America and West Indies: April 1612 | British History Online

Page 13

Calendar of State Papers Colonial, America and West Indies: Volume 1, 1574-1660. Originally published by Her Majesty's Stationery Office, London, 1860.

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Citation:

April 1612



April 18. Madrid.	Sir John Digby to Salisbury. It is thought [the Spanish Ambassador] will be directed to intreat the King to remove the plantation in Virginia, first by fair means. Knows many consultations have been had for supplanting the English, but cannot learn that any particular resolution is taken. It is concluded that the settlement of the English there is not to be permitted [Copy. Extract from DOMESTIC Corresp. Jac. I., Vol. LXVIII., No. 100, Cal. p. 126. Original in Corresp. SPAIN. In the despatches of 1612 from the English Ambassador at Madrid numerous passages will be found relating to the plantation of Virginia; the jealousy of the Spaniards, the reports of preparations to destroy it, and ridicule of the business, which was held not unlikely to sink of itself, the first undertakers having grown so weary of supplying the charge "that they were fain obliged to make a general kind of begging," by way of lottery to sustain it. The Spanish Ambassador in London, Don Pedro de Cunega, also writes to the King of Spain on this subject, 22 Sept. 1612. Although some suppose the plantation to decrease he is credibly informed that there is a determination to marry some of the people that go over to the Virginians; forty or fifty are already so married, and English women intermingle and are received kindly by the natives; a zealous minister has been wounded for reprehending it. A lottery set on foot to raise 20,000 ducats and send away six ships with all the people that can be procured. Thinks it will be an easy matter "to remove these people," and that now it will be to the purpose to punish them, for they boldly attempt further plantations having already begun another in Terra Nova. Corresp. SPAIN, Inclosure, 13 May 1613.]