Virginia Threads for Future Historians; Wm and Mary Qrtly V2,N2. pp 128 – 131 Transcribed for the USGenWeb Archives by Margaret Risby ************************************************************************ USGENWEB ARCHIVES NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by any other organization or persons. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material, must obtain the written consent of the contributor, or the legal representative of the submitter, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of this consent. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for free access. http://www.usgwarchives.net ************************************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm Page 128 Virginia Threads for Future Historians No. VI A SHIP WITH A HISTORY. On the 7th of May, 1622, a license was issued to the Captain of the ship Tiger to trade for corn with the Indians, and in January, 1623-4, Thomas Harman presented a petition to the Court relative to the sale of the ship Tiger, Capt. Nicholas Elfrid. It was a small vessel, forty-five tons, with an eventful history. It left the Thames chartered by the Virginia Company in September, 1621, and on the voyage met a ship of Turks who seized their provisions, sails, tackling, anchors, hour-glass and compass, but another English vessel appearing the pirates sailed away with two English boys, and left a French and an Irish lad. In Lefroy's Bermudas is the following: "Knowe ye that whereas I, Captain Nicholas Elfry, under God, Master of the goode shippe called the Tygre, being freighted with divers Passengers, and other goods and merchandize from London, and bound for Virginia, by the way was taken with the Turks' man-of-warre, and, as the Turks were pillaging of us, this poor man, Walter Deane, being miserably amongst them as a slave, made an escape from them aboard our shippe, and hid himselfe, till they were gone, and then discovered himself. Page 129 "Whereupon, pressing still on our voyage to Virginia, I gave him meanes among the rest of my men, and goeing from Virginia to the Somers Island and arriving there safely, the said Walter meeting with some of his countrymen, was solicited to stay with them w'ch he earnestly desired at my hands, w'ch petition of his I freely grant. In witness whereof I, Capt. Nicholas Elfrid, have herewith set my hand the 9th day of April, An. Dom. 1622." In the spring of 1623, the Tiger with twenty-six men ascended the Potomac River to trade for corn, and near the site where now is the city of Washington, the Anacostan Indians attacked them. Those Englishmen who happened to be on shore were either killed or made prisoners. Henry Spilman, son of Sir Henry, was killed, and Henry Fleet, afterwards so prominent in the affairs of Virginia and Maryland, was made prisoner. Five persons who stayed on board repulsed the savages by the discharge of a cannon, and made their escape. The Blunder of An English Historian J. A. Doyle, Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, has prepared one of the most valuable works on "English Colonies in America," and yet terribly blunders relative to Nathaniel Bacon, the Virginian insurgent of 1676, of whom he writes: "He had lost his estate in England, and had now bettered his fortunes by a marriage with rich widow. Her position of landlady of the chief, probably the only tavern in Jamestown, gave Bacon a wide circle of acquaintance." There is no truth in these declarations." Nathaniel Bacon was the son of Thomas Bacon of Freestone Hall, Suffolk, and with his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Edward Duke, came to Virginia, and settled at Curles on the James River. Page 130 After Bacon died in 1676, his widow married Captain Jarvis. In Cases of the High Court of Chancery, England, published by order from the MSS. of Thomas Vernon is this case. " Jarvis and ux versus Duke." Sir E. Duke by his will devised a legacy of £2,000 to one of his daughters, but, if she should marry one Bacon, that then the legacy should be void. She having before her father's death married the said Bacon takes advice upon the will, and is advised that the legacy is void by reason of her having married Bacon. Her brother pays her £800 and she releases her legacy. " The bill was to have this release set aside, and her legacy made good to her, pretending that she was circumvented in this release, her brother telling her she had no legacy given her by her father's will, but was rased out of it, and that he suppressed the will and did not prove it till after such time as he had obtained the release. "To which, it was said by my Lord Chancellor that it is the constant rule where there is either suppressio veri, or saggestio falsi, the release shall be avoided. "Then they went on to prove that Sir E. Duke in his life-time did actually revoke this will, and declared that his daughter shall have no such legacy. "To which it was objected, and it being fully proved that the father had revoked this legacy it was decreed by the Lord Chancellor against the plaintiff." He said, " In this case, the father himself having actually revoked the legacy upon his daughter's disobedience, the father himself has in this case been Chancellor, and that with equity too: such an example Page 131 of presumptuous disobedience highly meriting such a punishment; she being only prohibited to marry with one man, by name, and nothing in the whole fair Garden of Eden would serve her but this forbidden fruit." EDWARD D. NEILL. Saint Paul, Minnesota, September, 1893.