Erasmus Stourton; 9 October, 1628
Examination [before the Justices of the Peace at Plymouth]
Great Britain, PRO, Colonial Office,
CO 1/4 (59), 144.
MHA 16-B-2-016.
Published in Gillian T. Cell, ed.,
Newfoundland Discovered, English Attempts at Colonization, 1610-1630,
Hakluyt Society 2nd series, no. 160 (London: Hakluyt Society, ©1982) 284-285. Revised by P.E. Pope.
The examination of Erasmus Stourton, gentleman, late preacher to the Colony of Ferryland in the Newfoundland, had and taken at Plymouth, in the County of Devon, the ninth day of October 1628, before Nicholas Sherwill, merchant, Mayor of the Borough of Plymouth and Thomas Sherwill, merchant, two of his Majesty's Justices of Peace, within the said borough.
The said examinant saith that he came out of the Newfoundland, the 28th of August last, in a ship of London called the VICTORY, and arrived into this harbour the 26th of September last and saith that about the 23th of July last was twelve months the Lord of Baltimore [Sir George Calvert, Lord Baltimore] arrived in Newfoundland and brought with him two seminary priests, one of them called Longvyll [Thomas Longville] and the other called Anthony Smith [Anthony Pole] which said Longvyll returned again for England with the said Lord. And afterwards, in this year, 1628, my Lord of Baltimore arrived there again and brought with him one other seminary priest, whose name is Hacket [Anthony Whitehair, alias Anthony Rivers?] with the number of forty papists or thereabouts, where the said Hacket and Smith every Sunday saith mass and do use all other the ceremonies of the Church of Rome, in as ample a manner as 'tis used in Spain. And this examinant hath seen them at mass and knoweth that the child of one William Poole, a Protestant, was baptized according to the orders and customs of the Church of Rome, by the procurement of the said Lord of Baltimore, contrary to the will of the said Poole, to which child the said Lord was a witness.
This examinant is a chaplain of my Lord of Anglesey [Christopher Villiers] and is gone towards London, with a purpose to attend the Lords of the Council [Privy Council], as he informs us.
