The Sir Robert Rich Correspondence. The Earliest Letter From...

The Sir Robert Rich Correspondence. The Earliest Letter From Bermuda and the Earliest Letter from any Extraterritorial British Colony in Private Hands. 1617 (22 May) entire letter from Charles Wolferston in Bermuda reporting on conditions there, carried on the George, a Company supply and transport ship, to Sir Robert Rich at “Hyghe Holborne”, as an officer in the Somers Islands Company, the contents full of information about the colony after a quick voyage to Bermuda. He details some failure in whaling after the whales were too strong and swift for his crew to capture. The letter provides details about life in the early Bermuda settlement including comments about a plague of worms and rats. He mentions his intent to sail to the West Indies for trade, the arrival of three battered frigates with poor cargo, prospects of crops, the hope of profit in tobacco and diving for pearls. He reports receiving supplies, asks for twenty pounds of strong twine for a “mullett” net and that he has four people with him, one being Edward Athen of the “Mansfield tribe”, one of eight tribes on the island, designations that are still in place today. The letter docketed, possibly in Rich’s hand, as received “from Somer Islands”. Minor edge wear, filing folds and soiling though overall in good condition for an item of this date. A superb letter from the very beginning of Bermuda history, written just five years after the first settlement. . A hugely important social document from this very early period. Photo Notes: Sir Robert Rich was one of the leading investors in the infant British Colony. Wolferston was later Governor of Barbados from June 1628 until February 1629, and he may have been acting as an agent for Rich in Bermuda at this time. Robert Rich was created Earl of Warwick in 1618, and was an active colonial administrator and investor. He was a major figure in the Virginia Company, and then the Somers Island Company, which was formed in 1615 to manage Bermuda as a commercial interest. According to John Smith, in 1618 he held 14 shares out of a total of 423 spread across four “tribes”. After Rich’s death, his third wife, Eleanor Wortley married Edward Montagu, 2nd. Earl of Manchester, and it is through the papers of the Manchester family that this and other letters descended. One earlier letter from the correspondence, dated 1615, survives in the Bermuda archive. . provenance:. Earl of Warwick’s widow into the archives of her third husband, the 2nd. Earl of Manchester, and then by descent to the Dukes of Manchester. Extensive papers of the Manchester family were, in 1880, put on deposit at the Public Records Office, and obviously in expectation that they would be given at some point, both this and the following cover received the handstamp of the Records Office on reverse. Subsequently the 10th. Duke of Manchester, who sold off the family estates, and anything else that could be sold off for cash, withdrew them in 1970 and sold many of the papers at auction. At Sotheby’s on 5 May 1970 this letter was sold as lot 63 at the sale of the American papers of Sir Nathaniel Rich, Property of His Grace the 10th. Duke of Manchester (Estimate 20000 - 25000)

(via Philasearch.com - Bermuda Islands Pre-philately)

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