The discovery of the printed Declaration is an event
of distinct interest also in the record of American bibli-
ography. It has not been supposed that this or a later
generation of bibliographers would see the addition of
another fundamental tract to the literature of English
colonial settlement, yet exactly this has happened. After
performing the service for which it was intended, this
first descriptive tract of one of the earliest English
colonies disappeared from memory and record. That it
should have come to view again after three hundred
years is one of those romantic occurrences that stir the
blood of bookmen and make their seemingly dull pursuit
the happiest of quests.

   But even if the Declaration were entirely lacking in
historical and bibliographical interest, it would still
command more than the esteem due a curious relic from
those who are interested in ideas and in their transmis-
sion by means of the written and printed word. It is a
document closely associated in thought with Father
Andrew White, one of the most picturesque of the lesser
figures in the story of American colonization, and a rest-
less, zealous priest, teacher and missionary conspicuous
in an Order noted for men of his type.⁹ He acquired
respected rank as a casuist, he attained academic dis-
tinction in a Society of learned men, and as professor of
theology at Louvain and at Liege embarrassed his su-
periors by insistence upon a ne varietur attitude in
interpreting the theological system of the Angelic Doc-
tor, Thomas Aquinas. In the midst of his professorial
career, he risked liberty more than once in missions to
England (one thinks inevitably of Esmond's Father
Holt in reading of him), and when, because of his almost
fanatical Thomism, he was removed from his chair at

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