Colonial Records of Virginia | Page 4

was made during the government of Sir
Francis Wyatt, and bears the signature of the Governor, Council, and
apparently every member of the Assembly, a contrast is drawn between
the former "miserable bondage," and "this just and gentle authoritye
which hath cherished us of late by more worthy magistrates. And we,
our wives and poor children shall ever pray to God, as our bounden
duty is, to give you in this worlde all increase of happines, and to
crowne you in the worlde to come w^{th} immortall glorye."[H]
A desire has long existed to recover the record of the proceedings of the
Assembly which inaugurated so happy a revolution. Stith was unable to
find it; no traces of it were met by Jefferson; and Hening,[I] and those
who followed Hening, believed it no longer extant. Indeed, it was given
up as hopelessly lost.
Having, during a long period of years, instituted a very thorough
research among the papers relating to America in the British State

Paper Office, partly in person and partly with the assistance of able and
intelligent men employed in that Department, I have at last been so
fortunate as to obtain the "Proceedings of the First Assembly of
Virginia."[5] the document is in the form of "a reporte" from the
Speaker; and is more fall and circumstantial than any subsequent
journal of early legislation in the Ancient Dominion.
Many things are noticeable. The Governor and Council sat with the
Burgesses; and took part in motions and debates. The Secretary of the
Colony was chosen Speaker, and I am not sure that he was a Burgess.[6]
This first American Assembly set the precedent of beginning
legislation with prayer. It is evident that Virginia was then as
thoroughly a Church of England colony, as Connecticut afterwards was
a Calvinistic one. The inauguration of legislative power in the Ancient
Dominion preceded the existence of negro slavery, which we will
believe it is destined also to survive. The earliest Assembly in the
oldest of the original thirteen States, at its first session, took measures
"towards the erecting of" a "University and Colledge." Care was also
taken for the education of Indian children. Extravagance in dress was
not prohibited, but the ministers were to profit by a tax on excess in
apparel. On the whole, the record of these Proceedings will justify the
opinion of Sir Edward Sandys, that "they were very well and
judiciously carried." The different functions of government may have
been confounded and the laws were not framed according to any
speculative theory; but a perpetual interest attaches to the first elective
body representing the people of Virginia, more than a year before the
Mayflower, with the Pilgrims, left the harbor of Southampton, and
while Virginia was still the oldest British Colony on the whole
Continent of America.
GEORGE BANCROFT.
NEW YORK, October 3, 1856.
[A] "A Briefe Declaration of the Plantation of Virginia during the first
twelve yeares, when Sir Thomas Smyth was Governor, of the
Companie, and downe to this present tyme. By the Ancient Planters
now remaining alive in Virginia."--MS. in my possession.[2]

[B] "A Briefe Declaration," &c.
[C] "A Briefe Declaration," &c.
[D] "Proceedings of the first Assembly," now first printed in this
volume.
[1] "Henrico, now Richmond," is a grievous error. "Henrico, or
Henricus, was situated ten miles below the present site of Richmond,
on the main land, to which the peninsula known as Farrar's Island was
joined." See footnote Q.--ED.
[2] This document is the third in this collection. It is printed from the
copy obtained by Col. McDonald.--ED.
[E] Smith's Generall Historie of Virginia, Richmond edition, Vol. ii. pp.
38, 39.
[F] See Beverley's History of Virginia, p. 37 of the first edition, and p.
35 of the second.[3]
[G] Stith's History of Virginia p. 160, Williamsburg edition.[4]
[H] MS. Copy of Address of Sir Francis Wyatt, &c., &c., to King
James I., signed by Sir Francis Wyatt and 32 others. [I] Hening's
Statutes at Large, I., p. 119. refers to the acts of 1623-'4 as "the earliest
now extant."
[3] "These Burgesses met the Governor and Council at Jamestown in
1620, and sat in consultation in the same house with them as the
method of the Scots Parliament is." "This was the first Generall
Assembly that ever was held there."--Beverley.--ED.
[4] "And about the latter end of June (1619) he (Sir George Yeardley,
Governor,) called the first General Assembly that was ever held in
Virginia. Counties were not yet laid of, but they elected their
representatives by townships. So that the Burroughs of Jamestown,
Henrico, Bermuda Hundred, and the rest, each sent their members to

the Assembly." * * * * "and hence it is that our lower house of
Assembly was first called the House of Burgesses," Stith, p. 160. "In
May, this