University of Virginia Library

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.)

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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.

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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]