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ERRATA.

Page 13--Note 50.--For McDowell read McDonald.

Page 14.--In last line of notes insert comma after Bancroft.

Page 23.--Omit the whole of note 263.

Page 24.--Note, 287, should read: committees, McDonald.

Page 35.--In second line from bottom for Stith read Smith.

Page 41 and 50.--For I, in notes, read we.

Page 61.--In Editor's Note, for Neil read Neill.

Page iii.--In Preface to Brief Declaration, lines fourteen and seventeen, for Smythe read Smith.

Page iv.--Line twenty-one, for Forcer read Force's.

Page 89.--Preface, line eight, omit "the" before massacre.

THE PROCEEDINGS

OF THE

FIRST ASSEMBLY OF VIRGINIA,

INTRODUCTION.

The documents herewith presented are printed from copies obtained from the Public Record Office of Great Britain. When the question of the boundary line between Maryland and Virginia was before the Legislature of the latter State, in 1860, Colonel Angus W. McDonald was sent to England to obtain the papers necessary to protect the interests of Virginia. He brought back "nine volumes of manuscripts and one book containing forty-eight maps" . The volumes of manuscripts contained, upon an average, 425 pages each, and were filled with valuable historical documents, of many of which no copies had ever been seen on this continent since the originals were sent from the Colony of Virginia. In a conversation with the writer, held soon after his return from England, in March, 1861, Colonel McDonald stated that having obtained copies of all the documents relating to the question of the boundary line which could be found, and having more money left of the appropriation made than was needed to pay the expenses of his return home, he decided to devote the surplus to obtaining copies of papers relating to the early history of the State, without reference to the question of the boundary line. This statement will, we presume, satisfactorily account for the presence in his collection of such papers as do not relate to the subject upon which he was engaged. That he was well qualified to select such papers is evident from an examination of the list which he made out.

During the occupation of the State capital building by the Federal troops and officials, after the surrender of the Confederate authorities in April, 1865, a very large quantity of the official documents filed in the archives of the State were removed from that building, and at the same time four of the nine volumes and the portfolio of maps above mentioned. Nothing has been heard from any of them since. In 1870, the question of the boundary line being again before the Legislature of Virginia, the Governor sent the Hon. D.C. De Jarnette upon the same errand that Colonel McDonald had so well performed, and the result was the obtaining of such papers as he could find relating to the subject under consideration, including duplicates of some of those which though useful in this connection, are included in the five volumes remaining of those collected by Col. McDonald; also, charters of great length, but which are to be found in print in the histories and statutes of the State, and many of the miscellaneous papers which Colonel McDonald had copied under the circumstances above named. Among the latter is the account of the first meeting of the Assembly at Jamestown in 1619. When Colonel McDonald visited the State Paper Office in 1860, this great repository of historical materials had not been thrown open to the public, and he tells us in his report that it was "twenty days after his arrival in London before he could obtain permission to examine the archives of the State Paper Office." A year or two afterwards all of the restrictions which had existed were removed, the papers arranged chronologically, and an index made by which they could be referred to. Farther, W. Noel Sainsbury, Esq., one of the officers of what is now called the Public Record Office, had published a calendar of all the papers relating to the British colonies in North America and the West Indies, from the first discoveries to 1660 , which contains a brief abstract of every paper included in the above named period, so that enquirers upon subjects embraced in this calendar can by reference see what the office has on file relating to it, and obtain copies of the documents required, at a much less cost than a voyage to England. Acting upon this knowledge, the Library Committee of the Virginia Legislature has made a contract with Mr. Sainsbury for copies of the titles and copious abstracts of every paper in the Public Record Office, and other repositories, which relates to the history of Virginia while a Colony. All of which he proposes to furnish for about ?250, being less than one-half the cost of either of the missions sent, which have obtained only a small fraction of the papers which we are to receive. He is performing his work in a most satisfactory manner; so much is he interested in the task that he has greatly exceeded his agreement by furnishing gratuitously full and complete copies of many documents of more than ordinary interest. Yet notwithstanding the known facilities afforded by the British Government and its officials, Mr. De Jarnette complains that he was refused permission to examine the Rolls Office and the State Paper Office ; and further, on page 15, he informs us that the papers which he obtained "had to be dug from a mountain of Colonial records with care and labor." His troubles were further increased by the fact that "the Colonial papers are not arranged under heads of respective Colonies, but thrown promiscuously together and constitute an immense mass of ill kept and badly written records," ib. p. 22.

The reader will infer from the preceding remarks that the State has two complete copies of the record of the proceedings of the first Assembly which met at Jamestown, viz: the McDonald and the De Jarnette copies, and also an abstract furnished by Mr. Sainsbury. Bancroft, the historian, obtained a copy of this paper, which was printed in the collections of the New York Historical Society for 1857. We have therefore been enabled to compare three different versions, and in a measure, a fourth. The De Jarnette copy being in loose sheets, written on one side only, was selected as the most convenient for the printer, and the text is printed from it. Where this differs from either of the others the foot notes show the differences, and, when no reference is made it is because all of them correspond.

When these papers were submitted as a part of the report of the Commissioners on the Boundary Line a joint resolution was adopted by both houses of the Legislature authorizing the Committee on the Library to print such of the papers as might be selected, provided the consent of the Commission could be obtained. Application was made to allow the first and second papers in this pamphlet to be printed but it was refused. The Commission having been dissolved the Committee on the Library have assumed the responsibility and herewith submit this instalment of these interesting documents, which were written before the Colony of Maryland was known, and all of which, save the first, were never before printed.

The Report of the proceedings of the first Assembly is prefaced with the introductory note published with Mr. Bancroft's copy, to which a few notes explanatory have been added.

Trusting that this instalment of these historical records of the Ancient Dominion will be acceptable to the students of our early history, and sufficiently impress the members of the Legislature with their value to move them to make an appropriation sufficient to print all that has been obtained, this is

Respectfully submitted, by your obedient servants,

Virginia, for twelve years after its settlement, languished under the government of Sir Thomas Smith, Treasurer of the Virginia Company in England. The Colony was ruled during that period by laws written in blood; and its history shows how the narrow selfishness of despotic power could counteract the best efforts of benevolence. The colonists suffered an extremity of distress too horrible to be described. In April, 1619, Sir George Yeardley arrived. Of the emigrants who had been sent over at great cost, not one in twenty then remained alive. "In James Citty were only those houses that Sir Thomas Gates built in the tyme of his government, with one wherein the Governor allwayes dwelt, and a church, built wholly at the charge of the inhabitants of that citye, of timber, being fifty foote in length and twenty foot in breadth." At Henrico, now Richmond, there were no more than "three old houses, a poor ruinated Church, with some few poore buildings in the Islande." "For ministers to instruct the people, he founde only three authorized, two others who never received their orders." "The natives he founde uppon doubtfull termes;" so that when the twelve years of Sir Thomas Smith's government expired, Virginia, according to the "judgements" of those who were then members of the Colony, was "in a poore estate."

From the moment of Yeardley's arrival dates the real life of Virginia. He brought with him "Commissions and instructions from the Company for the better establishinge of a Commonwealth heere." He made proclamation, "that those cruell lawes by which we" "had soe longe been governed, were now abrogated, and that we were to be governed by those free lawes which his Majesties subjectes live under in Englande." Nor were these considerations made dependent on the good will of administrative officers.

"And that they might have a hande in the governinge of themselves," such are the words of the Planters, "yt was graunted that a generall Assemblie shoulde be helde yearly once, whereat were to be present the Gov^r and Counsell w^ two Burgesses from each Plantation, freely to be elected by the Inhabitants thereof, this Assemblie to have power to make and ordaine whatsoever lawes and orders should by them be thought good and proffitable for our subsistance."

In conformity with these instructions, Sir George Yeardley "sente his summons all over the country, as well to invite those of the Counsell of Estate that were absente, as also for the election of Burgesses;" and on Friday, the 30th day of July, 1619, the first elective legislative body of this continent assembled at James City.

The careful Stith, whose work is not to be corrected without a hearty recognition of his superior diligence and exemplary fidelity, gives an account of this first legislative body, though he errs a little in the date by an inference from Rolfe's narrative, which the words do not warrant.

The prosperity of Virginia begins with the day when it received, as "a commonwealth," the freedom to make laws for itself. In a solemn address to King James, which was made during the government of Sir Francis Wyatt, and bears the signature of the Governor, Council, and apparently every member of the Assembly, a contrast is drawn between the former "miserable bondage," and "this just and gentle authoritye which hath cherished us of late by more worthy magistrates. And we, our wives and poor children shall ever pray to God, as our bounden duty is, to give you in this worlde all increase of happines, and to crowne you in the worlde to come w^ immortall glorye."

A desire has long existed to recover the record of the proceedings of the Assembly which inaugurated so happy a revolution. Stith was unable to find it; no traces of it were met by Jefferson; and Hening, and those who followed Hening, believed it no longer extant. Indeed, it was given up as hopelessly lost.

Having, during a long period of years, instituted a very thorough research among the papers relating to America in the British State Paper Office, partly in person and partly with the assistance of able and intelligent men employed in that Department, I have at last been so fortunate as to obtain the "Proceedings of the First Assembly of Virginia." the document is in the form of "a reporte" from the Speaker; and is more fall and circumstantial than any subsequent journal of early legislation in the Ancient Dominion.

Many things are noticeable. The Governor and Council sat with the Burgesses; and took part in motions and debates. The Secretary of the Colony was chosen Speaker, and I am not sure that he was a Burgess. This first American Assembly set the precedent of beginning legislation with prayer. It is evident that Virginia was then as thoroughly a Church of England colony, as Connecticut afterwards was a Calvinistic one. The inauguration of legislative power in the Ancient Dominion preceded the existence of negro slavery, which we will believe it is destined also to survive. The earliest Assembly in the oldest of the original thirteen States, at its first session, took measures "towards the erecting of" a "University and Colledge." Care was also taken for the education of Indian children. Extravagance in dress was not prohibited, but the ministers were to profit by a tax on excess in apparel. On the whole, the record of these Proceedings will justify the opinion of Sir Edward Sandys, that "they were very well and judiciously carried." The different functions of government may have been confounded and the laws were not framed according to any speculative theory; but a perpetual interest attaches to the first elective body representing the people of Virginia, more than a year before the Mayflower, with the Pilgrims, left the harbor of Southampton, and while Virginia was still the oldest British Colony on the whole Continent of America.

GEORGE BANCROFT.

"A Briefe Declaration," &c.

"A Briefe Declaration," &c.

"Proceedings of the first Assembly," now first printed in this volume.

"Henrico, now Richmond," is a grievous error. "Henrico, or Henricus, was situated ten miles below the present site of Richmond, on the main land, to which the peninsula known as Farrar's Island was joined." See footnote Q.--ED.

This document is the third in this collection. It is printed from the copy obtained by Col. McDonald.--ED.

Smith's Generall Historie of Virginia, Richmond edition, Vol. ii. pp. 38, 39.

See Beverley's History of Virginia, p. 37 of the first edition, and p. 35 of the second.

Stith's History of Virginia p. 160, Williamsburg edition.

"These Burgesses met the Governor and Council at Jamestown in 1620, and sat in consultation in the same house with them as the method of the Scots Parliament is." "This was the first Generall Assembly that ever was held there."--Beverley.--ED.

A letter from London, dated July 26, 1623, says: "Our old acquaintance, Mr. Porey, is in poore case, and in prison at the Terceras, whither he was driven by contrary winds, from the north coast of Virginia, where he had been upon some discovery, and upon his arrival he was arraigned and in danger of being hanged for a pirate." "He died about 1635." For further particulars from contemporary authorities, see Neill's History of the Virginia Company of London. Albany, Munsell, 1869.--ED.

COLONIAL RECORDS OF VIRGINIA.

STATE PAPERS.

First. Sir George Yeardley, Knight Governo^r & Captaine general of Virginia, having sente his sumons all over the Country, as well to invite those of the Counsell of Estate that were absente as also for the election of Burgesses, there were chosen and appeared

Proceedings. Bancroft.

State. McDonald.

The most convenient place we could finde to sitt in was the Quire of the Churche Where Sir George Yeardley, the Governour, being sett downe in his accustomed place, those of the Counsel of Estate sate nexte him on both handes, excepte onely the Secretary then appointed Speaker, who sate right before him, John Twine, clerke of the General assembly, being placed nexte the Speaker, and Thomas Pierse, the Sergeant, standing at the barre, to be ready for any service the Assembly shoulde comaund him. But forasmuche as men's affaires doe little prosper where God's service is neglected, all the Burgesses tooke their places in the Quire till a prayer was said by Mr. Bucke, the Minister, that it would please God to guide and sanctifie all our proceedings to his owne glory and the good of this Plantation. Prayer being ended, to the intente that as we had begun at God Almighty, so we might proceed w^ awful and due respecte towards the Lieutenant, our most gratious and dread Soveraigne, all the Burgesses were intreatted to retyre themselves into the body of the Churche, w^ being done, before they were fully admitted, they were called in order and by name, and so every man tooke the oathe of Supremacy, and then entred the Assembly. At Captaine Warde the Speaker tooke exception, as at one that without any Comission or authority had seatted himselfe either upon the Companies, and then his Plantation would not be lawfull, or on Captain Martin's lande, and so he was but a limbe or member of him, and there could be but two Burgesses for all. So Captaine Warde was comanded to absente himselfe till such time as the Assembly had agreed what was fitt for him to doe. After muche debate, they resolved on this order following:

Boyes, McDonald. Guiste, Bancroft.

Gourgainy, McDonald and Bancroft.

Ensign, Bancroft.

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