FIRST JOURNAL OF THE HOUSE OF DELEGATES.
For the following deeply-interesting document I am also indebted
to the same hand. Mr. Robinson, in his careful examination
of papers in the State Office, in London, discovered a manuscript
journal covering thirty pages, in which are the proceedings
of a House of Burgesses held at Jamestown in 1619. It has
been generally received and admitted, since the first volume of Mr.
Henning's Statutes at Large were published, that no account of
any such meeting was to be found for some years after this.
My object in publishing it is not merely to gratify the curiosity
and promote the objects of the historian and politician, but far
more,—to give additional weight to what I have already adduced in
proof of the spirit of piety which animated the bosoms of the first
founders of the Church and State of Virginia.
None can read the following document without admitting this:—
"A report of the manner of proceeding in the General Assembly convented
at James City, in Virginia, July 30, 1619, consisting of the Governor,
the Council of Estate, and two Burgesses elected out of each
incorporation and plantation, and being dissolved the first of August next
ensuing."
This is a document of the greatest interest to every Virginian.
It is very satisfactory to find that it is quite a full report, embracing
thirty pages. After the caption it proceeds as follows:—
"First, Sir George Yeardley, Knight, Governor and Captain-General
of Virginia, having sent his summons all over the country, as well as to
invite those of the Council of Estate that were absent, as also for the
election of Burgesses, they were chosen and appeared.
"1st. For James City—Capt. Wm. Powell, Ensign Wm. Spense.
"2nd. For Charles City—Samuel Sharpe, James Jordan.
"3rd. For the City of Henricus—Thomas Dowce, John Potintine.
"4th. For Kicciotan—Captain Wm. Tucker, Wm. Capp.
"5th. For Martin Brandon, Captain John Martin's Plantation—Mr.
Thomas Davis, Robert Stacy.
"6th. For Smyth's Hundred—Captain Thos. Graves, Mr. Walter
Shelley.
"7th. For Martin's Hundred—Mr. John Boys, John Jackson.
"8th. For Argall's Plantation—Mr. Powlett, Mr. Gourgemy.
"9th. For Flour De Hundred—Ensign Poppingham, Mr. Jefferson.
"10th. For Captain Lannis' Plantation—Captain Christopher Lanne,
Ensign Wisher.
"11th. Captain Wirt's Plantation—Captain Wirt, Lieutenant Gibbs.
"The most convenient place we could find to sit in was the quire of
the church where Sir George Yeardley, the Governor, being set down in
his accustomed place, those of the Council of the Estate sat next him on
both hands, except only the Secretary, then appointed Speaker, who sat
before him. John Frome, Clerk of the General Assembly, being placed
next the Speaker, and Thomas Pierce, the Sergeant, standing at the bar,
to be ready for any service the Assembly should command him.
"But for as much as men's affairs do little prosper when God's service
is neglected, all the Burgesses took their places in the quire till a prayer
was said by Mr. Bucke, the minister, that it would please God to guide
and sanctify all our proceedings to his own glory and the good of this
plantation. Prayer being ended to the intent that, as we had begun at
God Almighty, so we might proceed with careful and due respect towards
his Lieutenant, our most gracious and dread sovereign, all the Burgesses
were instructed to retire themselves into the body of the church,
which, being done, before they were fully admitted, they were called in
order and by name, and so every man (none staggering at it) took the
oath of supremacy, and then entered the assembly."
To the foregoing documents in proof of the spirit which animated
the most devoted friends of the Colony, I add a third,
furnished me by another true son of Virginia,—Mr. Charles Campbell,
of Petersburg.
In the records of the London Company we meet with the name
of the Earl of Southampton as the treasurer and most active
friend of the same at the time of its greatest trials, when King
James and his ministers were seeking its destruction. In the year
1724, their object was effected and the Company summarily disbanded,
all their papers were seized upon, and the Colony taken
under the sole charge of Government. The pious, zealous, and
brave Earl of Southampton, however, never deserted the cause,
but, in Parliament, boldly advocated such measures as he believed
would most promote the true welfare of the Colony, in opposition
to a corrupt king and cabinet. This was the more honourable to
him from the relation he bore to the king. The Earl of Southampton
was the bosom-friend of the celebrated Earl of Essex,
Prime Minister to Elizabeth, and was somewhat implicated with
him in that conduct toward the queen which brought Essex to
the scaffold. Southampton was imprisoned by the queen, though
spared the fate of Essex. At the death of Elizabeth and the
coronation of James, he was released from prison and placed in
some offices of honour and trust, being a member of the Privy
Council also. While thus honoured, in opposition to the wishes
and remonstrances of the king, the earl, true to the best interests
of the Company and the Colony, accepted the office of treasurer,
attended all its meetings, often had them at his own house, and, as
we have said, was the zealous advocate of all measures in Parliament
calculated to promote the truest good of the Colony, after
the company was dismissed by the king. The true secret of this
moral courage was his fidelity to the King of kings. How much
the following letter from his friend, the Earl of Essex, may have
contributed to this, we know not, but that it was eminently calculated
to direct his mind to the only true source of moral greatness
none can question. It has been a long time since its publication
in a London chronicle, and it is well worthy of republication in connection
with the name of Southampton and the early history of
Virginia. Let me add that so high was the character of Southampton
held in Virginia, that one of her rivers for some time bore
his name, and one of her largest counties still retains it.
Letter from the Earl of Essex to his friend the Earl of Southampton.
As neither nature nor custom ever made me a man of
compliment, so now I shall have less will than ever for to use such ceremonies,
when I have left with Martha to be solicitus circa multa, and
believe with Mary unum sufficit. But it is no compliment or ceremony,
but a real and necessary duty that one friend oweth to another in absence,
and especially at their leave-taking, when, in man's reason, many accidents
may keep them long divided, or perhaps bar them ever meeting till
they meet in another world; for then shall I think that my friend, whose
honour, whose person, and whose fortune is dear unto me, shall prosper
and be happy wherever he goes, and whatever he takes in hand, when he
is in the favour of that God under whose protection there is only safety,
and in whose service there is only true happiness to be found. What I
think of your natural gifts or ability, in this age or in this State, to give
glory to God and to win honour to yourself, if you employ the talents you
have received to their best use, I will not now tell you; it sufficeth that
when I was farthest of all times from dissembling I spake truly and
have witness enough. But these things only I will put your lordship in
mind of.
"1. That you have nothing that you have not received.
"2. That you possess them not as lord over them, but as an accountant
for them
"3. If you employ them to serve this world, or your own worldly delights,
which the prince of this world will seek to entertain you with, it
is ingratitude, it is injustice, yea, it is perfidious treachery.
"For what would you think of such a servant of yours that should
convert your goods, committed to his charge, to the advantage or service of
your greatest enemy; and what do you less than this with God, since you
have all from him, and know that the world and prince thereof are at continual
enmity with him? And therefore, if ever the admonition of your
truest friend shall be heard by you, or if your country which you may
serve in so great and many things be dear unto you; if God, whom you
must (if you deal truly with yourself) acknowledge to be powerful over
all, and just in all, be feared by you; yea, if you be dear unto yourself
and prefer an everlasting happiness before a pleasant dream, which you
must shortly awake out of and then repent in the bitterness of your soul;
if any of these things be regarded by you, then, I say, call yourself to
account for what is past, cancel all the leagues you have made without the
warrant of a religious conscience, make a resolute covenant with your God
to serve him with all your natural and spiritual, inward and outward gifts
and abilities, and then He that is faithful and cannot lie hath promised to
honour them that honour him; He will give you that inward peace of soul
and true joy of heart which, till you have, you shall never rest, and that,
when you have, you shall never be shaken, and which you can never attain
to any other way than this that I have showed you.
"I know your lordship may say to yourself and object to me, This is
but a vapour of melancholy and the style of a prisoner; and that I was
far enough from it when I lived in the world as you do now, and may be
so again when my fetters be taken from me. I answer, though your
lordship should think so, yet cannot I distrust the goodness of my God,
that his mercy will fail me or his grace forsake me. I have so deeply
engaged myself, that I should be one of the most miserable apostates
that ever was; I have so avowed my profession and called so many from
time to time to witness it and to be watchmen over me, that I should be
the hollowest hypocrite that ever was born. But though I should perish
in my own sin, and draw upon myself my own damnation, should not you
take hold of the grace and mercy, in God, which is offered unto you, and
make your profit of my fearful and wretched example? I was longer a
slave and servant to the world and the corruptions of it than you have
been, and therefore could hardly be drawn from it. I had many calls,
and answered some of them,—slowly thinking a soft pace fast enough
to come to Christ, and myself forward enough when I saw the end of my
journey, though I arrived not at it; and therefore I have been, by God's
providence, violently pulled, hauled, and dragged to the marriage-feast,
as the world hath seen. It was just with God to afflict me in this world,
that he might give me joy in another. I had too much knowledge when
I performed too little obedience, and I was, therefore, to be beaten with
double stripes. God grant your lordship may feel the comfort I now
enjoy in my unfeigned conversion, but that you may never feel the
torments I have suffered for my too long delaying it! I had none but
divines to call upon; to whom I said, if my ambition could have entered
into their narrow hearts, they would not have been so humble; or, if my
delights had been tasted by them, they could not have been so precise.
But your lordship hath one to call on you, that knows what it is you now
enjoy, and what the greatest fruit and end is of all the contentments that
this world can afford. Think, therefore, dear earl, that I have staked
and buoyed all the ways of pleasure to you, and left them as sea-marks,
for you to keep the channel of religious virtue: for, shut your eyes never
so long, they
must be open
at last; and then you must say with me,
There
is no peace to the wicked.
"I will make a covenant with my soul, not to suffer my eyes to sleep in
the night, nor my thoughts to attend the first business of the day, till I
have prayed to my God, that your lordship may believe and make profit
of this plain but faithful admonition; and then I know your country and
friends shall be happy in you, and yourself successful in all you take in
hand, which shall be an unspeakable comfort to
"Your lordship's cousin and true friend,
"whom no worldly cause can divide from you,
"Essex.'
