University of Virginia Library

Note

In my report for 1904 I gave the reasons in favor of the printing by the Library
of this and of similar unpublished manuscript records in its possession. It would
save excessive wear and tear upon the originals; it would enable the texts to be
studied by investigators who can not come to Washington; and it would encourage
that thorough, detailed, and continuing study of them which their value and interest
and a proper understanding of American history require. These reasons apply with
peculiar force to the Records of the Virginia Company, unique in themselves and
unique of their kind, and an additional one, in their case influential; that publication
would make them available to persons who would not master the difficult chirography
of the original.

Their history is fully told in the Introduction by Miss Kingsbury, and their
importance as a document emphasized in the Preface by Professor Osgood. Previous
efforts to secure their publication in extenso had not been successful. The present
one originated in a proposal by Professor Osgood in behalf of the Public Archives
Commission of the American Historical Association to edit them as a contribution
to one of the Annual Reports of the Association; and although the work as issued is
an independent publication of the Library, it has had the benefit of his expert counsel.
It was at his instance also that Miss Kingsbury, then a graduate student in his
department at Columbia, began the undertaking which she has so well accomplished,
and which has consisted (1) in a complete transcript of the text itself; (2) in a close
study not merely of this but of the numerous collateral and subsidiary documents
both here and abroad; (3) in the preparation of the Introduction, Notes, Bibliography,
and Index; and (4) in aid upon the proof. The proof has also, however, been read
word for word with the original text, and revised by the Chief of the Division of
Manuscripts, with the excellent assistance of Miss Minnie V. Stinson of that Division.