Neill, in his History of the English Colonization of America, a most authoritative work, gives in full a sermon preached at Bowe Street Church in London in 1622, by a famous clergyman named Rev. Patrick Copland, who had been employed by the East India Company in Barbadoes. In this sermon he referred to “a fleete of nine sayle of ships that not one person out of 800 who had been transported out of England and Ireland for the plantations of Virginia, had met with any mishap by the way.”
In a footnote to the remarks of the preacher, the historian in referring to the great exodus from Ireland to the American colonies, remarks that “Ireland has always been a hive from which America has derived sturdy hewers of wood to subdue the forests.” In 1622, Rev. Patrick Copland was appointed first president of the College of Virginia and general manager of all its properties. The college was founded by King James in 1622 and was established at Henrico City, fifteen miles below Richmond. (See Old Churches and Families of Virginia, by Bishop William Meade.)
At this period there must have been a goodly number of Irish in Virginia, if we are to judge from the contents of a little book, “suitable for a projected school in Virginia,” prepared in 1621 by an English Puritan minister named John Brinsley. The book was intended as “a plea for learning and the school master.” The author stated that “the incivility among manie of the Irish, the Virginians, and all other barbarous nations” grew “from their exceeding ignorance of our Holy God and of all true and good learning.” On another page the author said it was his unfeigned desire to adapt the book “for all functions and places, and more particularly to every ruder place, and more especially to that poor Irish nation with our loving countrymen in Virginia.”
How very solicitous he was for the “uncivil” Irish! To him, of course, they appeared rude and uncivil because they did not in those days speak in the English tongue, but in their own undefiled and mellifluous Gaelic. The book was presented by Brinsley “at a court held for Virginia on December 19, 1621,” on which occasion a committee was appointed to determine whether the book was suitable for distribution among the school children. This circumstance is related by the historian Neill.
FRANCIS J. QUINLAN, M. D., LL. D.
New York City.
WALSH’S IRISH REGIMENT OF MARINE ARTILLERY, FRENCH ARMY.
BY T. H. MURRAY, SECRETARY-GENERAL OF THE SOCIETY.
A few years ago there was issued from the government printing office at Washington, D. C., a volume entitled: A Calendar of John Paul Jones Manuscripts in the Library of Congress.
The volume is of great interest, is arranged chronologically and contains 883 entries. Most of these mention letters written to and from Jones during the Revolution and cover a great deal of ground relating to that trying period. These records are very valuable.