The Historie of Travaile into Virginia Britannia
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The Historie of Travaile into Virginia Britannia

Expressing the Cosmographie and Comodities of the Country, together with the Manners and Customes of the People. Gathered and observed as well by those who went first thither as collected by William Strachey, Gent., the first Secretary of the Colony

R.H. Major, R.H. Major

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eBook - ePub

The Historie of Travaile into Virginia Britannia

Expressing the Cosmographie and Comodities of the Country, together with the Manners and Customes of the People. Gathered and observed as well by those who went first thither as collected by William Strachey, Gent., the first Secretary of the Colony

R.H. Major, R.H. Major

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About This Book

This work is edited, from the original manuscript, then in the British Museum, now From British Library, Sloane MS 1622. This is a new print-on-demand hardback edition of the volume first published in 1849.

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Publisher
Routledge
Year
2017
ISBN
9781317029014

THE FIRST BOOKE

OF
THE HISTORIE OF TRAVAILE INTO VIRGINIA BRITANNIA,
EXPRESSING THE COSMOGRAPHIE AND COMODITIES
OF THE COUNTRY, TOGITHER WITH THE
MANNERS AND CUSTOMES OF
THE PEOPLE:
GATHERED AND OBSERVED AS WELL BY THOSE WHO WENT
FIRST THITHER, AS COLLECTED BY
WILLIAM STRACHEY, GENT.,
THREE YEARES THITHER IMPLOYED SECRETARIE OF STATE, AND
OF COUNSAILE WITH THE RIGHT HONORABLE THE LORD
LA-WARRE, HIS MAJESTIES LORD GOVERNOR AND
CAPT. GENERALL OF THE COLONY.
____
PSALM CII, VER. 18.
“This shalbe written for the generation to come: and the people which shalbe created shall praise the Lord.”

A
PRÆMONITION TO THE READER.

images
Wherein (as the fowndation to all the succeeding busines) is derived downe to our tymes, the auntyent right and clayme which we make to this part of America, and therein both the objections answered and doubts cleirly satisfied of such who, through mallice, or ignorance, either have or hereafter may call the lawfulnes of the proceeding hereof in question.
THE many mouthes of ignorance and slaunder which are ever too apt to lett fall the venome of theire worst and most depraved envies uppon the best and most sacred workes, and soe not afrayd to blast both this enterprize and the devoutest labowrers therein, wringes from me the necessity of this imperfect defence, whome yet I have observed more in clamour (me thought) then at any tyme in force, to cry out still upon yt, calling yt an unnationall and unlawfull undertaking; when lett [it] be but observed (I pray), and soone will appeare theire mallice and petulancy to speake, as also, what a distance there is truly sett betweene the busines and their knowledge; for, in a cliere judgment, if any such attaint lay uppon the act, neither the generall peace of the tyme might not suffer yt to goe forth with such libertie, nor the honor of such who have sett yt forward, ymportune yt of his Majestie, nor would the consciences (yt is knowen right well) of the chief commanders for the execution and actuall part thereof (let custome have taken away, how-ever, that quicknes from the chargers owne insensible and seared heart) hazard the last and setting howers of their daies in trayterous or ignoble prosecutions; yet being the pious and only end both intended by his Majestie, by the honorable Counsaile for the busines, by the Lord Generall, Lieutenant Generall, Marshall, and such like emynent officers (called forth for the dignity of so great a cause), together with the generall adventurers, with all carefulnes, principally to endeavour the conversion of the natives to the knowledge and worship of the true God, and the world’s Redeemer, Christ Jesus; how rotten and unsound, then, both to his Majestie and the present faith (it is to be feared) may they be at the coare within, that dare (except yt be as I sayd, out of ignorance, yet cannot that excuse a factious and pragmatique tongue) quarrel and traduce the proceedings of a whole state, and to which the royall authoritie, by letters made patents, both in her Majestie’s tyme, of famous memory, and nowe likewise hath ben five tymes concurrant? May yt be supposed any one but luke-warme in Christian charity would be parcell guilty herein, or make yt questionable whether should be attempted a worke of this piety uppon a barbarous nation? Let the busy knowledge (to say no more) of such a one be shrewdly suspected, and blemished. May any lover of his country? No. Yet is [it] to be feared that he borroweth but a counterfeyt face from Janus, to turne to the penall edict, or to his prince (if such be his grace): but, however, let them both knowe the grounds of goodnes are not layd so weake, in well weyed counsailes, that the clamour of a centurion or two can disturb Numa Pompilius1 kneelinge at the aulter. Let them give yt up in rumor, or more subtilly cry out, that our enemies at Sevill, or Lishborne, at Dominica, Mevis,2 or at the Havana, are up in armes for us, we can yet goe on in the justifiableness of our course, makinge only Pompilius’ answere,— “And we doe sacrifice”. Will it yet please the reader to favour me a little?
Two sorts especially, I must conceave, of untoward (to stile them noe worse) and ill disposed in theire wisdomes, stand much offended with this busines, and have devysed against yt many slaunders and calumneys, the meere ignorant (not only in scientia scientiæ, as the scholman saies, but includinge grossenes and simplicytie in any knowledge) and the meere opposite in scientia conscientiæ, in religion; I would to God the latter were not more dangerous, by how much
Celeberrima per loca vadet ;
and can speake amisse, out of the corrupt seedes of goodnes, and perhaps soe speaking be hearde.
And these both saye, how the undertaking cannot be lawfull. Why? Because the King of Spayne hath a primer interest into the countrey. Next, it cannot be honest in yt self. Why? Because injurious to the naturalls; and which connected together, yt must then necessarily followe (saye they) that yt can be no other than a travaile of flat impiety, and displeasinge before God. Indeed, no meane objections to stumble shallowe home witts, who, whilst they looke lazely and broadly on yt, are presented with an ugly face; but If, by a more perspective direction, we will examine how these perticularities may lie together, we shall find another modell, and an aire of that dignity and truith which aspiers to a cleane contrary comelines.
For the King of Spaine he hath no more title nor collour of title to this place, which we by our industry and expenses have only made ours (as for the Pope’s donative of all America unto him, that is sufficyently answeared ellswere, in a discourse alreddye published by a most worthy undertaker),1 then hath any Christyan prince (or then we, or any other prince, maye have to his Mexico and Peru, or any dominions ells of any free state and kingdome) how nere soever the West Indies and Florida may joyne thereunto, and lye under the same portion of heaven; with as great bravery male we laye clayme to all the islands which the Seignorie of Venice nowe holdes in the Levant seas, because Ciprus was once ours, by the conquest of Richard Cour de Lion, and confines with theires, then which what more infirme and ridiculous pretence could be framed? and yet is the Kinge of Spaine’s argument to our interest in Virginia just in this moode and figure.
Noe Prince may laye claime to any more amongst these newc discoveries (and soe it was heretofore, a just distinction being therefore kept betweene the Kinge of Castile and Portugall) then what his people have discovered, tooke actuall possession of, and passed over to his right; and noe otherwise from Columbus doth the Kinge of Spaine hold his strength and dominions to this daye in his golden Indies; and noe otherwise from Soto,1 his Adelantado, concerninge our neighbour Florida: and soe we allow him (without any one inch of intrusion) both his longitude and latitude in this new world, we keeping from Cape Florida norward, to Cape Briton. The landes, countries, and territories of this parte of America which we call ours, and by the name of Virginia, or Nova Britannia, being carefully laid out (of purpose) to avoid offence unto certaine boundes, and regions, begynning from the point of land called Cape Comfort, and so holding all along the sea-coast to the norward two hundred myles; and from the point of the said Cape Comfort all along the sea-coast to the so-ward three hundred miles; and so only all that space and circuit of land lying from the sea-coasts of these precincts, not coming neere any land in his actuall possession, but rather diverting from yt many a league; and yet holdes he neither any chargeable forces (to dispute his right) uppon the mayne, nor keeepes colonies (except in Florida, at St. Augustine only), nor reckons of the same, but that is at his best pleasure.
Within the Chesopoke Bay six which Bay the Spaniards in their cartes call Sante Maria.
But what nowe concerning this point, for the more cliering of yt to such who stumble thereat: if we should say that our right to the West Indies themselves (since they will needes awaken us with pretence of title) is as firme, proper, and far more auncyent then the Spaniards; and before the royall spirited lady Isabella, Princesse of Castile, layd her jewells to pawne, to Luis of St. Angelo, the King her husband’s secretary, to forward the designe, and to prevent our King Henry VII (who was both offred, and accepted Columbus’s offer, and entred into capitulations with his brother Bartholomew about them, anno 1489), sure we should not want some pregnant likelyhoodes, and those not only by our simple discoveries, but by our planting and inhabiting them with the people of our owne nation four hundred years before Columbus had notice of them by the Biscan pilot,1 who, when he dwelt in the islands of Madera, arrived with a weather beaten caravelle, and dying in his house, bequeathed (as they say) to Columbus his card of the discription of such newe landes as he had found. True yt is, the first shippes that Columbus carryed thither were but in anno 1492, which is now since one hundred and twenty yeares; when lett any man be but pleased to looke into the learned and industrious antiquities of Mr. Camden (the carefulnes and truth of whose searches he that will undervalew, or sclaunder, shalbe much out of love with the labours of all good men and powers of vertue), and he remembers us of Madoc, the sonne of Owen Gwineth, Prince of Nor-Wales, in the yeare 1170 (which may be four hundred and thirty-nine years since), who, leaving the land in contention betweene his two brethren, Howell and David, prepared certayne shipps with men and munition, and after many unknowne landes and straunge discoveries made (sayling within the Atlantick sea, a sowardly course, yet still into the west), at last setteled in the West Indies, as his owne relation suffers construction, which he made in his returne for newe supplies, the second and third tyme, which he transported, and after that was heard no more of; and late observations taken in these tymes may confirme the probability hereof, as first in Acuzamill (so in writing Francis Lopez de Gomera2) the natives when they were first found, had their crosses in their chappies, and in dedicated groves, in gardens, by woodes, springes, and fowntaines, which they did honour and fall downe before, thereto saying their usuall prayers, which must mak illustration that Christians had ben there before the coming of the Spaniard: and no ecclesiastical history comendes unto us (since Solomon’s voyage to Ophir ceased), nor any recordes of other antiquities (since the fabulous drowning by Deucalion’s flood, or burning by Phæton, or since the sincking of the Atlantick islands), more auncyent, or before the voyage of Madoc. Lastly, the language of the Indians admitting much and many wordes, both of places, and names of many creatures, which have the accents and Welch significations, and are yet retayned, both by the Indian, Crollos (Spaniards borne there), and Mulatoes.
Vide Hackluite’s discoveries, lib. 1.
But this is materiall and punctuall to our hypothesis. King Henry VII gave his letters pattents, No. 1495, unto John Cabot, a Venetian (indenized his subject, and dwelling within the Black-friers), and to his three sonnes, who discovered for the King the north parts of America, to Meta Incognita,4 and annexed to the crowne of England all that great tract of lande stretching from the Cape of Florida unto those parts, mayne and islands, which we call the New-found-land, some of which were not before knowen to Columbus, nor afterwards to Nicuesa,5 Colmenaris,6 nor Vasquez Nunnez,7 nor any of the Castilions; the draught of which voyageis yet to be seene in his Majestie’s prize gallery in his pallace at Westminster:1 but the tumults (say they who wrought of those tymes) then, and preparations for warrs in Scotland, tooke away the seconding of that enterprize, yet no whit tooke awaye (I hope) our title, more than the King of Spayne may loose his to those parts covered with the same heavens, which he neither fortefyes nor planteth to this day.
Or Mestizoes.3
Soe as we may conclude, then, at least, that as Christopher Columbus discovered the islands and continent of the West Indies for Spayne, John and Sebastian Cabot made discoveries no lesse of the rest from Florida, norward, to the behouf of England, being supported by the regall authority, and sett forth at the charge and expence of King Henry VII; and we hope that they will leave unto us the same way and proprietary, both to goe unto our owne and hold yt by, as we give them; and if they will do so (and all lawes of nations will assist us herein), how unjust and parciall shall that subject be, and how ill a servant in the court of his ow...

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