late in 1633, is in the handwriting of Father Alacambe,
a Jesuit who seems to have served in this period as secre-
tary to the English Provincial. In support of the attribu-
tion to White, however, there is to be considered his
known close relationship to Lord Baltimore in the form-
ative years of the project and his intense interest in the
proposed colony and in its potentialities for the Faith.
The question of style, too, must be taken into account:
both the Relation, universally accepted as Father
White's composition, and the Declaration are the works
of a fervid, naive writer, gifted with an unconscious
capacity for picturesque expression, and besides their
occasional identity of word and of thought, the two
writings seem to proclaim a more subtly manifested,
but none the less existent, identity of personality be-
hind them. Finally there is to be quoted the passage in a
letter from Father White to Lord Baltimore in 1639, in
which the priest writes of certain trade privileges
granted to the earliest settlers in the "declaration and
conditions of plantation", and continues: "I remember
when y^r. L^P. corrected the written copie wch I made, I
gave y^r. L^P. an occasion uppon the graunt of trade to
reflecte whether itt weare not fitt to limitt the graunt
for tearme of life".⁷ Neither these quoted words nor the
circumstances previously cited determine with cer-
tainty Father White's authorship of the Declaration,
but relying upon the cogency of the evidence as a whole
one may reasonably suggest the attribution of the tract
to his capable pen. The Jesuit historian, Father Thomas
Hughes, goes beyond suggestion and affirms without
qualification that Andrew White was the author of the
basically important "Declaratio" examined by him
with learned care in the Jesuit archives.

                      10