Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 1.djvu/116

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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