The History of Virginia Part 1

The History of Virginia.

by Robert Beverley, et al.

THE PREFACE.

My first business in the world being among the public records of my country, the active thoughts of my youth put me upon taking notes of the general administration of the government; but with no other design, than the gratification of my own inquisitive mind; these lay by me for many years afterwards, obscure and secret, and would forever have done so, had not the following accident produced them:

In the year 1703, my affairs calling me to England, I was soon after my arrival, complimented by my bookseller with an intimation, that there was prepared for printing a general account of all her majesty's plantations in America, and his desire, that I would overlook it before it was put to the press; I agreed to overlook that part of it which related to Virginia.

Soon after this he brings me about six sheets of paper written, which contained the account of Virginia and Carolina. This it seems was to have answered a part of Mr. Oldmixion's British Empire in America. I very innocently, (when I began to read,) placed pen and paper by me, and made my observations upon the first page, but found it in the sequel so very faulty, and an abridgement only of some accounts that had been printed sixty or seventy years ago; in which also he had chosen the most strange and untrue parts, and left out the more sincere and faithful, so that I laid aside all thoughts of further observations, and gave it only a reading; and my bookseller for answer, that the account was too faulty and too imperfect to be mended; withal telling him, that seeing I had in my junior days taken some notes of the government, which I then had with me in England, I would make him an account of my own country, if I could find time, while I staid in London. And this I should the rather undertake in justice to so fine a country, because it has been so misrepresented to the common people of England, as to make them believe that the servants in Virginia are made to draw in cart and plow as horses and oxen do in England, and that the country turns all people black who go to live there, with other such prodigious phantasms.

Accordingly, before I left London, I gave him a short history of the country, from the first settlement, with an account of its then state; but I would not let him mingle it with Oldmixion's other account of the plantations, because I took them to be all of a piece with those I had seen of Virginia and Carolina, but desired mine to be printed by itself. And this I take to be the only reason of that gentleman's reflecting so severely upon me in his book, for I never saw him in my life that I know of.

But concerning that work of his, I may with great truth say, that (notwithstanding his boast of having the a.s.sistance of many original papers and memorials that I had not the opportunity of) he nowhere varies from the account that I gave, nor advances anything new of his own, but he commits so many errors, and imposes so many falsities upon the world, To instance some few out of the many:

Page 210, he says that they were near spent with cold, which is impossible in that hot country.

Page 220, he says that Captain Weymouth, in 1605, entered Powhatan river southward of the bay of Chesapeake;----whereas Powhatan river is now called James river, and lies within the mouth of Chesapeake bay some miles, on the west side of it; and Captain Weymouth's voyage was only to Hudson's river, which is in New York, much northward of the capes of Virginia.

Page 236, he jumbles the Potomac and eastern sh.o.r.e Indians as if they lived together, and never quarrelled with the English; whereas the last lived on the east side the great bay of Chesapeake, and the other on the west. The eastern sh.o.r.e Indians never had any quarrel with the English, but the Potomacs used many treacheries and enmities towards us, and joined in the intended general ma.s.sacre, but by a timely discovery were prevented doing anything.

Page 245, he says that Morrison held an a.s.sembly, and procured that body of laws to be made; whereas Morrison only made an abridgement of the laws then in being, and compiled them into a regular body; and this he did by direction of Sir William Berkeley, who, upon his going to England, left Morrison his deputy governor.

Page 248, he says (viz: in Sir William Berkeley's time) the English could send seven thousand men into the field, and have twice as many at home; whereas at this day they cannot do that, and yet have three times as many people in the country as they had then.

By page 251, he seems altogether ignorant of the situation of Virginia, the head of the bay and New York, for he there says:

"When the Indians at the head of the bay traveled to New York, they past, going and coming, by the frontiers of Virginia, and traded with the Virginians, &c.;" whereas the head of the bay is in the common route of the Indians traveling from New York to Virginia, and much about halfway.

Page 255, he says Sir William Berkeley withdrew himself from his government; whereas he went not out of it, for the counties of Accomac and Northampton, to which he retired, when the rebels rose, were two counties of his government, and only divided from the rest by the bay of Chesapeake.

Page 266, he says, Dr. Thomas Bray went over to be president of the college in Virginia; whereas he was sent to Maryland, as the bishop's commissary there. And Mr. Blair, in the charter to the college, was made president during life, and is still alive. He also says, that all that was subscribed for the college came to nothing; whereas all the subscriptions were in a short time paid in, and expended upon the college, of which two or three stood suit, and were cast.

Page 269, he tells of camels brought by some Guiana s.h.i.+ps to Virginia, but had not then heard how they throve with us. I don't know how he should, for there never was any such thing done.

Then his geography of the country is most absurd, notwithstanding the wonderful care he pretends to have of the maps, and his expert knowledge of the new surveys, (page 278) making almost as many faults as descriptions. For instance:

Page 272, Prince George county, which lies all on the southside of James river, he places on the north, and says that part of James City county, and four of the parishes of it, lie on the southside of James river; whereas not one inch of it has so done these sixty years.

Page 273, his account of Williamsburg is most romantic and untrue; and so is his account of the college, page 302, 303.

Page 274, he makes Elizabeth and Warwick counties to lie upon York river; whereas both of them lie upon James river, and neither of them comes near York river.

Page 275, he places King William county above New Kent, and on both sides Pamunkey river; whereas it lies side by side with New Kent, and all on the north side Pamunkey river. He places King and Queen county upon the south of New Kent, at the head of Chickahominy river, which he says rises in it; whereas that county lies north of New Kent from head to foot, and two large rivers and two entire counties are between the head of Chickahominy and King & Queen. Ess.e.x, Richmond and Stafford counties, are as much wrong placed.

He says that York and Rappahannock rivers issue out of low marshes, and not from the mountains as the other rivers, which note he has taken from some old maps; but is a false account from my own view, for I was with our present governor at the head spring of both those rivers, and their fountains are in the highest ridge of mountains.

Page 276, he says that the neck of land between Niccocomoco river and the bay, is what goes by the name of the northern neck; whereas it is not above the twentieth part of the northern neck, for that contains all that track of land which is between Rappahannock and Potomac rivers.

How unfaithful and frontless must such an historian be, who can upon guess work introduce such falsities for truth, and bottom them upon such bold a.s.sertions? It would make a book larger than his own to expose his errors, for even the most general offices of the government he misrecites.

Page 298, he says the general court is called the quarter court, and is held every quarter of a year; whereas it never was held but three times a year, tho' it was called a quarter court. When he wrote, it was held but twice a year, as I had wrote in my book, and has not been called a quarter court these seventy-nine years. The county courts were never limited in their jurisdiction to any summons, neither was the sheriff ever a judge in them, as he would have it, but always a ministerial officer to execute their process, &c.

The account that I have given in the following sheets is plain and true, and if it be not written with so much judgment, or in so good a method and style as I could wish, yet in the truth of it I rest fully satisfied. In this edition I have also retrenched such particulars as related only to private transactions, and characters in the historical part, as being too diminutive to be transmitted to posterity, and set down the succession of the governors, with the more general incidents of their government, without reflection upon the private conduct of any person.

INTRODUCTION.

The name of BEVERLEY has long been a familiar one in Virginia. It is said that the family may be traced among the records of the town of Beverley in England, as far back as to the time of King John. During the reign of Henry VIII, one of the Beverleys was appointed by the Crown a commissioner for enquiring into the state and condition of the northern monasteries. The family received some grants of church property, and one branch of them settled at Shelby, the other at Beverley, in Yorks.h.i.+re.

In the time of Charles I, John Beverley of Beverley adhered to the cause of royalty, and at the restoration his name appears in the list of those upon whom it was intended to confer the order of the Royal Oak. Robert Beverley of Beverley, the representative of the family, having sold his possessions in that town, removed with a considerable fortune to Virginia, where he purchased extensive tracts of land. He took up his residence in the county of Middles.e.x. Elected clerk of the House of Burgesses, he continued to hold that office until 1676, the year of Bacon's rebellion, in suppressing which he rendered important services, and by his loyal gallantry won the marked favor of the Governor, Sir William Berkley. In 1682 the discontents of Virginia arose again almost to the pitch of rebellion. Two sessions of the a.s.sembly having been spent in angry and fruitless disputes, between Lord Culpepper, the Governor, and the House of Burgesses, in May of that year, the malcontents in the counties of Gloucester, New Kent and Middles.e.x, proceeded riotously to cut up the tobacco plants in the beds, especially the sweet-scented, which was produced nowhere else.

Culpepper, the Governor, prevented further waste by patrols of horse.

The ringleaders were arrested, and some of them hanged upon a charge of treason. A riot-act was also pa.s.sed, making plant-cutting high treason, the necessity of which act evinces the illegality of the execution of these unfortunate plant-cutters. The vengeance of the government fell heavily upon Major Robert Beverley, clerk of the House of Burgesses, as the princ.i.p.al instigator of these disturbances. He had before incurred the displeasure of the governor and council, by refusing to deliver up to them copies of the legislative journal, without permission of the a.s.sembly. Thus by a firm adherence to his duty, he drew down upon himself an unrelenting persecution.

In May, 1682, he was committed a prisoner on board the s.h.i.+p, the Duke of York, lying in the Rappahannock river. Ralph Wormley, Matthew Kemp, and Christopher Wormley, were directed to seize the records in Beverley's possession, and to break open doors if necessary. Beverley was afterwards transferred from the Duke of York to the s.h.i.+p Concord, and a guard was set over him. Contriving however to escape from the custody of the sheriff at York, the fugitive was retaken at his own house in Middles.e.x county, and transported over to the county of Northampton, on the Eastern Sh.o.r.e. Some months afterwards he applied by his attorney, William Fitzhugh, for a writ of _habeas corpus_, which however was refused. In a short time being again found at large, he was again arrested, and remanded to Northampton. In 1683 new charges were brought against him: 1st. That he had broken open letters addressed to the Secretary's office; 2d. That he had made up the journal, and inserted his Majesty's letter therein, notwithstanding it had been first presented at the time of the prorogation; 3d. That in 1682 he had refused to deliver copies of the journal to the governor and council, saying "he might not do it without leave of his masters."

In May, 1684, Major Robert Beverley was found guilty of high misdemeanors, but judgment being respited, and the prisoner asking pardon on his bended knees, was released upon giving security for his good behavior in the penalty of 2,000. The abject terms in which he now sued for pardon, form a singular contrast to the constancy of his former resistance, and the once gallant and loyal Beverley, the strenuous partizan of Berkley, thus became the victim of that tyranny which he had once so resolutely defended. He had not however lost the esteem of his countrymen, for in 1685 he was again elected clerk of the a.s.sembly. This body strenuously resisted the negative power claimed by the governor, and pa.s.sed resolutions complaining strongly of his tyranny. He negatived them, and prorogued the a.s.sembly. James II, indignant at these democratical proceedings, ordered their dissolution, and attributing these disorders mainly to Robert Beverley, their clerk, commanded that he should be incapable of holding any office, and that he should be prosecuted, and that in future the appointment of their clerk should be made by the governor.

In the spring of 1687 Robert Beverley died, the persecuted victim of an oppressive government. Long a distinguished loyalist, he lived to become a sort of patriot martyr. It is thus that in the circle of life extremes meet. He married Catherine Hone of James City, and their children were four sons: Peter, William, Harry, and Robert, (the historian,) and three daughters, who married respectively, William Randolph, eldest son of William Randolph of Turkey Island; Sir John Randolph, his brother, of Williamsburg; and John Robinson. Peter Beverley was appointed clerk of the a.s.sembly in 1691.

In the preface to the first edition of his History of Virginia, published at London 1705, Robert Beverley says of himself: "I am an Indian, and don't pretend to be exact in my language." This intimation may perhaps have been merely playful, but the full and minute account that he has given of the Indians, shows that he took a peculiar interest in that race.

In the preface to the second edition of his history, now republished, he remarks: "My first business in this world being among the public records of my country, the active thoughts of my youth put me upon taking notes of the general administration of the government." He was probably a deputy in his father's office, and perhaps also in that of his brother Peter Beverley. This Peter Beverley was in 1714 promoted to the place of speaker of the House of Burgesses, and he was subsequently treasurer of the colony. Robert Beverley, the historian, was born in Virginia, and educated in England. He married Ursula, daughter of William Byrd of Westover, on the James river. She lies buried at Jamestown. John Fontaine, son of a Huguenot refugee, having come over from England to Virginia, visited Robert Beverley, the author of this work, in the year 1715, at his residence, near the head of the Mattapony. Here he cultivated several varieties of the grape, native and French, in a vineyard of about three acres, situated upon the side of a hill, from which he made in that year four hundred gallons of wine. He went to very considerable expense in this enterprise, having constructed vaults of a wine press. But Fontaine comparing his method with that used in Spain, deemed it erroneous, and that his vineyard was not rightly managed. The home-made wine Fontaine drank heartily of, and found it good, but he was satisfied by the flavor of it that Beverley did not understand how to make it properly. Beverley lived comfortably, yet although wealthy, had nothing in or about his house but what was actually necessary. He had good beds, but no curtains, and instead of cane chairs used wooden stools. He lived mainly within himself upon the products of his land. He had laid a sort of wager with some of the neighboring planters, he giving them one guinea in hand, and they promising to pay him each ten guineas, if in seven years he should cultivate a vineyard that would yield at one vintage seven hundred gallons of wine. Beverley thereupon paid them down one hundred pounds, and Fontaine entertained no doubt but that in the next year he would win the thousand guineas. Beverley owned a large tract of land at the place of his residence. On Sunday Fontaine accompanied him to his parish church, seven miles distant, where they heard a good sermon from the Rev. M. De Latane, a Frenchman. A son of Beverley accompanied Fontaine in some of his excursions in that neighborhood. On the banks of the Rappahannock, about five miles below the falls, (Fredericksburg,) Fontaine came upon a tract of three thousand acres of land, which Beverley offered him at 7 10s. per hundred acres, and Fontaine would have purchased it, had not Beverley somewhat singularly insisted upon making a t.i.tle for nine hundred and ninety-nine years, instead of an absolute fee simple.

On the 20th of August, 1716, Alexander Spotswood, Governor of Virginia, accompanied by John Fontaine, started from Williamsburg on his expedition over the Appalachian mountains, as they were then called.

Having crossed the York river at the Brick House, they lodged that night at Chelsea, the seat of Austin Moore, on the Mattapony river, in the county of King William. On the following night they were hospitably entertained by Robert Beverley at his residence. The governor left his chaise there, and mounted his horse for the rest of the journey.

Beverley accompanied Spotswood in this exploration. On the 26th of August Spotswood was joined by several gentlemen, two small companies of rangers, and four Meherrin Indians. The gentlemen of the party appear to have been Spotswood, Fontaine, Beverley, Austin Smith, Todd, Dr.

Robinson, Taylor, Mason, Brooke, and Captains Clouder and Smith. The whole number of the party, including gentlemen, rangers, pioneers, Indians and servants, was probably about fifty. They had with them a large number of riding and pack-horses, an abundant supply of provisions, and an extraordinary variety of liquors.

The camps were named respectively after the gentlemen of the expedition, and the first one being that of the 29th of August, was named in honor of our historian, Robert Beverley. Here "they made," as Fontaine records in his diary, "great fires, supped and drank good punch." In the preface to this edition of the work, (1722,) Beverley says in reference to this Tramontane expedition, "I was with the present Governor (Spotswood) at the head spring of both those rivers, (the York and the Rappahannock,) and their fountains are in the highest range of mountains." Thus it appears that the historian was one of the celebrated knights of the golden horseshoe.

An Abridgement of the Laws of Virginia, published at London in 1722 is ascribed to Robert Beverley. Filial indignation will naturally account for the acrimony which in his history he exhibits towards Lord Culpepper and Lord Howard of Effingham, who had so persecuted his father, the clerk of the a.s.sembly, and against Nicholson, who was Effingham's deputy. In his second edition, when time had mitigated his animosities, Beverley omitted some of his accusations against those governors.

The first edition of Beverley's History of Virginia appeared at London in 1705. It was republished in French at Paris in 1707, and in the same year an edition was issued at Amsterdam. The second English edition was published in 1722 at London. The work is dedicated to the Right Honorable Robert Harley, so celebrated both as a statesman and as the patron of letters.

In the t.i.tle page appear only the initials of the author's name, thus: "R. B. Gent.," whence the blundering historian, Oldmixon, supposed his name to be "Bullock," and in some German catalogues he received the appellation of "Bird." Warden, an American writer, has repeated this last misnomer. Beverley's work is divided into four parts, styled Books, and the fourth book is again divided into two parts.

Of the history, Mr. Jefferson in his "Notes on Virginia" has remarked, that it is "as concise and unsatisfactory as St.i.th is prolix and tedious." This criticism, however, is only applicable to Beverley's first book, which includes the civil history of the colony; the other three books on "the present state of Virginia" being sufficiently full and satisfactory. Brief as is the summary of history comprised in book first, it was probably quite ample enough for the taste of the readers of Beverley's day. His style of writing is easy, unsophisticated and pleasing, his simplicity of remark sometimes amusing, and the whole work breathes an earnest, downright, hearty, old-fas.h.i.+oned Virginia spirit.

His account of the internal affairs of the colony is faithful, and in the main correct, but in regard to events occurring beyond the precincts of Virginia, he is less reliable. The second book treats of the boundary of Virginia, waters, earth and soil, natural products, fish, wild fowl and hunted game. Book third gives a full and minute description of the manners and customs of the Indians, ill.u.s.trated by Gribelin's engravings. The contents are the persons and dress of the Indians, marriage and management of children, towns, buildings and fortifications, cookery and food, travelling, reception and entertainments, language, war and peace, religion, diseases and remedies, sports and pastimes, laws and government, money, goods and handicrafts. The fourth book relates to the government of the colony, its sub-divisions, public offices, revenues, taxes, courts, the church, the college of William and Mary, militia, servants and slaves, poor laws, free schools, tenure and conveyance of lands, naturalization and currency, the people, buildings, eatables, drinkables and fuel, climate, diseases, recreations, natural productions, and the advantages of improved husbandry. The closing paragraph is as follows: "Thus they depend upon the liberality of Nature, without endeavoring to improve its gifts by art or industry. They sponge upon the blessings of a warm sun and a fruitful soil, and almost grudge the pains of gathering in the bounties of the earth. I should be ashamed to publish this slothful indolence of my countrymen, but that I hope it will rouse them out of their lethargy, and excite them to make the most of all those happy advantages which Nature has given them, and if it does this, I am sure they will have the goodness to forgive me." Happily, at the present day, Virginia has been aroused from her lethargy, and with energetic efforts is developing her rich resources. It may be hoped that with these material improvements a wider interest in the history of the past may be diffused.

_Petersburg, May 30th, 1854._