Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 1.djvu/42



for the Virginia Company; and the Sandys-Ferrar faction attributed to him more than any other man the abrogation of the charter—by entangling the company into dissensions over the tobacco contract. Having incurred the enmity of Buckingham, King James' favorite, he was impeached and fined £50,000, but a year later Charles I. released him from the fine, and August 20, 1626, he was granted special pardon. He retired to his splendid seat, Copt Hall in Essex, where he died August 6, 1645. He was buried in Westminster Abbey.

Digges, Sir Dudley, eldest son of Thomas Digges by his wife Anne St. Leger, was born in 1583, and educated at University College, Oxford. He studied law, and after being knighted at Whitehall, April 29, 1607, travelled to improve himself on the continent. He was sent in 1618 as ambassador to Russia by James I.; two years after, he went to Holland as commissioner, with Sir Maurice Abbott, to settle differences between the English and Dutch East India Company. He served in parliament during the reigns of James I. and Charles I., and his conduct was very independent and often hostile to the measures of the court. He was one of the commissioners to conduct the impeachment of the King's favorite, the Duke of Buckingham, and the King arrested him and sent him a prisoner to the Tower of London, but he was released in a few days on complaint of parliament. After this, measures were taken to win him over to the King's side, and he was granted the reversion of master of the rolls, November 17, 1630. He died March 18, 1639, and was buried at Chilham Manor near Canterbury.

He was greatly interested in explorations and colonization. In 1610 he aided in sending Henry Hudson to the northwest, and wrote a little tract on the Northwest Passage. For the same end he aided in 1612 in sending out Capt. Thomas Button and Master Francis Nelson, and was one of the directors of the Northwest Passage Company. He was member of the Bermuda Islands Company, and of the East India Company. In addition he was constantly interested in the Virginia Company, of which he was also a member. He was member of the royal council for Virginia in 1609, and in 1619 was one of the committee of the Virginia Company to codify the rules. He was also one of the committee regarding the establishment of the college at Henrico. In 1631 he was appointed one of the commissioners to advise concerning Virginia. He married Mary, youngest daughter and coheir of Sir Thomas Kemp, of Olantigh. Edward, one of his sons, settled in Virginia, and was governor of the colony in 1656.

Copeland, Rev. Patrick, was a Puritan minister, who was first employed in the service of the East India Company. In 1614 he was chaplain on one of the company's ships. In 1616 he returned to England accompanied by a native whom he had taught chiefly by signs to speak, read and write the English language correctly in less than a year. At his suggestion this lad was publicly baptized on December 22, in St. Dennis Church, London, "as the first fruits of India." Not long after, in 1617, Copeland, with his pupil, sailed for the Indian ocean in the Royal James, one of the fleet which Sir Thomas Dale, late governor of Virginia, assumed the command of on September 19, 1618. In the presence of Dale, in view of an impending naval conflict with the Dutch on December 2, Copeland preached on the Royal James. On August 9, 1619, Dale died, and his