NOTE THIS volume is intended to include the most important and interesting narratives of that part of Virginian history which extends from the formation to the dissolution of the Virginia Company. In the selection, Captain John Smith's True Relation and the Description of Virginia and account of the Proceedings of the English Colonie which he and his friends drew up have, on well-known historical principles, been preferred to the somewhat ampler but less strictly contemporary version of the transactions of the same period which he gave in the Generall Historie; but the ensuing period was deemed to be in the main best covered by reproducing the fourth book of the latter treatise. Dr. Reuben G. Thwaites, Secretary of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, and the Burrows Brothers Company of Cleveland, the publishers, have kindly permitted use to be made in this volume of the translation of Father Biard's Relation which appeared in the third volume of The Jesuit Relations, edited by Dr. Thwaites. The Massachusetts Historical Society has permitted the use of the text of the letter of John Pory, printed in their Collections. The Virginia Historical Society has allowed the editor to reprint from the Virginia Magazine of History "The Discourse of the Old Company." Grateful acknowledgments are made for these favors. Those texts which have been taken from books printed in the seventeenth century have been carefully collated with copies of the original editions in the Library of Congress. But the use of u and v and i and j has been modernized; many words printed in italics in the original have been put into roman type when the present practice required it; and while the spelling of the original has of course been closely followed, the punctuation of Purchas or of Captain John Smith has not been regarded as equally sacred. The punctuation has been left as in the original whenever no strong reason existed to the contrary; but where the original punctuation does not make sense, nor indicate what was without doubt the author's meaning, as for instance in the case of the True Relation, of which the author had no chance to examine the proofsheets, appropriate alterations have been introduced. Captain Smith's map of Virginia exists in eight states, according to the classification made by Mr. Wilberforce Eames of the Lenox Library, to whom the general editor is much indebted for information and advice respecting the reproduction of the map. The plate is found in copies of the book (Map and Description) reprinted in this volume, in copies of Purchas's Pilgrimes, and separately. The state used in this volume is the seventh (of Mr. Eames), which contains more data than any of the first six and differs in no significant respect from the eighth. The copy we have photographed, by permission of the New York Public Library, is contained in a copy of Purchas. The figures 1692, 1693, at the top, indicate the pages of Purchas at which it was to be inserted, while the earlier use of the plate in the Generall Historie is shown by the legend "Page 41 Smith" still appearing in the lower right-hand corner. North, it is perhaps needless to mention, lies at the right of the map, west at the top. The longitudes, running from 307 to 311, are apparently calculated by running eastward from Ferro. The arms of Smith in the lower right-hand corner present the three famous Turks' heads (see p. 27). The second of our illustrations, the engraved title-page of the Generall Historie, presents in its upper section a map of the coast regions from Maine to North Carolina, based on Smith's earlier explorations in Virginia and later "discoveries" of New England. The lowest section gives contemporary views of aboriginal life in Virginia. Midway are, at the left the arms of the Virginia Company, with the famous motto, En dat Virginia quintum (i.e., a fifth kingdom), and at the right those of the Council for New England. The facsimile of the first page of the manuscript records of the Virginia Company, from a photograph made by permission of the Library of Congress, shows the beginning of the minutes for the "quarter court" of April 28, 1619. This was a critical day in the history of the company. Sir Thomas Smith, the Treasurer, as may be seen by reading the concluding lines, "signifying that for these Twelve yeares he hath willingly spent his Labors and endeavors for the support" of the Company, requested them "now to dispense with him and to elect some worthy man in his place"; and they elected Sir Edwin Sandys. The legend at the foot of the page, "Conc Collingwood," is the attestation (concordat) of the secretary of the Company to the correctness of the copy. |