Transcriber's Notes: This book contains documents written in 17th-and18th-Century English, Dutch, French, and other languages.Inconsistencies of spelling, punctuation, capitalization, andhyphenation have been preserved as they appear in the original. (Seethe last paragraph of the Preface for theeditor's note on this.) A few obvious printer errors in theeditor's footnotes have been corrected.
The original contains a number of blank spaces to represent missingmatter. These are represented here as long dashes.
The arrangement of "Captain Kid's Farewel to the Seas" is from Helen KendrickJohnson, Our Familiar Songs and Those Who Made Them, pp. 171-72(New York: H. Holt, 1909).
Some full-page tables have been moved so as not to interrupt theflow of the text. Some page numbers are skipped as a result.
EDITED UNDER THE AUSPICES OF
THE NATIONAL SOCIETY OF THE
COLONIAL DAMES OF AMERICA
DIRECTOR OF THE DEPARTMENT OF HISTORICAL RESEARCH IN
THE CARNEGIE INSTITUTION OF WASHINGTON
New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1923
To the Honored Memory of
JOHN JAMESON
OF BOSTON
1828-1905
VOYAGER, TEACHER, LAWYER, SCHOLAR
WHOSE LOVE OF LEARNING AND WHOSE UNSELFISH
DEVOTION MADE IT NATURAL AND POSSIBLE
THAT I SHOULD LEAD THE STUDENT’S LIFE
The National Society of the Colonial Dames of America have formed thelaudable habit of illustrating the colonial period of United Stateshistory, in which they are especially interested, by published volumesof original historical material, previously unprinted, and relating tothat period. Thus in the course of years they have made a largeaddition to the number of documentary sources available to the studentof that period. First they published, in 1906, in two handsomevolumes, the Correspondence of William Pitt, when Secretary of State,with Colonial Governors and Military and Naval Commanders in America,edited by the late Miss Gertrude Selwyn Kimball, containing materialof great importance to the history of the colonies as a whole, and ofthe management of the French and Indian War. Next, in 1911 and 1914,they published the two volumes of Professor James C. Ballagh'svaluable edition of the Letters of Richard Henry Lee. Then, in 1912,they brought out, again in two volumes, the Correspondence ofGovernor William Shirley, edited by Dr. Charles H. Lincoln, andillustrating the history of several colonies, particularly those ofNew England, during the period of what in our colonial history iscalled King George's War. More recently, in 1916, the Societypublished an entertaining volume of hitherto unprinted Travels in theAmerican Colonies, edited by Dr. Newton D. Mereness.
It was resolved that the next volume after these should be devoted todocuments relating to maritime history. In proportion to itsimportance, that aspect of our colonial history has in generalreceived too little attention. In time of peace the colonists, nearlyall of whom dwelt within a hundred miles of ocean or tidewater,maintained constantly a ma