FOOTNOTES
[A] "A Briefe Declaration of the Plantation of Virginia during the first twelve yeares, when Sir Thomas Smyth was Governor, of the Companie, and downe to this present tyme. By the Ancient Planters now remaining alive in Virginia."—MS. in my possession.[2]
[B] "A Briefe Declaration," &c.
[C] "A Briefe Declaration," &c.
[D] "Proceedings of the first Assembly," now first printed in this volume.
[1] "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.
[2] This document is the third in this collection. It is printed from the copy obtained by Col. McDonald.—Ed.
[E] Smith's Generall Historie of Virginia, Richmond edition, Vol. ii. pp. 38, 39.
[F] See Beverley's History of Virginia, p. 37 of the first edition, and p. 35 of the second.[3]
[G] Stith's History of Virginia p. 160, Williamsburg edition.[4]
[H] MS. Copy of Address of Sir Francis Wyatt, &c., &c., to King James I., signed by Sir Francis Wyatt and 32 others.
[I] Hening's Statutes at Large, I., p. 119. refers to the acts of 1623-'4 as "the earliest now extant."
[3] "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.
[4] "And about the latter end of June (1619) he (Sir George Yeardley, Governor,) called the first General Assembly that was ever held in Virginia. Counties were not yet laid of, but they elected their representatives by townships. So that the Burroughs of Jamestown, Henrico, Bermuda Hundred, and the rest, each sent their members to the Assembly." * * * * "and hence it is that our lower house of Assembly was first called the House of Burgesses," Stith, p. 160. "In May, this year (1620), there was held another Generall Assembly, which has, through mistake, and the indolence and negligence of our historians in searching such ancient records as are still extant in the country, been commonly reported the first General Assembly," Ib. p. 182. We do not see that Stith "errs" even "a little in the data." Rolfe says, "The 25 of June came in the Triall with Corne and Cattell in all safety, which took from us cleerely all feare of famine, then our gouernor and councell caused Burgesses to be chosen in all places, and met at a general Assembly," Smith, p. 128. Stith says, "And about the latter end of June he called," &c., Stith, p. 160. Neither intimate when the Assembly met, only that the governor called them to the latter part of June.—Ed.
[5] The first published notice of the existence of this paper occurred in the proceedings of the annual meeting of the Virginia Historical society, held December 15, 1853. In the report of the Executive Committee the chairman, Conway Robinson, Esq., states that he had seen the original report in the State Paper Office in London, on a recent visit to that city.—See Virginia Historical Reporter, Vol. I., 1854. Whatever question there may be in regard to priority of discovery, it is to be regretted that it was left to the Historical Society of another State to publish a document of so much value to the one to which it solely relates.—Ed.
[6] The Secretary of the Colony and Speaker of the first Assembly was John Pory. If he had been one of the Burgesses his name would have appeared with the others. Through the influence of the Earl at Warwick he was made Secretary to the Virginia Company. Campbell says, "He was educated at Cambridge, where he took the Master of Arts in April, 1610. It is supposed he was a member of the House of Commons. He was much of a traveller, and was at Venice in 1613, at Amsterdam in 1617, and shortly after at Paris." "Sir George Yeardley appointed him one of his Council."—Campbell, p. 139. The record shows that he acted as the presiding officer of the first Assembly, whether ex officio or by selection is not stated. It will be seen that a typographical error in Bancroft's pamphlet makes his name Povy. In Smith's General Historie there is a paper styled "The observations of Master John Pory, Secretarie of Virginia, in his travels;" it gives an account of his voyage to the eastern shore.—Smith, p. 141. Neill says of him, "John Pory was a graduate of Cambridge, a great traveller and good writer, but gained the reputation of being a chronic tipler and literary vagabond and sponger." When young he excited the interest of Hakluyt, who, in a dedication to the third volume of his, remarks: "Now, because long since I did foresee that my profession of Divinitie, the care of my family; and other occasions, might call or divert me from these kind of endeavour, I, therefore have, for these three years last past, encouraged and gathered in these studies of Cosmographia and former histories my honest, industrious and learned friend, Mr. John Porey, one of speciall skill and extraordinary hope, to perform great matters in the same, and beneficial to the Commonwealth." "Pory, in 1600, prepared a Geographical History of Africa, but he soon disappointed the expectations of his friends."
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.