labor occurred to him as an enterprise which would be likely to result in gain to himself and his patrons. While cruising in the West Indies, his vessel, the Treasurer, fell in accidentally with a Dutch privateer and remained in company with her. It was from the officers of the Treasurer that the commander of this ship perhaps learned that a market for the sale of negroes could be found in Virginia, for, after touching at the Bermudas, the vessel proceeded to that Colony, which she reached in the month of August, Yeardley in the meanwhile having taken the place of Argoll, who had a few days before the arrival of the new Governor returned by stealth to England. The Treasurer arrived in Virginia in the course of the same summer as the Dutch privateer, but, meeting with a cold reception, she turned back to the Bermudas, carrying with her a number of slaves, who were placed upon the lands which the Earl of Warwick owned in that island.[1] During her stay in the Colony, she seems to have disembarked only one negro, so far as the records shows.[2]
It has been suggested that the first negroes introduced into Virginia after its occupation by the English were imported in the Treasurer, and not in the Dutch privateers.[3] All the evidence which has been published goes to confirm the statement of Rolfe, that the latter and
- ↑ Pory to Carleton, Neill’s Virginia Vetusta, p. 113.
- ↑ See Census 1624-25, Hotten’s Original List of Emigrants, 1600-1700, p. 224. The name of this negro, who was a woman, was Angela.
- ↑ Among others by Mr. Alexander Brown in the Genesis of the United States. In his biography of Captain Elfrith, p. 886, he expresses the opinion that the report given of the “cold reception” of the Treasurer was written for the purpose of diverting the attention of the Spaniards, and he states that “he has several documents in the premises (which have never been printed) giving ample information.” I have not had an opportunity of examining these documents.
