Gentlemen:
I am much obliged to the Pennsylvania Historical Society, for the complimentary resolution it was pleased to pass in relation to the Discourse I delivered before it on the 8th of this month. In compliance with your request, I place a copy of the address at your disposal; and, while thanking you for the courtesy with which you have communicated the vote of your colleagues, I have the honor to be, your most obedient servant,
BRANTZ MAYER.
| To Messieurs | JOB R. TYSON, J. FRANCIS FISHER, B. H. COATES, EDW. ARMSTRONG, | } | Committee, &c. &c. &c. |
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Mr. Joseph Hunter's "Collections concerning the Early History of the Founders of New Plymouth." London, 1849: No 2 of his Critical and Historical Tracts, p. 14.
[2] It is believed by historians that Sir Walter Raleigh fell a victim to the intrigues of Spain at the Court of James. His American adventures and hardihood were dangerous to the Spanish Empire. A small pamphlet entitled: A New Description of Virginia, published in London in 1619, a reprint of which is possessed by the Virginia Historical Society, shows how the prophetic fears of the Spaniard, even at that early time, conjured up the warning phantom of Anglo-Saxon "annexation."
"It is well known," says the pamphlet, "that our English plantations have had little countenance; nay, that our statesmen, (when time was,) had store of Gundemore's gold," (meaning Gondomar, Spanish Minister at James's Court)—"to destroy and discountenance the plantation of Virginia; and he effected it, in great part, by dissolving the company, wherein most of the nobility, gentry, corporate cities, and most merchants of England, were interested and engaged; after the expense of some hundred of thousands of pounds; for Gundemore did affirm to his friends, that he had commission from his master"—(the King of Spain,)—"to destroy that plantation. For, said he, should they thrive and go on increasing, as they have done under that popular Lord of Southampton, my master's West Indies, and his Mexico, would shortly be visited by sea and by land, from those Planters in Virginia."
Generals Scott and Taylor—both sons of Virginia—have verified, in the nineteenth century, the foresight of the cautious statesman of the seventeenth.