History of the Virginia Company of London - With Letters to and From the First Colony, Never Before Printed #227995

In the month of May. 1869. a memorial was presented by the writer, to the Congress of the United States of America, calling attention to two large folio volumes of manuscript in their Library, containing the Transactions of the Virginia Company of London during the important period of their existence, and if they should deem them worthy of being printed, offering without compensation to annotate and superintend their publication. The communication was read in the Senate, ordered to be printed, referred to 'the Committee on Library, and attracted no attention.<br><br>Believing that there should be some distinct history of a Company that planted the first permanent English settlement in America, and in 1619 instituted the first representative legislative Assembly, whoso members were elected by general suffrage, this work has been prepared, and by the liberality of a true disciple of Aldus, who has a love for historical studies, Mr. Munsell, of Albany, New York, is presented to the public.<br><br>The main sources of information have been the manuscript records of the Company, the history of the preservation of which for about two hundred and fifty years, is full of interest.<br><br>In one of the old mansions of rural Chelsea, which tradition says was the home of Sir Thomas More, the warm friend of Erasmus, and author of the political romance of Utopia, there dwelt, in 1624, Sir John Danvers, a prominent member of the Virginia Company, who had married the gentle and comely widow Herbert, already the mother of ten children, two of whom were Georgo, the holy poet, and Edward, the philosophical Deist.<br><br>After the king resolved to destroy the charter of the Company, an attempt was made to obtain the records by their opponents.