n in 1705. Beverley was a rich planter and large slave
owner, who, being in London in 1703, was shown by his bookseller the
manuscript of a forthcoming work, Oldmixon's _British Empire in
America_. Beverley was set upon writing his history by the
inaccuracies in this, and likewise because the province "has been so
misrepresented to the common people of England as to make them believe
that the servants in Virginia are made to draw in cart and plow, and
that the country turns all people black," an impression which lingers
still in parts of Europe. The most original portions of the book are
those in which the author puts down his personal observations of the
plants and animals of the New World, and particularly the account of
the Indians, to which his third book is devoted, and which is
accompanied by valuable plates. Beverley's knowledge of these matters
was evidently at first hand, and his descriptions here are very fresh
and interesting. The more strictly historical part of his work is not
free from prejudice and inaccuracy. A more critical, detailed, and
impartial, but much less readable, work was William Stith's _History of
the First Discovery and Settlement of Virginia_, 1747, which brought
the subject down only to the year 1624. Stith was a clergyman, and at
one time a professor in William and Mary College.

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The Virginians were stanch royalists and churchmen. The Church of
England was established by law, and non-conformity was persecuted in
various ways. Three missionaries were sent to the colony in 1642 by
the Puritans of New England, two from Braintree, Massachusetts, and one
from New Haven. They were not suffered to preach, but many resorted to
them in private houses, until, being finally driven out by fines and
imprisonments, they took refuge in Catholic Maryland. The Virginia
clergy were not, as a body, very much of a force in education or
literature. Many of them, by reason of the scattering and dispersed
condition of their parishes, lived as domestic chaplains with the
wealthier planters, and partook of their illiteracy and their passion
for gaming and hunting. Few of them inherited the zeal of Alexander
Whitaker, the "Apostle of Virginia," who came over in 1611 to preach to
the colonists and convert the Indians, and who published in furtherance
of those ends _Good News from Virginia_, in 1613, three years before
his death by drowning in James River.

The conditions were much more favor