John Pory (1572-September 1635) was an author, geographer and the Secretary of State for the Virginia Colony, being appointed by the London Council. He arrived in Virginia on April 19, 1619, and served as member of the Governor's council. On July 30, 1619, when the first legislative assembly in the new world met at Jamestown, John Pory was elected as its Speaker. In the summer of 1622, he left aboard the Discovery and visited Plymouth. The ship was driven off course and wrecked on the Azores Islands. He was captured by the Spaniards and almost hanged, but was able to be released and returned to England.
On July 30, 1619, after opening the first legislative assembly with prayer, the House of Burgesses chose John Pory as their speaker. He recorded:
<But, forasmuch as men's affairs do little prosper when God's service is neglected, all the Burgesses took their places in the Quire till prayer was said by Mr. Bucke, the Minister, that it would please God to guide and sanctify all our proceedings to His own glory, and the good of this plantation. Prayer being ended, to the intent that as we had begun at God Almighty so we might proceed awful and due respect toward his lieutenant....
Be it enacted by this present Assembly that for laying a surer foundation for the conversion of the Indians to Christian religion, each town, city, borough, and particular plantation do obtain unto themselves, by just means, a certain number of the natives' children to be educated by them in true religion and a civil course of life; of which children the mostly toward boys in wit and graces of nature to be brought up by them in the first elements of literature, so as to be fitted for the college intended for them; that from thence they may be sent to that work of conversion...
All ministers shall duly read divine service and exercise their ministerial function according to the ecclesiastical laws and orders of the Church of England, and every Sunday in the afternoon shall catechize such as are not yet ripe to come to the communion.
And whosoever of them shall be found negligent or faulty in this kind shall be subjected to the censure of the governor and Council of Estate.> 1572JP001
--
American Quotations by William J. Federer, 2024, All Rights Reserved, Permission granted to use with acknowledgement.
Endnotes:
1572JP001. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). John Pory, July 30, 1619, in the first Representative Assembly at Jamestown, Virginia, in the House of Burgesses; recorded by John Pory, secretary of the Colony. Marker outside original Church Tower, Jamestown Island, Virginia. Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities. Collections of the New-York Historical Society, 2nd series, New York, 1857, Vol. III, Pt. 1, pp. 335-358: "Proceedings of the First Assembly of Virginia, 1619." The Annals of America, 20 vols. (Chicago, IL: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1968), Vol. I, pp. 40, 43, 45.