University of Virginia Library

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]