Wynne, Edward (fl. 1621-1626).

manuscript, 4to (220 x 160mm.), [10, 30, 2 (blank)] pp., 23 lines to a full page, written in a neat professional scribal hand in ink, on paper with crozier watermark (somewhat akin to Heawood 1216-17: England, after 1621), binding: early eighteenth-century boards

Edward Wynne, a Welshman, was first governor of the Newfoundland colony of Sir George Calvert, first Baron Baltimore (1579/80-1632), who acquired title to land in Newfoundland in 1620. Wynne established a colony of twelve men at Ferryland in August 1621, which was reinforced the following year by a second group led by Captain Daniel Powell, amounting to thirty-two settlers, including seven women. The colonists worked hard clearing land and fortifying their dwellings, but conditions were difficult and it proved that the reports they sent home, to get their charter confirmed, were over-optimistic. In any event, Calvert replaced Wynne as governor in 1626 with Sir Arthur Aston in an effort to save the colony from failure.

Back in England Wynne wrote for Charles I a discourse, The British India, ostensibly based on his experiences of colonisation and warmly advocating the ways Newfoundland could be profitably exploited. With brief reflections on the advances made in New England and the Spanish colonies, and also mentioning Nova Scotia (“New Scotland”), Wynne gives a geographical description of Newfoundland, extolling its potential for game, fur, fishing, timber, plantations, etc. A semi-calligraphic manuscript of the discourse on 36 quarto leaves is among the Royal Manuscripts in the British Library (Royal MS 17 A LVII).

Wynne’s second dedicatee was the natural philosopher, writer, diplomat and naval commander Sir Kenelm Digby (1603-1665), to whom he appeals as one sensible of “publique things, that reflect upon [his] Countreys benefit”, the “nations honours, and the advancement of his Majesties service”.

wynne’s discourse, one of the earliest accounts of newfoundland, was not apparently published (it is not in Wing), and it seems unlikely that it was ever circulated to any extent in manuscript. the present example, which may have been prepared for the author himself, is therefore extremely rare.

"…Newfoundland (soe called ever since it was first discovered) is an Island bordering upon the Continent of America, between 46 and 53 degrees of North latitude… It is a Countrey well wooded, especially to the Northwards, which part is plentifully stored of such tymber that is required, as well for the fitting of ordinarie shipping with Mastes and yards, as other occasions; and where (in my opinion) Pitch and tarre may be made; severall sortes of deere are plentifull there, and the Coast thereof aboundes with variety of fowle in their season; sundry sortes of very good furs… those that live there (of our owne nation) shewe noe willingnesse to leave that countrey, where some of them have made their aboad above twenty yeares…"