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In 1637 Thomas Mayhew was appointed, for a term of twenty-one years, to keep a record of all those persons who left England "to passe into forraigne partes," but of Mayhew's lists nothing is to be found but the fragment commencing at page 287, and that continues but for a few months. It cannot be doubted but that other lists were made, but they are either lost, or are among the mass of papers still uncatalogued at the Record Office. We learn incidentally that ships left England almost daily for America, but no records of them, or of their passengers, remain. Thus among the registers of deaths in the parish of Deal, co. Kent, we find that on the 4th of May, 1639, Margaret, wife of Thomas Waldigraue, bound for New England, was buried. Who was Thomas Waldigraue, and with what company did he sail?

We know that many ships sailed from Bristol, among others The Angel Gabriel and The James, conveying the Revd. Richard Mather and the Revd. Daniel Maude, but no records of departures from that port remain. Again, who were the companions who sailed in 1633 in the The Griffin, with John Haynes and the Revd. Thomas Hooker? Where are the lists of The Arabella, and other ships, in which John Winthrop and the foun­ders of Massachusetts embarked? Who went out with the Revd. Ezekiel Rogers from Rowley, and with Fenwick, and the Revd. Henry Whitfield? These are but a few instances, to show how very imperfect are our records of the early settlers.

Further, it should be borne in mind that only the names of those were taken who legally left the shores of England. At page 142, for example, and elsewhere throughout the book, we find that the passengers were examined by the minister touching their conformity to the church discipline of England, and that they had taken the oaths of allegiance and supremacy; elsewhere (p. 106, &c.) we find it certified that they are no subsidy men, that is, men liable to the payment of a subsidy to the crown. Among the thousands who emigrated to New England, it can­not be doubted but that a very large number left to avoid payment of the hateful subsidy, and that they would not take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy. These, therefore, must have left secretly, and of such no record would exist.

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It is perhaps hardly necessary to say, that where, in the following lists, it is stated that so many people were transported to New England, it does not mean that they were sent as felons, as the word, at the present time, usually implies. It simply means that they were conveyed. Those persons, however, who were convicted for upholding the cause of the Duke of Monmouth (pp. 315—342), were undoubtedly transported as we now understand the word.

The Summer Islands, mentioned at pages 301—314, and elsewhere, are now called the Bermudas. In 1609, Sir GEORGE SOMERS, or SUMERS, was driven on the islands in the course of a voyage to Virginia, and from him the islands derived their name. The Virginia Company, who claimed the islands by the right of having discovered them, sold them to a company of a hundred and twenty persons, who, having obtained a charter for their settlement in 1612, sent out sixty settlers, with a governor. During and immediately after the civil war in England, many persons of eminence took refuge in the Bermudas, among others the poet WALLER, who celebrated their beauty in a poem, entitled "The Battle of the Summer Islands."

Enough has been said to show the great value of the lists here given, and I trust that others may be induced to make further search among the documents in the Record Office, to bring to light the treasures there hidden.

J.C.H.

May, 1873.

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[Regi]ster of the names of all y^e Passinger which Passed from y^e Port of London for one yeare Endinge at Xpmas 1635.

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Passinger Which  Passed Y^e from Port of

London.

Posi festum Natalis Christi 1634. vsq' ad festum Na: Christi

1635

 Secundo Januarij 1634

 THEIS vnder written are to be transported to Virginea imbarqued in ye Merchant bonaventure JAMES RICROFTE Mr bound thither have taken y^e oath of Allegeance.