University of Virginia Library

1. The Character of the Company

The individual effort which had revealed itself at the close of the medieval
period in other phases of the economic development and in the military history of
the past quarter century was especially prominent in the movement in 1606 for a
society of adventurers to trade in Virginia. The commercial advance had been
due chiefly to private enterprise, and the naval expeditions into the West Indies
against the Spanish had been fitted out and prosecuted by such adventurous spirits as
Sir Francis Drake, while the zeal for exploration and for gold, which inspired John
and Sebastian Cabot to search for a passage to Cathay and the East Indies in 1497,
led Sir Humphrey Gilbert and Sir Walter Raleigh a century later to seek out the
resources of the lands from Florida to Newfoundland. It is the same spirit of
adventure which inspired the narratives of John Smith and Henry Spelman as
they told of their relations with the Indians of America. But it is in the progress
of both the commercial and the political life of England that the Virginia Company
is important. For the plantation founded and nourished by a private concern as an
enterprise purely for gain was the social cause from which developed the colony
as a form of government. Its political organization is seen in its relations to the
Crown, of which there were two distinct phases. During the first three years it
was distinctly a creature of the King, the affairs of which were conducted by the
King through a council created by himself and responsible to himself, while to the
investors were left the privileges of raising the funds, furnishing the supplies, and
sending out the expeditions. It was a modification of this form of management to
which the government reverted after the dissolution of the Company in 1624, and
again at the end of the century when royal colonies were substituted for proprietary
and corporate forms throughout America. In the second phase the undertakers
became distinctly proprietary, retaining the commercial responsibilities, but assum-
ing governmental functions in place of the King.

A comparison between the royal grants for discovery in the sixteenth century
and those of the Virginia Company shows that there was an increase in the
direct territorial relations between King and subject, a limitation upon monopoly

of trade, and a tendency on the part of the Crown to retain directly or indirectly
the powers of government. Thus, in the letters patent to Richard Warde, Thomas
Ashehurst, and associates in 1501,[1] to Sir Humphrey Gilbert in 1578, and to Sir
Walter Raleigh in 1584,[2] the Crown conferred proprietorship of land with the
right to grant it out in fee simple at will. But in 1606 the land was held by the
undertakers, and again in 1609 by the adventurers and planters in free and common
socage, as of the manor of Greenwich of the county of Kent. Under the first Vir-
ginia charter it was granted by the King to those approved by the council; under
the second, by the members of the company to anyone who should have adventured
a certain sum of money or his person. The fief, distinctly so called in the early
charters, for which homage was to be rendered, with no service, however, save that
of one-fifth of the gold and silver gained, had disappeared; and the only direct feudal
relation with the King which remained arose from the requirement of a per cent of the
precious metals. The monopoly of trade by which Warde, Gilbert, and Raleigh were
allowed to seize and detain any one who trafficked within two hundred leagues of a set-
tlement was altered in 1606 so that the planters had only the right of collecting a
tax from such interlopers. The rights of government which had been surrendered
absolutely to the grantees in the sixteenth century charters were reserved to the
King by the letters patent of 1606 to be exercised through the council. In 1609
these powers were conferred on the company as an open body, it must be remem-
bered, and thus differed from the earlier grants and from the later proprietary grants
to Lord Baltimore or to William Penn.

Although the charter emphasizes the government of the plantation, the Virginia
Company was purely a commercial enterprise conducted by a private concern, even
before the charter of 1609, as is shown by the history of its early years. It was
backed by the patronage of the King, but only for the purpose of advancing the trade
of the Kingdom in foreign parts and saving the Crown from expense and responsi-
bility, as had been the policy in regard to the other trading companies. Nevertheless,
it was a step toward colonial expansion, for, as has well been said, "the explorer is
potentially a colonizer," and the army of laborers on the plantation became in time
an army of free tenants in a colony.[3] While in the spirit of its commercial life the
company was closely allied to the efforts for exploration and search for gold, morally
supported by Elizabeth in her feudal grants, in its organization, as well as in its pur-
pose, it resembled the private companies for trade based on ancient charters, and in its
development is to be understood only through a knowledge of both of these earlier
movements.

Thus in order to protect trade, but not for exploration and settlement, the ancient
charters granted to the Merchant Adventurers in 1407 and 1462, and particularly the
one of 1564, incorporated that company into a "Body Politick." The words of the
grant declared its purpose to be "for the good Government, Rule and Order of
the * * * Fellowship of Merchants Adventurers * * *. As also of all and
every other of the subject of our heirs * * * using the seate of Trade of the
said Merchants Adventurers * * *."[4] This was also the object expressed in
the charter to the East India Company,[5] although it contained an additional provi-
sion for the acquisition of lands by purchase. Monopoly of trade and powers of
government over factors, masters, or others in the employ of the company were
conferred, but the exemption from customs was to continue for only four years, and
the only settlements provided for were to have the form of factories. It had been
established as a regulated company, that is, one in which each individual invested his
own capital subject to the rules of the company; but in 1612 by increasing the
importance of the directors and investing sums for a limited period it became a
joint stock company.[6]

As a prototype of the companies later incorporated both for discovery and
trade, such as the Virginia Company, the Muscovy or Russian Company, known as
the "Merchant Adventurers of England for the discoveries of lands and territories
unknown," was established in 1555 with a joint stock of £6,000. Sebastian Cabot
was appointed governor for life and with him was associated a board of directors of
4 consuls and 24 assistants. However, this company had also the rights of the compa-
nies for exploration—that is, those of conquest, of acquiring lands, and of seizing the
ships of any who should infringe on their monopoly of trade.[7] In 1583 a committee
from the Muscovy merchants drew up a set of resolutions concerning a conference
with M. Carlile upon his "intended discoverie and attempt into the hithermost parts
of America,"[8] which was not dissimilar to the plan of Sir Walter Raleigh, and hence
foreshadowed companies of the seventeenth century. It proposed to send forth
100 men for one year, providing £4,000 for the adventure, in order to gain a
"knowledge of the particular estate of the country and gather what commodity

may hereafter be looked for." Also, like the Virginia Company, it provided for a
joint stock consisting of two groups, one of "adventurers" and one of "enterprisers,"
each to have one-half of the lands which should be divided among the members by
the generality, but all trade was to belong to the adventurers and the corporation was
to be closed after the first adventure. The scheme differed from the sixteenth century
enterprises, which were especially intended for exploration, in that no question of
government was considered, but it conformed to the ideas of Gilbert and Raleigh
and of the trading companies, in that its rights over trade were to be purely
monopolistic.

Apparently this plan of the Muscovy Company stands as a connecting link
between the ideas of the explorer and those of the trader and the planter, a plan which
may be said to have been carried out by the Virginia Company. It is significant that
many of the members of the Virginia Company were men who had taken part in the
expeditions of the late sixteenth century and had been interested in certain private
voyages of exploration carried on during the five years preceding the receipt of its
first charter, while most of the leaders of this company were at the same time stock-
holders and even officers in the Muscovy Company, the Company of Merchant
Adventurers, the East India Company, and later of the Turkey, the Guinea, and
the African companies.

It is unnecessary to cite the charters of other companies or to search the history
of the trading corporations of the sixteenth century in order to show that the Virginia
Company was similar in character. But, like the Muscovy Company and the East
India Company, it was established to carry on trade in new and uninhabited lands,
and hence had the additional features of a company whose purpose was exploration
and plantation. The latter characteristic appears more especially in the charter, the
former in the instructions and correspondence of the entire period of its life. The
object of its first undertakers was doubtless to search for minerals and for a route to
the southwest, and to secure for trade the materials which were native and peculiar
to those regions. The plantation was a necessity for this purpose, and incidentally,
because of the character of the country, it was forced to become a colony. To estab-
lish a settlement which should become a market for English goods, to advance the
shipping, to spread the religion of the Kingdom were doubtless motives which
aroused sympathy for the undertaking; but the arguments which brought investment
were the opportunities for gain.

The position of the Virginia Company in the development of English exploration
and trade was therefore important, and the study of its history is of value not only
for the light which it throws on Virginia itself but for an understanding of the
economic condition of England as well. Nor is this all. The few private records
which remain of the Merchant Adventurers Company and those of the East India

Company correspond so closely in form and in subject-matter to the court book of
the Virginia Company that the similarity in form of organization and methods of
conducting business is established. The fact that the private records, the books
from which the knowledge of the actual financial transactions could be obtained,
are missing in most cases, may prove that their loss in the case of the early Virginia
Company is not due to intentional destruction, but to the general opinion of the
period that such material was valueless.

The only other enterprise of which there is sufficient material for anything like an
exhaustive study is the East India Company, and hence its records combine with
those of the Virginia Company to supply a source of information concerning all of
these companies. The conclusion seems valid, therefore, that the great mass of min-
utes, orders, instructions, letters, and memoranda of the company for Virginia will
aid in the interpretation of the comparatively few records of the earlier associations.
The records of this company are necessary to enable one to comprehend the life
of the other companies, as is its history to the understanding of their development.

It was during the life of the company that the plantation gradually assumed the
aspects of a colony, that the settlement which was originally planned for exploration
and the discovery of gold became a center for the development of the natural and
agricultural resources of the surrounding country. The origin within the colony
of the assembly, of local government, of private ownership of land, and of freedom
of trade is to be found before the dissolution of the company by the Crown. There-
fore the records of the company, as well as those of the colony, form the material
through which the history of the beginnings of English colonies, viewed from the
standpoint of the colonist, is to be gained.

Their value for the comprehension of the development of political institutions
in England is not so patent. The growing correspondence between the Crown and
the company and the interference in the acts of the company stand as evidence of
the gradual increase of the interest of the Crown or its council in the undertaking.
This interest was most apparent when the tobacco trade promised a revenue to the
Crown, but the encouragement of the growth of other staple products, the spasmodic
revival of acts touching English shipping and the balance of trade, and the main-
tenance of staple ports in England are all new activities appearing in the records of
the company. Throughout, also, is apparent the readiness to allow the already
uncertain economic policy to be altered or nullified by the political relations with Spain, or because of moral or whimsical views.

The gradual definition of policy on the part of the Stuarts, perhaps first apparent
under Charles I, is closely connected with the leaders of the Virginia Company. The
opinions expressed in the courts of the company by the adherents both of the Puritan
party and of the party of the Crown, the correspondence between the Privy Council

and the company, the letters and memoranda concerning the company and its policy,
and the story of the formation of the Sandys and the Warwick factions, resulting in
the dissolution of the company, furnish evidence of the gradual development of the
despotic attitude of the Stuarts, especially in their reach for revenue and in their
repression of the principles of freedom. The appointment of the commissions to
investigate the affairs of the company and the condition of the colony, the creation
of a commission for the control of the colony after the overthrow of the charter, the
later appointment of a committee of the Privy Council for the same purpose are all
steps in the growth of a colonial system and of a colonial policy. Although the
maturity of this system and policy is not reached until after the Commonwealth, the
influence of the associates of James I and of Charles I is apparent.

Every phase of colonial development, from the mixed system which existed
under the patent of 1606 to the chartered proprietary company after 1609 and the
royal province after 1624, is here illustrated. The transition from the chartered
to the Royal Government in 1624, the prelude to "the most important transition in
American history previous to the colonial revolt," is only to be understood from
these records, since the tendency to self-government in the colony is one of the
pretended reasons for the overthrow of the company. All the steps of the change
are to be traced in the royal correspondence, in the memoranda of the royal party,
and in the record of the suit under the writ of quo warranto. The significance of
such material is best understood from the fact that "the constitutional law and
practice of the old colonial system has not yet been attempted to be known," and
as yet no book has been written concerning the forms or functions of the British
Government as employed in colonial administration.

2. The Records of the Company under Sir
Thomas Smythe

The Organization of the Company as in 1606

In the year preceding the grant of a charter to the Virginia Company there had
been movements along two lines for establishing plantations in Virginia, one by
private investment and the other by royal patronage. Examples of the private
interests are the enterprise of the Earl of Southampton in 1605 and that of Lord
Zouch as set forth in his contract[9] with Captain George Waymouth of October 30,
1605. In this Lord Zouch agreed to secure and provide two ships and 200 men of
"arts suitable for a colony," and to pay £100 to Captain Waymouth for the trans-
portation of the same. The interesting feature is the agreement, suggestive of
feudal relations, that Lord Zouch should be the first officer and have the first choice
of land, while Captain Waymouth as second officer should have second choice of
land, which he was to hold from the former as lord paramount for himself, his
heirs and assigns. At the same time Sir John Popham was busily engaged in the
attempt to form royal colonies by obtaining charters from the Crown, whereby the
territory from 34° to 45° north latitude should be taken under the protection of
the King, and private settlements should thus be excluded.

The plan which obtained followed neither course, though it was bound to result
in a modification of Popham's scheme. The motives of the grantees and the
arguments which induced the King in 1606 to abandon the policy of Elizabeth and to
give royal patronage to the undertaking, and even to assume royal control, are set
forth in a petition presented to Parliament in 1606, entitled "Reasons for raising a
publique stocke to be imploied in the discovering of such countries as may be found
most convenient * * * ."[10] It is evident, however, that the unknown plan of
investment in the adventure of 1606 is not here suggested, since there was no intima-
tion of financial support by the King. The stock was apparently to be raised by a
tax "Upon the emoderate gaines of those that contrary to lawe abuse the poore." and
was not in any way to be "raised upon the sweat of the poore or the industrie of the

husbandmen, Artificer, or tradisman," but in such a way that nothing should "be
demanded from anie man without presente assurance of gaine and hope of future profit
* * * but in such sorte that the payer shall for every ijd paied gaine iiijd." To the
Kingdom and to the Crown were to redound the greatest gain. Ten thousand pounds
a year were to be added to His Majesty's receipts by an increase of many thousand
pounds in the imposts and customs; and furthermore it "would savior too much of
affectacon of a popular State to levie monies without imparting some convenient
portion to his Majestie." But the value to shipping was emphasized perhaps more
vigorously as developing a defence to the island, as furnishing a source for the
necessities for ships—cordage, pitch, tar, and resin—and as protecting the shipping
from decay. The desirability of a revival of the declining export trade, as well as that
of establishing the importation of necessities from a part of the dominions, though
distant, was urged, together with the importance of strengthening by settlement
those countries already acquired by discovery. That such undertakings by private
enterprise had been failures; that it was more honorable for the State to back an
exploitation by public consent than by private monopoly; that public colonies were
bound to be more obedient and industrious because of the greater confidence in the
character of the control, were all reasons which had long before been set forth
whereby to gain the support of the Crown.

Charter of 1606.

The royal aid as finally obtained for a colonial enterprise came in a somewhat
different form. The letters patent to Sir Thomas Gates and others for plantations
to be made in Virginia[11] show that the investment was made solely by individuals,
and that the joint stock was not public, although in the regulation of affairs in
the colony the body of undertakers was to have little influence, even as far as its
commercial interests in the plantation were concerned. The business management
was left to the joint stock companies, and the magazine was controlled by a treasurer
or cape merchant and by two clerks elected by the President and Council in the
Colony. In fact, the only activity of the adventurers, so far as it is revealed in
the extant documents, consisted in the choice in London of one or more groups of
agents, called "companies," to manage the goods sent out and received and to
look after the profits.[12] The undertakers were to have all lands with their resources

which lay within 50 miles of the plantation in any direction, together with the
islands within 100 miles of the coast, and were privileged to inhabit and fortify
the same according as the council for Virginia should direct. The right freely to
transport subjects was granted the investors, while they were permitted customs
free for seven years to export armor, provisions, and all necessities of life for the
colonists. They could impose upon any subjects of the Crown, who were not
adventurers, trafficking in those regions, a tax of 2½ per cent of the articles
concerned, and upon foreigners twice that amount, and thus maintain a control of
the trade for twenty-one years.

But the government of the colonies and of the territory of Virginia was
reserved to the Crown through the council of thirteen for Virginia, which was to be
appointed by the King and to reside in England. Instructions[13] were issued and
signed by the royal hand, which outlined the form of administering affairs in the
settlement and created a council of thirteen in the colony. They conferred upon it
the right to coin money and to pass ordinances which should be valid till altered by
the Crown, provided that they should be consonant with the laws of England. This
council in Virginia was to choose its own president for one year. It could remove
him or any member for just cause and fill the vacancies. All civil causes and all
lesser criminal cases were to be decided by the president and council, the former
having two votes in case of a tie. Cases of manslaughter and the more heinous
crimes were to be tried before a jury and were punishable with death. To the
president and council was reserved the right of pardon.

The council in England nominated to the Crown the persons to whom lands
were to be granted by the King. It had, in fact, the supervision of affairs,
appointed the first council in Virginia, issued orders for the conduct of the first
expedition under Captain Newport,[14] and provided a paper of advice[15] as to the
establishment of a fort and of a town.

It is in this latter document that the first indication of the real motive of
the undertaking is found. The orders laid down were to "make choice" of
the river "which bendeth most toward the North-West, for that way you shall
soonest find the other sea," while the choice of a healthy location, wise inter-
course with the natives, and the fortification and preparation of a single settle-
ment were emphasized. The chief objects, however, were to plant in a place

which should be fitted "to receive the trade of all the countries about," to dis-
cover minerals, and to find the passage to the western sea.

The loss of the records, both of the council and of the "companies" for trade,
covering this period, leaves, as the only source of information, both for affairs in
England and in Virginia, the narratives of the early settlers. Of these the most
important are the reports of Captain Newport, and the relations of John Smith, of
Edward Maria Wingfield, and of George Percy.[16] The council had dispatched three
expeditions, all under Captain Newport; one in December, 1606, in three ships
with 120 emigrants; another in October, 1607, with two vessels and about the same
number of passengers; and a third in August of 1608 with about 70 emigrants.

The reports of Newport, Percy, Wingfield, and Smith encouraged the managers
of the enterprise to continue their efforts, but proved that a change in object as well
as in policy would be necessary. From Newport came descriptions of the fruitful-
ness of the soil, of the quantities of fish and of timber, and of clay for making brick,
and enumerations of the possible exports, comprising sturgeon, clapboard, wainscot,
saxafrage, tobacco, dyes, furs, pitch, resin, turpentine, oils, wines, wood and soap
ashes, iron, copper, pearls; but the reports as to the mines were vague. He
declared that the country was rich in gold and copper, and took home with him earth
to be assayed, while Smith, in A True Relation, states that he had been left to dig a
rock which Captain Newport thought was a mine, but no mention of results is made.

The full description of the country by Newport and also by Captain John Smith
gave the council a clear idea of its geography, as is indicated by the instructions to
Sir Thomas Gates in 1609. But the expedition, which penetrated to a distance of 160
miles up the river, brought the explorers to hostile tribes and left the council still
uncertain, though hopeful of the discovery of a passage to the south sea. Further-
more, Captain Newport positively stated that there could be no commerce with the
Indians, and all evidence shows that the natives were to be a resource for the neces-
sities of life rather than for the exchange of lucrative objects of trade. Hence it is
that the broadside which was issued by the company in 1609,[17] as an incident of its

attempt to secure capital for the undertaking in its new form, emphasized the rich-
ness of the soil and the resources of the country—which in later years would yield
abundant return—the value of the settlement as a market for English cloths, and the
advantage to shipping and shipbuilding which would come from colonization.

But the effort to develop the resources of the country and to found a settlement
for such purposes rather than for exploration required larger investments and more
men. Then, too, the regulation of the affairs of the colony without any control
from the council in England meant continued jealousies and quarrels among such a
small number of colonists and under such unsettled conditions. According to
Wingfield the provisions for defense seem to have been insufficient, the magazine
was mismanaged, and the relations with the Indians were strained. To John Smith
must be attributed the wisdom of foreseeing the necessity of strong support from
England and of the establishment of permanent colonial settlements and the develop-
ment of the country for self-support.[18]

The Change in Character from 1606 to 1609

The fact that the source of authority before 1609 was in the Crown is
nowhere so clearly evidenced as in the records themselves. The fundamental
documents emanated from the King and his Council or from the council for
Virginia representing the royal authority, all instructions to officers bore the
sign manual and all letters and reports from Captain Newport, from Edward-
Maria Wingfield, and from his associates were addressed to the council for Virginia.
Furthermore, the president and council appeared in the name of the Crown as the
plaintiffs in a suit by which an attempt was made to enforce the contract with the
master of the "Guift of God" for supplying provisions to the passengers in a
voyage to North Virginia.[19] The direct relations of the planters to the Crown are
similarly emphasized by two heretofore unpublished documents, which are in the
Library of Congress, consisting of the oaths administered to the colonists and
to the secretary of the colony.[20]

The commercial status of the undertaking is more difficult to determine than the
political. That the company was organized for the purpose of exploration and trade
has been proved, but whether the control of trade was vested in the council or in
companies or groups of undertakers is uncertain. The exact relation of the council
to the plantation and of the Crown to the enterprise must have been stated in the

court book, in which were kept the records of the acts of the council and
perhaps of the companies for the administration of trade. This book, covering
the period from the 28th of January, 1606, to the 14th of February, 1615, was in
the possession of the company as late as 1623, but unfortunately no trace of the
book has yet been discovered and even its existence has heretofore been unknown.[21]

Whatever may have been the source of control, the narrations of Captain
Percy, Edward-Maria Wingfield, and Captain Newport indicate that the business of
the company consisted chiefly in raising funds and equipping expeditions to be sent
to Virginia under Captain Newport. This failure of the investment to bring in
returns of gold and silver and of articles for trade, or to accomplish anything in
the way of discovery of trade routes to the East Indies during the first three years,
served to convince both King and undertakers that a change in method of control
was essential. The document known as "Reasons against publishing the Kings
title to Virginia. A justification for planting Virginia"[22] seems to show an agitation
among the investors arising from fear lest the desire to placate Spain, or religious
considerations, might lead the Crown to abandon the scheme. The arguments there
adduced may well explain the readiness of the King to surrender not only the com-
mercial and territorial control but also full rights of government to the corporate
body of the Virginia company, and thus to avoid any rupture with Spain. Certain
it is that the desire for more direct authority and for securing larger investments
were the motives of the petitioners in asking for a new charter.

As a result of this movement the letters patent of 1609 were issued, transform-
ing the undertakers into a body politic. In this case also the documents are
especially characteristic of the organization. Whereas the Crown was formerly the
source of all power, beginning with 1609 the council of the company, acting as a
standing committee for the adventurers rather than in the name of the King,
exercised the controlling authority. After the charter of 1612 had provided for
more frequent meetings of the generality, the council was gradually superseded by
special committees and the tendency arose to decide all matters of importance in
the general quarter courts and to insist upon all communications being addressed
to the company rather than to the council. The act of incorporation erected a
commercial company and made it the overlord of a proprietary province. It at
once strengthened its plantation as a center for traffic and established a system for
joint management of land and trade to extend over a period of seven years, prom-

ising dividends to the adventurer and support to the planter. The records of the
corporation reveal as clearly as do its broadsides and pamphlets that it was a business
venture. These records may be grouped into seven classes.[23]

The Classes of Records

I.

• The fundamental documents of the company were those by virtue of which
  it had its legal formation, and consisted of the letters patent, charters, and orders
  in council issued by the King and Privy Council.

II.

• The activity of the adventurers was recorded in the court books, which com-
  prised the minutes of the transactions of the company. In those books were kept
  the discussions and decisions with regard to the plantation, the granting of land,
  and all financial policies and plans for developing the enterprise and increasing the
  income.

III.

• In carrying on its business the company gave commissions to the governors
  of the colony, issued regulations for the settlers, and, from time to time, sent
  instructions to the governor and council of the colony. It also granted lands and
  patents, entered into contracts, issued receipts, made pleas in court, and kept
  statements of accounts.

IV.

• From the colony itself came reports, declarations, letters, and complaints.
  They were an essential part of the records of the company and often determined its
  course of action.

V.

• To the public, for the purpose of inspiring confidence, securing adventurers,
  and maintaining the interest and support of its members, as well as of defending
  itself against the accusations of its enemies, the company issued advertisements,
  broadsides of its shipping investments, declarations, pamphlets, and sermons.

VI.

• A large part of the information which came to the company was derived
  from private correspondence between members of the company and individual plant-
  ers. Furthermore, there was a gradual tendency to permit individuals or groups of
  individuals of the company to form stock companies for trade or plantation, and
  records of these transactions formed a valuable supplement to those of the company
  itself.

VII.

• To the student of history another group of supplementary material is of
  great value. It comes from the records of contemporary companies, corporations,
  and towns, as well as from the correspondence of officers of state or of other persons
  who were not directly concerned in the transactions of the Virginia Company.

All of these records of the company for the period previous to 1616, so far as
they were known to him, were collected and reprinted in full or cited, if already
available in America, by Alexander Brown, in the year 1890.[24]

I.—FUNDAMENTAL DOCUMENTS

As far as appears from the evidence of the extant documents, when by the
charters of 1609 and 1612, James I surrendered to the company full rights of trade, as
well as territorial and governmental rights in Virginia he apparently lost all interest
and part in the undertaking, and it was only when the plantation had developed into
the colony, and when at the expiration of the privileges of free importation in 1619,
the business of the corporation had become so good as to offer a prospect of revenue
that the King in his council began to interfere in the affairs of the company.[25] In
1613, under the administration of Sir Thomas Smythe, the adventurers were com-
pelled to appeal to the Crown because of the complications with France which arose
from the expedition of Sir Samuel Argall along the northern coasts of America,[26]
while a similar relation was brought about by the controversy with Spain with regard
to the attack on Spanish vessels by the ship Treasurer in 1619.[27] In both instances
the protection desired was granted. When the financial stringency forced the adven-
turers to great efforts in 1614, and they appealed unsuccessfully to Parliament for
aid, the Privy Council attempted to arouse confidence in the undertaking throughout
the country. It passed orders urging the city companies of London to invest sums
in the Virginia lottery, and in the following year it addressed similar orders to the
"Several Cityes and Townes of the Kingdome,"[28] with special letters to the lieu-
tenants of County Surrey.[29]

But the aid thus secured was not such as to draw upon the resources of the Crown,
and the attempt of members of the company to gain a monopoly of the tobacco trade
in 1616 met with the same opposition as had similar efforts on the part of the
merchant adventurers in previous years. On the other hand the company was com-

pelled against its will to submit to the treatment of its plantation as a penal colony
by James I in his spasmodic efforts to develop a policy which should save England
from an overpopulation of vagabonds.[30]

With the exception of these unimportant relations with the Crown, the company
seems to have conducted its business independently of royal aid or interference dur-
ing the first decade of its existence as a corporate body.

II.—THE COURT BOOK

It is therefore in the court book of the company and in its instructions, corre-
spondence, and other records suggested under the preceding classifications II and III,
that its activity and methods must be found. That court books were kept under
the administration of Sir Thomas Smythe is known from the receipt in the Ferrar
papers, already referred to. The first book extended from January 28, 1606, to
February 14, 1615, and with it were "other perticuler writings belonging to the
company." The second included the period between January 31, 1615, and July 28,
1619. What these books contained can only be surmised from the scope of the two
later volumes, dated April 28, 1619, to May 22, 1622, and May 20, 1622, to April
2, 1623, the contemporary copies of which are now extant and in the Library of
Congress, at Washington.[31] The contents of the "other perticuler writings," none
of which are now known to be extant, are suggested by a memorandum of Sir
Nathaniel Rich in a document among the Manchester papers. In attempting to
prove the good done during Sir Thomas Smythe's administration Rich cites certain
records as authority. The first one mentioned was a "booke of perticulers" con-
taining the "Public workes: done in Sr T. Smithes tyme", and showing "the
plenty of Armes &c left in Sr Th. Smithes tyme"; the second was a "p̱ticular
already deliuered to the Comrs." in which appeared the "Staple Com̃odityes raysed
in Sr T. Smithes tyme"; while the third formed a "collec̃ of the publiq̢ workes
made by Sr Sa. Argall wch he [comenset]" and was entitled "The p̱ticulars of
the Boates". Rich mentions two documents contained in this volume. He states

that pages "11, 12, 13, 14, 15, &c.," contain the "League of the Natiues," and
that on pages 51 to 59 was "Sir T. Dales ɫre." In his notes for discussion Rich also
refers to "The Courte Bookes," and further declares that "Wrott remembers 4
warrants" by which lotteries were erected under the hands of the "Counsell of
Virginia". In connection with the lottery he cites "th' Accompts" of Gabnell and
declares that "He kept Tables".[32] Thus the discovery by the Editor of these two
documents in these two similar collections belonging to the hostile factions has proved
that the company possessed record books; but a knowledge of their contents must be
gained from other sources.

To supply the loss of these documents of the company, both during the control
of the council and after that control had passed into the hands of the company by
virtue of the charter of 1612, there is a considerable mass of material, which affords
a fair outline of the transactions of the company and the life of the colony. But
much of this information is lacking in the completeness and authenticity which
would have been supplied by the court book and the other records. The greatest
loss is perhaps that of definite knowledge concerning the financial status of the
company. The sums adventured by individuals and corporations is preserved in
two alphabetical lists; but, so far as is known, only one of these lists is official, and
that includes the names of the particular adventure about the year 1610.[33] The other
is an unpublished list apparently both incomplete and unofficial, and was probably
made somewhat later than 1618 at the order of the court,[34] although the date 1618
has been assigned to it in the Manchester papers, where it is to be found.[35] From
the records of the various London companies and from records of English towns,
as also from adventures sealed to individuals by the Virginia Company, comes the
most authentic information concerning the large sums invested during this decade.
In a similar way the knowledge, otherwise to be found in the court book and "The
p̱ticulers of the Boates," concerning the ships dispatched and the sums expended for
the equipment of planters, individuals, and companies, is scattering and indefinite.
The broadsides issued are calls for adventurers, planters, and colonists, with the
requirements or statements concerning the lottery schemes; but they do not furnish
the wide information which is found in those of the later period. So far as revenue
is concerned, there was probably little except that which came from new adventurers

and the lotteries, but we have no way of knowing even that resource, while our
knowledge of the income from tobacco and commodities brought from Virginia is
derived from three or four scattering receipts only, found mostly among the papers
of the Earl of De La Warr and of Lord Sackville.[36]

Even our knowledge as to the economic condition of the colony is most
indefinite and comes only from printed pamphlets issued by the company. Judging
from the sources of information in the later period, this uncertainty is due to the
disappearance of the letters themselves, since, after 1619, the published relations of
individual planters, the declarations by the company, and even the records of the
court books are all more general in character than the letters which were sent from
the colony to the company. Furthermore, in the later period the daily acts of the
colonists and their needs, as reported from time to time by returning ships, afforded
the adventurers a body of information concerning the social condition of the colony
which in form and accuracy left little to be desired. After the time of Captain John
Smith not much was accurately known of the colony until the year 1617, when
Captain John Rolfe and Ralph Hamor supplied statistics as to the numbers, condi-
tion, settlements, and resources of the colony as it then was.

The individual enterprises of this decade in the life of the company are
altogether unknown, except from a few contracts for shipping found here and
there. Such movements must at least have been noted in the court book. Of the
first "hundred," established in 1618, nothing is recorded except the single report,
heretofore unknown,[37] of a meeting of the committee for Smythes Hundred. But
the greatest loss which we suffer through the disappearance of the court book is
that of material which should throw light on the aims, motives, and unsuccessful
efforts of the company and on the struggles and difficulties through which it passed.
For example, there is a single reference to an attempt to found a college, but no infor-
mation whatever on the subject. The factions which developed and which resulted
finally in the dissolution of the company evidently existed in this period, for a letter
from Chamberlain to Carleton, dated May 8, 1619,[38] in which he speaks of the failure
to reelect Sir Thomas Smythe as treasurer of the Virginia Company as having
been "somewhat bettered at a later meeting of the Summers Island Company by his
choice as treasurer of that company," proves that the change was due to factional
differences, although the extant court books open with the refusal of Sir Thomas
Smythe to continue as treasurer. Similarly, the choice of officers for the company,
the votes received by each candidate, the appointments to positions in the colony,

the petitions to the company and its action thereupon, and numerous other acts,
revealing the relations and attitude of the individual members, are all unknown.[39]

III.—DOCUMENTS ISSUED BY THE COMPANY

Of the official documents issued by the company during the decade from 1609 to
1619 the most important have been unknown up to this time. They include the
first instructions ever given to a governor of a colony by an English administrative
body, and the records of the first suits entered by the company in chancery for the
purpose of enforcing the payments of sums adventured in the company and of
securing a part of the income from the lottery, which the company claimed had been
withheld by the agent, William Leveson.[40]

The knowledge which the administrators of the affairs of the company had
gained from the early settlers, and their grasp of the necessities for exploration, for trade, and for the conduct of affairs in the plantation, has hitherto been a matter of
surmise based on the relations of the planters. From the "Instrucc̃ons, orders,
and constituc̃ons to Sir Thomas Gates,"[41] in May, 1609, and a similar document
given to "Sir Thos. West Knight Lo:Lawarr"[42] in 1609 or 1610 comes a revelation
of the motives of the adventurers, as well as of the policy adopted and of the
methods outlined for the prosecution of their efforts. These instructions to Gates
and De La Warr afforded the authority for the termination of the previous govern-
ment in Virginia, the stated ideas of the company as to locations for settlements,
forts, and magazines, and concerning journeys inland. It also included an interesting
reference to Raleigh's colonists. The general policy in administering the affairs of
the colonists and the detailed orders as to the relations with the Indians, as far as
they concern guards, trade, and treaties, and the daily life of the inhabitants, indicate
a definiteness in the control of the company which formerly was not understood.
In such a revelation of the knowledge of the country and of the natives there is a

basis for belief that the affairs of the company were managed and its records were
kept in a systematic and businesslike way.[43]

The company had become convinced that the policy of John Smith was a wise
one, and hence it ordered that a number of plantations should be settled and that
efforts should be immediately directed to building healthful and sufficient houses and
to planting widely enough for the self-support of the community. Here was the
germ which was to develop into the colony, but the plan was as yet by no means
so far-reaching. A common store, a common magazine, common refectories, labor
by groups with a superintendent for each five or six persons, the prohibition of
trade with the Indians except through the truck merchant were economic methods
which looked to the gain of the adventurer in London rather than to the develop-
ment of a colonial settlement. When the settlers had become self-supporting and
capable of defense, then measures were to be taken to provide returns, so "that our
fleetes come not home empty." Discovery of the seas and of royal mines, exchange
of commodities, the exaction of tribute, and the development of the resources of
the country for the purpose of securing "wines, pitche, Tarre, sope-ashes, Steele,
Iron, Pipestaues, hempe, flaxe," silk grass, fishing for pearls, cod, and sturgeon were
to be the sources of revenue. The instructions placed authority implicitly in the
hands of the governor, who was expected to hear, but not necessarily to heed, the
advice of the council and to judge according to "naturall right and equity then
vppon the nicenes of the lawe."

The agents of the corporation—the governor and his council in Virginia—received
their authorization for the exercise of judicial as well as legislative powers through
a commission. The one issued to Sir Thomas Gates is lost, but doubtless is as similar
to that given to Lord La Warr[44] as are his instructions. With the exception of a set
of "Instructions for such things as are to be sente from Virginia, 1610,"[45] these
orders and commissions are the only documents which show anything of the direct
authority exercised by the company over affairs in the plantation until the issue of
the "Great Charter of privileges, orders, and Lawes" in November, 1618.[46]

Otherwise, the whole course of the activity of the company under Sir Thomas
Smythe was in strong contrast with the work of Sir Edwin Sandys. It was a con-

tinual struggle to arouse such interest in the scheme as would result in investment.
The problem of marketing the products of the colony, which concerned the later
company, did not arise until toward the close of the period, when a single unsuccessful
effort was made to gain a monopoly of the sale of tobacco. In order to increase the
capital stock, the company made personal appeals and issued printed statements and
descriptions which it scattered broadly. The story is told in the lists of adventurers
cited above, in the earnest endeavors to secure new planters and new adventures from
individual town and guild, in the efforts to enforce the payment of sums already
adventured, in a few receipts concerning tobacco, in the lottery schemes, which were
legalized by the charter of 1612, and in printed broadsides and declarations. Thus the
sums adventured by individuals, by the various London companies, and by the towns
of England are given in a series of requests for adventure and in bills of adventure[47]
issued by the company and found in the records of those companies and towns[48] as
also in private collections. The chancery proceedings, in three suits, state that the
company attempted to secure an adventure of £18,000 and the equipment of 600
men during the year 1611, and the failure to accomplish its purpose was set forth by
the defendants as a reason for refusing to pay the sums adventured. Incidentally
there was mentioned an income in the year 1613 of £8,000 from the lottery, of
£2,000 from the sale of the Somers Islands, and of £600 or £800 from the disposal
of the ship De La Warr.[49] However, with the exception of an unpublished letter
from Sandys to the mayor of Sandwich[50] concerning the adventure by that town, in
which he inclosed a list of the subscribers to that particular adventure, with the sums
set down by each,[51] the official records reveal but little as to the sums which must
have been received by the company.

In a similar manner there are unauthentic records of economic value concerning
the lotteries and the importation of tobacco. Of the latter a few receipts and mem-
oranda among the papers of Lord Sackville[52] and the Earl De La Warr[53] are positively

all there is in existence relating to the origin of a trade which was estimated in 1619
to be worth £100,000. Of the former, there is a "Declaration for the Lottery,"
published in 1615 by the company, and an order of the Privy Council, together with
letters urging the towns of the Kingdom to adventure in this the second great lottery
of the company.[54] A letter from the governor of the Virginia Company to the
mayor and aldermen of Ipswich[55] is to the same effect, but none of these documents
tell of the income therefrom. The only record which will give an idea of the value
of the first lottery is in the chancery proceedings, and relates to a suit of the
company with William Leveson to secure moneys from the lottery,[56] in which the
sum received in 1613 is here stated to have been £2,793 and 10 shillings. The
answer of Leveson is of further interest in that it alone tells of the methods by
which the business was conducted and of the house built for the lottery west of St.
Paul's Church.

V.—PUBLICATIONS OF THE COMPANY[57]

The struggle for capital and for settlers before 1616 is most apparent from the
advertisements that were issued. The broadsides of the years 1609, 1610, and 1611
are printed as official declarations of an intention on the part of the company to send
voyages to Virginia, and contain the necessary information as to the classes of
emigrants wanted—artificers only—and the conditions and rewards for emigration.
The broadside of February, 1611, is of most value, in that the classes of emigrants
with the numbers of each desired are specified, while that of 1610 is a defense
against the slander of recently returned colonists, and emphasizes the former need
of artificers as colonists.[58] The broadsides of 1613 and 1615 concern the drawing of
the lotteries, the latter declaring in a general way the prosperous condition of the
country and announcing the prizes and rewards, thus affording some conception
of the sums received from such an enterprise.[59] The publications of the year 1616
disclose, as well as assert, the prosperity of the settlement and the assurance of its
success, though giving no statistical information. That of April arranges for the
first division of lands among old adventurers and promises the same to new adven-

turers, declaring the intention to send a new governor and surveyors to the colony
for the purpose, while that of the winter of the same year announces that any
settlers may return to England who will.[60]

In addition to the advertisements for investment and adventure, both of person
and of money, the company put forth a series of publications, consisting of four
sermons preached before the company at stated intervals, intended to arouse both
interest and confidence in their undertaking. These afford but little if any definite
information, but reveal the spirit of the times, as also the lines of criticism and
resistance which the company had continually to meet.[61]

But of far greater importance to a comprehension of the attitude of the com-
pany, and especially of the progress of the plantation, are the declarations concern-
ing the colony, which were published by the company.[62] They are nine in number,
and bear the following titles and dates:

(1)

• Nova Britannia. London, 1609.

(2)

• Virginia richly valued. London, April 15, 1609.

(3)

• A True and sincere declaration of the purpose and ends of the Plantation,
  "by the authority of the Governor and Councellors of the Plantation."
  London, 1610. [December 14, 1609.]

(4)

• Nevves from Virginia—a poem. 1610.

(5)

• A True declaration of the estate of the colony of Virginia, by the order of
  the "Councell of Virginia." London, 1610.

(6)

• De La Warr's Relation. London, July 6, 1611, with Crashaw's Epistle
  Dedicatorie as a preface.

(7)

• The New life of Virginea—second part of Noua Britannia, by "the Coun-
  sell of Virginea." London, May 1, 1612.

(8)

• Good Newes from Virginia, by Whittaker. London, 1613.

(9)

• A booke called an narracon of the present State of Virginia by Ralph
  Hammer. London, 1615.

The documents published in 1609 and also the poem of 1610 were efforts on the
part of the company to defend itself against charges of failure in earlier years and to
reveal the advantages which were promised under the new system of government.
This is distinctly the tone and motive of the Nova Britannia, in which appear argu-

ments in favor of the colony, and the statements of the plans, resources, and needs
of the colony, together with an outline of the government which was now to be
administered.

A True and sincere declaration further explains the unsatisfactory condition
of the colony by reference to the incompetence of previous governors, furnishing
perhaps the best historical narrative which was issued by the company during the
first period of the plantation. It also holds out the promise of improved conditions
under Gates and De La Warr, who are to be shortly sent to Virginia with a complete
outfit of men and provisions. The second document describes the southern part of
the country and cites the advantages of Florida as evidence of the opportunities
in Virginia. After the time of De La Warr the published accounts of the plans,
movements, and successes of the colonists became more complete. While the state-
ments of De La Warr in his Relation are a bare outline of the conditions as he
found them and the improvements in trade and discovery to which Captain Argall
had contributed, together with his lordship's plans for the future, it is of value
as forming, with Hamor's narrative four years later, a surprisingly accurate and
satisfactory treatment of the development in the colony during those years.

Hamor gives a clear statement of the methods and success of Captain Dale in his
relations with the Indians, of his organization and reform of the colony, and of his
establishment of order therein, and reveals clearly the state of affairs on the arrival
of Gates, the cause of the failure heretofore, and the details of the building of the
successive towns, with descriptions and statistics for each. He gives also an his-
torical narrative of the relations with the various Indian tribes and his knowledge
and statements concerning the resources of the country are equally satisfactory.
While Whittaker's Good Newes from Virginia and The New Life of Virginea are
of value as corroborative evidence, they add but little to the knowledge of condi-
tions or resources, and evidently were written more in the spirit of the poem of
1610, being intended to inspire confidence in the management of the colony, in the
new system, and in the officers installed, as well as to arouse enthusiasm in the
project.

It is evident that these publications are of more direct value in the study of
the progress of the colony and tell at first hand but little more than the methods
employed by the company to gain its end, but, together with the other reports
from the colony which are preserved in manuscript form, they to an extent supply
what has been lost by the disappearance of the court book. They prove that there
was a gradual change in the motive and means of the company, due entirely to
the exigencies of the case. The failure to discover precious metals forced the

company to concern itself with the development of the resources of the country and
with the production of staple articles which were needed in England. Then, too,
the first written laws promulgated by Gates, De La Warr, and Dale in 1610–1612,
martial in form and harsh in character, reveal the type of the plantation which the
company now proposed;[63] the freedom of the individual was to be reduced to a
minimum, all labor was to be regulated as if it were a military discipline and
the produce was to belong to the common store. Thus the evils of the early
settlement were to be avoided. But of necessity this plan was temporary. Argall,
like Smith, was a good colonizer. The explorations of Smith and his trade with the
Indians, together with the order and prosperity which were brought by Dale, resulted
in the founding of various settlements, such as Henrico and others farther south,
which became self-supporting and independent of the "supplies" from England.
This meant that the company was to be forced to assume a different attitude toward
the colony; that the common labor, common store, and common trade must be
abandoned. By 1614 private lands had been given to a few inhabitants, every family
had been assured of a house of four rooms, rent free, for one year, and women had
been sent to the colony to aid in keeping the settlers contented and permanent.

Whether the company made any resistance to this development within the set-
tlement, by which the adventurer in London must share the profit with the planter,
will only be known when the court book shall have been discovered, but it is certain
that by 1616 the point of view of the leaders of the company had changed. They
had then come to realize that they were to be the middlemen for the marketing of
the produce of the planters. This is proved by the movement in 1616 for the
monopoly of the importation of the only lucrative staple, tobacco. Again, in 1619,
when the time for free importation from the plantation had expired, they most
eagerly sought an adjustment with the Crown, although, in 1614, Sir Edwin Sandys,
by this time the leading spirit in the company, had been the chairman in the House
committee which reported against monopolies.

To such an extent had the colony now grown that the instructions given to Sir
George Yeardley in November, 1618, called "The Great Charter of privileges, orders,
and Lawes," recognized the necessity for local government. They provided for two
houses, the "Council of State," to be chosen by the company in its quarter court,
and the general assembly, to consist "of the Council of State and two Burgesses

chosen out of each Town Hundred or other particular Plantation."[64] The great dif-
ference between this act of the company and that of nine years before, when the
instructions to Gates were issued and the laws of Dale were approved, is apparent.
Whether it was due entirely to the necessities arising from the changed conditions
in the colony heretofore noted or to the abuse of power by Samuel Argall, from 1616
to 1619, is uncertain.[65] Whether it was but a reflection of the growing popular senti-
ment within the company by which the generality exercised the powers of adminis-
tration or whether it was due to the influence of the "opposition" in parliament can
not be settled without fuller records than are at present extant.

IV.—LETTERS FROM THE PLANTERS AND RECORDS OF THE COLONY

The printed reports from the colonists and the printed declarations of the company
were of course based on the letters from the planters and on those from the governor
and council of Virginia to the Virginia Company. There were also letters from indi-
viduals in the colony to officers of the company or to other adventurers in England.
They may perhaps reveal more clearly the condition of affairs in the colony and the
influences which moved the company in its change of policy, since they do not attempt
to conceal, excuse, or palliate any of the circumstances. Six of these narrate the
story of the voyage of Gates and Somers, the misery in the plantation on the arrival
of Gates and of De La Warr in 1610, and the steps that were taken to improve con-
ditions.[66] Through other letters from the colony the company gained its knowledge
respecting voyages to Virginia, progress and order in the colony, and the building of
Jamestown,[67] especially under Sir Thomas Dale, and as to the prosperity of the settlers.
Dale in 1611, outlined his plans and his achievements, urged the sending of 2,000 men,
and suggested that the difficulty of securing planters might be overcome by making
the settlement a penal colony. In 1615, 1616, and 1617 the company received
reassurances from Dale, Hamor, and Rolfe of the prosperity of the colony; but the
publications of the company and the letters from the colony from 1615 to 1618 were

either very few in number, or have not been preserved. These were the years of the
excessive abuses in the colony under Sir Samuel Argall.[68]

The only evidence of records kept by the colonists is an abstract of "A Register
book during the Goũmt of Saml Argall Esqr admiral, and for ye time present, prin-
cipal Gour of Virga" in the year 1618. This abstract was probably made in 1730
under the direction of R. Hickman, deputy clerk of the general court of Virginia
at that time, and has heretofore been unnoticed. From it comes a knowledge of
correspondence between the governor and Bermuda Hundred and Kicoughtan, and
between the governor and the company in London. A complaint of the largeness of
privilege given to Captain Martin in his grant is significant because of the long con-
test during later years, between the company and Captain Martin over this patent.
There are, too, a number of commissions to officers for trade and for command, and
several warrants, edicts, and proclamations. These are very similar in character to
those issued by the governor and council in 1623, and reveal the fact that methods
of government had not altered materially, though the source of authority had been
changed by the great charter of 1618. The severity of penalty and the threats of
reduction to slavery for offense are perhaps the features most characteristic of the
period.[69]

VI.—PRIVATE PAPERS OF ADVENTURERS

While the company probably did not officially use the private correspondence
received from the colony by individual adventurers, it doubtless profited by the
information which it contained. Thus, the relation of John Rolfe,[70] addressed to
Lord Rich and the King in 1616, ranked in value with the descriptions of Ralph
Hamor, for it discussed the water supply of the colony, its food, clothing, houses, and
government and gave statistical information as to the various towns, their location,
the number of their inhabitants, and their officers. There are at least six other
letters extant, similar in character, though of less value.[71]

But another series of private papers partakes most strongly of the nature of
documents of the company. These are the contracts and correspondence relating

to individual adventures to Virginia or to groups of adventurers. They indicate
a tendency in the company to grant private monopolies and to encourage private
settlements—measures which indicate the growing importance of the undertaking
and the development of individual trade. Only one series of documents relating to
individual adventures is extant, those by which Lord Zouch's investment in Virginia
was secured to him. His contracts were made in May, 1618, with John Bargrave
and James Brett. There is also his warrant to John Fenner to pass to Virginia and
trade with the colony and the savages in his pinnace Silver Falcon, in February,
1618/19.[72]

The other series of documents, which illustrate the legal forms and methods of
the company, as also the way in which the first plantations were undertaken by
private means, concern Smythe's Hundred and Berkeley Hundred. Among the
Ferrar papers are the minutes of the meeting of the committee for Smythe's
Hundred on May 8, 1618,[73] the first record concerning the hundred, which provides
for the sending out and equipment of thirty-five men at an expense of £657 9s. 4d.

VII.—SUPPLEMENTARY CONTEMPORARY CORRESPONDENCE AND RECORDS

In addition to the documents which are either official records or similar to such
records in character, there is a large amount of correspondence between officers
of state in England and other individuals which by its reference throws light
on the affairs of the company or gives additional or corroborative data. All of
this which is earlier in date than 1616 has been published by Alexander Brown.

There are seven letters, the dates of which fall between 1616 and 1619, that
are of the same character; but they add nothing in fact to the other documents,
although two of them reveal the measures taken even at this early date to impress
youths and maidens for Virginia and to send reprieved prisoners to the colony.[74] Of
the documents of this character, which are given by Brown, perhaps the correspond-
ence between the Spanish ambassador in London and the King of Spain is the most
valuable, not in the trustworthiness of the data—though much of it confirms other
sources—but in the revelation it contains of the part that Spanish relations played
in the development of the company and especially in its decline during the follow-
ing decade, while its reference to prevalent rumors, reports, and sentiment are
extremely illuminating. There are thirty-seven of these documents in all, including
the correspondence concerning the Spanish ship Chaloner. The Chamberlain-Carleton,
Digby-Salisbury, Cottington-Salisbury, and Lee-Wilson correspondence add occa-

sional data and serve to fix dates and facts which are known from other sources.[75]
Of similar value are the chronicles of Howes, Abbot's Geography, Smith's Map of
England and his General History, the Commons Journal, the writings of Sir Fer-
dinando Gorges, and other material which emanated from the Plymouth adventurers.[75]

3. The Collections of Documents, 1616–1624

General Character of the Records

The character of the documents of the company after 1619 is fundamentally
the same as in the preceding decade. Virginia was still a proprietary province
with a commercial company as an overlord, and therefore the company was still
the immediate source of all government in the colony. To it came all appeals
from colonial authorities; it exercised control over all commerce, both from and
to Virginia; it granted all land and all privileges. Although the number of doc-
uments emanating from the Crown[76] —that is, of the first class—is large, they are
rather an indication of the increasing wealth and importance of the company, than
of royal interference. They concern the regulation of trade, complain of the
abuse of power by the company, or provide for the investigation of its acts
rather than assume any authority in the direct administration of its affairs. In
them interference in the management is foreshadowed, but it is not until the
dissolution of the company that the Crown again becomes the proprietor.

The mass of materials which form the records for this period is much
greater than in the earlier decade. This is due on the one hand to their
preservation in two or three collections, and on the other especially to the vast
growth of business in the company and the rapid development from a colony
for exploitation into a colony for settlement. Thus the minutes of the company,
forming the second class of documents, show that it conducted a larger amount
of business than any other proprietary company.[77] These minutes comprise two
large volumes of the court book, and fill 741 manuscript pages.[78] In the third
class there are nine letters from the company to the governor and council in the
colony, and twelve from the latter body to the company, in addition to a large
number of receipts, commissions, instructions, and laws.[79] A mass of material
belonging distinctly to the plantation serves as a part of the records of the

company and at the same time furnishes the story of the beginning of the
political unity of the colony. This group consists of the "court booke" of the
council of the colony during the last year of the authority of the company,
covering about 65 pages; 54 commissions, orders, proclamations, and warrants to
subordinates in the colony issued by the governor and council in Virginia, and
35 petitions to the same body from the members of the colony.[80] The publica-
tions of the company for this final period of its existence number 3 large
broadsides, 11 declarations containing 168 printed pages, and 4 sermons and
treatises made up of 150 pages.[81] The supplementary official material found in
the correspondence between individuals of the company and of the colony or
between members of the company in England, in addition to the records of the
private companies within the larger body, includes many documents and memo-
randa.[82] Sixty-six of these are preserved in the Manchester papers, while 78 are
from the Ferrar papers, which are now first made known and published. The
unofficial material, consisting of records of other companies, of towns, and of
correspondence touching on the affairs of the company or colony, numbers about
40 documents.[83]

The relative value of the various classes of the records for this period has
been altered by the preservation of the court book which has made the other
material supplementary, or even subsidiary, with the exception of the correspond-
ence; for in it is either recorded or summarized the information which the
company had received from all other sources, or which it imparted to individuals
or to the public by other means. But the fact that the other records are
supplementary does not decrease their value, for they often furnish the data
which are the basis of the acts and conclusions of the company, while some of
them also reveal the legal or political processes of the company, of the colony,
of the courts, or of the sovereign authority, and others are of great value in the
light which they throw on the dissenting party within the company.

The subject-matter of the court book, as well as the character and contents
of the various documents, proves the changed condition which the increase of
business had brought about, since a large proportion of the records deal with the
founding and conducting of private enterprises, and many of them are really
documents of a private nature. It is apparent that the company still looked upon
the colony as a source of income for the investors, but that the ulterior object

had become the development of the resources of Virginia instead of the produc-
tion of wealth through mines and the opening of new trade routes. As a result
of this change in commercial object had come the need of larger, more numerous,
and more scattered settlements in the colony, and of greater co-operation on the
part of the settlers, although it may well be claimed that the latter necessity had
been urged upon the leaders by the mismanagement of Captain Argall during
the three years previous to the change in administration. In order to increase
the number of planters, concessions of privilege had been made to private parties
or groups as early as 1618, since such investments were doubtless easier to secure
when the adventure was under the immediate control of the undertaker. Simi-
larly, for the purpose of stimulating capital and gaining the co-operation of the
planters, the division of land, promised in 1609, was proclaimed in 1616. Free
tenancy was now guaranteed to all individuals, even to indented servants, at the
expiration of seven years. The organization of joint stock companies for the manage-
ment of trade, which supplanted the magazine, was a movement toward private enter-
prize. Hence it is that these subjects, together with those which concern the impor-
tation and sale of tobacco, occupy the greater part of the court book, and must have
consumed most of the attention of the corporation. The burden of discussion in the
courts concerned the best means of marketing the products, whereas in the earlier
decade it must have related to the increase of capital. The records of the colony
were no longer simple reports to the company and instructions from the proprietor,
but assumed the character of political documents, since liberty of land and trade, and
the creation of numerous plantations and scattered settlements resulted in the growth
of "political conditions and forces side by side with the commercial and economic."
The minutes of the colonial legislative assembly, the records of the colonial court, the
petitions to the governor and council, and the commissions and orders granted by that
body are all distinctively new features in the records. Here is evidence of the crea-
tion of the colony, with its body of free citizens, out of the plantation, with its body
of half-servile laborers.

THE JEFFERSON LIBRARY IN THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

The records of the company under the administration of Sir Edwin Sandys and
the Earl of Southampton, or the copies of them so far as extant, are to-day scattered
among many public and private collections both in England and in America. The
Library of Congress at Washington possesses by far the largest and most impor-
tant collection in this country. It contains the contemporary certified copy of the
court book from 1619 to 1624, as well as a mass of original correspondence, or
contemporary copies of the same, between the company and the council in Virginia.

It also includes many original records of the colony, many eighteenth century tran-
scripts of the original commissions, patents, and other records, and many recent
transcripts and photographs of documents in the collections of England.

The eighteenth century transcripts and the original documents and contemporary
copies came to the Library of Congress from Thomas Jefferson's collection in two
different groups: the first in 1815, when his library, purchased "in a lump as
it stood on the catalogue,"[84] was secured by Congress for the sum of $23,950; the
second was secured when the books of Mr. Jefferson were sold at auction subsequent
to his death in 1826. The catalogue of the auction sale classified those acquired
by the Library of Congress at the latter date under two numbers as follows:[85]

"No. 121. Records of the Virginia Company, 2 vols., fol. MS. (the authentic
copy mentioned in Stith's History).

"No. 122. Old Records of Virginia, 4 vols. fol. MS. viz:

"A.

• Letters, proclamations in 1622–23, and correspondence 1625.

  (42) Transactions in council and assembly, their petition and his majesty's
  answer.[86]

"B.

• (9). Orders from Feb. 1622 to Nov. 1627.[87]

"C.

• (32) A. Foreign business and Inquisitions from 1665 to 1676.

Transactions of the council from Dec. 9, 1698, to May 20, 1700."[88]

The volumes of Jefferson manuscripts relating to the company, which became
the property of the Government in 1815, were as follows:

(1)

• First laws made by the Assembly in Va. anno 1623.[89] (Used by Hening.)

(2)

• Journal of the Council and Assembly, 1626–1634. (Used by Hening.)[90]

(3)

• Miscellaneous Records, 1606–1692, with a small quarto containing abstracts
  of Rolls in the offices of State bound into the volume. (Commonly known as the
  Bland copy, because so cited by Hening.)

---

43




(4)

• Miscellaneous Papers, 1606–1683. Instructions, Commic̃ons letters of Advice
  and admonitions and Public Speeches, Proclamations &c. Collected, transcribed and
  diligently examined by the Originall Records, now extant, belonging to the Assemblie.

The entire set in the first group, acquired in 1829, is composed either of original
documents or of contemporary transcripts, while the second paper of the second
group belongs to the same period. The Miscellaneous Papers, 1606–1683, are a
seventeenth century transcript. The Laws of 1623 and the Miscellaneous Records,
1606–1692, are transcripts of the early eighteenth century and are attested by R.
Hickman, who was clerk of the general court in 1722. The origin and identification
of these various volumes, together with a later copy of the court book of the com-
pany, now in the library of the Virginia Historical Society and commonly known as
the [John] Randolph [of Roanoke] copy, has been a subject of doubt and discussion,
arising from the conflicting descriptions of the volumes by the early historians of
Virginia, William Stith and John D. Burk, and by the editor of many of the
documents in 1809, William Hening.

The following statements with regard to the first group made by Mr. Jefferson
in a letter to Hugh P. Taylor, October 4, 1825,[91] will serve as a basis for the attempt
to ascertain the history and authenticity of those manuscripts:

"The only manuscripts I now possess relating to the antiquities of our country
are some folio volumes: Two of these are the proceeding[s] of the Virginia company
in England; the remaining four are of the Records of the Council of Virginia, from
1622 to 1700. The account of the first two volumes, you will see in the preface to
Stiths History of Virginia. They contain the records of the Virginia Company,
copied from the originals, under the eye, if I recollect rightly, of the Earl of South-
ampton, a member of the company, bought at the sale of his library by Doctor
Byrd, of Westover, and sold with that library to Isaac Zane. These volumes
happened at the time of the sale, to have been borrowed by Col. R. Bland,[92] whose
library I purchased, and with this they were sent to me. I gave notice of it to Mr.
Zane, but he never reclaimed them.

"The other four volumes, I am confident, are the original office records of the
council. My conjectures are, that when Sir John Randolph was about to begin
the History of Virginia which he meant to write, he borrowed these volumes from
the council office to collect from them materials for his work. He died before he
had made any progress in that work, and they remained in his library, probably
unobserved, during the whole life of the late Peyton Randolph, his son. From his
executor, I purchased his library, in a lump, and these volumes, were sent to me as a
part of it. I found the leaves so rotten as often to crumble into dust on being
handled; I bound them, therefore together, that they might not be unnecessarily
opened; and have thus preserved them forty-seven years."

CONTEMPORARY COPY OF THE COURT BOOK

The two volumes referred to by Mr. Jefferson as the "proceedings of the
Virginia Company in England" are the contemporary copies of the court book
which were secured by the Hon. William Byrd, of Westover, Virginia, from the
estate of the Earl of Southampton, either at the time of his death in 1667 or
later. Since Mr. Byrd was a boy of 15 living in London in 1667, it may have
been when the Virginia estates were left him in 1671, or even in 1687 when he
made a visit to England, that he made the purchase.[93] That the books remained
in the possession of the descendants of Mr. Byrd for a century is proved by
the fact that they are mentioned in a manuscript catalogue of the library of the
third William Byrd, who died in 1777,[94] but these two volumes were not in the
library of Colonel Byrd, when it was sold by his widow in Philadelphia to Isaac
Zane. Mr. Jefferson's statement that he purchased them from Colonel Bland may
be accepted,[95] but it would be difficult to prove whether he is equally reliable when
he states that the volumes had been loaned to Colonel Bland and had not been
returned by him to Colonel Byrd, or whether Mr. Deane is correct in saying that
Colonel Bland, as an antiquary, had secured them. That Stith used these contempo-
rary copies of the court book in his History of Virginia is apparent from his
description of them, as also from his statement that they had been communicated
to him by the "late worthy president of our council, the Hon. William Byrd, esq."[96]

MANUSCRIPT RECORDS OF THE COMPANY, VOLUME III

The other manuscript volumes, which the Library of Congress acquired from
Mr. Jefferson and which are included under No. 122 of the Jefferson catalogue,
belong to the early seventeenth century. They are the documents which Mr.
Jefferson referred to in his letter to Mr. Taylor as having come from the library of the Hon. Peyton Randolph in such a fragile condition, and which in a letter to
Mr. Wythe, of January 16, 1795, urging the necessity of publishing the laws of
Virginia, he describes in a similar way.[97]

That these are the papers discussed by Stith is proved by comparing them with
the Hickman (Bland) transcripts. In his preface, Stith confirms the description
by Mr. Jefferson, but he apparently destroys the latter's theory that the papers
had been in the possession of Peyton Randolph since the death of Sir John Randolph
in 1736. Mr. Stith wrote his preface in 1746, and suggests that they were at that
time in the possession of the House of Burgesses, although he does not make a
positive statement to that effect. His assertions are worth recording, since they
carry the history of the volumes back thirty years and also throw light on the
Hickman transcripts.

"I must chiefly depend upon such of our Records, as are still extant. Many of
them doubtless perished in the State-house at James-Town, and by other Accidents;
and those, which have survived the Flames and Injuries of Time, have been so care-
lesly kept, are so broken, interrupted, and deficient, have been so mangled by Moths
and Worms, and lie in such a confused and jumbled State (at least the most ancient
of them) being huddled together in single Leaves and Sheets in Books out of the
Binding, that I foresee, it will cost me infinite Pains and Labour, to reduce and
digest them in any tolerable Order, so as to form from them a just and connected
Narration. And some of them have been lost, even since Mr. Hickman was Clerk of
the Secretary's Office. For I cannot find, among the Papers in our Offices, some old
Rolls, to which he refers. I have therefore been obliged, in a few Points, to depend
upon the Fidelity of that Gentleman's Extracts out of our oldest Records, made for
the Use of Sir John Randolph. But these things were so far from discouraging and
rebuffing me, that they were rather an additional Spur to my Industry. For I
thought it highly necessary, before they were entirely lost and destroyed, to apply
them to their proper Use, the forming a good History. But as the House of
Burgesses in a late Session, upon my shewing their moldering and dangerous State
to some of the Members, have justly taken them into their Consideration, and have
ordered them to be reviewed and fairly transcribed, I doubt not, by their Assistance,
and with the Help of the late Sir John Randolph's Papers, and such others, as are in
the Hands of private Gentlemen in the Country, and will undoubtedly be readily
communicated to further so noble and so useful a Design, to be able to collect and
compose a tolerably regular and complete History of our Country."[98]

Hence, we are again left in a quandary. The papers may have come into Peyton
Randolph's possession through the arrangement made by the burgesses for their
transcription; but no transcript made directly from the documents as late as 1746
is known to us. Whether they were borrowed from the province by Mr. Stith or
by Peyton Randolph, his brother-in-law, or by some other historian or antiquarian
is not yet proved; and our only evidence that Jefferson secured them from Peyton
Randolph's executor is his statement made twenty years after the date of the purchase.

The papers, after almost a century in the Capitol, were in a still more deplorable
condition in 1901 than that described by Mr. Stith, but the loose pages have now
been carefully and skillfully repaired. The order of contents of the volumes (while
not chronologically arranged) may be known from the abstracts made under the
direction of Hickman about 1722. This agrees with an arrangement determined by
the early pagination, the subject-matter, and the writing. That these manuscripts
are original records or contemporary copies is evidenced by the form of some of them,
by the signatures of others, and by the autographs of the secretaries and clerks of
the period. The supposition is that they escaped destruction when the Province
House was burned in Bacon's rebellion in 1678, during the administration of Gooch
in 1698, and again during the Revolution, only to be lost to the State in the latter
half of the eighteenth century.

The volume designated as 122, A, in the Jefferson catalogue, and there entitled
"Letters, proclamations in 1622–23, and correspondence 1625," is evidently the one
referred to by page in the Hickman abstract of the rolls as "the other side of No.
A 42."[99] This abstract is a quarto bound into the Miscellaneous Records, 1606–1692,
called by Hening the "Bland copy." In pages 1 to 14a of this volume are eighteen
letters from the colony to the King or to the company between 1621 and 1625, while
pages 15 to 30 contain nine letters from the company to the colony between 1621 and
August 6, 1623. The first group are holographs, but of a secretary or clerk not yet
identified. The second are doubtless in the autograph of Edward Sharpless.[100] Both
are contemporary copies of the originals.[101] The documents classed in the Jefferson
catalogue as 122 (42) form the balance of this volume and also probably include
the journal of the council and assembly, 1626–1634. The latter was evidently used by Hening in compiling his statutes.

Presuming that this fragile document, which is the only one concerning the
company and the colony while controlled by the company, formed one volume, its
contents was as follows:

No. A 42:

1. (a)

• Miscellaneous letters from the Privy Council to the governor and
  council in Virginia in 1623, pp. 1–3[99]. An unknown holograph.

(b)

• Declarations of the condition of the colony and answers thereto in
  1623/4, pp. 3[99]–7[99]. An unknown holograph.

---

47




2.

• Fundamental orders, charters, ordinances, and instructions by the
  company in London and laws of the assembly in Virginia, pp. 8–21. Partly
  holographs as above.[102]

No. A 42. "The other side:"

1. (a)

• Letters from the colony to the King or to the company between
  1621 and 1625. An unknown holograph.

(b)

• Letters from the company to the colony between 1621 and August 6,
  1623. Holographs of Edward Sharpless.

2.

• Instructions, commissions, proclamations, orders, warrants, and letters
  of the governor and captain-general of Virginia and of the assembly, pp. 36–53.
  Partly the holograph of Edward Sharpless and partly perhaps of Christopher
  Davison, the secretary of the colony from November, 1621, until his death in
  the winter of 1623/4.[103]

4.

• Petitions to the governor and council in Virginia, pp. 58–63. Holo-
  graphs as of the preceding.

5.

• A miscellaneous collection of letters between the Privy Council and the
  Commissioners for Virginia on the one hand and the governor and council in
  Virginia on the other, in 1625/6, pp. 68–70; a letter from the Virginia Company
  of London in 1626, p. 71, and a census of 1624, pp. 71–75. Unknown holo-
  graphs similar to those in the first part of this end of the volume.[104]

The first part of the volume thus opens with the letters of the Privy Council
to the colony on April 28, 1623, when the King first began the action looking toward
the dissolution of the company, and with the first direct correspondence with the
officers of the colony. The writing and the dates place the documents as consecutive
through the entry of the acts of the assembly, March 5, 1623/4, when the assembly
seems to have ceased. After that page, copies of scattered documents appear in a
different writing, commencing on the back of the last assembly record. These are
largely fundamental or constitutional, including the instructions of November 20,
1606, the charter of 1606, the order of 1607 enlarging the council, and the oaths
administered to officials of the colony of the same period. The other part of the
volume opens with the correspondence between the colony and the home government.
After a hiatus of fifteen pages the documents of the governor and assembly begin
as indicated under the second division above. The writing is that of Edward Sharp-
less and Christopher Davison, and remains the same throughout the petitions of the
next group. The last group of miscellaneous documents agrees in subject with the

letters of the first part and in autograph with the first section of those letters. On
a fly leaf among the loose papers is inscribed the following: "Records of W. Clay-
bourne or Claiborne./ p̱ Joseph [Jokeg] / Tho Farloue & / Vpton gent / Thos.
Ba[u]rbag[e] / Cler̃ Conc̃"./ This may belong to the records of the period after
May 14, 1626, when William Claybourne was appointed secretary of the colony by
Charles I, or it may have been placed in an earlier volume, or it may indicate that a
part at least of the earlier volume was transcribed under his direction.

Section B (9) of No. 122 in the Jefferson catalogue, cited as orders from
February, 1622, to November, 1627, and including loose pages as late as 1634, is the
only octavo manuscript of these records and has been saved from its almost useless
condition by repair. That this is the original blotter of the court book of the gover-
nor and council in Virginia, containing the original record of suits tried before that
body and of orders issued by it, is proved by the hasty and brief entries, giving the
volume an entirely different character from those of the carefully elaborated tran-
scripts of the clerks. The records of twenty-three courts held as here given and of
the cases considered during the era of the authority of the company, consisting of
about forty-five pages of manuscript, are noted in the list of the records of the
company, but are not printed in this collection since they may be included more
properly in a publication of the "Records of the Colony."

THE TRANSCRIPTS OF THE VIRGINIA RECORDS

RANDOLPH COPY

It is now certain that at least two copies of the court book existed at the
beginning of the nineteenth century, since the so-called John Randolph [of Roanoke]
copy has recently come to light.[105] It bears every evidence of being an eighteenth
century transcript made from the contemporary copy now in the Library of Congress;
the manuscript is of the century following that of the contemporary copy; the
order, paragraphing, form of insertion of documents, and material is identical; but
the omissions and errors arise from illegibility in the earlier manuscript. The
other differences lie in occasional carelessness by the copyist and in the fact that
the abbreviations are expanded and the spelling and the capitalization are modernized.

The caption of the first volume of this eighteenth century copy is as follows:
"The Ancient Records of this Colony under The Treasurer and Company." It
opens with "A Quarter Court held for Virginia at Sir Thomas Smith's house in

Philpott Lane, 28th of April 1619," and ends on page 535 with the court of July 3,
1622. The final statement is as follows: "The rest of the Company's Acts are
contained in a Second Volume." Volume II begins with a court of July 17, 1622,
and closes on page 491 with the proceedings of June 7, 1624. It bears the caption,
"The Records of the Company of Virginia, Vol. 2d." Pages 492 to 502 include a
list of "The names of the Adventurers for Virginia, as they were in the Year 1620."
On the inside of the board of this volume is written the name, "Sam'l Perkins of
Cawson." There is a third volume of this series of transcripts which is described
by Mr. Robinson thus: "The other volume begins with the first charter to the
proprietors of Carolina dated the 24th of March, in the fifteenth year of Charles II,
(1663) and ends page 543 with report of the petition of Philip Laudwell against the
Lord Effingham made by the Lords Committees of Trade and Plantations, Dated at
the Council Chamber 26th of April 1689." This document ends on page 530. The
volume closes on page 544 with "A Memorial for obtaining a more perfect Rent
Roll, & advancing Her Majesty's Quit Rents in Virginia". On the first cover is the
date, "Sep 19th 1759."

Mr. Brown thinks that these copies were made for Colonel Richard Bland from
Colonel Byrd's volumes and passed to Theodorick Bland of the family of Cawson,
the grandfather of John Randolph of Roanoke, to whom they finally came. He
adds that the Byrd volumes went to Mr. Jefferson with the Bland collection, which
he bought about 1776, instead of the copies therefrom.[106] Mr. Jameson suggests that
John Randolph of Roanoke may have inherited these transcripts from his great
uncle, Sir John Randolph. In this case also they would have been made from Mr.
Byrd's volumes, and perhaps should have gone to Mr. Jefferson with the Peyton
Randolph library, but this would not account for the name "Cawson" in the
second volume. Furthermore, according to Mr. Stanard, John Randolph of
Roanoke was not an heir to Sir John Randolph, and the families were not even
on friendly terms. Mr. Brown's supposition seems the more plausible, since
Theodorick Bland, jr., of Cawson may have received the volumes from the son
of Richard Bland by gift or purchase, though not by inheritance, and, as Theo-
dorick Bland, jr., died without heirs in 1790, the books may have become the
property of his sister's son, John Randolph of Roanoke.

The location of these volumes since the time of the death of John Randolph
of Roanoke is known. According to Mr. Brown, John Randolph[107] in a codicil to

his will in 1826 left his library to the master and fellows of Trinity College,
Cambridge, but in 1831 so altered the will as to bequeath it to his niece, E. T.
Bryan. Certain it is, however, that for ten years after his death on May 4, 1833, the
volumes remained in his library in Roanoke, for Hon. Hugh Blair Grigsby examined
them at that place on January 11, 1843. The library was sold in 1845, but it is
evident from the statement of Judge William Leigh, the executor of the estate,
that the Randolph copy of the court book remained in his hands.

The later history of this copy is told by Mr. Leigh Robinson, of Washington,
D.C., as follows:

"A complete transcript of the Records of the Virginia Company had been in the
possession of John Randolph of Roanoke, and by Mr. Randolph's executor, Judge
William Leigh, was placed in the hands of my father, shortly after the termination
of the war between the States. The Virginia Historical Society, having then no
shelter of safety for such a work, my father placed it in the Vaults of one of the
banks of Richmond, with a view to transferring it to the Society, as soon as it
could be done with Safety. His death occurred before (in his opinion) this could be
done. After his death, his family transferred to the Society the copy made by him-
self. It was some time before they were able to discover the place of deposit of the
Randolph Copy. But they finally recovered it, and transferred this also to the Vir-
ginia Historical Society, where it now is."[108]

Mr. Conway Robinson, the father of Mr. Leigh Robinson, prepared for the press
two volumes of abstracts from the court book, which were edited later by R. A.
Brock for the Virginia Historical Society and entitled Virginia Company, 1619–1624.
Robinson states that in the preparation of the volumes he had many transcripts made
through Mr. Mehan from the copy in the Library of Congress, and also from the
Randolph volumes which Judge Leigh had loaned to him.[109]

The third volume of this Randolph series, which is cited both by Burk and
by Hening[110] as "Ancient Records, Volume III," was copied from the transcript
attested by R. Hickman. This volume of Miscellaneous Records, 1606–1692, is the
only volume which contains the substance found in the Randolph copy, and is of

an earlier date, and, like the original rolls, is less chronological in arrangement.
That the Randolph copy was not made from the original records is evidenced by
the fact that the abstracts are identical with those of the Hickman or "Bland" copy.

That both Hening and Burk used the Randolph copies of the court book and
also the third volume of that series is proved by their descriptions of the volumes,
while the page references to "Ancient Records" cited by Hening coincide in each
case with these three volumes. Mr. Hening speaks of three large folio volumes not
in the orthography of the age of the events, and compiled without much regard to
method for the purpose of forming material for a history of Virginia, and states
that the first two volumes are minutes of the proceedings of the London Company,
and the third an epitome of the legislative and judicial acts of authorities in Vir-
ginia, so far as then extant, which were regularly transmitted to England. These,
he continues, were used by John Burk, who got them from John Randolph, and
also by Skelton Jones, 1809, to complete Burk's History of Virginia.[111] Mr. Burk
himself declares that there are two large volumes, instead of three, as stated by
Hening, "containing the minutes of the London Company together with the pro-
ceedings of the Virginia Councils and Assembly, with little interruption to the middle of the reign of George II."[112]

JEFFERSON TRANSCRIPTS

The three volumes containing transcripts of the Virginia Records which came
from the Jefferson Library in 1815 are unique, containing copies of records since
destroyed. Two of them are attested by R. Hickman, the deputy clerk of the
general court in 1722, and the third is the only seventeenth century transcript in
our possession. Unlike the Randolph copies, the two large volumes include copies
of records since destroyed.

Of this group the "First laws made by the assembly in Va. Anno 1623"
bears on the back of the last page the following indorsement in Mr. Jefferson's
hand: "This was found among the manuscript papers of Sr John Randolph and by
the Hoñble. Peyton Randolph, esq. his son was given to Tho. Jefferson," and is
attested as follows: "Copia Test R. Hickman D C G C." This early eighteenth
century transcript was made by the same copyist as were the Miscellaneous Records,
1606–1692, and is the volume used by Hening and referred to in his first volume,
pages 121–129. It must also be the subject of a letter from Thomas Jefferson to
Hening, April 8, 1815, in which he states that the manuscript marked "A" contains
laws of 1623–24, thirty-five acts, which was given him by Peyton Randolph from
the materials used by Sir John Randolph, and which Mr. Jefferson declares to

be the "Only copy extant of those laws!"[113] In 1803 Mr. Jefferson had declined to
lend to Mr. John D. Burk some of the printed laws of Virginia in his possession,
since they were unique and could not be replaced.[114] The internal evidence points to
the fact that Hening also used the other volumes of this set, a fact corroborated
by the following statement of Mr. Jefferson in a letter to Mr. George Watterson,
May 7, 1815: "I gave to Mr. Milligan a note of those folio volumes of the Laws of
Virginia belonging to the Library which being in known hands, will be recovered.
One is a MS. volume from which a printed copy is now preparing for publica-
tion."[115] Mr. Hening was doubtless using them in the preparation of his later
volumes. Certain it is that these documents form the basis for a part of his first
volume, in which he cites the Journal of the Council and Assembly, 1626–1634, as
belonging to Thomas Jefferson, and as having been "purchased by him with the
library of Peyton Randolph, from his executors." The third, the Miscellaneous
Records, 1606–1692, he states was bought by Mr. Jefferson "from the executor of
Richard Bland, dec'd."[116]

The seventeenth century volume, entitled Instructions, Commic̃ons letters of
Advice and admonitions and Publique Speeches, Proclamations &c: Collected,
transcribed and diligently examined by the Originall Records, now extant, belonging
to the Assemblie, is a vellum-covered book, with an embossed figure on the back
cover, and with the following: "E / 1621 / Publiq̢ Letters / and Orders." On the
outside of the front cover upside down is: "E / John Bland / Richard Blan [d]/
Alexander Morrison," / while on the half that remains of the first fly leaf is the
name "Nelson." On the fly leaf in the book in pencil is the statement: "date of
MSS 1650–1695;" and on the front cover similarly is: "17" Century copie Bland."
This presence of Richard Bland's name in the book shows that Mr. Jefferson secured
it with the Bland Library. The writing of the volume is similar to the early seven-
teenth century system in many of the abbreviations, the use of the double f, and the
formation of some of the letters. Evidently this is a collection of correspondence
of the colony, transcribed from the court books and from the miscellaneous papers
of the three volumes of the manuscript records of the company.[117]

The second volume of documents from 1606 to 1692 is in an eighteenth century
hand, many of the documents bearing the attestation of R. Hickman. The binding

is in calf and bears on the back the red label, "Vir/. Records." Bound into the
back of this volume is a small quarto of twenty-five pages, containing outlines of
documents in the Manuscript Records of the Company, which serves to identify the
loose pages of the original records as Roll A. 42, and an abstract of Captain Argall's
register during his government.[118] The documents in the folio volume are charters,
instructions, commissions, letters from the Privy Council, and other documents
emanating from the Crown, together with one or two from the company and from
the council in Virginia.[119] That this volume is the one used by Hening in his Statutes
and referred to as the "Bland copy,"[120] is indicated by the contents as well as by the
fact that it includes the quarto volume. His reason for citing it as the "Bland copy"
can only be surmised, namely, that he had Mr. Jefferson's statement that it had been
secured with the Bland library, an erroneous designation as is proved by Stith's
statement in his preface, that R. Hickman made a copy of the Records for Sir John
Randolph.[121] But the volume has been known for the past century as the "Bland
copy," although its title as a "Hickman" or a "Randolph" volume would be more
appropriate.

The conclusions which have been formed with regard to these original and
contemporary manuscripts and the later transcripts disclose little concerning the
circumstances under which they were made, or the original owners of the volumes.
But the important facts to discover, in order to determine their authenticity, are
the period of the transcript and the documents from which the copies were made,
and these facts in each case have been ascertained.[122]

The Library of Congress has recently acquired a large number of transcripts
of those manuscripts now in the libraries of Great Britain pertaining to the Virginia
Company or to the colony under the authority of the company. It thus possesses
reproductions of all of the Virginia material in the British Museum, the Privy Council
office, the Bodleian Library, and the Magdalene College Library, Cambridge. In the
Public Record Office all docquet notices on Virginia, all records of suits in chancery
and the admiralty pertaining to Virginia, and the quo warranto in the King's Bench,
by which the company was dissolved, as well as the most important documents and
correspondence, have been transcribed or photographed for the Library of Congress,
but the correspondence of the planters, the less important correspondence of the
company, and mere memoranda are yet to be transcribed. The latter material is
fairly outlined in the Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, 1574 to 1660, and in
the Appendix of the eighth report of the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts,
or is printed elsewhere in full.[123]

The collection of publications by the company belonging to the Library of
Congress is fairly good. It contains twelve of those which were issued before 1616,
but of the later books it has only three. The Declaration of 1620, the Declaration
by Waterhouse in 1622, and John Donne's Sermon of the same year, in addition to
Smith's General History, are the only ones of the eighteen now extant which are in
the Library.

DOCUMENTS IN RICHMOND

The colonial records in Richmond, Virginia, relating to the period of the
company are extremely few in number. Fortunately the original documents,
which are in the Library of Congress, were borrowed or abstracted from the
state house in time to save them from destruction during the Revolution or by
fire in 1865.[124] There are, however, two volumes of original records in the Virginia
State land office containing grants of land in 1623 and 1624, which were evidently
entered by William Claybourne, at that time surveyor for the colony. The his-
tory of contemporary documents before 1625, which are located in the district
of the old settlement, may thus be briefly told.

The valuable collections of the Virginia Historical Society in Richmond
embrace the John Randolph of Roanoke transcripts described above, while the
State library has three sets of transcripts and one set of abstracts from the British
Public Record Office. Of the latter the De Jarnette papers, 1606–1691, include only

a few of the documents of interest; in the Macdonald and Winder papers are full and
careful copies of several of the long and important documents, following generally
the orthography of the originals; while the Sainsbury abstracts contain comparatively
full outlines of those documents included in the Calendar of State Papers, Colonial
Series.

MANUSCRIPTS IN THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY

The New York Public Library is next in importance to the Library of Congress
in manuscript material on the Virginia Company and second only to the John Carter
Brown Library of Providence, Rhode Island, in publications. In the Lenox branch
of the New York Library is to be found a unique set of documents relating to the
settlement of Berkeley Hundred in 1619, known as the Smyth of Nibley papers
which "are from the collection of Virginia manuscripts originally brought together
by John Smyth (or Smith) of Nibley, the historian of the Berkeleys, who was born
in 1567 and died in 1641. The collection comprises over sixty papers, original and
contemporary transcripts, relating to the settlement of Virginia between 1613 and
1634. After passing into the hands of John Smyth the younger, and more recently
into the Cholmondeley collection at Condover Hall, Shropshire, the manuscripts
were offered for sale in January, 1888, by Mr. Bernard Quaritch, from whom
they were lately bought and given to the New York Public Library by Mr. Alex-
ander Maitland."[125] With the exception of the manuscripts in the Ferrar collection
relating to Smythe's Hundred, these form the only extant records of the important
movement for private plantations in Virginia under the régime of the company.
Two other valuable documents are now in the possession of the Lenox Library,[126] the
holographic letter of John Pory, secretary of the colony, dated September 30, 1619,
and Commissioner John Harvey's declaration of the State of Virginia in 1624.

COLLECTIONS OF AMERICANA

The manuscripts in the Library of Congress, the Smyth of Nibley papers in the
New York Public Library, and the patent books in Virginia are the only original
records of the company or of the colony previous to 1625 now in America. But
there are two public collections of Americana which are extremely valuable for this
period: The John Carter Brown Library in Providence, Rhode Island, which
contains only books on America published before the year 1800, and the New York
Public Library.

In the John Carter Brown Library are two royal proclamations, which are the
only documents of the character for the period in America; while a declaration of a
division of land in 1616, which is a supplementary pamphlet in the Declaration by
the Company of June 22, 1620, has no duplicate in existence, although there is an
imperfect copy of the latter in the British Museum. The copy of the 1620 declara-
tion in the Lenox Library is also unique, since it contains a different supplementary
pamphlet of which there is but one other to be found, neither of which has hereto-
fore been noted.[127] It is a declaration of November 15, 1620, concerning the dispatch
of supplies, and proves by its date that this is a later edition of the declaration of
June 22. The John Carter Brown Library also contains a unique treatise by John
Brinsley, bearing the date 1622, the only other copy of which is in the Lenox
Library. It has also two sermons, one by Patrick Copland, entitled Virginia's God
be Thanked,[128] with duplicates in the possession of Edward E. Ayer, and of the
Pequot Library, Southport, Connecticut, and one by John Donne, of which there
are copies in the Lenox, the Ayer, and the Congressional libraries. In addition
to these rare books, the Declaration of Edward Waterhouse of 1622, containing
"The Inconveniences that have happened, 1622," and Observations to be followed for
making of fit roomes for silk worms, 1620, including "A valuation of the commodi-
ties growing and to be had in Virginia; rated as they are worth," are to be found in
the Providence collection, while the latter is also in the Harvard and the Lenox
libraries.[129] In the same year a Treatise on the art of making silk was published by
John Banoeil, containing a royal letter of encouragement to the Earl of Southampton,
now to be found both in the Brown and the Lenox libraries.

The New York Public Library is second only in value to the John Carter
Brown Library for this subject. In addition to the books noted above it contains
two unique publications of the company, the first is a broadside of May 17, 1620,
which is the only copy known to the Editor. A catalogue of Bernard Quaritch, in

May, 1887, describes such a broadside, which is known to have been purchased by
Mr. Kalbfleisch. The second is A Note of the Shipping, etc., sent to Virginia in
1621. The Cholmondeley copy of this also was sold by Mr. Quaritch to Mr.
Kalbfleisch.[130] A third copy of the same is in the collection of printed broadsides
of the Society of Antiquaries in London.

The volumes of printed material relating to the Virginia Company, which are in
the Harvard Library, have been mentioned above.

Two private collections deserve mention for their comparatively large number
of important publications of the company, the private collection in New York
and that of Mr. Edward Ayer, in Chicago, Illinois.[131] In addition to twenty other
rare publications of the company Mr. Ayer has a unique book entitled "Greevovs
Grones for the Poore," 1621. It refers to the Virginia Company in its address
only, and in the statement of the number of poor that had been sent to Virginia,
but is of value for an understanding of that movement. The other private
collection is of about the same size. It contains the duplicate of the 1620
declaration in the Lenox and the only known copy of a four-page tract entitled
"Declaration how the monies were disposed (being) collections for the Grammar
Schooles," by Patrick Copland.[132]

TRANSCRIPTS IN THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY

Other attempts have been made to secure resources for research in America.
Not only is there the aggregation of excerpts from the English documents in
Richmond, as described above, and the acquisition of transcripts in the Library
of Congress within recent years, but half a century ago a similar interest was
displayed by collectors and historians in New York City, forming three collec-
tions which are to-day in the Lenox Library.

William H. Aspinwall, a merchant, secured among other papers the Chalmers
collection of letters and documents relating to Virginia from 1606 to 1775. They
were in turn sold to Samuel Latham Mitchell Barlow, a lawyer and notable
collector of New York City, from whom a part were purchased by the library,
while others came to the Lenox with the Bancroft transcripts in 1893. Chalmers
had been a clerk in the State paper office and seems to have taken these
extracts, outlines, and sometimes full copies from the Plantation office papers,
since he continually refers to them in his Political Annals.[133] They are modern-
ized transcripts, failing to follow the early orthography, abbreviations, and
capitalization. The writing is cramped and often almost illegible, while the
table of contents is incomplete and useless. They comprise (1) a series of brief
outlines of Privy Council orders; (2) extracts from the Dudley-Carleton papers;
(3) outlines of additional Council orders; (4) a calendar of certain of the colonial
State papers; (5) outlines of council orders dealing with other trading companies.
All of the original documents are at present in the Public Record Office and are
noted in the Bibliographical List of Records following.

The Bancroft papers relating to Virginia and the Simancas Archives are well
bound, clear, and apparently careful, correct, and full copies of the documents
included. The first two volumes of the Bancroft collection bearing on the Virginia
Company are transcripts of many of the documents in the State paper office,
probably made in 1852 by Noel Sainsbury, but the list is not complete. While
the peculiar and characteristic signs of abbreviation are not followed, the orthog-
raphy seems to be accurate throughout. Furthermore, the collection includes
the document entire, unless otherwise indicated. The table of contents is careful
and correct.[134] The "Simancas Archives" is a volume of transcripts of "Papers
in the Simancas Archives relating to the History of Virginia and other portions

of America between 1608 and 1624, made for Alexander Brown and many of
them used by him in his book, The Genesis of the U. S." The only document
relating to Virginia which is not reproduced in that collection is a repetition
of the proclamation of the King of England concerning tobacco, bearing the date
November 12, 1624.

COLLECTIONS IN ENGLAND

FERRAR PAPERS

The most unique collection in England for the study of the Virginia Company
is that in the possession of Magdelene College, Cambridge. As the property of
Nicholas and John Ferrar, who were second only to Sir Edwin Sandys in their
activity in the company, it would be invaluable; but its importance is further
enhanced by the fact that it contains the correspondence and papers of Sir Edwin
Sandys himself. These seventy-eight papers, which are either records of the
company or vitally concern it, cover the period of the Sandys-Southampton influence
from 1617 to the summer of 1623. They were the property of Dr. Peckard,
master of Magdalene College in 1790, and were bequeathed to the college upon his
death. It is probable that the greater part of the collection came from the Ferrar
family through Dr. Peckard's wife, Martha Ferrar, the great granddaugher of
John Ferrar, since the Virginia papers form but one-third of the group. The remain-
ing papers concern family affairs only, and date from 1601 to the middle of the
eighteenth century. Some of them are doubtless those received from the Earl of
Dorset by Dr. Peckard, when he was preparing his Memoirs of Nicholas Ferrar.[135]

The first knowledge of the Ferrar papers in later years was communicated to
the Virginia Magazine of History by Michael Lloyd Ferrar, Little Gidding. Ealing,
England. He sent a number of transcripts and photographs of letters to the maga-
zine for publication, among which were some half dozen bearing on the affairs of
the company, but the number which he was permitted to reproduce was limited
by the college. While Mr. Ferrar was completing a history of the Ferrar family
the entire collection was deposited at his home, and it was therefore in Ealing in the
fall of 1903 that the Editor was first permitted by the authorities of the college to
"see and note the contents" of the papers. Before the following summer Mr. Ferrar
had died and the collection had been returned to Cambridge, where complete trans-
cripts of all letters and photographs of all documents relating to the Virginia
Company were made for the Library of Congress under the supervision of the
Editor.

These papers are loose, many of them being much damaged, and it is apparent
that they are a part of a larger collection which must have been neglected while in
the possession of the family. There are some envelopes without letters, many
rough memoranda by both Nicholas and John Ferrar, some account books, and some
rough drafts of petitions to the House of Commons and of discussions on the
silkworm. The autographs which they furnish of both Nicholas and John Ferrar
have been of no little interest, as well as value, for the identification of other papers
in the Public Record Office, and in the Library of Congress. Furthermore, the
proof that Nicholas Ferrar himself supervised the transcript of the court book is
thus gained.

In this collection are twenty-three papers which are veritable records of the
company.[136] Two documents give our only knowledge of the financial affairs of
Smythe's Hundred, slight indeed, but from them comes additional information
concerning the system of organization of the societies for private adventure. Sundry
other unique though scattered documents are among these papers, such as receipts
for money expended, showing the method of business, reports of committees, and of
proceedings of the commissioners, revealing the bitterness of the factions, drafts or
original records of certain courts, forming the only proof of the accuracy of the
copies of the court books, and three new proceedings of the courts of the Somers
Islands Company. One of the latter is evidently a blotter and reveals the methods
used in keeping the court book. The quo warranto in English, which was served
upon the treasurer and company, would have been of the greatest value had not the
original record of the suit in the King's Bench just been discovered. Another
document of great value is the receipt referred to above, which proves that a court
book was regularly kept by the company from its very beginning. It reveals how
much has been lost.

The series, consisting of twenty letters from Sir Edwin Sandys to John Ferrar,
shows more clearly than any other documents we possess[137] who the real managers of
the affairs were and what was the spirit of the Sandys faction. The absolute confidence
which Sir Edwin Sandys had in John Ferrar and his great love for both of the brothers
is significant. Moreover, the knowledge of the affairs of the company, the careful
watch over every act and movement affecting the business, the deep and earnest
plans for the advancement of its interests revealed in these letters prove that Sir
Edwin Sandys was the keen financial manager of the undertaking. It was evidently
he who determined what the policy should be; he was apparently the statesman

and the politician, directing the method of address to the lords of the council or the
attitude to be assumed toward the Crown, controlling the courts so that he might be
present when there was danger of faction, concealing the information received from
the colony when he feared it would entail criticism. Much of the personal feeling
and animosity that existed is here shown, and much also which reveals actual
financial conditions.

The last group of these papers comprises thirty-five letters, all but one or two
of which were written by planters or adventurers, resident in the colony, to Sir
Edwin Sandys.[138] Of these, five came from Governor Yeardley, ten from either John
Pory or George Thorpe, secretaries in the colony at different times, and two from
the cape merchant; of the remainder, at least ten are from colonists whose opinions
and reports have not reached us in any other way. These letters are as full of
complaint with regard to the insufficient supplies sent with new planters, as are the
letters in the Manchester papers which Sir Nathaniel Rich and the Earl of Warwick
used as a basis of accusation against the management of the company, but they
differ from the other complaints in that they are kindly in spirit. Mr. Pory's letters
are full of definite information concerning the affairs, needs, and hopes of the
colony, while Governor Yeardley also gives some valuable statements with regard to
new settlers, the council, the relations with the Indians, and the government of the
colony; both complain of the scant provisioning of the new settlers. The burden of
the Yeardley letters, however, is the investigation of the affairs of Captain Argall
and the consequent criticism drawn upon himself from Lord Rich. Unfortunately,
comparatively few additional data are afforded concerning the Argall affair either by
Pory or by Yeardley. The planters themselves tell much of their condition and of
the districts in which they have settled, but the theme of their letters is most likely
to be a demand for promised payments or a complaint as to the scarcity of provisions
and clothes. The attitude toward Yeardley is generally favorable, John Rolfe alone
supporting Argall and criticizing the governor. As from all correspondence of
such a character, new ideas are gained, new points of view, and often additional
knowledge of relations with the Indians and with one another. Many of these
letters are annotated by John Ferrar, revealing the degree of importance which he
attached to their various and often conflicting statements.

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE—MANCHESTER PAPERS

A class of documents, very similar in character but of quite different spirit is
the Manchester papers, now in the Public Record Office, London. Robert, Earl of
Warwick, and his cousin, Sir Nathaniel Rich, were both members of the company.

Sir Nathaniel was a leader in the Warwick faction, while Earl Robert, after the
dissolution of the company in 1624, became a member of the council for Virginia.
The third wife of the Earl was Eleanor, Countess of Sussex, daughter of Richard
Wortley, and she, after the death of the Earl of Warwick, married, as her fourth
husband, Edward Montague, second Earl of Manchester. Thus it is that the
Kimbolton manuscripts, which are the records of the Duke of Manchester, contain
a large collection of petitions, declarations, memoranda, letters, and lists which
emanated from the Warwick faction of the Virginia Company.[139] Many of these are
holographs of Nathaniel Rich and Alderman Johnson, prime movers in that conflict.
Henry Montague, Viscount Mandeville and later Earl of Manchester, was at one
time lord president of the Privy Council. Therefore many of the Manchester papers
may have belonged to him. The autographs, however, identify those which concern
the Virginia Company as having belonged to Nathaniel Rich.

The Manchester and the Ferrar papers therefore present the two sides of this
conflict, not in open court or even in private contest, but in the private documents
and memoranda of the leaders. The collections are of about the same size, there
being sixty-six papers in the Manchester series, to seventy-eight in the Ferrar group.
These, also, are unbound, but since the greater part are rough notes of documents,
or drafts of propositions or speeches, they are much more difficult to decipher than
the Ferrar papers. Indeed many of them are almost illegible, and not a few are
unintelligible, having no connecting thought.

A dozen of these papers may be considered documentary; that is, rough copies
of letters, petitions, and declarations, or of acts of the company, or of its members
and officers in an official capacity. A few of these only are to be found among the
other records of the company. Like the rest of the set, they, almost without
exception, concern the accusations against the Sandys-Southampton management.
Three of them are petitions or letters concerning the extent of the tobacco trade,
but the rest are petitions to the King against one faction or the other, and answers
to those petitions. Of these, one of the most important is a copy of the opinion
of counsel concerning the powers conferred on the Virginia Company by the
several letters patent.[140] Accusation and defense are set forth in these documents,
but the headings of speeches, the drafts of propositions, and the notes from docu-
ments on which the arguments are based proclaim the motives and methods of the
accusers. No proof could be clearer than these memoranda by Alderman Johnson
and Nathaniel Rich that the company was to be overthrown by fair means or foul.
In two or three papers are carefully prepared lists of alleged evil deeds of Sir

Edwin Sandys and catalogues of the faults and errors of the company, while the
criticisms of the policy and of the management of the company are set down in
order, based on letters from colonists, of which there are eleven in the collection.
In these criticisms and drafts of propositions much information is afforded
concerning the management, organization, and condition of the colony and com-
pany. Thus, various books kept by the company during Sir Thomas Smythe's
time, and not otherwise known, are mentioned.[141] Five or six rough drafts of
propositions concerning the tobacco and salary question are also to be found
here, as well as numerous statements of sums adventured, of the number of men
sent to the colony, lists of members favorable to one faction or the other and
candidates for office from both parties. Many of the rough notes of both Johnson
and Rich furnish the only source of information concerning the directions given
to the commissioners appointed by the Crown to investigate the condition of the
company and of the colony and their acts and reports, but a fact of greater sig-
nificance is this, that the Warwick collection contains a dozen rough drafts of
directions to those commissioners, of charges against the company to be sent to
that body, of preliminary reports concerning the government of Virginia, and of
projects for the settlement of the government and the colony. The source of the
schism is here revealed, and the accusation by Sandys that accuser and judge were
one is justified.[142]

COLONIAL AND DOMESTIC STATE PAPERS

The other large group of Virginia records, consisting of over one hundred
and twenty separate documents, is found among the colonial and domestic papers
deposited in the Public Record Office. The source of this collection is uncertain.
Much of it came from the Plantation Office, and perhaps from the Privy Council
Office. The consolidation of depositories took place in 1578, but the efforts of
Dr. Thomas Wilson, the first clerk of the papers, to force the previous and
incumbent magistrates to hand over all documents to the State, were evidently
often unavailing, and hence it was that the creation of a State Paper Office was
not really accomplished until the period of the company. After Sir Thomas
Wilson succeeded his uncle during the reign of James I the aid of the King was
much relied upon, and, though partially successful, the recent revelation of quasi-
public documents in private collections shows that not only earlier but later
officials considered papers of record private property.[143] Thus some of the Salis-

bury papers, which Wilson failed to secure, are now at Hatfield House; and others
have passed with the Lansdowne collection into the British Museum, where they
are known as the Burghley papers. Similarly, the Cottonian papers in the Museum
originally belonged to Sir Robert Cotton in the time of James I.

Among the State Papers deposited in the Record Office are the letters to
John Ferrar, dated from Virginia in April, 1623, which may have been seized by
the commission appointed on May 9, 1623, to investigate the affairs of the com-
pany. There, too, are found the attested copies of letters and records in the
colony which concern the Harvey Commission, sent to the commission in England
by Edward Sharpless. A few of these papers seem to have belonged to the
company, such as the documents pertaining to the Walloons and dated 1621;
Pory's report from Virginia, in the same year; and two copies of documents by
Collingwood, dated the latter part of 1623.[144] All of these facts lead to the con-
clusion that a part of the records of the commissions, and a part of the confis-
cated records of the company are here deposited. If so, where are the remainder
of these most valuable documents?[145]

The colonial papers and the domestic correspondence include about forty-eight
which are records, and about nineteen which are documentary in character.
The first group contains, among other papers, many of the petitions and letters
addressed to the King and to the Privy Council, and many others of the council. It
is thus apparent that the royal correspondence of the Privy Council and the Privy
Council papers which should accompany the register are in this collection. To the
second group belong those papers which contain projects presented by individuals and
answers to such propositions, lists of adventures for the company, and also lists
of men sent to the colony and of lands granted in Virginia. Among these papers
are seven letters from colonists, in addition to about fifty which may be consid-
ered subsidiary correspondence in that they refer incidentally to the affairs of
the company. Such are the Mandeville-Conway, Middlesex-Conway, Chamberlain-
Carleton, Conway-Calvert, and Nethersole-Carleton letters.

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.

PRIVY COUNCIL REGISTER

Since the Privy Council took no direct part in the affairs of the company
between 1617 and the summer of 1622, its orders related to those regulations which
would enable the acts of the company to advance the interests of the kingdom, leaving
absolute power to the company as the proprietor. Thus fully one-half of its thirty
measures during those five years were reprieves of prisoners, with the warrants nec-
essary to send them to Virginia or orders enabling children to be transferred from
the cities of the kingdom to the colony. During this period the Crown commenced
its attempts to secure a revenue from the tobacco trade, and a series of orders finally
resulted in the approval of the contract with the company in February of 1622/3.
In its foreign and external relations the company was of course subject to the action
of the Privy Council, and hence the orders in council concerned the contest with
Spain over the attack of the Treasurer. Furthermore, the disagreement with the
northern colony concerning fishing privileges had to be adjusted by the council and
resulted in the renewal of the patent to the northern colony and in regulations as
to rights of fishing. It was in the summer of 1622 that the first movement was
made which brought the difficulties between the factions into the open board.
The petition of John Bargrave against Sir Thomas Smythe, Alderman Johnson,
and others, in which they were accused of mismanagement, resulted in the defeat of
Bargrave six months later, as was to have been expected from the hostility of the
Crown to the party in Parliament led by Sir Edwin Sandys, of which Bargrave
was evidently a member at that time. But the storm broke in the following April,
when the commission was appointed to inquire into the true state of the Virginia
and Somers Islands companies. From that date until the dissolution of the com-
pany in the summer of 1624 the council busied itself with the affairs of the company.
No less than 31 orders are recorded which create commissions and empower them
to investigate both the colony and the company and in the end to assume the
functions of government in the name of the Crown, while seven of these documents
pass directly between the council and the colony, and no other measures were con-
sidered except those which enabled the Warwick faction to tear down the work of
the adventurers and to take into its own hands the control of the entire business.
These forms of government, planned by the Crown and the commissions here
recorded, by which the authority was vested in the commissioners and later in a
committee of the Privy Council, stand for the beginning of royal control. Here-

tofore, with a few exceptions, these orders have been known only through the
calendar of state papers, and even then not more than one-half have been included.

The Privy Council Office and its records are located in the treasury building,
Whitehall, London; the registers of the council orders are kept in the clerk's office
but all of the early registers are properly about to be transferred to the Public
Record Office. These registers contain the orders of the council, and, after
Charles I, also the petitions received and the letters issued by the council. In
the earlier reigns such documents were not recorded; whether they were even
preserved as public documents is not certain, although, as stated above, many of
them have found their way to the Record Office and are there calendared among
the colonial, domestic, or foreign papers. There is a collection of such original
material, dating from the close of the seventeenth century, in the treasury building.[149]

BRITISH MUSEUM

The collection of manuscripts from which the most valuable returns might be
expected is in the British Museum. The documents there deposited are small in
number but they are of great value, and none of them have heretofore been printed.
The originals of the precedents for patents of the Virginia Company, which are now
noted for the first time, evidently formed a part of the records of the company, and
it may be that they are some of the copies of the records made under the supervision
of Nicholas Ferrar, or they may be the drafts of patents which were filed by the
company according to an order of its court. Not only is the writing similar to much
of that in the contemporary transcripts of the court book, but they are unsigned
copies, and the headings of a number of them seem to be in the autograph of Edward
Collingwood. The caption of the series shows that the copies were made for the sake
of preserving the form, and reads as follows: "Presidents of Patents, Grants &
Commissioners by the Virginia Company. 1621."[150] The company thus preserved the
legal form of the various grants. Four of them are of value not only for the form
but for the knowledge they furnish of the distinction made between the four classes
of adventurers: those who paid money into the treasury and agreed to plant one
hundred persons, those who established a private plantation, those who were private
planters, and those whose "shares exceedinge 50 acr̃ are exempted from payinge
any Rent to ye Company for the persons they transporte." In addition certain
knowledge is afforded concerning the grants. Two out of the other nine documents
are commissions granted to owners and masters of ships for voyages to Virginia, by

which they are to transport passengers to Virginia. Another is a covenant by the
company to pay for the victualing and transporting of passengers, while still another
is for the transporting of goods only. Other forms are those used for granting
rights of fishing on the coast of America, for voyages to Virginia, and free fishing
along the shores, and others still for discovery, fishing, and trading in furs in
Virginia. The covenant signed by William Ewens in which he agreed to fit out the
ship George reveals the form of contract required of the masters of ships by the
company.

These papers form the last group in a volume which contains "A Catalogue of
the Nobility of England in the time of King James the first," 1626, and "A list
of all the Officers belonging to Courts of Justice the Kings household & Reuenue
wth their seuerall fees." There are several signs for identification, but none which
indicate the original owner of the volume. It is a small quarto in leather, bearing
the signature, "H Cowle A. 29," on the inner cover, and also the arms of James
Bindley with the motto, "unus et idem." At the bottom of the same cover is
written the following: "Purchased at the sale of W. Berwicks library at Sotheby's,
27 Apr. 1863. (Lot 427)," while on the second fly leaf in the upper right-hand
corner is the inscription: "The gift of Mr Dan1 Prince, Bookseller. Oxford—July
23d. 1776." Farther than this the history of the papers is unknown.

Another set of documents in the Museum is also unique. One of these sup-
plies all that is known outside of the court book and a single reference in Argall's
register book regarding the controversy over the grant of land to John Martin in
Virginia. The other letters from Martin to his brother-in-law, Sir Julius Cæsar,
written in December, 1622, give startling suggestions with regard to an ideal policy
for the colony. "The manner howe to bringe in the Indians into subiection wth
out makinge an utter extirpation of them ..." is the heading of the paper in
which Martin proposes to disable the main body of the enemy by cutting them
off from their sources of supply at home and by destroying their trade. He would
thus require two hundred soldiers "Contynuallie harrowinge and burneinge all their
Townes in wynter." By this means and by gaining a store of grain for two years'
supply, he plans for the recovery from the massacre. In order to secure the entire
territory from the Indians, in a second letter he propounds a scheme by which the
Crown or the company can make a "Royall plantation for gods glory his Matie:
and Royall progenyes euer happines and the Companies exceedinge good." The
responsibility and control was to be thrown upon the shires of England. The
fact that the Martin letters have not heretofore been generally known may be due
to an error in the catalogue. They appear under the name "Tho. Martin" instead
of "Jho. Martin."[151]

Two other projects for the advancement of the colony are in the same collection
of papers; one by Captain Bargrave, brother of the Dean of Canterbury, is dated
December 8, 1623, and the other a year later. The latter relates to the division of
income from tobacco between the King, the planter, and the grower, with a reward
to those endeavoring to preserve the plantation, but approves the Ditchfield offer.
The Ditchfield offer itself is also in this collection.[152] Captain Bargrave's proposition
for the government of the colony stands midway between absolute royal control
and full autonomy of the planters, and holds an important place in the develop-
ment of the plans from the proprietary to the royal colony. Furthermore, it is
rather significant that in the collection of Sir Julius Cæsar are to be found the propo-
sitions of Martin, of Bargrave, and the document by which the commission was
finally appointed in 1624, to establish the government in Virginia under royal control.
Sir Julius Cæsar, having been a judge of admiralty under Elizabeth and chancellor
of the exchequer in the reign of James I, became master of the rolls on January
16, 1610/11, and one of the keepers of the great seal on May 3, 1621. His position
evidently enabled him to secure a large collection of valuable drafts of documents.
This was sold at auction in 1757. One-third of the collection was purchased by the
Earl of Shelburne (Lord Lansdowne) from Webb and came to the Museum among
the Lansdowne papers.

Two collections of printed material of the company are to be found in England,
the British Museum and the Society of Antiquaries. While the British Museum has
a large number of the earlier publications, it possesses only the declaration of June
22, 1620, and also the unique note of shipping of 1620, the only other copy of which
is owned by the Society of Antiquaries. The collection of that society is rich in
royal proclamations, besides possessing a copy of the Note of Shipping, 1621, and
of the Inconveniences of 1622. The scattering documents to be found in private
collections throughout England are often valuable, but nowhere else is to be found
any considerable number of papers or any that are of great importance.[153]

4. The Records of the Company under the
Sandys-Southampton Administration

Organization of the Company

In order to comprehend what the records of the company were and what their
value, it is necessary to gain an understanding of the system which the corporation
worked out in order to further its purposes. The forms and usages of the company
after 1619 were determined by the charters granted by the King and by the "Orders
and Constitutions" which it adopted in 1619 and printed in June, 1620,[154] although the
latter were altered or newly interpreted from time to time by action of its courts.

The membership of the company was unlimited and was granted by the courts
to anyone who had "adventured" £12 10s. for a share of stock or to whom the com-
pany had awarded a share of stock for services.[155] The distinction between a member
who was free of the company and an owner of land in Virginia was brought out in a
controversy on February 19, 1622/3, in which a proposition to limit the adventurers
to those approved by the generality met with opposition on the ground that land in
Virginia was held in free and common socage and could not be forbidden to any man.
But Sir John Brooke, the legal authority in the company, declared that such exclusion
was agreeable to the law since it was a question of a vote in a court and not a ques-
tion of ownership of land. The argument was based on the power to withhold the
privilege of voting from Samuel Wroth, who was under censure, and similarly on
the power to exclude any man who had purchased land from a member who was
indebted to the company until the debts were paid. This discussion also revealed
that no oath of fidelity was required in the Virginia Company as in the Muscovy
and other corporations. At a later date the King proposed that no member should
be free of the courts who had not sent men to the colony as planters, claiming that
less than thirty of the adventurers could meet the requirement.[156] The power to dis-
franchise an unworthy member was reserved to the company.

The members met in four great or quarter courts, held on the last Wednesday
except one of each law term. On the Monday preceding they assembled in a prepar-
ative court and on every Wednesday fortnight thereafter in a common or ordinary
court, as required by the charter of 1612; and they might also be summoned to
an extraordinary court by the treasurer or deputy. The meetings were held in the
private houses of various members of the company[157] until the time of the tobacco
contract, when a company house was established.

In the quarter court the adventurers elected all councilors and principal officers
of the company and colony, made all laws and ordinances, confirmed all grants of
land, settled all questions of trade, and passed all measures which should bind the
company for a term of years. Their action with regard to questions of a new charter
and of investment for the colony was legal only when transacted in a quarter court,
but they might transfer to other courts actions which concerned correspondence
with the lord treasurer or similar business. Fifteen of the generality and five
of the council formed a quorum for the ordinary courts, and in those they signed
warrants, ordered the payment of bills passed by the auditors, and sealed bills of
adventure. In that meeting also were perfected commissions for transportation
of men and provisions and for trade and barter. Special officers and committees
were appointed in this court, and even actions of great importance, such as the
dissolution of the magazine or the extension of freedom of the company to hon-
orary members, were consummated.[158]

The officers chosen by the company were a council, a treasurer, a deputy,
auditors, a general committee of sixteen, a secretary, a bookkeeper, a husband, and
a beadle. The adventurers looked to the treasurer or governor not only as the
president and moderator, but as the manager of their business interests, and expected
him to be responsible for the policy of the company in its relations with the govern-
ment and to formulate and present plans for the development of the plantation and
the profit of the adventurers. To him was entrusted the supervision of the treasury
and the collection of moneys.

The care of the court books was given to the deputy. It was his duty to attend
to the engrossing of the orders and resolutions of the courts, the registration of
letters to and from the company, and the formulation of statements to be given to
the public. He also kept the court of the committees and supervised the issue of
warrants.

The council was a body, gradually increasing in size, elected for life, and was
sworn by the lord chancellor or by the lord chamberlain. In the earlier years it was
the most important committee of the generality of the company, but after 1621 its

duties seem oftentimes to have been assigned to the auditors or to special committees.
According to the "Orders and Constitutions" its chief care was the preparation of
laws for the company and for the colony, the issue of instructions to the governor
and council of the colony, and the formation of a preliminary court for the trial of
the officers of the company or of the colony. But the practice in the courts was to
refer to it those difficult duties for which its titled and distinguished personnel made
it especially fit. To it was referred, as a final resort, the examination of the claims of
John Martin, the attempts to gain a statement of accounts from the old magazine,
and the settlement or arbitration of both the Bargrave and the Argall cases.[159]

A body called the "committees" was at first composed of twelve members, six
being chosen annually, but later the number was increased to sixteen, four being
elected anew each year.[160] Its duties were chiefly to attend to the buying and
selling of the commodities of the company, and to the furnishing of ships departing
for Virginia.

The auditors formed the other important standing committee, composed of
seven members, elected annually. The chief duty assigned to them by the "Orders
and Constitutions" was that of reducing to a book the receipts and expenditures.
The court book discloses the fact that the company imposed upon them the burden
of examining all claims against the company, as well as all claims of the company, of
investigating the accounts of the lottery and of the magazine, of determining the
awards of land or of shares for service or for adventure, of perfecting all patents and
grants, and even of investigating controversies, such as the Bargrave and Martin
cases and the dispute as to the seal and coat of arms.[161]

The other officers performed such duties as usually pertain to those who hold
the corresponding titles.[162]

As the business of the company increased additional officers were chosen, as
those for the control and execution of the lotteries and of the tobacco contract; while
the custom of referring important matters to special committees grew rapidly, until
in the later years many duties were transferred to them from the council, and even
from the auditors. In this way such affairs as the securing of men to send to the

colony, the provisioning of ships, the hearing of petitions, the investigating of claims,
the sending of maids to the colony, the planning for new settlements and industries,
the representing of the interests of the company in Parliament, the defending of the
company in the suit of the quo warranto were intrusted to special committees.[163]

METHODS OF PROCEDURE

In order to secure legality of action, the "Orders and Constitutions" were
read at one quarter court each year, since in those meetings the measures of great
importance were determined.[164] That the forms and usages followed in other com-
mercial companies, in other corporate bodies, and in Parliament greatly influenced
the decisions of the company is seen in the following illustrations: The question
as to the entry in the minutes of the names of dissenters or of reasons disallowed
by the court except by special order was thus settled according to the practice
in Parliament; to prove that individual adventurers would not be liable for the
debts of the company in the management of the tobacco magazine, decisions were
cited both in a case involving the corporation of Norwich, and in the insolvency
of the Muscovy Company; when the question arose as to salaries in the tobacco
business involving £100,000, the precedent furnished by all joint stocks of no greater
capital than £7,000 was brought forward; the custom of private corporations as
well as of judicial bodies of imposing a fine upon any man who spoke against the
judge or the court was urged by Lord Brooke as a proper action to be taken
against Samuel Wroth.[165] Elections were conducted by ballot, except for the council,
in which case, as in all other matters, the will of the court was determined by an
"erection of hands."

The reward for services rendered by the officers was determined by the court
and set down in the Orders and Constitutions. The annual payment to the secre-
tary was £20, to the beadle £40, to the husband £50, and to the bookkeeper
£50. Although the chief officials and committees received no salary, at the expira-
tion of the year's term of office it was customary to award 20 acres of land in
Virginia to each individual, with the provision that such land should not be sold.
The company similarly rewarded individuals who had rendered great service, but
sometimes it granted shares of stock instead, or agreed to transport for the indi-
vidual a certain number of men free of charge. Shares thus given could not be sold
below par value of £12 10s.[166] Each share carried with it the privilege of a vote in

the courts and the receipt of 100 acres of land in Virginia on the first division, with a
similar amount on the second division providing the first section had been peopled.
In addition, the sending of a man to the plantation before midsummer of 1625
entitled the adventurer to 50 acres of land on each division. If a planter had
adventured his person only, after three years' residence in the colony the company
gave him one share of stock; or if a resident in England had sent a man to the
colony who had remained there three years, the one who bore the charge was simi-
larly rewarded. Through reward or by purchase an individual might thus own land
and not possess stock, but he might secure the latter within three years by "plant-
ing" or peopling his land. The result was that there were five classes of individuals
connected with the company.

(1)

• The old adventurer who had paid at least £12 10s. for a share of stock,
  and who thus owned, rent free, at least 100 acres of land after the first division
  which took place in 1616.

(2)

• The new adventurer who had exactly the same privileges, except that after
  seven years he must pay 12d. to the company for each 50 acres gained by trans
  portation of settlers.

(3)

• The adventurer who received a share of stock for service or for adventure
  of person and who would have the privileges of an old or of a new adventurer
  according to whether he received the award before or after 1619.

(4)

• The individual who had received a grant of land for service or who had
  purchased land and had not yet gained the grant of shares of stock by adventure
  of his person or by sending out planters.

(5)

• The individual who had purchased land of a debtor of the company and
  could not become free of the courts until the debts were paid.

It will thus be seen that ownership of land and possession of freedom of the
company were not always coexistent, but that each involved the possibility of the
other.[167] No assessments were ever levied upon the shareholders, the first sugges-
tion of such a course coming from the Privy Council in July, 1623.[168]

RECORDS PROVIDED FOR BY THE COMPANY

The company was thus a body of adventurers, who had gained the freedom
of the company by payment of money, by rendering a service, or by settlement
of land in Virginia. It was presided over by a treasurer chosen by itself at will,
and conducted all of its business through its regularly elected officers or committees,
or by special committees. According to the "Orders and Constitutions" it kept

a complete record of its actions in the courts and compelled its officers and
committees to do the same. Provision was thus made for six books which were
to contain the following records:

(1)

• Copies of the letters patents, and also of all letters, orders, and directions
  from the King and his council, as well as the replies of the company.

(2)

• The laws and standing orders passed in quarter courts for the company
  and for the colony.

(3)

• A register of all patents, charters, and indentures of validity granted by
  the company, of all instructions issued by the council, and of all public letters
  sent to or received from Virginia.

(4)

• The acts of the general courts.

(5)

• The acts of the committees; invoices of provisions sent to Virginia by
  the company; the certificates of the receipts to be returned from Virginia; invoices
  of goods sent from Virginia with the husband's certificate of receipt or defect.

(6)

• The names of adventurers, by payment of money or by rendering service,
  to whom shares of land had been given, together with the number of shares
  belonging to each person; the lawful transfers of shares from one to another;
  the names of His Majesty's council for Virginia.

(6a)

• The names of all planters in Virginia on the public and on the private
  plantations separately, based on the certificates from the governor and council in
  Virginia and from the heads of each plantation.[169]

All of these books were in the custody of the Secretary, and were to be
kept in the company's chest, together with the originals of the letters patents
and all other papers. In his custody also were the husband's books of accounts
of every voyage to Virginia, all accounts approved by the auditors, the canceled
and uncanceled charter parties, and all bonds issued to the company.

The proof of the care with which the company kept its records is found in
the contemporary copy of the court book, and in a few scattering originals and
copies of originals which are preserved among the Ferrar and Manchester papers
and in the British Museum. That all of the books required by the orders and
constitutions were really kept can not be proved, since not a page nor a copy of
a page of many of them is known to be extant; but the copy of the court book
serves as an evidence that the laws were as carefully obeyed in this respect as
in others. The references in the minutes to many of these records, the inser-
tion of many of them in the copy of the court book, and the continual provision
for supplementary records all go to show that the "Orders and Constitutions"
furnish a reliable outline of the records kept by the company.

The books which the courts added to the list of records from time to time
reveal an increasing effort to conduct the business in an orderly manner. Imme-
diately upon assuming his duties as treasurer, Sir Edwin Sandys instituted an
investigation of the accounts of Sir Thomas Smythe. In this connection four
books and four rolls were prepared containing the subscriptions, which had been
made for carrying on the business, and a list of the adventurers with the sums
invested during the previous years. The treasurer made a similar request of
the deputy, John Ferrar, on September 18, 1620, in which he asked that the
secretary and Mr. Carter should make three catalogues of the adventurers
indebted to the company in order that they might be given to a solicitor for
collection. He throws light upon the customary carelessness by urging that the
lists should be made "from the company's books and not from memory," lest
many a £12 10s should be lost.[170]

On May 17, 1620, three books of the deputy were audited. The first contained
an account of the money disbursed for provisions,[171] the second, a catalogue of the
provisions sent to the colony, and the third, a list of the names of the persons
dispatched to the plantation with the trade of each. Because of the erection of
private plantations in later years it was necessary that these records should be
supplemented. Hence an order of court provided that the names of all persons
transported to Virginia should be reported to the company and that a bookkeeper
should be appointed to be at the house of the court to register the names before
the departure of every ship. This record was to consist of the name, age, country,
profession, and kindred of each individual and was to state at whose charge the
transportation was effected. Contrary to custom each person was required to pay
a fee for registration. A duplicate of the register was to be sent to the Governor
of Virginia, but the names of those departing were not to be made public until
after the ship had sailed.[172]

Provision was made in 1620 for keeping duplicates of all patents issued.
A part of this series is now deposited in the British Museum, from which the
various kinds of patents and the terms for each may be discovered.[173] A registra-
tion of all shares passed from one member of the company to another was ordered
on November 19, 1621, and such a book was to be used as evidence of the right
to be admitted to courts. Other records added from time to time were a book
containing the rates of commodities,[174] a register of all petitions to the court,

with the action thereupon,[175] and a record of all covenants between adventurers
and indentured servants, a copy of which was to be sent to the governor of
Virginia.[176] The rolls signed by adventurers must have been numerous. Nine are
mentioned in the court book on July 24, 1621, in addition to others cited at
various times.[177]

With the increase in trade and the establishment of the company magazines
new measures were adopted for controlling the business. These often consisted
of separate documents rather than books. A statement was thus required of the
deputy certifying that the freight had been paid before any goods should be
delivered, and invoices were also demanded of the cape merchant.[178] Copies of
such certificates, as also of the accounts of the treasurer of the various joint
stock investments for the glass works and for the fur trade, were kept in the
company's chest.[179]

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]

THE EXTANT SUPPLEMENTARY RECORDS

DOCUMENTS OUTLINING THE ACTIVITY OF THE COMPANY

The organization and the method of procedure of the company have been
outlined, in order to enable the reader to comprehend the nature of the records, and
through them the machinery by which it conducted its internal affairs; but there is a
wider and more important field to consider. The real interest in the company comes
from its activity in carrying on trade and in developing the resources and
government of the colony. Again, the starting point must be the court book, not
only as a guide to the records which it kept in executing its purposes, but in
discovering what activities are to be traced. Two kinds of documents afford the
clearest outline of the subject; in one are the reports which the treasurer offered to
the company and which are spread upon the minutes; in the other are the printed
declarations and broadsides which the company issued for the purpose of securing
interest, confidence, and investment in the undertaking. With the same motive it
reprinted treatises and published sermons which had been delivered before the
company.

The first report of Sir Edwin Sandys after he became treasurer was offered
on November 3, 1619, in which he thus defined his policy: The resources of the
company were to be augmented by settling and developing the company's land and
by increasing the number of industries to be established, an action which must
advance the plantation from a colony for exploitation into a colony for settlement.
The report begins with a statement of the number of men which had been transported

by the company for the college land and for the public land during the summer and
continues with propositions to the same effect, by which 300 additional persons
should be sent to the colony, 100 of whom were to be maids for wives and 100 to be
apprentices or servants from the city. The other measures discussed are indicative
of the development which rapidly took place. First of these was the effort to
establish other commodities in Virginia and restrain the excessive production of
tobacco; the second was the encouragement of a spirit of local patriotism in the
colony. The treasurer urges that men should be sent from the low countries to
raise fortifications for the colony, stating that the colonists were willing to bear the
charges of the work since they had recently been encouraged by the charters and
grants of liberties. The dependence of the company upon the lotteries for an
income and the care to arrange for an economical transportation of the men are
indications of the financial policy and status of the colony. The income of the
lottery is estimated at £3,500, and the total expense of perfecting the plan submitted
is placed at £4,000 or £5,000.

Six months later the treasurer made his annual report, which revealed to what
extent his plans had been executed. It was issued as a broadside under the date of
the court in which it was delivered and describes the state of the colony from April,
1618, to April, 1619, taken from a general letter to the company, and then proceeds to
outline the successful activity of the colony during the succeeding year. It empha-
sizes the erection of private plantations, the number of men sent to the company's
land, the commodities provided for—there being ten instead of two as in the former
year—the interest in the care of religion and education in the colony, and the stable
financial condition of the company. The general receipts amounted to £9,831 14s 11d
and the disbursements were £10,431 14s 07d, but the surplus in the college fund more
than exceeded this deficiency, the receipts from that source being £2,043 02s 11½d and
the expenditures £1,477 15s 5d. The lottery was reported to have an increase in stock
over the previous year of £1,200. Although not re-elected treasurer, the financial
management remained in the hands of Sir Edwin Sandys, as is proved by the entries
of his plans in the court book and by his private letters to John Ferrar. A scheme
outlined in the court of July 7, 1620, is practically the measure put forth in the
printed declaration of June 22, 1620, and proposes a continuation of the policy stated
above.

The printed documents of 1619 and 1620 add but little to the plans revealed in the
treasurer's reports concerning the activity of the company, although the measures
taken to advance the comfort of the planters and of the tenants upon arrival in
Virginia, the establishment of many private plantations, and the encouragement
given to the self-government of the colony are brought out more clearly. After the
note of the shipping in 1621, so far as is known, there were no propositions issued

by the company. This was due to the massacre which paralyzed the efforts of the
company for a time and forced upon it publications of defense and excuse or
directions of warning. While the company was torn by dissension, after 1622 the
colony slowly but steadily advanced. The proprietor was no longer active, and the
center of interest is therefore transferred from the courts in London in which the
plans had been conceived to the settlement in which they were maturing.

The various publications of the company afford not only an understanding of the
measures proposed, but also of their execution. They were in themselves a means of
carrying out its schemes. Before 1622 five of these advertisements were issued by
the company. The broadside bearing the date May 17, 1620, is a full statement of
the prosperous condition in the colony, setting forth the ability of the colony to
receive newcomers in its guest houses, newly built in each of the four ancient
boroughs and in the other plantations, and describing the measures provided to sus-
tain ministers in each borough. It states the number of men who had been sent to
the public land, with the provisions allowed, and describes fully the efforts which
had been made to establish six industries in the colony.[204]

A book of great importance was issued by the company in June of the same
year containing a series of declarations.[205] There were at least two editions in the
year 1620, having variations in the title page; in the first edition the pages are
numbered according to each pamphlet and the imprint is "T. S.," while in the
second the pagination is consecutive from 1 to 92 and the imprint is that of Thomas
Snodham. The latter varies also in the orthography of the word "colony" in the title.
The former was probably the first edition and was composed of pamphlets, each of
which may have been issued separately, and seems to have been reissued, with an
additional pamphlet concerning a division of land in Virginia,[206] in which the
signature is consecutive. Copies of the first issue of the first edition of the "Decla-
rations" are in the Harvard Library and in the New York Public Library ("No.
1"), but the only copy of the second issue is in the John Carter Brown Library
(copy "A"). The copies in the British Museum, the Cambridge University
Library,[207] the Library of Congress, the John Carter Brown Library (copy "B"),
and the New York Public Library (Thomas Addison Emmet Collection, "No. 2")
are identical and are evidently the first issue of the second edition. The copies in
the New York Public Library and in a private collection in New York are probably
a second issue of the second edition, having four additional pages and containing a

declaration, "By his Maiesties Councell for Virginia," dated November 15, 1620.[208]
The pagination and the signature are consecutive but the style of type is changed.

The pamphlets included in all editions are as follows:

(1)

• "By his Maiesties Counseil for Virginia." This is a declaration of the
  industries which have been established, of the good government which has been
  formed in the colony so that it "begins to have the face and fashion of an orderly
  State," and of the purpose of the company in the division of land.

(2)

• "A Note of the Shipping, Men and Prouisions sent to Virginia, by the
  Treasurer and Company in the yeere 1619."

(3)

• "A Declaration of the Supplies intended to be sent to Virginia in this
  yeare 1620. 18 Julij, 1620."

(4)

• "The Names of the Aduenturers, with their seuerall summes aduentured
  * * * paid to Sir Thos. Smith," to "Sir Baptist Hicks," and to "Sir Edwin
  Sandys."

(5)

• "Orders And Constitutions, * * * for the better gouerning * * *
  of the said Companie * * * Anno 1619, and 1620."

Some light is thrown upon these publications by the court book, in which
provision for four similar pamphlets was made between November, 1619, and June,
1620, as follows:

(1)

• An advertisement for laborers, approved to be published on November 17,
  1619.

(2)

• A publication which should confute the slander as to the barrenness of the
  soil in Virginia, ordered November 22.

(3)

• A list of the names of adventures with the sums adventured, ordered to be
  drawn up by the treasurer and Dr. Winstone, December 15.[209]

(4)

• An apology for Virginia, ordered to be printed June 23, 1620. On June 26
  and 28 it was provided that the standing orders should be printed and annexed to
  the book to be given to all members by order of the council.

The conclusion seems valid that these pamphlets are the ones included in the
book and that they first appeared at various times, but that finally in June, 1620, they
were collected, the fourth one added, and the volume published under the date of
the latter.

The publication of this declaration in four different issues during the year 1620
indicates the interest which Sir Edwin Sandys had aroused in the measure, as well as

the virility of the company, while reference to the book in much of the corre-
spondence of the day reveals the same attitude toward the venture. In order to
promote the silk industry a pamphlet entitled "Observations to be followed for
making of fit roomes for silk wormes," written by Banoeil, was translated under the
patronage of the company toward the end of the year 1620.[210] It contains a pamphlet
called "A Valuation of the Commodities growing and to be had in Virginia: rated
as they are worth," in which is presented the astonishing list of 49 articles. The
natural commodities which did not require especial cultivation, such as various kinds
of fish, furs, woods, shrubs and berries, were of course included. But this proof of
rapid development in the industrial habits and occupations of the colonists is most
important, and the note of the shipping of the same year and the one in 1621 are
confirmatory. In the former is the statement of the number of men sent for each of
four industries, and in the latter a similar declaration. The rapid transportation
of settlers and the development of private plantations in these two years is as sur-
prising. Thus in 1620 six ships with 600 persons were sent to the colony, and 400
more settlers were to be sent at once, of whom 500 were destined for the com-
pany's land. The next year the number of ships dispatched increased to twenty-one
and the number of persons to 1,300, while the number of patents for private
plantations grew from six to twenty-six.

During the year 1622 the books printed by the company were much less valuable,
although more numerous, there being seven in all. The Declaration of the state of
the Colony of Virginia with the Relation of the Massacre of the English, by the
Natiue Infidells with the names of those that were Massacred, by Edward Waterhouse,
was more concerned with the disaster than with the previous development of the
plantation.[211] A broadside is inserted in the copy of this declaration in the John
Carter Brown Library, entitled "Virginia Inconveniences,"[212] which was published
separately and was a set of directions with regard to the provisions which each person
should have before sailing for the colony. This included apparel, victuals, household
implements, arms, sugar, spice, and fruit for consumption at sea, and nets, hooks,
lines, and a tent for large numbers. The declaration was made that for its own
tenants the Virginia Company followed the proportionate provision as set forth in
this broadside. It is at once an advertisement for new tenants and a warning against
the dangers which had wrought dissatisfaction and brought complaints to the com-
pany. Two sermons and two treatises were published in the same year; one of the

latter was a reprint of Banoeil's book on silk worms, including a letter of encourage-
ment from the King and one of advice from the treasurer, which were intended to
promote the industry of silk as opposed to that of tobacco;[213] the other treatise was
by John Brinsley and was an encouragement for the advancement of learning and
the foundation of schools.[214] Of the same character was a four-page pamphlet, which
was published in the same year, declaring the sums which had been coll͠ected "towards
the building of a free schoole in Virginia."[215]

A number of general works were approved by the company in the courts or were
accepted and rewarded. Thus the proposition by Smith to write a history of Vir-
ginia on April 12, 1621, seems to have been acceptable to the adventurers, while
George Rugh, who had rendered service to the Virginia council by writing a treatise
on government, was publicly eulogized upon his bequeathing £100 to the company
for the education of infidels' children.[216] Edward Bennett was admitted to the com-
pany as a reward for a treatise against the importation of tobacco from Spain, and
the chronicler, Howes, was granted 12 pounds of tobacco as a yearly payment for his
references to Virginia.[217]

A number of works were suggested in the courts of which we have no trace or
which can not be identified as appearing under other titles. To what the company
referred when it petitioned the Archbishop of Canterbury for permission to publish
the book which he had prohibited is unknown.[218] The printed book proposed by Sir
Edwin Sandys on November 4, 1620, in which he wished to defend the lotteries and
to hasten the dispatch of persons to Virginia, may have been the declaration of the
shipping in 1620, but it is not mentioned again in the court book. In 1621 three other
proposed publications failed to be executed, so far as is known, the first of which was
a treatise on the government of Virginia by Thomas Bargrave.[219] The second was a
defense of the company, and concerned the health, trade, and manners of the colony,
and the third considered the defects and remedies of Virginia and discussed the food,

health, fortifications, wealth, and religion of the colony.[220] In the following year an
attempt was made to collect the "binding laws which had been ratified in courts"
and to add them to the printed books, but it seems to have failed, since no trace of
such a publication has been found, and no final action is recorded in the court book.[221]

DOCUMENTS REVEALING THE MOVEMENTS FOR TRADE AND INDUSTRY

The printed advertisements between 1619 and 1621 were successful in securing
the capital with which to carry on the enterprise. It now remains to discover how
the trade was conducted and controlled, how the plantation was developed and
governed, and how the business was finally destroyed.

The income which enabled the company to provide for new industries in 1619
and 1620 was derived from the £12 10s. paid by each new adventurer for each new
share of stock, and from the lotteries. Special collections and particular gifts for the
advancement of religion and of education in the colony were frequent, and thus the
account and management of the college land became important. Before the intro-
duction of freedom of trade into the colony, and the dissolution of the old magazine
on January 12, 1619/20, the company had some profit from that monopoly,[222] but the
ease with which returns came from the lotteries had doubtless led the company to
abolish the monopoly of trade which had become so difficult to maintain. That the
company depended on the lotteries is indicated by the following statements in the
court book: On December 1, 1619, the lotteries were continued until summer because
there was no other means of securing money, and the plan put forth for the devel-
opment of the colony on July 7, 1620, provided that the estimated expense of £17,800
should be met by the income from the lotteries, which would amount to £18,000.
Information concerning the organization for conducting the lottery is wanting.
Books and rolls and catalogues of prizes are referred to but have not been found.[223]
Thus the only documents which throw light on the system outside of the court book
are the records of the suit of the Virginia Company against William Leveson, an
agent for the lottery in 1613, which discloses that books and rolls had been kept, and
that a house for the lottery had been erected and furnished "at the west end of St.
Paules Church;" a proclamation by the King for the overthrow of the lottery on
March 8, 1620/21; and a few letters solicting investments.[224]

The investments by the company during the period of the lotteries followed
three lines—the old magazine, the planting of the public and the college lands in

Virginia, and the erection of industries for the production of certain commodities.
The court book is the only source of information with regard to the old magazine,
in which the company through its general stock of the company had invested more
than twice as much as any other adventurer. Hence, during the last half of the year
1619, it made every effort to gain an account and secure a settlement of that adventure.
The discussion, which resulted in the adoption of free trade to the colony, reveals the
system used for the control of the magazine, indicates to a slight degree the income
which the company had had from that joint stock, and incidentally shows that it had
some returns from the public lands in Virginia.[225] The numbers of men sent to the
company's land and their equipment are given in the printed declarations, in the
reports of the treasurer spread on the minutes, and in the discussions recorded in
the court book, and although the sums invested for the purpose are not recorded,
the statement was made by Sir Edwin Sandys that 800 men were sent through the
income from the lottery. The transportation of dissolute persons in the year 1619
to meet the command of the King, and the settlement of boys and girls on the
company's land previous to 1622, were other means used to people the public and
college lands.[226]

Five commodities enumerated in the broadside of May 17, 1620, were established
by action of the court. No record is extant of the exact nature of the investment,
but it appears from the court book to have been chiefly an investment from the general
stock. The movement for monopoly of certain industries rather than a monopoly
of all trade began during the latter part of the year 1620, and as a result the records
deal extensively with plans for the sole importation of tobacco, by which a joint
stock of £15,000 was to be raised to carry out what is known as the "Somerscales
plan."

The overthrow of the lotteries carried consternation to the company. An
income was essential with which to send out settlers to develop the soil or to create
new industries, but the general stock was so low that the company could not even
carry out its plans for glassworks. Finally, after several months of discussion,
recourse was had to special adventure or new joint stock companies for special
undertakings, controlled by a treasurer who should be elected by the adventurers in
the scheme. Thus followed the creation of a series of magazines for the erection of
a glass furnace, for the establishment of a fur trade, for sending maids for wives,
and for supplying a magazine for apparel. The records of these ventures are to be
found only in the court book, and the data there given is very insufficient. This, of
course, meant no advantage to the general stock, and the company was forced to
discover means for securing returns from the general investment and an income with

which to develop the company's land. Hence, private plantations were organized,
and private patents and monopolies for the industry of pitch and tar, for ironworks,
for new discoveries were granted, while special commissions for trade along the coast
and for fishing added to the revenue. With the exception of the movement for
private plantations and for the sole importation of tobacco, but few records exist
outside of the court book to reveal these vigorous endeavors to reap the results of
the great investments in the earlier years.[227] The grants for private plantations to
individuals or groups of individuals, called hundreds, commenced as early as 1616,
but increased rapidly during and after 1621, there being entries in the court book of
over fifty patents granted in four years, which provide for the transportation of at
least 100 men each and often for four times as many. The system by which each
hundred in Virginia and the adventurers for the hundred in England was organized
is to be found in the court book and in the extant records of the companies. The
minutes of one meeting for Martin's Hundred and one for Smythe's Hundred, and
the forms for patents deposited in the British Museum, in addition to about seventy
papers of Berkeley Hundred, afford a very satisfactory reconstruction of the terms of
agreement, the expenses, the provisioning, the form of government, the instructions
issued to the captain or governor of the hundred, and the terms of settlement with
tenants and servants. The adventures of Lord Zouch and Lord La Warr in 1617
and 1618, and of the Walloons and French in 1621, complete the series of which any
record exists.[228]

But the private grants did not promise sufficient income to meet the great
demands for supplies from the general stock which the massacre of 1622 brought
about. As a result the company turned to the income from tobacco, regardless
of its high purposes and its endeavors to enforce the production of other com-
modities. This feeling of the importance of a contract for the sole importation of
tobacco took such a strong hold upon the company that from May, 1622, until
its dissolution, just a year later, nothing else worth mentioning is recorded in the
court book, while the quarrel concerning the salaries to be paid for the manage-
ment of the £100,000 to be invested in this project monopolized the attention
of several courts. In addition to the record of an entire year in the court book,
numerous memoranda of various estimates of the value of the tobacco monopoly
to the Crown and to the company are deposited among the Manchester papers

in the Public Record Office. The communications with the Privy Council on
the subject are spread on the company's minutes, and are also to be found among
the Colonial State papers. This series includes the proclamations of the King in
1624, and the new propositions and measures for tobacco importation of the
same year. The economic condition of the planter, the necessity of a revenue to
the company, the amount of the importation and of the customs value to the
King, the relations with Spain, and the economic values in England are all brought
out in the estimates, discussions, and arguments.[229]

DOCUMENTS DISCLOSING THE RELATIONS WITH THE COLONY

The study of the relations of the company to the colony and the development
within the colony may be based on a greater variety of documents than any other
phase of the subject, especially with regard to the political conditions. The court
book furnishes an understanding of the attitude and motives of the company and
often serves to connect the data gathered from letters, instructions, commissions,
patents, and grants. Thus the emphasis on the custom of martial law in the colony
and the severity of penalty imposed is revealed both in the court book and in the
extracts from Governor Argall's register.[230] The additional forms of government
required by the development of the colony are recorded in the court book, by which
the company created the offices of deputies to the governor for the college and for
the public land, secretary, treasurer, chancellor, and surveyor, and provided for the
compensation of officers by grants of land, by transportation of tenants, by the
income of the company's land, and by allowance of fees.[231] The requests for the
appointment of a council of State and for laws and orders, urgently repeated by
Governor Yeardley, as recorded in the court book in 1619, give evidence that the
source of such development was in the colony. But the fundamental law for the
government of the colony is recorded in three documents, the instructions to Gov-
ernor Yeardley, November 8, 1618, which created the land system, the instructions
to Governor Wyatt, July 24, 1621, which emphasized the industrial development,
and "An Ordinance and Constitution * * * for a Councill of State and Generall
Assembly" in Virginia, which confirmed the political forms.

These documents provided for the creation of two councils. The council of
state, composed of the governor and council, was to form an executive and

judicial body, and the assembly, composed of the council and two burgesses from
each town or borough, was to be purely a legislative body.[232] The approval of a
quarter court of the company, which was necessary for legalizing the acts of the
assembly, is referred to in the court book in three places only.[233] The constitution
and the provisions for division of the country into cities and boroughs, recorded
both in the instructions and in the patents by which the government of the private
plantations was delegated to a private body, form the basis for a study of the
local systems. The records of Smythe's, Martin's, and Berkeley Hundred referred
to above, the correspondence of Samuel Argall with Bermuda Hundred, and the
commissions for government issued by Governor Argall and later by the council
of state complete the sources on this subject.[234] The precedents for patents are
valuable in the information which they afford with regard to the position of the
following classes of colonists: The old adventurer not subject to rent; the
adventurer paying money for his shares and agreeing to transport 100 persons;
the adventurer settling a private plantation; the individual planter.[235] These
documents also throw light on the liberty of the individual, his exemption from
taxation without his consent by the colony or by the private plantation, and his
submission to a government almost military in character.

The strict supervision which the company exercised over the economic, indus-
trial, and social conditions of the colony is to be seen in the measures enacted in
the courts and in the correspondence between the company and the colony, sup-
plemented by a large number of private letters to the officers of the company.
Four letters to the colony are mentioned in the court book, of which two have not
been found, but eight others not mentioned are extant. It is more difficult to
determine what letters came from the colony, due to the usually brief reports of
the letters in the court book, to the omission of the date from the copies of the
letters, and from the uncertainty of the date of the receipt of the letters as noted
in the court book. Seven letters seem to have been received by the company of
which no trace has been found, while only four of the ten extant are mentioned
in the court book. It is apparent therefore that only a part of the official corre-
spondence is in existence. The directions to the colony disclose the care and
earnestness of the company, and emphasize the endeavors to establish the various
commodities, while the descriptions given by the colonists are extremely valuable
in the picture they present of their efforts, ambitions, and attainments. The pri-

vate correspondence proves that the official letters were likely to give but one
phase of the conditions.

About thirty-five letters addressed to Sir Edwin Sandys during the years 1619
to 1621 have been found among the Ferrar papers, which are full of complaint
because of the scarcity of provisions. Apparently Sir Edwin's policy to develop the
plantation, and especially the company's land as a source of revenue, was overdone,
and he was not as wise in carrying out his plan as he had been in forming it, since the
colony was unable to provide for the large numbers sent out. These complaints are
casually mentioned in the court book, but the Sandys-Ferrar correspondence shows
that it was the desire of the administration to conceal the difficulties and distress
of the colony not only from the public but also from the hostile faction. The Man-
chester papers preserve letters, or copies of them, which came to the company or
to individuals in 1622 and 1623 complaining of similar deprivations in the colony.[236]

The company was not only interested in the economic and industrial develop-
ment and the necessary political forms of the colony, but, as Sir Edwin Sandys
declared, it had a higher purpose than the Muscovy or the other commercial corpo-
rations. This high ideal is proved by the attention which is devoted to plans for
the college, by the appointment of ministers, by the collections in the churches, and
by the gifts received,[237] but the theory that the chief motive of the enterprise was
religious is not supported either by the spirit or by the data of the records.

RECORDS KEPT BY THE OFFICERS IN THE COLONY

The acts of the administration in Virginia are recorded in the volume of
contemporary records of the company kept by the colony which are described
above. They consist of a series of nine orders and proclamations by the governor
and council and of twenty-one orders, proclamations, commissions, and warrants
issued by the governor as the executive officer of the council for the regulation
of affairs in the colony. They cover the years 1621, 1622, and 1623, and concern
the collection of taxes, the designation of laborers for public works, the regu-
lation of prices of commodities, the restraint of relations with the Indians, and
the control of the morals of the citizens. In addition to these documents issued
by the governor is a series of twenty-four commissions and warrants issued to
individuals to act as commanders of cities and hundreds, to carry on trade with
the Indians, to make discoveries, to wage war upon the Indians, and to collect
moneys. Another group of documents in the same collection consists of thirty-
six petitions to the governor and council between 1622 and 1624. They are

claims for wages and for moneys due, demands for fulfillment of contracts,
requests for pardon and for justification in personal quarrels, demands for lands,
and petitions to be allowed to return to deserted plantations and to England.[238]

The only extant record of the council for 1619 is an account of the "putting
out of the Tenants that came over in the B[ona] N[ova] wth other orders of the
Councell," found among the Ferrar papers.[239]

The "courte booke," or original record of the meetings of the governor and
council, in which these petitions were heard and orders issued, is extant from 1624
to 1632, with a record of one court in 1622 and of one in 1623. These are mostly
the actions of the council sitting in a judicial capacity and concern controversies
over property, probate matters, and criminal charges. The punishment seem
extreme. Two actions of the court are particularly interesting, one affecting
Edward Sharpless for sending copies of the colonial records to England, and the
other consisting of accusations against Captain John Martin of slanderous and false
utterances. A few additional orders and warrants are preserved among the Colonial
State papers,[240] together with a report of the proceedings of the assembly in 1619,
written by John Pory and sent to England, the only other account of which was
sent to Sir Edwin Sandys by John Rolfe, and is among the Ferrar papers.[241] The
acts of the assembly for March 5, 1623/24 are the only measures of that body
during the life of the company which are extant, with the exception of the letters
and petitions addressed to the company and to the King, and of a few orders.

DOCUMENTS CONCERNING THE DEVELOPMENT OF FACTIONS AND THE DISSOLUTION OF THE COMPANY

A series of documents remains which does not bear directly on the organization
of the company or the expression of its activity in trade and in colonial enterprise,
but is invaluable for a study of the history of the company, since it concerns the
relations of the individual members to one another, reveals the inner life and motive
of the company as a whole and of the various groups, and explains the conditions
which resulted from the interference of the King and the overthrow of the corpora-
tion. The entire movement centers about the growth of factions in the company.
The movement begins in the years just preceding the accession of Sir Edwin Sandys
to the position of treasurer, and seems to have had its origin in the trouble over

Sir Samuel Argall and the appointment of Sir George Yeardley as governor of the
colony. It finally involved many of the personal complaints and difficulties which
presented themselves to the company, and therefore requires a study of those
problems before it can be understood.

The measures which thus arose with regard to individuals are to be found
chiefly in the court book. They supply much information which can not be
obtained elsewhere with regard to the methods of procedure of the company,
and afford scattered data of great importance in addition to the light they throw
on the disputes of the factions. The subjects discussed include such problems
as the relations with the northern colony, the conflict with Spain concerning the
ship Treasurer, the suit against William Wye for failing to land settlers in Vir-
ginia, and various accusations against Governor Yeardley and Captain Argall for
misgovernment in the colony. The accounts of Sir Thomas Smythe, the settle-
ment of Alderman Robert Johnson's accounts for the magazine, and the illegality
of Captain John Martin's patent for a plantation, were also questions which were
of vital importance to the financial affairs of the company and took the atten-
tion of numerous courts; but neither the accounts of Sir Thomas Smythe nor of
the magazine were ever adjusted.

The claims against the company presented by William Tracey, by William
Weldon, the deputy of the college land who was superseded by George Thorpe,
and by the heirs of Sir George Somers for a compensation for the Somers
Islands are but illustrations of the many demands made upon the company.
The court sat as a judiciary body to settle numerous personal quarrels, including
the Brewster-Argall, the Argall-Smythe, the Bargrave-Smythe, and the Johnson-
Southampton cases. Disputes which arose within the courts and resulted in
slander and counter accusations took much of the time and attention of the
company, the trouble between the council and Samuel Wroth over the question
of salaries thus consuming the entire time of the courts for three months, from
December to February, 1622/3. In the various collections in London are about
a dozen papers which give additional information on the Argall-Rich troubles,
the censure of Alderman Johnson, the Martin patent, the accounts of Sir Thomas
Smythe, and the suits against William Wye.[242]

The documents which bear directly on the factional differences in the company
are among the Manchester and the Ferrar papers. From them comes the insight
into the very motives and thoughts of the opposing parties, and the proof that

the accusations of the Warwick party are well founded, in so far as they relate
to concealment of the sufferings and dissatisfactions in the colony, comes as a
surprise.[243] For a history of the factions the student must first review the
reports of the personal conflicts referred to above and then turn to the numerous
documents which include the accusations against the company, the defense of the
colony and of the company, and the memoranda and letters upon the charges.

When the quarrels had finally been carried to the Privy Council, the matter
was taken up officially by the company, and the second volume of the court book
after the spring of 1623 is composed entirely of documents spread upon the minutes
which concern the action of the company. In fact, all of the papers after that time
are of the same character except the records of the governor and council in Virginis.
Since they number upward of two hundred, it will be impossible to discuss them
separately, but it must be remembered that in them is to be found an outline of the
history of the company reaching back into the time of Sir Thomas Smythe, presented
first by one faction and then by the other. The most important of these reviews
are the charges of Captain Butler, of Alderman Johnson, and of Captain Bargrave,
with replies to each; the complaints of the adventurers and of the planters against the
Sandys administration, and a declaration by the "ancient planters" comparing the
two administrations in the colony. Finally, the "Discourse of the Old Company"
is the last review of the whole situation. Another most important group of papers
is a series of projects for readjusting the government of the colony and the adminis-
tration of the company. The projects of Martin, Bargrave, Ditchfield, and Rich
thus afford an opportunity to study the beginnings of royal control.

The relations between the Crown and the company assume three different
phases during the Sandys-Southampton administration—the first before the dis-
cussion over the tobacco contract in 1622, the second concerning that contract, and
the third relating to the abuses in the company and the dissolution of the corpora-
tion. The court book shows a readiness and a desire on the part of the company
before 1622 to refer to the Privy Council such matters as the magazine accounts
which seemed beyond their control, but it also contains declarations to the effect
that an interference with the patent rights is not to be tolerated. The questions
arising in those years concern the transportation of dissolute persons to the col-
ony, the right of the King to nominate men from whom the treasurer should be
chosen, the restriction on trade to other countries, the refusal of a new charter to
the company, and the dissolution of the lotteries. Supplementary to these records
in the court book are the orders of the Privy Council affecting all of these

problems. One of the most important documents, however, has not been found,
since the efforts for a new patent can not be traced beyond the statement in
the court book. It was first proposed November 15, 1620, and was ordered to be
continued and to be confirmed by Parliament on January 31, 1620/21. On the
22d of the following month the Lords were appointed to secure the seal, and
on April 12 the objections of the attorney-general, to whom the King had referred
the patent, were discussed. That it never went into effect is certain, since no
record is to be found among the sign manual warrants in the record office or in
the signet docquet book. Furthermore, it is not enrolled in the chancery files,
and it is not entered on the patent rolls, while in the suit of the quo warranto
the only letters patent cited are those already known of 1606, 1609, and 1612.[244]

Unless the documents have been lost or the date of the entry has been mis-
taken the conclusion must be reached that after the surrender of the draft of the
new charter to the solicitor-general it disappeared from sight. During the year 1622
the communications between the King and the company concerned the tobacco con-
tract and its final acceptance at the command of the King, and revealed the maturity
of the policy of interference which had been developing during the previous years.
The number of accusations against the company increased during the year, and the
records of the early part of 1623 abound in letters of complaint and charges of
mismanagement from the colony. The memoranda of the Warwick party, found
among the Manchester papers, are also essential to the understanding of the
movements toward the overthrow of the company. Many of the forty communi-
cations between the King and the company are spread on the court book, while
all of them are found in the Privy Council register. These include the commis-
sions to the board chosen to investigate the affairs of the company,[245] and the

directions to the commissioners sent to Virginis. The correspondence between
the King and the colony during those months of struggle concerned the latter
commission and established the royal authority, but the letters from the colony
were addressed to the company as late as the close of the year, six months after
the judgment was rendered in the quo warranto suit.

The record of this suit is found in the coram rege roll of the Kings Bench. In
the entry the usual writ served upon the company is followed by the information
read by Edward Offley, the attorney for the company, citing the letters patent of
1606 and especially of 1609. It enumerates the rights granted to the corporation,
and claims that other privileges were never used. The third document is the reply
of Attorney-General Coventry in which he prays for the conviction of the accused
on account of the usurpation of privileges, and cites those mentioned in the infor-
mation, claiming that there had not been sufficient answer in any point. The answer
of Nicholas Ferrar and others states that the company is ready to verify its rights
as quoted. The judgment was rendered on the morrow of Holy Trinity, and
declares that Nicholas Ferrar and the others are convicted of the usurpation of
privileges and that the "said privileges are taken and seized into the hand of the
King and the said Nicholas Ferrar and the others shall not intermeddle but shall be
excluded from the usurpation of liberties, privileges, and franchises of the same so
taken from the King, and that they are to satisfy to the King his fine for the usurpa-
tion of said privileges." The writ of quo warranto was issued out of the Kings
Bench on the Tuesday next after the morrow of All Souls (November 4, 1623).
The suit was opened on the Friday after the quindecim of St. Martin's (November
28), and was then postponed until the eight of Hillary (January 20). It was
postponed a second time to the quindecim of Easter (April 11), and judgment was
finally rendered on the morrow of Trinity (May 24, 1624).

VALUE OF THE VIRGINIA RECORDS

It has been the purpose of this paper to give to the reader a knowledge of
what records the Virginia Company kept and to afford a guide to the extant
records, as well as to indicate the character and importance of the various col-
lections of records and of the various classes of documents. The value of this
series of papers is threefold—it discloses the organization and activity of the
company; it aids in an understanding of the various problems, policies, and con-
ditions of the State under the early Stuarts; and it is of great importance in a
study of the entire movement of the earlier and of the later century for
exploration, for trade, and especially for colonization.

The object of the previous discussion has been to show that an intimate knowledge
of the mechanism of the company, of the methods of other corporations and business
houses, of the policies of the company toward the plantation, of the growth of the
colony, and of the change in the attitude of the Crown may be gained from the
various documents. Thus the value of the records in revealing the methods employed
by the company in conducting its courts, in keeping its books, in securing capital, and
in finding investment which would result in immediate returns and enable the com-
pany to transport men to the colony, has been pointed out. The evidence of the
change of the plantation from a colony for exploitation to a colony for settlement,
and the consequent effort of the company to stimulate exploration, settlement, and
the development of resources, as well as the proof of the liberality of the proprietors
in advancing self-government, has been outlined.

The indication in the records of the colony that the control changed from absolute
authority centralized in the governor to local management and government through
a representative legislative assembly, and that the social conditions developed from
life in a few compact settlements to plantation life has been suggested. Moreover,
the documents which show the efforts of the joint-stock companies to gain protection
and become privileged monopolies, on the one hand, and the tendency of the Crown,
on the other, to utilize the company to relieve the country of its undesirable popu-
lation, to secure a share in the revenue, and finally to assume the full proprietorship
of the colony has been cited.

The court book and other records of the company have another value in that
they incidentally aid in an understanding of many problems of the government. Thus
the attitude of the King toward the company was much influenced by his desire for
marriage relations with Spanish royalty. Various questions of policy were often
discussed in the meetings of the company, such as the freedom of trade and of
fishing, monopolies, customs, and shipping, while the financial aid given to colo-
nization by Spain is cited in contrast to the action of England, and the favor
to the Spanish colonies by the State in allowing the sole importation of certain
products was dwelt upon. The desire to cement the colony to the State and the
necessity of avoiding separation was much emphasized, but the wisdom of allowing
self-government to the colony was never once forgotten. In fact, the argument that
democracy was unavoidable, since the planter had the privilege of the adventurer,
was urged in opposition to the accusations of the King that the company favored
democratic forms. This spirit in the company is also seen in the tendency to
address Parliament whenever possible, as illustrated in the movement for a new
patent and in the settlement of the tobacco question.

The economic and industrial situation in England is perhaps better revealed than
any other phase of affairs. Thus the commodities which were in demand and not

produced in England, the rates of such commodities, the prices of necessities, and
the system of vending goods were all matters of great importance to the company,
and appear again and again in the various documents. The poverty of skilled labor
is shown in the necessity the company was under to go to the Continent for men to
superintend and carry on every industry which it attempted to establish in the col-
ony. Dutchmen, Swedes, Poles, and Frenchmen were thus imported for conducting
sawmills, cultivating silkworms, and making potash, clapboards, salt, wines, and
glass. When engineers for constructing fortifications were desired, General Cecil
declared that he had not men for the purpose, but hoped he might be able to recom-
mend some Frenchmen of ability. The papers which concern the transportation of
vagabonds and of boys and girls furnish a comment on a special phase of social
life, while the spirit of the entire records reveals the demand for an outlet for
activity and an opportunity for investment.

Throughout, the minutes of the courts and the correspondence and references
to the other trading companies emphasize the strong similarity between their
organization and that of the Virginia corporation. Illustrations of this fact are seen
in the citation of the precedent from other joint-stock companies of employing a
deputy and a director, of the salaries paid in the East India Company, and of the
liberty of trade enjoyed by the Muscovy Company; while among the Ferrar papers
are drafts of petitions from the Commons to the King in the writing of Nicholas
Ferrar on behalf of the Turkey merchants and of the "Ginny and Binny" company,
showing the intimate relations between the different movements.

Perhaps the most important result of a study of the Virginia Company comes
from the knowledge which may be gained of the whole movement which had as its
object exploration, trade, and settlement before and since the time of the company
in all of the colonies. In its records are to be found one of the earliest sources of
information concerning colonial experience from the English standpoint, and hence
through them may be gained an understanding of the way in which proprietary
colonies were established; of the development of the plantation into a colony of
settlement; and of the consequent relation between the settlers and the proprietor.
These steps as well as those by which the Crown was led to resume the authority
and to establish a royal proprietorship in place of that of a company or of an indivi-
dual, and the consequent development of the freedom of the settler were repeated
in the history of all of the proprietary colonies of America.

5. The Fate of the Original Records[246]

It was in July, 1622, that the controversy between the factions in the company
was first brought before the Privy Council, and, strangely enough, the plaintiff was
John Bargrave, who later championed those whom he now accused. The complain-
ant declared that he had lost 6,600 pounds through the "unjust practices and
miscarriage of government" on the part of Sir Thomas Smythe and Alderman
Robert Johnson. The matter was referred to a committee composed of Lord
Viscount Grandison, Lord Brook, the master of the rolls, Lord Keeper Coventry,
and Secretary Conway, but the affair dragged on in the council until it was finally
settled on January 22, 1622/3, by its ordering Bargrave to forbear troubling Sir
Thomas Smythe.[247] From that time the battle between the factions in the company had
begun. The tobacco contract between the lord treasurer as representative of the
King on the one hand and the company on the other, which had occupied so much of
the time of the courts, was allowed by the Privy Council on the 2d of February.[248]
But the spirit of conflict was seen in the entire correspondence, and during the few
succeeding months bitter complaints concerning the mismanagement of affairs in the
colony were made by Nathaniel Butler in his Unmasking of the Colony of Virginia
and by Alderman Johnson in his Declaration.[249] That both of these originated in the
Warwick faction has been revealed by the Manchester papers.

On April 17 a committee headed by Lord Cavendish was summoned before
the Privy Council to defend the Virginia Company against the "grievances of
Planters and Adventurers." As a result, the first blow was struck at the liberty

of the company when the Privy Council announced that it was the King's intention
that a commission should be appointed to inquire into the state of the Virginia
and Somers Islands plantations.[250] From that time the affairs of the company were
under surveillance, and the correspondence, the trade, and even the personal liberty
of its officers were subject to restraint. The company was immediately forbidden
to receive any private letters except on its own business, while on the 28th of the
same month its letters were disallowed by the Privy Council because they failed
to "certify the King's grace to the Colonies." Already the court books and other
writings had been required of the secretary of the company, as is shown by a
receipt for the same, dated April 21, among the Ferrar papers. This receipt was
given to Edward Collingwood by the clerk of the council. As a concomitant the
council dissolved the tobacco contract and reduced the former customs on tobacco
from twelve to nine pence per pound. It allowed the companies the sole importation
of tobacco, but it required that the whole crop should be brought into England.[251]

There were other acts which partook of the same spirit as the interference with
the correspondence and business of the company. On May 13 the Privy Council
ordered that Lord Cavendish, Sir Edwin Sandys, and Nicholas and John Ferrar
should be confined to their house, a punishment inflicted for a contempt of an
order of the council table against the use of bitter invectives, and brought
about by the complaint of the Earl of Warwick. Lord Cavendish was in restraint
five days and the others eight days. The release came as a result of their
"acknowledgment of offence and expression of sorrow."[252] The threat of the King
was carried out, and the declaration of war was made on May 9 by the appointment
of a commission to investigate the disputes in the Virginia Company and to report
upon their method of procedure.

The danger of confiscation of the company's records was fully realized for the
the first time on May 22, 1623, when the Privy Council enforced a previous order to
surrender "all Charters Books, (and by name the blurred Book or Books), Letters,
Petitions, Lists of Names and Provisions, Invoyces of Goods, and all other writing
whatsoever, and Transcripts of them, belonging to them." The new order declared
that the "Blurred Book or Books" had been kept back. The documents were to be
surrendered to the clerk of the council, but the custody of the records was given to
the commissioners. Each party was to have free use of them "in such sort as to ye
Commissioners shall seem good." Furthermore "all Boxes & Packages of Letters
which hereafter shall be brought over from Virginia or ye Summer Islands during
this Commission" were to be "immediately delivered to ye Commissioners by them

to be broken open, perused or otherwise disposed [of] as they shall find cause."[253]
The records were in the possession of the clerk of the council from the date of this order,
or earlier, until November 7, 1623, as is shown by a warrant bearing the latter date,
in which the commissioners of May 9 required of the council a "trunk of writings"
locked up under the custody of the Privy Council to be delivered to the "bearer."[254]

A careful search for the missing papers must commence at this point. Although
the records, or at least the court books, were later returned to the company, some of
them may have been retained by the commissioners or by individuals thereof.
Therefore, hidden away in the collections of the heirs of these men, it might be
supposed, would be found the much sought-for documents. The members of this
commission, created April 17, were Sir William Jones, Sir Nicholas Fortescue, Sir
Francis Gofton, Sir Richard Sutton, Sir William Pitt, Sir Henry Bouchier, and
Sir Henry Spiller.[255] But, as far as can be determined from personal investigation,
from the report of the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts, from conversa-
tion with Sir Henry Maxwell Lyte, of that body, or from other men conversant with
the private and public depositories in England, none of the papers did remain in the
possession of those commissioners.

A committee of the Privy Council may have had access to these papers, for on
July 22 Lords Grandison, Carew, and Chichester were appointed to take into con-
sideration the reports on the colony and to present to the council orders most fit for
the regulation of the government of Virginia.[256] Another group of men intrusted
with the investigation of affairs at that time, and into whose hands and private
possession might have come papers belonging to the company, were John Harvey,
John Pory, Abraham Percy, Samuell Matthews, and John Jefferson. This commis-
sion was sent to Virginia for the purpose of investigating conditions, and many of
the documents bearing on their relations with the colony are among the colonial
State papers.

The documents remained in the custody of the commission until November 21,
and were then returned to the secretary of the company. An order in council
declared that all the "Books and writings, whether remayneing in the hands of the
Comrs or elswher, shalbe fwthwth deliuered by Inventorie vnto the said Company."
The complaint had been made by the treasurer that they could not make answer to
the quo warranto which had been issued out of the King's Bench against the company
without the use of their records.[257] Therefore, from November, 1623, until June,

1624, the company was in possession of its documents, and it was during that period
that Nicholas Ferrar was busily engaged in having them transcribed.

The last order which concerned these records from December 30, 1623, until
the company was finally overthrown, in June of the following year—when the organi-
zation, according to Nethersole, became a company for trade and not for government—
was a letter of the council to "Nicholas Ferrar, Deputie," to bring to them unopened
all letters which had come in a ship lately arrived from Virginia.[258] That the King
in the meantime was concerned in the preservation of all papers relating to Virginia
is seen in a letter from Secretary Conway to Sir Thomas Merry, in which he was
requested to preserve all papers in the possession of "his late cousin," John Puntis,
vice-admiral of Virginia, and any others which concerned the business.[259]

Following up the recall of the charter, the Privy Council declared that it was the
King's intention to renew the charter of the company without the imperfections of
the former grant. A committee was therefore appointed on June 24 to resolve on the
well settling of the colony, to give the orders therefor, and to report to the King for
further directions. This body consisted of Lord President Mandeville, Lord Paget,
Lord Chichester, the lord treasurer, the comptroller, the principal secretaries of
state, the chancellor of the exchequer, the chancellor of the duchy, the attorney-
general, the solicitor-general, Sir Robert Killigrew, Sir Thomas Smythe, Francis
Gofton, John Wolstenholme, and Alderman Johnson.[260]

Two days later an order in council was issued instructing Mr. Ferrar, deputy of
the company, to bring to the council chamber all patents, books of accounts, and
invoices of the late corporation and all lists of people in the colony, to be retained by
the keeper of the council chest till further order.[261] Thus was ended the control of the
government by the old organization, if not of the affairs of the company and
its colony, and thus the records passed into the charge of the clerk of the Privy
Council.

A commission to establish a government in Virginia is to be found in the chan-
cery privy seals under July of the twenty-second year of James I, countersigned to
pass by immediate warrant. The patent roll of the period records this commission,
dated July 15, 1624, by which the Virginia Company was to be supplanted and the
first royal province in America was to be established.[262] The records of the old com-
pany, however, are not lost to sight till three days later. On July 15 the commis-
sioners met at Sir Thomas Smythe's house and determined that the charters, seals,
and writings of the company were to be brought to Sir Thomas Smythe's house and

kept in charge of the clerk of the commissioners, H. Fotherby, to be used by the
commissioners at pleasure.[263]

In the Privy Council register, under date of June 26, 1624, there is an order for
Mr. Ferrar to deposit in the council chamber the papers of the late corporation, and
in the margin is a note which gives the last glimpse of those records. It reads
as follows: "Nd: All theis Patents bookes of accounts &c were delivered to
Henry Fotherby clarke to the Commissioners, by order from the Lords the 19 of
July 1624."[264]

That these members of the Privy Council and others of the commissioners for
Virginia had all of the original records of the company in their possession at that
date is thus proved. What became of them later can be a matter only of specu-
lation. That they had been so carefully preserved and were deposited "for use by
the members of the commissioners," seems to indicate that the theory of their
destruction by the Crown is not tenable. There are two theories which seem much
more likely. it may be that they passed finally into the possession of the Privy
Council, which evidently soon assumed the burden of the control of the affairs of the
province; for, on May 13, 1625, a royal proclamation arranged for a council which
was to the subordinate to the Privy Council.[265] The papers may thus have remained
with the King's Council until the creation of the commission for Virginia in 1631,
which in turn was supplanted by the Board of Commissioners for Foreign Plantations
in 1634.[266] The commission created in July of 1624 was composed of the lords of the
council and "certain others," and the council register seems to indicate that it was
usually the council sitting as a commission. After 1624 the papers, letters, and
instructions were all issued by the council, the commissions to the councillors and to

governors of the colony passed the privy seal and were engrossed on the patent roll,
and the letters or papers from the colony were addressed to the council.

Another theory as to the fate of the records is that they were at first in charge of
Henry Fotherby, clerk of the commissioners, but that they were gradually scattered
among the members of the commission most interested in the career of the company
as the authority of the commission became purely that of government. The
members of the commission, created July 15, 1624, in whose families such papers
might be found, are as follows: Henry Viscount Mandeville, Lord President of the
Council, Wm. Lord Paget, Anthony Lord Chichester, Sir Thomas Edmonds, Sir
John Suckling, Sir Geo. Calvert, Sir Edward Conway, Sir Richard Western, Sir
Julius Caesar, Sir Humphrey May, Sir Saville Hicks, Sir Thomas Smith, Sir Henry
Mildmay, Sir Thomas Coventry, Sir Robert Heath, Sir Ferdinando Gorges, Sir
Robert Killigrew, Sir Charles Montague, Sir Philip Carew, Sir Francis Goston
[Gofton], Sir Thomas Wroth, Sir John Wolstenholme, Sir Nathaniel Rich, Sir
Samuel Argall, Sir Humphrey Handford, Mathew Sutcliff, Dean of Exeter, Francis
White, Dean of Carlisle, Thomas Tamshaw, Alderman Robert Johnson, James
Cambell, Ralph Freeman, Morris Abbott, Nathaniel Butler, George Wilmore,
William Hackwell, John Mildmay, Philip Germayne, Edward Johnson, Thomas
Gibbes, Samuel Wrote, John Porey (?), Michael Hawes, Edward Palavacine, Robert
Bateman, Martin Bond, Thomas Styles, Nicholas Leate, Robert Butt, Abraham
Cartwright, Richard Edwards, John Dyke, Anthony Aldy, William Palmer, Edward
Ditchfield, George Mole, and Richard Morer.[267]

Had not the receipt from the Privy Council to the secretary of the company
revealed the existence of the early records in 1623, and had not the memoranda of
Sir Nathaniel Rich confirmed the fact,[268] the theory might be put forth that the papers
of the early period were burned in the destruction of Sir Thomas Smythe's house at
Deptford on February 6, 1618/19. The fire at Whitehall on the 16th of January,
1618/19, at which the privy seal, signet, and council records are supposed to have
been destroyed, is sometimes suggested as the cause of the disappearance of the
Virginia records. But the facts given above, in addition to the statement of Sir
Thomas Wilson to the King that there had been but little loss of papers since they
had been transferred to the new office refutes that theory.[269]

It remains for the future enquirer to examine the collections which are known to
contain papers belonging to the families indicated by the names of the various com-
missioners and of the Privy Councillors for that period. Such investigations are made
difficult by the transfer of papers from one branch of a family to another, necessitating

a knowledge of the genealogy of the various families represented. Having found the
heirs of the families in question, the search may then be conducted through the reports
of the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts. But this is not sufficient. Since
trace of the family is often lost, or no evidence can be found of collections of docu-
ments, it becomes necessary to search through every section of those reports of the
commission for stray sets of papers. The greatest confusion also results from the sale
of libraries, and while the catalogues of Quaritch or Sotheby may afford a clue to the
offer of such material for sale, often in small lots, the name of the purchaser is not
usually to be discovered. The result is that the student must wait in patience until
the papers have drifted into some great depository—such as the British Museum and
the Bodleian Library—or until they have been made known to the public through
the Manuscripts Commission or by private enterprise.[270]

Another difficulty, which can not be overcome by the individual student, is the
insufficiency of the catalogues of early date. This is gradually being met by the
re-issue of catalogues and calendars in the British Museum, and the Bodleian, although
the new catalogue of the latter is only "summary." The Ashmolean and Rawlinson
papers in the Bodleian may afford many surprises. Furthermore, the early reports
of the Manuscripts Commission were often incomplete and too general in character.
However, the more recent volumes are full calendars, and the older volumes may
be republished in time.

In the great collections of the British Museum are brought together the papers
or portions of the papers of a few of the men with whom we are concerned. In
the Lansdowne collection are about one-third of the papers of Sir Julius Caesar,
master of the rolls, which were sold at auction in 1757. Among these have been
found the valuable letters of John Martin and the draft of the commission of 1624.
In the Harleian collection, brought together by Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford, at
the close of the seventeenth century, and among the papers of Sir John Cotton, who
was a noted antiquarian of the time of James I, are a few important documents.

The valuable collection of the Marquis of Bath, containing the Cecil papers, has
been recatalogued and found to contain nothing which concerns the company after
1616, and nothing of the earlier period not known to Alexander Brown.

Two other collections, imperfectly calendared by the Manuscripts Commission,
are those of Lord Sackville, of Knole, Seven Oaks, Kent, and of the Earl of
Coventry, Croome Court, Severn Stoke, Worcestershire. Since the statement was
made by John Ferrar, in the later years of his life, that Sir Robert Killigrew had
left the Virginia papers to Sir Edward Sackville, the Earl of Dorset, our interest in

this collection is intensified. Both Sir Robert Killigrew and Richard Sackville, Earl
of Dorset, are seen to have been vitally connected with the company and the settle-
ment of its affairs. Two other connections of this family may have brought together
collections which might contain Virginia papers. Richard Sackville, Earl of Dorset,
married Frances, the daughter of Lionel Cranfield, the first Earl of Middlesex, and
he himself became heir to the Cranfield house and title as third earl. The first Earl
of Middlesex was the lord treasurer during the régime of the company and figures
prominently as the individual who conducted the quo warranto suit against the
Virginia Company. Furthermore, Lionel Sackville West is the direct descendant
of Lord De La Warr, of Virginia fame. The combination of the four houses of
Killigrew, Sackville, Middlesex, and De La Warr, which were of so great importance
in Virginia affairs, leads to the hope of a valuable collection of manuscripts. Four
documents are mentioned in the report of the commission, and these refer to the
tobacco trade, but an inquiry of Lord Sackville as to other material in his posses-
sion elicited the reply from Lionel Sackville West that Lord Sackville knew of "no
other papers at Knole relating to the colony of Virginia than those mentioned in the
report of the commissioners." It may be, however, that a more careful calendar
of this collection will disclose papers of great importance.

From March 14, 1616, to January 11, 1620, Thomas Coventry was solicitor-
general; later, during the Sandys-Southampton administration of the Virginia
Company, he held the position of attorney-general. On November 1, 1625, he
became lord keeper, and remained in that office during the period coinciding
with the organization of the colonial administration. Hence it was that, when it
was found from the report of the Manuscripts Commission that many of Lord
Keeper Coventry's papers had not been investigated, the Editor addressed a letter
to the Earl of Coventry, Croome Court. This resulted in a confirmation of the
statement, and a promise to search the papers which are now in the "strong
room here." In a letter to Ambassador Choate, July 27, 1904, the Earl of Cov-
entry made the following statement: "In company with a son I went through
the boxes containing papers of the Lord Keeper Coventry in which I thought it
likely I might find the documents referring to the Virginia Company of London,
some time ago, but I could discover nothing relating to the company." The
letter goes on to say that the "papers are in bad condition and very difficult
to decipher." Hence the conclusion may be reached that this most likely hiding
place for Virginia records is not to reveal new material.

The collections at Thirlestaine House, Cheltenham, and at Hatfield House, are
extremely valuable, but T. Fitzroy Fenwick, esq., the present owner of the former,
states that there is no material in that collection relating to the early history of
Virginia, and a manuscript catalogue, kindly loaned to the writer by Lord Salisbury,

indicates that the papers at Hatfield House, now being calendared, have no bearing
on the subject in hand.

By tracing the family connections of the descendants of Sir Thomas Smythe and
the Earl of Southampton intermarriages are found which might result in the location
of valuable papers in many of the large depositories. All of these have been
investigated by the Manuscripts Commission. Thus, from Sir Thomas Smythe the
documents might have been inherited by the first or the second Earl of Leicester;
by Sir Sydney Stafford Smythe, baron of the exchequer in 1772 and last of the
descendants of the male line; by the eighth Viscount Strangford, vice-president of
the Royal Geographical Society, with whose death in 1869 the senior branch of
the family was terminated; and by the present Duke of Marlborough through the
second marriage of Lady Dorothy Sydney Smythe, daughter of Robert, second
Earl of Leicester. The Wriothesley family is to-day represented in the houses of
the Duke of Bedford and of the Duke of Portland, the former having inherited the
London property of Robert, third Earl of Southampton, and the latter the Tichfield
estate.

The large number of documents among the Smyth of Nibley papers[271] suggests
that in private collections may be many records which concern the private enterprises
or companies formed within the corporation for setting out plantations and carrying
on trade. Other groups of manuscripts and early books have seemed to offer
opportunities for the discovery of the missing records. But the Lambeth Palace
Library, the college libraries both of Oxford and of Cambridge have proved value-
less, with the exception of that most important group in Magdelene College,
Cambridge. Every one of the college libraries, has been searched or investigated,
but to no avail. All Souls College, Oxford, contains a collection of manuscripts which
may afford a few papers on the subject when it has been more carefully catalogued.

The fact that the original records of the company before 1619, and a compara-
tively small portion after that date have not been discovered has led generally to
the conclusion that the party of the Crown destroyed the evidences of the misman-
agement during the first decade and of the comparatively prosperous condition in
the second. That they failed to take into account the records in the colony and the
Ferrar transcripts of the court book is the good fortune of posterity. But the
destruction of the records can not properly be considered as proved until the public
collections have been more carefully calendared and the private collections have
been more thoroughly investigated. The absolute lack of evidence that the Crown
and its supporters held such an attitude and the knowledge that the commissioners
took the records into their charge "for use" encourages the hope that a faithful
endeavor to discover their location may yet be rewarded by success.