Page 245, he says that Morrison held an assembly, 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 ships 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. Essex, 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 assertions? 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 Yorkshire. 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 Middlesex. 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 Assembly 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 Middlesex, 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 passed, 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 principal 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 Assembly. 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 ship, 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 ship 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 Middlesex county, and transported over to the county of Northampton, on the Eastern Shore. 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