the due perfeccion, and (as wee neuer did) soe wee shall always forbeare the Chosing of any officers for longer tyme then duering his Majesties pleasure.

Thus beseeching your Lordshipps to Continew the Patronage of this Plantacion, that the beames of his Majesties favour may by your Meditacion and Counsells shine, and bee derived vpon us, to Cherish our Indeavours, and quicken our new springing hopes, that no Contrary gusts may nip them in the bud, nor envious Cloud interpose it self betweene vs and that Comfortable light, wee humbly take our leaues.

Your Lordshipps very humble Servants,

FRANCIS WYATT.

FRANCIS WEST.

RAPHE HAMOR.

ROGER SMITH.

JAMES CITTIE ye 6th of Aprill 1626.

ABRAHAM PERSEY.

WILLIAM CLAYBOURNE.

Indorsed, "6 Aprill 1626 — from the Gouernor & Companie of Virginia."

CAPTAIN THOMAS YONG'S VOYAGE TO VIRGINIA AND DELAWARE BAY AND RIVER IN 1634.*

CAPTAIN THOMAS YONG TO SIR TOBIE MATTHEW :

WORTHY SIR, On the 16th of May, being Friday, while I was writing to [you] from Falmouth the winds came some what faire, and soe I gave orders presently to

* The design of Thomas Yong's voyage, as described in the three papers here published, was to explore the Delaware River to its source, in the hope of finding a navigable passage to the Pacific Ocean, and to examine the intervening country, and its capabilities for trade and settlement.

The prosecution of the enterprise was protected by a royal commission, issued in September, 1683. It gave Captain Yong authority to fit out armed vessels for the voyage to Virginia, and other adjacent parts of America; to take possession, in the king's name, of all territory discovered, not yet inhabited by any Christian people; to occupy it with his company; to establish factories there; to enjoy the sole right of trade and commerce, internal and maritime; to make such regulations, and appoint such officers, as he thought necessary for the preservation of order and civil government; to inhibit and expel all persons attempt

weigh Anchor; the winds continued very prosperous almost three weeks, and then wee were overtaken by a violent storme at North-west, which lasted three days.

In

ing to trade with, or visit places or countries so discovered, without a special license under his hand and seal; with absolute power to govern, rule, punish, correct, and execute, as any general of the army might do. He was also allowed to fortify with fortresses and ordnance, and, at discretion, to leave part of the company with arms and other necessary supplies for defence in his absence. All governors were required to aid him and give him a free passage through their colonies. (I. Hazard, p. 338; Rymer, XIX. p. 472.)

The first letter above, besides an account of Yong's passage from England to Virginia, contains a recital of the Governor, Sir John Harvey's troubles and perplexities, which should relieve his memory from some of the heavy censures which have at times, with little discrimination or forbearance, been cast upon it. It may be noted here, that Sir John had probably expended all the money he had earned as executor of his friend Hare, and depended chiefly on the salary of his office for his ordinary expenses. The salary, one thousand pounds a year, was never paid; at least not until he was compelled to visit London in 1635. He was consequently often in great pecuniary distress and discredit. His embarrassments were aggravated, and constantly accumulating, from the circumstance that he was obliged to entertain at his house not only his council, at all their frequent meetings in Jamestown, but also, as there was no public house of entertainment there, all "sorts of strangers; " so that his house was "a harbor for all comers," and he was "inforced to kill his own draught oxen for the supply of his house."

The first planter that came on board Yong's vessel, was Captain Clayborne, who seems to have been well known, by intuition or report, both to the lieutenant, whose ship he first visited, and to Yong himself. Lord Baltimore's agents had shortly before, on their first arrival, obstructed the lawful trade of the Virginians with the Indians; and, in violation of the king's wishes and express authority, seized a vessel of Clayborne's that was engaged in the trade which he had been following for three years by the king's special permission; and killed his lieutenant, Warren, and several others, whom he had sent to rescue the vessel. Of course, he could not feel so favorably disposed towards Lord Baltimore or his agents, as to join his lordship's partisans in chanting his praises. Although his language was temperate and somewhat reserved, yet not offensively so, Yong adopted his lieutenant's interpretation of some casual expressions, not specified, as plainly showing that Clayborne "had much malice in his heart" against his lordship and his agents. If he had said just and honest indignation, he would have been nearer the truth. He also accuses Clayborne of giving, in a long conversation on the subject of the treatment he had endured at the hands of those agents, a false excuse for not repairing to a meeting appointed by the Governor, Harvey, at the suggestion of those agents, for the alleged purpose of a mutual settlement of their differences. The whole project was a delusion; a stratagem to obtain, by his attendance, a sanction for his condemnation, which was sure to follow, because Sir John Harvey had already given proofs of his inclination to favor the Marylanders, to the injury of Clayborne, both in regard to their seizure of his vessel, and their accusation of his exciting the Indians against them. It was quite in keeping with Yong's whole conduct, that, even before landing, he should take the first opportunity that offered to court the favor of Lord Baltimore's agents by divulging, as he did, all Clayborne's conversation to Captain Cornwallis, who was then in company with, and on board the ship of Governor Harvey. (I. Savage's Winthrop, pp. 134-139; II. Force's Tr.-Virginia and Maryland, pp. 7, 8, 9, 21; III. Hubbard's Belknap, Ch. XXVI.; Chalmers's Ann. pp. 131, 206; Colonial Papers, p. 191, vol. viii. § 32.)

Two years later, Yong's nephew, George Evelin, came out to Maryland as the agent of Cleobury & Co., of London, the partners of Clayborne; and having persuaded Clayborne to agree to leave the concern in his hands, and visit London in compliance with their request, for the purpose of explaining his proceedings and adjusting accounts, after all preparations for

this storme, my own ship grew extreame leake (leaky). We rummaged our hold, as soone as it was fayer, and found a very dangerous leake under her kelson, which we

the voyage were made, refused to sign or exchange the inventories of the property made, and to be signed by both, or to give bond for the preservation of the same in Clayborne's absence, as had been specially enjoined in the instructions of Cleobury & Co. Nor was this the end of his villany. When Clayborne was at sea, on the voyage contemplated by all parties, Evelin basely reported that he had absconded, managed by falsehood to get into his possession, to embezzle and sell, not only the partnership property, but also the private property, valued at six thousand pounds, of Captain Clayborne; and finally, to complete his treachery, surrendered the island to Lord Baltimore, in violation of all exceptions and reservations made for the protection of vested rights, and in defiance of the express injunctions of the king. So thoroughly was Charles convinced of the moral, if not legal, injustice which Clayborne had experienced at the hands of the Maryland authorities, that in July, 1638, at the instance of William Cleobury, whose confidence had been perfidiously betrayed by George Evelyn, he wrote to Lord Baltimore not to interfere with Cleobury and his partners, planters in Kent Island, who should rather be encouraged in so good a work. He added that he had understood that his lordship's agents had slain three persons, possessed themselves of the island by force, and seized the persons and estates of the planters; these disorders had been referred to the Commissioners of Plantations; and therefore, his lordship was commanded to allow the planters and their agents the free enjoyment of their possessions, without further trouble, until the case was decided. (Sebastian F. Streeter's First Commander of Kent Island, Baltimore, 1868; II. Force, pp. 5-13, 9th tract "Virginia and Maryland; Colonial Papers," vol. viii. §§ 32, 33, p. 191; vol. ix. pp. 177, 120; Chalmers's Annals, pp. 131, 206.)

The grand object was to make Maryland predominantly Catholic; and the villany of Yong's nephew was therefore helped on and regarded as a work of merit; and, very possibly, concerted in England, with Yong's co-operation and counsel, before his nephew, George Evelyn, left for Maryland.

Yong was, in all probability, a Catholic. The individuals to whom, in the close of his letter, he desires that it should be shown, were all Catholics, openly or in disguise.

The Lord Treasurer, Earl of Portland, previously known as Sir Richard Weston, with his sons, sometimes went to church, but his wife and daughters to Mass; and his domestics and dependants, with whom only he used entire freedom, were all known to be Papists. Lord Cottington, became a Catholic in Spain, when ambassador there, about 1610-11; but, on his return to England, declared that he had again embraced the Protestant faith. Towards the close of his life, in Spain, with great difficulty, he prevailed on the ecclesiastical rulers to readmit him into the Roman Church; and he repaired to the city of Valladolid, and lived and died in a house prepared for him by the English Jesuits there. Sir Francis Windebanke, whom Clarendon designates as 'an extraordinary patron indeed" of the Papists, and the House of Commons, in their reply to objections, stigmatizes as a creature and confidant of Laud's, was in the habit of protecting them on all occasions, and under all circumstances, whether warranted by law or not; even releasing them by warrant when under sentence of death for treason, and condemned to be hanged, drawn, and quartered. He only escaped the fate of Archbishop Laud, who was accused in the House of Commons about the same time, by fleeing to France. Lord Baltimore was an avowed Catholic. His father, Sir George Calvert, resigned the office of Secretary of State under King James, on account of his change of religion. But the king retained him in the Privy Council, and created him Baron of Baltimore. Refusing to take the oath of allegiance, he was excluded from the council of Charles the First. His conversion to the Romish faith, only suspected at the time of his resigning the secretaryship, ceased to be a matter of doubt when it was publicly known that he had gone to the North of England in company with Sir Tobias Matthew, whom Rushworth calls "a Jesuited priest of the order of politicians;" and the House of Commons, in

stopped, though yet our pumps gave us notice, that we had other leakes also yet unfounde; thus we continued some 9 or 10 days, when in another storme our ship

their reply to Laud's objections, stigmatized as a creature of Laud," and "the most active Jesuit in the Kingdom." From what is said in the beginning of the "Brief Relation," the third of Yong's papers above, -it is certain, that it was to this same Sir Tobias Matthew, that this letter was addressed, as well as the other of the 16th of May, mentioned in its first line. (Clarendon, I. pp. 50, 177, 179; III. pp. 330, 332; Rushworth, III. 1321; Neal's Puritans, III. p. 194; I. Birch, James, p. 560; Gage's W. Indies, pp. 206–8; Hume, ch. 54.) Tobias Matthew was the eldest son of the distinguished prelate of the same name, who, after being at the head of two colleges, and Vice-Chancellor of Oxford, was Bishop of Durham, and finally, Archbishop of York. Tobias, the son, was a student in Christ Church from 1690 to 1694, his father being at the time Dean of that college. William Laud, — afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury,- Dudley Carleton, and George Calvert, both afterwards Secretaries of State, and ennobled, were his fellow-collegians. Laud and himself were admitted to the degree of Bachelor of Arts within a month of each other; Carleton one year, and Calvert three years, later. Ralph Winwood, also, who, in 1617, died Secretary of State, was Proctor of the same college in the second year of Matthew's novitiate. These brother Oxonians were all his friends; and, when circumstances permitted, his intimates also, to the end of their days. Between Carleton and himself, a most amicable intimacy appears to have subsisted ten years after their college days. They corresponded when apart, lent books to each other freely, and were jointly interested in leasehold property, which they held under the Dowager Countess of Derby. (II. Athen. Oxon. p. 402; Fasti Part I. pp. 258, 266, 272, 275; Dom. St. Papers, 1604, 3d July, p. 128, vol. viii.; p. 164, vol. x.; 1605, Feb. 13, pp. 195, 207, 213, vol. xii.)

Matthew left the university with the reputation of a good scholar, orator, and disputant. Not long after, he became so much the favorite and intimate companion of Francis Bacon, that we can hardly doubt that he was then, as he certainly was afterwards, an inmate of Bacon's Chambers in Gray's Inn. Bacon's letters show, that Matthew had witnessed, if not aided, the progress of some of Bacon's works in various stages, up to the last touch. When the latter afterwards sent him a copy of his "Advancement of Learning," he said, "I have now taught that child to go, at the swaddling whereof you were —" adding, “I thought it a small adventure to send you a copy, who have more right to it than any man, except Bishop Andrews, who was my inquisitor." (Athen. Oxon. ut supra, X.; Bacon's Works, 156, London ed. 1815.)

When James I., in 1603, was on his way to London to take possession of the English throne, Bacon, knowing that Matthew's father, then Bishop of Durham, was to preach a congratulatory sermon before the king at Berwick, where the royal cortège would pass the sabbath, and being anxious to remind the king of the useful services rendered him in his days of royal penury and disquietude as to his succession to the throne of England, by his elder brother, Anthony Bacon, and himself, sent Matthew with a letter to the king, and another to his learned friend, Sir Thomas Chaloner, at that time preceptor, and, soon after, superintendent of the education, and governor of the household, of Prince Henry. In the letter to Chaloner was enclosed a copy of that addressed to the king, with a request that he would deliver the original into the king's hands, and show his young friend, eldest son of the bishop, such courtesies as occasion might require; assuring him that they would be rendered to a very worthy young gentleman, whose acquaintance he would much esteem. (Bacon, ut supra, pp. 81-83.)

In the summer of 1604, Matthew obtained a license to travel three years; but he did not avail himself of it before the spring of the following year; and then, disregarding his father's solemn injunctions, went to Italy, where, to the great sorrow and mortification of his father and all his family and friends, he became a convert to the Romish faith. After his return to England, in 1606, his friend Bacon (then Sir Francis) told him that he himself had no doubt

both increased her old, and sprange fresh leakes, and heerein alsoe her forebeame, to which her boltspritt was fastened, cracked cleane in sunder, and some of her timbers

that "he was miserably abused when he was first seduced;" and Matthew's own account seems to favor Bacon's view of the case. He ascribes his conversion to the impression made on him by the devout behavior of the rustics in the Catholic churches abroad; to his witnessing at Naples the liquefaction—which he believed to be a real miracle- of the blood of St. Januarius; and, finally, to the English Jesuit Father Parsons, who gave him to read William Reynolds's book, called, “A Refutation of Doctor Whitaker's answer to Sanders's Annotations on the New Testament," &c.; of which the only merit mentioned by Matthew is, that it is a masterpiece of wit and humor.

On his arrival in London, his friend Bacon, by his desire, informed the Secretary of State Cecil, now Lord Salisbury, of his conversion; and, at the same time, that his loyalty to the king was unshaken. Upon this assurance, the Secretary at once complied with his cousin Bacon's request, that his friend should be allowed to remain undisturbed. Matthew, emboldened by the favor of Lord Salisbury, next presented himself before Bancroft, the Archbishop of Canterbury, to induce him to overlook his conversion, and to prevail on his friends to do the same. He was courteously received by the Primate, but blamed for precipitately renouncing his old faith without duly examining the arguments on both sides. In the hope of convincing him of his error, Bancroft had several friendly conferences with him at Lambeth. At length, however, finding him irreclaimable, the oath of allegiance, by the king's order, was tendered him. Matthew, refusing to take it, was sent to the Fleet prison. At the end of six months, the plague being in London, he was released for a time, at the instance of his friend, Sir Francis Bacon, and allowed to reside with him at Gorhambury. In February, 1608, however, he was called before the Privy Council, where Lord Salisbury, after some "schooling," told him that he was privy to his imprisonment, but never approved of it, because he presumed so light a punishment would probably make him more proud and perverse. He then ordered him to depart the realm at the end of five weeks, which should be allowed him for arranging his affairs; and to name some good and loyal friend, in whose custody he should, in the mean time, remain. He named a Mr. Jones, who accepted the office, and was proud of his prisoner. (Cabala, Ed. 1654, p. 58; Chalmers's Biog. Dict., art. Matthew; I. Birch, James, p. 72.)

During his exile, he visited every Catholic country in Europe. In France, he made the acquaintance of Buckingham, then an untitled youth, who was there for the purpose of obtaining an accomplished and courtly education; and who afterwards, when he succeeded Somerset as the king's favorite, rendered Matthew a great many friendly and important services. Matthew kept up an intercourse with all his countrymen abroad, especially with those of the higher classes, and with the resident ambassadors, most of whom he had known at home. In January, 1610, he was at Alcala, six leagues from Madrid, where the celebrated English traveller, Robert Shirley, was then awaiting a royal intimation that he would be received at court, as ambassador of Shah Abbas, the Sophi of Persia. Shirley was a Catholic; and Matthew found means to attach himself, as a gentleman and civilian, to the suite of his diplomatic brother Catholic. He thus gained free access to the court, and a ready admission into the highest society of Madrid. Here he met the young Lord Roos, who had been some months in the city, and made the acquaintance of Sarmiento (afterward Conde de Gondomar), whose influence on the mind and career of Lord Roos, at a later period, added so much to the sorrows of the families of the young lord's grandfather, the Earl of Exeter, and father, Lord Burleigh. To a Jesuit of such ardor in the work of proselytism as Matthew, the conversion of Lord Roos, a person high in rank, with powerful connections, and the fairest promise of future distinction and influence, and, moreover, the cousin and correspondent of the actual Premier of England, must have presented very strong attractions. If he should accomplish it, he would be rewarded with the applause and favor of the head of the Catholic Church, as well as of his own order, and gain for himself a friend and advocate of com