England in America, 1580-1652

by Lyon Gardiner Tyler

Among these writers three have conspicuous merit—Doyle, Winsor, and Fiske. Doyle's volumes manifest a high degree of philosophic perception and are accurate in statement and broad in conclusions. Of his books the volumes on the Puritan colonies are distinctly of a higher order than his volume on the southern colonies. The chief merit of Winsor's work is the critical chapters and parts of narrative chapters, which are invaluable. John Fiske is not wanting in the qualities of a great historian—breadth of mind and accuracy of statement; but his great charm is in his style and his power of vivifying events long forgotten. He has probably come nearer than any one else to writing real history so as to produce a popular effect.

COLLECTIONS OF SOURCES

The main contemporary collectors of materials for the history of the early voyages to America were Richard Eden, Richard Hakluyt, and Samuel Purchas. Eden's Decades of the New World or West Indies (7 vols., 1555) consists of abstracts of the works of foreign writers—Peter Martyr, Oviedo, Gomara, Ramusio, Ziegler, Pigafetta, Munster, Bastaldus, Vespucius, and others. Richard Hakluyt first published Divers Voyages (1582; reprinted by the Hakluyt Society) and then his Principal Voyages (3 vols., folio, 1589; reissued 1600). Samuel Purchas's first volume appeared in 1613 under the title, Purchas: His Pilgrimage of the World, or Religions Observed in all Ages and Places Discovered, from the Creation unto this Present. The four subsequent volumes were published in 1623 under the title, Hakluytius Posthumous, or, Purchas: His Pilgrimes.

Among these three compilers Hakluyt enjoys pre-eminence, and the Hakluyt Society has supplemented his labors by publishing in full some of the narratives which Hakluyt, for reasons of accuracy or want of space, abbreviated. The Historie of Travaile into Virginia, by William Strachey, secretary to Lord Delaware, was published by the Hakluyt Society in 1848, and this book contains excellent accounts of the expeditions sent by Sir Walter Raleigh to Roanoke, the voyages of Bartholomew Gosnold and George Weymouth, and the settlement made under its charter by the Plymouth Company at Sagadahoc, or Kennebec.

The only official collection of documentary materials that covers the entire period is the Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, America and West Indies, 1574-1696 (9 vols., 1860-1903). George Sainsbury, the editor, was a master at catching the salient points of a manuscript. Many of his abstracts have elsewhere been published in full.

The principal private collectors are E. Hazard, State Papers (2 vols., 1792-1794); Peter Force, Tracts (4 vols., 1836-1846); Alexander Brown, Genesis of the United States (2 vols., 1891); Albert Bushnell Hart, American History Told by Contemporaries (4 vols., 1898-1902); Maryland Historical Society, Archives of Maryland; and the series called Documents Relating to the Colonial History of New York, edited by John Romeyn Brodhead. Two convenient volumes embodying many early writings are Stedman and Hutchinson, Library of American Literature, I. (1888); Moses Coit Tyler, History of American Literature During the Colonial Time, 1607-1676, I. (1897).

VIRGINIA

The standard authorities for the history of Virginia are Robert Beverley, History of Virginia (1722) (extends to Spotswood's administration); William Stith, History of Virginia (1747) (period of the London Company); John D. Burk, History of Virginia (4 vols., 1805); R.R. Howison, History of Virginia (2 vols., 1846); Charles Campbell, History of the Colony and Ancient Dominion of Virginia (1847); and Jonn Fiske, Old Virginia and Her Neighbors (1900). For the period Stith is by far the most important. His work covers the duration of the London Company, and as he had access to manuscripts now destroyed the history has the value of an original document. As president of William and Mary College Stith was an accomplished scholar, and his work, pervaded with a broad, philosophic spirit, ranks perhaps first among colonial histories. As a mere collection of facts upon the whole colonial history of Virginia Campbell's work is the most useful. The greatest collection of original material bearing upon the first ten years of the colony's history is in Alexander Brown, Genesis of the United States (2 vols., 1890). This remarkable work contains an introductory sketch of what has been done by Englishmen prior to 1606 in the way of discovery and colonization, and a catalogue of charters, letters, and pamphlets (many of them republished at length) through which the events attending the first foundation of an English colony in the New World are developed in order of time. Dr. Brown's other works, The First Republic in America (1898), and English Politics in America (1901) make excellent companion pieces to the Genesis, though the author has made a great mistake in not supporting his text with foot-notes and references.

Among the contemporary writers, John Smith, Works (1884), edited by Edward Arber, is a compilation rather than a history, and in spite of its partisan coloring contains much that is valuable regarding Virginia affairs from 1607 to 1629. For matters from 1619-1624 we have the sure guide of the London Company's Journal, in Virginia Historical Society, Collections, new series, VII. After that time the main dependence, apart from the Calendar of State Papers, is Hening, Statutes at Large of Virginia (13 vols., 1823). The leading incidents in Virginia connected with Lord Baltimore's colony of Maryland and the Puritan persecution are set forth by J.H. Latané, Early Relations of Maryland and Virginia (Johns Hopkins University Studies, XIII., Nos. iii., iv.) Many documents illustrative of this period may be read in Force, Tracts, and Hazard, State Papers; Virginia history is illuminated by many original documents printed in the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography (11 vols., 1893-1903); and the William and Mary College Quarterly (12 vols., 1892-1903). The works of Edward D. Neill are also of a documentary nature and of much value. Those which bear upon Virginia are The Virginia Company (1868), Virginia Carolorum (1886), Virginia Vestusta (1885), and Virginia and Virginiola (1878). Many tracts are cited in the foot-notes.

MARYLAND