to
Dr. Peckard, Nicholas Ferrar, knowing that malice was at work, procured a
clerk to copy out all the court books and other writings and caused them to be
carefully collated with the original. It cost him the sum of £50, which he thought
was the best service he could render the company. After the seizure of all the
muniments of the company, and after Lord Treasurer Middlesex had procured
sentence against the company, Mr. Ferrar informed Sir Edward Sandys and others
of what he had done. These men were greatly rejoiced and advised that the copies
be taken to the Earl of Southampton, who was so overcome that he is said to have
embraced Mr. Ferrar and to have declared that he valued them as an evidence of his
honor more than as evidences of his land. John Ferrar is quoted as having stated
that the Earl of Southampton was advised not to keep these records in his house
and so delivered them to Sir Robert Killigrew, who left them on his death to Sir
Edward Sackville, the Earl of Dorset. Mr. Ferrar continues that the Earl of Dor-
set died in 1652, but he hopes the records are still in the possession of the Earl's
family.[188]

Certain it is that Dr. Peckard had a large collection of manuscripts which
concerned the Virginia Company, some of which must be considered a part of the
records of the company, for such were the Ferrar papers described above which
Dr. Peckard bequeathed to Magdalene College, Cambridge. That some of them, at
least, came from the Earl of Dorset's family is to be concluded from the statement
of Dr. Peckard that the "Duke had had his library searched and found a few loose
papers, which he sent to him."[189] Some of them doubtless belonged to Dr. Peckard's

wife, Martha Ferrar. But the story of the purchase of the two volumes from the
estate of the Duke of Southampton by Colonel William Byrd in 1673 or 1688 for
60 guineas has firm credence through statements of Mr. Byrd himself; and there
is no evidence that they came from the Earl of Dorset's family. That they were
sent to Tichfield by the Earl of Southampton before he sailed for the Netherlands
and there remained until his son's library was sold after his death in 1667 seems
probable. Perhaps some of the other records went to Sir Robert Killigrew, as
stated by John Ferrar, and even some from which these copies were made.

The statement by Woodnoth, who was a nephew of Nicholas Ferrar, that Sir
John Danvers had the transcripts of the records made in order to keep out of
the way an indigent man who had been employed by the company as a copyist
and who might be persuaded to say something ill of Sandys and of Southampton,
does not bear the stamp of truth or even of probability. There may have been a
copy made by Danvers, but the internal evidence reveals that the existing volumes
in the Library of Congress were not transcribed by any one man, and that the
work was accomplished under the personal direction of Nicholas Ferrar.[190]

DESCRIPTION OF THE CONTEMPORARY COPY

The contemporary copies of the court books, which are now in the Library of
Congress and which may well be called the Ferrar copies, consist of two volumes of
large quarto size well bound in rough calf. About 1898 the books were boxed, that
is, repaired with new backs without disturbing the sewing. The old labels were
pasted on the new backs and bear the title in gold letters on red leather: Record / of
the Virgin: / Compan:/, while gold letters on black leather indicate the volume:
Vol. / I. / and Vol. / II. / . In the first volume manila strips are pasted from the
inner cover to the first and to the last fly leaf in order to strengthen the binding.
The paper is of the seventeenth century type, hand-made and uneven in texture. In
the first volume there are three hundred and fifty-four pages, with five fly leaves in
the front and seven in the back, while the second contains three hundred and
eighty-seven pages preceded by three fly leaves and followed by four, with two
extra manila pages in both the front and back. The pencil entries on the first
leaf of the first volume are as follows: " Records of the / Virginia Company / of
London ./ Vol I. April 28, 1619 to May 8, 1622. / Vol 2. May 20, 1622 to June
7, 1627./ The above title in hand of / Mr. A. R. Spofford / Sig.: H. F[rieden wald][191]

Oct. 11 / 97./". On the inside of the front cover of the second volume in an unknown
modern autograph is: "p. 366 cf with p. 71 v 3,"[192] and on the first manila leaf: "May
20, 1622 / to / June 7, 1624."

The discovery of the Ferrar papers has made it possible to make a final state-
ment both as to the method of the transcription of the documents and as to its
accuracy, for the autographs there found of Nicholas Ferrar and also of his
clerk or business agent in his private accounts prove indisputably that these two
men supervised and carried on the copying of the volumes.[193] Particularly in the
second volume, where there are many entries of reports of committees, projects,
objections, letters, petitions, declarations, and relations by the company or by
individuals, the headings, the initial words, even the first line of each document, and
sometimes entire documents are in the autograph of Nicholas Ferrar. The rest
of the insertion is usually by his assistant, who was perhaps Thomas Collett, his
nephew. All of the insertions in the first volume and about twenty in the second
are entirely in the so-called Collett autograph, numbering about the same as those
superintended by the deputy himself. The way in which these insertions are often
crowded in, is evidence that they were copied from the original documents in spaces
left for the purpose by the hired copyist.[194]

As to the identity of the other three or four distinct autographs, in which
the remaining part of the volumes appear, nothing has been determined. The
first and third copyists are distinctly different in style, while what appears as
the writing of a fourth and a sixth clerk may possibly be identical with that of
the first. With the exception of the autograph of Nicholas Ferrar, the whole is
clearly, carefully, and legibly written in the characteristic running hand of the
period, resembling the chancery hand. The spelling, capitalization, and abbrevia-
tions are distinctive and characteristic of each copyist. The use of curved lines
to complete blank spaces at the end of the line, and often at the bottom and top of
the page, shows the labor expended to make the transcript accurate and complete.
The memoranda at the end of the volumes declare that the transcript had been
carefully collated with the original "courte booke" and with the authentic docu-
ments by the secretaries, Edward Waterhouse and Edward Collingwood, in the
first volume, and by Thomas Collett and Edward Collingwood in the second. That
the insertions were copied from the original documents is shown by the statement

in the memorandum of volume II that in two instances the letters had been missing
for purpose of collation. Many pages reveal the corrections of errors or omissions
of the copyist. In most instances this was done by Edward Collingwood himself,
though sometimes by Thomas Collett.[195] At the bottom of each page is the signature
"Conc Collingwood," the abbreviation standing for concordat, as is shown by the
word appearing as "Concord:" on page three hundred and fifteen of the first
volume.[196]

In addition to this internal evidence of accuracy, further proof of the care with
which the books were transcribed is found among the Ferrar papers. The records
of four courts were there discovered, which are almost identical with those of the
same date in the Library of Congress volumes.[197] The only differences, and these
are not numerous, are those which would naturally result from the fallibility of the
copyist, and the apparent custom of the time to ignore the orthography of the
original. One is led to believe that these loose pages of courts form a part of the
book from which the copy was made. This is shown by the use of larger letters to
emphasize certain words, and by Edward Collingwood's corrections of the Library
of Congress copy to make it conform to these drafts. Even the omission of one or
two lines in the Ferrar copy, later corrected, can be accounted for by reference to
these sheets, since in each case it has resulted from the same word occurring in the
same place on two successive lines. Furthermore, the directions in the margin of
these courts as to where certain documents were to be entered were followed in the
transcript and seem to point to these as a part of the original minutes. The
autograph of the court held on June 25 is identical with that of the first copyist
of the transcript, while the courts of July 4 and July 9 were apparently written by
the sixth copyist of the transcript. Among the Ferrar papers are two drafts of a
resolution concerning the "Lo Tr̃er speach touching Mr Alderm. Johnson," which
was entered in the court book. One is a rough draft written, altered, and corrected
by Edward Collingwood, and bearing the above indorsement by the writer and a
similar indorsement by John Ferrar. The other draft is in the autograph of the
sixth copyist of the court book, following the above, and is attested by Edward
Collingwood. The transcript in the court book is identical with the latter, but
the vote is omitted; the substance, however, is given after the discussion follow-

ing the presentation of the resolution. Thus they seem rather to have been drafts
of a resolution which had been presented than of one prepared to be offered.
Comparison between these records of courts and a draft of a Somers Islands court,
in the same collection, leads to the conclusion that they do not form a part of the
blotter or blurred book from which the original book was made, since the latter
are much corrected and altered and then canceled diagonally from corner to corner;[198]
but are rather a part of the original book itself. The reliability of the Library of
Congress transcripts is also confirmed by collating them with the original documents,
or with other copies of the documents, which are inserted in the court book, and these
careful comparisons have shown how accurately Edward Collingwood and his
assistants conducted the work for Nicholas Ferrar.[199]

THE SYSTEM OF KEEPING THE COURT BOOK

The system by which the minutes of the courts were kept is thus outlined in
the minutes; the court book was first drawn up by the secretary, was approved by
the deputy, and later accepted or corrected by the court.[200] That there must have
existed a "Blurr booke" in addition to the various reports or other documents
offered in any court is proved by an extract from a memorandum by Sir Nathaniel
Rich, which is a warrant requiring all records of the court to be brought to the
commissioners on Virginia, and includes the "Court Bookes wch should warrant
the s̃d Records, and the Blurr bookes wch should warrant the Court Booke and
is the first ground of the Records; that it may [be] discouered whether there be
any difference betweene them."[201] The entries in the court book are the minutes
of all the various courts, of several meetings of the Somers Islands Company,
and of one meeting of the committees.

Introducing each court is a list of the adventurers in attendance. A comparison
of the number with the number of votes cast as recorded shows that these are
quite complete for the quarter courts, but in the ordinary courts either the
attendance was very small or the entry was incomplete, since the list is often
terminated with the expression "and divers others." It was sometimes entered
later than the transcript of the body of the text, as though from a book of
attendance, but no mention of a roll book is found among the records. This part
of the book alone furnishes a valuable comment upon the social classes interested
in the undertaking and from it may be gained a knowledge of the faithfulness

of the members and especially of the factions which developed toward the close
of its history.

The order of business does not seem to have been regular. The approval of the
previous court is usually recorded first, although many times this is deferred until
the quarter court; then follows the report of the treasurer, through which the
important matters to be determined are presented to the court, and the hearing of
petitions, passing of shares, and grants of land appear at the end of the session.

In the ordinary courts were propounded all of those matters which did not
require action in the general court and often many measures for preliminary dis-
cussion which were postponed for final action to the fuller court. Thus the records
of the common courts and also of the preparative courts usually contain the full
reports and discussions of the various subjects, while the statements in the quarter
courts are brief and perfunctory, embodying the decisions reached in the lesser
courts. The reports of officers, from which so much concerning the financial status
is to be learned, are entered in the minutes of the general court. To trace the course
of any question necessitates a search through all of the courts, but in the quarter
courts will be found the elections and the final action on all laws and ordinances, on
the patents for private plantations or monopolies, or, in short, on all measures by
which the company would be bound for a term of years.

CONTENTS OF THE COURT BOOK

The business recorded during the first two years of the Sandys administration
concerned the establishment of laws and orders in the company and in the colony,
the systematizing of methods, the formation of joint stock companies for the erection
of new industries in Virginia, and the opening up of new adventures. But after the
massacre early in the year 1622, the whole tone of the book changes. Personal feuds
and quarrels, complaints, and accusations fill the pages. Whether the friction was
due to the extreme distress brought about by the attack of the Indians or whether it
was but the excuse for open opposition by the party of the Crown, which had been
rapidly developing, is difficult to determine. From the spring of 1622 until
February, 1622/3, the burden of the record concerns the tobacco contract with the
Crown. It resulted in the discussion of salaries for the officers and the quarrel
with Samuel Wroth, which occupied the attention of the company for three months.
Then followed the Butler and Johnson accusations, the investigation by the Crown,
and the dissolution of the company. It is literally true that, after June, 1622, no
new measures for trade, for industry, or for commerce are entered in the court book.
There was the usual transferring of shares and hearing of petitions and claims, but
the business activity was evidently destroyed. That the colony could survive the

massacre and continue its development with so little encouragement from the pro-
prietor is evidence of the strong foundation laid during the governorship of Sir
George Yeardley.

From the court book it would be possible to reconstruct a part or the whole
of some of the other records. A list of all of the ships departing or arriving
with the names of the masters could thus be drawn up, but the terms of the
charter party could not be determined.[202] A full statement of the shares of stock
granted or transferred, of the land assigned for adventure or for service, and of the
private plantations erected could be given. Even a partial financial account could
be rendered, though not an itemized statement. The larger sums invested or
received from the various sources are usually given in the treasurer's plans and the
officers' reports, although unfortunately only those of the treasurer and deputy are
entered in full. But from scattered statements in plans, reports, and discussions,
from grants, patents, suits, letters, petitions, and claims will come much that will
illuminate the financial situation when these are gathered together.

The full record of all documents for which record was not provided elsewhere
was made in the court book. Plans, reports of committees, and reports of chief
officers seem to have been entered in full, but letters to and from the colony, and to
and from the privy council, petitions with the action thereupon, charter parties,
grants for monopolies, lists of departing planters, expenditures and receipts of the
magazines, and rolls of adventure, were all recorded in the other books provided by
the "Orders and Constitutions" or in the books created later. A single illustration
will suffice. Of the twenty-seven letters sent to the colony and received from the
colony, copies of many of which have been found among the papers in Virginia, but
fifteen are mentioned in the court book, and only a few are spread in full upon the
minutes. A great many more documents are entered in the court book during the
later years, due evidently to the desire to keep a record of the controversy which
might serve as a defense against the accusations of the malcontents. That many of
these were not entered in the original court book is revealed by the marginal notes
in the extant court minutes of the Ferrar papers, which read as follows: "Enter the
quietus est," "Enter the resolution," and other similar directions.

The court book is not only a source of information, but it also serves as a guide
to the other records of the company. That all of the twenty-one documents men-
tioned but not entered in the court book have been found in other collections is
most important and interesting. These include some of the publications of the
company, most of the correspondence of the company with the King and with the

colony, many of the orders of the Privy Council, the Admiralty suits of the com-
pany, the laws passed in the colony, the charter granted to the colony, and the forms
for patents used by the company. There are thirteen documents entered in the
court book which are on record elsewhere, consisting of declarations or reports which
were published by the company, petitions and letters to the King, and orders of the
King's council. But thirty most valuable documents are spread upon the minutes
which have not yet been discovered among other papers. These include a few peti-
tions to the King, many petitions received by the company, a number of letters from
and to the colony, the propositions brought forward in the attempt to form a tobacco
contract with the King, the plans propounded by the treasurer for the advancement
of the enterprise, and the declarations of the state of the affairs of the company and
of the colony by the same officer.[203]