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Updated: June 24, 2025
William Strachey left behind him a manuscript entitled "The Historie of Travaile into Virginia Britanica, &c., gathered and observed as well by those who went first thither, as collected by William Strachey, gent., three years thither, employed as Secretaire of State."
Thus the immortal Treasurer of this Inn is directly linked with the development of Constitutional freedom in America. Bacon became a member of the council for the Virginia Company in 1609. His deep interest in it is attested in the dedication to him by William Strachey in 1618 of the latter's Historie of Travaile into Virginia Brittania.
But there is no more foundation for the belief that he ever visited the territory of Virginia, of which he was styled governor, than that he accompanied Sir Humphrey Gilbert to Newfoundland. An allusion by William Strachey, in his "Historie of Travaile into Virginia," hastily read, may have misled some writers.
If it were a question to be settled by the internal evidence of the two accounts, I should incline to think that Smith condensed his description from Strachey, but the dates incline the balance in Smith's favor. Strachey in his "Travaile" refers sometimes to Smith, and always with respect. It will be noted that Smith's "Map" was engraved and published before the "Description" in the Oxford tract.
"I doe now testifie that formerly when my husband hathe told me of his great travaile and labour I wondered at it how he did it this he did before I was married and when I was married I asked him how he did it and he answered me he had help yt I knew not of.
We come somewhat nearer to this matter in the "Historie of Travaile into Virginia Britannia," published from the manuscript by the Hakluyt Society in 1849, in which it is intimated that seven of these deserted colonists were afterwards rescued. Strachey is a first-rate authority for what he saw.
Evidently Strachey did not keep his verses entirely for dedication. As far as I know, the best of his verses dedicatory are those addressed to Lord Bacon in his "Historie of Travaile into Virginia." They run:
The Voiage and Travaile of Sir John Maundeville the forerunner of that great library of oriental travel which has enriched our modern literature was written, according to its author, first in Latin, then in French, and, lastly, in the year 1356, translated into English for the behoof of "lordes and knyghtes and othere noble and worthi men, that conne not Latyn but litylle."
Was it written before or after the publication of Smith's "Map and Description" at Oxford in 1612? The question is important, because Smith's "Description" and Strachey's "Travaile" are page after page literally the same. One was taken from the other. Commonly at that time manuscripts seem to have been passed around and much read before they were published.
"There is a kinde of nagge," he says, "bred upon a mountanous and spatious peece of grounde, called Goon-hillye, lyinge between the sea-coaste and Helston; which are the hardeste naggs and beste of travaile for their bones within this kingdome, resembling in body for quantitie, and in goodness of mettle, the Galloway naggs."
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