&Iej:aTUiet Proton
ENGLISH POLITICS IN EARLY VIRGINIA HIS-
TORY. Crown 8vo, $2.00.
THE FIRST REPUBLIC IN AMERICA. With a
Portrait of Sir Edwin Sandys. 8vo, $7.50, net.
THE GENESIS OF THE UNITED STATES. A
Narrative of the Movement in England, 1605-1616,
which resulted in the Plantation of North America
by Englishmen, disclosing the Contest between
England and Spain for the Possession of the Soil
now occupied by the United States of America.
With Notes, Maps, Plans, 100 Portraits, and Com-
prehensive Biographical Index. 2 vols. 8vo, $15 .00,
et ; half morocco, $20.00, net.
THE CABELLS AND THEIR KIN. A Memorial
Volume of History, Biography, and Genealogy.
With 33 Portraits and other Illustrations. 8vo,
$7.50, net.
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO.
BOSTON AND NEW YORK.
ENGLISH POLITICS IN
EARLY VIRGINIA
HISTORY
BY
ALEXANDER BROWN, D.C.L.
Author of " The Genesis of the United States "
" The Cabells and their Kin " and
" The First EepuUic in America"
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
re?& Cambridge
MDCCCCI
COPYRIGHT, 1901, BY ALEXANDER BROWN
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
DEDICATION
This book is most respectfully inscribed to those
citizens of the Republic who wish to render historic
justice to the Patriots who instituted the popular
course of government in this country.
ALEXANDER BROWN.
NORWOOD P. 0.,
NELSON COUNTY, VIRGINIA.
CONTENTS
PART I
An outline of the primary effort of the Patriot party in
England to plant a popular course of government in
America, and of the Court party to prevent it ; showing
that a great historic wrong was done our patriotic found-
ers by James I. and his officials in the evidences pre-
served by and licensed by the crown, and why it was done 1
I. Introduction 3
II. Obtaining the first (1609) charter 6
III. Inaugurating the movement 13
IV. Obtaining the second (1612> charter, etc. . . ' . . 21
V. Inaugurating the government 26
VI. The controversy becomes a contest 30
VII. The first appeal to Parliament 35
VIII. The continued contest 42
IX. The second appeal to Parliament 49
X. The charters annulled 52
PART II
An outline of the effort of the Court party in England to
obliterate the true history of the origin of this nation ;
showing how a great historic wrong was done our patri-
otic founders by James I., his commissioned officials,
and licensed historians 57
I. The crown confiscates the evidences 59
II. The effort to preserve the evidences 69
III. The history licensed by the crown 73
PART III
An outline of the contest over our political and historic
rights between the Court and Patriot parties, from 1625
until the Patriots determined to secure their political
rights by force of arms in 1776 ; showing the ways by
which the original historic wrong was supported and per-
petuated under the crown 87
v i CONTENTS
I. Under Charles I., 1625-1641 89
II. Civil war, 1641-1646 104
III. Parliament, etc., 1646-1660 107
IV. Of the control over histories 108
V. Notes from 1660 to 1746 116
VI. Stith's History of Virginia 124
VII. The records of 1619-1624 133
VIII. Under George III., 1760-1776 140
IX. Of boundary rights 147
PART IV
An outline of what has been done both towards perpetu-
ating and towards correcting the historic wrong since the
loyal political point of view was reversed in 1776 . . . 151
I. Thomas Jefferson as a laborer in the field of original
research 153
II. Jefferson's "Notes on Virginia" 158
III. History under the influence of past politics, 1784-1861 164
IV. Past history under the influence of present politics . 170
V. An explanation of my work in this field, 1876-1900 . 178
PART V
A review of some of the leading political features in the
case between the Patriot party, which managed the busi-
ness and laid the foundation upon which this great nation
has been erected, and the Court party, which controlled
the evidences and laid the foundation upon which the
history of this great movement has been written . . . 191
I. Of the movement 193
II. Of the charters 204
III. Of the corporation 216
IV. Of the forms of government 228
V. Of the managers, etc 236
VI. Of the motive, vis vitce 245
VII. Conclusion 249
INDEX , . 263
PART I
AN outline of the primary effort of the Patriot party in
England to plant a popular course of government in Amer-
ica, and of the Court party to prevent it ; showing that a
great historic wrong was done our patriotic founders by
James I. and his officials in the evidences preserved by and
licensed by the crown, and why it was done.
CHAPTEE I
INTRODUCTORY
THE case of our patriotic founders, because of
the results which have naturally followed the
complete control over evidences held by their
opponents, has been misrepresented for over two
hundred and fifty years, and has come to be so
entirely misunderstood that it cannot be corrected
suddenly.
All issues naturally produce opposing evi-
dences, and tend to obscure facts; but of all
influences, not one has had a more absolute effect
under monarchies in the past, on the history of
reform movements, than politics. Policies of gov-
ernment were even more vigorously censored
than matters pertaining to religion. The abso-
lute authority possessed by the opponents of
such movements enabled them to obliterate the
truth of the history as performed from the pages
of the history as published to such an extent that
contemporary "histories" of such movements
have frequently really reversed the true view of
history ; given the honors to those to whom they
were not due ; censured those who deserved
4 INTRODUCTORY
praise, and conveyed ideas of the whole move-
ment which were agreeable to those who opposed
its reform features, but were unfair to the re-
formers promoting those features.
While the laborer in the field of original re-
search in pursuit of the truth must find it very
difficult to discover sufficient impartial and au-
thentic evidence on which to base the true his-
tory of any movement which fell under the ban
of those who opposed the movement and con-
trolled the evidences, it is not necessary for him
to labor entirely in the dark. " Authority springs
from reason, not reason from authority true
reason need not be confirmed by any authority."
He must be guided by the light of reason. And
reason shows that unless the press is free a
licensed history is obliged to conform to the pur-
poses of those who control the press ; that the
more inspired by interdicted liberal ideas a move-
ment was, the greater was the necessity for the
royalist censors opposing those ideas to obliterate
the historic facts regarding them permanently ;
that the greater the difficulty in finding facts is
in itself a circumstantial evidence of the especial
importance of the facts which have been con-
cealed ; and that the positive effort to suppress
authentic records is sufficient evidence in itself
against those making the effort to condemn any
" history " which was published under their aus-
INTRODUCTORY 5
pices, even if no counter evidence at all can be
found.
The controversy over the accuracy of Smith's
history has been called "the John Smith con-
troversy/' because Smith was regarded as the
responsible author of the book; but the real
controversy, the real case, was between the Pa-
triot party, which determined to plant a popular
course of government in the New World, and the
Court party, which opposed that purpose. The
object of this book is to explain this case and
the results of this controversy ; to show that the
political principles involved in the contest be-
tween the two parties were of vast importance to
us, and to give due consideration to the influence
of politics on our earliest history.
I will first give an outline of the political
importance of the primal movement l under which
a popular course of government was inaugurated
in our country ; showing that an historic wrong
was done our patriotic founders by James I., his
commissioned officials, and licensed historians
both in the evidences of the Court party pre-
served by the crown and in the histories licensed
under the crown. And this outline will also
show why this wrong was committed.
1 I will explain more fully the leading political features of the
movement in Part V.
OBTAINING THE FIRST CHARTER
CHAPTER II
OBTAINING THE CHARTER FOR THE ORIGINAL
BODY POLITIC, 1609
IT is necessary to note the royal charter signed
by James I. in April, 1606, and to outline the
enterprise as conducted thereunder ; but it must
also be noted that this enterprise was not of a
popular political character the political fea-
tures were under the control of the crown. In
this charter James I. claimed all of America
between 34 and 45 north latitude, which was
then called Virginia, for the crown, and granted
limited plantations under certain conditions to
two companies. To the company for the first
colony was given the privilege of making a plan-
tation between 34 and 41 north latitude, the
bounds of which, however, were confined to the
limits within one hundred miles of the seacoast,
and within fifty miles each way northward and
southward of the "seating place," after that
place was settled upon. The companies had the
privilege of sending over some of the king's sub-
jects to secure these areas of land ; but the king
reserved to himself the right to furnish the form
of government for the companies in England and
plantations in America, and also to appoint the
OBTAINING THE FIRST CHARTER 7
officials to execute the same, both in America
and in England : the plantations and companies
being really directly under the political control
of the crown, while the members of the com-
panies paid the expenses, stimulated by the hope
of finding gold mines, or a passage to the South
Sea, or some present profit.
Under the form of government furnished by
James I. for the plantations, the members of his
council in America had the right of suffrage
among themselves ; but they were representatives
of an absolute king. The planters had no con-
trol over them, and little or no part in the gov-
ernment, which was imperial ; being based on the
king's principles of despotism, it gave the people
(the body politic) no political power.
In December, 1606, the first fleet for the first,
or South Virginia, colony sailed under the char-
ter of April, 1606, at the expense of the com-
pany, but under the orders of the king's council
for Virginia in England, with a sealed box con-
taining commissions for those appointed to the
king's council in Virginia, and with instructions,
etc., to them from James I. himself. The fleet
arrived in Virginia in May (N. s.), 1607, when
the box was opened, the commissions issued, and
the king's form of government was inaugurated
in Virginia, and so continued until it was neces-
sary to alter it in order to save the colony.
While the king's form of government for the
8 OBTAINING THE FIRST CHARTER
colonies was in force in Virginia during 1607-
1610, 1 important foreign and domestic, religious
and political policies were developing in England,
which were destined to shape the future of North
America. Among these, in order to understand
the case, it is very important to consider espe-
cially :
First. The controversies with Spain, and, at
this time, with especial reference to the case of
The Richard (which had been captured by Span-
iards while en route to North Virginia), then be-
fore Parliament, with Sir Edwin Sandys as " the
chairman of the committee on Spanish wrongs."
Second. The religious controversies, following
the Hampton Court Conference.
Third. The political controversies, which I
propose to consider in this book.
In these political controversies we will find on
the one side " the men of genius and enlarged
minds," who were then adopting the principles
of liberty, forming themselves into a political
party, variously called the Patriot, or Liberal,
or Independent party, "advocates of English
rights," " opponents of the secret court Spanish
party," etc. At the head of this party or polit-
ical element was Sir Edwin Sandys, whom James
I. came to regard as his " greatest enemy," as " a
crafty man with ambitious designs," etc. Gar-
diner says: "At this time, toleration in the
1 See The First Republic in America, pp. 21-119.
OBTAINING THE FIRST CHARTER 9
church and reform in the state were the noble
objects of Sir Francis Bacon, and next to him no
man enjoyed the confidence of the Commons
more than Sir Edwin Sandys." He had aided
Bacon in drawing up, " with great force of rea-
soning and spirit of liberty," the celebrated re-
monstrance of the Commons to the conduct of
James I. towards his first Parliament. On the
other side, we find the members of the Court
party, advocates of imperialism, becoming more
and more active in opposing and in trying to
suppress the growth of the principles of liberty,
and in disseminating their ideas of the virtues of
" the kingly power," contending that it descended
directly from God. This party was under the
leadership of James I. himself, who had already
published his " True Law of Free Monarchies,"
his " Basilikon Doron," his " Premonition to all
most mighty Monarchs," and other such like
imperial dogmas, and had already sent both to
North and to South Virginia what the Court
party called "His Majesties most prudent and
Princely e form of government."
In the midst of these budding political con-
troversies several planters including Gabriel
Archer, who had already proposed to have a
parliament in Virginia arrived in England with
the breath of " the free air " of America inspir-
ing them, and also with unfavorable reports of
the condition of affairs in Virginia, amounting
10 OBTAINING THE FIRST CHARTER
really to an acknowledgment that the enterprise
had failed under the king's form of government,
and that without some vital incentive to proceed
the enterprise must be abandoned. Many of the
patriots, who were " loudly groaning " under the
same sort of government in England, were already
interested in the American movement, and the
reports of these planters naturally appealed to
them. After consultation with the planters and
after considering among themselves the unpro-
mising outlook of their own political case in
England, the inspiration came to them " to lay
hold on Virginia as a providence cast before
them of double advantage," of escaping the
tyranny of imperial government, and of estab-
lishing, as a refuge, a more free government in
America. They determined to try to secure from
James I. a charter erecting them into a corpora-
tion and body politic ; conveying to that body in
perpetuity a definite portion of the Spanish West
Indies; granting to that body the privilege of
establishing therein a government of their own
making modeled on the English constitution as
construed in the most favorable way to them.
From the date of this determination the actual
settlement of North America by the English
became a reform movement of an ever-increasing
political importance, and a factor in the political
issues then beginning between the Court party
(the crown) and the Patriot party (the people).
OBTAINING THE FIRST CHARTER 11
Had the enterprise been successful under the
king's government, it would have been folly to
petition James I. for a charter to a body poli-
tic; but the plantation had really failed, some
of the company had already given it up, many
others were anxious to give it up, and the unpro-
mising outlook was unquestionably instrumental
in inducing James I. himself to give up his cher-
ished royal prerogatives and to grant the far-
reaching privileges petitioned for to a body
politic (planters and adventurers) in perpetuity.
There was no other alternative. North Virginia
had already failed under his form of government ;
and if he had attempted to continue his govern-
ment and refused to grant the charter of 1609,
it is evident that South Virginia would have been
abandoned by the English and the destiny of
North America would have passed into other
hands and been shaped to other ends.
The petition for the charter to a body politic
was drafted in the winter of 1608-1609 by Sir
Edwin Sandys, and the charter itself was pre-
pared for the king's signature by Sir Francis-
Bacon and Sir Henry Hobart. This charter (and
the subsequent charter of 1612) was so drafted
by Sandys that many of the prerogatives for-
merly reserved by James I. in his charter of
1606 were granted to, or would finally pass to,
this body politic, together with the authority to-
institute other enlarged and liberalized rights ia
12 OBTAINING THE FIRST CHARTER
perpetuity; the corporation forming virtually a
primitive state in its political capacity, which was
really designed to be the generator of the people
whom it was proposed should become in the
course of time the proprietors of the boundary
granted between 34 and 40 north latitude, ex-
tending from ocean to ocean, and who should re-
ceive the benefits accruing under these charter
rights as fully as they now do.
It must be noted, especially, that James I.
did not actually possess a foot of land in the
large territory granted, and that he did not
bind the crown to procure the land for the
body politic. The great American wilderness in
which the patriots proposed "to erect a free
popular state," the first republic in America,
whose inhabitants were to have " no govern-
ment putt upon them but by their own con-
sente," was thousands of miles away across
the vast ocean, inhabited by wild Indians, and
claimed by the crown of Spain. The body poli-
tic had to acquire the land from these owners
and claimants by purchase, by diplomacy, or by
force, and to settle it all " at the expense of
their own blood and treasure, unassisted by the
crown of Great Britain." And, of course, this
had to be done before the proposed political pur-
poses could be properly inaugurated therein.
The acquiring and settlement of the lands
granted could only be attained with sufficient
INAUGURATING THE MOVEMENT 13
pain, peril, and expense justly to entitle the
body politic to the liberal charter rights granted
by the crown in perpetuity. And it wa*s for the
sake of these rights, undaunted by the terrors of
the Atlantic, by the power of Spain, by the
climate and savages of Virginia, in the face
of every difficulty, disaster, and political opposi-
tion, that the true foundation of this nation
was laid. " Give me Liberty or give me death ! "
was the inspiration of our foundation as well as
the battle-cry of our Revolution.
CHAPTER III
INAUGURATING THE REFORM MOVEMENT
THE first charter to our original body politic
was finally signed by James I. on June 2, 1609. 1
It inspired the enterprise with a new life. The
managers of the business at once shouldered their
responsibilities and undertook their task most
earnestly. Of course they did not set forth pub-
licly the political policies which were inspiring
them ; but at one of the meetings of the well-
affected promoters of the enterprise (after the
petition was sent in, but before the charter was
signed) Robert Johnson delivered a discourse
touching their intended project, which was
1 For the reasons given in The First Republic in America, pre-
face, pp. xsiii, xxiv, I shall use the present style dates.
14 INAUGURATING THE MOVEMENT
printed in February, 1609, under the title of
Nova Britannia, which gives an outline of
their business purposes, and, with the present
understanding of the case, throws some light on
their political purposes also.
It is important to note that Sir Thomas Smythe
was constituted the first treasurer of the corpo-
ration ; because, having been imprisoned for the
part taken by him in the rising of the Earl of
Essex in the time of Elizabeth, he was then
regarded as " a good patriot. 9 ' This event was
an incident in the rising of the popular spirit,
that had become more pronounced in England
when the patriotic men of genius turned their
eyes upon America " as a providence cast before
them " for setting on foot their reform ideas in
the New World ; but those who controlled the
evidences were against Essex, and therefore the
truth regarding the incident may never be known.
It is known, however, that many of the old
friends of Essex became actively interested in the
American movement.
It has been well said that " when the found-
ers of the colonies came over, it was a time of
general tyranny both in church and state through-
out their mother island," and church and state
were so closely allied that it is somewhat hard
to treat of religion and politics separately ; so
although I am not dealing with the religious
questions, it is important to call attention to the
INAUGURATING THE MOVEMENT 15
following facts, as they throw needed light on the
politics or policy of this movement. February
27, 1609, soon after James I. had replied favor-
ably to the petition for the new charter, letters
were written to the Plymouth people to become
members of the body politic before the charter
was signed, and many of them did so. On June
9th, only seven days after the charter was signed
by the king, the Earl of Southampton, the
Earl of Pembroke, Robert Sidney Lord Lisle,
Thomas West Lord De la Warr, Sir Thomas
Smythe, Sir Robert Mansfield, Sir Thomas Gates
(all old friends of Sidney and Essex), and others
sent a diplomatically worded invitation to " His
Majesties subjects in the Free States of the
United Provinces " (the Pilgrims ?) offering them
in an English colony in America the place of
refuge which they were seeking in the Nether-
lands. Stith, in his history of Virginia (p. 76),
says : ( Many Puritans took the resolution of
settling themselves in Virginia ; but Archbishop
Bancroft, finding that they were preparing in
great numbers to depart, obtained a proclama-
tion from the king forbidding any to go without
his Majesty's express leave.'
Many in England, however, had been prompt
to avail themselves of the new charter rights,
and had already embarked for Virginia in the
first expedition. And pilgrims of all lands, of
all creeds, and of all politics, have found refuge
16 INAUGURATING THE MOVEMENT
under those charter rights in the " sweet land of
liberty," the " land of the pilgrims' pride," from
that day to this.
The first fleet sent out under this charter
sailed from Plymouth, England, on June 12,
1609. On the way the celebrated tempest, with
'the roaring waves which cared not for the
name of king/ was encountered, and "the
king's ship " was wrecked, but the American
talisman our first constitution containing the
germ of our popular course of government
was on board and " not a hair perished." It is
interesting to note that in Shakespeare's Tem-
pest, the leading spirit Ariel protecting the
fleet is doing so to secure freedom. As the
Earl of Southampton was so actively engaged in
this enterprise, it may be supposed that Shake-
speare himself, although not a member of the
corporation, was a patriot, and took an active
interest in the enterprise of his old patron.
Sir Thomas Gates and Sir George Somers
sailed from " the still-vex' d Bermoothes " on their
new-built barks, The Deliverance and The Pa-
tience, on "calm seas," and with "auspicious
gales" arrived in Virginia and cast anchor be-
fore Jamestown on the first anniversary of the
signing of the first charter to the original of the
body politic of this nation, June 2 (N. s.), 1610.
On landing, Governor Sir Thomas Gates found
the colony in a most deplorable condition. Tak-
INAUGURATING THE MOVEMENT 17
ing with him the official copy of the new charter
and his own commission thereunder, he went into
the church ; caused the bell to be rung ; gath-
ered the old and the new planters together;
heard a zealous and sorrowful prayer by the Rev.
Richard Buck, and after service caused William
Strachey, the secretary, to read his commission as
governor ; Captain George Percy (the president
of the king's council under the king's form of
government) then delivered up to Governor Gates
the old royal commissions, the official copy of the
royal charter of April, 1606, and the seal of the
king's council in Virginia. The imperial form of
government designed for the colonies by James I.
ended ; the new charter rights went into effect ;
the political management of the colony passed in
a measure from the crown to the " body politic,"
and the first step was taken on American soil in
the movement inaugurated by the men of genius
and enlarged minds who were then adopting the
principles of liberty against monarchy, and in
favor of a reform government in the New World.
This was one of the most important political
events in our history, and the scene in the church
at Jamestown must have been most impressive.
There were present about sixty old planters, in-
cluding Captains George Percy, John Martin,
Nathaniel Powell, Daniel Tucker, Thomas Graves,
and others who had been councilors or officials
under the king's government. About one hun-
18 INAUGURATING THE MOVEMENT
dred and thirty-five new planters, including the
Rev. Mr. Buck, the minister ; Sir Thomas Gates,
the governor ; Sir George Somers, admiral ; Cap-
tain Christopher Newport, vice-admiral, with
some of his sailors ; Stephen Hopkins (afterwards
one of the Pilgrim fathers), with other noncon-
formists ; William Strachey, Ralph Hamor, Wil-
liam Pierce, John Rolf e, and other leading men ;
Mrs. John Rolfe, with other women and several
children ; probably some friendly or spying In-
dians ; and the guard over the proceedings was
" Sir Thomas Gates his company of old soldiers
trained up in the Netherlands," under the com-
mand of Captain George Yeardley.
As the Rev. Mr. Buck had brought over, " for
the benefit and use of the colony," printed copies
of the first sermon preached before the body
politic, it may be naturally inferred that he read
in his services during this historic ceremony at
least the prophetic text of this sermon :
" For the Lord had said unto Abram, Get
thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred,
and from thy father's house, unto the land that
I will shew thee.
"And I will make of thee a great nation,
and will bless thee, and make thy name great,
and thou shalt be a blessing.
" I will bless them also that bless thee, and
curse them that curse thee, and in thee shall all
the families of the earth be blessed." 1
1 The Genesis of the United States, pp. 283, 287.
INAUGURATING THE MOVEMENT 19
Sir Thomas Gates, who had been chosen as the
first governor of Virginia under the corporation,
and other members of his military company, may
have served in the Netherlands under William
the Silent, the great leader of the advocates of
the rights of man ; and all of the company had
quite certainly served under his son, Maurice of
Nassau, who, like his father, was inspired by the
same liberal ideas which were henceforth to fur-
nish the sustaining influence of the English-
American plantations.
A portion of the fleet which reached Virginia
in August, 1609, had returned to England in the
fall, filled with nothing but letters of discourage-
ment relative to the condition of affairs in Vir-
ginia at that time. To offset these discouraging
reports the managers had published in Decem-
ber, 1609, a broadside, 1 and soon after " A True
and Sincere declaration of the purpose and ends
of the Plantation begun in Virginia," 2 in which
they boldly give the king's "forme of govern-
ment" as one of "the rootes" of the past "de-
failements," and state their intention of alter-
ing it.
Thomas West, Lord De la Warr, who had
been commissioned in February, 1610, as lord-
governor and captain-general of Virginia for life
under the new charter, sailed from England in
April, and arrived at Point Comfort, Virginia, on
1 The Genesis of the United States, pp. 354-356.
2 Ibid. pp. 337-353.
20 INAUGURATING THE MOVEMENT
June 16th following. Sir Thomas Gates, who
had arrived only fourteen days before with his
shipwrecked people from the Bermudas, had
found the old planters reduced to such an ex-
hausted state under the king's form of govern-
ment that it appeared necessary to leave the
country, at least temporarily, and on June 17,
1610, Jamestown was abandoned. But the pro-
vidence which had protected the American talis-
man through " lightning and tempest " did not
forsake it in " plague, pestilence, and famine."
On the next day, Captain Edward Brewster (of
Lord De la Warr's military company, which had
served Maurice of Nassau, and, it may be, Wil-
liam the Silent) met the departing colonists at
Mulberry Island with orders from the lord-gov-
ernor, who had so providentially arrived, for Sir
Thomas Gates " to bear up the helm and return
to Jamestown, where all of his men relanded that
night ; " but Gates himself, in a boat, proceeded
downward to meet his lordship, who, making ah 1
speed up, arrived at Jamestown on Sunday, June
20, 1610. In the afternoon of that day, Lord
De la Warr went ashore with Sir Ferdinando
Wenman and others, landing at the south gate
of the palisade fronting the river, Sir Thomas
Gates causing his company in arms, under Cap-
tain George Yeardley, to stand in order and
make a guard to receive him. As soon as the
lord-governor landed he fell upon his knees be-
OBTAINING THE SECOND CHARTER 21
fore them all, and on the bank of the James Biver
made a long and silent prayer to God. Then,
arising, he marched up into the town, William
Strachey acting on this especial occasion as color-
bearer, bowing the colors before him as he en-
tered the gate of Jamestown, and let them fall at
his lordship's feet, who, passing on, went into the
church, where he heard a sermon by Rev. Rich-
ard Buck, and, after service, caused his ensign,
Anthony Scott, to read his commission, upon
which Sir Thomas Gates delivered up to his lord-
ship " his owne commission, both patents [the old
and new charters, 1606 and 1609], and the
Counsell's scale." And the permanent settle-
ment of this country by the English definitely
began under the reform movement of the origi-
nal of the body politic of this nation.
CHAPTER IV
OBTAINING THE SECOND CHARTER OF OUR ORI-
GINAL BODY POLITIC, ETC., 1610-1616
GATES and Newport sailed from Virginia on
July 25, 1610, and arrived in England in Sep-
tember following, bringing the news of the dis-
covery of the Bermudas. The managers of the
movement then petitioned for another charter,
22 OBTAINING THE SECOND CHARTER
which would include those islands within their
bounds, and which would convey to the body
politic other privileges which they had found to
be desirable.
This petition was also drafted by Sir Edwin
Sandys, and the charter was drawn up by Sir
Francis Bacon and Sir Henry Hobart.
The petition was granted in the autumn of
1610, but the opposition of the Court party,
which was then taking definite shape, caused
delay, and the charter was not signed by James I.
until March 22, 1612. The importance of under-
standing everything pertaining to the charters
of 1609 and 1612 incorporating the embryo of
a body politic, which would naturally develop
in the course of time into a state in its political
capacity, cannot be overestimated. The obtain-
ing of these primal charters of our system of
government was the most important political
event in our history.
James I. wished to increase his dominions, but
he was not willing to risk his royal revenues in
settling plantations in America. In 1606 he had
authorized some of his subjects to settle in those
parts at their own expense ; but he was a most
earnest advocate of every royal prerogative, and
he reserved to himself the right of governing
them and their enterprises according to his own
ideas. Companies of adventurers had undertaken
the task with the object of reimbursing them-
OBTAINING THE SECOND CHARTER 23
selves for their outlay by finding a passage to
the Pacific Ocean, or by discovering gold mines,
or other enterprises of present profit ; but before
the beginning of 1609 their hopes had generally
faded away, while the difficulties, dangers, and
expenses of the undertaking had become most
evident. It was not to the interest of these men
to carry on this work, even with a fair prospect
of success, unless they could better their condi-
tion or the condition of their posterity thereby.
The original commercial objects had been so far
from being realized that it was necessary for
some vital influence to inspire the enterprise in
order to enable it to succeed. Even if the advo-
cates of the king's form of government were
willing to continue to prosecute the enterprise at
their own expense under the government of
James I., of course those among the adventurers
who were then beginning to breathe the princi-
ples of liberty did not wish to secure the country
at the expense of their own blood and treasure,
if there was to be established in that country
thus secured by them a form of government
which they regarded as an absolute tyranny.
But after considering the state of the case these
men became inspired with the needed vis vitce,
and resolved, if they were permitted to secure
a large definite boundary and to establish therein
for the future good of posterity a reform gov-
ernment " conforming with the English constitu-
24 OBTAINING THE SECOND CHARTER
tion," as construed in the most favorable way to
them, that they would then undertake the task
and willingly carry it on, even if they did have
to do so solely at the expense of their own blood
and treasure.
The leading purposes of the charters petitioned
for were to incorporate a body politic and enable
that body to take the government of the move-
ment from James I. ; and the desire to establish
in America a reform government as a refuge
from the tyranny obtaining in England became
the leading incentive of the enterprise.
Of course the charters were open to all parties,
and members of both national political parties
were included in our original body politic ; but
the movement was under the administration of
the Patriot party from 1609 to 1624, and the en-
terprise was carried ' forward during that time
under the management of those who held to the
right ends declared.' Those not animated by
the inspiring desire soon began to drop out, to
fail to pay their dues, etc., and some became
critics of the patriotic managers, and active op-
ponents of their plan for protecting in the New
World " the liberty of the subject from the en-
croachment of the crown ; " while those under
the sustaining influence continued to advance
their purposes to the projected ends regardless
of adverse criticism and all sorts of opposition,
even when in doing so they were obliged to face
OBTAINING THE SECOND CHARTER 25
king, council, and courts, at the risk of imprison-
ment and sudden death.
The reformers from the first were evidently
fully aware of the great importance of the char-
ter rights which they had now obtained. As
stated in " The New Life of Virginia," they re-
garded the movement as ' a work of such conse-
quence as for many important reasons it must
never be forsaken/ although at the same time
they well knew that there were " manifold diffi-
culties, crosses, and disasters" to be met and
overcome before " the most excellent things "
which they were aiming at could be secured.
The ultimate political objects were properly
held in a state of abeyance during the period of
the first joint stock, 1609-1616, when the coun-
try was being secured from the Indians and
Spaniards ; and the colony was being planted en-
tirely at the joint expense of the corporation,
and being made sufficiently strong to enable it
to stand the shock of opposition when it came.
And the Patriots must have felt that it was com-
ing (as it did come) as soon as the political ob-
jects became apparent to the crown.
I have dealt very fully with the case during
this period both in " The Genesis of the United
States " and in " The First Republic in America,"
and must refer those who may wish to have a
more extended account to those books. The
idea of a liberal government for America devel-
26 INAUGURATING THE GOVERNMENT
oped during the most remarkable transition pe-
riod in English history, and although this idea
was bitterly opposed by James I. and the Court
party, it received the support of some of the
greatest patriots, business men, statesmen, poli-
ticians, soldiers, sailors, and most broadminded
churchmen of that period.
CHAPTEE V
INAUGURATING THE REFORM GOVERNMENT IN
AMERICA, 1616-1619
JAMES I. had been crowned king when he was
less than fourteen months old ; had been a king
ever since he could remember, and regarded the
right of kings to rule absolutely as being next
under God. In 1616 he wrote "A Remon-
strance of the most gratious King James I.
for the Rights of Kings, and the independence
of their Crownes ; " and in the same year began
to show his hand against the freedom of action
of the managers by having certain royal features
inserted in Captain John Martin's patent 1 for
lands in Virginia, thus opportunely placing the
managers of the movement on their guard before
the end of the first joint stock. They had been
1 See The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, vol.
vii. pp. 269-275.
INAUGURATING THE GOVERNMENT 27
obliged to use diplomacy from the first, but this
act served a good turn by causing them to act
with additional circumspection at a most impor-
tant turning point in their movement.
The end of the absolute joint stock period
(Dec. 1616) found a portion of the country ap-
parently secured from the Indians and Spaniards
and the colony quite well established. The citi-
zens of this country were then to be given under
their charter their fixed property rights in the
soil, and every man's portion was to be con-
firmed " as a state of inheritance to him and his
heyers forever, with bounds and under the Com-
panies seale, to be holden of his Maiestie, as of
his Manour of East Greenwich, in Socage Ten-
ure and not in Capite." Early in 1617 Captain
Samuel Argall was sent as deputy governor of
Virginia, with special commissioners and a spe-
cial surveyor, to carry out these designs. There
had already been settled a laudable form of gov-
ernment for the courts of the body politic which
were held at the capital in London. After the
people were given their fixed property rights in
Virginia, it became necessary for the managers
to " bend their cares to the settling of a laudable
form of government in the colony." With this
object in view they chose Sir Edwin Sandys, who
had drafted their charters, as an assistant to Sir
Thomas Smith, for the especial purpose of super-
intending the inauguration of the original polit-
28 INAUGURATING THE GOVERNMENT
ical designs in America. The intent was to
establish one equal and uniform kind of govern-
ment over all Virginia, such as may be to the
greatest benefit and comfort of the people, in
which they were to have a hand in the governing
of themselves; in which they were to be eased
forever of all taxes, public burthens, etc., as
much as may be ; in which they were to have no
government, taxes, etc., put upon them but by
their own consents, etc., etc.
The London house of Sir Edwin Sandys,
where the consultations over the form of govern-
ment for Virginia were generally held, was near
Aldersgate, the gate through which James I.
first entered London, in 1603 ; and it is interest-
ing to note that this gate was being rebuilt by
the crown as a monument to the royal government
of James I. at the same tune that the plans
for a reform government for our nation were be-
ing developed in sight of the gate by Sir Edwin
Sandys, in consultation with the Earl of South-
ampton, John Selden, the Ferrars, John White,
and others. There was a figure of James I.
in high relief over the arch of the gate. On
the eastern side were these lines : " Then shall
enter into the gates of this city Kings and
Princes ; sitting upon the throne of David, rid-
ing in chariots and on horses, they and their
Princes, the men of Judah, and the inhabitants
of Jerusalem, and this city shall remain for ever."
INAUGURATING THE GOVERNMENT 29
On the western side were these lines : " And Sam-
uel said unto all Israel, Behold, I have hearkened
unto your voice in all that you said unto me, and
have made a KING over you." On the south-
ern side was a bas-relief of James in his royal
robes.
Some of the plans of the patriots for the re-
form government in Virginia were probably em-
bodied in the instructions and commissions sent
to the colony by Lord De la Warr in April,
1618 ; but he died en route. The documents
sent by him have not been found, but others,
possibly of a similar character, instructions,
a constitution, and the American Magna Charta
(so called, but it was not so great as the charters
of 1609 and 1612, from which it derived its au-
thority), were ratified by the Virginia court in
London, November 28, 1618, and carried to the
colony by Sir George Yeardley in January, 1619.
The authority for these instruments was derived
from the charters to "the body politic," and
under the authority of these instruments there
was inaugurated at Jamestown in August follow-
ing " the first example of a domestic parliament
to regulate the internal concerns of this country,
which was afterwards cherished throughout Amer-
ica as the dearest birthright of freemen."
1 See The Green Bag, vol. v. p. 216 ; The Virginia Magazine of
History and Biography, vol. vii. pp. 270, 271, and The First Repub-
lic in America, pp. 313-323, 456.
30 CONTROVERSY BECOMES CONTEST
CHAPTER VI
THE CONTROVERSY BETWEEN THE COURT AND
THE PATRIOT PARTIES BECOMES AN OPEN
CONTEST OVER THE REFORM MOVEMENT
AT the Virginia Court on May 8, 1619, Sir
Thomas Smith retired and Sir Edwin Sandys
succeeded him as treasurer, and Mr. John Ferrar
succeeded Alderman Robert Johnson as deputy
treasurer of the corporation. It had come to
pass that the loyalty of Sir Thomas Smith and
Alderman Johnson to the Patriot party was
doubted, and soon after this we find them affili-
ating with the Court party, aiding that party in
their political purposes, and obscuring rather than
throwing light upon the patriotic purposes of
their own administration of the corporation from
1609 to 1619.
The Spanish ministers to England, Zuniga and
Velasco, from 1606 to 1613 had continually
opposed the settlement of the English in ter-
ritory claimed by Spain, even to urging the
Spanish king to remove the colonists by force
of arms. The celebrated Count Gondomar ar-
rived in England as ambassador from Spain in
August, 1613, and at first pursued a similar
course ; but having put his spies at work look-
CONTROVERSY BECOMES CONTEST 31
ing into the Virginia business, he became con-
vinced, prior to December, 1616 : First, that
the English would never yield to such opposition
and threatening ; second, that some deep politi-
cal scheme was animating the Virginia courts.
He then altered his diplomatic plans for sup-
pressing the colony, and began to work on the
tenderest spot in the mind of James I. He as-
sured the English king that there were deep
politicians in the Virginia Company with farther
designs than a tobacco plantation ; " that though
they might have a fair pretence for their meet-
ings, yet he would find in the end that the Vir-
ginia Court in London would prove a seminary
for a seditious Parliament." James I. was as-
sured that " the matter was too high and great
for private men to manage ; that it was there-
fore proper for him to take it into his own hands,
and to govern and order it both at home and
abroad according to his own will and pleasure."
This politic line of argument had the effect de-
sired. The progress of the colony under the in-
spiration of free ideas over difficulties which
hitherto had been insurmountable had already
alarmed James I., and he now determined to
put an end to the popular course of the Vir-
ginia Corporation. With that object in view,
he resolved that Sir Edwin Sandys should not be
continued as treasurer or manager of that body
politic, and requested the Easter Quarter Court
32 CONTROVERSY BECOMES CONTEST
(May 27, 1620) "to make choice of Sir Thomas
Smythe, Sir Thomas Roe, Mr. Alderman John-
son, or Mr. Maurice Abbott, and no other. 99
When this request was presented by Mr. Rob-
ert Kirkham, one of the clerks of the signet,
the earls of Pembroke and Southampton told
the court that this was " the beginning of a move
against the company's just freedom of election,
granted by letters patent" one of their char-
ter rights. The body politic was not willing to
yield to the king's request and thus to " suffer
a great breach unto their privilege of free elec-
tion." They determined to defer their election
to the next quarter court, and appointed a com-
mittee to wait upon the king about the matter.
On May 29 the committee (H. Wriothesly Earl
of Southampton, J. Hay Viscount Doncaster,
William Lord Cavendish, Edmond Lord Shef-
field, Sir John Danvers, Sir Nicholas Tufton,
Sir Lawrence Hide, Mr. Christopher Brooke, Mr.
Edward Herbert, Mr. Thomas Gibbs, Mr. Thomas
Keightley, and Mr. William Cranmer) met at
Southampton House, and drafted an answer to
the king's request for the election of one of those
selected by himself as treasurer of the corporation.
When this answer was presented to James I.
at his chambers, notwithstanding the fact that
it was couched in the most loyal terms, notwith-
standing all argument, the king " remained ob-
stinately excepting against the person of Sir
CONTROVERSY BECOMES CONTEST 33
Edwin Sandys, declaring him to be his greatest
enemy, and that he could hardly think well of
whomsoever was his friend and all this in a
furious passion, returning the committee no other
answer but choose the Devil if you will, but not
Sir Edwin Sandys' 9
When Sir John Danvers, a few weeks later,
asked the Earl of Southampton if he would ac-
cept the place if the company chose him trea-
surer at their next quarter court, he replied, " I
know the king will be angry at it, but so the
expectation of this pious and glorious work may
be encouraged, let the company do with me
what they please." The next court on July 8,
1620, reasserted their right to free election, and
elected the Earl of Southampton as treasurer,
with the understanding that Sandys should
continue his services ' in prosecuting still those
political ways which might give satisfaction to
the patriotic undertakers.'
So far from these open controversies with the
king having had a depressing effect at this time
on the resolution of the managers, Arthur Wo-
denoth says that 'the public asserting of their
charter rights at the Easter Quarter Court, at the
meeting of the committee with James I., and at
the Trinity Term (July 8) Quarter Court much
raised the spirits of the Patriot party in the Vir-
ginia Company.'
In order to prevent confusion in the mind of
34 CONTROVERSY BECOMES CONTEST
students of these premises it must be explained
that there were parties in the corporation with
different opinions regarding business matters,
tobacco contracts, the magazine, etc., but I have
given an outline of the growth of these parties
in " The First Eepublic in America," l and we
are not now considering these questions. The
political issues of, and over, the body politic with
which we are now dealing were really between the
national Court and Patriot parties, and should
not be confused with the party issues in the cor-
poration, although these strictly company parties
may have from time to time in the advancement
of their purposes affiliated with one or the other
of the national parties to such an extent as to
make it, sometimes, very hard to draw the party
lines accurately.
The Virginia Court of July 17, 1620, ap-
pointed several committees for perfecting the
form of government which was being estab-
lished in the colony : The committee to select
from the laws of England such as were suitable
laws for the colony was composed of Sir Thomas
Roe, Mr. Christopher Brooke, Mr. John Selden,
Mr. Edward Herbert, and Mr. Philip Jermyn;
to select from the charters, instructions, orders,
etc., and the Acts of Assembly in the colony
such laws as were fit to be made permanent was
composed of Sir Edwin Sandys, Sir John Dan-
i See pp. 244, 267, 268, 280, 289, 301, 305-307, and 398.
FIRST APPEAL TO PARLIAMENT 35
vers, Mr. John Wroth, and Mr. Samuel Wrote ;
to select from the municipal governments of the
cities in England a model government for the
incorporations in the colony was composed of
Mr. Robert Heath, Mr. Robert Smith, Mr. Nicho-
las Ferrar, Mr. William Cranmer, and Mr. George
Chambers. A portion of the labors of these
committees will be found embodied in the docu-
ments taken to the colony by Sir Francis Wyatt
in the summer of 1621.
CHAPTER VII
FIRST EFFORT TO PROTECT THE CHARTER RIGHTS
BY ACT OF PARLIAMENT
PARLIAMENT had always been looked to as the
friend of the movement, and both the first and
second parliaments of James I. had been appealed
to in that behalf. 1 Knowing that Gondomar had
been ferreting out their political objects and
impressing his views on the mind of James I.,
the Patriot party in the body politic now felt
the need for strengthening and protecting their
political charter rights. About November 20,
1620, it was resolved " for some important rea-
sons " to obtain a new charter, and on November
25th the Virginia Court determined to try to
1 See The First Republic in America, pp. 14-17, 20, 75, 122,
200, 215, 216.
36 FIRST APPEAL TO PARLIAMENT
have further privileges and immunities inserted,
and also to have the charter confirmed by act
of Parliament. Sandys, Southampton, Selden,
Edward Herbert, John Ferrar, and probably oth-
ers, were employed in drafting this new charter.
The third Parliament of James I. met Feb-
ruary 9, 1621 ; Sir Edwin Sandys was a member
for Sandwich, but he did not attend during the
first week, and his brother, Sir Samuel Sandys,
in explaining his absence, stated that 'he was
interested in drawing a patent about the Virginia
business, and asked the House of Commons to
excuse him till that business was over.'
On March 4, 1621, Sir Edwin presented the
draft of the new patent to the Virginia Court,
which approved of it, determined to have it con-
firmed by act of Parliament, and a letter was
sent to James I. about it. " The draught of the
new charter " was soon presented by Sir Edwin
Sandys, Edward Herbert, Esq., and Mr. John
Ferrar to Attorney-General Coventry for him to
prepare the charter therefrom for the king's sig-
nature ; but he at once found fault with it (he
may have been instructed to do so), and refused
to draw up the instrument without a special war-
rant from James I. In April, 1621, James Hay
Lord Doncaster presented a petition from the
corporation to the king for this special warrant,
and the matter was considered by the Privy
Council in May ; but I have found no evidence
FIRST APPEAL TO PARLIAMENT 37
that the warrant asked for was ever sent to the
attorney-general, or that the charter was ever
presented to Parliament for confirmation by act.
In the spring of 1621, James Marquess of
Hamilton and William Herbert Earl of Pem-
broke, two liberal noblemen, solemnly affirmed
to the Earl of Southampton that they had heard
Gondomar say to James I. " that it was time for
him to look to the Virginia courts which were
kept at the Ferrars' house, where too many of
his nobility and gentry resorted to accompany
the popular Lord Southampton and the danger-
ous Sandys."
The king was evidently determined to put a
stop to the proceeding before Parliament with
the proposed new charter, and had probably
made up his mind to put a stop to the whole
Virginia business. In view of the alliance be-
tween Prince Charles and the Infanta, diplomati-
cally proposed by Gondomar, the king is said to
have resolved to surrender unto Spain Virginia
and the Bermudas, to annul the colonization
charters, and to quit altogether the Spanish West
Indies (America). The Patriots in our original
body politic were aware of these purposes, and
attributed them to " a secret Court - Spanish
party" under the influence of Gondomar; but
they were not willing to yield their rights. There
were many Patriots in the House of Commons,
and with their aid the Patriots in the Virginia
38 FIRST APPEAL TO PARLIAMENT
Corporation, as we have seen, were trying to
forestall James I. in these his intentions by
making their charter rights as secure as they
could by having them confirmed by act of Par-
liament, when, on June 14th, James I. prorogued
the Parliament to November 30th, and on June
26th (during vacation) had Southampton, Sandys,
and Selden arrested. This arrest of a member
of the House of Lords and of a member of the
House of Commons during recess was a breach
of the privileges of Parliament and an evidence
of the desperate purposes of the crown. It caused
a great commotion, and James I. felt it advisable
to issue a proclamation to the effect that Sandys
was not restrained for his acts in Parliament, but
for other personal matters. John Ferrar and
Arthur Wodenoth both say that it was the busi-
ness of the Virginia charters which caused the
arrests.
They are said to have been released on July
28th, but, although released from arrest, Sandys
was restrained to his house in Kent. When Par-
liament reassembled on November 30th the mat-
ter was at once taken in hand by the House. Mr.
Mallory soon rose and said in the abbreviated
wording of the Commons Journal " misseth
o
Sir Edwin Sandys. Moveth we may know what
is become of him."
On December llth the Commons appointed
Sir Peter Hayman and Sir James Mallory a com-
FIRST APPEAL TO PARLIAMENT 39
mittee to go into Kent and " see what state Sir
Edwin Sandys is in, and if he is sick, indeed, to
return his answer, whether he were committed
and examined about anything done in Parlia-
ment, or about any Parliamentary Business."
In indorsing this motion Sir George Moore,
who had contributed over $3500 to the Ameri-
can movement, said : " Any one was unworthy
to live who would betray the privileges of this
House. This our principal Freedom. Never in
all his Time [he had been a member since 1584]
knew greater care to preserve their Liberties than
this Assembly."
On December 28th, the Commons, in reply to
the king's letter, wrote the memorable protesta-
tion, in which they assert that " every member
of the House hath, and of right ought to have,
freedom of speech," etc., which was afterwards
torn from the Commons Journal by the king
and with his own hands destroyed ; but I have
given an outline of these proceedings in " The
First Republic in America," and it is not neces-
sary to repeat.
The party which was trying to protect the
charter rights of our primal body politic 1 by
act of Parliament had now become so strong
that the counter purposes of the Court party
could not be carried out even by an absolute
1 Of the members of our original body politic about 300 were
also at different times members of the House of Commons.
40 FIRST APPEAL TO PARLIAMENT
king, without some pretense of justice. This
party contained some of the most influential men
in England, there was a very strong following
among the people, some prestige even in the
House of Lords, and an ever-increasing author-
ity in the House of Commons. And this Parlia-
ment to which they wished to appeal in behalf
of their charter rights was a most vigorous one
alike in the correction of abuses and in the
defense of liberties. Therefore the conduct of
James I. in the case was constantly diplomatic.
He had found it necessary for his purposes to
prorogue the session ; to arrest Sandys and
others ; then to apologize. And there was some
prospect of success with the Virginia business if
the Patriots had been able to get their case be-
fore the House ; but the king dissolved it, and
thus the charter act was not permitted to pass
the Parliament.
The period of this Parliament should be care-
fully considered in these premises, as it was evi-
dently a most important one in the history of the
movement which gave birth to this nation. It
was during these political proceedings of so far
reaching importance to the Anglo-Saxon race
that the committees of the body conducting that
movement were preparing the laws for the re-
form government establishing in Virginia, and
it was on August 3, 1621, that the Virginia Court
(the " Seminary of Sedition " of James I.) signed
FIRST APPEAL TO PARLIAMENT 41
and sealed duplicates of the ordinance and con-
stitution which had been prepared to be sent to
Virginia by the recently elected governor, Sir
Francis Wyatt. The intent of the managers of
the body politic was, " by the divine assistance,
to settle in Virginia such a form of government
as may be to the greatest benefit and comfort of
the people, and whereby all injustice, grievances,
and oppression may be prevented and kept off as
much as possible from the said colony."
Besides the charter case there was another im-
portant case, in these premises, before this Par-
liament. In the summer of 1618 Captain John
Bargrave brought suit against Sir Thomas Smith
and others. The case went through the Vir-
ginia courts; then into chancery; then before
this Parliament ; and (after Parliament was dis-
solved) before the Privy Council. During this
controversy Bargrave repeatedly warned the royal
courts against " the popular government " which
was being instituted under the popular charters,
and constantly urged them to take prompt and
vigorous steps for tying Virginia to the crown of
England.
THE CONTINUED CONTEST
CHAPTER VIII
THE CONTINUED CONTEST BETWEEN THE COUET
AND PATRIOT PARTIES OVER OUR CHARTER
RIGHTS
COUNT GONDOMAR, having apparently suc-
ceeded in his mission, left England for Spain in
May, 1622, and James I., in carrying forward his
intentions against our charter rights, proceeded
with discretion. He sent a very polite message
to the Virginia Easter Court (June 1, 1622)
" signifying that although it was not his desire
to infringe their liberty of free election, yet it
would be pleasing unto him if they made choice
for Treasurer " from five merchants whom he
mentions ; * which message the Virginia Court
meeting diplomacy with diplomacy pretended
to regard as "a full remonstrance of his Majesty's
well-wishing unto the plantation, and of his gra-
cious meaning not to infringe the priviledges of
the company, and the liberty of their free elec-
tions ;" and thereupon proceeding with their
election they gave the Patriot candidate, the Earl
of Southampton, 117 ballots, while the king's
candidates received only 20 votes in all. The
Virginia Court then requested William Lord Cav-
1 See The First Republic in America, p. 476.
THE CONTINUED CONTEST 43
endish, William Lord Paget, and John Holies
Lord Houghton ' to present their most humble
thanks to his Majesty for his good wishes to their
affairs without desire to infringe their liberty
of free election,' etc. When the committee pre-
sented this really sarcastic message, James I.,
very naturally, " flung himself away in a furious
passion," and Prince Charles had to act as a peace-
maker.
The Patriots never hesitated in contending for
our charter rights at any time, and at the Vir-
ginia courts during this period they did not hesi-
tate to assert that James I. was acting in the
matter in the interest of Spain, under the influ-
ence of Gondomar. And even the Court party
must have felt the need of proceeding with diplo-
macy, for although James I. was " an absolute
king," the Patriot party was using a club which
then had great force in England. But when the
news of the massacre of the Virginians by the
Indians reached England late in June, 1622, the
Court party, attributing that incident to " mis-
government " (that is, to the popular course of
government), seized upon it as furnishing the de-
sired excuse for suppressing the movement, and
the Patriots were obliged to use, if possible,
greater discretion than ever, until the good re-
ports brought from Virginia by the ships which
arrived about Christmas, 1622, put them on the
aggressive again.
44 THE CONTINUED CONTEST
Early in 1623 " A Declaration of the present
state of Virginia comparatively with what had
been done in former times " was drawn up and
set forth by the order of the Earl of South-
ampton, then treasurer of the corporation. The
officials of the " former times " were now acting
with the Court party. Alderman Johnson replied
to this declaration at once, and the Virginia Cor-
poration was soon divided into bitter political
parties. Woden oth says that, e owing to the con-
stant opposition of James I. and to the inquisition
of the Privy Council, many Lords and others of
all ranks of the more timorous nature now fell
from the true sense and justice of the work
chiefly intended/ and these men formed a party
in the body politic itself which aided the Court
party in having the charters annulled, and the
government resumed, by the crown.
The party in the corporation which was will-
ing to surrender our charter rights to the king
and affiliated with the Court party was led by
Kobert Rich Earl of Warwick, Sir Thomas
Smith, Sir Nathaniel Rich, Sir Henry Mildmay,
Alderman Johnson, and others. The party not
willing to surrender our charter rights to the
king, hoping, with the aid of the Patriot party
in Parliament, to be able to hold on to those
rights, was led by Henry Wriothesley Earl of
Southampton, William Lord Cavendish, Sir Ed-
win Sandys, Sir Edward Sackville, Sir John
THE CONTINUED CONTEST 45
Ogle, and many more. The case, ostensibly,
between these two parties in the Virginia Corpo-
ration, but really between the crown of England
and the original of our body politic, was up be-
fore James I. and his Privy Council in January,
February, March, and April, 1623, documents
being read and witnesses heard for both sides.
By the latter part of April the case had reached
an acute state.
On April 22d, the Patriot party appointed Sir
Edwin Sandys, Sir Edward Harwood, John
Smyth of Nibley, John White (who afterwards
drafted the Massachusetts charter), William Ber-
block, Anthony Withers, Eev. Patrick Copeland,
John Ferrar, and Nicholas Ferrar as a special
committee for perfecting the various writings
which they intended to submit in defense of our
charter rights, etc. On April 28th, the crown
appointed a special commission to consider the
Virginia case, with Sir William Jones, who had
been chief justice of the King's Bench in Ire-
land, at the head of it. This commission sat in
this case for many months, and back of it was
James I. and his Privy Council.
John Ferrar says : " The Privy Council, find-
ing that the company were still resolved not
to part with their patent or *with the liberty
which they thereby had to govern their own
affairs, now took a more severe and not less un-
just course. They confined Lord Southampton
46 THE CONTINUED CONTEST
[early in May, 1623] to his house, so that he
might not come to the Virginia courts, of which
he was the legal governor. But this only made
the company more resolute in their own defense.
They then [on May 23d] ordered Sir Edwin
Sandys [Lord Cavendish, the governor of the
Bermuda Islands Company, Nicholas and John
Ferrar] into a similar confinement. But this
step in no degree abated the resolution of the
company " to defend their charter rights.
At the Easter Virginia Court, May 24, 1623,
" the Lords, under the influence of Gondomar,
strongly pressed the company to give up their
patent ; " but they would not. All of the lead-
ing managers of the body were now under arrest,
and as this was the court at which their annual
elections were usually held the crown may have
felt that it "held the whip handle;" but the
Patriots, in order to hold on to their old officers
(now prisoners), and to avoid as much as possi-
ble an open rupture with the crown, determined
to defer the annual election to the Trinity term.
James I. was thus again foiled in another at-
tempt to interfere with their freedom of elec-
tion. The Ferrars were liberated in a few days ;
but Southampton, Cavendish, and Sandys were
not.
On May 26th, Sir Nathaniel Kich, who was then
affiliating with the Court party, had a long in-
terview with Captain John Bargrave in the great
THE CONTINUED CONTEST 47
chamber of the Earl of Warwick's house in Lon-
don. Bargrave said that " by his long acquaint-
ance with Sandys and his wayes he was induced
verilie to believe that there was not any man in
the world that carried a more malitious heart to
the government of a Monarchic, than Sir Edwin
Sandys did." Continuing, he said in effect that
' Sandys had told him his purpose was to erect
a free popular state in Virginia, in which the in-
habitants should have no government put upon
them but by their own consent.' This evidence
of Bargrave's as to the political features of the
case was very strong, because he was a friend of
Sandys on business lines, and was then acting in
consort with him in his suits against Sir Thomas
Smith. Rich made notes of this interview, which
he gave in to the king's commissioners, who were
then considering the case.
Sandys and Southampton being under arrest,
John Ferrar says that the burthen of defending
our charter rights before this commission and
the Privy Council fell upon Nicholas Ferrar.
And when James Marquess of Hamilton and
William Herbert Earl of Pembroke visited
Sandys and Southampton in their confinement,
these lords informed them of these proceedings,
saying : " That Nicholas Ferrar, though now
left as it were alone, was too hard for all his op-
posers. But, continued they, your enemies will
prevail at last ; for let the Company do what
48 THE CONTINUED CONTEST
they can, in open defiance of honour, and jus-
tice, it is absolutely determined at all events to
take away your patent."
The Trinity Virginia Court met on July 5,
1623 ; the treasurers were still under arrest,
the company would not elect others to their
places, and in order to hold on to their old offi-
cers and to avoid an open rupture with the
crown, now deferred the election to the Michael-
mas term. James I. seems to have been deter-
mined, if the patriotic body would elect none of
those selected by himself, that they should have
no presiding officials at all.
The crown had placed the leaders of the
Patriot party under arrest, and had hampered
that party in every way while the commissioners
were considering their case. After the com-
missioners had collected such evidences as the
king desired, they made their first report in
July, 1623 : to the purport ' that if his
Majesty's first charter of April, 1606, and his
Majesty's most prudent and princely form of
government of 16061609, by thirteen council-
lors in Virginia all appointed by his Majesty,
had been pursued, much better effects would have
been produced than had been by the alteration
thereof under the charters to a body politic into
so popular a course,' etc. The report was for
the purpose of justifying James I. " out of his
great wisdom and depth to judgment to resume
SECOND APPEAL TO PARLIAMENT 49
the government, and to reduce that popular form
so as to make it agree with the monarchical form
which was held in the rest of his Royall Mon-
archic."
CHAPTER IX
THE SECOND EFFORT TO PROTECT OUR CHAR-
TER RIGHTS BY ACT OF PARLIAMENT
AFTER the failure of the Spanish match, in the
autumn of 1623, James I. evidently altered the
private purpose, which the Patriots said he had,
of surrendering Virginia to Spain, but became
more determined than ever to annul our charter
rights, in order to take the country from the
body which had secured it at the expense of
their own blood and treasure without assistance
from the crown, to attach it absolutely to the
crown, and to resume the government himself.
On October 30th, the company was required
by the crown to take a final vote on surrendering
their charter rights voluntarily, and, regardless
of the royal influence, a large majority of those
present were opposed to doing so. Two of the
old representatives of James I. in Virginia during
1607-1609 (Captains John Martin and John
Smith) were present, and both of them wished
the king to resume the business.
Sir Edwin Sandys had been under arrest nearly
50 SECOND APPEAL TO PARLIAMENT
the whole time since May, while this case was
being considered by the crown, and James I.,
in order to get him entirely out of his way, had
determined in December to send him as one of a
special commission to Ireland ; but a Parliament
having been decided on, and Sandys being elected
a member from Kent, the king was foiled, as it
was deemed unwise to arouse the wrath of Parlia-
ment by taking him away from his seat ; so he
was finally released from confinement, and he sat
in the fourth Parliament of James I. from Feb-
ruary 22, 1624, to the death of the king on April
6, 1625.
On January 24, 1624, the Virginia Court re-
solved not to continue the prosecution of their
case before the crown officials, the Privy Coun-
cil, and courts, but " to reserve all to the Parlia-
ment now at hand ; " and it was before the last
Parliament of James I. that our original body
politic made their last stand as an independent
corporation in defense of our original charter
rights. The Patriot party was numerously and
well represented in this Parliament. After it
met, on February 22, 1624, Sir Edwin Sandys
and Nicholas Ferrar (M. P. for Lymington) at
once strengthened their position by taking sides
with Prince Charles and the Duke of Bucking-
ham (who had visited Spain as Tom and John
Smith), the then "rising stars," in their case
against Lionel Cranfield Earl of Middlesex, the
SECOND APPEAL TO PARLIAMENT 51
old opponent of Sandys and Ferrar in the Vir-
ginia business. Then, on May 6th, Sandys,
Ferrar, and "those others of the Virginia Coun-
cil that were also members of the Honourable
House of Parliament," in the name of the Vir-
ginia Corporation, presented a petition " To the
Honourable House of Commons assembled in
Parliament." This petition, after showing the
many advantages arising and likely to arise from
the colony, states that disorders have arisen
which the petitioners were not able to rectify
"without higher assistance," and "for the dis-
charge of the trust reposed in them they now
presented to this present Parliament this child of
the kingdom [Virginia] exposed as in the wil-
derness to extreme danger, and as it were faint-
ing and laboring for life. And they pray the
House to hear their grievances ; " which the
House was willing to do, and a committee was
appointed to hear the case. But before the
matter was concluded James I. wrote (May 8th)
" to our House of Commons not to trouble them-
selves with this petition," as he intended to settle
the matter himself with the aid of his Privy Coun-
cil, and ( this was assented to by a general silence
in the House, but not without some soft mutter-
ings.' As their contest was really with the crown,
and not with the Sir Thomas Smith party, as, for
obvious reasons, they had pretended, and as their
hopes had been dependent on the Commons, the
52 THE CHARTERS ANNULLED
Patriot party in the Virginia body politic must
have now felt that their cause was for the pre-
sent hopeless ; yet they were not only unwilling
to surrender our charter rights voluntarily, but
they were not willing to surrender them at all.
CHAPTER X
THE CHARTERS TO THE ORIGINAL OF OUR BODY
POLITIC ANNULLED BY THE CROWN
ON November 3, 1623, the Privy Council in
Engknd appointed Captain John Harvey, John
Pory, Abraham Piersey, and Samuel Matthews 1
commissioners in Virginia to consider and make
report on the condition of the colony. Harvey
and Pory arrived at Jamestown on March 4, 1624,
and after considering the case, sent their reports
to England by Pory early in May following. The
Patriot party in Virginia had sent Mr. John
Pountis as their agent, with documents to offset
these reports, about a week before, and this was
probably the first special mission sent to England
from the colony in defense of our charter rights.
"Mr. Pountis, the messenger of the General
Assemblie in Virginia," died en route at sea in
June, 1624. Mr. Pory, the messenger of the
royal commission, arrived safely, and gave in
their reports about the middle of June. The
1 John Jefferson was also appointed, but he did not act.
THE CHARTERS ANNULLED 53
royal commission in England then, regardless of
the protests of the Virginia courts in England
and of the General Assembly and planters in Vir-
ginia, made their final reports justifying the king
in having the charter of our original body politic
annulled and in resuming the government him-
self.
James I. then had the charter overthrown, on
June 26, 1624, by a quo warranto 1 in the Court
of the King's Bench by Sir James Ley, who had
formerly served him as a commissioner in Ire-
land ; but the immortal principles which inspired
the body had then been planted in America. The
seed had germinated in our sacred soil, and the
tender plant was growing strong in our free air.
The Patriot party was very severe in denounc-
ing James I. in their courts and writings for his
" despotic violation of honour and of justice " in
these premises, and that the whole proceeding of
the Court party was a piece of very dishonorable
work there can be now no question ; but from
the imperial point of view it must have seemed
to be a royal duty to resort to every possible
means available for destroying forever, "root
and branch," every idea of the popular political
course of government designed for the New
World by the Patriots.
In reference to the quo warranto case, John
1 Smith called it "A Corante." Generall Historic, p. 168,
Arbor's edition of Smith's Works, p. 621.
64 THE CHARTERS ANNULLED
Ferrar said that Attorney - General Coventry
brought the plea against the company's charter,
" That it was in general an unlimited vast patent.
In particular, the main inconvenience was that,
by the words of the charter, the company had a
power given them to carry away and transport to
Virginia as many of the king's loving subjects as
were desirous to go thither. And consequently,
by exercising this liberty, they may in the end
carry away all the king's subjects into a foreign
land," etc. Additional light is thrown on this
matter by Bargrave, Wodenoth, and others.
If we will turn the political light on these
charters it will be seen that Attorney-General
Coventry understood them correctly. 1 They con-
veyed to a body politic unlimited in number, a
corporation unlimited in time, a vast territory in
perpetuity, and authorized that body to plant
this territory, not only with "as many of the
king's loving subjects as were desirous to go
thither," but also with ' strangers and aliens, born
in any part beyond the seas wheresoever, being
in amity with the English.' And among the
singular freedoms, liberties, franchises, and privi-
leges granted to the members of this body politic
was the right to govern themselves to make
laws and ordinances so always as the same be
not contrary to the laws of England as construed
in the most favorable manner for that body.
1 See Part V. chapters i., ii., and iii.
THE CHARTERS ANNULLED 55
The crown already saw " the handwriting on
the wall/' and felt that, unless heroic action was
promptly taken against a popular course of gov-
ernment in America, the colonies would become
a place of refuge from royal tyranny, and would
finally shake off the yoke of the mother country
and erect an entirely independent nation. And
the subsequent history of the colonies is an evi-
dence that the crown never lost sight of that
fear until it lost the colonies.
After the quo warranto case had been de-
cided according to his desire, James I. at once
turned his attention to designing a plan of gov-
ernment of his own for the colonies in America,
with the aid of Oliver St. John Viscount Grand-
ison, George Lord Carew, and Arthur Lord
Chichester, who had previously assisted him in
forming his plan of government for Ireland ;
and if he had lived to put into effect his plan of
government for America, the result might have
been the same in this country as it has been in
Ireland. Or, if Gondomar's advice continued
to obtain with him, the Spanish plan of ruling
South America might have been repeated in
North America. Or, if he had restored his
original form of government of 1606-1609,
under the presidency of hj$ original loyal repre-
sentative, it might have resulted in failure as it
had previously done. But no one can really know
what would have been the result if the ideas of
56 THE CHARTERS ANNULLED
James I. and his councilors had been completely
carried out ; because Providence has always pro-
tected the American talisman. James I. died
suddenly on April 6, 1625, before his plans for
destroying it had been consummated, and it
came to pass that the colony virtually continued
under the political principles the vis vitce
of the primitive body politic of this nation.
PART H
AN outline of the effort of the Court party in England to
obliterate the true history of the origin of this nation ; show-
ing how a great historic wrong was done our patriotic found-
ers by James I., his commissioned officials, and licensed his-
torians.
THE CROWN CONFISCATES EVIDENCES 59
CHAPTER I
THE CROWN CONFISCATES THE EVIDENCES OF
THE BODY POLITIC
JAMES I. not only determined to deprive the
body politic of the political rights which he had
granted under the Great Seal of England in per-
petuity, but he also resolved to suppress (their
historic rights) the real history of their great
reform movement.
We have considered the means resorted to for
robbing the original of our body politic of our
charter rights. We have now to consider the
means adopted for robbing our founders of the
honors due them in history; for suppressing
the facts, and for impressing on the public false
ideas of this great liberalizing movement.
The repressive laws then shackling the press
would of themselves have naturally worked the
loss or scattering of much that was disapproved
by the crown in the lapse of years without
an intentional preservation of evidence for one
party and the destruction of the evidence for
the other side ; but James I. was not the king
to leave such matters to such chances, or to
trust solely to the ordinary royal control over
evidence. Probably no king was ever more
60 THE CROWN CONFISCATES EVIDENCES
determined to exercise " the divine right/' for-
merly claimed by all kings, for making the his-
toric statements controlled by them conform to
their purposes, than James I. The real his-
tory of his part in the Gowrie Conspiracy of
1600 and in the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 has
never been satisfactorily unraveled. But his
subtle diplomacy in matters of this kind was
most effectually illustrated in his determination
to make the plantations in America lasting mon-
uments of his own kingly ideas, rather than of
the popular ideas of " his greatest enemy/' Sir
Edwin Sandys, and in the execution of his pur-
pose to consign to oblivion all that pertained to
the political plans of the Patriots and to their
reform movement. We have a peculiarly strong
illustration of the vigor of his purpose in these
premises in his act on January 9, 1622, when, in
order to destroy the record of a popular political
idea, he was guilty of the historic crime of tear-
ing out with his own royal hands the page from
the Commons Journal on which was written the
celebrated protest of the Commons (in sequence
to the arrest of Sandys in June, 1621) asserting
" that they had, and of right ought to have,
freedom of speech," etc. To securing these ob-
jects to committing this great historic wrong
James I. devoted "his great wisdom and
depth of judgment," with the aid of the Court
party, Privy Council, special commissioners, royal
THE CROWN CONFISCATES EVIDENCES 61
courts, licensed historians, personal advisers, dis-
satisfied and royalist members of the Virginia
Corporation, for a large portion of the very
last years of his life and reign. And conse-
quently even the Gowrie Conspiracy and the
Gunpowder Plot have been better understood by
historians than has the reform movement under
which this nation was founded.
The crown had a legitimate or legal right to
control the press, the printed evidences, and much
of the manuscript evidence such as pertained
to the acts of the crown, the Privy Council,
royal courts, commissions, etc., etc. It is now
hard to form even an approximate estimate as to
how much there was originally of the evidence
legally under the control of the crown ; but
there was evidently very much of it, some of
a reliable character and some of a partisan or
unreliable character ; some complete documents,
others mere abstracts. But it was all kept under
lock and key, " tied with red-tape," and none of
it was available to the historian for many gen-
erations, prior to which time much had been
destroyed intentionally or unintentionally, and
some yielding to the natural ravages of time had
crumbled to decay.
It is only necessary to give an outline of the
evidences in print and manuscript, originally
issued by or under the control of the Virginia
Corporation. Prior to the opening of the press
62 THE CROWN CONFISCATES EVIDENCES
to their opponents in 1612, the managers of the
business had published about twenty tracts,
broadsides, and circular letters. After that their
patronage of the press was not so free. The
custom of reading at the annual Hilary term of
the Virginia Quarter Court " a declaration of the
present state of the colony " was continued dur-
ing 1613-1617, which declaration, or an abstract
from it, was published each year, and a few
lottery broadsides and circular letters were also
printed ; but I cannot find that anything at all
was published by the managers in 1618 or 1619,
while the new order qf government was being
quietly inaugurated in Virginia. Under the
Sandys-Southampton administration, " the trea-
surer was required in the beginning of the court
[usually the Easter Quarter Court] at the giving
up of his office to declare by word or writing
the present estate of the colonie and planters in
Virginia, and to deliver in to the court a Booke
of his accounts for the year past, examined and
approved under the auditors hands : Declaring
withall the present estate of the cash." A portion
of this report, including ( A Note of the shipping,
men, provisions, etc., that had been sent to Vir-
ginia by the said Treasurer during his preced-
ing year in office,' was published in 1620, 1621,
and 1622. Besides these a good many other
things were printed in 1620 and a few in 1622 ;
but the printing press was not available to the
THE CROWN CONFISCATES EVIDENCES 63
managers in the years 1623 and 1624 when the
great struggle over our charter rights was going
on, and they published nothing that I can find
in those years. There were probably over fifty
imprints tracts, broadsides, circulars, etc., li-
censed and not licensed, long and short pub-
lished by the managers in the whole period of
1609-1624. These publications, issued in the
interest of the enterprise, are not expected to
give political or other information which might
injure it; yet they reveal to us some of the
lines along which the managers worked, some of
the difficulties which they had to meet, some of
their objects or ideas of the present and hopes
for the future, and along these lines they must
be regarded as authentic evidence of the highest
value. At the same time it must be remembered
that the crown had a legal control over the press
which printed them.
The manuscript records of the body politic
were regularly kept, were voluminous and valua-
ble. The treasurers, auditors, committees, hus-
bands, etc., all kept separate sets of books.
The bookkeeper kept the books of the treasurer
and the books of the auditors. The secretary
kept the books of the corporation courts, the
books of the committeemen, etc., including :
First, the books containing letters, orders, etc.,
from the king, Privy Council, and court officials
to the company officials, and ditto from the com-
64 THE CROWN CONFISCATES EVIDENCES
pany officials to the crown officials ; second, the
books of laws, standing orders, and matters of
that character ; third, the books containing the
charters from the crown, the charters and inden-
tures from the corporation, the public letters to
and from Virginia, etc. ; fourth, the books of the
acts of the general courts ; fifth, the books of
the acts of the committees, including invoices of
goods, etc., sent to and received from Virginia ;
and, sixth, the books containing the names of the
adventurers and their shares of land, the names
of all planters in Virginia upon the public as well
as upon private plantations and their shares of
land. There were also register books, in which
the name, age, condition, previous residence, etc.,
of all who went to Virginia as planters was regis-
tered. The husband kept his own books regard-
ing every voyage to and from Virginia. There
were also many other writings, documents, etc.,
of an important character not kept in books, all
of which were carefully kept under the secretary's
charge in the company's chest of evidences.
And, of course, there was much evidence, of a
non-official but reliable character, in the hands
of many members of the corporation not kept in
the chest of evidences. I believe that enough
is now known of these original manuscript evi-
dences of the Virginia Corporation to justify es-
timating the volume at over seven million words.
The crown, through the medium of the Star
THE CROWN CONFISCATES EVIDENCES 65
Chamber, the High Commission, and the censors
of the press, had a legal control over publications,
and through the Privy Council and royal officials
a legitimate control of much of the manuscript
evidence. But James I. was also determined to
confiscate this mass of the corporation's evidence
over which he had no legal control, and over
O '
which I do not know that the annulling of the
charter to the body politic gave him a legitimate
control. The actual confiscation of this evidence
began on or before May 3, 1623, for the Vir-
ginia Court of May 24th complained that the
Lords of his Majesty's Privy Council had seques-
tered their court books out of the company's hands
three weeks before. On May 25th, the royal com-
missioners ordered the Virginia and the Somers
Islands companies to bring before them to the in-
quest house (where they held their inquisitions),
next adjoining to St. Andrew's Church in Hoi-
born, on May 27th next, all writings of all sorts
concerning the said companies. As the Privy
Council had taken the precaution to place the
presiding officers of both corporations under ar-
rest while this sequestration of their evidences
was going on, this order of the commissioners
was addressed to " Edward Collingwood, secretary
of the Company of Virginia."
In the autumn of 1623 the crown appointed
1 For Captain John Smith's account of his part in these pro-
ceedings, see The Generall Historic, pp. 162-168.
66 THE CROWN CONFISCATES EVIDENCES
Captain John Harvey and John Pory to go to
Virginia and to act with several planters there
as commissioners in Virginia, ostensibly for the
purpose of examining into the state of the plan-
tations, ( to make report on the misgovernment
thereof, and to suggest the likeliest ways to be
put in practice for the better governing of the
same ; ' but really, as Lionel Cranfield Earl of
Middlesex expressed it ' In order that we
[the Court party] might have some true grounds
to work upon.' That is, in plain English, the
royal commissioners in England and in Virginia
were appointed for the purpose of finding rea-
sons, evidences, to justify the king before the
people in annulling the popular charters, and in
resuming the government himself, as he had al-
ready made up his mind to do. " There was one
law of the land, but another law of the king's
commissions." They collected such evidences as
answered their purpose, and made their reports
regardless of the protests of the Virginia
courts in England and of the General Assembly
in Virginia in accordance with the wishes of
the crown.
Captain John Harvey and Mr. John Pory of
the commission in Virginia were in the service
of James I. Pory had been secretary in Vir-
ginia, but at the election of June, 1621, was de-
feated by Christopher Davison, and afterwards
went over to the Court party. On July 30, 1624,
THE CROWN CONFISCATES EVIDENCES 67
* the crown paid him <100 in discharge of his
expenses, and 50 as a reward for his services
when employed in Virginia about the king's
special affairs.' James I. expended much more
of his revenue in his effort to have evidences to
conform with his wishes, in founding history to
suit his ideas, and in committing this historic
wrong, than he did on the actual founding of
Virginia.
The commissioners continued to confiscate the
company's evidences l at every opportunity, under
various pretensions, until the Virginia charter
was " overthrown " on June 26, 1624, by a quo
warranto issued by Sir James Ley, 2 Lord Chief
Justice of the King's Bench ; after which James I.
felt more free to act in the matter without pre-
text or subterfuge. On July 4th he appointed
a special commission to aid him in the premises,
composed of sixteen men, the large majority
being crown officials or members of the Court
party ; and one of their first acts was to order
Mr. Nicholas Ferrar, the deputy of the Virginia
Corporation, to bring to them many of the com-
pany's evidences. On July 25th James I. enlarged
1 See The First Republic in America, pp. 532, etc.
2 He was created Lord Treasurer on December 20, 1624 ;
Lord Ley of Ley, County Devon, December 31, 1624 ; advanced
to the Earldom of Marlborough in May, 1625, and soon after
made Lord President of the Privy Council, all for services ren-
dered the crown. Sir William Jones, the head of the king's
Virginia Commission of 1623-1624, was advanced to the King's
Bench, October 17, 1624.
68 THE CROWN CONFISCATES EVIDENCES
the powers of this commission, added thereto
forty new members, mostly of the Court party,
and gave them especial royal orders, 'to take
into their hands and to keep All Bookes, orders,
Letters, Advices, and other writings and things
in anywise concerning the colony and plantation
of Virginia, in whose hands soever the same
be.' And all persons were required by the crown
to deliver these evidences to these commissioners,
while they were required by James I. to be dili-
gent in securing them.
It is not to be supposed that anything in
manuscript or print would have been preserved
under the auspices of the crown which was not
favorable to the purposes of the crown, and if
the royal officials collected any evidence which
did not conform to the purposes of the crown, it
was probably collected in order to destroy it.
The evidences still preserved which were ob-
tained by the royal commissioners consist of ex-
tracts made in the interest of the royal purposes
from documents which have not been found
(having been probably destroyed at that time),
and of complete papers in justification of those
purposes. There cannot now be any reasonable
doubt that James I. left no stone unturned in the
effort to find and to have destroyed all evidences
which were favorable to the popular course of
government. And all the numerous important
original manuscript evidences of the body politic
EFFORT TO PRESERVE THE EVIDENCES 69
were confiscated by the crown, with the manifest
purpose of suppressing the facts and making it
impossible for the truth regarding this reform
movement ever to be known, for not one of these
original documents has been found. And (e cen-
sored histories" were licensed, disseminating
false ideas, which, under the control of the crown,
remained for generations the only available evi-
dences in the premises.
Besides the official publications of the crown
and of the managers, there were printed various
other books, sermons, tracts, etc., by members of
the corporation and by outsiders, containing
more or less matter relative to the colony in Vir-
ginia. But as these publications had to conform
to the purposes of the censors of the press, little
information of a political or strictly reliable his-
torical character is given in them.
CHAPTER II
THE EFFORT OF THE PATRIOTS TO PRESERVE
AUTHENTIC COPIES OF THEIR EVIDENCES
WHILE the Court party had every advantage
in being able to destroy evidences unfavorable to
their purposes and for disseminating such as
were favorable, the Patriot party was at every dis-
advantage. Even before the open opposition of
the crown began there had been need for discre-
70 EFFORT TO PRESERVE THE EVIDENCES
tion, not only on account of the political condi-
tions, but also because it would have been a
serious blow to the enterprise for many years for
many of the true obstacles to have been pub-
licly acknowledged by the managers. Hence
they had all along been obliged to bear in silence
adverse criticism and charges of mismanagement
as well as of " misgovernment." And although
they patronized the press liberally during 1609-
1612, the freedom of the press was never theirs ;
whatever they published was always liable to
royal inspection to be censored, garbled, or
destroyed. And after the crown resolved to
confiscate their evidences, they really had no
safe or satisfactory way of preserving them.
The only way was by stealth, and fortunately
for the truth, which is essential to history, they
made determined efforts to preserve their records
in this way. Some were preserved by sending
them to Virginia at once, others by keeping
them privately in England, and some of these
were at a later day purchased by Virginians and
brought to Virginia for safe keeping.
The Virginia Court, on May 27, 1623, ap-
pointed a committee composed of Sir Robert
Killigrew, Sir John Danvers, Edward Herbert,
Richard Tomlyns, John White, Anthony With-
ers, John Bland, Gabriel Barber, and William
Berblock to attend the royal commissioners with
a portion of the evidences which they had de-
EFFORT TO PRESERVE THE EVIDENCES 71
manded, and to ask the commissioners in the
company's name that "they would respite the
delivery of the accompts until the accomptant
might take copies of them, when together with
the other things they should be delivered to
them." But we now know that the copying of
the records for private preservation began be-
fore May 27, 1623.
It is now quite certain that both Sir John
Danvers (so long an auditor of the company)
and Mr. Nicholas Ferrar (the deputy treasurer),
"foreseeing the destruction of the company's
records," had copies made privately. Danvers
had " The Leiger-Court Books " (the acts of
the general courts, beginning with the quar-
ter court of May 8, 1619, and ending with the
court of June 17, 1624) copied and attested, and
Ferrar had "all the court books and all other
writings belonging to the company" copied
and attested. Both the Danvers and the Ferrar
copies were delivered (by Danvers and Ferrar
respectively) for safe keeping to the Earl of
Southampton, the last treasurer of the company,
in the summer of 1624. As soon as the royal
commissioners learned of these copies they called
on the earl for them ; but, regardless of the
royal orders, he replied that " he would as soon
part with the evidences of his land as with the
said copies, being the evidence of his honor in
that service." Southampton soon went to the
72 EFFORT TO PRESERVE THE EVIDENCES
Netherlands, where he died, and James I. him-
self died not long after. Thus Providence, which
preserved our political rights, also preserved these
evidences ; for it need not be supposed that any
of these copies could have been preserved if
James I. had lived longer. The Ferrar copies
are still missing. Those which have been found
are of vast importance, not only within them-
selves, but also in showing the character of the
evidences which were then confiscated by the
crown.
The absolute control over all evidence then
possessed by the crown did not produce the
only serious difficulty in the way of finding the
facts in after times, for the control of an absolute
king over the lives of his subjects made it neces-
sary to their safety for them to conduct mat-
ters very secretly. It was not safe to keep com-
plete records of a movement in which life and
liberty were at stake, and there was constant
need for diplomacy. Many acts, resolves, etc.,
of the Patriots were without doubt never re-
corded at all, and evidently much of the com-
pany's record has to be " read between the lines."
Even the books of " The Seminary of Sedition "
reveal so little of the political character of the
corporation that the Rev. William Stith and
subsequent historians, who had the use of some
of these books, regarded the Virginia body
politic as being merely a commercial company.
HISTORY LICENSED BY THE CROWN 73
There is still another difficulty, owing to the
parties which arose in the Virginia Company
itself, frequently causing the evidence of one
party, when relating to the acts of the other, to
be unfavorable and ex parte evidence. Thus
members of the parties in the corporation either
willingly or unwittingly played into the hands
of the royal commissioners by furnishing evi-
dence the one party against the other.
CHAPTER III
THE HISTORY PUBLISHED UNDER THE AUSPICES
OF THE CROWN
IT was very natural for such a king as James I.
to determine to efface every trace of such a move-
ment as this was, and, unfortunately for the truth,
he did not die until after the original evidences of
the corporation had been confiscated, until after
the censored histories had been published, and
his plans against the true history of the great
reform movement had been consummated.
The chief means resorted to by the crown for
preventing the truth from ever being found out
was by suppressing the manuscript evidences ;
and the chief means for perpetuating such false
ideas as were agreeable to the Court party was
through the censored press. Therefore, in con-
sidering the effect of politics on the history of
74 HISTORY LICENSED BY THE CROWN
the original of our body politic as it has been
published, it is of the first importance to form a
correct estimate of the original history published
under the auspices of the crown, which has been
the foundation upon which subsequent histories
have been based. In order to do this satisfacto-
rily, it is necessary to consider the character and
position of the author ; the conditions obtaining
and influencing opinions and evidences when the
book was compiled and when it was published ;
the view-point and character of the matter in the
book ; the circumstances which fostered the book
for generations ; and, finally, to note the charac-
ter of the fruit which has been produced thereby.
I have written a great deal about this book which
it is not necessary to repeat. What I am going
to write shall have reference especially to the
political conditions which have not previously
been sufficiently considered.
I have regarded Captain John Smith as the
responsible author of this " history," and as such
have held him personally responsible for its con-
tents, character, and the historic harm which has
been done by it, and I may have blamed him
too much in the matter ; for, save for the support
of the Court party, the book would not have been
licensed or published, and therefore James I. and
the Court party are really more to blame for the
publication of his " history " than he is himself.
It is true that he criticised the managers, but so
HISTORY LICENSED BY THE CROWN 75
did the Court party. It is true that his personal
purpose was evidently to glorify himself ; but as
his authority to act in Virginia and his authority
to publish his stories in England were derived
from the crown, both as an official in Virginia
and as a historian in England he was really the
servant of the crown. The references to himself
being considered not personal, but in the sense
of his political position as the king's loyal repre-
sentative, the honors for the services rendered
by the official servant of an absolute king were
thought to belong to the king his master,
therefore he was free to carry out his personal
purpose completely so long as his story con-
formed with the purposes of the crown. If
his services in Virginia had been greater even
than he says they were, and if his accounts had
been written in defense of the political purposes
of the Patriots, they would have been suppressed
by the crown as such evidences were suppressed.
If he had acted with the Patriots, protested
against the king's form of government for the
plantations, returned to Virginia under the body
politic, supported the popular course of govern-
ment, upheld our charter rights, and given up his
life in America while carrying forward the great
cause, he would have fared in histories published
under the auspices of the crown as the martyrs
of our genesis did fare. History cannot be writ-
ten or estimated fairly without giving due con-
76 HISTORY LICENSED BY THE CROWN
sideration to the influence of politics on the
evidences.
Let us consider the conditions which led up to
the publication of this book : Captain John Smith
was a prisoner charged with the capital offense
of complicity in "the open and confessed mu-
tiny " of Galthorpe when he arrived in Virginia
in 1607 ; but his life was protected by the com-
mission which he held from James I. as a member
of his council in Virginia. Under the influence
of the free air of America, respect for the king's
authority in Virginia soon began to wane. In
January, 1608, of the six members of the king's
council in Virginia, Wingfield had been deposed,
Gosnold had died, Kendall had been executed,
and under the leadership of Captain Gabriel
Archer, who wished the planters (to whom
James I. had not granted the right to govern
themselves) to set up a parliament of their own
in Virginia, Smith was tried for disobedience of
orders, and condemned to be executed ; but the
coming in of Captain Christopher Newport, who
held his own commission from the crown at this
time, prevented the assembling of the parliament
and saved the life of Smith. 1
In December, 1608, when Captain Newport
left Virginia with the planters and reports which
were instrumental in causing the Patriots to pe-
tition for a charter enabling them to remove the
1 See The First Republic in America, pp. 55, 56, 67.
HISTORY LICENSED BY THE CROWN 77
king's council and to reform the king's plan of
government in Virginia, Captain John Smith was
the president of the king's council representing
James I. in Virginia. In August, 1609, when
the portion of the corporation's fleet arrived
with the news that the charter to a body politic
had been granted, Smith was not only the presi-
dent, but the only surviving representative of the
king in his council in Virginia. Unfortunately
these ships did not bring the official copy of the
new charter, as it was in charge of the governor,
Sir Thomas Gates, who had been wrecked on
the Bermudas ; and the absence of this charter,
coupled with the knowledge that it had been
granted, caused a confusion of authority in Vir-
ginia. Smith, as president of the king's coun-
cil, held on to the official copies of the original
authorities, the king's charter of April, 1606,
his princely instructions of November, 1606, and
his constitution for the plantation of March,
1607, and made the circumstances thus obtaining
a pretext for refusing to admit Captains Kad-
cliffe, Martin, and Archer (old members who had
returned with the fleet) into that council, al-
though, like Smith, they had been appointed
thereto in the first instance by his majesty ;
whereby " discencyons " arose between the presi-
dent of the king's council and these captains,
Captain Francis West, and others, which finally
resulted in his being deposed from the presidency
78 HISTORY LICENSED BY THE CROWN
and sent to England to answer for his misde-
meanors. 1 Captain George Percy, who was in
Virginia with Smith the whole time of his ser-
vice there, said that he was an ambitious, un-
worthy, and vainglorious fellow ; that he aimed
at setting up "A Soveraigne Eule " in Vir-
ginia, and was justly deposed; but his acts in
the premises were well calculated to receive the
subsequent indorsation of the Court party, as they
evidently did do.
The ships on which he returned to England
arrived in December, 1609, with very bad reports
regarding the conditions in the colony when the
fleet left Virginia; but it was afterwards as-
serted by the Court party and in the history
licensed by the crown that the colony was left in
excellent condition by the loyal representative of
James I., and that the bad conditions did not be-
gin until after the ships of 1609 (which brought
the bad reports from Virginia) had left Virginia,
which assertion is manifestly untrue.
The royal grant of 1606 to a company had
been superseded by the charter of 1609 to a
body politic; but the charter had not reached
Virginia. The managers in England, feeling
the danger of chaos obtaining in Virginia, fitted
out Lord De La Warr as soon as possible and
1 The corporation had no authority to punish such misde-
meanors until after the granting of the XIV. and XV. articles
of the charter of 1612.
HISTORY LICENSED BY THE CROWN 79
sent him to the colony with the authority of an
absolute governor, and he arrived just in time to
save the country to the corporation. Gates re-
turned to England in September, 1610, carrying
the first news of his shipwreck in the Bermudas,
and subsequent arrival in Virginia, as well as of
the safe arrival of Lord De La Warr, and the
managers of the movement soon determined to
petition for their second charter.
Captain John Smith, the king's former repre-
sentative in Virginia, began to take action against
the charter under which he had been removed
from office in Virginia and the managers who
had removed him, at his earliest opportunity.
Late in 1610, at the same time that the peti-
tion drafted by Sir Edwin Sandys for this sec-
ond charter was being considered by the crown,
and afterwards during the period in 1610-1612,
when the managers of the business were trying
to fill in the charter with subscriptions to the
desired amount of 30,000, before James I.
signed it, a treatise, which had been compiled,
it was said, partly in Virginia and partly in Eng-
land, by some (one or more) of those who had
served in the colony under the crown, and had
returned to England, was being circulated in
manuscript evidently under the patronage of a
party opposed to the reform purposes of the
Patriots. The avowed motive of this treatise
was to show " to all indifferent readers, that the
80 HISTORY LICENSED BY THE CROWN
country was healthy, the Indians tractable," etc.,
the " defect whereof hath only been in the man-
aging the businesse." In brief, the motive was
to show that the reasons for "the past defail-
ments," which the managers had assigned to
justify them before the king in petitioning for
the special charters incorporating a body politic,
were not true. The circulation of this treatise
probably delayed subscription; but the country
had not yet been secured from the Indians or
Spaniards, the colony was not yet established,
James I. was not yet willing to risk his own
revenues in the under taking even under his own
officials and plan of government, and so, regard-
less of this opposition, the charter was finally
signed by the king on March 22, 1612.
Late in 1612, when James I. was acting as
his own prime minister, and when the enterprise
was passing through its " darkest hour," some
of those who agreed with the political motive
of the said treatise felt justified in having it
published at Oxford. It was dedicated by its
author, Captain John Smith, to his patron, Ed-
ward Seymour Earl of Hertford. The man-
agers had been subjected to verbal and written
criticism, to opposition and all sorts of hin-
drances from the beginning, and now in this
dark hour the press was opened to their oppo-
nents ; thenceforth they were to have still greater
need for all the wisdom which their natural
HISTORY LICENSED BY THE CROWN 81
abilities and long experience had given them.
Thenceforward their great reform movement
had to be carried on in the face of the open
and ever increasing opposition of the party in
the state and in the church which controlled
the press ; opposed their political purposes, and
finally confiscated their evidences and licensed
the history of their enterprise as it was first pub-
lished.
While their opponents of the Court party were
printing at Oxford a criticism of their manage-
ment and purposes, and were thus laying the
narrow foundation for the false history of their
great reform movement as it has been published,
" God's secret purpose " to uphold the work was
so strongly fixed in the minds of the undaunted
managers that they were holding weekly courts
at the house of Sir Thomas Smith in London,
" yielding their purses, credit, and counseil, from
time to time, even beyond their proportion, to
uphold the plantation," and were thus preserv-
ing through " the darkest hour " the broad po-
litical foundation upon which this great nation
stands erected. But most unfortunately they
had no control over the press, and the subse-
quent accounts of their movement, licensed by
the crown, were based on this ex parte Oxford
tract.
It was immediately followed up by the first
edition of " Purchas his Pilgrimage " in 1613, and
82 HISTORY LICENSED BY THE CROWN
the second edition of the same in 1614 ; Howes'
first edition of Stow's Chronicles in 1615 ; the
third edition of Purchas in 1617; the second
edition of Howes in 1618, etc. Smith himself
summarized the same ideas in his " Description
of New England " in 1616, and in his " New
England's Trials " of 1620 and 1622, and there
were other imprints of less historical pretensions
during 1613-1622, upholding the political pur-
poses of the Oxford tract, and opposing those of
the managers of the movement.
In the spring of 1623, when Sir Thomas
Smith's party in the Virginia Company was con-
tending that the colony had prospered under his
management, and charging that it had gone to
ruin under Sandys, etc., and the Sandys party
was denying both the claim and the charge,
the author of the Oxford tract began compil-
ing a book virtually contradicting both of these
parties; contending that the colony had pros-
pered under his management and under the
king's form of government, and had gone to
ruin after the alteration thereof ; asserting that
the business had been mismanaged by Sir Thomas
Smith prior to 1617, and under the administra-
tion of Sandys since that year, etc. In the fol-
lowing summer, Captain John Smith, the author,
was before the king's commissioners, and gave
such answers to seven questions as were calcu-
lated to please the Court party and to justify
HISTORY LICENSED BY THE CROWN 83
James I. in his purpose to annul the charters
that conveyed the political rights which have
sustained this nation since its birth. Late in
1623, Smith was distributing a prospectus of his
" Generall Historic of Virginia/' etc., among the
nobility and gentry of England, beginning :
" These observations are all I have for the ex-
pences of a thousand pound and the losse of
eighteene yeares of time." He then entreats
them to " give me what you please towards the
impression," etc. He soon found a patroness in
the Duchess of Richmond and Lenox, the widow
of his former patron, Edward Seymour Earl of
Hertford, and also the widow of Ludovic Stuart,
late lord steward of the king's household. On
June 26, 1624, the charters of our body politic
were overthrown in the king's bench; on July
4th, a special royal commission was appointed to
aid James I. in confiscating the evidences of that
body ; and on July 22d, Smith's history of the
enterprise of the company conducted under the
crown (1606-1609), as well as of the reform politi-
cal movement conducted under that body (1610-
1624), was licensed by Master Doctor Goad, and
entered for publication at Stationer's Hall in
London.
Rev. Thomas Goad, D. D. (1576-1638), who
licensed the book, was a domestic chaplain to
George Abbot, Archbishop of Canterbury, head
of the Privy Council, and of the High Commis-
84 HISTORY LICENSED BY THE CROWN
sion, which, together with the court of the Star
Chamber, had a special control over the press.
As we have seen, there had been a long and bit-
ter contest between the Court and Patriot parties
over our original political charter rights, and the
obtaining of this license at this time did not
depend on the personal disinterestedness of the
author, nor on the fairness of the book to the
patriotic managers, planters, and adventurers,
who had secured this country for us at the ex-
pense of their own blood and treasure unassisted
by the crown, nor on its value as history ; but
to the contrary it depended on the loyalty of the
author to the purposes of the Court party, and
on the book's conforming to the purpose of
James I. to obliterate the true idea of this great
political movement, and to rob our patriotic foun-
ders of their historic rights and of the honors
due them. The Court party wished to show the
public that much better effects had been pro-
duced under his Majesty's most prudent and
princely form of government than under the
popular course of the Corporation, 1 and both the
view-point and matter in this " history " are in
accord with the purposes of James I. and the
Court party.
When the Oxford tract was being printed,
the faithful managers, planters, and adventurers
were very earnestly trying to carry the move-
1 See The First Republic in America, pp. 541, 642.
HISTORY LICENSED BY THE CROWN 85
ment through its darkest hour and to save the
colony at their own expense. When " the Gen-
erall Historie" was being compiled, the faithful
Patriots had secured the country for us at the
expense of their own blood and treasure unas-
sisted by the crown, and were trying to defend
our political charter rights against the assaults
of the Court party. The publication of " the
tract " marks the active beginning of the move-
ment in favor of the king's resuming the gov-
ernment of the plantations, and annulling the
company's charters ; and the publication of " the
historie" marks the culmination of that move-
ment under James I.
" Purchas his Pilgrimes " which had been
licensed in 1621, was finally published in four
large volumes not long before the death of
James I. The Rev. Samuel Purchas, the author
or compiler of this work, as chaplain to Abbot,
Archbishop of Canterbury, and head of the High
Commission, had authority, as such, to examine
manuscript to see that it conformed to or was
loyal to the purposes of the crown, was not
seditious, and to license books. And he was
probably looked to by the Court party as the
historian of the colonial movement ; l but the
Virginia matter in his volumes was evidently
either largely based on Smith's works, or col-
lected for him by Smith, and therefore to all in-
1 See The First Republic in America, pp. 635-637.
86 HISTORY LICENSED BY THE CROWN
tents and purposes Captain John Smith must be
regarded as the authorized author under the
crown of the history of the movement which
was published under the auspices of James I.
Hence the so-called " John Smith controversy "
covers the published history of the period, 1606-
1624, and may be more properly called the con-
troversy between the Patriot party, which founded
the country, and the Court party, which founded
the history. But James I. was really the respon-
sible author or founder of this controversy.
PART m
THE influence of politics on the historic record while the
evidences continued under the control of the crown, an
outline of the contest over our political and historic rights
between the Court and Patriot parties, from 1625 until the
Patriots determined to secure their political rights by force
of arms in 1776, showing the ways by which the original
historic wrong was supported and perpetuated under the
crown.
CHAPTER I
UNDER CHARLES I., 1625-1641
HAVING considered the influence of contem-
porary politics on the published history, we have
now to consider the political influences and cir-
cumstances which fostered that history for many
generations.
Charles I. succeeded to the crown at his father's
death, and, fortunately for our original charter
rights, he was under personal obligations to both
Sir Edwin Sandys and Mr. Nicholas Ferrar, Jr.,
who had been his most active friends, when, as
Prince of Wales, his case against the Earl of
Middlesex was before Parliament in 1624 ; and
this circumstance may be regarded as one of
the reasons why he, as king, was for many years
more liberal in dealing with the political purposes
of the political body of the colony than his father
had been. He soon asked the old patriotic man-
agers of the Virginia business to give him their
opinion touching the best form of government,
etc., for Virginia. In their reply they very
astutely laid great stress on the past enmity of
90 UNDER CHARLES I., 1625-1641
the Earl of Middlesex to their old corporation ;
claimed that it was chiefly through his instru-
mentality that their charters had been annulled,
and then asked his majesty to restore them.
This discourse for presentation to the king was
written very diplomatically. James I. was shielded
by laying blame for many things on Sir Thomas
Smith's party. The late managers, in regard to
their evidences, asserted in effect 'that the [royal]
commissioners had taken possession of the original
court books of the late company, and if they could
have gotten into their hands the copies of them
which Mr. Nicholas Ferrar had caused to be tran-
scribed, they proposed doing the Patriot party in
that corporation a wrong in their honors and
reputations by reforming and correcting the
said originals so as to make them conform to
their [the royal] purposes; but before their
severe order for the copies came to Ferrar he had
delivered them to the Earl of Southampton, who
sent the [royal] commissioners word that he
would as soon part with the evidences of his land
as with the said copies ; they being the evidences
of his honor in that service.' And the late
managers appealed earnestly to the committee of
the Privy Council then in charge of the colonies,
" that howsoever your Lordships shall please
for the future to dispose of the companie, that
the records of their past actions may not be
corrupted and falsified." Their records had
UNDER CHARLES L, 1625-1641 91
been confiscated by the crown and their past
actions had been falsified in the histories licensed
under the crown ; thus they were aware of the
need for protection, and were evidently anxious
to protect the truth of history so far as they pos-
sibly could. Previous to this earnest appeal to
the crown, before he went to the Netherlands in
the fall of 1624, the Earl of Southampton had
sent the Danvers copies for safe keeping to his
seat, Titchfield in Hampshire, and had given the
Ferrar copies for safe keeping to Sir Robert Kil-
ligrew, 1 who had been appointed to the king's
commission of July 25, 1624, but had been a
member of the liberal party in the Virginia Cor-
poration, and was in sympathy with the efforts
to preserve the copies of their records. Charles I.
replied to the discourse of the late managers of
" the old Virginia Company " in a printed pro-
clamation issued on May 23, 1625 in a friendly
way ; but rejecting their appeal for a renewal of
the corporation and body politic. He said " that
our full resolution is that there maie be one uni-
form course of government in and through all our
whole Monarchic. That the government of the
Collonie of Virginia shall ymmediately depend
uppon our Selfe, and not be commytted to anie
Company, or Corporation, to whom it maie be
proper to trust Matters of Trade and Commerce,
but cannot be fitt or safe to communicate the
1 See Packard's Ferrar, p. 156.
92 UNDER CHARLES I., 1625-1641
ordering of State Affaires be they of never soe
meane consequence," etc.
The Ferrars had cooperated most earnestly with
Sandys and other Patriots in their purpose to
establish a popular course of government in this
country. They had based great hopes on the
popular charter rights of the corporation. They
had been deprived of hope by James I. ; the
hope revived under Charles I. now vanished;
like their friend, George Herbert the divine poet,
they saw plainly that " the Court was made up
of fraud, and titles, and flattery, and painted
pleasures," and they determined to retire from
the world of London. On June 9, 1625, Mrs.
Mary Ferrar bought lands at Little Gidding,
Huntingdonshire, in the names of her son Nicho-
las, and her nephew, Arthur Wodenoth, and the
family soon after removed there ; but we shall
see that they never lost interest in Virginia.
When the death of Mr. John Pountis (who had
been sent to prosecute their suit for our charter
rights before James I. in 1624) became known
in Virginia, "The Governor (Wyatt), Counsell,
and Colony of Virginia assembled together,"
under the impression (real or pretended) that
their former petition had not been presented to
his majesty, determined to appeal to him again,
and in June, 1625, sent their second petition for
our charter rights to England by the hands of
Sir George Yeardley. It was not then known in
UNDER CHARLES L, 1625-1641 93
Virginia that James I. was dead, and this petition
was addressed to him. Yeardley arrived in Eng-
land about two months after Charles I. had dis-
solved his first Parliament, changed the address,
and presented to Charles I. the petition, which
not only asked for many of our original charter
rights, but also asked to have them confirmed by
act of Parliament.
The second Parliament met in February, but
was dissolved in June, 1626, and during the
session, in March, Yeardley, a Patriot, was com-
missioned and sent back to Virginia as governor
by Charles I., but " the Liberty of Generall As-
semblyes " and other rights petitioned for were
not yet restored.
Soon after, May 27, 1626, Sir Francis Wyatt,
who as governor had continued to maintain the
original popular form of government in the col-
ony so far as possible since 1624, was sent from
Virginia with a third petition from Virginians
to the king and Privy Council for our original
charter rights, etc. Finally, in the autumn of
1627, in response to repeated petitions, memo-
rials, letters, and messengers from Virginia, and
probably influenced thereto somewhat by the
political contentions and conditions in England,
Charles I. concluded to permit the colony to
retain her General Assembly and other political
charter rights, to which James I. was so bitterly
opposed. The royal order restoring the House
94 . UNDER CHARLES I., 1625-1641
of Burgesses arrived in Virginia on March 4,
1628, and Captain Francis West, a Patriot who
was then governor, immediately issued orders for
the first election of hurgesses under the crown,
and summoned the General Assembly to meet at
Jamestown on March 20, 1628.
Charles I. was constantly vacillating in this
matter; having yielded to the appeals of the
Patriots for a General Assembly in the autumn
of 1627, on April 5, 1628, he commissioned John
Harvey, a royalist, who had been at the head of
the royal commission sent to Virginia by James I.
in 1623, as governor of the colony. But grave
political influences were at work. On May 18th,
less than forty-five days after Harvey's appoint-
ment, the celebrated " Petition of Eights " was
brought up in the third Parliament by our old
friend, John Selden, and, after holding out as
long as he could well do, on July 6th Charles I.
found it advisable to assent to this petition, but
prorogued the Parliament on the same day. The
very first Parliament of Charles I. in 1625 had
" opened the floodgates of a long contention with
the crown," which was really a protection to the
liberal political ideas while they were growing
and gaining strength in America. And the
breach between the king and the Commons was
now (1628) really more complete than ever be-
fore. Charles I., realizing the fact that the col-
onists were becoming important factors in the
UNDER CHARLES I., 1625-1641 . 95
politics of the realm, on September 22, 1628,
sent an official letter to Governor Harvey, in
which he yielded other charter rights to our
body politic, renewing to the planters in Vir-
ginia their lands and privileges formerly granted,
etc.
The corporation would doubtless have been
glad to yield their past historic rights to the
crown in order to aid in securing from the crown
their political rights, and even while the contest
over the political charter rights was going on in
a way not entirely unfavorable to the Patriots,
the royal ideas of their reform movement were
being constantly impressed (without public pro-
test) by the royal press on the mind of the
public. A fourth edition of " Purchas his Pil-
grimage " was published in 1626 ; Smith's " Gen-
erall Historic " was reissued in 1626, in 1627,
and twice in 1632 ; his " True Travels," licensed
in 1629, was published in 1630 ; and his " Ad-
vertisements for the Unexperienced Planters " was
published in 1631. The views of these books
were of course in accord with the views of the
Court party, and opposed to the interests, acts,
and political purposes of the Patriot party. The
author of these books had become a subject of
ridicule ( for writing so much and doing so
little.' In August, 1625, Sir William Segar had
a copy of a paper said to have been given to
Smith by Sigismund Bathor recorded in the her-
96 UNDER CHARLES I., 1625-1641
aid's office. Segar must have been imposed upon
in this matter, as he was when he granted the
royal arms of Aragon to Brandon, the common
hangman of London, for the paper was evidently
a forgery. 1
In April, 1631, Sir John Harvey wrote from
Virginia to Lord Dorchester that 'the self-will
government, as formerlie hath bin practised in
Virginia/ was still obtaining; and that the
council contended that his the royal gov-
ernor's " power extended noe further than a
bare castinge voice," etc. The political ideas
prevailing in Virginia were not without influence
in England. In June, 1631, Charles I. appointed
a large commission for advising him upon some
course for establishing the advancement of the
plantation of Virginia. This commission, being
composed for the most part of members of the
old Patriot party in the original body politic,
favored the renewal of the ancient charters of
the corporation 2 as the best course for the ad-
vancement of the colony, and in the autumn of
1631 they sent in a petition to Charles I. to that
effect.
In reply to this petition the opposing Court
party in England soon issued " Considerations
1 See Notes and Queries, London, 7th series, vol. ix. pp. 1, 41,
102, 161, 223, and 281 ; and The Genesis of the United States, vol.
ii. p. 1008.
8 Charles I. had granted a similar charter to Massachusetts
in March, 1629.
UNDER CHARLES I., 1625-1641 97
against the renewing of a Corporation for Vir-
ginia/' in which they make use of some of their
arguments of 1622-1624 : referring to the meet-
ings of the old Virginia Courts (the old " semi-
nary of sedition ") as " mutinous meetings ; "
contending that the forms of government insti-
tuted in Ireland by James I. and in the West In-
dies by the kings of Spain were preferable to the
popular course of our original body politic, which
they asserted would " poyson that Plantation
with factious spirits, and such as are refractory
to Monarchicall government as all Corporations
are as is found by experience in the Corpora-
tion of New England." And they go on to
justify the seizing of the company's papers and
" Diaries " by James I. in 1624.
In August, 1631, the Earls of Dorset and
Danby, Sir Robert Killigrew, Sir John Dan-
vers, Sir Dudley Digges, Sir Francis Wyatt,
Thomas Gibbes, George Sandys, Nicholas and
John Ferrar, Gabriel Barber, and others of the
commission, sent letters to Virginia in the inter-
est of the proposed renewal of the charter ; and
in furtherance of that object the council in Vir-
ginia in December, 1631, buried their opposition
to, came to an accord with, and entered into an
agreement of peace and reconciliation with, the
royal governor, Harvey. About the same time
the planters in Virginia sent in their petitions
for the renewal of the charter. These petitions
98 UNDER CHARLES I., 1625-1641
from Virginia reached England early in 1632.
In March, the adventurers in England held a
meeting, and " expressed a grateful readiness to
accept his Majesties grace and bounty in proffer-
ing a new charter of Restitution of a Company,
with confirmation of all their ancient Territorie,
rights and privileges whatsoever, some points
of government only, with some few other reser-
vations, excepted."
But in June, 1632, Charles I., constantly
vacillating, granted Maryland within the bounds
of " their ancient Territories " to Lord Balti-
more, regardless of the protest of Virginians.
And it was about this time that, at the instance
of Lord Baltimore, the judgment of the King's
Bench in the quo warranto case (June, 1624)
against their charter was entered upon record for
the first time.
Sir Robert Killigrew died in May, 1633, and,
in the continued effort to preserve the copies of
the records, left the Ferrar copies to the care of
Edward Sackville Earl of Dorset, who had also
been a member of the Patriot party in the Vir-
ginia Company, and was then at the head of
the Liberal Colonial Commission appointed by
Charles I. in June, 1631.
In the summer of 1633 this commission held
meetings and consultations with divers of the
chief planters of Virginia (who had evidently
come to England for that purpose), at which it
UNDER CHARLES I., 1625-1641 99
was resolved to urge the king to a compliance
with their petition 1 praying for a renewal of their
ancient charter. Charles I. had visited the Ferrars
at their home, " Little Gidding," in May, 1633,
and seems now to have been disposed to grant
their request for a renewal of their ancient char-
ter, with certain alterations ; but was not willing
to yield to them Lord Baltimore's patent. And
the Virginians were not willing to yield to the
crown their ancient boundary rights, and there-
fore their request was finally denied them.
The king then revoked the liberal commis-
sion of 1631, and on May 8, lc\34, appointed a
" commission for governing the colonies "of an
entirely different complexion, composed almost
entirely of opponents of the popular course of
government : William Laud Archbishop of Can-
terbury, Thomas Lord Coventry (the old advo-
cate of the Court party in the quo warranto
suit of 1624), Richard Neyle Archbishop of
York, and nine high officers of state, several of
whom had aided James I. in his contest against
our charter rights in 1620-1624; and under
this commission the grant to Lord Baltimore,
which had been opposed by the former commis-
sion, was confirmed. Ah 1 the boroughs or corpo-
rations of Virginia had been entitled, since 1619,
1 Sent from Virginia in March, received by the king in May,
and considered by the Privy Council in May, June, July, and
August, 1633.
100 UNDER CHARLES I., 1625-1641
to representation in the House of Burgesses, but
under the new commission for governing the
colonies, Virginia was divided in 1634 into
" eight shires," and representation restricted to
them. In order to prevent alarm among Vir-
ginians over these and other infringements of
their charter rights by the royal commission, the
colonial committee of the Privy Council on Au-
gust 1, 1634, wrote to Governor Harvey in Vir-
ginia that " in the present proceeding it is not in-
tended that interests which men (planters) have
settled when you were a corporation should be
impeached; that for the present the planters
may enjoy their estates with the same freedom
and privileges as they did before the recalling of
their patents." The comfort in this letter was
not definite, and must have seemed very cold to
the old Patriots in Virginia.
Under the royal rule of the royal commission
in England, and of Sir John Harvey the royal
governor in Virginia, the spirit of freedom
which had always inspired the planters was soon
aroused into what the Court party regarded as a
rebellion. The revolt was led by John "West,
William Claiborne, Samuel Matthews, John Utie,
William Pierce, William Ferrar, William Perry,
George Menefie, Thomas Harwood, Dr. John
Pott, Nicholas Marlier or Martian (an ancestor
of George Washington), and other old members
of the original of the body politic of this nation,
UNDER CHARLES I., 1625-1641 101
and in May, 1635, resulted in the removal of
Sir John Harvey, a royalist, and the election by
the General Assembly of Captain John West, a
Patriot, as governor in Harvey's place. Harvey
went to England, arrived at Plymouth soon after
the New England charter of 1620 had been sur-
rendered to the king, gave the king his account
of the Virginia affair, was reappointed and sent
back to Virginia, where he arrived early in
1637. In the spring of that year John West
(governor by election of the representatives of
the people, 1635-1637), Samuel Matthews, John
Utie, and others " were sent prisoners to England
to answer some objections in the Star Chamber,"
and Sergeant-Major George Donne * was sent at
the same time by Governor Harvey as his agent,
"to prosecute those persons that were lately
seditious in Virginia." While in England,
Donne (who went to Virginia with Harvey in
1630) wrote a very long " review of Virginia "
to Charles I., which is a discourse from the point
of view of the Court party, rather than a re-
view. He was opposed to the popular course
of government which obtained in Virginia
" where no acknowledgement of A Superior is,"
and " such presumptuousness in men of turbu-
lent and unquiett spirits as have, I am confident,
from the first footinge in Virginia to this pre-
1 A son of Rev. John Donne (1573-1631), the eminent divine
and poet.
102 UNDER CHARLES L, 1625-1641
sent, much hindered the progress thereof. How
this Assertion findes warrant is evident by the late
action of some particulers fiery and headstrong in
their disorder and conspiracy against your Majes-
ties Commissioned Governor Harvey, at this pre-
sent in that Country." He said that the conspi-
racy against the royal governor was " noe doubt
long in plotting though lately practised," and
urged the king to put a stop to the popular course
of government in the colony, which he describes
as " by A multitude whose Pollicy is gayne, whose
gravitye is giddinesse, whose Discretion is noyse
and tumult," encouraging mutinies and rebel-
lions against the royal government.
But the ears of Charles I. were not yet en-
tirely closed to the popular side ; the liberal
party in Virginia still had friends near his per-
son or in correspondence with him, and among
these may be mentioned Sir John Danvers and
Mr. George Sandys (brother of Sir Edwin Sandys,
who had died in 1629), who were then gentlemen
of the king's Privy Chamber. He was also on
very friendly terms with the fourth Earl of South-
ampton, John Ferrar, and others ; and on Janu-
ary 21, 1639, he appointed Sir Francis Wyatt,
the Patriot, to succeed Harvey, the Royalist, as
governor of Virginia. Wyatt arrived in the
colony in November, 1639, and at once ordered
an election of burgesses, who met in the General
Assembly of January, 1640, at which time it was
UNDER CHARLES I., 1625-1641 103
determined to make another effort to secure the
original charter rights of the body politic of the
colony. George Sandys was appointed as the
agent of the colony in England ; petitions for
their ancient charter rights were prepared and
sent over to him. The fourth Parliament of
Charles I. met in April, 1640, but the king
never could get along with his Parliaments, and
he dissolved it within a month. His fifth and
last Parliament, which was destined to " dis-
solve" the king, met on November 13, 1640.
The petitions from Virginia probably reached
England in the autumn of 1640, after both
Sandys and Danvers had retired from the king's
personal service. The open contest between the
crown and the Commons was in sight. The Pa-
triots in England "had been led a race" by
Charles I. : they now determined to look to the
Parliament ; and George Sandys presented these
petitions for restoring the company's charters,
not to Charles I., but, in " the name of the Ad-
venturers and Planters in Virginia," to the
House of Commons in the beginning of the
Long Parliament, and under the auspices of the
popular party in that Parliament " the Virginia
patent was taken out again under the broad Seal
of England."
104 CIVIL WAR, 1641-1646
CHAPTER II
CIVIL WAR, 1641-1646
THE long controversy between the crown and
the House of Commons became an open contest
on the execution of Thomas Wentworth Earl of
Straff ord, in May, 1641.
In response to the petition of Governor Wyatt,
the General Assembly, and patriotic planters of
Virginia, the Virginia charter had been renewed
by Parliament : Charles I. naturally felt that he
would need a stronger hand in the colony than
Wyatt if Virginia was to be kept loyal to the
crown ; and in August, 1641, he commissioned
Sir William Berkeley (a strong Royalist) to super-
sede Wyatt, the Patriot, as governor. He arrived
in Virginia in February, 1642, and at once be-
gan to take steps for holding the colony loyal to
the crown. To offset the regranting of the an-
cient charter by Parliament in reply to the peti-
tion of the General Assembly under Wyatt, he
promptly called another assembly to meet under
his own auspices which issued a strong decla-
ration, 1 written from the point of view of the
1 In " the Declaration against the Company," as printed in
Hening's Statutes at Large of Virginia, vol. i. p. 231, the reference
to " depositions taken at a Grand Assembly anno 1632 " is really
to depositions taken by Harvey when he was a commissioner or
agent of James I. in Virginia in 1623 (o. S.). It is an error of
the typesetter.
CIVIL WAR, 1641-1646 105
Koyalist or Court party, against the renewal of
the charters, assuring the king that George
Sandys, in presenting the former petition to the
House of Commons, " had mistook his instruc-
tions." The paper is of especial value, because
it shows the line of argument used by the Roy-
alists against the charter rights to the people as
a political body. This Declaration of Berkeley's
Assembly was sent in April, 1642, directly to
Charles I. himself, who replied in July following
to the effect that he had no idea of surrendering
" his colony to any company." Thus the peti-
tions from both parties in Virginia prevailed with
their respective parties in England. The Parlia-
ment was soon in the ascendant, and it came to
pass that the colonists virtually enjoyed their
" ancient charter rights " until 1660. The king
had rejected the propositions of peace from Par-
liament on June 12th ; in August following he
set up his standard in Nottingham, and the .civil
war began in earnest.
Parliament, having set up a rival government
in England, on December 4, 1643, appointed a
rival commission for governing the plantations
in America, with Philip Herbert Earl of Pem-
broke and Edward Montague Earl of Manches-
ter at the head of it ; and among its members
were John Pym and Oliver Cromwell.
Parliament, having an issue of its own with the
crown, had been from the first disposed to lend a
106 CIVIL WAR, 1641-1646
hand to the popular party in the Virginia Corpo-
ration in all their past controversies with the
Court party ; but, under the Sandys-Ferrar influ-
ence, Charles I. had not been entirely unfriendly
to the reform government which had been insti-
tuted in our country, and I doubt if there was
any desire for a separation from the crown of
Great Britain. Certainly there was no wisdom
in such desire until the colonies became strong
enough, when united in a corporate capacity, to
defend themselves and to maintain their own
rights. Although the opposition to the absolute
tyranny then exercised by the crown in England
had led up to the Commonwealth, and had fur-
nished the inspiration which had enabled the
managers of the business to establish the colonies
regardless of all difficulties, the colonists did not
wish to be "slaves to the Parliament in Eng-
land " any more than they did to the king. In
fact their purpose had been to be attached to the
crown of England, " to have one common king
with the mother country," but a parliament of
their own, and to have no laws, taxes, etc., put
upon them, save by their own consent, as enacted
in their own parliament, or General Assembly.
Hence it may be doubted if Sir William Berke-
ley's task in preventing open rebellion against
the crown in Virginia was a very difficult one.
Especially as, although the colony was under a
governor appointed by the crown, the people
PARLIAMENT, 1646-1660 107
were left very much on their own resources, and
almost independent of the government in Eng-
land, whether Cavalier or Roundhead, from 1642
to 1652.
CHAPTER III
PARLIAMENT, ETC., 1646-1660 l
PARLIAMENT had been kept so busy in England
that, although it had reissued the original charter
to the body politic of the colony, near the begin-
ning of the session, little or nothing was done in
the matter of settling the government of Virginia
under the Commonwealth, until September, 1651,
when Robert Dennis, Richard Bennett, Thomas
Stagg, and William Claiborne were appointed
commissioners of Parliament and sent with a fleet
to Virginia. After arriving in Virginia, the sur-
viving commissioners and the Grand Assembly
of Virginia soon entered into an agreement, signed
on March 22, 1652 (N. s.), in which the Com-
monwealth of England granted to the colony of
Virginia her former liberties, privileges, and an-
1 Charles I. fled to Scotland in May, 1646; was given up by
the Scots to Parliament in September following, and was exe-
cuted February 9, 1649 (N. 8.). The Commonwealth of Eng-
land was established on the death of Charles I., but the first
charter thereof was not drawn up by the council of officers until
December, 1653. England was under the government of the
Parliament, or "A Democracie," 1646-1653; the Protectorate
of Oliver Cromwell, December, 1653,-September, 1658, and of
Richard Cromwell, 1658-April, 1659; and the Civil War
resumed, 1659-1660.
108 OF THE CONTROL OVER HISTORIES
cient limits ; free trade, exemption from taxation
save by her own Assembly, etc., that is to say,
the charter rights of the original corporation of
the colony.
From March, 1652, to 1660 the colony was
virtually ruled by the House of Burgesses,
"the representatives of the people." Richard
Bennett, a Patriot, was elected by that House on
May 10, 1652, to serve as governor for three
years ; Edward Digges, a Patriot, was elected in
1665, and Samuel Matthews, a Patriot, in 1658.
He died in January, 1660, before the expiration
of his term. Civil war was renewed in England
in 1659 ; but the restoration of Charles II. was
soon in sight, and the General Assembly of Vir-
ginia elected Sir William Berkeley, a Royalist, as
governor, in March, 1660.
The Commonwealth had fulfilled its mission,
and Providence had aided in fostering the spirit
which animated the founders of this nation until
their projected political purposes had taken an
ineradicable hold in Virginia. .
CHAPTER IV
OF THE CONTROL OVER HISTORIC RECORDS
IF we consider the character of the controver-
sies between the Court and Patriot parties, it will
be seen that it was not possible to correct the
OF THE CONTROL OVER HISTORIES 109
historic wrong committed by James I. so long as
the evidences and the press continued under the
control of the crown.
In the reign of Elizabeth the Star Chamber
Court granted a decree prohibiting the printing
of books without the license of one of the arch-
bishops or of the bishop of London, or their
representatives. In February, 1629, certain print-
ers presented a petition to Parliament, complain-
ing that Laud's chaplain had refused to license
certain books. John Selden, in presenting this
petition of the printers, said : " There is no law
to prevent the printing of any book in England,
but only a decree in the Star Chamber. There-
fore, that a man should be fined, imprisoned, and
his goods taken from him, is a great invasion of
the liberty of the subject." But the correction
of this wrong was not accomplished at that time.
" Printers and authors continued to be brought
before the High Commission, and taught to obey
the restrictions imposed upon them at the risk
of fine and imprisonment."
I will note some examples bearing on our
premises. When Mr. Nicholas Ferrar, Jr., sent
George Herbert's poem, " The Church Militant,"
to Cambridge, in 1633, to be licensed for the
press, the vice-chancellor would by no means
allow the printing of the noted verses :
" Religion stands a-tiptoe in our land,
Ready to pass to the American strand,
1 Gardiner's History of England, vii. p. 130.
110 OF THE CONTROL OVER HISTORIES
When height of malice and prodigious lusts,
Impudent sinning, witchcrafts, and distrusts,
Then shall religion to America flee."
And Mr. Ferrar would by no means allow the
book to be printed without them, and he finally
had his way.
In April, 1637, John Lilburne was condemned
in the Star Chamber to be whipped, pilloried,
and imprisoned for publishing seditious pam-
phlets. While in the pillory he spoke to the
people against the tyranny of the Court party,
and scattered pamphlets from his pockets. Dur-
ing life he continued fighting for the cause of
freedom, and was upheld by the voice of the
people. Thomas Jefferson's grandmother, Jane
Rogers, of Shadwell Street, London, was certainly
related to " Wm. Lilburne Esqre of Kenton in
the Bishoprick of Durham," of the same family,
and Jefferson may have descended from John's
brother, General Robert Lilburne, the regicide.
It has been said that f the mere assembling of
the Long Parliament on Nov. 13, 1640, took the
gag entirely off the press ; ' but this is not strictly
correct. The courts of Star Chamber and High
Commission, which had been condemned by the
Patriots in various Parliaments since 1607 as
grievances, were abolished by the Long Parlia-
ment in July, 1641, and the press was relieved
of their oppression ; but the press was not yet
OF THE CONTROL OVER HISTORIES 111
free. John Milton was the foremost champion
in that age for the liberty of unlicensed printing ;
but even he asserted in his " Areopagitica " (pub-
lished in 1644), ' that it is of greatest concern-
ment in the church and Commonwealth, to have
a vigilant eye how Books demean themselves, as
well as Men ; and thereafter to confine, imprison,
and do sharpest justice to them as malefactors ;
for Books are not absolutely dead things, but do
contain a potencie of life in them to be as active
as that soul was whose progeny they are ; nay,
they do preserve as in a viol the purest efficacy
and extraction of that living intellect that bred
them ; they are as lively, and as vigorously pro-
ductive as those fabulous Dragon's teeth ; and,
being sown up and down, may chance to spring
up armed men.'
There was very little if any printing done after
1622 by members of the Patriot party relative to
Virginia until the press was free from the con-
trol of the crown. Under the Commonwealth
John Ferrar, the surviving deputy, and other old
Patriots in England, corresponded with many old
planters in Virginia, and aided in publishing sev-
eral books about the colony, among these being
Wodenoth's " Short Collection ; " The Dis-
covery of New Britaine," by Edward Bland and
others, dedicated to Sir John Danvers ; " Vir-
ginia and Maryland," and other tracts of less
political importance to our earliest history.
112 OF THE CONTROL OVER HISTORIES
Of these Wodenoth' s tract was of the greatest
political and historical importance. During the
civil war, about the year 1644, at which time he
was the deputy governor of the Bermudas Islands
Company, Mr. Arthur Wodenoth, who had been
a member of the liberal party in the Virginia
Corporation, a first cousin to the Ferrar brothers,
wrote " An account and observation taken by
A. W., a true friend and servant to Sir John
Danvers, and the Parliament interest, containing
a great part of his [Danvers'] more public trans-
actions concerning the plantation of Virginia,"
etc. Mr. Wodenoth, who is well known as the
friend and executor of George Herbert, the di-
vine poet, died soon after writing the book, leav-
ing the manuscript to his cousin, Will Wodenoth,
with instructions to publish it at a seasonable
time. Before this time came Will Wodenoth
had died. The book was finally published in
1651 under the title of "A Short Collection
of the most remarkable passages from the ori-
ginal to the dissolution of the Virginia Com-
pany," 16091624. Having evidently been writ-
ten largely from memory after a considerable
lapse of time, Arthur Wodenoth was not sure
of dates, but asked his cousin to " view the court
books of the Virginia Company and the orders
of the Privy Council Board, and [before publica-
tion] to add therefrom the year of our Lord in
the Margent at every main transaction ; " but
OF THE CONTROL OVER HISTORIES 113
these books and orders were not available, and
the tract had to be published, as written, without
a single date. For this reason it is not always
clear, if taken by itself; but after adding the
dates in the " Margent " and considering it in
connection with the orders and other records
now available it becomes of great historic value.
With the light shed upon it by other evidences,
and with the light which it sheds upon other evi-
dences, we are enabled to see many of the polit-
ical purposes inspiring our original body politic
which were obscured or obliterated from the his-
tory as licensed by the crown. Nothing relative
to the political character of the movement could
have been published by any one during the reigns
of James I. or Charles I. Nothing of the sort
was ever published by Sir Edwin Sandys or any
of the leading patriotic statesmen among the
managers of the business. This book, published
at the first seasonable time, was the first publica-
tion, which may be called contemporary, written
boldly from the political point of view of the Pa-
triot party ; and although it was not written by
one of the leading statesmen who had managed
the political features of the movement, the author
was a man of established character, of means and
of personal influence, intimate with the Ferrars
and Sir John Danvers, and evidently knew much
relative to those features ; and the Court party
knew this, for his book was manifestly sup-
114 OF THE CONTROL OVER HISTORIES
pressed after the restoration of the king in
1660. 1
About 1655 John Ferrar wrote the memoirs
of his brother Nicholas (who had died in 1637) ;
he may have intended publishing it if so the
publication was prevented by John's own death
in the autumn of 1657. After 1660 the memoirs
would not have passed the censors of the press,
and they were not printed until 1790, and were
not made use of by our historians until after that
time. Of the leading managers in England,
John Ferrar, Sr., was probably the last survivor.
Henry Earl of Southampton died in 1624 ; Sir
Thomas Smythe in 1625 ; Robert Johnson and
William Canning about 1628; William Lord
Cavendish in 1628 ; Sir Edwin Sandys in 1629 ;
Nicholas Ferrar, Jr., in 1637 ; Sir John Danvers
in 1655, and John Ferrar, Sr., in 1657. Of the
leading managers in Virginia, De La Warr, Dale,
and many others died before the crown began
the open attempt to annul our charter rights.
Gates, Yeardley, Francis West, and many others
died before John Ferrar. John West, Samuel
Matthews, Richard Bennet, William Claiborne,
and other old planters lived as long as or longer
than Ferrar. These old members of our original
body politic were able to nourish and to protect
1 1 made use of it in compiling The First Republic in America.
I cannot find that it was ever used before as evidence by any
one in writing history.
OF THE CONTROL OVER HISTORIES 115
the tree of Liberty as it was growing from the
seed which they had aided in depositing in our
sacred soil until it was strong enough to resist
the coming storms ; and to inspire their poster-
ity with the determination to " protect that tree "
with the same vital force which had inspired them
to plant that seed.
Although naturally more anxious to protect
their charter rights than their history, the old
Patriots, who had a personal interest in preserv-
ing the true history of the colonial movement of
16061624, probably did whatever they could
do toward preserving evidences ; but whatever
they did had to be done privately they were
never able to publish anything in Virginia, for
all had " passed over the river " before any print-
ing press was allowed in Virginia.
I should have noted before this, but I suppose
that it has been well understood, that the sup-
pression of the truth in this matter was not con-
fined to England, but also obtained in Virginia
so long as the colony was under the crown.
Many of the evidences of our original body poli-
tic were sent to the colony during 1609-1624
for service and after 1624 for preservation ; but
they were not secure even in Virginia from
the Court party, for the royal control over evi-
dences prevailed in the colony after it was re-
sumed by the crown. John Harvey, who served
at the head of the royal commission of 1623-
116 NOTES FROM 1660 TO 1746
1625 sent to Virginia by James I. for the pur-
pose of procuring evidence to justify him in an-
nulling the company's charters, was one of the
earliest regular royal governors. Another was
Sir William Berkeley, who in 1671 thanked God
that there were no free schools nor printing in
Virginia, and hoped there would not be for an
hundred years " for learning had brought dis-
obedience [to kings] and heresy and sects into
the world, and printing had divulged them, and
libels against the best government [the king's].
God keep us from both ! " Such governors were
as well calculated to obliterate evidences favor-
able to liberal ideas as they were to destroy the
popular plant growing from the seed which had
been deposited in Virginia, and the crown, we
may rest assured, expected them to do both.
CHAPTER V
NOTES ON THE WAY FROM 1660 TO 1746
IT is not necessary to continue the outline, in
any detail, of the controversy we are treating of ;
but it will be well to note " a sign " along the
route now and then to guide the student on his
way.
After the restoration of Charles II. in 1660
the iron hand of royal authority was placed most
firmly on the press, and among the first books
NOTES FROM 1660 TO 1746 117
burnt by royal proclamation were the works of
Milton in defense of the rights of the people.
The first biographical sketch of the author of
our earliest history was compiled during the civil
war by Rev. Thomas Fuller, chaplain to Ralph
Hopton, to whom, with others, Charles II. in
1649 granted the Northern Neck of Virginia.
Fuller died in August, 1661, but the publication
of his " Worthies " was completed by his son in
1662, and dedicated to Charles II. Fuller had
no personal knowledge of the facts, and his views
of Smith's services in Virginia as a representa-
tive of James I. were those of the Court party,
to which he belonged ; but he knew personally
something of Smith's life in England, and his
sketch is important, because it throws light on
the contemporary opinions, even of members of
the Court party, regarding the personal matter
in his publications, and on the personal character
and position in society of a man whom James I.
nominated to be of his council in Virginia, and
whom the crown licensed to publish the history
of this great reform movement.
In considering the effect of politics on our his-
tory, we must consider both the House of Com-
mons in England and the House of Burgesses
in Virginia. The convention Parliament which
restored Charles II. in May, 1660, was not in
full political accord with the king, and was dis-
solved by him in December following. The new
118 NOTES FROM 1660 TO 1746
Parliament, which met in May, 1661, was more
in accord with the crown ; but contentions began
again, and the king finally dissolved it in De-
cember, 1678. A second Parliament met in
March, 1679, but party spirit ran very high, and
it was dissolved within four months. The third
met in October, 1680, and was dissolved in three
months, etc. The same weapons of prorogu-
ing, adjourning, and finally dissolving came
to be used by the royal governors of the colony
in their contentions with our House of Burgesses.
It must be noted that Charles II. held on to one
Parliament from 1661 to 1678, and Berkeley
held on to one House of Burgesses from 1661
to 1676.
The first House of Burgesses elected after the
restoration, which met April 1, 1661, was appar-
ently very loyal to Charles II. The charter to
the Virginia Corporation had been restored by
act of Parliament about twenty years before, and
Virginians had been governing themselves under
that charter since 1652 ; the majority of " the
Company " were now planters, and the members
of this House of Burgesses were really members
of that body politic ; but they evidently felt the
need of conciliating the king. Charles Campbell,
on page 252 of his history of the colony, says
that Governor Berkeley was dispatched to Eng-
land in 1661 to oppose "the navigation act."
From the act of assembly as published, 1 he seems
1 See Hening's Statutes at Large of Virginia, vol. ii. p. 17.
NOTES FROM 1660 TO 1746 119
to have been sent to oppose the oppression of
some company; but the name of the company
is not given, and several other words in the
manuscript were not legible. The evidence in
the premises was under the control of the crown,
and what remains is not sufficient to enable any
one to know the facts. It is probable, however,
that the Burgesses feared that Charles II. would
now carry out the former plans of James I. ; for
there is sufficient evidence to prove that the
colonists still wished to retain their original char-
ter rights, and that there was reason for this fear
is manifest.
In May, 1669, Charles II. issued a second pat-
ent confirming the grant of September, 1649
(given when he was in exile), of the Northern
Neck of Virginia lying north of the northern
boundary as conveyed to a company by the char-
ter of 1606 ; and this was the beginning of a
long controversy, between the crown and the
body politic of the colony, over boundary rights.
In 1673 Charles II. granted A demise" of
the " entire territory " of the colony of Virginia
to the Earl of Arlington and Lord Culpeper for
thirty-one years. This, of course, was at once
opposed by Virginians. In September, 1674,
Colonel Francis Morryson, Secretary Thomas
Ludwell, and Major-General Kobert Smith were
appointed " Agents for the Governor, Council,
and Burgesses of the Country of Virginia and
120 NOTES FROM 1660 TO 1746
Territory of Accomak," and sent to England
with a petition to procure a revocation of that
" demise," and, also, with a petition to obtain
from the crown a confirmation of the ancient
charter rights, liberties, privileges, and properties
of the colony. They opened negotiations with
the crown for these rights in June, 1675. These
agents were really asking for the same political
and property rights which had been the platform
of the Patriot party since 1609 ; which party
never acknowledged that our charter rights had
ever been legally annulled ; but there was always
need for diplomacy in wording such petitions to
the crown, and these agents yielded the point,
acknowledged that James I. had annulled the
original charter, and then based their petition
on the ground that " although for the misgov-
ernment of the Company the charter was de-
manded in a Quo Warranto, yet did the said king
forthwith promise and declare that a charter
should be renewed, with the former privileges,
to the planters." And among other things they
assert, almost in the original words of Sir Edwin
Sandys, as a charter right that " Virginians
should not be taxed without their own con-
sent." 1
1 While these negotiations were going on in England, Sir
William Berkeley's acts in Virginia were turning Bacon's war
against the Indians into what the Court party called " Bacon's
Rebellion."
NOTES FROM 1660 TO 1746 121
In reply to their petition, after many difficul-
ties, and two years' delay, the Virginians gained
nothing from Charles II., save a charter (signed
October 20, 1676) which, instead of confirming
their original charter rights, was " little more
than a declaration of the dependence of the
colony on the crown of England." And the
inhabitants of Virginia were destined to receive
very much the same sort of treatment in reply
to their appeals and petitions for an hundred
years longer.
It has been said : " In other countries it has
been thought hard enough to have the printing
press clogged by the interference of official li-
censers and spies ; in Virginia the printing press
was forbidden to work at all." The crown, per-
sisting in the purpose of obliterating the liberal
ideas which had given vitality to the colony, had
never permitted a printing press to be set up in
Virginia. Yet, in some way, a press was finally
introduced about 1680, for printing the laws of
the representative of the people the House
of Burgesses. But early in 1683 the royal
governor, Thomas Lord Culpeper, called John
Buckner (the owner) and the printer before him,
and ordered them not to print anything there-
after until his majesty's pleasure should be
known. The next year, when Francis Lord
Howard, of Effingham, arrived in Virginia as
governor, he brought orders " to allow no per-
122 NOTES FROM 1660 TO 1746
son to use a printing press in Virginia on any
occasion whatsoever"
The restoration of Charles II. had not ob-
literated the desire for "a more free govern-
ment/' either in Virginia or in England, and we
find the old ideas of national rights and liberties
inspiring the revolution which removed James II.,
and placed William and Mary on the throne of
Great Britain in February, 1689.
It is generally stated that " the press of Great
Britain has been free since 1693 ; " but the free-
dom of the press continued to be subject to
many restrictions, some of the laws of libel
and of loyalty to church and state being
especially severe. And no person was yet al-
lowed to use a printing press in Virginia on any
occasion whatsoever.
In 1705 Robert Beverley published in Lon-
don the first history written by a Virginian,
covering the period 1606-1624. When Beverley
was compiling this history he does not seem to
have had the use of one particle of the evidence
of our original body politic, not a single one of
the numerous publications of the managers and
not a scrap of their record. More than a third
of his narrative relates to the formative period
of 1606-1624, and the whole of this is based on
the histories licensed under James I. The ideas
expressed by him of this movement are the ideas
which he had derived from those histories.
NOTES FROM 1660 TO 1746 123
In 1738 Sir William Keith published a his-
tory of Virginia, in which about 20,000 words
relate to the three years (1607-1610), while the
colony was under the crown, and only about
6000 words to the fifteen years (1610-1625),
while the colony was under the new charter.
Like Beverley, he had none of the records of
the Virginia Company ; none of the publications
of the managers of the business ; but relied en-
tirely on Beverley and the histories licensed by
the crown. His " history " and Beverley 's have
an especial value as guides, because they show
how completely the purpose of James I. to oblit-
erate the true idea of our origin as a nation had
been carried out under royal rule up to that
time, and what our ideas of this movement
would now be, if no other evidences at all had
been preserved save those given to the public
under the auspices of the crown.
As a further illustration of how completely
the records were suppressed in the public reposi-
tories at this time, it may be mentioned that
although three editions of the great work,
"Rymer's Fcedera," were published between
1704 and 1745, neither of the three American
charters (1606, 1609, and 1612) are given in
either edition; the first important document
given bearing on the movement being the royal
commission of May 19, 1623, appointed to aid
James I. in annulling our charter rights, and
124 STITH'S HISTORY OF VIRGINIA
the next the commission of July 25, 1624, ap-
pointed after the charters had been overthrown
in the King's Bench, to aid the king in confis-
cating the company's evidences and annulling
their historic rights. Thus it would seem that
at this time the purpose of the crown to obliter-
ate from the pages of history the truth regard-
ing our origin as a nation had been accomplished.
But many copies of the evidences of our original
corporation were then being privately preserved
in Virginia, and although not available to the
historian, many other evidences were then being
providentially preserved in England, and thence-
forward these evidences were to be brought to
light from time to time by the laborer in the
field of original research in search of the truth.
CHAPTER VI
STITH'S "HISTORY OF VIRGINIA," 1747
THE press finally circumvented (so to speak)
the opposition of the crown by worming its way
into Virginia via Maryland. As early as 1727
William Parks had established a printing press
at Annapolis, where he printed for the govern-
ments of Maryland and Virginia. He set up
a printing press in Williamsburg, probably in
1729, and finally removed to that city to reside
in 1736. He was the first legally employed
STITH'S HISTORY OF VIRGINIA 125
printer in Virginia. "Stith's History of Vir-
ginia/' which issued from his press in 1747, was
the first historical book published in Virginia,
and it related entirely to the formative period of
1606-1624.
The Kev. William Stith was far better equipped
with evidences on which to base his history than
any previous Virginia historian had ever been ;
but owing to the long-continued purpose of the
crown to obliterate the truth, he was very far
from being fully equipped, even if he had taken
the proper political view, and even if the press
of the colony had not still been virtually under
the control of the royal government. It is very
remarkable that in compiling his history, al-
though he evidently had access to the leading
libraries in Virginia, he did not have the use of
a single one of the contemporary prints pub-
lished by the managers of the movement, the
history of which he proposed to write, and it
was not possible for him to understand the case
properly without them. His chief published
authorities were the histories of Smith and Pur-
chas, which had previously been for so long the
only authorities available to historians. He had
none of the national official records in the pre-
mises ; of Spain, France, or the Netherlands,
and but few of those of England, and he could
not have understood the movement correctly
without them. But some of the corporation
126 STITH'S HISTORY OF VIRGINIA
records or rather copies of them, the origi-
nals having been confiscated by the crown in
1624 were now being brought to light, and
he had a good many of these relative to events
after 1618 ; but only a few of the records prior
to that date, and it was not possible for him to
write his history completely without them. He
knew that several documents issued by the Vir-
ginia courts had been sent over by Sir George
Yeardley, but he had the use of only one of
them ; and seems to have been under the mis-
taken idea that the " great charter " and the
commission of 1618 for establishing the General
Assembly in Virginia had not been issued until
after the changes in the presiding officials of
the corporation in 1619. He had, however, in
manuscript complete copies of the following
really important documents :
The Koyal Charter of April 20, 1606.
The King's Instructions of Nov. 30, 1606.
The Orders of the King's Council, Dec. 20,
1606.
The Advice of the King's Council, Dec. 20,
1606.
The King's Ordinance and Constitution, March
19, 1607.
The First Charter to the Body Politic, June
2, 1609.
The Second Charter to the Body Politic,
March 22, 1612.
STITH'S HISTORY OF VIRGINIA 127
The Instructions of the Virginia Court to
Yeardley, November, 1618.
The Instructions of the Virginia Court to
Wyatt, August, 1621.
The Ordinance and Constitution of the Body
Politic, 1621.
The copies which had been preserved in Vir-
ginia of the papers sent to England from the
General Assembly of March, 1624, by Pountis in
1624, namely :
A. Their Answer to Johnson's Declaration.
B. Their Answer to Butler's Unmasking.
C. Their Petition to James I.
D. Their Letter to the Privy Council ; en-
closing
E. The Declaration of the Ancient Planters.
F. Their Answer to Harvey's Propositions;
and
G. The Laws, Orders, etc., passed by them
during the session of February and March,
1624. 1
" And last, but not least,"
The copies of the Acts of the General Courts
of the Company (" The Seminary of Sedition ")
in London, from the Quarter Court of May 8,
1619, to that of June 17, 1624.
Next to the charters of 1609 and 1612, the
copies of the records of the Virginia courts
were the most important documents used by
1 See The First Republic in America, pp. 571-682.
128 STITH'S HISTORY OF VIRGINIA
Stith. They covered the period from May,
1619, to June, 1624, but contain many refer-
ences to prior dates, and Stith's history of events
from 1618 to 1624 is largely based on them.
As Stith did not have a proper understanding
of the case, he misunderstood these records in
several particulars. The popular form of gov-
ernment had been instituted in Virginia during
the administration of Sir Thomas Smith. The
parties in the company during the period cov-
ered by these records had originated in dis-
putes over business matters, and not over politi-
cal rights; but it came to pass that Sir Thomas
Smith's party, in order to accomplish their
business objects, catering to the national Court
party, were finally willing to surrender their
popular charter rights to the crown. As Wil-
liam Canning expressed it, "to give in their
Charter and not to contest with the King about
the government," as he thought such a contest
must end in their defeat. The party led by
Sir Edwin Sandys, which controlled the Vir-
ginia courts during the period of these records,
was not willing to give up their charter nor to
yield " their liberty of governing themselves "
to the crown. The political contest was really
between the Court party, the advocates of an
imperial form of government the king's side,
and the Patriot party, the advocates of " a more
free form of government the people's side;"
STITH'S HISTORY OF VIRGINIA 129
but it would have been folly for the Sandys
party to make the issue directly with the Court
party. They could only hope to succeed by
using discretion in all ways, and their policy
was, as these records show, to attack the party
in their corporation which was wilHng to yield
to the purposes of James L, rather than the
Court party, or crown itself. Hence these
records, unless the conditions then obtaining are
properly taken into consideration, produce the
impression that the political contest was between
the parties in the corporation led respectively
by Sir Thomas Smith and Sir Edwin Sandys.
Mr. Stith was evidently under this mistaken im-
pression, for in his history, on page 330, he says :
' Although Captain John Smith was certainly
no friend to the Company, yet his History is
much in Honour and Vindication of Sir Thomas
Smith and his government.' The history licensed
by the crown was in vindication of the king's
(James I.) government (not Sir Thomas Smith's),
and therefore it is in accord with Sir Thomas
Smith's party when that party is in accord with
the Court party ; but it is really in opposition to
the management and political purposes of the
body politic from the beginning, and it is as un-
just to the administration of Sir Thomas Smith
as to that of Sandys and Southampton. And for
the aforesaid reason these records have some-
times been considered as evidences against the
130 STITH'S HISTORY OF VIRGINIA
Sir Thomas Smith administration, and therefore
as indorsements of the history licensed by the
crown for the period prior to 1618, rather than
as evidences in defense of our original political
charter rights and against the purposes of the
Court party itself.
Mr. Stith praised " the Virginia Company/'
yet he regarded the annulling of the " Com-
pany's Charters " as " an event certainly of
Benefit and Advantage to the Country, as we
in America find by Experience, that it is better
to be under a Royal government, than in the
Hands of Proprietors, in what shape or Manner
soever." I believe myself that everything may
have happened for the best, and fallen on its
due time ; but " the Colony in Virginia " never
belonged, in the sense which Stith seems to have
supposed, to " the Company in London." Under
the system projected under the charters of 1609
and 1612, the proprietors of the Colony in Vir-
ginia were members of a corporation and body
politic composed of adventurers and planters ;
and even when Mr. Stith was writing this opin-
ion the vital principles of that body were still
shaping our destiny, and were soon after inspir-
ing the minds of many of our patriotic people
to a conviction that the time was near at hand
when it would be of " Benefit and Advantage to
the Country " to have the government in " the
hands of the proprietors " of the country. This
STITH'S HISTORY OF VIRGINIA 131
purpose was finally consummated, and "we in
America find by experience " that it is certainly
of " Benefit and Advantage to the Country."
On pages 36 to 42 of his history, Stith criti-
cised adversely and placed a very correct esti-
mate on the form of government designed for the
plantations in America by James I. in 1606-
1607 ; but not taking into consideration the
political conditions then obtaining he failed to
appreciate the disastrous effect of royal politics
on the histories published under the auspices
of the crown, and after thus condemning the
design of James I. he goes on to base his history
of the next ten years on the contemporary histo-
ries published in vindication of that very form
of government. Then when the censored story
meets the portion of the corporation's records
which he had in hand he goes back to his first
view-point again, rejects the royal views, and
bases his history on these records for the last
seven years of the period. Then he takes the
other view again, and contends that the charters
ought to have been annulled, and finally claims
that they had never been legally annulled. He
changed his political view-point with the evi-
dence which he happened to be using ; hence he
was sometimes on the side of the Patriot party,
then on the side of the Court party, and some-
times " at sea."
He paid no attention to the political conditions
132 STITH'S HISTORY OF VIRGINIA
controlling the case in 1606-1624, and it was not
possible for him to write a correct account with-
out doing so. Although he impeached the his-
tory licensed by the crown " at both ends/' so to
speak, he relied upon the history, which he had
impeached, for his account of events during
16071617, the period in which it was peculiarly
to the political purpose of James I., who con-
trolled the press, and to the personal interest of
his licensed agent, the historian who wrote the
book, to convey false ideas of the movement.
The political point of view, not only of 1606-
1610, and 1610-1617, but of the whole period,
1606-1624, was overlooked by Stith, and has
been misunderstood, or not considered, by the
subsequent historians who have followed him.
Since 1747 the history licensed by the crown
has continued to be generally relied on for the
earlier period, 1606-1617 ; but Stith, rather than
Smith, has been followed as the historian of the
later period, 1618-1624. Although Mr. Stith
was a minister under the crown, and did not
always take the patriotic point of view, his history
presented to the public for the first time the
charters to our original body politic, together
with extended extracts from so much of the
record of that body as to cause our people to
become more and more familiar with their original
charter rights; and although so much of our
earliest history was still obscured, those rights
became more and more sacred to them.
THE RECORDS OF 1619-1624 133
CHAPTER VII
AN ACCOUNT OF THE ORIGINAL COPIES WHICH
HAVE BEEN PRESERVED OF THE VIRGINIA
COURT RECORDS FROM MAY, 1619, TO JUNE,
1624
I NOW think that the copies used by Stith were
evidently the Danvers copies which had been sent
by Southampton to Titchfield in 1624, and not
a portion of the Ferrar ' copies of all the court
books, and all other writings belonging to the
company/ which Southampton gave to Sir Kobert
Killigrew for safe keeping, as I thought when I
wrote " The First Republic in America." 1
These two volumes were taken to Titchfield for
preservation in the autumn of 1624. Henry
Wriothesley, third Earl of Southampton and last
treasurer of the Virginia Company, died soon
after. His son Thomas, the fourth earl, inherited
the volumes. As was the case with Sir Edwin
and George Sandys, John and Nicholas Ferrar,
and Sir John Danvers, the fourth Earl of South-
ampton became a close friend to Charles I. It
is interesting to note in this connection, first, that
the last time Charles I. came to Little Gidding he
came for protection, ' very privately, and in the
night of May 12, 1646. Mr. Nicholas Ferrar,
1 Pages 603, 604. See also The Magazine of American His-
tory, New York, 1893, vol. xxix. pp. 371-380.
134 THE RECORDS OF 1619-1624
who had befriended him in the Parliament of
1624, had been dead several years ; but having
an entire confidence in the family he made him-
self known to Mr. John Ferrar, who received
him with all respect, conducted him to a private
house at Coppinf ord, where he slept, went thence
to Stamford, and thence to the Scotch army.'
Second, that the last time Charles I. came to
Titchfield he came to it as a place of refuge in
November, 1647. This unfortunate king had
been a friend, to a certain extent at least, to our
original body politic at a time when our founders
needed such a friend ; and it may be that during
this visit he held these precious volumes in his
royal hands. He was beheaded on February 9,
1649, and the fourth Earl of Southampton was
" one of the four who were permitted to pay the
last solemn duties, in darkness and privacy, to the
royal remains." After the restoration, Charles
II. invested the earl with the Order of the Gar-
ter, and appointed him to be a member of the
royal council for foreign plantations. He died
May 26, 1667, at Southampton House, near Hoi-
born, London, where the court of the Virginia
Corporation had frequently met in former times,
and was buried at Titchfield, in Hampshire, where
these volumes were preserved.
He left no male heir, Elizabeth Lady Noel, his
eldest daughter, inheriting Titchfield. His second
daughter, who married secondly the unfortunate
THE RECORDS OF 1619-1624 135
Lord William Russell, is known in history, to
which her life contributed a beautiful page, as
"the Lady Eachel Russell." Pennant, in his
"Account of London," in his description of
Southampton House, gives a very touching ac-
count of Lady Rachel and Lord William Russell.
He says : " The last scene is beyond the power
of either pen or pencil. In this house they lived
many years. When his lordship passed by it,
on the way to execution, he felt a momentary
bitterness of death in recollecting the happy mo-
ments of the place. He looked towards South-
ampton House ; the tear started into his eye, but
he instantly wiped it away." He was executed
in 1683, and whether these precious volumes
were purchased by Colonel William Byrd the
first or second, it pleases me to believe that they
were at times held in the hands of that noble
martyr to the liberties of his country, before they
were brought to Virginia.
Edward Baron Noel, of Titchfield, first Earl
of Gainsborough, died in 1689 ; his son, Wriothes-
ley, the second earl, died in 1690 without male
issue, and it may be that the library at Titchfield
was not sold until after his death. I do not
know when these copies were brought over to
Virginia. Mr. Stith, in his preface, says : " As
these Records are a very curious and valuable
Piece of the Antiquities of our country, I shall give
the Reader an Account of them, which I received,
136 THE RECORDS OF 1619-1624
many years ago, in conversation with Col. Byrd
and Sir John Kandolph. I had then no Thoughts
of writing the History of Virginia, and therefore
took less Notice than I otherwise should have
done. However, as I am perhaps the only Per-
son now living, anything acquainted with their
History it will not be improper to give it to the
Reader, as I judge it highly worthy of his know-
ledge." After a description of the two volumes,
which accords with Wodenoth's description of
the Danvers copies, Stith goes on to write : "This
copy was taken by the Order, and for the Use of
the Earl of Southampton, the Company's Trea-
surer at that time ; who, seeing how things were
going with the Company, had their Records thus
carefully copied and compared, and authentically
attested. 1 Whether his Lordship intended to
stand suit with the King for the Rights and privi-
leges of the Company, or whether he did it only
in vindication of his own and the Company's repu-
tation, is uncertain. However, they were care-
fully preserved in the family ; and as the original
Court-Books were taken from the Company by
the King and Privy Council, and never again
restored to them, that I can find, this is perhaps
the only copy now extant. After the death of
that Earl's son, the Duke of Southampton (the
1 The Patriots had these records copied and "authentically
attested," because they believed that the Court party would cor-
rupt and falsify the history of their past actions.
THE RECORDS OF 1619-1624 137
worthy partner in the Ministry with the Earl of
Clarendon, after the Kestoration), which hap-
pened in the year 1667, the late Col. Byrd's
father [that is, Col. William Byrd the first, born
1653, died 1704], being then in England, pur-
chased them of his Executors for sixty guineas."
Mr. Stith, possibly because he had not taken
careful notice in the conversation with Colonel
Byrd, is certainly at fault in several of the fore-
going statements ; he does not state exactly when
he thought these volumes were purchased, but
the inference is that it was soon after the earl's
(not duke's) death in 1667 ; but the Colonel
Byrd whom he says was the purchaser was not
then fifteen years old. Mr. Jefferson says the
purchaser was Colonel William Byrd the second,
who was not born until 1674. Stith evidently
wrote from memory of a conversation not care-
fully noted; Jefferson must have known what
Stith had published, and, I do not suppose,
would have contradicted Mr. Stith without suf-
ficient cause.
Colonel William Byrd the first (1653-1704)
came to Virginia about 1673. As his grand-
father, Colonel Thomas Stegge or Stagg, had
been an active adherent of the Parliament in
1651, and as he was an active adherent of Bacon
the rebel in 1676, it may be inferred that he was
personally in full sympathy with the view point
of these records. But he married Mary, daugh-
138 THE RECORDS OF 1619-1624
ter of Colonel Warham Horsmanden, a great-
grandson of Catherine (sister of Sir Thomas)
Smith; hence they contained many statements
which his son, Colonel William Byrd the second
(1674-1744), probably resented. As it was cer-
tainly the second Colonel Byrd who first commu-
nicated these records to Mr. Stith, his conflicting
filial interests may have had opposing effects on
his mind, which may have been transmitted by
him to Stith, and this may account in part for
Stith's conflicting opinions between the influence
of these records and the influence of the history
licensed by the crown.
Some time after 1747, Colonel William Byrd
the third (1728-1777) lent these records to Colo-
nel Kichard Bland, who had also copies of some
of the documents collected by Sir John Ran-
dolph and Mr. Richard Hickman, and these
books furnished Bland with much of the mate-
rial on which he based " An Inquiry into the
Rights of the British Colonies," published in
1766. Mr. Hugh Blair Grigsby, in his "Vir-
ginia Convention of 1776," says : " What John
Selden was in the beginning of the troubles in
the reign of Charles the First to the House of
Commons, was Richard Bland to the House
of Burgesses for thirty years during which he
was a member. All during that time on all
questions touching the rights and privileges of
the colony he was the undoubted and truthful
THE RECORDS OF 1619-1624 139
oracle." Thomas Jefferson regarded Colonel
Bland as fe the wisest man south of James River."
He was a great-grandson of Richard Bennet and
of John Bland senior, members of the Patriot
party in our original body politic ; a grand-
nephew of John Bland junior (who advocated
our original charter rights before Charles I.,
the Commonwealth, and Charles II.), and of
Edward Bland, who in 1652 dedicated his " Dis-
covery of New Brittaine " to Sir John Danvers,
the regicide, and a cousin to Giles Bland, who
was hanged in 1676 for his part taken in Bacon's
Rebellion.
Colonel Richard Bland died October 26, 1776,
his library was sold in January following and
purchased by Thomas Jefferson. Colonel Wil-
liam Byrd the third died January 1, 1777, and
his library was sold in April following to Isaac
Zane. Mr. Jefferson in a letter to Colonel Hugh
P. Taylor, written on October 4, 1823, after
stating that the two volumes of Virginia Court
Records which had been used by Stith were then
in his library at Monticello, added that these
volumes had been bought at the sale of the Earl
of Southampton's library by " Doctor Byrd, of
Westover," that is, Colonel William Byrd the
second (1674-1744) ; but he does not give the
date of the purchase. Mr. Jefferson then de-
scribes the way by which they came into his
own possession. " These volumes happened at
140 UNDER GEORGE III., 1760-1776
the time of the sale [January, 1777] to have
been borrowed by Colonel Kichard Bland, whose
library I bought, and with this they were sent
to me. I gave notice of it to Mr. Zane [who
bought Colonel Byrd's library in April, 1777] ;
but he never reclaimed them."
These two volumes came to the Library of
Congress, where they now (1900) are, from Mr.
Jefferson's library, not with the mass of his
books in 1815, but after his death, between the
years 1826 and 1830. These original copies of
the records of the original of the body politic of
this nation are the most precious volumes pre-
served in the Republic.
CHAPTER VIII
UNDER GEORGE III., 1760-1776
AFTER the restoration of the government of
England to the crown in 1660, the original char-
ter rights of Virginia were more or less violated
or denied by all kings, and, as Thomas Jefferson
well says, " especially by George III."
In 1764 the Council and Burgesses of Virginia
sent the celebrated petition to George III., memo-
rial to the House of Lords, and remonstrance to
the House of Commons. In 1765 the House of
Burgesses of Virginia proclaimed the independ-
ence of the people of Virginia from taxation by
UNDER GEORGE III., 1760-1776 141
the Parliament of Great Britain. And these acts
mark the beginning in the political mother of
the colonies of the final contest for the charter
rights of the original of the body politic of this
nation.
Mr. Jefferson says: "Till the beginning of
our Kevolutionary disputes we had but one press
in Virginia ; and that having the whole business
of the government, and no competitor for public
favor, nothing disagreeable to the governor could
find its way into it. We [the Patriot party]
procured William Rind to come from Maryland
to publish a free paper." The first issue of this
paper appeared in May, 1766. The gag was
now, at last, being taken off the press in Virginia,
and the colony was soon in open " rebellion "
against the crown.
Notwithstanding the fact that the crown had
been able to suppress or to obscure the real his-
tory of our origin as a nation to such an extent
that the information of our Revolutionary lead-
ers in Virginia regarding the movement (espe-
cially before 1619) was very incomplete, there is
ample evidence that they studied carefully the
various manuscript copies of the records, and such
other documents of the foundation period
charters, ordinances, orders, constitutions, court
proceedings, etc. as their patriotic forefathers
had been able to preserve from destruction by
the crown officials; and it is certain that they
142 UNDER GEORGE HI., 1760-1776
derived inspiration from them in their determi-
nation to secure for themselves and for their
posterity the charter rights which had heen
granted in perpetuity to the founders who, at the
expense of their own blood and treasure, unas-
sisted by the crown of England, had secured this
country for them. Thus the political effect of
Stith's history and of these documents reveal the
wisdom of the crown of England from that
point of view in suppressing so earnestly the
true history of our political origin, and in keep-
ing for so long the printing press out of Virginia.
For this history and these records were certainly
instrumental in opening the eyes of our people,
and thus clearing the way for our Revolution
which secured, finally, the charter rights the
political principles upon which this nation was
founded.
The Virginia courts, which had first managed
the business at the capital of the corporation in
London, had been suppressed by the crown, and
in their room the colony had been under the
management of various commissions, committees
of the Privy Council, boards of trade, etc. ; but
the government in the country, as granted to the
settlers and citizens of the country, had remained
very nearly on the lines instituted therefor in the
original "seminary of sedition." When our fore-
fathers began the final struggle for their charter
rights, the successors to the old Virginia courts
UNDER GEORGE III., 1760-1776 143
in London were suppressed by them, and in their
room "the management of the business" was
resumed by another popular court, which the
crown probably regarded as another " Seminary
for a seditious Parliament/' which met on Sep-
tember 5, 1774, at the new capital, Philadelphia,
within the ancient bounds of the original corpo-
ration. The members of this political body began
their work of redress, not by initiating new ideas,
but by simply standing upon the monuments
which had been erected by their forefathers in
the past, and claiming the rights which had de-
scended to them from the founders. Although
the Declaration of Independence was attended
with a decisive change in the condition of the
new states in regard to their external dependence
on the crown of Great Britain, their interior
organization underwent but little change. New
governments were constituted in the several states
to take the place of those which had fallen with
the colonial regime ; but they were formed upon
the model of those which previously existed and
which had been originated under the authority
derived from the charters of 1609, 1612, and
1629, and based on the " English constitution as
taken and interpreted, in the most ample and
beneficial manner," to the political bodies which
founded the colonies.
The patriots of our Eevolution did not profess
to be planting the seed of our popular course of
144 UNDER GEORGE III., 1760-1776
government. They were protecting the great
tree, which had grown from that seed in this
country, from the axe of the royal woodmen.
Thomas Jefferson in his autobiography, in refer-
ence to the debate of June 8-10, 1776, over
a declaration of independence, says : " On the
other [the Patriot] side, it was urged by J.
Adams, Lee, Wythe, and others . . . that the
question was not whether by a Declaration of
Independence we should make ourselves what we
are not, but whether we should declare a fact
which already exists :
" That, as to the people or Parliament of Eng-
land, we had always been independent of them,
their restraints on our trade deriving efficacy
from our acquiescence [consent] only, and not
from any rights they possessed of imposing them,
and that so far, our connection had been federal
only, and was now dissolved by the commence-
ment of hostilities."
The following passage, which, for diplomatic
reasons, was omitted from our Declaration of
Independence, deserves especial notice in con-
sidering the source of our political origin. Mr.
Jefferson wrote : " We have reminded them [our
British brethren] of the circumstances of our
emigration and settlement here ; . . . that these
were effected at the expense of our own blood
and treasure unassisted by the wealth or the
strength of Great Britain ; that in constituting
UNDER GEORGE III., 1760-1776 145
indeed our several forms of government, we had
adopted one common king, thereby laying a
foundation for perpetual league and amity with
them ; but that submission to their Parliament
was no part of our Constitution. . . . We might
have been a free and a great people together ;
but a communication of grandeur and of free-
dom, it seems, is below their dignity. Be it so,
since they will have it. The road to happiness
and to glory is open to us too. We will tread it
apart from them."
Mr. Edward Kider, a member of the Patriot
party in the Virginia Corporation, who had set-
tled a plantation in Virginia, was bold enough to
tell the Court party in 1623, even after James I.
had determined to annul the charters of the Vir-
ginia Corporation, that "there was a material
difference between the Spanish and English plan-
tations. For the Spanish colonies were founded
by the kings of Spain [that is, by the agents, or
officials of the kings], out of their own treasury
and revenues, and they maintain the garrisons
there, together with a large Navy, for their use
and defence ; whereas the English plantations
had been at first settled and since supported at
the charge [expense] of private adventurers and
planters," that is, by the original body politic.
The outline which I have given from 1625 to
1776 is sufficient to show that the political prin-
ciples which inspired Sir Edwin Sandys and the
146 UNDER GEORGE III., 1760-1776
Patriots of 1608-1609 to determine to obtain
the charter rights which would enable them to
establish in America a place of refuge for their
posterity from " the absolute tyranny then aimed
at in Great Britain by the king and Court party,"
never died out in Virginia. I will add that an-
cestors of nearly all of her Kevolutionary leaders
were among the men of genius who petitioned
for the charters to the Virginia Corporation of
1609 and 1612, or among the planters who inau-
gurated the reform movement in America during
1610-1618, or among the members of the First
House of Burgesses of 1619, or of the General
Assembly which asserted their charter rights be-
fore the royal commissioners in 1624 ; and it is
evident that the political purposes which inspired
these forefathers continuing as an inheritance to
influence their posterity finally sustained Thomas
Jefferson and the Patriots of 1775-1776, when
they asserted that it was their opposition to the
king's direct object to obliterate our charter rights
and to establish an absolute tyranny over these
states, which caused them to determine to secure,
by a complete separation from the crown, the
rights formerly granted under the broad seal of
England in perpetuity to the original of the body
politic of this nation.
In this connection it is very interesting to find
among the honorable minority in the House of
Lords, who were favorable to American liberty
UNDER GEORGE III., 1760-1776 147
in 1774-75, the dukes of Portland, of Devon-
shire, and of Northumberland, each of whom
descended from Henry Wriothesley, the third
Earl of Southampton, and last treasurer of the
Virginia Corporation; as is also the fact that
the lord mayor, aldermen, and livery of London,
whose predecessors had nourished the infant at
birth, now delivered in behalf of the sturdy
youth an address and remonstrance to the king,
marked by such manly freedom as to bring down
upon them an indecent royal rebuke for giving
encouragement to rebellion.
CHAPTER IX
OF BOUNDARY RIGHTS
IN order to bring out the cause of the historic
wrong more clearly, I have given a brief outline
of the contest over the popular charter rights.
For the same reason I will now call attention in
a very brief way to the contest over the vast
boundary rights.
The Court party asserted in the controversies
of 16231624 that in annulling " the company's
charters there was no other intention than merely
and only the reforming of the company's popu-
lar course of government;" but this was not
true. James I. not only wished to annul the
political rights which he had granted in perpe-
148 OF BOUNDARY RIGHTS
tuity, but under the pretext that the country had
been secured under his charter of 1606, and that
the enterprise under the popular charters had
failed^ he was determined to take for the crown
the large boundary rights which he had granted
in perpetuity to a corporation and body politic,
and which had been secured by that body at the
expense of their own blood and treasure unas-
sisted by the revenues of the crown.
It was a matter not only of personal pride to
James I., but also of great pecuniary as well as
political importance to the crown to annul the
charters of 1609 and 1612, and to maintain that
the colony and the bounds thereof had been
established by the company under the royal
charter of 1606. James I. died before carrying
out the colonial plans which he was formulating.
Charles I. finally yielded to the planters many of
their original political rights ; but " being of the
same judgment that his late dear father was " in
this matter, he was determined to carry out the
purpose of his father against the large boundary
rights.
In 1629, under the pretext that the Virginia
colony had been secured under the royal charter
of 1606, Charles I. granted to Sir Eobert Heath
and others lands south of the southern boundary
of the grant under that charter ; and in June,
1632, he granted to Lord Baltimore lands north
of the northern boundary of the Virginia grant
OF BOUNDARY RIGHTS 149
under that charter. Virginians at once sent re-
monstrances against the infractions of their
boundary rights, continued to protest against
the injustice of these grants as well as against
all subsequent such like grants, and continued
to affirm that the definite bounds were secured
under the charter of 1609. And these bound-
ary rights were never yielded by Virginians
until the adoption of the Virginia Constitution
on July 5, 1776, when Virginia ceded, released,
and forever confirmed [not to the crown of Eng-
land, but] to the people of Maryland, Pennsyl-
vania, North and South Carolina [her sister colo-
nies, now joined with her in the final contest for
charter rights] the territories contained within
their charters; but the western and northern
extent of Virginia was still " to stand in all
other respects as fixed by the Charter of King
James I. in 1609, and by the public treaty of
peace between the Courts of Britain and France
in the year 1763."
It is true that other nations encroached upon
this territory, but their title thereto was not ac-
knowledged by our people. Our rights were
defended by Washington in the French and
Indian war, by Andrew Lewis in Dunmore's war,
and by George Eogers Clarke in the Revolution.
It is true that by the treaty of 1783 Great
Britain only ceded the portion east of the Mis-
sissippi, because the rest was claimed by France
150 OF BOUNDARY RIGHTS
and Spain ; but our people still claimed the ori-
ginal North and South Virginia boundary as " the
territory of the United States west of the Missis-
sippi," and they did not rest until they secured
it in good measure. Jefferson paid France the
nominal price of about two cents per acre for her
claim in 1803 ; Tyler annexed Texas in 1845 ;
and Scott and Taylor took the balance from
Mexico in 1846-1848, since when it has been
under a popular course of government such as
the first proprietors wished to have inaugurated
therein.
PART IV
AN outline of what has been done both towards perpetu-
ating and towards correcting the historic wrong since the
loyal political point of view was reversed in 1776.
CHAPTER I
THOMAS JEFFERSON AS A LABORER IN THE FIELD
OF ORIGINAL RESEARCH
I HAVE shown in Part I. that James I. resolved
to obliterate the popular course of government
which the Patriot party was establishing in
America ; and in Part II. that he was also re-
solved to suppress the real history of the move-
ment under which this reform government was
being instituted in America.
In Part I. and Part III. I have outlined the
constant contest sometimes active, sometimes
dormant, but never dead between the Court
and Patriot parties, over these political rights
from 1609 to 1776. I believe that the Patriot
party the advocates of a more free government
were always in the majority in Virginia; but the
Court party, nearly always, had an absolute con-
trol over the evidence, the printing press, and
the histories, both in England and Virginia, to
such an extent that although the original polit-
ical rights were absolutely secured to the body
politic by the Revolution of 1774-1783, the
loyal view-point of our earliest history really re-
154 JEFFERSON'S ORIGINAL RESEARCHES
versed, and both cases decided in this country
by the proper tribunal, the people ; and by the
court of last resort, the arbitrament of arms,
against the ideas and contentions of the Court
party as expressed in their royal edicts, orders,
reports, and in the histories licensed by the
crown the historical rights of our founders
were not secured. The crown had suppressed
the authentic evidences at once so completely,
and had continued to exercise such an absolute
control over the records and the press in Virginia
for so long, that no accounts of our origin were
available to the public, which gave a full and
fair idea thereof. And thus it came to pass
that through the medium of the histories pub-
lished under the auspices of the crown, which
had always been available, we have continued to
rob our founders of their historic rights even
under the Republic.
I now wish to give an outline of what has
been done in the matter of this historic wrong
since 1776.
Probably no man deserves more credit for ser-
vices rendered his country than Thomas Jeffer-
son, and among these services his efforts to col-
lect and preserve our ancient records, and thus
to rescue our past history from oblivion, were cer-
tainly not the least. William Waller Hening, the
editor of " The Statutes at Large ... of Vir-
ginia," was under paramount obligations to him,
JEFFERSON'S ORIGINAL RESEARCHES 155
and in acknowledging these obligations in 1809
he wrote as follows : " It is a melancholy truth
that, though we have existed as a nation but
little more than 200 years, our public offices are
destitute of official documents. It is to the
pious care of individuals only that posterity
will be indebted for those lasting monuments
which perpetuate the oppressions of the kings of
England and the patient suffering of the colo-
nists." He continued, to the effect ' When
we review the arbitrary conduct of James I., the
equally unjust proceedings of Charles I. and his
successors, till resistance became indispensable,
we shall cease to wonder that so few evidences
of their turpitude have been suffered to remain.
What was left undone by the predecessors of
George III. was consummated during his reign.
All the papers except a few fragments within the
reach of his myrmidons were, with more than a
savage barbarity of the Goths and Vandals, com-
mitted to the flames.' Hening then goes on to
say that " Thomas Jefferson has contributed more
/
than any other individual to the preservation of
our ancient laws."
As I have frequently said, the especial objects
of the crown in the case treated of had been :
Firsty to stamp out the political principles which
the Virginia Corporation first planted in America.
The part taken by Jefferson in righting this
wrong is well known. Second, to obliterate the
156 JEFFERSON'S ORIGINAL RESEARCHES
true history of the first planting of those princi-
ples of our origin as a nation. The part taken
by Jefferson towards righting this wrong may
not be so well known, but it was decided. He
was as active in securing and preserving evidences
in justification of our Kevolution as George
Chalmers was in collecting and publishing the
evidences of the Court party to show that our
Kevolution was an uncalled-for revolt ; and al-
though the crown had been confiscating and
destroying the class of evidence which Jefferson
wished to find, for one hundred and fifty years,
he collected and was able to preserve more of it
than any other individual in the Republic.
About the year 1722, Sir John Randolph, a
royal official, but a native of Virginia, with the
assistance of Mr. Richard Hickman, clerk of the
secretary's office, began collecting copies of the
important papers from our oldest records then
preserved in the colony. " From which evi-
dences," said Stith, " Sir John purposed to write
a Preface to our Laws and therein to give an His-
torical Account of our Constitution and Govern-
ment ; but was prevented from prosecuting it to
effect by his many and weighty Publick Employ-
ments." Some of the old records preserved by
Sir John Randolph were given by his son, the
Hon. Peyton Randolph, to Jefferson before the
Revolution began. The Hon. Peyton Randolph,
the first president of our Congress, died in Phila-
JEFFERSON'S ORIGINAL RESEARCHES 157
delphia on October 22, 1775. His library was
appraised on January 5, 1776, at 250, and a
large portion of it was soon after purchased from
his executors by Thomas Jeiferson including
about ten manuscript volumes, mostly acts of
Assembly, etc., but a good deal else, of an his-
torical character ; one book especially, containing
evidences of the Virginia Corporation of 1609
1624. All of these books are now preserved
in the Library of Congress.
Besides the copies (2 vols.) of the Virginia
Court records (1619-1624) used by Stith and
already sketched, Jefferson purchased at least
two other manuscript volumes of the company's
records with the Bland library in 1777, first,
a large folio volume, lettered " Virginia Com-
pany Papers and Kecords, 1621-1625 " which
Mr. Jefferson has characterized in a note thus :
" Letters, Proclamations, Patents, in 1622, 1623 ;
Correspondence, 1625. Transactions in Council
and Assembly their petitions and his Majesty's
answer." The writing in this volume, like that
in the two volumes of the Virginia Court re-
cords, is in the ancient handwriting of the time
of James I. 1 Second. A smaller volume of cop-
ies in the plain handwriting of the 18th century,
1 There are copies in the plain handwriting of the eighteenth
century of these three volumes in the library of " The Virginia
Historical Society " at Richmond, Va. They were preserved by
John Randolph, of Roanoke, and were probably originally copied
by Mr. Hickman for Sir John Randolph.
158 JEFFERSON'S NOTES ON VIRGINIA
lettered, " Virginia Papers, 1606 to 1683 ; " and
marked in Mr. Jefferson's handwriting, " never
printed."
There is more of the regular record of our
original body politic to be found in five of the
above mentioned volumes which were preserved
for about fifty years by Mr. Jefferson, before they
passed to the Library of Congress, where they
now are than has yet been found in any other
repository of evidences.
CHAPTER II
JEFFERSON'S "NOTES ON VIRGINIA"
IT is interesting and important to consider the
circumstances under which these " Notes " were
written . After Jefferson's escape from the troops
of Captain McLeod, of Tarleton's command, at
Monticello, on June 4, 1781, he went to his seat,
" Poplar Forest," in Bedford County, where, rid-
ing over his farm, he was thrown from his horse
and seriously injured. While thus confined he
occupied himself with answering the queries of
Mons. De Marbois, which answers were first pub-
lished in Paris, France, in 1784, under the title,
"Notes on the State of Virginia; " and this was
the first book bearing on our subject published
after the Revolution.
As illustrating the effect of politics even on
JEFFERSON'S NOTES ON VIRGINIA 159
our Revolutionary history, it may be noted that
Jefferson's political opponents asserted that he
was thrown from his horse on Carter's Moun-
tain, Albemarle, in a headlong flight from Tarle-
ton, and not after he had arrived at " Poplar
Forest." Jefferson himself refers to these
charges in the "Advertisement" to a subse-
quent edition of the " Notes," wherein he writes :
" The subjects are all treated imperfectly ; some
scarcely touched on. To apologize for this by
developing the circumstances of the time and place
of their composition, would be to open wounds
which have already bled enough." Only yester-
day I read in a Virginia paper one of these ex
parte tales or " campaign lies," which still sur-
vives, to the effect that ' Jefferson was thrown
from his horse while riding through the blind
paths of Carter's Mountain ; taken to the house
of Mr. Thomas Farrar, on Rockfish River, where
he remained two weeks; and was then carried
to a cave in the bluff below Scottsville, Albemarle
County, Virginia, where he lay concealed for
months, being supplied with food by his brother,
who lived across James River, at Snowden.'
Fortunately for Jefferson's memory, his political
opponents did not have an absolute control over
the evidences, and there remains ample evidence
to refute these stories, even if it is impossible to
suppress them.
Although Jefferson, when he wrote these
160 JEFFERSON'S NOTES ON VIRGINIA
"Notes" in 1781 and 1782, had secured but
little more of the evidence regarding the colonial
movement of 1606-1624 than Stith had when
writing his history in 1746, he took a more uni-
formly patriotic view of the event. He did not
have enough of the evidences of the Patriots to
enable him to restore their obliterated history;
but he felt to the full the immortal principles
which had inspired them. He had not one of
the publications of the managers of the business,
and comparatively few of their records, with
the exception of those after 1618. In his reply
to Query XXIII. he mentions only the four
printed histories which I have noticed, Smith's,
Beverley's, Keith's, and Stith's. His " Notes,"
having been written at " Poplar Forest," in Bed-
ford County, and his library being "at Monti-
cello," in Albemarle, may account for some
omissions. In his " Chronological Catalogue of
American State Papers," he does not mention
all that were known to him ; but he mentions
enough to show the character of the evidences
on which his own opinions had been based.
Evidently depending on his memory in reply to
Query XIII., he says : * James I. executed " a
grant to Sir Thomas Crates and others, bearing
date the 9th of March, 1607" He evidently
had on his mind and really referred to three
documents, copies of each of which were then at
1 Richmond Edition, 1853, p. 119.
JEFFERSON'S NOTES ON VIRGINIA 161
Monticello : First, " a grant to Sir Thomas
Gates and others/' of April 10 (o. s.), 1606;
second, the King's Articles, Instructions and
Orders of November 20 (o. s.), 1606 ; and third,
the King's Ordinance and Constitution, " bear-
ing date the 9th of March, 1607;" the first
being the royal charter of 1606; the second
and third contain the original form of govern-
ment for the colonies designed by James I.
Mr. Jefferson then goes on to say : " Of this
grant [these grants?], however, no particular
notice need be taken, as it was [they were ?]
superseded by letters patent of the same King
of May 23 [o. s.], 1609." He then gives an
outline of his reading of this first charter to our
original body politic, and, after referring to the
charter of 1612, says : " In pursuance of the
authorities given to the Company by these Char-
ters, and more especially of that part in the
Charter of 1609, which authorized them to estab-
lish a form of government, they on the 24th of
July [August 3d N. s.], 1621, by charter
under their common seal," proceeded to estab-
lish a liberal form of government which Jeffer-
son outlines. 1 The reference was to the constitu-
tion brought by Wyatt to Virginia, in October,
1621 ; but as stated in the land grant from Sir
Francis Wyatt to Thomas Hothersall, dated
February 5, 1622 (N. s.), once recorded in the
1 Richmond Edition, 1853, p. 120.
162 JEFFERSON'S NOTES ON VIRGINIA
Virginia Land Office Kecords, Book No. 1, page
1 (now torn out), our government was estab-
lished on " The Great Charter of Laws and
Orders," issued by the Virginia Quarter Court
under authority derived from the charters of
1609 and 1612, bearing date at London, Novem-
ber 28 (N. s.), 1618, and instituted in Virginia
under Sir George Yeardley, in 1619.
Under the impression, it seems, that the Vir-
ginia Corporation and body politic was an ordi-
nary company he gives his idea of the dissolu-
tion of "the company," as follows :' " The king
and the company quarrelled, and by a mixture of
law and force the latter were ousted of all their
rights, without retribution, after having expended
100,000 [say $2,500,000 present value] in
establishing the colony, without the smallest aid
from the government. King James suspended
their powers by proclamation of July 15 [o. s.],
1624, and Charles I. took the government into
his own hands. Both sides had their partisans in
the colony; but, in truth, the people of the colony
in general thought themselves little concerned
in the dispute. There being three parties inter-
ested in these several charters, what passed be-
tween the first and second it was thought could
not affect the third. If the king seized on the
powers of the company, they only passed into
other hands, without increase or diminution, while
1 Richmond edition, 1853, p. 121.
JEFFERSON'S NOTES ON VIRGINIA 163
the rights of the people remained as they were.
But they did not remain so long. The northern
parts of their country were granted away to the
Lords Baltimore and Fairfax/' etc. Jefferson evi-
dently knew of the contests of the people over
land rights, but did not know of their earlier
contests for their political rights. As I have
said, Jefferson did not have enough of the evi-
dence of the Patriots to enable him to restore
their obliterated history, and the idea conveyed
by him of " the dissolution " is not accurate.
We are now more familiar with the " quarrel,"
or contest, between the crown and the Virginia
Corporation. We know that the people in the
colony were vitally concerned in the dispute, and
without doubt would have felt it more deeply if
James I. had lived longer. " The three parties,"
to whom Jefferson alludes, were the king (the
crown), the adventurers in England (whom he
regarded as the company), and the planters in
Virginia ; but the last two really composed one
body politic (the people), who had secured the
country at their own expense, and of these two
the planters were more directly concerned in the
political rights than the adventurers. They well
knew the value of those rights, and continued to
contend for, and to petition for, them from 1624
to 1776, when they determined to secure them,
and did so.
Mr. Jefferson's imperfect treatment of some
164 INFLUENCE OF PAST POLITICS
phases of this movement was owing to the cir-
cumstances of the place and time of the composi-
tion of these " Notes/' as well as to the lack of
authentic evidences ; but taking all things into
consideration his ideas regarding the case of our
founders were remarkably correct.
CHAPTER III
AN OUTLINE OF WHAT WAS DONE UNDER THE
REPUBLIC FROM 1784 TO 1861 TOWARDS PER-
PETUATING THE HISTORIC WRONG COMMITTED
BY JAMES I. AND THE COURT PARTY IN 1624 ;
AND WHAT WAS DONE TOWARDS CORRECTING
THAT WRONG
As nearly all of the numerous books, in the
premises, published from 1784 to 1861, were
based on the crown evidences, it will not be pos-
sible to give here more than the merest outline
of what has been done since 1784 toward perpet-
uating the ideas of our origin as a nation which
were disseminated under the auspices of the
crown. Portions of the works of Captain John
Smith, the historian licensed by the crown, were
made still more available by reprints issued in the
Republic as early as 1819, and repeatedly there-
after in 1833, 1837, 1838, 1845, etc. Over a
dozen laudatory biographies of this historian, and
histories " too numerous to mention," have been
INFLUENCE OF PAST POLITICS 165
published in this country since the Revolution,
all based largely on his books, and of course all
of these reprints, biographies, and histories
have aided in perpetuating the purpose of James I.
and the Court party to obliterate the real history
of the original of the body politic of this nation.
It is not my purpose to review these books ; they
must be judged by their fruit.
The first book published in England under the
crown, 1 written even partially from the political
view point of the Patriot party, was Peckard's
" Life of Nicholas Ferrar," printed in 1790, after
the colonies had secured their charter rights.
It was based on the memoirs, already mentioned,
written by John Ferrar about 1655, providentially
preserved, and handed down in manuscript from
father to son. The old deputy gave them to his
son John in 1657, who left them to his son Ed-
ward, who gave them to his son Edward, who died
in 1769, after having given them to his son-in-
law, the Rev. Peter Peckard, who finally pub-
lished them.
In 1823 "The New Life of Virginia," which
was first published in 1612, was republished by
the Massachusetts Historical Society, being, I be-
lieve, the first reprint in the Republic of one of
the original publications of the managers of the
business. In June, 1839, " The Southern Liter-
1 Wodenoth's book was published under the Commonwealth in
1651.
166 INFLUENCE OF PAST POLITICS
ary Messenger/' Richmond, Va., published John
Kolf e's " Relation to James I. of the State of Vir-
ginia in 1607-1616," from the copy, preserved in
the Royall MSS., which had passed into the Brit-
ish Museum, being, I believe, the first one of the
original manuscript accounts by a contemporary
manager of the business in the colony printed in
Virginia.
" Nova Britannia," first published in 1609, was
first reprinted in this country by Peter Force in
1836. " A True Declaration," of 1610, and " A
Declaration," of 1620, were first reprinted by
Peter Force in 1844. Thus, after the ideas of
the Court party had been impressed on the minds
of our people for over two hundred years, a few
of the publications of the managers became avail-
able to the public in the United States.
Anderson's " History of the Colonial Church,"
published in England in 1845, gave some ex-
tracts from Wingfield's " Discourse of Virginia; "
the whole was first printed in this country by
Mr. Charles Deane, of Cambridge, Massachusetts,
in 1859. A portion of -Strachey's manuscript,
" Historie of Travaile into Virginia Britannia,"
and a letter from the Lord De la Warr, gover-
nor of Virginia, written at Jamestown, July 17,
1610, were printed for the Hakluyt Society, Lon-
don, 1849. Birch's "Court and Times of
James the First," published in London in 1849,
contains many contemporary letters referring to
INFLUENCE OF PAST POLITICS 167
this movement, which had not been available to
the public before. An account of the first Gen-
eral Assembly (August 9-14, 1619) ever con-
vened in America was published for the first time
in 1857 in the " Collections " of the New York
Historical Society. The official reports of this
most important Assembly were probably destroyed
(they have not been found) both in England and
in Virginia ; but under Providence Mr. John
Pory sent an account of the proceedings by Mar-
maduke Kayner, the pilot of a Dutch man-of-
war (a ship under commission from the Prince
of Orange), which left Virginia in the autumn
of 1619, to Sir Dudley Carleton, then in Hol-
land. Carleton he was created Viscount Dor-
chester in 1628 died in 1632, and his papers
finally passed in the 18th century into the Pub-
lic Kecord Office in London, where this document
is now preserved.
Documents discovered (and published, and dis-
covered, and not yet published) since 1850 are
too numerous to mention particularly. The
examples given are sufficient to illustrate the
various ways by which evidences have been provi-
dentially preserved.
In 1856 the State of New York published in
the first volume of documents relating to the
colonial history of that colony several papers
which gave to the public the first idea of the
real interest taken in the first English colony by
168 INFLUENCE OF PAST POLITICS
the United States of the Netherlands. In 1858
Lord De la Warr's "Relation/' of 1611, was
privately reprinted in London.
In 1857-1859 the British government pub-
lished the " Calendar of the State Papers, Domes-
tic Series," of the reign of James I. (1603-1625)
in four volumes ; and in 1862, the " Calendar
of State Papers, Colonial Series, East Indies,"
etc. (1513-1616). Each of these five volumes
locate papers having reference to the English
colonies in America.
In 1860, the Calendar of State Papers, Colo-
nial Series " (1574-1660), which relate entirely
to the American colonies, was published. This is
a very important volume. Many of these papers
had come to the state paper department of the
Public Record Office of Great Britain from vari-
ous repositories of crown officials or offices, and
therefore had been preserved under the auspices
of the crown from the first ; but many others
have come into the Record Office or the British
Museum since 1625 from repositories of a pri-
vate character. The documents listed in these
calendars and in the various catalogues of the
British Museum relative to our subject, have to
be analyzed with great care. Many of them
were issued directly from the crown Privy
Council, royal courts, commissions, etc. Many
of a political character were written by or to
the king, the members of his Privy Council, or
INFLUENCE OF PAST POLITICS 169
other royal officials, and thus many are as parti-
san in character and unjust to the vis vitce of our
foundation and to the intentions of our found-
ers as is the history licensed by the crown. But
some of the evidences and especially among
those which have come in since 1625 from other
sources than the crown repositories are non-
partisan, valuable, and reliable evidences.
In 1860 there was printed for the Camden
Society in England the "Letters from George
Lord Carew to Sir Thomas Roe," 1615-1617,
which conveyed to this English ambassador at
the court of the Great Mogul some of the latest
Virginia news. In the same year there was
published at Albany, New York, a reprint of
Hamor's " A True Discourse," etc. (1615) ; and
in the " Transactions and Collections of the
American Antiquarian Society," vol. iv., " New-
port's Discoveries in Virginia" (1607), three
papers, edited by E. E. Hale, A. M., and Wing-
field's "A Discourse of Virginia," edited by
Charles Deane, A. M.
A decided interest was developing in our ear-
liest history, which might have brought forth
good fruit long ago, save for the obstructions
incidental to the civil war and to the political
influences resulting therefrom.
170 INFLUENCE OF PRESENT POLITICS
CHAPTER IV
AN OUTLINE OF THE ORIGIN OF THE SO-CALLED
"JOHN SMITH CONTROVERSY" FROM i860 TO
1885
IN my effort to correct the historic wrong com-
mitted under James I., I have given a particular
account of, or reprints of, many of the prints
and manuscripts written during 1606-1616, and
found since 1865, in " The Genesis of the United
States " and " The First Republic in America,"
and in the latter book I have referred to many
written after 1616 which have been found both
before and since 1865. Therefore it is not
necessary to continue the outline t of what has
been done towards perpetuating or correcting
the historic wrong of 1624 since our civil war
(1865). But it is necessary to give an outline
of the beginning of the so-called " John Smith
controversy."
Wingfield's " A Discourse of Virginia "
(1608), edited by Mr. Charles Deane, of Cam-
bridge, Massachusetts, was first printed in Bos-
ton in 1859, and afterwards included in the col-
lections of the American Antiquarian Society
printed in 1860. In his notes, Mr. Deane ques-
tioned Smith's veracity as to " the Pocahontas
incident." He was soon replied to by Ex-Gov-
INFLUENCE OF PRESENT POLITICS 171
ernor "Wyndham Robertson, of Virginia (a de-
scendant from Pocahontas), in a paper on " The
Marriage of Pocahontas," read before " The Vir-
ginia Historical Society," and afterwards pub-
lished in " The Virginia Historical Reporter,"
vol. ii. part i. pp. 67-87 (Richmond, 1860), and
in The Historical Magazine " (New York), for
October, 1860. And the controversy thus be-
gun has been going on ever since.
Of course little was done in the matter of past
history during the civil war (1861-1865). In
1866 Mr. Charles Deane had Smith's "A True
Relation of Virginia " (1608) reprinted, and in
his notes thereon he again questioned the accu-
racy of Smith's account of his life having been
saved by Pocahontas. Mr. Deane's so-called
" attack on Captain John Smith " is almost con-
fined to this incident. In most other things he
was disposed to accept Smith's estimate of him-
self and of others ; he regarded Smith as " the
master spirit of the colony of Virginia," and,
giving no consideration to the political conditions
obtaining in 1624, was disposed to accept Smith's
account of the Virginia movement from 1606 to
1624.
Mr. Henry Adams continued the controversy
in the " North American Review " for January,
1867, sustaining Mr. Deane.
Since Stith published his history in 1747 nearly
all historians of Virginia during the period
172 INFLUENCE OF PRESENT POLITICS
1606-1624 have rejected some of the more
important ideas conveyed by Smith's history.
While accepting Smith's account implicitly for
the period prior to 1618, they rejected much of
it after that date. While accepting his praise
of himself at all times, they generally rejected or
smoothed over his harsh criticism of others. In
1869 the Kev. Edward D. Neill published his
" Virginia Company of London," in which he
reversed the old treatment of the case by reject-
ing Smith's praise of himself, and accepting much
of his harsh criticism of others. Smith's veracity
can be tested as well by his account of events
after 1618 as before ; as well by his references
to others as by his references to himself. Both
the old treatment of the case and Mr. NeilTs are
self-contradictory. Neither side had given due
consideration to the political conditions then ob-
taining, and consequently the reform movement
and its managers had suffered accordingly on
both sides. It was now evident that there was
something radically wrong somewhere with our
earliest history. The controversy was no longer
confined to the Pocahontas incident ; it became
broader and broader as the inquiry progressed.
Hon. W. W. Henry, of Virginia, took up the
discussion in an article in defense of Smith, pub-
lished in " Potter's American Monthly " in 1875.
The controversy was continued in " A History
of American Literature " (1607-1676), in 1878,
INFLUENCE OF PRESENT POLITICS 173
by Professor Moses Coit Tyler, who rejects Smith's
account of being saved by Pocahontas, but de-
fends him in many other respects. Edward
Eggleston and Lillie Eggleston Seelye entered
the controversy in 1879, in an extended account
of Smith, published under the title of "Poca-
hontas," in which " the incident " is accepted, as
it were, with a proviso. In the same year Mr.
John Fiske came to the defense of Smith in a
lecture at University College, London, England.
The matter was also considered, pro and con,
about this time, by Hon. George Bancroft, Bryant
and Gay, Hon. Henry Cabot Lodge, Henry Ste-
vens, General Sir J. Henry Lefroy, and others.
In 1881 Mr. Charles Dudley Warner published
<A Study of Smith's Life and Writings,' in
which he did not accept Smith at his own esti-
mate of himself. Considering the facts that Mr.
Warner did not have all the evidences in the case
before him, and that he did not take into consid-
eration the effect of politics on the case, his esti-
mate of Smith and of his writings was probably
as near correct as could be expected. But though
he did not accept Smith at his own estimate, he
was too much disposed to accept others at Smith's
estimate of them.
On February 24, 1882, Hon. W. W. Henry
delivered an address before the Virginia Histori-
cal Society on " The Settlement at Jamestown,
with particular reference to the late attacks upon
174 INFLUENCE OF PRESENT POLITICS
Captain John Smith,Pocahontas, and John Rolfe."
Mr. Henry's address was largely based on mis-
taken ideas derived from crown evidences. He
thought that Smith's history had been written
at the instance of the Virginia Company of Lon-
don ; that it was accepted as the standard history
of the colony from its first appearance ; that for
more than two hundred and fifty years, " if we
except Thomas Fuller," no one had discredited
Smith until the year 1860, when Mr. Charles
Deane, of Massachusetts, did so. As a matter of
fact, the history was not written at the instance
of the company, and it is manifest that the Patriot
party could never have accepted this " history,"
licensed by the crown in 1624, as a real history
of their enterprise. " Nequid non veri audeat,
nequid veri non audeat. The great task for an
historian is the ascertainment of truth, which
when once found he dare not conceal and be true
to his calling ; " and it has always been incum-
bent on historians to be certain that the history
which the Court party licensed was not impeached
by the records which the Court party suppressed,
before they regarded the censored story as reli-
able authority, or considered it as a real history.
Although Mr. Deane was, I believe, the first
modern historian to question Smith's veracity as
to the Pocahontas incident, Smith's history had
really been impeached, and the author's veracity
questioned, more or less, by every record of the
INFLUENCE OF PRESENT POLITICS 175
Virginia Company which had been found, and by
every historian of Virginia since Stith.
Mr. Henry gave no consideration to the past
politics, which really controlled the history as
well as most of the evidence which he was relying
upon ; yet he showed that he knew the power of
such influence by appealing to sectional politics
and setting in motion that prejudice in support
of his argument. An appeal to present preju-
dices in a question of over two hundred and fifty
years ago is really a confession of judgment,
and it is more apt to be made for the purpose of
concealing than for revealing historic facts ; but
many people are more apt to be influenced by
prejudices than by facts, and therefore these pre-
judices have been appealed to by some of the
advocates of the licensed historian in this contro-
versy ever since. I had been making a study of
the case of our founders for some time, when Mr.
Henry's address appeared. I was not prepared
to enter the discussion, but I did not wish to see
a sectional matter made of this important histori-
cal question, and I protested against that mode
of treating the case in " The Richmond Dispatch"
of March 9, 1882.
Mr. J. A. Doyle, in his " English Colonies in
America," published in 1882, treated the ques-
tion very much as Deane, Palfrey, Tyler, and
some others had done. He rejected the Poca-
hontas incident, regarded other portions of
176 INFLUENCE OF PRESENT POLITICS
Smith's story as untrue or extravagant, and yet
took a favorable view of Smith's character.
In 1883 " The adventures and discourses of
Captain John Smith . . . newly ordered by
John Ashton," appeared, in which Smith's whole
story is accepted as true and f ustianized upon by
Ashton. John Esten Cooke's " Virginia/' was
also published this year. Mr. Cooke devotes
about 145 pages to the plantation of Virginia
during 1606-1624 ; giving about 27 pages per
annum to the period of the king's government,
1607-1609, and about 4 pages per annum to
the period of the corporation and body politic,
1610-1624. He defended Smith very warmly,
but his account is largely based on evidences
licensed by the crown, and he gave no consider-
ation to the effect of politics on these evidences.
He regarded James I. as a narrow minded, ob-
stinate man, of little ability; yet he wrote the
earlier portion of his history almost entirely on
the evidences of the licensed historians of
James I.
In 1884 Mr. Edward Arber, in his "English
Scholar's Library," published a complete edition
of Captain John Smith's works. Mr. Arber
gives some other evidences, and mentions many
more; but evidently based his opinions almost
entirely on the " Works " which he was editing;
had a very strong reliance on their historic value,
and a great admiration for the author. Conse-
INFLUENCE OF PRESENT POLITICS 177
quently he had no idea of the special importance
of the movement his author pretended to he de-
scribing.
Mr. Arber gave no consideration to the politi-
cal conditions which controlled the publications
he was reprinting ; but if he had done so, as a
loyal subject of the crown of Great Britain, he
would naturally have been more apt to take the
view of the history licensed by the crown, than
would a loyal advocate of the popular course
of government, the history of the institution
of which in this country the crown wished to
obliterate. He seems to have been under the
impression that the question as to the veracity of
Smith's history depended solely on the accuracy
of the Pocahontas incident, and that too much
had been made of that Pocahontas matter.
It is not in the scope of this book to continue
the outline of " the John Smith controversy"
or rather, the controversy over the treatment of
our foundation and founders under the auspices
of James I. and the Court party down to the
present time ; but in the interest of the task
which I have undertaken it was necessary to call
attention to the important fact that since the
civil war, in order to support the history licensed
by the crown, and thus perpetuate the original
historic wrong, an appeal has been made to the
influence of sectional politics (which has abso-
lutely no bearing on the veracity of Smith's his-
178 AN EXPLANATION
tory), and that through this influence the advo-
cates of the history licensed by the crown have
exercised almost as absolute a control over our
earliest history in Virginia under the Republic as
the Court party, through the influence of past
politics, formerly exercised under the crown.
CHAPTEK V
A PERSONAL EXPLANATION REGARDING MY OWN
WORK IN THE FIELD OF OUR EARLIEST HIS-
TORY, DURING 1876-1900
MY own work in the field of our earliest his-
tory has been so frequently misunderstood and
misrepresented that it is necessary for me to ex-
plain it more fully than I have yet done.
I have always taken an interest in pur his-
tory, and I read carefully the various articles
and books in the so-called " John Smith contro-
versy," as they came to my hands; but I was
not fully satisfied with any of them. Goethe
says that " In the works of man, as in those of
nature, it is the intention which is chiefly worth
studying." I determined to look into the mat-
ter for my own information, and in 1876-
1877 I made an independent study of the case
of our founders, as I found it in books. This
study convinced me that there was something
radically wrong somewhere with our earliest his-
AN EXPLANATION 179
tory as it had been published. In the course of
my study the partisan character of the "history"
became evident to me ; my faith in the honorable
" intention " of the work of our founders, at first
weak, had grown stronger and stronger, while
my former belief in the personal disinterestedness
and purity of the " intention " of Captain John
Smith's published works grew less and less until
it vanished, and it became evident to me that
the contemporary histories gave a false idea of
the founding and of the founders of my country.
In the books which I had been studying, the
purpose of the crown to obliterate the facts had
been so completely carried out that I could not
say what the true history was ; but I was con-
vinced that Smith did not give the true history.
I did not know what had caused Smith's history
to be accepted in the first instance, or for so
long after, as history ; but I was convinced that
a great historic wrong had been done the real
founders of our country by those who wrote it
and published it as history, and by those who
had continued to accept it as such. The task
seemed to me to be a very important one, and a
very proper one for a Virginian to undertake;
therefore I determined to undertake it to go
regularly to work and try to find out exactly in
what the historic wrong consisted, and the
causes of it ; to correct the wrong and to remove
the causes of it, if I could. 1
1 See Preface to The First Republic in America, p. iv.
180 AN EXPLANATION
I began to labor in the field of original re-
search in 1878; I retired from active business
on account of deafness in 1880, and then under-
took my task in earnest. Since 1882 I have
written from time to time sundry articles for
sundry magazines and newspapers, which reveal
my views on the questions as those views devel-
oped.
In 1890 I published in " The Genesis of the
United States " the first fruits of my long re-
search. The chief value of this work lies in
the fact that it is especially devoted to giving
copies of, or references to, the original evidences
written during 1606-1616, and information re-
lative to the members of the body politic of
that period, and in the fact that it is the first
book published under the Republic with the inten-
tion of restoring to that body the honors which
they had always been deprived of in our his-
tories. In continuing my research and study,
after 1890, I saw that the movement was a po-
litical one, and that I was mistaken in some of
the opinions which I had given expression to in
the book especially in the biographies. This
caused me to reconsider the case, and thus finally
to locate correctly the causes of my errors. And
it is now important for me, in the interest of iny
task, to give an explanation of these errors of
opinion.
So much concealment of facts and dissemina-
AN EXPLANATION 181
tion of false ideas, by those controlling the evi-
dences, had obtained for so long, and naturally
so much confusion had followed, that although
I knew an historic wrong had been committed,
although I had made a careful study of the
case, had located some of the errors of omission
and of commission, and some of the sources of
the wrong, I had not located all of them; con-
sequently I did not fully understand the case
myself. I had failed (as every one else had pre-
viously done) to give due consideration to the in-
fluence of imperial politics on the history of this
popular movement. I had also failed to con-
sider properly the absolute control over the evi-
dences, in print and in manuscript, possessed by
the crown. And the importance of giving due
consideration to these things in these premises
cannot be overestimated.
It is true that I protested against Smith's his-
tory ; but I did so because I knew that a criti-
cism of his peers and a eulogy of a man com-
piled by himself, or his friends, was not really
History. I had given no consideration to the
important political facts that the book had been
licensed under the crown ; had conformed with
the political purposes of the Court party, and
was not only not history, but was ex parte evi-
dence of a very objectionable kind. I had held
Smith and his friends solely and personally re-
sponsible for the wrong done by his history.
182 AN EXPLANATION
So far from having implicated James I. and the
Court party in any way in the matter, I had
looked upon them as the great friends of the
whole movement, and had regarded the royal
manuscript evidences written by the king, by
his Privy Councillors and other royal officials,
and by others to the king and to the royal
officials as being official and entirely reliable
evidences, when as a matter of fact these evi-
dences are ex parte, and almost entirely in
accord with the political purposes of the Court
party to conceal or obscure rather than to give
any facts favorable to the political purposes
of the opponent Patriot party.
I was also mistaken in thinking that religious
influence (in the contest then going on between
the Church of England and the Church of
Borne) was the chief original cause of the his-
toric wrong. I did not overestimate this influ-
ence in the premises, but unfortunately I did not
consider the most important influence at all.
The paramount, original, and sustaining cause of
the wrong was without doubt imperial politics ;
but church and state were then so close as to be
almost inseparable. The officials of both church
and state were active in confiscating the evi-
dences of the Virginia body politic after that
body had been condemned by the crown, and
in disseminating the histories of the acts of that
body which had been licensed by the crown.
AN EXPLANATION 183
And the cause of this ex parte work on the part
of the officials both of church and of state
was the determination of James I. for political
purposes to obliterate the facts regarding the
movement. Of the two chief influences inspir-
ing American colonization, the religious may
have predominated in New England; but poli-
tics was the mother's milk of Virginia. My
failure to take into consideration the political
conditions then obtaining caused me to mis-
understand the true character of the company
conducting the movement, and of some of the
most important political features of the move-
ment.
As the book related to events prior to 1617,
and as I wished to defend our founders of that
period from the unjust charges of the contem-
porary historian, I naturally wrote from the view
point of the Sir Thomas Smith party in the cor-
poration; but as I had failed to give proper
consideration to the national political conditions
then obtaining in England, and to the fact that
this party finally affiliated with the national
Court party, I was mistaken in some of the
opinions expressed of James I., of several mem-
bers of the Court party, of Sir Edwin Sandys,
and of several members of his party.
No party in our country has now an absolute
control over evidence such as the Court party
had while our country was under the crown;
184 AN EXPLANATION
but even under a free government, with a free
press, the influence of party politics on history
as published is very great. Under the royal
government the influence of imperial politics
was paramount. I knew these political facts
when compiling " The First Eepublic in Amer-
ica/' in 1897, and therefore, instead of writing
that book from the point of view from which I
wrote " The Genesis of the United States," or
from the view point of the Court party, as had
been the custom of historians generally (in whole
or in part) from the first, I wrote from the point
of view of the Patriot party. This had really
always been the correct political view point for
the history of this movement, and it had been
the loyal view for our historians to take for over
one hundred and twenty years ; yet " The First
Republic in America " has the honor of being
the first book so written to be published in the
Republic. It was the first effort to restore to
our foundation as a nation the inspiring political
features of which it was robbed by those who
controlled the evidences and the histories under
the crown. And there could be no clearer illus-
tration of the very effectual manner in which
the purpose of the Court party had been carried
out than the fact that this book was condemned
in several of our leading historical magazines
and reviews, especially because it presented the
case of our founders from this loyal, patriotic,
AN EXPLANATION 185
and correct point of view rather than from the
view of the crown evidences.
So far as I know I was the first person under
the Kepublic to undertake seriously the task of
correcting this historic wrong. I had to find
my way to the true history, as it were, through a
fenny field, filled with pitfalls and other obsta-
cles, without guides, and at the constant risk of
being led astray by the unreal light produced
by Jack-with-a-lantern. As I had been studying
the case for some time before I undertook my
task, I knew some of the difficulties ; but I had
no conception of the magnitude of the opposi-
tion with which I should have to contend, nor
of the obstacles which I should have to over-
come. When I became aware of these things, I
saw that my means were too limited for me to
have undertaken the task single-handed, but my
heart was then in the work, and I could not give
it up. Therefore, I determined to make every
sacrifice in order to carry out my object, and I
have done so.
I have had to contend with the almost insur-
mountable obstacles placed in the way of finding
the facts by James I., his commissioned officials,
and licensed historians. I have not only had the
disappointments and expenses always incidental
to searching for finding or not finding evi-
dences ; but when found it has frequently been
very difficult to obtain complete copies of the
186 AN EXPLANATION
manuscripts, and when obtained it has sometimes
been very difficult to make a correct analysis of the
contents of the documents. If we note the fact
that it is not possible to write any book so as to
prevent those from finding fault with it who wish
to do so, we will see the great difficulty of com-
piling a book in the best form for correcting the
wrong impressions which have resulted from an
almost absolute control over the history and all
evidences for nearly one hundred and fifty years
by the crown officials. After an article or book
was written I have had the difficulty of finding a
publisher liberal enough and patriotic enough to
undertake the publication of an article or a book
opposing opinions which have grown gray with
age and become popular. Then I have had the
difficulty of securing a sufficient number of ad-
vance orders to justify the printing of such a book.
After publication I have had to confront the oppo-
sition arising from the fact that as the crown had
suppressed the case so effectually for so long, the
history written in opposition to the founding
and to the founders of the popular course of
government in this country had become the
popular history of our national origin. And the
case of the crown against our patriotic founders
was not only supported by the veneration which
age confers, but the advocates of the crown evi-
dences actually brought present sectional politics
into play in order to aid them in perpetuating
AN EXPLANATION 187
the historic wrong. The true history of our
political foundation had been placed under the
han by the officials under the crown ; and my
effort in behalf of the true history was at once
placed under the ban, so far as they could do so,
by the advocates of the historians licensed under
the crown. The court which licensed the publi-
cation of Smith's history would have burnt my
books and imprisoned me; but thanks to the
immortal principles which inspired our founders,
the advocates of John Smith could only " roast "
my books and abuse me. Thus it will have been
seen that the difficulty has not only been to over-
come the obstacles placed in the way by James I.
and his successors under the crown, but also those
which have grown up in the way, so to speak,
under the Republic.
In the interest of the task that I had under-
taken, and to offset as far as possible these mis-
representations of my work, I published (and cir-
culated at my own expense) in the fall of 1898
a pamphlet called " The History of our Earliest
History ; an appeal for the truth of history in
vindication of our legitimate origin as a nation,
as an act of justice to our founders, and as an
incentive to patriotism." For the same purpose
I published in " The Virginia Magazine of His-
tory and Biography," for January, 1899, <A
note on Mr. W. W. Henry's views of "The
First Republic in America."
188 AN EXPLANATION
When I undertook my task I not only had no
idea of the magnitude of the difficulties before
me, but I did not have an adequate idea of the
magnitude of the historic wrong which had been
committed. The importance of my task is now
fully realized by those who look at the real con-
troversy from the patriotic point of view. The
difficulties remaining in the way of correcting the
wrong are not so much with the obstacles which
were placed in the way under James I. as with
the obstacles resulting therefrom present obsta-
cles. Every school in which the earliest history
of Virginia has been taught has used histories
presenting the case largely from the view point,
and on the evidences of the Court party ; every
public, and nearly every private, library in the
United States has contained such histories ; the
ideas of our national foundation and of our polit-
ical founders have been based on the evidences
of the Court party against our patriotic founders
for so long that the complete correction of the
original historic wrong in every detail, or in the
mind of every person, is not now possible ; and
I have never hoped to accomplish the impossible.
We have had no history which presented the
case from the view point and on the evidences
of the Patriot party ; we have not been taught,
and our libraries have not contained, such his-
tories ; hence very many of our people, who wish
to understand the case fully and fairly, have
AN EXPLANATION
189
not had an opportunity to read the evidences
of the Patriot party against the acts of the Court
party. I wish to show to these people that an
historic wrong was committed by James L, his
commissioned officials, and licensed historians ;
I wish to give to those who want to honor the
founders of the popular course of government
in our country a true and patriotic history of
this movement so far as is now possible ; and
although I have not always taken the correct
political point of view, this has been the " inten-
tion " of my work from the first.
The object of this book is to show more clearly
than I have yet done the correct political and
historical point of view ; the real importance of
the movement ; the political character of the his-
toric wrong done those who, under the charters
of 1609 and 1612, inaugurated a popular course
of government in this country ; the political in-
fluences which swayed opinions, evidences, and
histories under James I., and the political influ-
ences which have been instrumental in upholding
the evidences and purposes of the crown ever
since. I have tried to make these things clear in
Parts I., II., III., and IV. ; but a proper under-
standing of the politics of the movement is essen-
tial to a correct understanding of its history.
Therefore I will try to give as complete an idea
as I can briefly do of its leading political features
in the following Part V.
190 AN EXPLANATION
We give thanks to the little acorn for the
great oak, and those who planted the seed of
our popular course of government in our country
must not be forgotten.
PART V
A REVIEW of some of the leading political features in the
case between the Patriot party, which managed the business
and laid the foundation upon which this great nation has
been erected, and the Court party, which controlled the
evidences and laid the foundation upon which the history of
this great movement has been written.
CHAPTER I
THE IMPORTANCE OF THE MOVEMENT AS REPRE-
SENTED IN THE CROWN EVIDENCES AND AS IT
WAS IN FACT
THE first English colony in the present United
States the political mother of the colonies
was not founded by a king; nor by an agent
of a king ; nor under a form of government
designed by a king ; nor on the principles advo-
cated by a king and Court party.
James I. did not even risk his royal revenues
in founding colonies in Virginia. The efforts
to establish colonies by companies and councils
under royal government resulted in failure. For
the sake of the liberal political charter rights
of self-government, etc., granted in perpetuity, a
"corporation and body politic" undertook the
task at their own expense.
Almost as soon as the body politic had secured
a hold on the country, had begun to establish
their popular idea of government in the colony,
and to settle landed estates in their domain,
James I. determined to rob that body of the
popular political rights which he had granted in
194 OF THE MOVEMENT
perpetuity under the broad seal of England, and
of the property rights which they had secured at
the expense of their own blood and treasure, un-
assisted by the revenues of the crown. In order
to justify himself before his people and posterity
for doing these dishonorable things, he attempted
to prove by sundry " swift witnesses " for the
crown in manuscript and in print that Vir-
ginia had really been founded under " his Ma-
jesties first grant of April, 1606, and his Majes-
ty's most prudent and princely instructions," l
and that all had gone to ruin under " the popular
course of government " instituted by the Patriot
party, which the Court party called " misgovern-
ment." In order to justify and to conceal the
wrong of this his proceeding, he confiscated the
evidences of the corporation and licensed false
" histories " of the whole transaction.
John Ferrar correctly said, 2 that " The king
was at the bottom of the whole proceeding,
which from beginning to end was a despotic vio-
lation of honour, and of justice ; which proved
him to be a man void of every laudable principle
of action ; a man who in all his exertions made
himself the scorn of those who were not in his
power, and the detestation of those who were ;
a man whose head was indeed encircled with the
1 See The First Republic in America, pp. 540-542, etc.
2 See Memoirs of the Life of Mr. Nicholas Ferrar, by P.
Peckard, D. D., Cambridge (England), 1790, p. 147.
OF THE MOVEMENT
195
Royal Diadem, but never surely was head more
unworthy or unfit to wear it." From the view
point of the Patriot party, it was indeed as dis-
honorable a piece of work as any king was ever
guilty of.
The chief agents of James I. in depriving the
political body of the charter rights under which
the first colony had been founded were his
Privy Council; the royal commission of 1623,
with Sir William Jones (who had served the
king in Ireland) presiding; and the Court of
King's Bench, Chief Justice Sir James Ley (who
had served the king in Ireland) presiding. The
Patriots, however, " laid the great load on " Li-
onell Cranfield Earl of Middlesex and Lord High
Treasurer of England, as being the king's chief
instrument in this matter.
The king's chief agents in confiscating the evi-
dences of the corporation and disseminating the
manuscript evidences (reports, orders, letters,
discourses, documents, etc.) favorable to the pur-
poses of the crown, were his Privy Councilors
and royal commissioners of 1623 and 1624. The
large commission of July 25, 1624, was especi-
ally instrumental in confiscating the evidences,
records, etc., of the Virginia Corporation and
body politic, being required by the crown to take
and to keep all the evidences of all sorts in any
ways concerning the colony of Virginia. It was
composed of :
196 OF THE MOVEMENT
Members of the Privy Council and officials
of the crown : Henry Montagu Viscount Mande-
ville, Lord President of the Council; William
Lord Pagett, Arthur Lord Chichester, Sir Thomas
Edmonds, Sir John Suckling, Sir George Cal-
vert, Sir Edward Conway, Sir Richard Weston,
and Sir Julius Caesar.
Officials of the Crown: Sir Humfry May,
Sir Baptist Hickes, Sir Thomas Smith, Sir Henry
Mildmay, Sir Thomas Coventry, and Sir Robert
Heath.
Knights: Ferdinando Gorges, Robert Killi-
grew, Charles Montagu, Philip Carie, Francis
Gofton, Thomas Wroth, John Wolstenholme,
Nathaniel Rich, Samuel Argall, and Humfry
Handford.
Ministers 9 etc. : Matthew Sutcliff, Dean of
Exeter, and Francis White, Dean of Carlisle;
Thomas Fanshaw, Esquire, Clerke of the Crown.
Aldermen of London : Robert Johnson, James
Cambell, and Raphe Freeman.
Esquires: Morice Abbot, Nathaniel Butler,
George Wilmore, William Hackwell, John Mild-
may, Philip Jermayne, Edward Johnson, Thomas
Gibbes, Samuel Wrote, John Porey, Michaell
Hawes, and Edward Pallavacine.
Merchants : Robert Bateman, Martyn Bonde,
Thomas Stiles, Nicholas Leate, Robert Bell,
Abraham Cartwright, Richard Edwards, John
Dyke, Anthony Abdy, William Palmer, Edward
OF THE MOVEMENT 197
Dichfield, George Mole, and Kichard Morer,
fifty-six in all ; and quite certainly less than a
dozen were then in sympathy with the Patriots.
And that they did their work effectually is evi-
dent, for not a scrap of the original records of
the corporation has been found in England.
His chief agent in disseminating and perpetu-
ating a false idea of the movement was the
printing press under the control of the Court of
Star Chamber, and of the High Commission, with
George Abbot (who had won the confidence of
James I. in 1608, by publicly supporting him in
the controversy over the Gowrie Plot of 1600),
Archbishop of Canterbury, presiding. The chief
active agents in these premises were the histori-
ans licensed by the crown, Rev. Samuel Purchas
and Captain John Smith. The history of the
popular reform movement was "corrupted and
falsified " by them, and we are still enjoying (?)
the fruit of their labors in the Republic founded
on the principles which they opposed.
It was probably Purchas rather than Smith
whom James I. regarded as the historian of the
colonial movements. 1 His summary, an outline
of the ideas of the Court party, gives the chief
honors to James I., whom he regarded as
" beyond comparison compared with others, a
meere transcendent; beyond all his Predecessors,
Princes of this Realme ; beyond the neighbour-
1 See The First Republic in America, p. 636.
198
OF THE MOVEMENT
ing Princes of his own times, beyond the conceits
of subjects dazled with such brightnes : Beyond
our victorious Debora not in sex alone, but as
Peace is more excellent then War, and Salomon
then David. . . . Thus at home doth Great Bri-
tain enjoy this Gem of Goodnes, the best part
of the King of the worlds Greatnes ; And abroad,
we see that as Gods Steward to others also, His
Majestic hath ballanced the neerer World by his
prudence, by justice of commerce visited the re-
moter, by truest fortitude without wrong to any
man conquered the furthest North, and by just-
est temperance disposed the overflowing numbers
of his Subjects, not in Intrusions and Invasions
of weaker Neighbours, but in the spacious Amer-
ican Regions to breed New Britaines in another
World." These things were not done by James I.
in person, nor at his expense ; but Purchas con-
sidered that they were done by his agents or
representatives and gave the honors to James I.
It is now certain that James I. was determined
to commit a great wrong when he attempted to
annul the popular charters conveying the right
of self-government and other liberal privileges to
the citizens of Virginia. He did not live long
enough to actually deprive them of their original
political charter rights, yet our forefathers were
not able to fully secure those rights from the
crown for one hundred and fifty years, and then
only by force and arms. And thus this pre-
OF THE MOVEMENT 199
meditated wrong of James I. was corrected one
hundred and twenty years ago.
It is now certain that James I. was determined
to commit a great wrong when he attempted to
obliterate the true idea and to disseminate a false
idea of the origin of this nation. And unfortu-
nately he did live long enough to confiscate the
evidences of the political body, to see false " his-
tories " published, and thus to put into effect
his plans for obliterating the true history of
the whole movement. As a result of this deter-
mination of an absolute power, carried out by
royal successors from generation to generation,
even after the political charter rights were se-
cured, the royal history thus impeached, and our
people thus freed from royal control in many
things, they were still forced, by the lack of
other evidences, to submit to the royal control
over our earliest history. And therefore this
premeditated wrong of James I. has not been
corrected. Even at the present day most of our
histories of this movement (especially of the
period prior to 1619), after altering some per-
sonal references to James I., would have been
licensed for publication by his High Commission.
It will not be necessary to go to war in order
to correct this wrong ; for no one is any longer
obliged either by law, by loyalty, or by ah actual
lack of other evidence to perpetuate the ideas
of our national origin disseminated under the
200 , OF THE MOVEMENT
crown. There were formerly many reasons,
from the political view of the Court party, why
the royal government should support the utterly
absurd ideas conveyed in the histories licensed
by the crown of the grand movement for insti-
tuting the popular course of government in Amer-
ica ; but there is no longer any reason, from
the political view of the Patriot party, why we
should continue to uphold the dishonorable work
of James I. and his agents in these premises.
To the contrary there is now every reason why
our national government should be as anxious to
reveal the true thews and sinews of our national
origin, and to show that the plantations in
America are a lasting monument to the popular
course of government designed by Sir Edwin
Sandys and our patriotic founders, and to pre-
serve the evidences in proof thereof wheresoever
they may be found, as the royal government
was to conceal the fact ; to destroy the evidences
in proof thereof ; and to produce the false im-
pression that the plantations in America were a
lasting monument to James I. and to the mon-
archical form of government designed by him.
Manifestly it was never just to rely upon the
accounts published under the auspices of the
royal government for our ideas of the beginning
of the popular political reform movement con-
ducted under the management of the Patriot
party even when no other evidence was avail-
OF THE MOVEMENT 201
able ; but (as I have outlined in Part III.) owing
to circumstances formerly obtaining it has been,
I may say, necessarily relied upon. The kings
of England showed an ever-increasing determi-
nation to obliterate liberal political ideas; con-
tinued to exercise an especially absolute control
over the freedom of the press and political mat-
ters in Virginia ; and for many generations,
with the exception of a brief period under the
Commonwealth, when men's minds were com-
pletely occupied with the absorbing conditions
then obtaining, the public had little or no option
in the matter. The inspirations which shaped
the ends of this movement were eliminated from
the page of contemporary history ; but these
principles are immortal and could not be elimi-
nated from the page of time.
When we consider the means adopted in the
first instance, and the long control exercised over
the evidences and the press by the advocates of
the ideas of the Court party, we shall see that
it is almost a miracle that any of the evidences
favorable to the institution of a popular course
of government in America escaped the deter-
mined efforts of the crown to have it all de-
stroyed. But the truth conquers. The circum-
stances which formerly caused the publication
of an inaccurate, incomplete account, and pre-
vented the publication of a real history of this
advance movement, have really been removed by
202 OF THE MOVEMENT
the movement as it advanced. The Star Cham-
ber and High Commission courts were removed
under the advance of liberal ideas by the Parlia-
ment in 1641 ; the freedom of the press began
under similar influence by special vote of the
Commons in 1693 ; the standpoint of our politi-
cal loyalty was revolutionized in 1776 ; and under
Providence much of the evidence formerly con-
fiscated and suppressed by the crown has been
found by the laborers of the Republic in the
field of original research looking for the truth.
Although it may be that less than one fourth of
the manuscript records of the original body po-
litic have been found, yet included in these there
is a great deal of very great public importance.
A review of the case will show that since Beverley
and Keith wrote their histories of Virginia nearly
two centuries ago, the chief difficulties then in
the way of rescuing the real history of our ori-
gin as a nation have been in a large measure
removed, and we are at last able to have at least
a fairly correct outline of " the most remarkable
passages from the original to the dissolution of
the Virginia Company."
The most important question now remaining is,
not whether a great wrong was done our found-
ers in the histories licensed under James I., for
there can no longer be any question as to that
fact ; but the question is whether enough of the
evidence confiscated by the king's commissioners
OF THE MOVEMENT 203
has been found to enable us to correct the
wrong. As to some periods enough has been
found, as to others much is still missing ; but as
it is now our duty to consider all the evidence
from the view point of the Patriot party, it will
be found that much of the old evidence, in print
and in manuscript, will convey different ideas
from those formerly accepted, when thus consid-
ered. The particulars regarding which the evi-
dence as yet found is insufficient, or entirely
missing, are generally not of the greatest his-
torical importance. There is certainly sufficient
evidence now available to show the vital facts :
that this nation had its origin in the greatest
political reform movement of modern times ; that
James I. wished to stamp out the vital spark of
this movement ; that he determined for political
reasons to obliterate all idea of. its true character
from history ; that the history published under
the auspices of the crown did this by depriving
the enterprise of its inspiring features ; and that
save for the pious care of individuals every par-
ticle of our earliest political history every ves-
tige of the real inspiration of our national origin
would have been obliterated from the page of
all history for all time.
An analysis of the evidences now available,
with due reference to the point of view of the
Patriot party, will show that past history has re-
versed the true view of this movement ; that the
204 OF THE CHARTERS
historic sins are of omission as well as of commis-
sion, of a personal as well as of a public charac-
ter ; that inadequate ideas are given of the in-
fluence exerted on the movement by the various
national parties of Church and State in England,
and by the great continental powers Spain,
the Netherlands, and France ; and that entirely
incorrect ideas are conveyed of the leading polit-
ical features of the movement : of the charters
under which the movement was conducted ; of
the corporation which conducted the movement ;
of the forms of government at issue ; of the
managers of the corporation, and of the motives
which inspired them.
CHAPTER II
THE IDEA OF THE CHARTERS UNDER WHICH THE
POLITICAL MOVEMENT WAS CONDUCTED, AS
CONVEYED BY THE CROWN EVIDENCES, VERSUS
THE CORRECT IDEA
IN order to put a stop to (suppress) the institu-
tion of the popular course of government which
the body politic, incorporated in the charters of
1609 and 1612, was inaugurating in this coun-
try, James I. determined to annul the popular
charters. In order to justify this act and to ob-
literate the fact that the colony had been founded
on the liberal idea of government to which his
OF THE CHARTERS 205
majesty was so much opposed, and not on the
form designed by himself, the histories licensed
under the crown do not show what the charter
rights were, or what inspired the desire to ohtain
them, or who petitioned for them, or anything of
any value about them in fact, these historians
really obliterated these charters from history so
far as they could. The Rev. Samuel Purchas
published an abstract of the royal charter of
1606 ; but the charters of 1609 and 1612 to the
corporation were not published in, and a cor-
rect idea of them cannot be derived from, the
contemporary histories, or from any history pub-
lished prior to 1747. There is now enough evi-
dence to show that these charters were the polit-
ical foundation of the reform movement which
was the beginning of our existence as a republic ;
and therefore it is of the first historic importance
for us to understand them and all that pertains
to them.
The charter of April, 1606, authorized a com-
pany, composed of adventurers only, " called the
first colony," to settle a plantation of one hun-
dred miles square along the Atlantic coast some-
where between 34 and 41 north latitude. This
company was authorized to send out settlers at
its own expense. But the company of adven-
turers and the settlers of the plantation were to
be under officials appointed for them by and un-
der a form of government designed for them by
206 OF THE CHARTERS
James I. ; they neither had the right to govern
the proposed plantation, nor themselves James
I. took care of that. Even the ships sent hy
this company were tinder the charge of officers
appointed by the colonial council of the king
in England, commissioned under and responsible
to the crown. This Virginia Company was not
only not allowed to govern the plantation which
was to be settled at its own expense; but the
rights granted were limited, even the liberty of
enjoying the rights of British subjects in the
other dominions of the crown of Great Britain
was confined by the patent to the settlers and
their children. But as I have shown in Part I.,
both the North and South Virginia plantations
failed under the administration of James I. The
North and South Virginia companies were super-
seded by corporations and bodies politic under
which both colonies were settled.
" A corporation and body politic," composed
of both adventurers of the purse and planters of
the country, " called The Treasurer and Company
of Adventurers and Planters of the City of Lon-
don for the first Colony in Virginia," was incor-
porated by the charter of June 2, 1609. And
this charter " gave, granted, and confirmed " to
the members of this body politic, their succes-
sors, and assigns forever, the whole boundary
between 34 and 40 north latitude, extending
from the Atlantic to the Pacific ; " they paying
OF THE CHARTERS 207
to the crown the fifth part only of all ore of
gold and silver that from time to time, and at
all times hereafter, shall be there gotten."
Under the charters of 1609 and 1612 the
body politic was authorized to add thereto new
members, both adventurers of the purse and
planters of the country, to an unlimited number ;
to secure and to settle this boundary ; and to
govern themselves and their dominion agreeably
to the laws of England, " forever hereafter."
The grant of land conveyed by these char-
ters embraced all or portions of the present New
Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Dis-
trict of Columbia, Virginia, West Virginia, North
Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama,
Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana,
Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas, Indian Ter-
ritory, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Colorado,
Arizona, Utah, Nevada, and California.
The corporation not only had the especial po-
litical privilege of self-government in the domin-
ion conveyed by these charters forever ; but the
planters, their children, and their posterity
the future citizens of that domain were also to
" enjoy all liberties, franchises and immunities of
free denizens and natural subjects, within " any
of the other dominions of the Crown of Great
Britain, for ever. Similar privileges were after-
wards granted in North Virginia under the Massa-
chusetts charter of 1629 and subsequent charters.
208 OF THE CHARTERS
It is true that men inspired with liberal ideas
were members of the company of 1606-1609,
but they had no power to carry out those ideas
under the charter of April, 1606. The definite
beginning of the reform movement was with
the petition for the charter incorporating a body
politic in 1609. As soon as that petition was
granted 'the worthy Patriots, Lords, Knights,
gentlemen, merchants, and others made subscrip-
tions to the amount of over $1,000,000 (present
value) toward carrying forward the undertaking.'
The charter granted in reply to this petition,
under which the movement was to be inaugu-
rated for taking the destiny of this country out
of the column of Old World monarchies, and for
instituting in America a popular course of gov-
ernment as a refuge from the absolute tyranny
of the royal course of government in England,
was signed on June 2, 1609 (N. s.), and was re-
ceived at Jamestown on the first anniversary,
June 2, 1610.
The reformation aimed at was of the utmost
boldness, encroaching as it did on the royal pre-
rogative " the projected end " or object of the
movement being the establishment of a more free
government in the New World as a refuge from
the absolute tyranny of the Old World. The
means for altering the king's form of govern-
ment and for the final accomplishment of the
projected end were embodied in the charters of
OF THE CHARTERS 209
1609 and 1612 by Sir Edwin Sandys. As he
expressed it himself, he " purposed to erect a
free popular State in Virginia/' and was the
" means of sending the charter into Virginia, in
which is a clause that the people there shall have
no government putt upon them but by their own
consents."
The embryo of our popular course of gov-
ernment is found in these charters, and in the
orders, commissions, instructions, constitutions,
assemblies, and other political proceedings insti-
tuted under and authorized by these charters,
which must be considered as the mother charters
of our political system ; and therefore whatever
relates to them has a bearing on the subsequent
politics and history of the whole country.
In carrying out the plan for setting up in
America a government founded on civil and re-
ligious liberty, " the Pilgrims " sailed for South
Virginia as members of our original body politic
in 1620. The plantation of North Virginia
under the charter of 1606 was to be under the
administration of the crown, and the company
incorporated under that charter could not have
granted the Pilgrims the political right to form
themselves into " a civill body politik " as they
did do. The authority for the celebrated " May-
flower compact " was derived from Pierce's patent
of February, 1620, granted by the Virginia
Court under the authority derived from the char-
210 OF THE CHARTERS
ters of 1609 and 1612. And " the Pilgrims "
were under no other authority until the arrival
of the Fortune in November, 1621, with the
official copy of the New England charter of
November, 1620, and with " the first Plymouth
patent" issued thereunder. And thus it was
that the first actual settlement of both North
and South Virginia was effected under the same
charters, and under the influence of the same
inspirations. 1
Many members of the council named in the
New England charter of November, 1620, were
members of our original body politic. The
charter was to " a body politic/' but it was a
limited and not a popular body, and was in ac-
cordance with the ideas of the Court party to
which Sir F. Gorges and a majority of the coun-
cil belonged, and in opposition to the wishes of
the Patriot party in the Virginia Corporation.
The issuing of this charter was in fact one of
the first steps taken in the movement for annul-
ling the popular charters of that corporation. 2
Probably all of the twenty " Pattentees"
under the Gorges charter, among whom New
England was divided on July 9, 1623 (N. s.),
were regarded as members of the Court party at
that time. James I. himself drew the lots for
1 See The First Republic in America, pp. 252, 262-266, 271-
273, 283, etc.
3 See The First Republic in America, pp. 361, 403, etc.
OF THE CHARTERS 211
several of them. The Pilgrims who had settled
in the country were not in accord with these
men, nor in sympathy with their ideas. Upheld
by their own religious purposes, they held on to
the colony as best they could ; but the vital po-
litical force was lacking, and in order to save the
drooping colony, Charles I. in March, 1629, con-
sented to grant to (North Virginia) Massachu-
setts the same political force which Sandys and
the Patriots had called upon in 1609 and 1612
to save South Virginia. This charter was drafted
by John White, an able advocate of our first po-
litical charter rights and a leading member of the
primary body politic of this nation. This charter
to "The Governor and Company [instead of
" The Treasurer and Company " *] of the Matta-
chusetts Baye in Newe England " was modeled
after the South Virginia charters of 1609 and
1612 and the proposed charter of 1621. It had
to pass Lord Keeper Coventry, who as attorney-
general had condemned the Virginia charter as
" an unlimited vast patent," and the powers con-
veyed to " the one body politique and corporate"
were not unlimited. But the political features
were almost the same as those of the original pop-
ular charters, and evidently as broad as Charles I.
would have granted, similar to those then being
promised, and more liberal than he was then
yielding to the South Virginia Colony.
1 See The First Republic in America, p. 396.
212 OF THE CHARTERS
The incorporators of the New England char-
ter of November, 1620, surrendered their charter
to the crown in 1635, and some of these men,
members of the Court party, at once began to
prosecute a suit in the Court of King's Bench
for annulling the popular charter of the Massa-
chusetts Corporation and body poh'tic as they had
formerly done against the original popular char-
ters. But the people of Massachusetts managed
to hold on to their popular charter for many
years ; like the people of Virginia, many of them,
never really yielding their charter rights to the
crown, finally secured them by force and arms.
This Massachusetts charter, modeled after the
original popular charters, came to supersede to a
large extent the royal charter of 1620, and be-
came virtually the direct basis for the subsequent
North Virginia charters. Thus the popular
charter rights of both North and South Virgin-
ians were derived from the same originals, were
very similar, and it is equally the patriotic duty
of both North and South Virginians to protect
the true history of those originals from the deter-
mination of James I. and the Court party to ob-
literate it.
When " The First Kepublic in America,"
written with the intention of aiding in the cor-
rection of this historic wrong, was published in
1898, the advocates of the crown evidences called
up the influence of present sectional politics to
OF THE CHARTERS 213
aid them in perpetuating the wrong committed
under the influence of past imperial politics.
On the one side Northern readers were told,
" We will have to look further north for the first
republic in America, " etc., and on the other,
Southern readers were assured that I was writing
under Northern training, influence, etc.
I do not wish to be understood as denying any
of the honors due the founders of any portion of
our country or of any period of our national ex-
istence, for this is not my intention. Everything
has a beginning. I am trying to give the cor-
rect idea of the charters of 1609 and 1612 ; to
show the political importance of these charters,
from which was first derived the authority to
inaugurate in America the popular political prin-
ciples on which our country was founded, and to
prove that so far from the question of our earli-
est history being one of a sectional character it is
one of mutual interest and importance to both
sections of our country. It is with this object
that I call attention to the facts that New
England was first settled under those charters
and afterwards perpetuated under a charter based
on them, and that Charles I. for similar reasons
yielded to the Massachusetts Corporation sim-
ilar political rights to those which James I. had
formerly yielded to the Virginia Corporation.
Charles I. did not commit the historic wrong of
having the charter of the Massachusetts body
214 OF THE CHARTERS
politic annulled, records confiscated, and history
published; but North Virginians are really as
much interested in correcting the wrong done by
James I. as South Virginians are, yet sectional
opinions seem to be the greatest obstacles now
in the way of the correction of the wrong. It is
essential to show that these influences cannot be
fairly called upon in this matter. The patriotic
citizens of North and of South Virginia were
certainly equally interested in securing the char-
ter rights of which James I. and his successors
wished to deprive our forefathers ; and by the
same token North and South Virginians are
equally interested in securing the historic hon-
ors of which James I. did deprive our patriotic
founders. Our founders, at the expense of their
blood and treasure, first settled this country upon
popular political charter rights. The crown, wish-
ing to deprive them of those rights, suppressed
the facts, compiled documents, and licensed his-
tories to justify the act. Our forefathers, at the
expense of their blood and treasure, finally se-
cured those rights to this country, and there is
no reason why any citizen of this republic should
follow evidences written to prove that those
rights ought not to have been granted in the first
place and ought to have been annulled by the
crown. It is not possible to make a sectional
matter of this historic question. The patriotic
citizens of North Virginia, and of every portion
OF THE CHARTERS 215
of the United States who appreciate the value of
popular political principles of government, are as
much obliged to protect the true history of the
primal institution of those principles in our coun-
try from the effects of the original historic wrong
as the citizens of South Virginia. The wrong
was committed under the auspices of the national
government of England., North Virginian his-
torians have probably done as much as those of
South Virginia towards perpetuating it. The
duty of correcting the wrong is a national one ;
it falls alike on every citizen of the republic to
venerate and protect everything relative to our
patriotic founders.
The eyes of all Europe 1 had been looking
upon the endeavors of the patriotic managers of
the Virginia enterprise to plant an English na-
tion in America for many years, and when the
Old World saw that the popular American idea of
our patriotic founders, " inviting people to with-
draw themselves from an oppressing into a more
free government establishing in Virginia," was
inspiring the English plantation with vitality, in
the face of great obstacles, where there had been
only failure before, companies or corporations
with similar aspirations were chartered in Eng-
land, Holland, 2 and other nations, with political
as well as commercial privileges; and the inspi-
1 See The Genesis of the United States, vol. i. p. 463.
2 See The First Republic in America, pp. 450, 492.
216 OF THE CORPORATION
ration spread until it covered the American Con-
tinent. It is still spreading. Our popular polit-
ical system has not only kept freedom alive in
the New World, but has reinvigorated it in the Old
World. ' The ideas flowing through the young
blood of American Liberty have been transfused
into some of the aged systems of European polity,
and by a more healthful and generous circulation
has restored them in a degree to youth, activity,
and strength.'
CHAPTER III
THE CHARACTER OF THE CORPORATION WHICH
CONDUCTED THE POLITICAL MOVEMENT AS
REPRESENTED IN THE CROWN EVIDENCES,
AND AS IT REALLY WAS
IN order to give a correct idea of the charters,
I have in the previous chapter given a general
idea of the companies incorporated by them ; but
I wish to give a more detailed account of the
Virginia companies. The importance of the en-
terprise from the first cannot be denied ; but the
Virginia Company, to which certain privileges
were granted in the charter of 1606, cannot be
considered as a free political agent in such a mat-
ter as the beginning of a nation, for it was entirely
under the government of James I. Whatever
was accomplished under this company would nat-
OF THE CORPORATION 217
urally be attributed by the Court party ("the
powers that be ") to the wisdom and genius of
the king through his representatives, who were
the managers of the government ; while all blame
would be laid on the company officials, who were
the managers of the business. And under the
political influence of these circumstances the his-
tory licensed by the crown is devoted to giving
an overshadowing prominence to what was done
under the king's administration ; while it omits
or belittles or criticises nearly everything done,
not only by the managers of the business during
1606-1609, but also by the political corporation
which really laid the foundation of the nation
during 1610-1624. James I. wished to rob the
political movement of all honors, and the licensed
history not only omitted the popular charters,
but an entirely incorrect idea is conveyed of the
body politic incorporated by them. It is neces-
sary to have a correct idea of the character of
this political corporation in order to understand
the case of our founders ; and among the nu-
merous confused and false impressions produced
of this political body by the crown evidences it
is especially important to correct the following
ideas frequently found in histories : That " The
Virginia Court," which met in London from
1612 to 1624, was " The Virginia Company ; "
that " the colony in Virginia was the property of
a Company in London ; " that " the colony in
218 OF THE CORPORATION
Virginia was ruled by a Company in London ; "
and that this " Company in London " was " an
ordinary joint-stock company/' " a strictly com-
mercial company," "a company for trade," "a
company of merchants," " the proprietor of Vir-
ginia in the same sense that Lord Baltimore was
the proprietor of Maryland," etc.
It is true that the enterprise was carried on at
the expense of a company of adventurers while
it was under the king's government (1606-1609),
which hoped to be reimbursed by finding gold,
a ready way to the South Sea, or other present
profit. But after 1609 the movement was car-
ried on by a " corporation and body politic,"
composed of both adventurers of the purse and
planters of the country, having other aspirations
and inspirations besides those of trade and per-
sonal profit, incorporated at a time when it was
really known that the Indians of Virginia had
" little to trade for but dried mulberryes ; " at
a time when the dangerous character of the cli-
mate and of the Indians of Virginia had been
found out, as well as the numerous difficulties,
at home and abroad, by land and by sea, which
would have to be met and overcome at the ex-
pense of the corporation. It is true that the
expense of conducting the movement was borne
entirely under the joint-stock system for the first
seven years (1609-1616) and partly so after-
wards. But the object of this was not ordinary
OF THE CORPORATION 219
trade ; the plan was adopted in order to enable
the body politic to secure their country at the
expense of the corporation without aid from the
crown. The real stock was not stock in trade,
but stock in a new dominion in which they could
govern themselves. It is true that after a good
many years the corporation was so fortunate as
to find in tobacco a paying Virginia commodity ;
but, as Gondomar well said, there were farther
designs than the making of a tobacco plantation.
It is true that Sir Thomas Smith was inter-
ested in, and was a leading advocate in Parlia-
ment of, the trading companies ; was a protec-
tionist, and came to be regarded as a monopolist
by some members of the Virginia courts ; but it
is equally true that Sir Edwin Sandys, the leader
in the political features of the movement, was
bitterly opposed to these trusts, and was an ear-
nest advocate of free trade. Both protectionists
and free-traders had each been opposed by the
Court party in some respects, and each of these
men had been elected to preside over the supreme
court of our original body politic, not because of
their opinions regarding trade, but because they
were regarded politically as Patriots ; and when
Smith's patriotism came to be questioned he
found it agreeable to withdraw.
It seems well to explain here that there were
many trust companies at that time, and the Vir-
ginia Corporation has sometimes been confused
220 OF THE CORPORATION
with them and described as " a syndicate or
trust." It is true that some members of the
trusts were also members of this company ; but
it was opposite to a trust, it was really an unlim-
ited popular body in which the leaders of its
political features were the leading opponents of
these trusts. When the list of monopolies (which
were being protested against by the Patriot
party) was read in Parliament, William Hake-
well, of this Virginia Corporation, called out to
know if " bread were among them." Early in
1610 Hakewell maintained " The Liberty of the
subject," in an able argument before Parliament,
which, owing to the censorship of the press, was
not published until after 1641.
The corporate or corporation system admin-
istered on a popular plan was the seed of the
American idea of government. The charters of
1609 and 1612 were granted to an incorporation,
composing a political body of planters of the
country and adventurers of the purse, organ-
ized for the purpose of acquiring the lands of
South Virginia at their own expense, and of in-
stituting therein a government " on the con-
sent of the people, by the people, for the people "
in accord with the constitutions of England,
but as interpreted in the most beneficial manner
for the body politic, which was destined to become
the people the citizens of that territory.
As soon as the members of this body began
OF THE CORPORATION
221
the institution of their popular political plans in
that territory, "the popularnes of the govern-
ment of the corporation became displeasing to
his Majesty ; " he determined to annul the po-
litical charters in order to make the corporation
" a company for trade, but not for government
of the country/' and to take care of the govern-
ment himself.
It is true that some members of the corpora-
tion, who were unwilling to contend with James I.
about the government, were willing to give up
their political and property charter rights, and
to allow the political corporation to be superseded
by a trading company according to the desire of
the crown, and that it was sometimes called by
contemporaries, " A Company of English mer-
chants trading to Virginia ; " but as Strype well
says, " the trading company was never incorpo-
rated." The political principles, the right of the
people "for government of the Country/' were
never entirely superseded by the crown ; and re-
gardless of the desires of the Court party as ex-
pressed in the history licensed by the crown, and
in other evidences of the crown, the fact remains
that the organization which founded the first
English colony in our country was a company
in the sense of " a corporation and body poli-
tic " (composed of adventurers of the purse,
planters of the country, and their successors for-
ever, not restricted in numbers and only partially
222 OF THE CORPORATION
so as to nationality *). And this popular politi-
cal body was the proprietor of South Virginia in
very nearly the same sense that a similar body
afterwards became the proprietor of North Vir-
ginia, and that our national corporation and body
politic is now the proprietor of this country.
At the Virginia Court in London held on
June 19, 1619, the auditors of the corporation,
who had been " digesting of the old accounts "
down to the end of the first joint stock (Decem-
ber 10, 1616), were required to extend their work
to May 8, 1619. The task was found to be very
difficult, and the Virginia Court of December 25,
1619, in order to expedite the auditing, deter-
mined to publish the names of every adventurer,
with their several sums adventured, and appointed
Sir Edwin Sandys and Dr. Thomas Winstone to
draft the said publication. The following audi-
tors were, from first to last, employed in compil-
ing and verifying this list : Sir Edwin Sandys,
Sir John Danvers, Mr. John Wroth, Mr. John
Ferrar, Mr. Thomas Keightley, Mr. Henry
Briggs, Mr. William Cranmer, Mr. William Es-
sington, Mr. Richard Wiseman, Mr. George
Chambers, Mr. Morris Abbott, Mr. Humphrey
Handford, and Mr. Anthony Abdy. Both the
Sandys and Smythe parties in the company were
represented. A license was granted on July 21,
1620, and the list was published, "that Pos-
1 See The Charter of 1612, Arts. I., X., XL, etc.
OF THE CORPORATION 223
teritie may truely know by whose charges this
Plantation hath beene happily founded, main-
tained, and continued." In case any one had not
received his due credit, " if within one twelve
moneth after the date hereof he give notice and
make proof thereof to the Companies Auditors,
he shall be set right, 1 and the Table reformed :
there being not anything more dear unto us
than to do right unto them with all justifiable
curtesie, who have beene beginners and contin-
uers of this glorious work," etc.
The value of this list with the sums paid by
each cannot be overestimated, for it really does
enable " posteritie to know truely " whose " trea-
sure" had founded, maintained, and continued
the plantation up to December 10, 1616, and in
part to May, 1619. The sums did not include
the amounts paid by private planters after 1616,
nor the amounts received from the lotteries since
1612, for which they thanked, or pretended to
thank, James I., although " he never contributed
one farthing himself in them." The complete
list contains nearly nine hundred adventurers
who had adventured about $1,000,000, at present
values.
In his books Captain John Smith virtually
claims to having founded, maintained, and con-
tinued the plantation pretty much by himself,
1 I have made use of this list as corrected in the biographies
given in The Genesis of the United States, pp. 810-1067.
224 OF THE CORPORATION
for several years, at an expense of more than
five hundred pounds of his own estate, etc. In
this list he is credited with having paid only
nine pounds. Before the year of grace allowed
claimants had expired, Captain Smith appeared
before the Virginia Court (May 12, 1621) and
put in a claim, not on the ground that Sir
Thomas Smith had failed to give him credit
for over four hundred and ninety-one pounds,
but for services which, " as he allegeth," he had
performed in Virginia. The opponents of Sir
Thomas Smith, who were then controlling the
business and searching for evidences against Sir
Thomas in these very premises, would have been
very willing to allow this claim (as they did al-
low the claims of others) if at all just ; but the
petition was referred to the committees appointed
for the rewarding of men upon merits, and they
allowed Captain Smith nothing.
This list is the only one of the numerous pub-
lications of the managers which contains the
name of Captain John Smith ; and the only re-
ference to him that I have found in the records
of the Virginia courts in London is in connec-
tion with the aforesaid petition of May, 1621.
The only reference to him that I have found in
the records of the courts held in Virginia, so far
as they have been preserved, is in the deposition
of Robert Poole and Edward Grindon on No-
vember 11, 1624, to the effect that he was the
OF THE CORPORATION 225
first Englishman to teach the Indians the use
of firearms. In his books he charges Yeardley
and other officers of the corporation with hav-
ing done this. In brief, save for the evidences
of the crown or crown evidences, and especi-
ally those contributed by himself, the historian
licensed under the crown would be almost an
unknown quantity in our earliest history.
The alphabetical list of adventurers published
by the managers in 1620 was reprinted in
Smith's history in 1624, but the reprint was not
complete : it conveys no idea of the importance
of the original, the amounts paid in by each per-
son being omitted. And as a further illustration
of the historian's mode of compiling, it will be
noted that the name of his old patron, "Ed-
ward Semer Earle of Hartford," who was not an
adventurer, had contributed nothing to the en-
terprise, was inserted.
It must be remembered that this published
list only pretends to give the adventurers of the
parse. It is not a complete list of the body
politic at that time. The planters who went
over in person, paying their own way, and those
sent over at the expense of the corporation fund
(after they had served out their time in repay-
ment of the advance), became freemen, citizens,
voters, and members of the political body. A
complete record of the planters and of those
sent over was kept ; but as it was among the
226 OF THE CORPORATION
records confiscated by the crown, and as no com-
plete copy has been found, many of their names
have been unfortunately lost.
As the movement in the beginning was car-
ried on largely at the expense of the adventurers
of the purse, their position may be considered
as at first of the greatest importance, especially
as those who paid in as much as 12.10 say
$300 now were also landowners in the col-
ony. But as the movement progressed under the
proposed system, as the country became more
securely settled, and after a proper form of gov-
ernment was instituted therein, the planters in-
creasing more and more would naturally become
the majority and control the country ; but there
was nothing to prevent the adventurers, or their
heirs, from coming over and settling on their
lands in the country themselves. Many of them
did so, and this was probably the ultimate object
of most of them, as indicated in Coventry's
speech in the Quo Warranto case in June, 1624.
The motive of the patriotic members (both
adventurers and planters) of the corporation was
really the same. In order to secure their polit-
ical and property charter rights, the " adven-
turer " contributed his " treasure," and the
" planter " devoted his life " blood." Some of
the adventurers of the purse through discontent,
through opposition to the advance political pur-
poses of the Patriots when they became known,
OF THE CORPORATION 227
or other cause, refused to pay their dues ; and
some of the planters deserted the colony, and
thus ceased to be members of the body politic.
Of the adventurers who remained members,
some of them, or their heirs, came over, settled
on their lands, and became planters; some sold
their lands to others who became planters ; and
others had their estates in Virginia managed for
them by planters. All of those who complied
with the requirements of the corporation, both
adventurers and planters, they and their poster-
ity and successors, were equally members of the
political body (citizens of Virginia), and heirs to
the political privileges and charter rights forever.
The colony under the proposed system, al-
though attached to the crown of Great Britain,
naturally drifted farther and farther away from
the crown. The Court party controlled the evi-
dences, and the acts of the Patriot party were
kept almost out of sight in our annals ; but when
the proper time came for our independence,
although Tories were still governing in the colo-
nies, the Patriots were found to be sufficiently
strong to secure it.
Jefferson was correct when he said that " the
ball of the Revolution received its first impulse,
not from the actors in that event, but from
the first colonists." The Virginia companies of
1606 were superseded by corporations and bod-
ies politic which secured and founded the first
228 OF THE FORMS OF GOVERNMENT
English colonies in the present United States,
under their own management, at the expense of
their own blood and treasure, on their popular
political principles of government, unassisted by
the crown, and regardless of the opposition of
the Court party. The records of the primary
body politic were confiscated by the crown, false
ideas of that body were conveyed in the history
licensed under the crown and perpetuated both
under the crown and under the Republic ; but
the fact remains that the foundation of this na-
tion was laid upon the immortal principles which
are still giving it vitality, and that the heart of
the political body which planted the germ of the
popular course of government in our country
has never ceased to beat.
CHAPTER IV
THE FORMS OF GOVERNMENT AT ISSUE THE
FORM DESIGNED FOR THE AMERICAN PLANTA-
TIONS BY JAMES I., WHICH WAS ADVOCATED
BY THE COURT PARTY, VS. THE FORM DE-
SIGNED FOR THEIR SOUTH VIRGINIAN TERRI-
TORY BY THE CORPORATION AND BODY POLI-
TIC, WHICH WAS ADVOCATED BY THE PATRIOT
PARTY
THE Court party and the historian licensed by
the crown contended that the colony of Virginia
OF THE FORMS OF GOVERNMENT 229
was founded under a form of government de-
signed by James I., and that the great reform
movement for inaugurating the popular course
of government in this country resulted in failure.
But there is now sufficient evidence to show that
the ideas conveyed by the crown evidences as
to the opposing forms of government and as to
their effect on the plantations are not correct.
As a matter of fact it was the king's form of
government, of which the historian was a repre-
sentative, that failed. And it was the popular
course of government, to which the historian was
opposed, that lighted the lamp of liberty and
kindled the fires of political independence in this
country which have never failed.
Kev. Mr. Stith 1 published for the first time
an outline of the king's form under which the
South Virginia plantation was governed from
1607 to 1610. This outline, compiled from the
notes of Sir John Randolph, is as follows : " I
shall only transiently remark," says Stith, " that
notwithstanding the frequent Repetition of the
Laws of England and the Equity thereof, his
Majesty seems, in some things, to have deviated
grossly from them. He has certainly made suf-
ficient Provision for his own despotic Authority ;
and has attributed [conferred] an extravagant
and illegal Power to the Presidents and Councils.
For he has placed the whole Legislative Power
i See his History of Virginia (1747), p. 41.
230 OF THE FORMS OF GOVERNMENT
solely in them, without any Representative of the
People, contrary to a noted Maxim of the Eng-
lish Constitution ; That all Freemen are to be
governed by Laws, made with their own consent,
either in Person, or by their Representatives.
He has also appointed Juries only in Cases of
Life and Death ; and has left all other Points,
relating to the Liberty and private Property of
the subject, wholly to the Pleasure and Deter-
mination of the Presidents and Councils," etc.
Mr. Stith failed to note the important fact that
the colony was not only under the king's form
of government, but also under the king's offi-
cials. " The Presidents and Councils " were
" all nominated by his Majesty," appointed under
and responsible to the crown. They were the
king's representatives, not the company's, in
Virginia. This company had not the right of
self-government.
Although the body politic of 1609 had ob-
tained the privilege of " governing themselves,"
there was need for discretion in proceeding with
their plans. The charters were so designed and
the authority derived from them so executed, as
not to create suspicion by causing the king's ab-
solute authority over the enterprise to pass from
him immediately but gradually, until in due time
the political body would be enabled to establish
a popular course of government in Virginia in
which the people, the planters, should have an
OF THE FORMS OF GOVERNMENT 231
independent political power. In England the
members of the first king's council for the cor-
poration were appointed by James I. in the char-
ter of 1609, but subsequent members were to be
" freely " elected by the Corporation ; and thus in
a few years the supreme authority of the move-
ment really passed into the Quarter Court of the
Virginia Corporation, which came to be regarded
as " a Seminary of Sedition " by the crown.
In Virginia the government was for sufficient
reason at first placed by the supreme council in
England (which had first been appointed by
James I.) in charge of an absolute governor,
who appointed his own council in the colony ;
but this also changed as the movement advanced,
until the governor and his council in Virginia
were "freely elected" by the majority of the
votes cast by the adventurers and planters (the
landowners in Virginia) in the General Quar-
terly Courts then held in London. Thus they
were the officials not of the crown, but of the
Virginian Corporation, being elected by and re-
sponsible to that body; and a House of Bur-
gesses was freely elected by the votes of all the
men on the different " Burgs " in Virginia,
whether they owned land or not, this body being
the chosen representative of the planters the
people of Virginia.
This issue was probably the chief cause of the
commission of the original wrong by James I.,
232 OF THE FORMS OF GOVERNMENT
and therefore it is very important to understand
clearly this portion of the controversy. I wish
to make the case as clear as I can.
Under the charter of 1606 the government
of the companies and plantations was under offi-
cials appointed under the crown, amenable to
the crown, and under a form of government
designed by James I.
In order to alter this form of government
and for other reasons already given, the charter
of 1609 was obtained, under which the officials
were first appointed by James I., but were after-
wards elected by the majority of the company.
See Articles IX., XI., XIII., XIV., and XXIII.
In order to still further " better the govern-
ment of the company and the colony," etc., the
charter of 1612 was obtained, under which the
Great and General Quarter Courts (composed of
members both of the council and of the general-
ity) of the corporation had a general supervision
over the government of the colony. 1 The acts
of the Assembly in Virginia were at first subject
to review by these supreme courts, for in the
beginning all things were in a formative state ;
but " after the colony was well framed and set-
tled, no order of the Quarter Court was to be
binding on the colony until it was ratified by
the General Assembly in Virginia," and no
taxes, revenues, etc., were to be imposed on the
i Article VIII.
OF THE FORMS OF GOVERNMENT 233
colonists " other ways than by the authority of
the said Assembly." London and Virginia were
in the same empire. The Virginia Corporation
had interests in London as well as in Virginia,
and these supreme courts were held in London ;
but, as was afterwards the case in the Massachu-
setts charter, there was nothing in the Virginia
charter of 1612 to prevent the removal of these
courts to Virginia whenever it became to the
interest of the colony to do so. And the first
thing that James I. did after the charters were
annulled was to suppress these courts.
James I. was really bitterly opposed to the
popular course of government which the Vir-
ginia Corporation was inaugurating in this coun-
try, and had evidently granted the political
privileges to that corporation (to pull the chest-
nut out of the fire) in order to have the colonies
secured and founded without any expense to the
crown ; for as soon as the country was thus se-
cured, he determined to annul the popular char-
ters, to make the body politic "a company for
trade, but not for government of the country "
which was the business of kings and not of
people and to resume the government of the
country himself.
Although the Virginia courts which had met
in England were suppressed by the crown, and in
lieu thereof the colonial affairs were managed
in England by royal commissioners, plantation
234 OF THE FORMS OF GOVERNMENT
boards, etc., from 1624 to 1776 under Provi-
dence the body politic (generally called in his-
tory " The Virginia Company of London ") was
never really destroyed ; the members thereof in
the colony the citizens of Virginia were al-
lowed by the crown to retain some of their polit-
ical charter rights, freedoms, and privileges, and
they never ceased to claim the rest. They had
tasted the sweets of self-government, a flavor
once tasted never to be forgotten. The peti-
tions presented to the crown from time to time,
from 1624 to 1774, by the Patriot party of Vir-
ginia, were for the restitution of their popular
charters ; for the colonial affairs to be again man-
aged by courts of the corporation, instead of by
royal commissions, etc. ; or for some special polit-
ical or property charter right of which they had
been deprived by the crown. Of course, there
was no need to petition for the restitution of " a
Proprietary Company," or for any other kind of
company which had never existed in the pre-
mises ; nor for any charter right which had not
been taken away ; but the Royalist party, to
offset the petitions of the Patriots sometimes sent
in counter petitions, in which they present the
issues from the political point of view of the
Court party, which, it can now be proven, was
always misleading and unjust to the Patriot party.
No government was ever instituted in which
the political principles of a government of the
OF THE FORMS OF GOVERNMENT 235
people, for the people, by the people were car-
ried farther than in the representative or popu-
lar course of government which was inaugurated
in this country by the founders of South Vir-
ginia on the political rights derived by them
from the charters of 1609 and 1612. Every
" burg " or corporation was represented by one
of its people in the House of Burgesses from
1619 to 1634, when the colony was first divided
into shires or counties. The right of suffrage
exercised by all freemen was not restricted until
the Assembly of March, 1655, limited suffrage
to " all housekeepers, freeholders, leaseholders,
or tenants ; " but the next Assembly of March,
1656, " thinking it somewhat hard and unagree-
able to reason that any persons shall pay taxes
and have no votes in election," restored univer-
sal suffrage, with the proviso that the votes
were to be given by ballot (the original 1619-
1646 plan) instead of viva voce as had been
the law from 1647 to 1655. The first effectual
restriction of suffrage was under Charles II.
from 1670 to 1676, to freeholders and house-
keepers. The restrictive clause was revoked by
Bacon's Assembly in June, 1676, and universal
suffrage prevailed during 1676-1684; suffrage
again restricted to freeholders and housekeepers
from 1684 to 1699 ; and in 1699 to "none but
freeholders;" but this restriction was almost
only in name, as the owner of so little as half an
236 OF THE MANAGERS
acre was regarded as a freeholder until 1736,
when definite restriction began; but the spirit
of liberty in the hearts of the people was never
restricted. The summer session of the House of
Burgesses in 1748 promised to be almost as in-
corrigible as Bacon's Assembly in 1676, but the
royal governor prorogued the body and after-
wards dissolved it and ordered a new election.
The plan having met with success, the dissolv-
ing of the House of Burgesses became more and
more frequent with the royal governors until it
aided in bringing on the Revolution which dis-
solved our connection with the royal government.
In brief, sufficient evidence for the Patriot
party has been providentially preserved to prove
that "the plantations in America" do not re-
main as a lasting monument to the imperial
form of government designed for them by
James I., but that they do remain as a lasting
monument to the popular course of government
inaugurated in them by our Patriot founders.
CHAPTER V
THE CHARACTER OF " THE MANAGERS OF THE
BUSINESS " IN ENGLAND AND IN VIRGINIA, AND
OTHER ISSUES OF A POLITICAL NATURE
THE Virginia Company of 16061609 con-
ducted the colonial business affairs at its own
OF THE MANAGERS 237
expense; but the political management was
under James I. And there was a natural clash
between the managers of the business for the
company, and the royal officials who managed
the government for the crown. Hence imperial
politics had as bad an effect on the royal ac-
counts of the managers of the business before the
enterprise became a reform movement as after.
Much of the history licensed under the crown is
really an adverse criticism of the managers of
the business of those who paid the expenses,
and of those who went to Virginia from 1606
to 1624 ; an effort to show their incapacity, lack
of judgment, and " misgovernment," as opposed
to the great capacity and genius of the histo-
rian who had been the loyal representative of
James I. There is little if any evidence to prove
the capacity of this historian that is certainly
fair and free from his own dictation ; but there
is ample evidence to show that the leading man-
agers were the most progressive men in one of
the most remarkable transition periods in Eng-
lish history, and that they were showing good
judgment by adopting the principles of liberty
which have sustained this nation from its birth,
which the Court party and the historian consid-
ered as "misgovernment."
Sir Thomas Smith and other leading managers
of the corporation for the period of 1609-1618
afterwards affiliated with the Court party, and
238 OF THE MANAGERS
not only made no effort to preserve copies of the
records of their own administration, but actually
aided the crown in suppressing them. And
while the managers of 1619-1624 made earnest
efforts to preserve their own evidence, they re-
garded the old managers as then being their
adversaries, and were, also, actually disposed to
aid the Court party by finding fault with the
management during that period not only by
Sir Thomas Smith in England, but also by Dale,
Gates, and others in Virginia. And this evi-
dence has been taken as corroborative of the
royal evidences, but the motive for this evidence
is self-evident. And even if there were no other
counter evidence, the speech of Sir Edward
Sandys himself on November 27, 1619, in praise
of the services of Gates and Dale, would be
sufficient.
It may also be noted that when John Smith,
of Nibley, in April, 1621, proposed to the Vir-
ginia Court 'to have a fair and perspicuous
history compiled of Virginia/ one of his especial
objects was to ' transmit to all posterity the
memory and fame of Sir Thomas Dale, the Lord
De la Warr, and Sir Thomas Gates/ three men
who had been chief managers of the business in
Virginia for nearly the whole of the important
crucial period from May, 1610, to April, 1616.
As a result of these party controversies and po-
litical conditions, the authentic evidences for the
OF THE MANAGERS 239
period of 1609-1618 are especially incomplete,
and therefore it is not possible to correct in every
detail the historic wrong done the managers
during this period; but we now know that it
was in many respects the most important period
in our history. It was in this period that our
first political charter rights were obtained ; that
the most serious difficulties in Virginia and with
Spain were to a large degree overcome ; that the
actual hold on the country was secured, popular
rights inaugurated, and political life began.
The crown evidences are unjust to the man-
agers of the business for the whole period from
1606 to 1624; this wrong has been partially
corrected, however, in our histories by Stith and
others for 1619-1624 ; but beginning with the
historian licensed by the crown and following
him as an authority and as a model, some of our
historians have almost vied with each other in an
ungenerous, unjust, and incorrect treatment of
the managers of this movement during 1606
1618, and especially during the important period,
1609-1618. The intention of the licensed histo-
rian in doing this was to produce the impression
that the alteration from the king's management to
that of the corporation was for the worse. And
in sustaining this historian, subsequent historians
have been equally unjust to the managers ; they
have blamed them for placing the colony under
martial law ; for not settling emigrants at once
240 OF THE MANAGERS
on lands of their own, etc., regardless of the
fact that it would evidently have been folly to
attempt a settled government and to settle defi-
nite bounds of lands before the country itself
was practically secured from the Spaniards or
the Indians. The conditions were such that for
a good many years martial law was necessary.
In fact a settled government and land grants
were instituted as soon as it was practicable and
advisable.
The accounts of the planters who went, and of
the emigrants who were sent to Virginia, given
in the crown evidences, are very unfavorable to
them ; but it is evident that they were a repre-
sentative body composed of all sorts of people,
from the lowest to the highest, and that the
worst were those sent over by order of the
crown.
The political point of view has as much to do
with the biography of the men engaged in the
colonial movement as with the history of the
movement. The same man might be considered
a rebel by one party and a Patriot by the other ;
an impostor by one party and a hero by the
other ; a convict under the crown might be a
martyr to liberty. Let me give a single ex-
ample.
The evidences written from the political point
of view of the Court party are especially severe
on Captain John Radcliffe, but it is now known
OF THE MANAGERS 241
that he was chosen to command the Discovery
in the first fleet sent to the colony by the com-
pany under the crown, and brought that cockle-
shell safely across the Atlantic with planters and
supplies to Virginia in 1606-1607 ; that he was
appointed under James I. to his council in Vir-
ginia ; that as president of that council he gov-
erned the colony from September, 1607, to Sep-
tember, 1608, under the form of government
designed for the plantations by James I., saw
its defects, was man enough to protest against
them, and was instrumental in obtaining the new
charter under which "the popular course" of
government was inaugurated ; that he was
selected to command the vice-admiral ship in the
first fleet sent under the body politic in 1609,
and brought that ship over the Atlantic through
the great tempest to Virginia with planters and
supplies ; that Captain George Percy gave him
credit for the part taken by him in suppressing
the effort of Captain John Smith to set up " A
Soveraigne Rule " in Virginia, and that by the
treachery of Powhatan his life was taken while
he was actively engaged in carrying forward the
colonial enterprise in Virginia. He gave his
own blood and about $1000 (present value) of
his own treasure toward securing this country
for us, and is one of the martyrs of our genesis.
From the patriotic view point he deserves much
more consideration from the historians of this
242 OF THE MANAGERS
Republic than he would have done if he had
brought nothing to Virginia, had landed here
himself restrained as a prisoner, had been sent
back to England to answer for some misdemean-
ors, had not returned to Virginia, had not given
his life to the great cause, but had devoted him-
self to writing " histories " lauding himself, criti-
cising our patriotic founders, conforming with
the purposes of the crown, and opposing the
principles on which our country was founded.
And if the original history of the enterprise had
been written from the view point of the Patriot
party, he would have been lauded therein as one
of the founders of Virginia as a Virginian
hero instead of being abused, as has been done
in our histories based on the evidences of the
Court party.
Nothing is of greater historic importance than
a proper political classification and analysis of
our colonial evidences. In order to secure colo-
nies without using the royal revenues, the kings
of England granted charters to corporations and
bodies politic conveying to them not only com-
mercial but political privileges. In order to
secure these charter rights, these bodies settled
their grants at the expense of their own blood and
treasure, unaided by the crown. After the colo-
nies were thus secured, the crown annulled their
charters and attempted to suppress their history.
The dominions settled by them on popular rights
OF THE MANAGERS
243
were domineered over by, and the histories of
their acts were published under the auspices of,
royal officials. But the citizens of the country
knew the great value to them of the political
principles which the Court party (the crown) was
trying to take from them, and which they had
settled in this country to secure. Therefore
these popular charter rights remained a constant
ground of contention from 1610 to 1776, and
there were always two parties in the colony con-
tending over these rights a popular element
and a Royalist or Tory element. In Virginia
the evidences were largely under the control of
the crown officials, the leaders of the Royal party,
and only traces of evidences favorable to the
Patriot party have escaped destruction in the
public record offices in England and in Virginia.
This is especially true of the foundation period,
1606-1625, and of such periods as 1630-1635,
1640-1660, 1674-1677, etc. ; but probably of
no period while Virginia was under the crown
has there been preserved sufficient authentic and
reliable evidence upon which to base complete
and absolutely accurate historical narrative of
events. And probably the greater part of her
colonial history has been based on the ex parte
evidences for the crown. After giving due con-
sideration to the evidences that remain and to
the circumstances which inspired them and con-
trolled them, I feel sure that the popular element
244 OF THE MANAGERS
was always very strong in Virginia. And evi-
dences preserved by the crown to the contrary
notwithstanding, the crown was always well
aware of this fact, as the constant effort of royal
officials to obliterate evidences and of royal
writers to produce the contrary impression amply
proves. I feel sure that the emigrants to Vir-
ginia came over as much for the sake of more
freedom of thought and action as for anything
else ; and that this was not only true in business
and politics, but also in religion. The broad-
minded member of the Church of England
wished to exercise a freedom of thought and of
action, as much so as the Non-conformists of Eng-
land, the Huguenots of France, the Presbyte-
rians of the north of Ireland, and the Episco-
palians of Scotland. Many from each of these
classes certainly came to Virginia. Whether
they came to escape the rule of an absolute mon-
archy when that power was ruling Great Britain,
or to escape the Roundheads of 1646-1659, or
for whatever reason they came, a large majority
of all became advocates of the popular political
charter rights upon which the colony was founded,
rather than of the royal rule which they had
left behind them in the Old World. And when
the time that tried men's souls came, Patriots
were not found wanting in Virginia.
OF THE MOTIVE VIS VIT.E 245
CHAPTEK VI
VIS VIT^E THE MOTIVE OF THE MOVEMENT
AS IT WAS REPRESENTED IN THE EVIDENCES
FROM THE VIEW POINT OF THE COURT AND
PATRIOT PARTIES
OF all things James I. was evidently most
determined to efface every trace of the vital
force which really sustained this movement from
the first, through almost insurmountable diffi-
culties.
The idea conveyed by the crown history is that
the managers of the business in sending out the
colony were inspired by an inordinate desire for
gain ; but as usual with the crown evidences this
was as opposite to the truth as the Court party
was opposed to the purposes of the Patriots. In
accordance with the universal harmony of things,
everything in nature must be produced by a spe-
cial germ, a prime principle sustaining vital-
ity, and it was the inspiring desire to escape
tyranny and to find freedom, which gave the
touch of life to the English- American colonies,
and which continues to sustain the vitality of
this nation.
Prior to 1609 the idea had been, as expressed
by Lane to Raleigh, that " the discovery of a
gold mine by the goodness of God, or a passage
246 OF THE MOTIVE VIS VIT.ZE
to the South Sea, or some way to it, and nothing
else, can bring America in request to be in-
habited by our Nation." After repeated trials
no route to the South Sea was found, and the
gold found by the Spaniards in South America
was not found by the English in North America ;
but it so happened that " the free air " of Vir-
ginia, acting as an inspiration on the minds of
some of the first planters, was instrumental in
producing in the enlarged minds of the men of
genius who were then adopting the principles of
liberty the determination to put those political
principles in practice in America, and it was this
" projected end," more than anything else, which
brought this country in request to be inhabited
by our nation.
It was not for the sake of gain, but for the
sake of the special privileges, immunities, and lib-
eral charter rights that our primary body politic
undertook to settle this country at the expense
of their own blood and treasure. Human beings
cannot meet and overcome constant, long contin-
ued expense and disaster without any recompense
unless they are sustained by a " Divine Agency,
working through Special Providence." The love
of liberty is a divine principle placed in every
human heart by God, and it was the inspired
spirit of liberty which enabled the patriotic man-
agers of the movement to overcome the results
of past misgovernment and disappointment and
OF THE MOTIVE VIS
247
to continue their enterprise in the face of the
bitter opposition of Spain and the increasing
unfriendliness of the Court party; meeting as
well as human beings could do the dangers and
difficulties, known and unknown, of the new
lands and seas, "lightning and tempest, plague.,
pestilence, and famine^ battle and murder and
sudden death ; " going to great expense without
any reward, with a constant resolution, until, " by
the mercy of God," they succeeded in laying the
foundation for a new nation in the new world
on popular political principles for the betterment
of their posterity and for the advancement of
mankind.
As I have shown in my previous books, the
chief avowed objects of the Virginia Corporation
prior to 1618 had been their intention of spread-
ing the commonwealth, the commerce, and the
Church of England ; but it is now certain that
the political purpose, although not avowed, had
really been the inspiration, the soul, of the move-
ment since 1609 ; and that the patriotic members
of the body politic both planters and adven-
turers had constantly looked forward to the
institution of the proposed popular political prin-
ciples.
And throughout the whole movement the hand
of a divine agency can be seen working through
special providences. It was providential that
the plantations of 1607, in North and in South
248 OF THE MOTIVE VIS
Virginia, failed under the political control of
James I. It was providential that the special
charters to the original of the body politic of this
nation were granted. It was providential that
the plan of government designed for the planta-
tions in North and South Virginia by James I.
was altered. It was providential that James I.
died when he did, and that Charles I. was under
peculiar personal obligations to some of the Pa-
triots in the Virginia corporation. It was pro-
vidential that the issue between the Crown and
the Commons was a protection to the popular
purposes of the corporation from 1609 to 1659,
thus enabling the growing tree of liberty to be-
come sufficiently deep-rooted in America to with-
stand successfully the opposition of the crown
as it increased after 1660. In brief, it was pro-
vidential that the popular course of government
was instituted in both North and South Virginia,
and that the actual foundation of this country
was laid under the political management of men
inspired with liberal ideas of government ; for
the prosecution of the plantations to the political
purposes which were especially condemned by
James I., the Court party, and the historians li-
censed under the crown was really the inspiration,
vis vitce, the soul of the movement, under
which our country was secured for us, and made
the seat of liberty, enlightenment, and good
government in the New World. To translate
CONCLUSION 249
the figurate language of the first great seal of
the State of Virginia, it was ' In this way that
God made us Free ! Thus Virtue overcame
Tyranny ! '
CHAPTER VII
CONCLUSION A SUMMARY OF THE CASE OB
CONTROVERSY
THE question as to whether Pocahontas rescued
Captain John Smith from the clubs of the sav-
ages of King Powhatan is not of so great his-
toric importance, and I have never so considered
it. The important question has been whether
the true history of our beginning as a nation
could be rescued from the acts of the agents
of King James I. Notwithstanding all difficul-
ties, the obstacles formerly in the way have been
sufficiently removed to enable us to have at least
a fair idea of the importance of the case.
The Patriot party managed the business and
laid the foundation upon which this great nation
has been erected. The Court party controlled
the evidences and laid the foundation upon
which the history of this movement has been
written. The value of the services of those two
great parties in their respective fields must be
judged by the results which have followed the
acceptation of their respective acts; for "by
250
CONCLUSION
their fruits ye shall know them," and ' the tree
which has not brought forth good fruit shall be
hewn down and cast into the fire.'
The Patriot party, in carrying forward their
purpose to plant in America " a more free " or
"popular course of government," as a refuge
from the absolute power and tyranny then aimed
at by king and court, had to contend against the
constant opposition of the Court party, and un-
fortunately for the truth of history they had no
public control over the evidences. The press was
not free to them ; they could only preserve copies
of their own records by stealth ; they not only
did not publish the history of their great move-
ment, but evidently would not have been per-
mitted to do so ; for all of their records upon which
an authentic history could have been based were
taken from them by the opponent Court party,
with the manifest purpose of making it impossi-
ble for the truth regarding their popular political
enterprise ever to be known.
The first " histories " of this enterprise were
published under the auspices of the Court party,
composed of those who were then upholding
" the kingly power," and opposing the political
principles which were inspiring the movement.
This party was armed with royal authority over
persons and papers; it possessed an absolute
control over all evidences, and used this control
to its own partisan purposes. It had the power
CONCLUSION
251
" to take and to keep " all of the records of the
first " body politic " of our country, and exer-
cised it. It had the power to publish to the
world an incomplete, incorrect, ex parte account
purporting to be the history of the great political
reform movement to which the crown was bit-
terly opposed, and made use of it ; and it had the
power to require an acceptation of crown evi-
dences as reliable authority, and virtually did so.
We have been living for more than a century
under the fully developed idea of the Patriot
party for a popular course of government in
America, which the Court party wished to destroy
in chrysalis, and we know that it is good fruit.
We now know that if a correct contemporary his-
tory of the acts and objects of the Patriot party,
written by a capable historian in sympathy with
the grand purposes of their great movement, had
been available from the beginning, it would have
inspired veneration for our patriotic founders,
appreciation for their noble sacrifices, admiration
for their political purposes, and a proper desire
to perpetuate their memories. And we now also
know that such a history would not have been
licensed under the crown in 1624, because these
were the very sentiments which the Court party
wished to obliterate forever, and which the his-
tory licensed under the crown did obliterate.
Historians have continued to accept a large
portion of the licensed history ; have written our
252 CONCLUSION
earliest history largely on crown evidences, with-
out regard for the managers of the business, or
for the fact that their evidences were wanting ;
and so entirely without regard for the political
conditions obtaining under the crown that they
have overlooked the royal idea that the honors
for the services of the agents or representatives
of a king really belonged to the king himself ;
and therefore "history" has conveyed even a
more belittling idea than the Court party in-
tended it to convey. The founding of this great
country, instead of being regarded as the lasting
monument to King James I., as the Court party
contended, and as the Rev. Samuel Purchas
plainly regarded it in his works, has come to be
considered as a lasting monument to John Smith
in his personal instead of in his official capacity.
Personally he was a man of straw, of no author-
ity, means, or influence ; while officially he was
a representative of James I. (the crown), from
whom he derived his authority both as a coun-
cilor in Virginia and as a historian in England,
and to whom (James I.), in the view of the cen-
sors of the press, the honors for his services
really belonged, and as they thought were really
given. And, therefore, if the " history " is true
they should be so given.
The history licensed by the crown failed to
create in the colony a desire to return to the
form of government designed for the plantations
CONCLUSION
253
by James I. as administered by the historian,
and it failed to destroy the faith in " the popu-
lar course of government" to which the histo-
rian was opposed ; but in many respects it has
done about all the harm that its sponsors wished
it to do. Instead of being a fair account of the
beginning of the most important political reform
movement of modern times, it is a mere eulogy
of the " historian," a traduction of the original of
the body politic of this nation, and a stigma upon
the popular political principles which inspired
them. It has really reversed the true view of our
national origin ; given the chief honors to the
chief agent in perpetrating the historic wrong ;
censured those who deserved praise, robbed our
patriotic founders of the honors due them, and
deprived our origin of its inspiring features.
Instead of fostering worthy sentiments regard-
ing our patriotic founders and national founda-
tion as a true patriotic history would have done,
it has caused an entire misunderstanding of the
beginning of the great reform political movement,
and taken from the splendid fabric of our insti-
tutions the part which was due to the patriotism,
the valor, and the genius of the first designers
of the popular course of government for this
nation.
I doubt if any citizen of this Republic has
ever made a pilgrimage into " the free land of
Kent," to the grave of Sir Edwin Sandys, who
254
CONCLUSION
drafted the first idea of our constitution, and
done homage there. I doubt if many have
visited the old meeting places in London of the
Virginian (American) courts, " the Seminary of
Sedition" of the Court party, and the cradle
of American freedom, wherein our first polit-
ical charter rights were nurtured. And in
America, the anniversary of the signing and of
the landing in South Virginia of the first char-
ter drafted by the primary designers of a liberal
government for this nation has never been cele-
brated. The historic ceremony in the church at
Jamestown, on June 2 (N. s.), 1610, has never
been enshrined in song or story, or illustrated
in picture. The inauguration of our national
political idea on American soil has never been
honored. " Not one stone has been set upon
another, " so to speak, to mark the planting of
the seed of a popular course of government in
this country.
The licensed history preserved the portraits
real or imaginary of Queen Elizabeth, King
James, Prince Charles ; of the Kings of Paspa-
hegh, Pamaunkees, and Powhatans ; of the Prin-
cess Pocahontas ; of the Duchess of Eichmond
and Lenox (who patronized the book and wished
to marry the king whose political ideas the book
supported) ; and of Captain John Smith (on sev-
eral occasions), who represented the king in Vir-
ginia, and wrote or compiled the book. But the
CONCLUSION
255
book does not preserve the picture of a single
one of our patriotic founders, who at the expense
of their own blood and treasure instituted the
popular course of government in this country.
The methods of the crown for obliterating
everything pertaining to this popular movement
took such complete effect that there has not
been preserved an authentic relic of a single
member of the King's Council in Virginia
(1607-1609) who protested against the king's
form of government for Virginia, or of a single
member of the first General Assembly ever con-
vened in America. Not even the site of the
grave of a single one of them is known. Not
even a chair has been preserved from The De-
liverance, which brought our original constitu-
tional charter to our shores, or, with the excep-
tion of The Mayflower, from an hundred other
ships sent out under the original body politic.
Absolutely nothing has been done to show to
the Old World that the people of this new Ke-
public appreciate the services of the patriotic
managers of the business in England and in
Virginia on whom the enterprise depended
for so long. Nothing has been done in acknow-
ledgment of their divine inspiration, their self-
sacrifices, their great expenditures, their deter-
mination in the face of the opposition of Spain,
their firmness in the controversies with the king,
council, commissioners, courts, and critics in
266 CONCLUSION
England ; or of their dauntless courage in meet-
ing all the dangers and difficulties known or
unforeseen in England, in Europe, on the
ocean, and in Virginia, with constant resolution,
until, " by the mercies of God," they succeeded
in their "projected ends." No memorial has
ever been erected in this Kepublic not even
in the original boundary of the first Republic
in America between 34 and 40 north latitude,
extending from ocean to ocean, through the
very centre of the present United States to
those who, at the expense of their own blood
and treasure, first planted the seed of a more
free government in this country, which germi-
nated in " our sacred soil," and grew strong in
our " free air " from a tender plant to the great
tree which still flourishes,
" And like a mountain cedar spreads its branches
To all the plaines about it ! "
Such is the evil effect of royal politics on our
patriotic history ; such the fruit brought forth
by the continued acceptance in the Republic of
the historic wrongs done our founders in the
history licensed by the crown. And there can
be but little doubt that if James I. had suc-
ceeded in fastening the form of government
designed by him for the colonies as securely on
this country, the result would have been as dis-
astrous to our political institutions as the accep-
tation of the account licensed by his censors has
CONCLUSION 257
been to the history of the institution of the po-
litical principles on which the nation was founded.
And the evil effect of royal politics on the his-
tory of our founders of 1606-1624, when plant-
ing the seed, enables us to see the importance of
having history accurately written from the cor-
rect political point of view, and what would have
been the historic fate of our forefathers of the
Eevolution of 1774-1783, when gathering the
fruits, if they had failed to secure our charter
rights, and if our history of the culmination of
the grand movement had remained under the
absolute control of the advocates of the old
monarchical forms of government.
The work of the Court party has not brought
forth good fruit, and " it should be hewn down
and cast into the fire." The High Commission
under James I. which licensed the publication of
the book compiled by or in the name of Cap-
tain John Smith, pretending to be our earliest
history, would have cast a true history of this
popular movement " into the fire." It was really
practically obliterated for generations. The loyal
point of view of our earliest history was reversed
in 1776, when we declared our independence
from the crown of Great Britain, and it is high
time for that history to be rescued from the acts
of the agents of King James I. "Beware of
false prophets, which come to you in sheep's
clothing, but inwardly are ravening wolves."
258 CONCLUSION
The first English colony in the present United
States our political mother was not founded
by a king, nor by an agent of a king, nor on
the monarchical principles of government advo-
cated by a king, as the royal commissioners and
licensed historians asserted : it was founded by
patriotic statesmen, politicians, and planters on
the liberal political principles advocated by them,
a fact which James I. wished to obliterate for-
ever. Under conditions which I have explained,
the first historian a paper tiger deprived
the Patriots of the honors due them in history,
and subsequent historians have been doing the
same thing ever since ; but justice and patriot-
ism, political principles and direct evidences,
reason and circumstantial evidences are now all
combined in requiring our national history to
rest on its true political basis.
In conclusion, and to make the case clearer,
let us review some of its features. It will have
been seen that in order to understand our earliest
history it is necessary to understand the political
conditions then obtaining and the authority ex-
ercised by those directly interested in upholding
the different political views on the colonial move-
ment. Historians, while upholding the history
licensed under the crown, have been disposed to
undervalue the contemporary influence of the
king who controlled the press. The high esti-
mation in which James I. was held by the Court
CONCLUSION 259
party will be found, not only in Purchas, but
also in the preface of James Montagu, bishop
of Winchester, to the 1616 edition of the king's
works ; in the funeral sermon, on " Great Brit-
ain's Solomon," preached by Lord Keeper John
Williams in Westminster Abbey in 1625 ; and in
many other publications, as well as in crown evi-
dences still in manuscript. In comparing James
I. to Solomon, it seems evident that Williams
thought James I. the greater man. Like Purchas
and other members of the Court party, he gave
to the king the credit for having spread the
religion, the commerce, and the colonies of Eng-
land in Asia, Africa, and America. And he did
not consider it necessary to mention the name of
a single one of the king's agents in these pre-
mises, or of those who had actually done the
work at their own expense.
The meanings given to such words as ' King/
' Parliament,' * Prerogative,' etc., by the Court
party at that time will be found in " The Inter-
preter," a book containing " the signification of
words " (a law dictionary), published by Dr. John
Cowell in 1607, or early in 1608. This book
asserted that the English government was an
absolute monarchy, and gave alarm to the mem-
bers of the Patriot party, ' who were opposed to
the absolute monarchy then aimed at by the
king and the Court party.' It was in the winter
of 1608-1609 that this party petitioned for our
260 CONCLUSION
charter of 1609. When Parliament next met, in
February, 1610, the Commons protested against
Cowell's book, and although James I. finally
proclaimed against it, and had it burnt by the
common hangman, this was evidently diplomacy
on his part, as he really believed in the mon-
archical principles of the book. When he ad-
dressed the judges in the Court of Star Chamber
in the summer of 1616, he told them that ' on
coming into England a stranger, he had resolved
with Pythagoras to keep silence seven years and
acquaint himself with the laws of the kingdom ;
and that he had delayed another seven years
waiting for the proper time ; but having served
this double apprenticeship, he then considered
himself a fit judge in the premises,' and he
proceeded to deliver a long discourse on his ideas
of government, in which he impugned the Com-
mon Law of England about as much as Cowell
had done, asserting that 'his own prerogative
was next in place to the deity,' etc. It was
about this time certainly as early as November,
1616 that he began to interfere with the gov-
ernment which the Virginia Corporation proposed
to institute in this country, and he continued to
do so as long as he lived. And it came to pass
that the evidences disseminated under his rule
have continued to be accepted as conveying a
true account of the origin of this nation. There
is no absolute control over histories now as was
CONCLUSION 261
the case while the colony was under the crown,
and books disseminating the ideas of the Court
party cannot be burnt, nor their authors impris-
oned ; but there is no longer any reason why our
national foundation, our founders, their acts or
motives, should be presented to our people in our
histories as they were pictured by the opponents
of the political principles on which our country
was founded. Thanks to those principles our
historians are now free to correct the false ideas
of the inauguration of those principles in this
country which have been derived from royal his-
torians. Thanks to those principles our press
is not now obliged to publish histories of our
foundation as licensed or decreed by any party in
opposition to those principles. Thanks to those
principles our body politic (our people) is now
free and independent; our persons and papers
are no longer under the absolute control of the
agents of an absolute power. And when the
patriotic politicians, statesmen, and people who
are now upholding those principles in this fully
developed Republic understand the importance
of the beginning of the movement for settling a
popular course of government in America, they
will erect at some proper place a suitable monu-
ment as a national memorial to those Patriots
who rescued the first colony from ' His Majesty's
most Princely government for the direction of
the affairs of the plantation by thirteen councel-
262 CONCLUSION
lors in Virginia, and as many in England, all
nominated by His Majesty/ which was the
real " misgovernment " in the opinion of the
Patriots, and at the expense of their own blood
and treasure, regardless of the opposition of his
majesty and his agents, first deposited in the
womb of the great North American wilderness
the germ of the vital principle which has sus-
tained this nation since its birth " Vox
iy vox Dei ! "
INDEX
INDEX
Additional information regarding most of the persons mentioned will
be found in " The Genesis of the United States " and " The First Republic
in America."
ABBOT, GEORGE, Archbishop of
Canterbury, 83, 85, 197; Maurice,
32, 196, 222.
Abdy, Anthony, 196, 222.
Accomak, 120.
Acts of General Assembly. See Gen-
eral Assembly.
Act of Parliament, 36-39, 49-52, 93.
See Parliament.
Adams, John, 144 ; Henry, 171.
Adventurers of the purse and of the
person, 222-227. See Virginia Cor-
poration and Body Politic.
Alabama, 207.
Albany (N. Y.), 169.
Albemarle Co., Va., 159, 160.
Aldersgate, 28.
America, North, 1, 6-12, 14, 15, 22,
24, 25, 28, 29, 37, 53, 55, 60, etc. ;
South, 55, etc.
American Antiquarian Society, 169,
170; colonization, 183; continent,
216; freedom, 254; government,
209, 220; liberty, 146, 147, 216;
Magna Charta, 29 ; movement, 10,
14; soil, 17, 254; talisman, 16, 20,
56 ; wilderness, 12, 262.
Anderson's "History of the Colo-
nial Church," 166.
Anglo-Saxon, 39.
Annapolis, 124.
Anniversary (The), 16, 254.
Aragon, 96.
Arber, Edward, and his edition of
Smith's works, 176, 177.
Archbishops of Canterbury and
York, 109.
Archer, Gabriel, 9, 76, 77.
Argall, Samuel, 27, 196.
Ariel, 16.
Arizona, 207.
Arkansas, 207.
Arlington, Earl of. See Bennett.
Ashton, John, and his Life of Smith,
176.
Assembly. See General Assem-
bly.
Atlantic, 13, 241.
Auditors, 71, 222, 223.
Bacon, Sir Francis, 9, 11, 22.
Bacon's Assembly, 235, 236 ; Rebel-
lion, 120, 137, 139.
Baltimore, Lord. See Cecil and
George Calvert.
Baltimore's, Lord, patent, 99, 218.
Bancroft, George, historian, 173;
Richard, Archbishop of Canter.
bury, 15.
Barber, Gabriel, 70, 97.
Bargrave, John, 41, 46, 47, 54.
" Basilikon Doron," 9.
Bateman, Robert, 196.
Bathori, Sigismund, 95.
Bedford Co., Va., 158, 160.
Bell, Robert, 196.
Bennet, or Bennett, Henry, Earl of
Arlington, 119 ; Richard, 107, 108,
114, 139.
Berblock, William, 45, 70.
Berkeley, Sir William, 104-106, 108,
116, 118, 120.
Bermoothes, 16.
Bermuda or Bermudas, 20, 21, 37, TJ,
266
INDEX
79; Islands Company, 46, 112. See
Somers Island.
Beverley, Eobert,and his hi story of
Virginia, 122, 123, 160, 202.
Biography, 240-242.
Birch's " Court and Times of James
I.," 166.
Bland, Edward, and his " Discovery
of New Britaine," 111,139; Giles,
139 ; John, Sr., 70, 139 ; John, Jr.,
139; Col. Richard, 138-140, his
"Inquiry," etc., 138, and his li-
brary, 140, 157.
Body Politic, the original. See
Virginia Corporation.
Bond, Martin, 196.
Boston, 170.
Boundary rights, 147-150. See Char-
ter rights.
Brewster, Edward, 20.
Briggs, Henry, 222.
British Museum, 166, 168.
Broadsides, 19, 62.
Brooke, Christopher, 32, 34.
Brown, Alexander, an explanation,
175, 178-190, 212-215.
Bryant and Gay, historians, 173.
Buck, Rev. Richard, 17, 18, 20.
Buckingham, Duke of. See Vil-
liers.
Buckner, John, 121.
Burgesses. See House of Bur-
gesses.
Butler, Nathaniel, 127, 196.
Byrd, Col. William the 1st, 135-137 ;
the 2d, 135-139; the 3d, 138-140;
their library, 140.
Caesar, Sir Julius, master of tte
King's Rolls (Records), 196.
Calendars. See State Papers.
California, 207.
Calvert, Cecil, 2d Lord Baltimore,
98, 99, 149, 150, 163 ; George, Secre-
tary of State, 1st Lord Baltimore,
196.
Cambell (or Campbell), James, 195.
Cambridge (Mass.), 166, 170.
Camden Society of England, 169.
Campbell's, Charles, History of Vir-
ginia (1860), 118.
Canning, William, 114, 128.
Canterbury, 15, 83, 85, 99, 109, 197.
Carew, George Lord, 55 ; his letters
to Roe, 169.
Carie (Carey, Cary), Sir Philip,
196.
Carleton, Sir Dudley, 96, 167.
Carter's Mountain, 159.
Cartwright, Abraham, 196.
Cavalier, 107.
Cavendish, William, Lord (after-
wards Earl of Devonshire), 32, 42.
44, 46, 114.
Chalmers, George, 156.
Chambers, George, 35, 222.
Charles, Prince, 37, 43, 50, 254;
King, L, 89-103, 89, 91-94, 96, 98, 99,
101-107, 113, 133, 134, 138, 139, 148,
155, 162, 211, 213, 248; his Procla-
mation, 91, 92; II., 108, 114, 116-
119, 121, 122, 134, 139, 235.
Charters, 242, 248 ; (of 1606), 6-8, 17,
21, 22, 48, 77, 78, 126, 148, 160, 161,
205, 206, 208, 209, 216, 232 ; (of 1609),
6-13, 16, 17, 21-24, 52-56, 78, 126,
127, 130-132, 143, 146, 148-150, 161-
163, 204-216, 218, 220, 230-232;
(Of 1612), 21-24, 52-56, 78, 126, 127,
130-132, 143, 146, 148, 161, 162, 204,
205, 207, 209-216, 220, 222, 232;
(Of 1620, N. E.), 101, 210, 212 ;
(Of 1621, Va.), 35-40, 211 ; (of 1629,
Mass.), 45, 143, 207, 211-213; (of
1631, Va.), 97, 98 ; (of 1640, Va.),
103, 104, 107.
Charter rights, liberal, political, and
property, 13, 17, 204-216, 242; ef-
forts to protect by Act of Parlia-
ment, 35-41, 49, 52 ; contest over,
between the Court and Patriot
parties, 27, 32, 35, 36, 38, 40, 42-56,
59, 67, 85, 89-108, 118-121, 140-150,
153, 154, 193, 195, 226, 227, 234, 242-
244; secured by our Revolution,
13, 55, 142-147, 149, 153, 154, 184, 257.
See Petitions.
Chichester, Arthur Lord, 55, 196.
Church of England, 182, 244, 247.
Cities of England, 35.
Civil War of England, 104-108.
Claiborne, William, 100, 107, 114.
INDEX
267
Clarendon, Earl of. See Edward
Hide.
Clark, George Eogers, 149.
Climate of Virginia, 218.
Collingwood, Edward, 65.
Colonial Commission under Charles
I. (Liberal), 96-99 ; Laud's, 99.
Commissions. See King's Commis-
sions.
Commons, House of, 9, 36-40, 51, 60,
94, 103-105, 117, 138, 140, 202, 248,
260. See Parliament
Commons Journal, 38, 39, 60.
Commonwealth, 106-108, 111, 139,
165, 201.
** Company of English merchants,"
221.
Congress, 156.
Constitution, the Corporations, 16,
127. See, under Virginia.
Constitution, the king's, 77, 126.
Contest (continued) between the
Court and Patriot parties over
charter rights, 42-49.
Controversy, the, between the Court
and Patriot parties becomes an
open contest over the reform
movement, 30-35.
Conway, Sir Edward, Secy, of State,
196.
Cooke, John Esten, and his "Vir-
ginia," 176.
Copeland, Rev. Patrick, 45.
Coppinford, 134.
Corporation. See under Massachu-
setts, New England, Pilgrims, and
Virginia.
Corporations, 97, 99.
Council. See Privy Council, and
under Virginia.
Court party. See under Parties,
National.
Courts. See High Commission 1
King's Bench; Star Chamber;
Virginia.
Coventry, Thomas, Lord, Attorney-
General, 36, 54, 99, 196, 211, 226.
Cowell, Rev. Dr. John, 259, 260.
Cranfleld, Lionel, Earl of Middle-
sex, 50, 6fi. 89, 90, 195.
Cramner, William, 32, 35, 222.
Cromwell, Oliver, 105, 107 ; Richard,
107.
Crown of England (Great Britain),
45, 48, 59, 106, etc., 227, 248.
Crown, the, annuls the Virginia
charters, 52-56; confiscates the
evidences, 59-69 ; licenses the his-
tory, 73-86. See under Evidences,
James I., Charles I., Charles II.,
and George III.
Culpeper, Thomas, Lord, 119, 121.
Dale, Sir Thomas, 114, 238.
Danvers, Henry, Earl of Danby, 97 ;
Sir John, 32-34, 70, 71, 91, 97, 102,
103, 111-114, 133, 139, 222; his
copies of the Va. Court Records
(1619-1624), 71, 72, 91, 133-140, 157.
Davison, Christopher, 66.
Deane, Charles, 166, 169-171, 174, 175.
Declarations, 62; of 1609, 19; of
1610, 166 ; Of 1620, 223-225 ; of 1623,
44 : Of 1624, 104 ; of 1642, 104, 105 ;
of Independence, 143, 144.
Delaware (State), 207.
De la Warr, Lord. See West
Deliverance, the, 16, 255.
Democracie of England, 107.
Dennis, Robert, 107.
D'Evereux, Robert, 2d Earl of Es-
sex, 14, 15.
Devonshire, Earl of. See Caven-
dish,
Devonshire [William Cavendish,
5th], Duke of, 147.
Dichfleld, Edward, 197.
Digges, Sir Dudley, 97; Edward,
108.
Discovery, the, 241.
"Dispatch," The Richmond, Va.,
175.
District of Columbia, 207.
Doncaster, Lord. See James Hay.
Donne, George, 101 ; Rev. Dr. John,
101.
Dorchester, Viscount. See D.
Carleton.
Dorset, Earl of. See E. Sackville.
Doyle, J. A., and his " English Colo-
nies in America," 175.
Dunmore's War, 149.
INDEX
Dutch man-of-war, 167.
Dyke, John, 166.
East Greenwich, 27.
Edmonds, Sir Thomas, treasurer of
the king's household, 196.
Edwards, Kichard, 196.
Efforts to protect charter rights by
Act of Parliament, 35-41, 49-52;
to annul our charter rights, 52-56 ;
to preserve evidences, 69-73; to
obliterate the true history of our
national origin, 59-69, 73-86, 129,
130, 238, 239, 250-253.
Eggleston, Edward, and his " Poca-
hontas," 173.
Election, freedom of, 32, 33, 42, 43,
45-48.
Elizabeth, queen of England, 14,
109, 198, 254.
Emigrants. See Planters.
England, 1, 6-10, 14-16, 19, 24, 30, 34,
40-43,52-54, etc. ; common law of,
260 ; crown of. See Crown.
English, the, 10, ll, etc. ; colony, 15,
21,30,31,54, etc.; American plan-
tations, 19; constitution, 10, 23,
143, etc. ; government, 259 ; history,
26 ; rights, advocates of. See Pa-
triot Party.
English politics in early Virginia
history, passim.
Enterprise under the government
of James I., 6, 7. See Govern-
ment.
Episcopalians, 244.
Essex, Earl of. See D'Evereux.
Essington, William, 222.
Europe, 215.
Evidences, controlled by the crown,
3-5, 59-86, 108-116, 225, 229, 238,
242-257 ; of the Virginia Corpora-
tion, 61-64, 73, 90, 91, 122, 123, 126-
128, 133-140, 155, 157, 162, 194-204,
224. See Historic Wrong.
Fairfax, Lord, 163.
Fanshaw, Thomas, 195.
Farrar (see Ferrar), Thomas, 159.
Ferrar, Edward, Sr., 165; Edward,
Jr., 165 ; John, Sr., 28, 30, 36, 38, 45-
47,53,54,97, 102, 111, 112, 114, 133,
134, 165, 194, 222; his memoir of
his brother Nicholas, 114, 165;
John, Jr., 165; Mrs. Mary, 92;
Nicholas, Jr., 28, 35, 45-47, 50, 51,
67, 71, 89-92, 97, 109-110, 112, 114,
133, 165, 194; his copies of the
Records of the Virginia Corpora-
tion (1609-1624?), 71, 72, 90, 91, 98,
133; William of Virginia, 100.
Ferrars, the, 92, 99 ; their house, 37 ;
their influence, 106.
First republic in America (territory
Of), 12, 213, 256.
" First Republic in America "
(book), 8, 13, 25, 29, 34, 35, 39, 42,
67, 76, 84, 85, 114, 127, 133, 170, 179,
184, 185, 187, 194, 197, 210-212, 215.
First: fleet of 1606, 7, 241; charter
for our original body politic, 13-
16; inauguration of the reform
movement, 13-21, 254 ; fleet of the
corporation (1609), 16, 19, 241;
constitution, 16 ; anniversary, 16 ;
steps in planting liberty in Amer-
ica, 17 ; sermon, 18 ; governor, 19 ;
joint stock, 25; inauguration of
the reform government, 26-29, 254;
effort to protect our charter rights
by Act of Parliament, 35-41 ; char-
ters, published in 1747, 132 ; House
of Burgesses, 146, 255, account of,
published in 1857, 167; English
colony in America, 193, 221, 227,
228, 258; Plymouth patent, 210;
Englishmen to teach Indians the
use of arms, 224, 225; histories,
250 ; political charter rights, 254 ;
planted the seed, etc., 256; mis-
sion to England for charter rights,
52; etc.
Fiske, John, 173.
Force, Peter, his reprints, 166.
Fortune, the, 210.
Foundation, our national. See under
English Politics.
Founders, our. See the Patriot
party.
France, 125, 149, 150, 158, 204, 244.
Free air of America, 76, 246, 256.
" Freedom of election," 32, 33, 42,
INDEX
269
43, 45-48; American, 254; "freely
elected," 231, 235.
Freeman, Raphe, 196.
Free-trader, 219.
French and Indian War, 149.
Fruit produced by the acts of the
Patriot party, 250, 251; by the
acts of the Court party, 252-257.
Fuller, Rev. Thomas, and his " Wor-
thies," 117, 174,
Gainsborough. See Noel.
Galthorpe, Stephen, 76.
Gardiner's " History of England," 8,
109.
Gates, Sir Thomas, 15-21, 77, 79, 114,
160, 161, 238.
Gay, historian, 173.
General Assembly in Virginia, 29, 34,
52, 53, 66, 93, 94, 101, 102, 104-108,
126, 146, 157, 167, 232, 233, 235, 255.
"Genesis of the United States"
(The), 18, 19, 25, 96, 170, 180-184,
215, 223.
George III., 140-147, 155.
Georgia, 207.
Gibbs, Thomas, 32, 97, 196.
Goad, Rev. Thomas, 83.
Goethe, 178.
Gofton, Sir F., 196.
Gondomar, Spanish ambassador, 30,
31, 35, 37, 42, 43, 46, 55, 219.
Gorges, Sir F., 196, 210.
Gosnold, Capt. B., 76.
Government of the plantation under
James I. (1607-1610), 6, 7, 10, 17,19,
20, 23, 48, 55, 75-78, 84, 193, 206, 228-
230, 232, 236, 237, 241, 248, 255, 256 ;
proposed by the king in 1624,55,
256.
Government of Ireland, 55, 97 ; of
the kings of Spain in the West
Indies, 55, 97.
Government, the reform, of the col-
ony under the corporation, the
popular course, 5, 17, 21, 25-29, 34,
35, 40, 41, 43, 48, 55, 221, 229-233,
236, 237, 248, 254-258 ; the Ameri-
can idea, 17, 208, 209, 215, 216, 220.
Government, the forms of, at issue,
228-236.
Gowrie Conspiracy, 60, 61, 197.
Grandison. See Oliver St. John.
Graves, Thomas, 17-
Great Britain, 12, 106, 122, 149, 244,
257.
" Great Britain's Solomon," 259.
Great Charter. See Magna Charta.
Great Mogul, 169.
Green Bag (magazine), 29.
Greenwich, East, 27.
Grigsby's Virginia Convention of
1776, 138.
Grindon, Edward, 224.
Gunpowder Plot, 60, 61.
Hackwell or Hakewell, William,
196, 220.
Hakluyt Society, England, 166.
Hale, Rev. E. E., 169.
Hamilton, James, Marquess of, 37,
47.
Hamor, Ralph, 18 ; his " Discourse,"
169.
Hampshire, England, 91, 134.
Hampton Court Conference, 8.
Handford (or Handsford), Sir Hum-
phrey, 196, 222.
Harvey, Sir John, 52, 66, 94-97, 100-
102, 104, 115, 127.
Harwood, Sir Edward, 45 ; Thomas,
100.
Hawes, Michael, 196.
Hay, James, Lord Doncaster, 32, 36.
Hayman, Sir Peter, 38.
Heath, Sir Robert, the king's Solic-
itor-General, 35, 149, 196.
Hening, Wm. Waller, and his Vir.
ginia Statutes, 104, 118, 154, 155.
Henry, Hon. W. W., 172-175, 187.
Herbert, Edward, 32, 34, 36, 70;
George, the poet, 92, 109, 112;
Philip, Earl of Pembroke, 105;
William, Earl of Pembroke, 15, 32,
37, 47.
Hertford. See Seymour.
Hickes, Sir Baptist, 196.
Hickman, Richard, 138, 156, 157.
Hide or Hyde, Lawrence, 32; Ed-
ward, Earl of Clarendon, 137.
High Commission, 65, 83-85, 109, 110,
197, 199, 202, 257.
270
INDEX
Historians licensed by the crown.
See Kev. 8. Purchas and Captain
J. Smith.
Historic wrong done our patriotic
founders by James I., his com-
missioned officers, and licensed
historians: By the suppression
of evidences favorable to the pop-
ular movement of 1609-1624, and
unfavorable to the king's admin-
istration of 1606-1609, and the pre-
servation and dissemination of
evidences favorable to the admin-
istration of James I. (1606-1609)
and unfavorable to the reform
movement of the Patriots, 5, 59-
69, 73-86, 90, 91, 95-97, 108, 109,
113, 115-117, 119, 121-132, 141, 142,
153, 194-205, 217 ; how the wrong
was perpetuated under the crown,
89-150, and under the Repub-
lic, 153, 154, 164, 165, 170-178, 185-
189, 212, 213. The efforts to cor-
rect the wrong under the crown,
69-73, 90, 91, 95, 98, 108, 111-115, 126-
128, 132-140, 142, 154, 156, 157 ; and
under the Republic, 153-158, 165-
169, 178-190, 212-215, 257-262. A
summary of the political fea-
tures of the historic wrong, 190-
256.
" Historical Magazine," The, 171.
History, control over by the crown,
108-116; importance of the polit-
ical point of view in, 249-262;
licensed by the crown, 73-86, 95,
228,237,250. See Smith's M Generall
Historie."
44 History of our Earliest History,"
187.
Hobart,SirHenry,ll,22.
Holborn, 65, 134.
Holland, 215.
Holies, John, Lord Houghton, 43.
Hopkins, Stephen, 18.
Hopton, Ralph, 117.
Horsmanden, Mary, 137 ; Warham,
138.
Horwood. See Harwood.
Hothersall, Thomas, 161.
Houghton, Lord. See Holies.
House of Burgesses in Virginia, 29,
93, 94, 100, 108, 117-119, 121, 138, 140,
146, 167, 231, 235, 236. See General
Assembly.
House of Commons. See Commons.
House of Lords. See Lords.
Howard, Francis, Lord, 121.
Howes, Edmond, his publications,
82.
Huguenots, 244.
Huntingdonshire, 92.
Illinois, 207.
Inaugurating the reform movement,
13-21 ; the reform government, 26-
29.
Incorporations. See Corporations.
Independent. See Patriot party.
Indian Territory, 207.
Indiana, 207.
Indians, 12, 25, 27, 43, 80 120,149,
218, 224, 225, 240.
Infanta of Spain, 37.
Influence of contemporary politics
on history as enacted, 1-56; as
published, 59-86; of subsequent
politics in upholding the historic
wrong, under the crown, 89-147,
and under the Republic, 153-180.
" Interpreter " (The), 259, 260.
Introductory, 3-5.
Ireland, 45, 50, 53, 55, 97, 195, 244.
James I., 1, 5-13, 15, 17, 22-24, 26, 28,
29, 31-33, 35-40, 42-46, 48-51, 53, 55-
57, 59, 60, 65-68, 72-80, 83-86, 89, 90,
92-94, 97, 99, 104, 109, 113, 116, 117,
119, 120, 122, 123, 126-129, 131, 132,
136, 145-149, 153, 155, 160-163, 165-
168, 170, 176, 177, 182, 183, 185, 187-
189, 193-195, 197-200, 202-204, 206,
210, 212-214, 216, 217, 219, 221, 223,
229-233, 236, 237, 241, 245, 248, 249,
252-254, 256-262 ; his " Basilikon
Doron," 9 ; " True Law of Free
Monarchies," 9; " Premonition to
all most mighty Monarchs," 9;
" Remonstrance for the Rights of
Kings," 26 ; his form of govern-
ment for the Colonies and Com-
panies. See under Government ;
INDEX
271
King's Commissions, Councils,
etc.
James II., 122.
James Eiver, 21, 159.
Jamestown, 16-21, 29, 52, 94, 166, 208,
254.
Jefferson, John, 52; Thomas, 110,
137, 139-141, 144, 146, 150, 227 ; a
laborer in the field of original
research, 153-158 ; his library, 140 ;
his " Notes on Virginia," 158-164.
Jermyn, Philip, 34, 196.
Johnson, Edward, 196; Robert, 13,
30, 32, 44, 114, 127, 196.
Joint, or common stock, 25-27, 218,
219, 222.
Jones, Sir William, 45, 67, 195.
Kansas, 207.
Keightley, Thomas, 32, 222.
Keith, Sir William, his History of
Virginia, 123, 160, 202.
Kendall, George, 76.
Kent, 38, 39, 50.
Kentucky, 207.
Killigrew, Sir Robert, 70, 91, 97, 98,
133, 196.
King, of the Pamaunkees, 254; of
Paspahegh, 254; of the Powhat-
ans, 254 ; of England. See James I.
King's Bench, Court of, 53, 83, 98,
124, 195, 212.
King's Commissioners in England,
45-49, 53, 67, 82, 195; in Virginia,
52, 65-67, 94, 104, 115, 116, 127, 195.
King's Council in Virginia (1607-
1610), 7, 17, 75-78, 193, 206, 229, 230,
237, 241, 255.
Kirkham, Robert, 32.
Lands granted, 12, 13, 22.
Lane, Ralph, 245.
Laud, William, Archbishop of Can-
terbury, 99, 109 ; his chaplain, 109.
Law (Common), of England, 260.
Leate, or Leake, Nicholas, 196.
Lee [R. H.], 144.
Lefroy, General Sir J. H., 173.
Leiger Court Books, 71.
Lewis, Andrew, 149.
Ley, Sir James, 53, 67, 195.
Liberal ideas of government. See
Reform Government.
Liberal political charter rights.
See Charter rights.
Liberal party. See Patriot party.
" Liberties," 39 ; Liberty, 13, 17, 115,
146, 147, 216, 246, 248 ; " Liberty of
the Subject," 220.
Library of Congress, 140, 157, 158.
Lilburne, John, 110; Robert, 110;
William, 110.
Little Gidding, 92, 99, 133.
Lisle, Lord. See Sidney.
Lodge, Hon. H. C., 173.
London (the capital), 27-29, 92, 96,
110, 122, 127, 134, 147, 162, 166-168,
173, 233, 254. See Virginia Cor-
poration, commonly called The
Virginia Company of London,
the Virginia Courts in London,
etc.
Lords, House of, 38, 40, 140, 146.
See Parliament.
Lotteries, 223.
Ludwell, Thomas, 119.
Lymington, 50.
"Magazine of American History"
(N. Y.), 133.
Magna Charta, 29, 162.
Mallory, Sir James, 38.
Managers of the business, 13, 26, 46,
62, 84, 89, 90, 217, 236-244, 246, 249-
251, 255, 256 ; their Discourse, 89-
91. See Virginia Corporation and
Virginia Courts.
Managers of the government for
the crown, 217, 237.
Manchester. See Montagu.
Mansfield, Sir Robert, 15.
Marbois, Mons. De, 158.
Marlier, or Martian, Nicholas, 100.
Martin, Capt. John, 17, 26, 49, 77.
Maryland, 98, 99, 124, 141, 149, 163,
207, 218.
Massachusetts, 166, 170, 174, 211-
213; charter, 45, 96, 207, 211-213,
233 ; corporation, 212-214 ; Histori-
cal Society, 165. See Virginia
(North).
Massacre by the Indians, 43.
272
INDEX
Matthews, Samuel, 52, 100, 101, 108,
114.
Maurice of Nassau, 19, 20.
May, Sir H., 196.
Mayflower, the, 205 ; compact, 209.
McLeod, Captain, 158.
Meeting places of the Virginia
courts, 254. See House of the
Ferrars, Sir E. Sandys, Sir Thos.
Smith, and the Earl of Southamp-
ton. See London.
Menefle, George, 100.
Mexico, 150.
Middlesex. See Cranfleld.
Mildmay, Sir Henry, 44, 196 ; John,
196.
Milton, John, 111,117; his "Areo-
pagitica," 111.
Mississippi Kiver, 149, 150 ; State,
207.
Missouri, 207.
Mogul, the Great, 169.
Mole, George, 196.
" Monarchic," 47, 49 ; Old World,
208.
" Monarchies, True Law of Free,"
9.
"Monarchs, Premonition to all
most mighty," 9.
Monarchy, absolute, 259. See under
Government.
Monopolies, 219, 220; monopolist,
219.
Montagu, Sir Charles, 196; Ed-
ward, Earl of Manchester, 105;
Henry Viscount Mandeville, etc.,
196; James, bishop, 259.
Monticello, 139, 158, 160, 161.
Moore, Sir George, 39.
Morer, Eichard, 197.
Morryson, Francis, 119.
Movement, the motive of the re-
form, 245-249; the correct politi-
cal and historical point of view
of, 180-189, 249-262. See Eeform
movement.
Mulberryes, 218.
Mulberry Island, 20.
Neill, Rev. E. D., his "Virginia
Company," 172.
Netherlands, 15, 19, 72, 91, 125, 163,
204.
Nevada, 207.
New England, 82, 95, 101, 183, 210,
212, 213. See Charter, 1620 ; Vir-
ginia (North).
New Jersey, 207.
" New Life of Virginia," 25, 165.
New Mexico, 207.
New World, 5, 17, 24, 53, 208, 216,
248.
New York, 169; documents, 167;
Historical Society, 167 ; magazine,
171.
Newport, Captain C., 18, 21, 76 ; his
".Discoveries," 169.
Neyle, Eichard, Archbishop of
York, 99.
Noel, Edward, Earl of Gainsbor-
ough, 135 ; Lady Elizabeth, 134 ;
Wriothesley, Earl of Gainsbor-
ough, 135.
Nonconformists, 244.
" North American Eeview," 171.
North Carolina, 149, 207.
Northern Neck of Va., 117, 119, 163.
North Virginia. See Virginia (40
to 45 n. 1.), North.
Northumberland [Hugh Smithson
Percy], Duke of, 147.
" Notes and Queries," London, 96.
Notes on the way, 1660 to 1746, 116-
124.
Nottingham, 105.
" Nova Britannia," 14, 166.
Obtaining the first charter for the
original body politic, 6-13; the
second charter, 21-26.
Ogle, Sir John, 44, 45.
Ohio, 207.
Oklahoma, 207.
Old World, 215, 216, 244, 255 ; mon-
archies, 208.
Orange, Prince of, 167.
Origin of this nation. See Princi-
ples of liberty; Vis vitae, etc.
Original of the body politic of this
nation. See Virginia Corpora-
tion and Body Politic.
Oxford Tract, 79-82, 84, 85.
INDEX
273
Pacific Ocean, 23. See South Sea.
Packard, Kev. Peter, his Life of N.
Ferrar, 165, 194.
Paget, William, Lord, 43, 196.
Palfrey, historian, 175.
Pallavacine, Edward, 196.
Palmer, William, 196.
Pamaunkees, King of, 254.
Paris, France, 158.
Parks, William, 124.
Parliament, 141, 144, 259, 260 ; First,
James I., 8, 9, 35, 220; Second,
James I., 35 ; Third, James I., 35-
41; Fourth, James I., 49-52, 89,
134; First, Charles L, 93, 94; Sec-
ond, Charles L, 93 ; Third, Charles
I., 94, 109 ; Fourth, Charles L, 103 ;
Fifth, Charles L, or Long, 103-105,
107, 108, 110, 118, 137, 202; Of
Charles II., 117, 118. See Com-
mons and Lords.
Parliament in Virginia, 9, 76.
Parliamentary business, 38, 39.
Parties in the Virginia Corpora-
tion, 34, 44, 45, 51, 73. See Sir
Edwin Sandys and Sir Thomas
Smith.
Parties, National political: Court
party which controlled the evi-
dences and laid the foundation
upon which the history has been
written, 1, 5, 9, 10, 22, 24, 26, 30, 34,
37, 39, 43-46, 53, 57, 60, 66, 67, 69,
73-75, 78-82, 84-87, 95-97, 100, 101,
104-106, 108, 110, 113, 115, 117, 122,
128-132, 136, 145-147, 153, 154, 163,
165, 174, 177, 178, 181-184, 188, 189,
191, 193-195, 197, 200, 201, 204, 210,
212, 217, 219, 221, 227, 228, 234,
237, 238, 240, 242, 243, 245, 247-261 ;
Patriot party, which managed the
business and laid the foundation
upon which this great nation has
been erected, 1, 5, 8, 10, 24, 25, 30,
33-35, 37-40, 42^6, 48-53, 60, 69, 72,
75, 76, 79, 81, 84-87, 90-98, 103, 108,
110, 111, 113-115, 120, 122, 128-132,
136, 139, 145, 146, 153, 165, 174, 182,
184, 188-191, 194, 195, 197, 200-204,
210, 211, 226, 227, 234, 236, 242-245,
248-251, 253, 255, 258-262; evi-
dences for, confiscated, 59-69 ; pre-
served, 69-73.
Parties in Virginia, 52, loo, 102, 105,
120, 141, 143, 144, 146, 153, 160, 163,
243,244.
Paspahegh, King of, 254.
Past politics, influence of, 164-169.
See under Political and Politics.
Patience, the, 16.
Patriot party. See under Parties,
National.
Peirce. See Pierce.
Pembroke, Earl of. See Herbert.
Pennant's account of London, 135.
Pennsylvania, 149, 207.
Percy, George, 17, 78, 241.
Perry, William, 100.
Petitions for charter rights, 36, 51 ;
(1624), 52, 92 ; (1625), 92, 93 ; (1626),
93; (1630-1632), 97, 98, 148, 149;
(1633), 98, 99; (1640), 103, 104, 107,
108; (1674), 119-121; (1764), 140;
(1624-1774), 234 ; against, 104, 105.
" Petition of Eights," 94.
Philadelphia, 143, 156, 157
Pierce, William, 18, 100.
Pierce's patent, 209.
Piersey, Abraham, 52.
Pilgrims, 15, 18, 209-212. See Vir-
ginia (North).
Planters, 7, 9, 12, 13, 17, 20, etc., 53,
225-227, 240, 241, 244, 246, 247, 258.
See under Virginia Corporation
and Body Politic.
Plymouth, England, 15, 16, 101.
Plymouth Patent, N. E., 210.
Pocahontas incident, 170-177, 249,
254.
Point Comfort, 19.
Political charter rights. See Char-
ter rights; features of the his-
toric case, 191-262 ; importance of
the reform movement, 5-7, 10-13,
17, 22, etc. ; Objects, 25, 27, 28, 31,
35, 47, etc. ; point of view, 240, 249-
262 ; policies, 8-15, 33, etc. ; char-
acter of the historic wrong. See
Historic Wrong; influences, see
Influence.
Politics in early Virginia history as
represented in the acts and evi-
274
INDEX
dences of the Court and Patriot
parties. See Charters; Charter
Eights ; Evidences ; Historic
"Wrong; Parties, National; Past
Politics ; Present Politics, etc.
Poole (see Powell), Robert, 224.
Poplar Forest, 158-160.
Popular charters. See Charters of
1609, 1612.
Popular course of government. See
under Government.
Popular parties. See Patriot party.
Portland [Cavendish - Bentinck] ,
Duke of, 147.
Pory, John, 52, 66, 167, 196.
Pott, Dr. John, 100.
" Potter's American Monthly," 172.
Pountis, John, 52, 92, 127.
Powell, Nathaniel, 17.
Powhatans, King of, 241, 249, 254.
" Premonition to all most mighty
Monarchs," 9.
Prerogatives of the king, 259.
Presbyterians, 244.
Present politics, influence of, 170-
178, 212-215. See under Political,
and Politics.
Presidents and Council in Virginia,
230. See King's Council in Vir-
ginia.
Press, the, controlled by the crown,
3-5, 59-61, 70, 73, 81-86, 95, 109-111,
115, 116, 121, 122, 125, 142, 153; un-
der the Commonwealth, 111-114;
in Virginia, 115, 116, 121, 122, 124,
125, 141, 142, 153.
Principles of liberty (immortal), 10-
13, 17,19,23, 24, 31, 53, 56, etc., 201,
228, 229, 233-237, 242-244, 257, 261,
262. See Government (the re-
form) ; Vis vitas, etc.
Printers. See Press.
Privy Chamber, 102.
Privy Council of the King, 36, 41, 44,
45, 47, 50-52, 60, 61, 63, 65, 83, 90, 93,
100, 112, 142, 168, 182, 195.
Proclamation of May, 1625, 91, 92.
Protectionist, 219.
Protestation of the Commons, 39.
Providence, 20, 56, 72, 108, 167, 202,
234, 246-249.
Public record office, 167, 168.
Purchas, Eev. Samuel, and his pub-
lications, 81, 82, 85, 95, 125, 197,
198, 205, 252, 259.
Puritans, 15. See Massachusetts.
Pym, John, 105.
Pythagoras, 260.
Quo Warranto, 53-55, 67, 98, 99, 120,
226.
Badcliffe, John, 77, 241, 242.
Kaleigh,SirW.,245.
Eandolph, Sir John, 136, 138, 156, 157,
229 ; John of Koanoke, 157 ; Pey-
ton, 156 ; library, 157.
Eandolph's copies of the Virginia
Court Eecords, 157.
Eayner, Marmaduke, 167.
Eecords, 71, 72, 90, 91, 98, 108-116,
133-140,238.
Eeform charters, 204-216. See un-
der Charters.
Eeform government. See under
Government.
Eeform movement, 5-7, 10-22, 30-35,
73, 193-204, 226,237 ; motive of the,
245-249.
Eemonstrance of the most gracious
King James I., 26; of the Com-
mons, 9; of his Majesty's well
wishing, 42.
Eepublic, the, 154, 156, 164, 165, 178,
180, 184,185, 187, 197, 202, 228, 242,
253, 255, 256.
Eevolution, 13, 142-147, 149, 153, 156,
165, 202, 227, 236.
Eevolutionary disputes, 141, 143;
history, 159 ; leaders, 141, 143, 146.
Eich, Sir Nathaniel, 44, 46, 47, 196 ;
Eobert, Earl of Warwick, 44, 47,
his house, 47.
Eichard, the, 8.
Richmond, Va., 157, 166; "Dis-
patch," 175.
Eider, Edward, 145.
Eights, boundary, charter, histori-
cal, political, of the Patriots who
founded this country, passim.
Eind, William, 141.
Robertson, W., 171.
INDEX
275
Rockfish River, 159.
Eoe, Sir Thomas, 32, 34 ; Letters to,
169.
Rogers, Jane, 110.
Rolfe, Mrs. John, 18; John, 18, 174 ;
his " Relation," 166.
Roundhead, 107, 244.
Royal Commissions, 82. See King's
Commissions.
Royal MSS., 166.
Royalist party. See Court party.
Russell, Lady Rachel, Lord Wil-
liam, 135.
" Rymer's Foedera," 123.
Sackville, Sir Edward, 44, 97, 98.
Saint Andrew's Church, 65.
St. John, Oliver, Viscount Grandi-
son, 55.
Sandwich, 36.
Sandys, Sir Edwin, 8, 9, 11, 22, 27,
28,30-34,36-40, 44-47, 49-51, 60, 79,
82, 89, 92, 102, 113, 114, 120, 128, 129,
133, 145, 183, 200, 209, 211, 219, 222,
238, 253 ; his house, 28 ; his party,
82, 222 ; George, 97, 102, 103, 105,
133; Sir Samuel, 36.
Sandys-Ferrar influence, 106.
Sandys - Southampton administra-
tion (1619-1624), 62.
Scotch army, 107, 134.
Scotland, 244.
Scott, Anthony, 21 ; General W., 150.
Scottsville, Va., 159.
" Seating Place," 6.
Second effort to protect our charter
rights by Act of Parliament, 49-52.
Seelye, Lillie Eggleston, 173.
Segar, Sir William, the King's king
of arms, 95, 96.
Selden, John, 28, 34, 36, 38, 94, 109,
138.
*' Seminary of Sedition," 40, 72, 127,
231, 254.
" Seminary for a seditious Parlia-
ment," 31, 143. See Virginia courts
in London.
Sermons, 18, 21.
Seymour, Edward, Earl of Hert-
ford, 80, 83, 225.
Shadwell Street, London, no.
Shakespeare, William, and his
" Tempest," 16.
Sheffield, Edmond, Lord, 32.
Sidney, Sir Philip, 15; Robert, Lord
Lisle, 15.
Sigismund Bathor, 95.
Smith, Catherine, 138 ; John of Nib-
ley, 45, 238 ; Robert of London, 35 ;
Robert of Virginia, 119; Sir
Thomas, Treasurer of the Virginia
Corporation (1609-1619), 14, 15, 27,
30, 32, 41, 44, 47, 51, 81, 82, 90, 114,
128-130,138, 196, 219,224,237, 238;
his house in London, 81 ; his party,
82, 90, 128, 183, 222.
Smith, John, a historian licensed
under the crown, and a represent-
ative of James I. in Virginia, 5,
49, 53, 55, 65, 74-86, 95, 117, 125, 129,
164, 165, 170-178, 181, 187, 197, 223-
225, 228, 229, 237-239, 241, 249, 252,
254 ; his " Generall Historie," 5, 53,
65,74-76,83-86, 95, 122-125, 129-132,
160, 164, 171-179, 181, 187, 199-203,
205, 217, 225, 237, 245, 250-257; Ms
Oxford Tract, 79-82, 84, 85; his
"True Relation," 171; his pub-
lished works, 82, 95, 164, 176, 179,
225 ; his biographies, 164.
" Snowden," 159.
Somers Islands Company, 65. See
Bermuda.
Somers, Sir George, 16, 18.
Southampton. See Wriothesley.
Southampton House, 32, 134, 135.
South Carolina, 149, 207.
Southern Literary Messenger, 166.
South Sea, 7, 246. See Pacific Ocean.
South Virginia. See Virginia (35
to 40 n. L)
"Soveraigne Rule," 241.
Spain, 8, 12, 13, 30, 37, 42, 43, 49, 50,
97, 125, 145, 150, 204, 239, 247, 255.
Spaniards, 8, 25, 27, 80, 240, 246.
Spanish king, 30, 97, 145 ; match, 37,
49; ministers, 30; party, 8, 37;
plan of government for Colonies,
55, 97, 145 ; wrongs, 8 ; West In-
dies, 10, 30, 37.
Stagg or Stegge, Thomas, 107, 137.
Stamford, 134.
276
INDEX
Star Chamber, 64, 65, 84, 101, 109, 110,
197, 202, 260.
State Papers, Calendars of, 168.
Stationer's Hall, 83.
Stevens, Henry, 173.
Stiles, Thomas, 196.
Stith, Rev. William, 72, 125-133, 135,
156, 157, 160, 229, 230 ; his " History
of Virginia," 15, 124-132, 135-137,
142, 160, 229, 230, 239.
Stock. See Joint stock.
Stow, John, 82.
Strachey, William, 17, 18, 21; his
" Historie of Travaile," etc., 166.
Strafford. See Wentworth.
Strype, 221.
Stuart, Ludovic, 83; Duchess of
Richmond and Lenox, 83, 254.
Stuart kings. See James I. and
II.; Charles I. and II.
Styles. See Stiles.
Suckling, Sir John, Comptroller of
the king's household, 196.
Suffrage in Virginia, 234-236. See
Election.
Sustaining influence. See Vis vitae.
Sutcliff, Eev. Dr. M., 196.
Tarleton's command, 158, 159.
Taylor, CoL H. P., 139 ; Gen. Z., 150.
Taxes, 28, 47, 108, 120, 140, 232, 233,
235.
Tempest, the, 16, 241.
Tennessee, 207.
Texas, 150, 207.
Text, 18.
Titchfield, library, 91, 133-135.
" Tobacco plantation," 31.
Tomlyns, Richard, 70,
Tories, 227, 243. See Court party.
" True Law of Free Monarchies," 9.
Trust Companies, 219, 220.
Tucker, Daniel, 17.
Tufton, Sir Nicholas, 32.
Tyler, President John, 150; Prof.
Moses Coit, and his " History of
American Literature," 172, 173,
175.
United Provinces. See Nether-
lands.
United States, 150, 166, 188, 193, 215,
256, 258.
University College, London, 173.
Utah, 207.
Utie, John, 100, 101.
Velasco, Don Alonso de, 30.
Villiers, George, Duke of Bucking-
ham, 50.
Virginia (34 to 45 n. 1.), 6.
Virginia, North (40 to 45 or 48 n.
1.), 8, 9, 11, 150, 206, 207, 209-212,
214, 215, 222, 247, 248. See Massa-
chusetts ; New England ; Pil-
grims.
Virginia, South (34 to 40 n. 1.), 7-
12, 15-17, 19, 21, 26-29, 37, 40, 41,
43, 47-49, 51, 54, 62, 64, 66, 69, 70,
76, 78, 79, 89, 91, 92, 99, 101, 108,
140, 150, 183, 206, 207, 210-212, 214,
215, 220, 222, 229, 235, 247, 248, 254,
255.
Virginia Company (1606-1609), 6, 22,
73, 76-78, 205, 206, 208, 209, 216-218,
227, 236, 237.
Virginia Corporation and body poli-
tic (1609-1624), 10-13, 16-19, 22, 24,
30-34, 37-39, 44, 45, 48-54, 56, 61, 64,
65, 67, 72, 82, 84, 91, 92, 95, 97, 106,
112, 118, 123-132, 134, 136, 145-147,
155, 157, 161-163, 174, 175, 182, 193-
195, 197, 202, 206, 207, 210, 212, 213,
216-228, 230, 231, 233, 234, 237, 238,
241, 247, 260. See under Evi-
dences.
Virginia courts in London, 27, 29-
36, 40-43, 46, 48, 50, 53, 62, 64, 65,
66, 70, 71, 97, 127, 133-140, 142, 143,
162, 209, 217, 219, 222, 224, 231-233,
238, 254. See " Seminary of Sedi-
dion."
Virginia business, 31, 36-38, 40,
89.
" Virginia and Maryland," 111.
'Virginia Company papers, 1621-
1625," 157.
" Virginia Papers, 1606-1683," 158.
Virginia, the State of, 207 ; conven-
tion of 1776, 138 ; Constitution of
1776, 149; "Magazine of History
and Biography," 26, 29, 187 ; His-
INDEX
277
torical Society, 157, 171, 173 ; " Ke-
porter," 171.
Virginians, 43,70, 93, 98. See Planters.
Vis vitse (principles of liberty, lib-
eral ideas of government, etc.),
10-13, 17, 19, 23, 24, 31, 53, 56, 169,
228, 229, 233-237, 242-250, 257, 258,
261, 262.
" Vox populi vox Dei," 262.
Warner, Charles Dudley, his " Study
of Smith's Life," etc., 173.
Warwick, Earl of. See Kich.
Washington, George, 100, 149.
Wenman, Sir F., 20.
Wentworth, Thomas, Earl of Straf-
ford, 104.
West, Francis, 77, 94, 114; John,
100, 101, 114 ; Thomas, Lord De la
Warr, 15, 19-21, 29, 78, 79, 114, 238,
his letter, 166, his " Belation," 168.
West Indies, 10, 97. See Spanish
West Indies.
Westminster Abbey, 259.
Weston, Sir E., Chancellor of the
King's Exchequer, 196.
West Virginia, 207.
White, Kev. Francis, 196 ; John, 28,
45, 70, 211.
William the Silent, 19, 20.
William and Mary, 122.
Williamsburg, Va,, 124.
Williams, Lordkeeper John, 259.
Wilmore, George, 196.
Wingfield, Capt. E. M., 76 ; his " Dis-
course of Virginia," 166, 169, 170.
Winston, Dr. Thomas, 222.
Wiseman, Kichard, 222.
Withers, Anthony, 70.
Wodenoth, Arthur, and his " Short
Collections," 33, 38, 44, 54, 92, lll-
114, 136, 165 ; Will, 112.
Wolstenholme, Sir John, 196.
Wriothesley, Henry, 3d Earl of
Southampton, and last Treasurer
of the Virginia Corporation, 15, 16,
28, 32, 33, 36-38, 42, 44-47, 62, 71, 90,
91, 114, 129, 133, 136, 147 ; Thomas,
4th Earl of Southampton, 102, 133,
134, 136, 139. See Southampton
House, and Titchfleld.
Wrong. See Historic wrong.
Wrote, Samuel, 35, 196.
Wroth, John, 35, 222 ; Sir Thomas,
196.
Wyatt, Sir Francis, 35, 41, 92, 93, 97,
102, 104, 127, 161.
Wythe, George, 144.
Yeardley, Sir George, 18, 20, 29, 92,
93, 114, 126, 127, 162, 225.
Zane, Isaac, 139, 140.
Zuniga, Don Pedro de, 30.
EUctrotyped and printed by H. O. Houghton & Co.
Cambridge, Mass., U.S.A.
I
Brown, Alexander
English politics in early
Virginia history
PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE
CARDS OR SLIPS FROM THIS POCKET
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO LIBRARY
F
229
B^own, Alexander
English politics in early
Virginia history
