Students of early English colonization in North America and in Bermuda recognized the importance of the papers of the 2nd Earl of Warwick and Sir Nathaniel Rich for the history of the settlement of Virginia and Bermuda in the period from the mid-1610s to the mid-1620s. They were calendared in the 8th Report, Appendix Part II of the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts and deposited in the Public Record Office in Chancery Lane, London (as PRO 30/15/2) until 1969 when they were withdrawn for sale. Many of those relating to Virginia had been published in Volumes 3 and 4 of Susan Myra Kingsbury's Records of the Virginia Company of London. Ninety seven of these documents were purchased by the Bermuda Archives Office and published in 1984 in an edition edited by Ives. Exactly what happened to the rest of the collection is obscure.

But it can now be stated that a further 91 of the 226 documents formerly in the PRO ended up in the Tracy W.Mcgregor Library of the University of Virginia at Charlottesville, Virginia, USA. These are now listed as Mss.9202.

Fortunately, long before they were sold - in 1931, in fact - photostatic copies were made of the entire collection for the Massachusetts History Society and deposited in the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., USA. The entire collection can thus be examined there. Moreover, given the rules governing the export of manuscripts from the U.K., it is likely that another complete set of photographs is held in the British Library, probably as R.P. 420 although I have not been able to check this on-line. Either way, the Rich collection of papers can be accessed directly in a way not previously considered possible since 1969.

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