 | The records of the Virginia Company of London |  |
Preface
The records, and especially the Court Book, of the Virginia Company of London
have long been regarded as among the most precious manuscript treasures which
have found a lodgment within the United States. Not only is their inherent value
as an historical source very great, as has been explained by the editor in her
introduction, but a sentimental value also attaches to them. This has a twofold
origin. It arises, in the first place, from the fact that they belong at once to the
romantic period of our own beginnings and to the heroic period of England's great
struggle against absolutism. The men who figure in the pages of this record were at
the same time playing their parts, on the one side or the other, in the controversies
which were then beginning with James I, and which were to broaden and deepen
under his son till England was plunged into the agonies of the great civil war. They
were contemporaries, and in not a few cases associates, of Coke and Eliot and
Hampden, of Bacon and Wentworth and Buckingham. The names of Sandys and
the Ferrars stand high on the roll of patriots by which the first generation of the
Stuart period is distinguished. These same men also, together with a long list of
the merchants and nobles of the time, were deeply interested in discovery and
colonization. As successors of Gilbert and Raleigh they were planting a new
England beyond the Atlantic. About this enterprise still clung some of the spirit
and memories of the Elizabethan seamen and their early struggles with Spain.
In the days when Smythe and Sandys were active the prosaic age of English
colonization had not yet begun. The glamour of romance, of the heroic, attaches to
the founding of Virginia and Plymouth, and makes them fit subjects for the poet.
By the time when the other colonies were founded the glow and inspiration had
grown faint or wholly disappeared. In the Records of the Virginia Company some
reflection may be seen of this early zeal, of the plans and ideals to which it gave rise.
Even their pages, cast in a style which is quite unusual in records of this nature,
make one realize that he is in the company of noble and earnest spirits, men who
were conscious that they were engaged in a great enterprise. The Court Book itself,
now that it is printed in full, will be found to be a worthy monument of English
speech, as it was used at the close of the Elizabethan epoch and by contemporaries
of Shakespeare and Bacon.
The fate which probably befell the original of this record, and the unusual steps
which it became necessary to take in order to secure and preserve a copy, were nat-
ural consequences of the struggles of the time, and add still further to the interest of
has been able to establish by the clearest proof the connection of Nicholas Ferrar
with the transcription, and in many other ways she has added definiteness to the
accounts usually given of the origin and preservation of the record as we now possess
it. The transfer of the copy of the Court Book to Virginia and its transmission
from hand to hand till, through the medium of Thomas Jefferson's library, it finally
passed into the possession of Congress fittingly concludes the remarkable history of
the preservation of this manuscript.
The high estimate which has been placed on its value is evidenced not only by the
use that has been made of it by historians, but by the long-continued efforts which have
been made to secure its publication. In 1858 Mr. J. Wingate Thornton, in an article
in the "Historical Magazine," explained the nature of the Court Book, told how it
had been preserved, and insisted upon the importance of its being published. "As
these volumes are of national rather than of local interest," said he, "reaching back
to the very foundation of the English companies for colonizing America; as they have
escaped the chances and mishaps of two centuries, on either side of the Atlantic, ...
and as Providence has now placed them in the keeping of our National Congress,
is it not our national duty to have them appropriately edited and published?" The
following year Mr. Thornton published a pamphlet in Boston, in which he outlined
the history of the manuscript and again raised the question of its publication. But
soon the Civil War came on, and plans of that kind, especially so far as they related
to southern history, had to be postponed.
But in 1868, three years after the close of the war, Mr. Edward D. Neill pre-
sented a memorial to Congress, in which he dwelt on the neglect by historians of
these most valuable manuscripts. He stated that, while preparing his book entitled
"Terra Mariae," he had familiarized himself with the chirography of the records.
He now offered to undertake their editing without compensation, if he might be fur-
nished with two copyists for a limited time and be allowed a small sum for stationery
and contingent expenses. But this offer met with no response, and Mr. Neill was
forced to content himself with the publication of extracts from the manuscript in his
"History of the Virginia Company of London" (Albany, 1869).
In March, 1877, Mr. Robert A. Brock, of the Virginia Historical Society, pub-
lished in the "Richmond Daily Dispatch" a "Plea for the Publication of the Records
of the Virginia Company." In 1881 Senator John W. Johnston, of Virginia, intro-
duced into Congress a bill which was intended to provide for the publication of the
records. This passed the Senate, but failed in the House.
During three successive sessions between the years 1885 and 1888 Dr. J. Franklin
Jameson applied to the Library Committee of Congress for permission to edit and
publish the records without expense to the Government. His plan was to obtain a
sufficient number of subscribers to justify the issue of the volumes by a private firm
and to meet the cost of the sale. Another suggestion which he also made was the
appointment of a commission which should concern itself with the publishing of
Dr. Jameson explained the history and value of the records to the Rhode Island
Historical Society, and his address was reviewed in the "Magazine of American
History" (vol. 21, January–June, 1889, p. 82).
But meantime some progress had been made with the actual printing of the Court
Book. Mr. Conway Robinson had made copious extracts from it, especially of the
documentary material which is contained in the second volume. His extracts the
Virginia Historical Society published in 1889, under the editorship of Mr. R. A. Brock.
Until the present time this edition, in two volumes, has served the purpose of most
students. But the requirements of historical study in this country have now reached
a point where more complete and critical editions of the sources are needed than have
been common in the past. If this need was to be met, it became at once apparent
that no body of records was better adapted for a beginning than those which related
to the Virginia Company of London. In date and subject matter they stand at the
very threshold of American history. In character they form a distinct and unique
group of material. By the issue of a definitive edition of these records the demand
which scholars have so long made for their publication would be met and satisfied.
It was under the influence of considerations like these that the present work was
undertaken.
In the preparation of this body of records for the press critical accuracy and
helpfulness have been sought in all possible ways. The spelling of the original has
been carefully preserved throughout, for in editing a source of this character and
importance any attempt to modernize the text would be properly regarded as unjusti-
fiable. Not only has the spelling been preserved, but also the signs and abbrevia-
tions which abound, the use of which the men of the period had inherited from still
earlier times. So far as such a thing is possible in print, the text is exactly repro-
duced in these volumes, while an added element of reality is supplied by the photo-
graphs of specimen pages of the original manuscript.
Brief notes have been added where it was necessary to explain or call attention
to obscurities, omissions, or other irregularities in the text, the purpose being to
enable the reader to gain information of this kind from the printed page with the
same certainty as if he were using the manuscript. In the notes, cross references
have also been given to the documents of the company and to its publications, when
they have been found to reproduce, or to illustrate and make more definite, the state-
ments which are contained in the Court Book. In citations of this kind the number
of each document is given as it appears in the List of Records in the Introduction.
In this way the unity of the records of the company as a whole receives illustration,
and the investigator will be aided in any effort which he may make to learn all which
they have to reveal in reference to any subject. Finally, the index completes the
invaluable service which Miss Kingsbury has rendered in the editorship of the work.
Columbia University
| The records of the Virginia Company of London | |