Dear Mr Kukla, Many thanks for your e-mail message. The November, 1618 instructions to George Yeardley were published in Volume III, Pp.98-109 of The Records of the Virginia Company of London (edited by Susan Myra Kingsbury in the mid-1930s). Historians relied on this text rather than on the later version you cite until the Ferrar Papers in Magdalene College, Cambridge became fully available. You can see the evolution of the instructions to Yeardley in what are now Ferrar Papers Numbers 91 to 93. David Ransome's transcript of these documents is widely available. If you look, for example, at James Horn's book, 1619: Jamestown and the Forging of American Democracy (Basic Books. New York, 2018), Pages 60-66, you will see how the decisions made by the Virginia Company in the autumn of 1618 were regarded as definitive. Sandys himself does not appear to have taken this view as my post indicated. Sandys was undoubtedly an accomplished orator and an expert in drafting documents but the manuscripts and references cited in my note indicate that a more nuanced interpretation is required. Christopher Thompson
-----Original Message-----
From: Jon Kukla <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Thu, 7 Apr 2022 19:54
Subject: Re: [VA-HIST] The Great Charter of November, 1618, the law and government of the English colony in Virginia
Mr. Thompson,
I'm not entirely sure what you find puzzling - but it may be significant
(I'm writing from memory here) that I don't believe an original ms of the
1618 instructions is extant, so historians have generally relied on the
subsequent text sent to Sir Francis Wyatt (1621 if memory serves). If so,
the sequence would seem to be :
1- November 1618 instructions that lead among other things to the general
assembly in 1619
2- Your May 1619 inference that Yeardley may still have had some plan in
mind
3- Your February 1620 inference that the Company hadn't yet done anything
4- Subsequent reissue of Yeardley's instructions to Wyatt -- followed by
familiar events etc
If this sequence is close to accurate (again, I'm writing from memory) why
is it puzzling that anyone might not have paid much attention to #2 and #3
if the Company didn't?
On Mon, Mar 28, 2022 at 5:15 PM Christopher Thompson <
[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> One of the puzzling features of the historiography of the settlement of
> Virginia in its early years is the emphasis placed on the provisions
> contained in the instructions given to George Yeardley in November, 1618
> for the government of the colony and the protection of the rights of
> individuals there. These instructions are frequently attributed to the
> inspiration of Sir Edwin Sandys and his allies in the period immediately
> preceding his election in April, 1619 as Treasurer of the Virginia Company
> of London. It should, however, be noted that Sandys did not, prima facie,
> regard the instructions given to Yeardley as definitive. The Court Book of
> the Company for 12th May, 1619 noted that Sandys then moved for the
> appointment of a committee to constitute laws and settle a form of
> government "for all Virginia" (VCR, Volume 1, page 216). Similarly, the
> Court Book of the Company noted on 2nd February, 1620 (VCR, Volume 1, page
> 303) that a form of government for the colony had yet to be settled by the
> company.
> Christopher Thompson (Senior Research Fellow, Humanities
> Research Institute, University of Buckingham)
>
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