Nathaniel Butler's account of proceedings in the Virginia and Bermuda Companies in late-1618 and early-1619

 Nathaniel Butler’s account of proceedings in the Virginia and Bermuda Companies in late-1618 and early-1619

Only one coherent account from the pen of one of those apparently participating in the struggle for control of the Virginia and Somers Island or Bermuda Companies in the latter part of 1618 to the spring of 1619 survives. It is the retrospective work of Nathaniel Butler in British Library Sloane Ms.750 edited and published by J.H.Lefroy in 1882. Butler described the Virginia Company as then being divided into three groups - the Lords and most of the gentlemen; the second that of the company’s Treasurer, Sir Thomas Smith, and many of the merchants, especially those of the East India Company of which Smith was Governor; and, finally, that of Sir Edwin Sandys and the auditors of the Virginia Company’s accounts. The contrast between the adventurers’ expenditure on the colony in Virginia and the relatively poor returns to the company’s investors had given Sandys and his allies the opportunity to demand a comprehensive audit of the company’s records and to complain about alleged obstruction by Smith as its Treasurer and chief officer. Smith’s response was to claim that the auditors and their leaders, especially Sandys, lacked experience, hence the growth of factional heat in the company’s meetings and demands for Smith’s replacement as leader.

In the case of Bermuda, the position was slightly different. The Governor in the colony, Daniel Tucker, was the brother of one of Smith’s allies in the English Customs Farm. Tucker had been involved in quarrels with the bailiffs of Pembroke and Southampton Tribes in Bermuda over the forced labour he had imposed on their tenants and other issues and over the trials of the two bailiffs of Pembroke and Southampton Tribes, one of them Sir Nathaniel Rich’s brother over which Tucker had presided. Tucker’s own ambition to acquire

more land in the colony - the so-called ‘overplus’ - had been put in jeopardy and he was persuaded, so Butler claimed, to return to England to defend his interests. By then, his replacement as Governor in Bermuda was being canvassed with three potential candidates in the running - Captain Southwell, whose appointment was advocated in letters from courtiers; Nathaniel Butler, a man long known to the Rich family and favoured by the ‘Lords’ of the Company; and George Sandys, one of Sir Edwin’s brothers. According to Butler, there was a significant degree of canvassing in the period before the annual general Quarter Court at which an appointment was expected to be made. Sir Thomas Smith was apparently determined to retain Daniel Tucker as Governor in Bermuda and refused to allow discussion of other candidates in the courts of the Somers Island Company, a refusal which led to the Virginia Company deciding that an officer, whether Governor or Treasurer or Deputy Treasurer, refusing to put a matter to the question in a court should thereby lose his office.

These two lines of development converged. Butler recorded that an overture was made to the ‘Lords’ to arrange for the election of Sir Edwin Sandys as Treasurer of the Virginia Company in place of Smith and of Nathaniel Butler as Governor in Bermuda. This proposition was accepted by the former group and the use of a ballot box was agreed for both companies’ choices. Smith declined to stand again for Treasurer of the Virginia Company and Sandys, in competition with Alderman Johnson and Sir John Wolstenholme, secured the place. In the Somers Island Company, Butler was chosen as colonial Governor with an overwhelming majority over the acting Governor Kendall and Captain Southwell. But Sir Thomas Smith retained his place as Governor of the Bermuda Company even though Sir Edwin Sandys had stood for the place as well.

If Butler’s account was correct, what inferences can be drawn? First of all, it seems likely that the Rich family’s interest in Virginia had been terminated. A ship had already been sent to the Chesapeake river colony to remove the family’s ally, Captain Samuel Argall, before his replacement as Governor or acting Governor, Sir George Yeardley, could arrive. Yeardley carried with him instructions to arrest Argall and to seize his goods. Any attempt to suborn Yeardley before he left England had apparently failed. What mattered to Lord Rich, who had succeeded his father as Earl of Warwick on 24th March, 1619, and Sir Nathaniel Rich was to have an ally as Governor in Bermuda. Sir Edwin Sandys could follow his economic prescriptions in Virginia but was inhibited for a further two years from doing so as Governor of the Bermuda Company. This outcome, this division of responsibilities and a putative strategy of ‘divide and rule’ suggests a degree of political understanding on the part of the Rich family even if it is no more than a suggestion for further consideration.