Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 1.djvu/62

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VIRGINIA BIOGRAPHY

West, Francis, deputy governor of \'ir- ginia from November 14. 1627. on the death of Governor Yardley. to .March 5, 1629, when Dr. John Pott was elected by the council to take his place. West having i.een selected to go to England to represent the interest of the colony, which was still in an unsettled condi- tion by the revocation of the charter in 1624. He was born October 28, 1586, and was a brother of Thomas Lord Delaware. When Captain Newport came over with the "Second Supply" in October, 1608, he was accompanied by Francis West, who was elected a member of the council there in August. 1609, after the arrival of the "Third Supply" sent out under the new charter. During the "starving time" which soon followed, West attempted to get provisions from the Indians, but being unsuc- cessful he left the colony to its fate and sailed away to England. After a few months he returned again to Virginia, and after Percy left in 1612 he succeeded him as commandant at Jamestown in which office he continued till 1 61 7, when he was succeeded by Captain Wil- liam Powell. He was a member of the coun- cil again from April, 1619. to February. 1633. In connection with his brothers, Lord Dela- ware, and John and Nathaniel West, he owned lands at Westovcr and Shirley. In November, 1622, he was appointed admiral of New Eng- land, and went there to suppress illicit fishing, but he found the New Englanders difficult persons to deal with. In 1624 Captain West was living on his estate at Westover in Vir- ginia, and soon after succeeded Sir George Yardley as deputy governor. His administra- tion is distinguished for the assembling at Jamestown on March 26, 1628. after an inter- val of four years, of the regular law making body — an event second only in importance to the original meeting in 1619; for its restor-

ation was proof that despite the revocation of her charter Mrginia was to continue in the enjo_\-ment of political liberty. After Pott took charge in 1629. West went to England, but he was in Virginia again prior to December, 1 63 1, when he attended a meeting of the coun- cil, again in February and September, 1632, and in February, 1633. After the last date he drops out of Virginia records, and there is a tradition in Earl Delaware's family that he \\as drowned.

Pott, John, governor of Virginia from March 5. 1629, to March 24, 1630, came to \'irginia with Governor Wyatt in 1621 to fill the position of physician general, vacant by the death of Lawrence Bohun, slain in a naval battle between the Spanish and the English in the West Indies. He was a Master of Arts, and was recommended to the London Com- pany by Theodore Gulstone, founder of the Gulstonian lectureship in the London College of Physicians. He was made a member of the council in 162 1, and on the departure of Fran- cis West to England in 1629, Dr. John Pott was chosen by the council temporary governor. He figured as such little more than a year, and the leading event of this time was the arrival at Jamestown of the first Lord Baltimore — the proprietor of Avalon in Newfoundland. Pott tendered to him the oath of allegiance and supremacy, which Baltimore as a Catholic refused to take. Sir John Harvey, who was a friend of Baltimore, on his arrival arrested Dr. Pott, and a jury convicted him of felony, for stealing cattle, but politics was doubtless at the bottom, and the king pardoned him. Some- time later, however, Pott had his revenge by taking part with the other councillors in Har- vey's arrest and deposition from the govern- ment. Dr. Pott was the first to locate land at