he
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 th