DESCRIPTION OF THE PROVINCE OF NEW ALBION. And a Direction for Adventurers with small stock to get two for one, and good land freely: And for Gentlemen, and all Servants, Labourers and Artificers to live plentifully. And a former Description re-printed of the healthiest, pleasantest, and richest Plantation of New Albion in North Virginia, proved by thirteen witnesses. TOGETHER WITH A Letter from Master Robert Evelin, that lived there many years, shewing the particularities, and excellency thereof With a briefe of the charge of victuall, and necessaries, to transport and buy stock for each Planter, or Labourer, there to get his Master 501. per Annum, or more in twelve trades, at 101. charges onely a man. Printed in the Year 1648. This Epistle and Preface shews Catoes best rules for a Plantation. To the right honourable bion, in all 44 undertakers and subscribers, bound Beauchamp Plantagenet of Belvil in New Albion Esquire, one of the Company, wisheth all health, happinesse, and heavenly blessings. May it please your good Lordshipa and follow Adventurers, H Aving been blasted with the whirlwind of this late, unnaturall and civill English war, seeing the Storm more likely to encrease then to calm, I recollected my former Journal and Manual notes of my Travails by Land and Sea forty years since in Italy, France, Germany, Poland, and Belgia, and finding Omne solum forti patria, ut piscibus æquor; I perused all the books of any English Colonies, and by often conferences of the traders and resident planters, of the present state, condition, numbers, enemies, bad neighbours, air, health, government, fortification and saftety, religion, quietnesse, profit, and returns, shipping for supplie and vent of the growing commodities; I conferred with my fellow patients, 7 Knights and Gentlemen, my kindred and neighbours, and reporting the true state of all our Colonies; and whiles thus musing I stood all a maze unresolved, the storm grew far more tempestuous with thundering and lightning, black and terrible gusts, and spouts, that made the rivers rise and my friends to hide : for the roaring Cannon beat down their wals and houses, the Musqueteers, Dragoons, and Pistold horsemen swept all Ca**** and their goods afore them; the Pikemen in their inclosures and retreats left them no beds, pots or pans; their silver plate was turned into earthern dishes: New names, and terms, like an unknown language, and like to strange tongue unheard of in all the Globe as far as our Antipodes, called Cavalleers, Engagers, Independents, Roundheads, and Malignants, like the Gothes, Huns, and Vandalls, and Alans, that invaded and conquered Italy, Spaine, and France; and like the Saxons, Jutes, and Angles, that conquered Britanny. These having plundered, and put upon us new Laws and Ordinances, called Contribution, Excise, Quartering, and Sequestrations, my friends were now and rightly by Gods Providence made light, and not troubled or incumbred with much stuffe to travel with, nor Farms, Tenements, or Copyholds, and for our sins our pride abated, our hearts humbled: our afflictions made us pray heartily, and call to God to direct us to infuse contrition and true sorrow and purpose of amendment to follow his calling. Wee found this storm and heavy judgement had likewise afflicted Scotland, Ireland, Man, Iarsey, and Garnsey Isles. Then perusing my old evidences, 1 found my Auncestor Sir Richard Plantagenet had Chawton, Blendworth, Clanfield, and Catrington in Hampshire. But in those Civil wars in Henry the sixth time, much like these or that of the Guelfs and Gibellines in Italy, all was lost. I resolved to be a Newter in this quarrell, not to kill English men and Christians, but with Christ to fly into Egypt, and like the Apostile Paul to fly out of one City into another, and get out of the fire: At last my seven Knights and Gentlemen imployed me the oldest and boldest Traveller to see all English Plantations, by warrant to buy land in the healthiest and best for us eight, and for a hundred servants, and twenty of our old tenants and families. But in my private instructions, I was on a full and deliberate council directed to follow old Catoes rules in seating of the Romane Colonies, begun to be seated to save charge of Garrisons in new Conquests. First, to seat in a healthy pure aire else after all the hazzard, charge and building past, their people die, and their posterity extinguish, and their children inherit sicknes and weaknesse. Secondly, to sit down in a fresh. navigable river for trade and supply, where there was stone neer to build, and not to build on wood subject to firing of enemies, negligence of servants, or treachery of slaves and apprentices; for this reason I on my view of Virginia, disliked Virginia, most of it being seated scatteringly in wooden clove board houses, where many by fire were undone, and by two massa-` |