Give Me Liberty: The Struggle for Self-Government in VirginiaWertenbaker, Thomas Jefferson
History
Give Me Liberty: The Struggle for Self-Government in Virginia
Wertenbaker, Thomas Jefferson
Virginia -- Politics and government -- To 1775
Virginia historians today no longer have to make the journey across the
Atlantic, for the United States Government has had transcriptions made
of the papers relating to our colonial history for the Library of
Congress. Moreover, the journals of the House of Burgesses and the
journals of the Council have been published. Many other documents in the
Public Record Office have been published in part or in full in the
_Calendar of State Papers_, _Colonial Series, America and West Indies_,
and in historical magazines.
The Coventry papers relating to Virginia, Barbados, and other colonies,
at Longleat, the magnificent residence of the Marquess of Bath, which
have been microfilmed by the American Council of Learned Societies,
throw a flood of light on Virginia history, especially upon Bacon's
Rebellion. They contain letters from Bacon to Berkeley, from Berkeley to
Bacon, and from Philip Ludwell to Lady Berkeley, reports from the
Virginia agents who were seeking a charter for the colony, Berkeley's
account of the evacuation of Jamestown, and many other valuable
documents. They give new and overwhelming evidence that Bacon and his
followers rose in arms, not only to protect the people from the Indians,
but to right their wrongs under Berkeley's government.
The American Council of Learned Societies was also responsible for the
microfilming of the Sackville manuscripts belonging to the Earl of
Dorset. They contain letters to the British Government from the Virginia
House of Burgesses and from the Council in 1631, and throw a gleam of
light on an obscure period.
The correspondence of Lord Dunmore and Lord Dartmouth, in the British
Public Record Office, is vital to any account of the early years of the
Revolution in Virginia. In his letters Dunmore reports on the committees
of correspondence, the boycott, the plight of the Tories, his conflict
with the Assembly, the arming of the patriots, his flight from
Williamsburg, his seizure of Norfolk, etc. This correspondence is
available to scholars in microfilm in the Library of Congress.
W. W. Hening (ed.), _The Statutes at Large_ (1809-1823), in thirteen
volumes, are indispensable to the historian. In addition to the Virginia
laws it publishes a few extremely important documents.
The county records throw light on local government and the use of the
patronage by the governors to control the Assembly. It is unfortunate
that many documents in the county courthouses were destroyed in the
Revolution and the War between the States. Yet the records of Surry,
York, Essex, Rappahannock, Accomac, Elizabeth City, and other counties
have been preserved.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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