University of Virginia Library

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]