Stith has not the weight of an original authority, but he is justly famous for accuracy in following his authorities, and he had access to many papers relating to the history of Virginia which are now lost. Under the year 1608 he says: "Doctor Whitgift, Arch-Bishop of Canterbury, ... having died four Years before this, was succeeded to that high Preferment by Dr. Richard Bancroft.... He had very high Notions with Relation to the Government of both Church and State; and was accordingly a great Stickler for, and Promoter of, the King's absolute Power, and failed not to take all Occasions, to oblige the Puritans to conform to the Church of England. This Prelate's Harshness and Warmth caused many of that People to take the Resolution this Year of settling themselves in Virginia, and some were actually come off for that Purpose. But the Arch-bishop, finding that they were preparing in great Numbers to depart, obtained a Proclamation from the King, forbidding any to go, without his Majesty's express Leave." History of Virginia, 1747, p. 76. [Sidenote: Note 3, page 168.] For Whitaker's filiation, Neill's Virginia Company, 78. Whitaker's Good Newes from Virginia is no doubt intended by the entry in the inventory of Brewster's goods, "Newes from Virginia." I know no other book with such a title. That Alexander Whitaker was himself touched with Puritanism, or at least was not unwilling to have Puritan ministers for colleagues, is rendered pretty certain from passages in his letters. For instance, he writes to Crashaw from Jamestown, August 9, 1611, desiring that young and "godly" ministers should come, and adds, "We have noe need either of ceremonies or bad livers." British Museum, Additional MSS., 21,993. (The letter is printed in Browne's Genesis, 499, 500.) In a letter given in Purchas and in Neill, 95, dated June 18, 1614, he says that neither subscription nor the surplice are spoken of in Virginia. It has escaped the notice of church historians that Whitaker's semi-Puritanism seems to have left traces for many years on the character and usage of the Virginia church. The Rev. Hugh Jones writes as late as 1724 in his Present State of Virginia, p. 68, that surplices were only then "beginning to be brought in Fashion," and that the people in some parishes received the Lord's Supper sitting. [Sidenote: Note 4, page 173.]