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Home , Hackett (surname), Virginia Company, William Booth (bishop)

The English Atlantic World: A View from London Alison Games Georgetown University

William Booth occupied an unfortunate status in the land of primogeniture and the entailed estate. A younger son from a Cheshire family, he went up to London in May, 1628, "to get any servis worth haveinge." His letters to his oldest brother John, who had inherited the bulk of their father's estate, and John's responses, drafted on the back of William's original missives, describe the circumstances which enticed men to London in search of work and the misfortunes that subsequently ushered them overseas. William Booth, unable to find suitable employment in the metropolis, implored his brother John to procure a letter of introduction on his behalf from their cousin Morton. Plaintively reminding his brother "how chargeable a place London is to live in," he also requested funds for a suit of clothes in order to make himself more presentable in his quest for palatable employment. William threatened his older brother with military service on the continent if he could find no position in London, preferring to "goe into the lowcuntries or eles wth some man of warre" than to stay in London. , dismayed by his sibling's martial inclination, offered William money from his own portion of their father's estate rather than permit William to squander his own smaller share. In what proved to be a gross misreading of William's character but perhaps a sound assessment of his desire for the status becoming his ambitions, John urged William to seek a position with a . The eleven surviving letters between the Booth brothers convey William's growing impatience with his failure to secure a position in London, his canny ability to manipulate his brother with threats of military service, and John's helpless concern from distant Cheshire. William's humiliation at his repeated failures in London reached its pinnacle when his tenacious pursuit of an unpaid debt led the purported debtor, Sir Edward Whitton, to refuse to receive him. Finally, after less than five months in London, William decided he had had enough. London had answered his hopes with disappointment. "I will stay noe lounger," he wrote John in July, "but a weay with the first that doth goe let what will follow it is better to indure slaverie where a man is not knowne then in his owne cuntry I have spente more in seekeinge for a servis then I shall gaine in 2 yeares servis and am sorie I had not resolved upon this course souner." William travelled to Gravesend in September. From there, he chose to sail, but not as we might expect to the new American colonies where an ambitious and fortunate young man might anticipate economic advancement and adventure. Instead, scorning the degrading labor such destinations promised, he sailed straight across the Channel toward North Holland to serve as a soldier, with English forces on the continent.' The English Atlantic World 47

The remarkable collection of letters between the Booth brothers touches on the struggles young men faced making their way in early seventeenth-century London. William Booth's quest for adventure and position in the great metropolis was so common that it had already become embedded in popular culture. The most celebrated person to make his fortune after a journey to the City was Dick Whittington: the Whittington legend established a pattern for future fictitious adventurers, although most subsequent aspirants for success in London found their plots rewritten as they met with disappointment, dissipation, and despair in the City. The first part of the formulaic saga described the adventures of a young man in London. So commenced the story of one Leonard of Lincoln, a character whose ambitions were recorded in a ballad, The CheatingAge: Or LeonardofLincolnes iourney to London to buy Wit, which was printed only three years before William Booth made his own way to London from Cheshire. We learn from his experience that nothing could prepare a provincial man for London. This city was the largest in Europe and was congested, busy, loud, and rank.2 A new arrival would not know what to make of London's noises and sights. Even the cries of many competing vendors hawking their wares would baffle the newcomer with their babble.' Leonard of Lincoln did not stand a chance. He fell among bad company as soon as he "entered wide gate" who enticed him into a tavern. Over the course of his adventures Leonard squandered "most part of [his] state," and was reduced to selling his cloak and sword in order to pay his debts. Rather than finding the wit he had envisioned, Leonard to London "with griefe bid adiew." "My journey to London long time I shall rue," he lamented. "I ne're in my life met with villaines so vilde, To send a man home like the Prodigall Childe."4 With the advent of viable colonial ventures in the early seventeenth century, authors of ballads like The CheatingAge found new endings to their London stories.' These fictitious models echoed the real experience of men for whom London was a destination ultimately replaced in the seventeenth century by more promising and remote ones.6 Truth proved no stranger than fiction. Richard Norwood, the great surveyor, made his home on Bermuda only after a series of adventurers on the continent. His family's frequent moves disrupted Norwood's education. Finally, having failed to win a scholarship he coveted, Norwood went to London at the age of fifteen as an apprentice to a fishmonger, "a stern man." In London Norwood was captivated by passions other than fish. His master's house was frequented by mariners who excited Norwood with talk of their travels. Norwood developed an interest in navigation, "wherewith," he recalled, "I was so much affected that I was most earnestly bent both to understand the art which seemed to me to reach as it were to heaven," and he resolved to go to the East Indies. Breaking his apprenticeship, he went to sea, and saw much of Europe, at one point considering a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. He finally returned to , but set 48 History out yet again for Turkey and other places, learning navigation as he travelled. Once back in London, Norwood was recruited by the Adventurers for Bermuda because of his diving skills-they believing there were many pearls there- and Richard Norwood finally voyaged to the colony that was, after more fits and starts, to become his adult home. Norwood's Atlantic career followed a. taste for adventure first sparked in London, was whetted further by long travels around the world, and finally terminated in the colonies after he had cultivated skills that made him valuable to colonial investors.7 As the stories of Booth and Norwood suggest, travel overseas was not always the primary goal of a trip to London. Fortune, adventure, and advancement in London itself were of foremost concern. London was the mecca of England, with one-sixth of the population passing through the metropolis.' Metropolitan life, however, was hardly unrelieved pleasure. Norwood and Booth proved luckier than most in that they actually survived to move on. Plague was, endemic in London, producing mortality rates as high as 24% in the worst outbreaks, as in 1563. And the diseases that fed on poverty, poor sanitation, and malnutrition had free reign.9 Many destitute migrants who survived London's horrific disease environment were ensnared in the legal apparatus enforcing the Poor Laws. Some found themselves eventually boarding ship, like William Booth or Richard Norwood-whether reluctantly or enthusiastically - for a range of overseas ventures. '° Such was the case in 1635 for five boys sent by the Bridewell to Bermuda, having been brought in by a London constable. Another immigrant of 1635, Thomas Reynolds, was taken in by the night watch and described as "an old prisoner." Reynolds was shipped to ." Joining him that year on voyages to Virginia from London were fourteen prisoners from Newgate who were ordered overseas. 12 Thus a number of people unable or unwilling to support themselves legally in London were shipped overseas, along with those like Norwood or Booth who had skills and expectations but thirsted for advancement. London functioned as a filter for population moving into the city from all over England, and out of the city on ships for the Continent or any one of a range of English commercial or colonial ventures. As Booth and Norwood suggest, migration also enhanced imperial development. Men blundered their way onto ships to serve in the army that secured England's sovereignty or to explore, invade, and settle the colonies that promised wealth and power. Both migration and commercial ventures similarly shaped the character of London.'3 Thus migration played a role in the life cycle of individuals and in the life cycle of the nation. As part of the life cycle of the nation, the increased migration of the early Stuart period provided able manpower for a variety of new commercial enterprises that ultimately transformed England into an empire. The English Atlantic World 49

The Crown viewed this abundant internal and overseas mobility with considerable alarm, especially in light of the political and economic instability which distinguished the reigns of James I and Charles I. Especially during the years of the personal rule, 1629-1640, Charles I found it necessary to refine and expand on proclamations first issued by his father in order to curtail the movements of his subjects. Although colonization and trade were for the most part privately organized, the crown provided an important support by granting monopolies to individuals, corporations, and joint-stock companies. The Crown also regulated the departures of ships and people. In an era of sensitive and transitory diplomatic alliances, the king had trouble controlling men eager to plant their own fiefdoms overseas. It was especially difficult for the king to enforce his will on foreign soil, and some proclamations reflected his frustration. One proclamation in 1618 revealed James I's efforts to curtail the movements of Sir , who had flouted the King's original license for his South American expedition by fighting with the Spanish. Two years later, a similar broadside sought to discipline Roger North, who had sailed off to the Amazon without permission, and was stripped of his powers from across the ocean.'4 These futile efforts-and the harsh punishments awaiting North and Raleigh on their returns to England-symbolized the Crown's growing understanding of the complexity of controlling a far-flung trade network. But North and Raleigh carried small crews to an infant and ultimately unsuccessful colony. More dangerous were successful colonies because of the movement of people they prompted. As colonization increased, the pace of monarchical regulation increased as well. A series of broadside decrees by Charles I visibly demonstrated invigorated royal attention to the population of England's overseas outposts. Their repetitive language by the 1630s reveals a tone of helpless hysteria. In May, 1630, Charles reaffirmed an earlier decree of his father, James I, forbidding people, including "Souldiers, Marchants, Marryners, and their factors and Apprentices," to leave England freely for any foreign port. He appointed commissioners of various English ports to administer an oath to all people, including women and children, who left for anywhere. Particular instructions enjoined these commissioners to record the names of passengers, their place of birth, "state, degree, vocation, trade, mysterie or occupation, and the true cause or causes of their going over."" Repeated efforts to curtail free movement indicated the failure of these strictures. Considerations of defense intermingled with what emerges as an anxiety over population movement. Engaged in a bitter struggle with his Puritan critics, Archbishop Laud sought to ensure the conformity of church members, and a 1634 decree reflected that commitment. By order of the Commission for Foreign Plantations in December, 1634, directed to "our loving Freinds the officers of the Port of London," all subjects bound for the plantations so Pennsylvania History from the port of London were to present proof that they did not owe taxes. This order superseded an earlier decree by the Privy Council in February, 1634, which required the restraint of ten ships waiting to sail to to inspect the passengers. According to the December, 1634, decree, emigrants below the rank of subsidy men were required to provide letters both from the justices of their parish certifying that they had taken the oath of allegiance and supremacy and from their local clergyman who would certify that they were members of the church in good standing. Subsidy men required licenses from the king's commissioners themselves. The order was initially enforced, however, only for emigrants to New England. The Commission for Foreign Plantations thereby hoped to prevent the departure of those of "idle and refractory humors, whose only end is to live as much as they can without the reach of authority." In order to arrest the "promiscuous and disorderly parting out of the Realme," the clerks were to provide the commissioners every six months with a "particular and perfect list of the names and qualities of all those that have in the meane time imbarqued in that port." Lest the clerks misunderstand the urgency of their task, the commissioners reminded them that "in the performance of all which you are in no sort to faile, as you will answer the neglect thereof at your perills."' 6 The clerks at the port of London in 1635 attended to their duties with the prescribed care. On the very day of the December, 1634, proclamation they commenced a record of travel that encapsulates the movement of some 7,500 men, women, and children through London, the largest city in Europe, to the American colonies and to cities on the continent. The record for travellers to the continent commenced December 24, 1634. The first soldiers were listed on December 31, 1634, the first passengers to America on January 2, 1635. Dutifully recording the names, ages, and occasionally occupation, place of origin, and purpose of travel for those people who passed through their port, these clerks created an invaluable historical document. In its entirety it comprises the largest port register for any single year in the colonial period, and the only studied register to mingle overseas travellers to the colonies with people voyaging to other destinations. The register's comprehensive inclusion of people involved in a range of imperial efforts sets the different overseas migrations in context. The port register, recording as it does the aspirations of merchants, ministers, servants, clothworkers, and mariners, reminds us that London may have been a clearinghouse for young men like William Booth or Richard Norwood in search of fortune and adventure, but it was also a countinghouse, the commercial heart of a fragile empire.'7 The London port register recorded the names and ages of almost 5,000 men and women who sailed to the colonies. It enumerated 1,595 soldiers bound for the continent, and it listed 1,034 individual men, women, and children who voyaged to different Continental ports such as Amsterdam, Delft, The English Atlantic World 51

Table 1 1635 London Port Register: Travellers and Destinations

DESTINATIONS NUMBER OF TRAVELLERS Various Continental posts 1595 (soldiers) American Colonies* 4878 Virginia 2009 New England 1169 983 St. Kitts 423 Bermuda 218 Providence 76 Continent 1034 Destination blank 30 Rotterdam 158 Amsterdam 111 Dunkirk 107 Middelburg 63 Flanders 59 Flushing 58 The Hague 58 Bergen op zoom 43 Dort 34 Low Countries (unspecified) 21 Leiden 20 Hamburg 17 Guttenberg 16 Utrecht 16 Other** 223 TOTAL TRAVELLERS FROM LONDON 7507

Source for all tables: E 157/20 1-E, PRO, Chancery Lane. * The destinations indicated here are as recorded in the port register and are not entirely accurate. Passengers bound for New England could land in Massachusetts, Plymouth, or Connecticut; those bound for Virginia could land in Maryland; ships bound for Barbados and St. Kitts also visited Nevis and Antigua; and the ship bound for Providence called at Henrietta and Tortuga. **This category includes destinations where fewer than 15 people travelled, including such places as Paris, Constantinople, Russia, Prussia, Antwerp, Brussels, Bruges, , Ostend, Newport, Cleveland, Ghent, Dieppe, Harlem, Nijmegen, and 23 other cities. 52 Pennsylvania History and Rotterdam, "on their own affayres" (Table 1). The few times that historians have employed this record of migration have been to delineate travel to the colonies. The presence of the soldiers and other voyagers, however, signifies the essential component parts of England's new empire and offers an important perspective on the value of the register itself For the register was not simply about colonization or about travel to America. In fulfilling Charles I's order to regulate the traffic of people through London, the clerks delineated the push factors of poverty and despair and the pull of a trade empire and overseas opportunity. That these names were united in a single register, interspersed with each other on the same pages, symbolizes the connections between these important migration patterns. The register sets overseas migration in a context of English military activity and financial expansion and investment. In its entirety, it depicts a three-pronged, interconnected process of movement out of London, the great staging ground for a range of overseas enterprises. London was only one of many ports of departure for America, and America was only one of many possible destinations. In this same period thousands of men and women also ventured to other colonial destinations, especially , which continued to attract people during these decades of high emigration to America. So successful was the plantation in Munster Nicholas Canny has determined from a study of inventory records that Munster "was probably the wealthiest English overseas settlement that had developed anywhere by the middle of the seventeenth century," by which time some fifteen Atlantic experiments had been attempted. 8 Even those individuals most indelibly associated with New England flirted with the possibility of Irish settlement. John Winthrop, Sr., wrote to his son John while he was studying at Trinity College, , hoping that "God would open a waye to settle me in Ireland, if it might be for his glorye."'9 God apparently opened the way to Ireland for thousands of other people. In fact, 1635 marked the peak of Scottish emigration to Ulster.20 Migration, moreover, as the port register suggests, did not necessarily entail colonial aspirations. Cloth workers from the Weald of Kent settled in the Palatinate in the 1630s even as hundreds of their neighbors set their sights on New England.2 ' This remarkable record of migration and travel was contained in a single folio volume. The first portion of the volume enumerated the American-bound travellers and the soldiers going to the continent. These voyagers were recorded by name, by general destination, and frequently by age in the order they appeared at the port. A single page might accommodate passengers bound for New England and the West Indies and soldiers destined for Flanders. They met at England's busiest single port.22 The summer months in particular were a frantic season for the port clerks, who struggled to assign children to the proper families, servants to the correct master, and people to correct ships and destinations. London's activity coincided significantly with the period of peak The English Atlantic World 53 internal migration of subsistence migrants in England, the months between June and October.23 The passengers bound for the West Indies and the Chesapeake appeared en masse before ministers at Gravesend to take the required oath of allegiance. Most of the soldiers were brought before the clerk in the hands of a sergeant who had recruited them. William Booth suggested this process when he wrote his brother John that a sergeant in his company was voyaging to London for "a supplie of men."24 The New England passengers apparently presented passes (although none seems to have survived) from ministers and justices of the peace in their home parishes in order to demonstrate their conformity to the Church of England. In many cases the clerks carefully recorded this information in the port register. The second portion of the register, comprising some thirty folio pages, delineates those people destined for cities on the Continent. They encompassed a remarkable array of individuals-English families already resident in foreign cities; merchants; Irish travellers on their way to visit friends; three young men intent on studying a foreign language. This section of the register is the most complete, listing the traveller's purpose more often than not-a feature uniformly absent from the listings for travellers to the colonies. This discrepancy suggests which flow of travellers might have most concerned the crown. Particularly because so many of these continent-bound travellers were expatriates, involved in international trade and thus closely connected with foreign merchants and monarchs, the king might have wanted to reassure himself of their whereabouts and loyalty. Who were these 7,500 passengers, and how did they differ from each other? A survey of some of the most basic demographic features of these travellers details some measurable distinctions.25 Although it iseasy to conjecture that indentured laborers and soldiers would be drawn from similar pools of young men, this in fact proves not to be true. Sex ratios constitute one significant difference between migrating populations (Table 2).

TABLE 2 Sex Ratios by Destination

Colonies Soldiers Continent N % N % N % M 4008 82.4 1595 100 752 73 F 856 17.6 0 0 281 27 TOTAL 4864 100 1595 100 1033 100 54 Pennsylvania History

Table 2 reveals stark differences in sex ratios. The soldiers, of course, were entirely male, or at least appeared so to the clerks. Both of the other groups of travellers were predominantly male as well, although the group bound for the continent had more women. Still, travel was clearly a man's affair. Alone, sex ratios mean little. But when combined with information about age characteristics, a profile begins to emerge (Table 3).

TABLE 3 Average Age by Destination

Colonies Soldiers Continent N=4870 N= 1406 N=972 Average age 22 26 27

This table allows an immediate comparison between the different groups, showing greater resemblance between the soldiers and the-continental travellers than the youthful colonial-bound population. Division of the travelling cohorts into life cycle phases provides a more sophisticated glimpse at the composition of these people. Birth to age 4 constituted infancy, ages 5 to 14 childhood, 15 to 24 young adulthood. Young adults primarily engaged in service outside their childhood homes. Ages 25 to 59 encompassed the years of marriage and family construction, while 60 and over constituted old age.26 When regarded in this light, the 1635 travellers have distinctive characteristics that set them apart from each other and from the English population as a whole as it looked in 1636 (Table 4).

TABLE 4 Age Structure by Destination (%)

AGE Colonies Soldiers Continent England* 0-4 3.1 0 5.8 12.40 5-14 7.5 .1 6.4 19.73 15-24 59.2 55.6 31.9 17.72 25-59 30.0 44.1 54.8 42.03 60+ .2 .2 1.1 8.12

* E. A. Wrigley and R. S. Schofield, Population History ofEngland, 1541- 1871 (Cambridge, 1981), p. 528.

Dramatic differences distinguish these populations. The merchants and the soldiers were significantly older on average than the voyagers to America. The continental travellers, while obviously differing in the percentages of people The English Atlantic World 55

in each age category, came closest to England's overall age and gender hierarchy, with the preponderance of people falling between the ages of 25 and 59. This fact was important in providing stability~ to the home population. To slip in and out of English society, as so many of these cosmopolitan travellers did, was an easily accomplished task. Integration both at home and abroad was simpler for these people who represented a cross-section of England's population. Like the travellers to the continent, the soldiers, many in their forties and fifties, were significantly older than the American-bound voyagers. The age difference suggests that experience was important in the recruitment of soldiers. Men who hesitated to expose themselves to the ravages of colonial life or to the long Atlantic voyage were, for whatever reasons, more willing to partake of England's military excursions. A middle-aged man who might not survive in the colonies could still possess valuable military experience. Military service provided a recurring opportunity for poor men to maintain themselves. With the possibility of a shorter commitment and a less dangerous voyage than required by colonial service, military service might have looked appealing. In contrast to the young child-servants who were sent to the colonies, only one young boy, fourteen-year-old Robert Sanders, went to serve as a soldier, and he was distinguished by the London port clerks from the other soldiers as a page.27 Other factors might have caused soldiers to go abroad. William Booth preferred to become a soldier rather than to accept a position inferior to his expectations. Men who fought for England were celebrated in popular culture. A 1632 ballad, Gallants, to Bohemia, called on "ye noble Britaines" to go to war. It drew a pointed comparison between soldiers and adventurers:

Some seeke in forraigne Lands to thrive, we like bees do keepe our hive: Some get riches, Pearle and Gold, we sitting still grow faint and cold: Once againe let it be said, we foraigne actions never fear'd, The true Religion to maintains, Come let us to the warres againe.

Toiling with enormous diligence, soldiers sought no glory for themselves. They bravely faced what fortune brought, hoping to preserve true religion. This verse drew a pointed comparison between these soldiers nestled in their defensive burrows, sacrificing for their more unassuming obligations, and those who sought glory abroad. Yet the comparison should not be drawn too sharply. Noble adventurer-warriors were stirring examples to entice men to war: 56 Pennsylvania History

Gilbert, Hawkins, Forbisher. and golden Candish, Englands starre: With many a knight of noble worth, that compass'd round the circled earth: Have left examples here behinde, the like adventures forth to finde: The which to follow and maintaine, Come, let us to those warres againe.

In looking to the examples of these English explorers, the soldiers demonstrated that their own efforts were part of the same process of exploration. Soldiers secured the explorers' successes. Those who joined the effort on the continent would show themselves "true Englishmen." 28 Although there were demographic differences between soldiers and travellers to the colonies, it would be dangerous to draw too many distinctions between the two flows. Former military men did take part in colonial ventures, most illustriously in the case of Captain . George Donne served first as a soldier at the Isle of R6 before venturing to St. Kitts in a military capacity.29 In fact, the quantitative evidence of colonists with previous military experience would suggest that the age structures should be reversed, with colonists the older of the two.30 What the overall data for the colonial voyagers attest to are youth. Most were concentrated between the ages of 15 and 24, with 59% of the passengers in this age category, when youths tended to be in service. Age profiles and sex ratios for these travellers intimate that the bulk of voyagers in 1635, to both America and the Continent, were precisely those most likely to be roaming England in search of employment. They came from all over the kingdom.3 ' The Commission for Foreign Plantations recognized this mobility, and ordered in 1634 that a traveller receive certification from the Justices of the Peace in "the place where he dwelt last or where he dwelt before, if he hath dwelt but a while there."32 Despite the confusion engendered by frequent migrations and inaccurate listings, place of origin can be determined for some 1200 of the 7507 travellers of 1635 (Table 5). What can this table tell us? Three facts leap out. First, the people who embarked at the port of London came from all over Britain. Some 1635 emigrants, indeed, were obviously Welsh, Scottish, and Irish, as in the case of Thomas Ap-Thomas, Hugh Evans, Griffith Hughes, and Evan Ap-Evan, or Dennis Mortagh, Dennis McBrian, Dermond O'Bryan, Teague Quillin, Donough Gorhie, and Brian McGawyn. The people travelling to New England came from all over the country. The implications of this diversity in origins are significant, suggesting that those aspects of New England culture that derived from English towns did not come from single regions in England. 33 The English Atlantic World 57

Table 5 County and Country of Origin for Travellers from London in 1635

COUNTY To New To other To All England Colonies Continent People N % N % N % N I

London/ Middlesex 147 22.0 34 45.9 IC16 20.2 287 22.6 Essex 78 11.7 2 2.7 4 1 84 6.6 71 10.6 2 2.7 1 .2 74 5.8 Hertford 60 8.9 2 .4 62 4.9 Kent 59 8.8 6 1.1 65 5.1 Buckingham 45 6.7 2 .4 47 3.7 Northampton 39 5.8 3 4.0 1 .2 43 3.4 Surrey 26 3.9 1.4 2.7 40 3.2 Bedford 22 3.3 22 1.7 21 3.1 21 1.7 Cambridge 19 2.8 19 1.5 Sussex 18 2.7 1 .2 19 1.5 Huntingdon 8 1.2 8 .6 Devon 7 1.0 7 .6 Berkshire 6 .9 6 .5 Northumberland 5 .7 1 .2 6 .5 Norfolk 2 .3 2 .2 Leicester 3 .4 1 .2 4 .3 Lincoln 3 .4 3 .2 Wiltshire 3 .4 3 .2 Worcester 3 .4 3 .2 Hereford 3 .4 3 .2 Derby 2 .3 2 .2 Somerset 1 .1 1 .1 Gloucester 1 .1 1 .1 Warwick 1 .1 1 .1 Oxford 1 .1 1 .1 Lancashire 1 .1 1 1.4 2 .2 Dorset 1 .1 1 .2 2 .2 Oxford 6 1.1 6 .5 Wiltshire 1 .2 1 .1 Cornwall 3 .6 3 .2 Warwick 2 .4 2 .2 1 .2 1 .1 58 Pennsylvania History

COUNTY To New -To other To All England Colonies Continent People N % N % N % N %

Chester 2 .4 2 .2 Stafford 1 1.4 5 1 6 .5 Glamorgan 4 .4 4 .3 Monmouth 1 .2 1 .1 Cheshire 2 .4 2 .2 elsewhere in Eng 3 .4 3 .2 Bristol 1 1.4 1 .1 Ireland 42 8 42 3.3 Scotland 7 1.3 7 .6 Continent 3 .4 3 4.0 308 58.6 314 24.7 Virginia 10 13.5 1 .4 11 .9 West Indies 6 8.1 6 .5 New England 7 1.0 7 .6 Bermuda 11 14.9 11 .9

TOTAL 669 99.2 74 100.0 525 101 1268 100.4

Drawn from London Port Register (El 57/20 1-E) and supplementary genealogical and archival sources. Only origins that are known with certainty are included here, and place of origin is considered the place a person lived most recently.

A much smaller number of origins is known for the travellers to the Chesapeake, the West Indies, and Bermuda. This fact attests to the mobile nature of England's population and the likelihood of young vagrants whose origins little concerned the clerks ending up on board ship. Other emigrants came from the home counties, as in the case of cousins Richard Hayward and Robert Boddy, who emigrated to Virginia from Horne Church, Essex.-4 Many of the Providence Island emigrants were probably from Essex as well, although no certain evidence exists on this point. The Providence Company depended on the personal recruitment by company members of potential emigrants, and the bulk of these members were Essex gentry, including Sir Nathaniel Rich, Robert Rich, Earl of Warwick, and Sir Thomas Barrington. A second significant feature of this table is the predominance of London itself as a place of origin (22.6%). These 287 people were actually residents of the city, not people who just passed through. Thus this table has corrected some of the clerks' listings for passengers to New England certified from London but in fact clearly not residents of the city. In addition to single places of origin disguising the extent of movement in England of some of the migrants, the The English Atlantic World 59 port register contains inaccurate listings: not all those recorded as coming from one parish in fact came from there. Some of the groups certified from London parishes were probably not residents. The family of Robert Titus, for example, was certified by the minister of St. Katharine by the Tower, London. Robert Titus was listed as a husbandman, which agrarian occupation suggests that he was not a Londoner, and his children's baptisms do not in fact appear in the published parish records.35 The four Stiles brothers, their wives, and children were likewise certified from a London parish, St. Mildred, Breadstreet. All four Stiles brothers, however, had been baptized in Millbrook, Bedfordshire: the eldest, Henry, in 1593, John in 1595, Francis in 1602, and Thomas in 1613. Thomas remained in Millbrook until the family emigrated, but his brothers lived at least occasionally in the city. John and his wife, Rachel, were married at Enfield, St. Andrew, on May 24, 1629, and their two children were christened at St. Andrew. Henry Stiles, a carpenter, had married Joan Knowles at St. Margaret, Westminster, in 1616. After this year, the couple apparently moved out of the parish, but remained in or near London.36 Admittedly, the extant records are biased in favor of those who lived in London. Of those Virginia emigrants testifying at the Admiralty hearings concerning the failed voyage of the Constance, all were from London or urban Middlesex. Nonetheless, the London origins of migrants suggest that the port city was not only a clearing house for migrants from other parts of the kingdom. Colonial merchants who travelled in 1635 to Virginia or Barbados, including Thomas Armitage, Nathaniel Wright, Nathaniel Braddock, George Grace, John Chappell, Abraham Johnson and John Butler, were based in London.37 Doctor Edward Abbs and planter Bartholomew Hoskins were Londoners, as was planter Walter Jenkins. Bermudians William Alberie, John Glassington, Samson Meverill, and Isaiah Vincent were also denizens of the metropolis. 38 A final interesting feature of this table is the large group of people (25%) who were residents abroad when they embarked at the port of London. A few were already colonial residents and were returning home. One of these men, former Bermudian William Thorpe, embarked in 1635 to try his luck in a different colony, Providence. Six colonial-bound people, four men, one woman, and one child, travelled from the Netherlands. They included famous Puritan minister Hugh Peter, engineer Lion Gardner and his wife, Mary, and the Van Heck family, Oliver, Catherine, and Peter.39 But the travellers to the continent were primarily responsible for the international flavor of the register, with 58% of this cohort living abroad. Fortunately, we know why they travelled. These men and women were of particular interest to the clerks at the port: only for this population was the purpose for travel scrupulously recorded (table 6). 60 Pennsylvania History

TABLE 6 Stated Purpose for Travel to Continent (excluding soldiers)

PURPOSE NUMBER PERCENTAGE to return to residence abroad 308 30 on affairs or business 242 23 with master or parents 111 11 purpose left blank 104 10 to join family 88 9 to fetch ship 87 8 to visit friends or relatives 22 2 to work 11 1 to live 10 1 to learn language 3 .3 other* 49 4.6

TOTAL 1034 99.9

* other includes people retrieving debts, settling family estates

The majority of travellers to the continent (308) left London in 1635 in order to return to foreign dwellings. Some of these people were tradesmen who had established themselves abroad; many were probably merchants or factors. In an age of shifting diplomatic alliances, the prudent merchant had ships that sailed under different flags. For merchants with Dutch ships, which had to sail in and out of Dutch ports, it was essential to have reliable factors permanently in residence. The Rich family, for example, after 1600 maintained an agent in either Middelburg or Amsterdam.4 0 Moreover, Middelburg served as an important port for English ships: the accounts of the Abraham noted that much of the tobacco loaded on board the ship at Barbados was destined for Middelburg. 4' Indeed, the expansion of Dutch trade in the seventeenth century attracted many Englishmen and others to major Dutch ports and cities. Antwerp and Amsterdam were major trading centers, while Leiden and Haarlem were the great industrial centers. Middelburg and Flushing, which attracted a total of 121 people in 1635, were the major ports of the province of Zeeland." The presence of so many expatriates on these London ships attests to the expectation of men engaged in mercantile activities of temporary sojourn abroad, perhaps a stint in service to family trade interests.43 Another 88 people were travelling to join relatives on the continent. They may already have lived abroad themselves, but the record is not entirely The English Atlantic World 61 clear on this question. Not only were men travelling alone, but entire families and couples travelled together. The register delineates long-distance migration on a domestic scale. The family of John Whalley, for example, returned to its dwelling in Amsterdam on January 17, 1635. The evidence from the register suggests that women accompanied their husbands on their trips across the channel, as in the case of William and Joan Stare, who boarded a ship in July to return to their dwelling in Husenden. Some women returned to England to deliver babies, boarding ships with infants at the port to return to their foreign dwellings. Such was the case for Elizabeth Yard, aged 20, who on June 27, 1635 registered at the port with her eleven-week-old daughter, Elizabeth, and her two maidservants, Susan Pennington and Grace Young. The Yards were bound for Rotterdam, where Elizabeth's husband, James, a merchant, lived. Likewise, Grace Bowemann and her seven-month-old daughter travelled in December, 1634, to Middelburg to join husband and father Symon. Perhaps the danger of childbirth prompted young mothers, especially those facing their first confinement, to rejoin their own families and live among people who spoke their language at this life-threatening moment. The port register suggests that other women, as with their New England counterparts, waited for their husbands to establish a home before following. Mary Richardson, aged 31, boarded ship in London in July with four children to join her husband, a woolcomber, living in Leiden. With few exceptions, these travellers were English, or so their names suggested, although exotic visitors passed through London, like Johannus Adecouitts, "an Armenian Priest borne under The Mount Arrarat [who] is desirous to passe to spayne & thence into his native countrie." In some cases the clerk stipulated the place of birth of children. Suzan Smith, aged 31, a resident of Mechelin, Flanders, travelled with her two children, Thomas and Mary, in June, 1635. The clerk noted next to young Mary's name, "born there." That some families had lived abroad for a while is indicated not only in the children's place of birth but also in their names. Marie Harris, for example, dwelt in Rotterdam with her husband Francis. She boarded ship in May with her five children, the middle of whom was named Cornelius. Either Marie was herself Dutch, or residence in Rotterdam had encouraged her and her husband to bestow a distinctly Dutch name on their son. The reverse policy was true for the family of Jane Deboyes, described as "french wife of Peter Deboyes frenchman." She boarded a ship to Calais in April with her four children, Edward, Susan, Jane, and Judith, French names that had been easily Anglicized and were perhaps selected for that purpose.44 What this portion of the register reveals, then, is the cosmopolitan nature of life not only in London with its clusters of well-travelled merchants and resident aliens but also in cities abroad which contained sizeable populations of expatriate and assimilated English residents.45 62 Pennsylvania History

Residence abroad did not sever people from their friends and family, as the steady stream of visitors attested (110 in this London register alone). Hugh Davyers of Wigmore went to Flanders to visit his brother Robert, a merchant in Ghent, in December. Eight-year-old Willm Williamson, who lived with his widowed mother in Southwark, journeyed in February to Dort, and from there to Rotterdam, to his grandfather. Londoner Elizabeth Powell and her infant son John travelled in April to Leiden to visit her mother. The cosmopolitan nature of these visitors issignalled most dramatically in the case of the three young men who travelled to the continent solely to study Dutch: James Clinckett, aged 19, Richard Slaney, the 18-year-old son of Richard Slaney of London, and Paule Watts, aged 20, whose father was a knight. These men were presumably pursuing economic advantage in their studies-their language study was not exactly a junior year abroad. Their youth suggests their status as dependents whose fathers or masters needed their facility in the language of trade. The striking precision of some of the entries suggests the interest the clerks, prodded perhaps by the Crown, had in these cosmopolitan continental travellers. The register records errands with great care: on February 9, 1635, John Rundy was permitted to pass to Rotterdam to recover a debt, and was to return within two months. The register's accuracy could take us to a particular dwelling: when William Best, aged 23, presented himself at the port on January 20, the clerk reported that Best lived in the house of one William Loughlyn, a resident in St. Brides Churchyard. Best was to pass to Amsterdam "to worke on his affayres." In March, two men from Dublin journeyed to Dunkirk "to take order for merchants goods & return." The appeal of opportunities abroad drew 21 people to London who planned permanent departures. Of the 11 men who stated their purpose "to work" overseas, occupations were recorded for each one-an indication of the state's interest in these emigrants and temporary workers. Three were brickmakers, four were shoemakers, and one each was a tobacco pipe maker, a picture maker, a taylor, and a letmaker. The tobacco pipe maker travelled to Amsterdam in March: his destination was the center of the Dutch Republic's tobacco industry, where Chesapeake leaf was dried, cut, and spun before it was exported.46 The record distinguished these people from those who were going "to live" on the Continent. This category was dominated by women and children, including Samuell (aged 8) and Elizabeth (aged 5) Vanderpost, two recent orphans of Dutch parents who were sent to live, or so the clerks carefully and optimistically stipulated, with friends in Middelburg, "their parents being dead." Religion was one motive for travel to the Continent omitted in the register. But it was certainly present in the minds of some travellers who were returning to continental homes or relocating permanently. The Low Countries was the The English Atlantic World 63 first refuge for nonconformists eager to leave England.4 7 Clusters of nonconformists lived in Amsterdam, the Hague, and Rotterdam, among other cities. Hugh Peter, who voyaged in 1635 from London to New England, lived until his journey on the Continent with other English divines and their congregations: in 1633, for example, 21 English ministers lived in the Netherlands. Most of these served military regiments while six served towns. Peter served Amsterdam. Seven were members of the English classis, which encouraged relocation to the colonies.48 The register also provides small glimpses of the connections between travel to the Continent and the Atlantic colonies. Lawrence Fassett ventured to Ostend in November, as the register put it, "about his merchandizing affairs having carried goods in the Elizabeth of Lo [London]" which that year made a trip to New England in April with 79 passengers. Presumably Fassett intended to sell goods the Elizabeth had brought back with her from America. As the Elizabeth voyaged on from New England to Virginia, she probably returned laden with tobacco.49 And Richard Wright ventured to Middelburg to receive money due him for a West India voyage. One busy woman embodied this American connection. Jane Gibbs appeared in London on July 21. She was a resident of Virginia, and was to pass to Flushing in the Netherlands "about certen her affares."50 George Grace reversed Gibbs' travel pattern. Like several other travellers to the colonies, Grace was a merchant. Many merchants were seasoned colonial traders, like John Redman, John Chappell, Nathaniel Wright, Nathaniel Braddock, and Thomas Bradford.5" Grace travelled to Virginia in 1635 on the Globe. In 1638, Grace's wife Agnes petitioned the House of Commons for relief, and in so doing provided a brief, sympathetic, and informed history of her husband's career. Agnes Grace described the London merchant's declining fortunes that took him to Virginia. Before his American voyage, Grace exported cloth to Holland and owned a house in Delft where he kept his goods. Unfortunately, George Grace's servants in Delft died during an outbreak of plague. When Grace went himself to Holland to examine his affairs, he discovered that his servants had accepted, in lieu of debts owed Grace, "a great number of English bibles," which Grace shipped to London. Because it was illegal to import Bibles, however, the books were seized at the customs house. The Bibles, claimed Agnes Grace, were worth £300, and their loss destroyed her husband's business. George "was constrayned. . .to forsake the kingdome & to goe to Virginia."52 Thus the American exodus from London, the greatest metropolis in Europe, was a product of a time when the adventurous and the desperate faced a plethora of options. Even the ships listed in the 1635 port register reflected these fluid and competing interests. Information about them and their sailing patterns demonstrates the important connections between different 64 Pennsylvania History imperial adventures. Consider, for example, when ships set sail. Attention to health intermingled with trade interests, which together dictated sailing patterns. It was this conflict between what was good for the passengers and the safe passage of the ship and what was good for international trading schemes, which increased mortality rates for many new arrivals to the colonies. Experienced planters offered advice about when to reach new colonies. One publication about Guiana which apparently imagined seasonal residence in the colony informed potential planters that July was the best time to sail from England so that people reached Guiana in the summer. Then by sailing home from Guiana in April, they could enjoy summer in England'upon their arrival." Virginia Company Secretary noted that travellers should leave England in June, and arrive in Virginia in September, at harvest time. Newcomers should arrive before winter in order to get their clothes ready in time in a country with few tailors. These practical considerations of what was good for newcomers and what was good for the colony also tied into the benefits for English trade. For Rolfe continued that the ships could then leave Virginia after the harvest and be back in England by Candlemas before the East India ships set out, "wch will help ye speedy venting ye tobo."54 The ships the Virginia Company sent in 1621 more or less complied with Rolfe's advice. They were concentrated in the spring and summer. But three ships sailed in November, and the four ships that left England in August must have landed their new arrivals late in the harvest season, leaving the ships returning to London on a second trip during the hurricane season." TABLE 7 SAILING PATTERNS OF SHIPS FROM LONDON TO AMERICA, 1635 MONTH DESTINATION New Virginia St. Barbados Bermuda Providence TOTAL England Kitts Island SHIPS

JAN 1 1 2 FEB 1 1 MAR I 1 APRIL 5 1 3 1 10 MAY 2 2 1 1 6 JUNE 1 3 1 5 JULY 5 6 11 AUG 1 5 6 SEPT 2 1 1 1 5 OCT 2 2 4 NOV 1 DEC 1 1 TOTAL SHIPS 53 The English Atlantic World 65

Table 7 displays the sailing patterns of ships for all the colonial destinations delineated in the 1635 register. Of the 20 ships leaving for Virginia from London in 1635, most tried to plan arrivals in Virginia for the late summer or early fall: fourteen of the ships left London between July and October. One ship braved a winter crossing, while five others left in May and June. The ships to the Caribbean did not display a comparable commitment to arrival times that would spare new arrivals the unpleasant summer months. Eight out of fifteen left between September and February, but the remaining seven left London in April and May, thus depositing immigrants during the hottest times of the year. Some of these ships and masters maintained regular schedules. When theJames reached New England in June, 1635, John Winthrop noted that Mr. Graves, the master, "had come every year for these seven years."56 The Hopewell of London made two voyages to New England in 1635. The Merchants Hope of London left on July 31 for Virginia in 1635. Precisely a year earlier, the same ship had embarked on August 8 for Virginia.5 7 Planters knew when to expect ships from London to collect their crops: a Spaniard on Bermuda noted that the ships came every year at the same time to load tobacco. 8 The register provides only the barest information about the ships that sailed from London. Ship, home port, master, and destination were all the clerk thought necessary. Although clerks presumably did not intend to be inaccurate, the information they provided was incomplete. The single destinations that clerks recorded masked the reality that Atlantic voyages ranged widely over the colonial world. The Expectation, for example, was the one ship sent to Providence Island by the Providence Island Company in 1635. In fact, the Company's records indicate that the ship went first to St. Christopher. After it called there, the Company rented its use for £I110 a month from the owner Mr. Woodcock, a member of the Company. 59 Other ships' destinations were imprecisely recorded. Some inaccuracies are not surprising. All ships leaving London for the southern mainland colonies were simply described as bound for Virginia. With the founding of Maryland in 1634, many of these ships deposited passengers there as well, most notably the very first ship of the year, the .60 Other omitted destinations, however, suggest that Atlantic voyages included many stops. The Hopewell, for example, on its second voyage of the year to New England, appeared in the port register with New England as her sole destination. In fact, the ship had goods to deliver not only to New England, but also to Virginia. Unfortunately for ship and passengers alike, the pilot acquired by the ship in the Plymouth Colony ran her aground. The master, Richard French, abandoned the ship and sent the eleven or twelve Virginia passengers, which included a Mr. Bentley and his ten servants, on in other boats. The Hopewell limped back to London, 66 Pennsylvania History an easier voyage to make than the one down the coast to Virginia because of favorable winds.6' The voyage of the Hopewell to both Virginia and New England and that of the Expectation to St. Christopher and Providence reflect the practicalities of Atlantic travel and the need for sailors and merchants to man ships with full holds. Rare was a ship like the Thomas andjohn, which sailed to Virginia in 1635 and came directly back to London.6 2 Ship's masters needed to be flexible. The Hope of Ipswich, bound for New England in 1635, was supposed to go from there to the Isle of May. But "contrary winds" sent her to Barbados, where the accommodating captain loaded his vessel with cotton and tobacco and returned to London.63 These multifaceted voyages also indicate that the transportation of passengers was only one aspect of commercial enterprises and ocean voyages. While passengers waited for the ships to embark, filled with trepidation about the hazards of the voyage and the conditions awaiting them, masters were preoccupied with concerns about fair winds and ballast. Thus single ships could encompass a range of imperial enterprises as diverse as the population listed in the port register itself. The case of the Love reinforces this point. The Love, a small ship with only eight registered passengers bound for New England in 1635, ultimately cancelled her voyage because for lack of time. John Thierry, who owned the Love, had hired her to William Woodcock and Joseph Yonge for a voyage to New England. Thierry allotted Woodcock and Yonge only ten months for the voyage, however, and the two men ran out of time after they had loaded on the ship 30 people in England, 450 sheep in , and 40 goats in Ireland. After these projects, Woodcock and Yonge concluded that the ship could not sail to New England and then return to England within the ten months stipulated, and the voyage was abandoned.f4 The voyage of the Love, thwarted by the inflated commercial ambitions of its owners, highlights the role of London as a staging ground for a variety of commercial activities. These merchants hoped to profit by selling goods in New England during a decade of high inflation, and peopling the colonies was one small part of that endeavor. The Love, then, encapsulates the themes of this paper. An examination of the London port register, with its thousands of travellers bound for fortifications, homes on the Continent, or adventures overseas, demonstrates the importance of London itself in the creation of England's new empire. The London register captures individuals and families in snapshots, but the information in the register enables us to fill in other parts of their personal narratives. We can fathom the trepidation with which expectant mothers greeted childbirth, a fear so immense it sent them across the channel to their families and friends at home. We can share the grief and isolation of the newly orphaned Vanderpost children, travelling alone to a country that was no longer theirs, but indeed now foreign. It is essential to see The English Atlantic World 67 the westward movement that was the source of England's colonial success as part of a much larger range of mercantile and migratory adventures. This migration not only ensured the viability of England's new colonies, but also created a vibrant and varied Atlantic community.

Notes 1. Letters from William Booth to John Booth, "These are the Cries of London Town" (c. 1628-1647 (F.c.6-16), Folger Shakespeare 1663) in Paul Hillier, ed., The CatchBook (Ox- Library, quotations from Ec.6, Ec.7, Ec.11, ford, 1987). Thomas Arne did the same a cen- F.c.14. Military service did little to ease tury later in "London Cries." William's financial difficulties. Subsequent let- 4. William Cookes, The Cheating Age: Or ters found him begging money of his brother Leonard ofLincolnes journey to London to buy again-he wanted £5 to buy clothes to look Wit [1625], facsimile in W G. Day, The Pepys presentable, and helpfully informed his brother Ballads, v. 1 (1987), pp. 158-9. See also A that a sergeant on his way to London for "a Merry Progress to London to see Fashions, by a supplie of men" would be a reliable bearer of young Country Gallant, that had more Money this modest sum. William Booth obligingly than Witte (London, c. 1620), also in Pepys provided John with £10 to relieve him of his Ballads, v. 1. debts. William made a career of the military: 5. For another fictitious example, see the story the final letter in the collection, dating from of young Rodolphus, who ended up trans- 1647, reveals William asking brother John yet ported to Virginia, in Charles Croke, Fortunes again for money, this time for ;50-60 to raise Uncertainty, or Youths Unconstancy (London, a company. John refused. F.c.16. This paper 1667). The most successful writer to employ comprises part of a chapter of my manuscript, this theme was Daniel Defoe, in Moll Flanders Ventures, Vagrants, and Vessels of Glory: Migra- (1721). The theme of exile to the New World tion and the Origins of the English Atlantic was hardly unique to English literature and World. I would like to thank Nicholas Canny culture: see Voltaire's Candide(1759) and Abb6 for his close reading of an earlier version of Prevost's Manon Lescaut (1731) for two French this paper. examples. 2. The population of the City of London, Lib- 6. On the role of English internal migration erties, and outparishes was between 301,000 in feeding overseas migration, see inter alia and 351,000 in 1635. Roger Finlay, Popula- Bernard Bailyn, Voyagers to the West: A Passage tion and Metropolis: The Demography of Lon- in the PeoplingofAmerica on the Eve ofthe Revo- don 1580-1650 (Cambridge, 1981), p. 60. lution (New York, 1986) and The Peoplingof 3. John Cobb set the cries to music in a catch, British North America: An Introduction (New 68 Pennsylvania History

York, 1986); Margaret Campbell, "'Of People lonial Economy," in Shula Marks and Peter either too few or too many': The Conflict of Richardson, eds., InternationalLabourMigra- Opinion on Population and its Relation to tion: HistoricalPerspectives (London, 1984), Emigration," in William Appleton Aiken and 19-33; Abbot Smith, Colonists in Bondage: Basil Duke Henning, eds., Conflict in Stuart White Servitude and ConvictLaborinAmerica, England: Essays in Honour ofWallace Notestein 1607-1776 (New York, 1947), chapter 3. (NewYork, 1960, pp. 169-201; David Souden, 11. Robert Hume, Early Child Immigrants to "Rogues, whores, and vagabonds'? Indentured Virginia (Baltimore, 1986), p. 39, p. 40. Servant Emigration to North America and the 12. Warrant to the Sheriffs of London and case of mid-seventeenth-century Bristol," in Middlesex and the Keeper of Newgate, 8 July Peter Clark and David Souden, Migrationand 1635 (Docquet), CalendarofStatePapers Do- Society in Early Modern England (London, mestic (Charles 1, Domestic), p. 262. [Hereaf- 1987), pp. 150-171; John Wareing, "Migra- ter cited as CSPD.] Only four of these four- tion to London and Transatlantic Emigration teen names appeared on Virginia passenger of Indentured Servants, 1683-1775," Journal lists. ofHistoricalGeography7 (1981): 356-378; Ida 13. A thoughtful discussion of the ways in Altman and James Horn, eds., "To Make which trade shaped the city is found in Brian America"' European Emigration in the Early Dietz, "Overseas trade and metropolitan Modern Period (Berkeley, CA, 1991); and growth," in Beier and Finlay, London 1500- Nicholas Canny, ed., Europeans on the Move: 1700. Studies on European Migration, 1500-1800 14. A Proclamation Declaring His Majesties (Oxford, 1994). pleasure concerning Sir Walter Rawleigh (Lon- 7. Wesley Frank Craven and Walter B. don, 1619); A ProclamationdeclaringhisMaj- Hayward, eds., TheJournalofRichardNorwood esties pleasureconcerning CaptaineRogerNorth (New York, 1945),passim, quotations from pp. (London, 1620). 14-15. Norwood's disruption of his appren- 15. Charles I, Against Travellers withoutLicenses ticeship, Peter Clark notes, was not atypical 19 November 1630 (London, 1630). given his trade. Citing studies of Norwich and 16. 31 December 1634, Commission for For- Salisbury, Clark points out that significant eign Plantations, Allyn B. Forbes, ed., The percentages of apprentices never became free- Winthrop Papers, v. 3, pp. 180-181. Laud, as men, particularly in urban trades of lower sta- Archbishop of Canterbury, sat on the Privy tus. Three-quarters of the apprentices in con- Council and was a commissioner for foreign temporaneous Salisbury and Norwich failed plantations. For the February decree of the to achieve their freedom at the same time Ri- Privy Council, see W. L. Grant and James chard Norwood sailed off to see the world. Munro, ed., Acts of the Privy Council (Colo- Peter Clark, "Migrants in the City," in Clark nial), v. 1, (London, 1908), pp. 199-201. and Souden, Migration and Society, pp. 269- Objections by the planters of New England 270. to such regulations can be found in CO 1/8, 8. E. A. Wrigley, "Asimple model of London's items 40 and 41, PRO. Laud was also con- importance in changing English society and cerned about English congregations on the economy, 1650-1750," Past and Present 37 Continent. In June of 1634 he and Bishop (1967): 44-70. Juxon of London instructed the English mer- 9. See Paul Slack, "Metropolitan government chants who lived at Delft about their newly in crisis," for a discussion of mortality rates appointed preacher and their conformity to during plague years and of the government's the Church of England (CSPD, Charles I, June response to the recurring problem of the 21, 1634, no. 3, p. 87). Subsequent attempts plague, in A. L. Beier and Roger Finlay, Lon- to control overseas movement suggested the don 1500-1700: The Making ofthe Metropolis failure to regulate departures. In 1635, a mere (New York, 1986), pp. 60-81. seven months after the December decree, 10. See Wareing; and David Souden, "English Charles I issued a proclamation decreeing that Indentured Servants and the Transatlantic Co- because all subjects were required to be avail- The English Atlantic World 69 able for defense, all people except soldiers, describes three major destinations of Scots mi- mariners, merchants, their factors and appren- gration, Ireland, Poland, and Scandinavia (pp. tices who wished to leave England were re- 78-86). quired to have a license. In fact, these exempted 18. Nicholas Canny, Kingdom and Colony: Ire- categories were already required to have li- land in the Atlantic World, 1560-1800 (Balti- censes (A Proclamation to restraine the Kings more, 1988), p. 77. Subjectsfrom departingout of the Realme with- 19. John Winthrop to John Winthrop Jr., 20 out License 21 July 1635 [London, 1635]). A April 1623, Winthrop Papers, v. 1, p. 281. 1637 decree which lifted the exact language 20. M. Perceval-Maxwell, The Scottish Migra- of the 1635 effort to require licenses reminded tion to Ulster in the Reign ofJames I (London, all officers and ministers at the ports in En- 1973), p. 313. gland, Wales, and Barwick of their obligation 21. 2,000 cloth workers emigrated from the to forbid subsidy men and nonconformists Weald in 1616 to the Palatinate, while smaller from departing. These officers too were to numbers emigrated in the 1630s. C. W. neglect their duties "at their perils" (A procla- Chalkin, Seventeenth-Century Kent: A Social mation against the disorderly TransportingHis andEconomic History (London, 1965), p. 35 . Majesties Subject to the Plantationswithin the James Horn has also identified the Weald as parts of America 30 April 1637 [London, an important source of emigrants tot he Chesa- 1637]). A splendid analysis of the particular peake (Horn, Adapting to a New World: En- political, social, and economic circumstances glish Society in the Seventeenth-Century Chesa- surrounding the creation of a similar port reg- peake [Chapel Hill, 19941, pp. 104-106). ister can be found in David Harris Sacks, The 22. A note in June of 1634 detailed the num- Widening Gate: Bristol and the Atlantic ber of ships in each of England's vice-admiral- Economy, 1450-1700 (Berkeley, 1991), chap- ties. London's port accounted for 154 ships ters 8-9, in which Sacks analyzes the creation and vessels, including eight large East India of the Bristol servant registers. Sacks argues Company ships. Other vice-admiralties con- that the manifest reasons for the register-the tained more ships (such as Suffolk's 233 or spiriting of servants-actually masked inter- Hants' 166), but no one place was as active as nal struggles within the Bristol merchant com- the port of London. CSPD Charles I, v. 7, pp. munity. 101-2, item 64. 17. The original port register, E 157/20 I-e, is 23. Peter Clark, "The Migrant in Kentish at the Public Record Office in London. The Towns, 1580-1640," in Peter Clark and Paul portion of the register enumerating the trav- Slack, eds., Crisis and Order in English Towns ellers to the colonies was published by John 1500-1700 (London, 197 2),p. 138. Camden Hotten, The OriginalLists ofPersons 24. William Booth to John Booth, 16 July of Quality, Emigrants, and Others who wentfrom 1629, Ec. 14, Folger Shakespeare Library. Great Britain to the American Plantations, 25. While there were significant differences 1600-1700 (London, 1874). To my knowl- between colony-bound populations, this pa- edge, no one has provided a sustained discus- per will focus on the group as a whole. sion of the travellers to the colonies nor of the 26. Wrigley and Schofield, p. 216. Some of other flows describes in the register. The theme those New Englanders in the 15-24 age cat- of competition for migrants recurs in Canny, egory were children travelling with their par- ed., Europeans on the Move. The essays in this ents, young tradesmen, and young married volume emphasize the European alternatives couples. to American migration. See especially Nicolas 27. See entry for 20 February 1635. Sanchez-Albornoz, "Spanish Migration to the 28. Gallants, to Bohemia. Or, let us to the Warres New World," which addresses migration to again: Shewing the forwardness of our English Italy and the Netherlands in the sixteenth cen- Souldiers, both in times past, and at this present tury (p.31 ) and T. C. Smout, N. C. Landsman, [1632], in W G. Day, The Peyps Ballads, v. 1, and T M. Devine, "Scottish Emigration in the pp. 102-3. Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries," which 29. "George Donne's 'Virginia Reviewed': A 70 Pennsylvania History

1638 Plan to Reform Colonial Society," ed. T. tionsoftheHarleianSocietyv. 75,76 (London, H. Breen, WMQ 30 (1973), P. 449. 1945-46). 30. L. M. Cullen considers the relationship 36. Above information from International between military service and emigration in Genealogical Index, The Guildhall, London; "The Irish Diaspora" in Canny, ed., Europe- and Henry Reed Stiles, The Stiles Family in ans on the Move, pp. 120-126. America (Jersey City, 1895). 31. None of the emigrants to Providence Is- 37. London Port Books, E190/38/1, E190/ land, Virginia, Bermuda, Barbados or Saint 41/5; will of Nathaniel Braddock, Pile, 55, Christopher were registered with place of ori- PRO, Chancery Lane. gin indicated, and attempting to seek English 38. Attestation of William Alberie, 22 Febru- origins with no evidence at hand is probably a ary 1658/9, Bermuda Colonial Records, v. 2, more daunting task than seeking the prover- pp. 312-313, Bermuda Archives; Glassington bial needle in the haystack. A total of 317 New and Meverill were born in London, Vincent England emigrants recorded parish of origin was married there, International Genealogical in the port register, but even these parishes are Index, The Guildhall, London. Vincent was a misleading. Some immigrants were listed from minister, the other three were servants. one particular parish, but had moved there 39. A younger Van Heck son, born in Vir- recently from other counties, or demonstrated ginia, was naturalized in Maryland by Act of such repeated mobility in England that to at- Assembly in 1669 (MarylandBiographicalDic- tribute them to one county is misleading. tionary v.2, p. 849). 32. Commission for Foreign Plantations, De- 40. See A. P.Newton, The ColonisingActivi- cember 1634, Winthrop Papers, v. 3, p. 180. ties ofthe EnglishPuritans (New Haven, 1914), 33. The classic expression of this view of a p. 16. Rich apparently sailed ships with com- single English region (East Anglia) shaping missions from several different sources. New England culture is David Hackett Fischer, 41. Accounts of tobacco shipped in the Albion! Seed: Four British Folkways in America Abraham, June 1637, HCA 30/636, PRO. (New York, 1989). Earlier articulations of this 42. A good general overview of the economy view can be found in David Grayson Allen, In of the United Provinces can be found in J. L. English Ways: The Movement of Societies and Price, Cultureand Society in the Dutch Repub- the TransferalofEnglish Local Law and Custom lic During the 17th Century (London, 1974). to Massachusetts Bay in the Seventeenth Cen- 43. Jacob M. Price observes in Perry of Lon- tury (New York, 1982). In my larger study of don:A Familyand a Firm on the SeaborneFron- theAmerican travellers from London in 1635, tier, 1615-1753 (Cambridge, Mass., 1992) I argue that high rates of internal migration in that by the end of the seventeenth century England, combined with the variety of coun- among traders and the lesser gentry a "peripa- ties represented by New England-bound trav- tetic, migratory.. .subculture" emerged (p. 1). ellers, render interpretations of colonial cul- The evidence here suggests that that subcul- tures as transplantations of English society ture was in place much earlier in the century, deeply problematic. For a recent study that at least on the continent. rejects the idea of much geographic mobility 44. In October of 1635, two men named Pe- in England, see Roger Thompson, Mobility ter Deboyse (Deboyses) were listed as resident and Migration: East Anglian Founders ofNew in London. One, Peeter, was a weaver, who England, 1629-1640 (Amherst, 1994). with his wife had lived in England six years. 34. John Bennett Boddie, Seventeenth Century They were born in Hainault, in Valenciennes. Isle of Wight County, Virginia (Baltimore, They had three children, born in England, and 1973), pp. 334-336. lived with one John Deboyhe, born in Ypres. 35. See The Registers of St. Katharine by the The second man, also a weaver, lived with his Tower, London, Part I (Baptisms, Marriages, wife. They were Flemish, and had lived in Burials, 1584-1625), and Part II (Baptisms, London for two years. Irene Scouloudi, Re- Marriages, Burials, 1626-1665), transcribed turns ofStrangers in the Metropolis: A Study of and edited by A. W Hughes Clarke, Publica- an Active Minority (Publicationsof the Hugue- The English Atlantic World 71 not Society of London, v. 57, London, 1985), fairs. Even women with living husbands might p. 266. travel by themselves, like Anna Barnaby, who 45. In the year 1635, for example, there were lived on Tower Street in London with her hus- a total of 2,499 "strangers" dwelling in the City band John but who travelled in July to Delft of London alone, with another 1,134 living on her own affairs, or Anne Brian who went in urban Middlesex, Surrey, and Westminster. to Flushing in January on her affairs. Their occupations were dominated by cloth 51. John Chappell and Nathaniel Wright had making, which accounted for a total of 713 of imported goods from the colonies-Virginia the strangers altogether (609 were weavers): a tobacco and muscavado sugar-to London in remaining 129 were clothes-makers (104 were 1633. In 1635, Chappell boarded a ship for tailors). See Scouloudi, Strangers, pp. 124-5, Virginia, while Wright travelled to Barbados. 133. Amidst the economic strains of the pe- Three other Virginia-bound travellers, John riod, the presence of strangers trading and Redman, Thomas Bradford, and John Butler, working in the city was a source of conflict were tobacco merchants. Wright imported with native-born workers, who complained to muscavado sugar, 25 January 1632/3, while the Privy Council that foreigners were steal- Chappell imported Virginia tobacco, 17 May ing their custom. In response to these com- 1633, E 190/38/1, f, 12 recto, f. 59 recto, plaints, in September of 1635 a record was London Port Book 1632-33, PRO, Chancery undertaken of all the strangers in the city, re- Lane. For John Redman, see Thomas Gower sulting in the detailed Return of 1635, which v. William Anthony, 9 May 1637, HCA 13/ named the strangers and their occupations. 111 (no page numbers); for John Butler, E Scouloudi, pp. 96-7. 190/41/5, f. 48verso lists his tobacco imports 46. Simon Schama discusses the Dutch to- in 1637, PRO, Chancery Lane; for Thomas bacco industry in The EmbarrassmentofRiches: Bradford, see petition, c. 1644, of merchants, An InterpretationofDutch Culture in the Golden grocers, and others dealing in tobacco, Harley Age (New York, 1987), pp. 193-5. In the 1238, f. 9, B.L. Another Virginia-bound mer- 1630s, the Dutch started domestic cultivation chant in 1635 was one Nathaniel Braddock, of tobacco. who had been admitted to the Mercers Com- 47. See Babette Levy, "Seventeenth Century pany in London following the completion of Puritanism in England and in the Southern his eight-year apprenticeship in September of and Island Colonies," American Antiquarian 1629. Mercers Company Court Records, Acts Society Proceedings 70 (1960), p. 81. of Court 1619-1625, f. 87, 1625-1631, f. 48. See the Gay Transcripts, Peter Papers, v. 4, 234recto, Mercers Company, London. for documents concerning the English minis- 52. Petition ofAgnes Grace to House of Com- ters in the Netherlands in the 1630s, Massa- mons, State Papers, Domestic, Charles I, SP chusetts Historical Society, Boston. 16/475, Virginia Colonial Records Project, reel 49. Peter Coldham, English Adventurers and 356, Virginia State Library, Richmond. George Emigrants, 1609-1660: Abstracts of Examina- Grace appears in the London port books: see, tions in the High Court ofAdmiralty with Ref- i.e., E190/8/1, London Port Book listing ex- erence to ColonialAmerica (Baltimore, 1984), ports and imports by denizens, f. I Irecto, 23 depositions rethe Elizabeth of London, p.72 . January 1532/3 in which Grace shipped linen, See also the deposition of , PRO, Chancery Lane. HCA 13/53, f. 132, PRO, who was captain of 53. R. M., Newes of Sr. Walter Rauleigh (Lon- the Elizabeth. He deposed about her difficul- don, 1619), p. 25. ties departing from the Chesapeake back to 54. John Rolfe, "Certain Reasons touching ye England. The ship reached Point Comfort and most convenient times & seasons of ye yeare all the company refused to go to sea again be- for ye magazine ship to set forth for Engld cause of her poor condition. towards Virga," Brock Collection, Brock 583, 50. The register is sadly cryptic about what p. 88, Huntington Library, San Marino, Cal. brought Gibbs so far from home, but she was 55. Virginia Company, A note of the shipping, not the only woman to travel alone on her af- men, and provisions sent and provided for 72 Pennsylvania History

Virginia...in theyeere 1621 (London, 1622). records, printed in "Notes on New England 56. James Kendall Hosmer, ed., Winthrops Voyages," New England Historicaland Genea- Journal, "History ofNew England"1630-1649 logicalRegister104 (1950): 17-18. There is no (New York, 1908), v. 1, p. 152. indication of where these 30 people boarded 57. The unfortunate Tom Verney, who failed the Love' only eight passengers were registered after nine months in the colony, was aboard in London. One of the more spectacular and the Merchants Hope on her 1634 voyage, and litigated instances of a ship failing to make its wrote his aunt and uncle a letter only hours intended voyage was the case of Constance, before the ship departed (John Bruce, ed., Let- bound for Virginia with 85 registered passen- ters and Papersof the Verney Famly Down to the gers. The Constancedeparted so "pestered with Endofthe Year 1639 [London, 18 53],p. 163). passengers" that food ran short within two 58. L. D. Gurrin, trans., "Shipwrecked Span- weeks, during which the ship had not even iards," Bermuda HistoricalQuarterly 18 (1961), departed the Downs, and people were forced p. 17. to sleep on deck. The uncomfortable and irate -59. Ordinary courts held for Providence Is- passengers threatened to go on shore, and land, 4 February 1634/5 and 9 February 1634/ agreed that if there were any way of reaching 5, CO 124/2, pp. 190-192, PRO, Kew. shore, they would not proceed with the voy- 60. A number of the Bonaventure's passengers age. Fortunately for the passengers, the were listed in A Relation of Maryland (Lon- Constance sprang a leak while she was still off don, 1635). the Downs waiting for favorable winds, and 61. Henry Fetherston and Thomas Babb v. the seamen enthusiastically joined the passen- Thomas Stanley, 16 March 1635/6 to 15 June gers in their threats to abandon ship. Several 1636, HCA records, in Coldham, Adventures, passengers, especially servants, escaped when pp. 63-64. the ship put in to Dover for repairs, and by 62. Deed of Richard Lambert, 15 May 1635, the time the ship managed to reach Ilfracombe HCA 30/547, PRO, Chancery Lane. Lambert, in Devon, all the passengers were put ashore, of Colchester, Essex, was the master of the where, according to one deponent, they waited Thomas andJohn. for three months before going on to Virginia. 63. John Onions v. the Hope, Coldham, Ad- Thomas Moore and John Digby v. John ventures, p. 105. Thierry, 15 December 1635-3 July 1637, 64. William Woodcock and Joseph Yonge v. HCA 13/52, ff. 190,213,214,348,396,410, John Thierry, 28 February 1635/6, HCA PRO, Chancery Lane.