hat of the inhabitants
of this her majesty's most ancient and great colony and
dominion of Virginia, so long as the sun and moon endure.
Gentlemen, her most sacred majesty having been graciously
pleased to send me her royal picture and arms for this her
colony and dominion, I think the properest place to have them
kept in, will be this council chamber; but it not being as yet
quite finished, I cannot have them so placed as I would.

"By private accounts which I have from England, I understand
her majesty hath lately thought fit to appoint a day of public
fasting and humiliation there; but I have not yet seen her
majesty's royal proclamation for it, which makes me not
willing to appoint one here till I have. And had it not been
for this, I designed that her majesty's royal picture and arms
should have been first seen by you on St. George his day, and
to have kept it as a day of public thanksgiving, it being the
day on which her majesty was crowned, and bearing the name of
his royal highness the Prince of Denmark, and likewise of the
patron of our mother kingdom of England.

"Honorable gentlemen, I don't in the least doubt but that you
will join with me in paying our most humble and dutiful
acknowledgments and thanks to her most sacred majesty for this
great honor and favor which she hath been pleased to bestow
upon your country, and in praying that she may have a long,
prosperous, successful, and victorious reign, as also that she
may in all respects not only equal, but even outdo her royal
predecessor, Queen Elizabeth, of ever-glorious memory, in the
latter end of whose reign this country was discovered, and in
honor of her called Virginia.

"It is now within two years of a century since its being first
seated, at which time, if God Almighty and her majesty shall
be so pleased, I design to celebrate a jubilee, and that the
inhabitants thereof may increase exceedingly, and also abound
with riches and honors, and have extraordinary good success in
all their undertakings, but chiefly that they may be exemplary
in their lives and conversations, continue in their religion
of the Church of England as by law established, loyal to the
crown thereof, and that all these things may come to pass, I
question not but you will most cordially jo