QUERY XXIII.
THE HISTORIES OF THE STATE, THE MEMORIALS PUBLISHED IN ITS NAME IN THE TIME OF ITS BEING A COLONY, AND THE PAMPHLETS RELATING TO ITS INTERIOR OR EXTERIOR AFFAIRS, PRESENT OR ANCIENT?
Captain Smith, who, next to Sir Walter Raleigh, may be
considered as the founder of our colony, has written its
history from the first adventures to it till the year 1624. He
was a member of the council, and afterwards President of the
colony; and to his efforts principally may be ascribed its
support against the opposition of the natives. He was honest,
sensible, and well informed; but his style is barbarous and
uncouth. His history, however, is almost the only source
from which we derive any knowledge of the infancy of our
State.
The Rev. William Stith, a native of Virginia, and president of its college, has also written the history of the same period, in a large octavo volume of small print. He was a man of classical learning, and very exact, but of no taste in style. He is inelegant, therefore, and his details often too minute to be tolerable, even to a native of the country whose history he writes.
Beverley, a native also, has run into the other extreme; he has comprised our history, from the first propositions of Sir Walter Raleigh to the year 1700, in the hundredth part of the space which Stith employs for the fourth part of the period.
Sir William Keith has taken it up at its earliest period, and continued it to the year 1725. He is agreeable enough in style, and passes over events of little importance. Of course he is short, and would be preferred by a foreigner.
