86
VIRGINIA BIOGRAPHY
deputies to govern two parts of the public
land in \irginia." Mr. George Thorpe had
already been chosen for one of these places,
and the treasurer now anounced that the other
was to be tilled by a gentleman of the same
worth, now present, called Mr. Thomas
Xewce, touching whom it was agreed that he
should take charge of the company's land and
tenants in X'irginia whatsoever, and that they
for his entertainment have ordered that he and
such as shall succeed him shall have 1200 acres
belonging to that office, 600 at Kiquotan, now
called Elizabeth City, 400 at Charles City, 100
at Henrico, and 100 at James City ; and, for
the managing of this land, (they) have fur-
ther agreed that he shall have forty tenants
tc be placed thereon, whereof twenty (are)
t J be sent presently, and the other tw^enty in
the spring ensuing, all which now being put
to the question received a general approba-
tion." On June 28, 1620, Newce was further
honored by appointment to the Virginia coun-
cil, and he arrived in the colony the following
winter. On April 30, 162 1, the company
adopted a resolution "concerning Capt.
Thos. Xewce, the company's deputy in Vir-
ginia, as well in the discharge of a former
promise made unto him, to the end that his
reward might be no less than of others whose
persons and deserts they doubted not but he
cculd equal, they therefore agreed to add ten
persons more when the company shall be able
to make the former number 50." Newce's
name appears signed to several letters from
the governor and council in Virginia, but he
did not live long in the land of his adoption.
The governor and council, writing to the Earl
of Southampton April 3, 1623, mention "Cap-
tain" Newce as "lately dead," and George
Sandys wrote of him on April 8, that he died
"very poor" and that an allowance had been
made for his wife and child.
Thorpe, George, was a native of Glouces-
tershire and the son of Nicholas Thorpe of
Wanswell Court. He was related both in
b;ood and by marriage with some of the dis-
tinguished men of the Jamestown colony, and
among others with Sir Thomas Dale. The
Thorpe family was a prominent one and our
subject became a gentleman pensioner, a
gentleman of the privy chamber of the king
and a member of parliament from Portsmoutn.
He was a man of strong religious feeling and
became greatly interested in the problem of
the conversion of the savages with which his
countrymen were newly coming into contact
in the new world. He formed a partnership
with Sir William Throckmorton, John Smith
of Nibley, Richard Berkeley and others for
the ownership and conduct of a private plan-
tation in X'irginia, and selling his English
property, he set sail for Virginia, where he
arrived March, 1620. He was appointed
deputy to govern the college land and to have
three hundred acres and ten tenants, and on
June 28, 1620, he was made a member of the
council. The advent of this friend of the
Indians in Virginia was coincident with the
formation of the great Indian plot against the
English of 1621-22, and there are some who
hold that his disinterested friendship for the
red man was an aid to them in their under-
taking. Thorpe certainly displayed the most
complete faith in his dusky charges and vis-
ited them in the forest, discussing religion
with Opochankano, from which he derived
great encouragement for the hope of their
final conversion. Thorpe's interests were not
confined to the Indians, however, as the fol-
lowing letter received by him from the com-
pany in 1621 will show: "And to you, Mr.
Thorpe, we will freely con f esse that both your
letter and endeavors are most acceptable to
us; the entering upon the staple comodoties of
