Was it written before or after the publication of Smith’s “Map and Description” at Oxford in 1612?  The question is important, because Smith’s “Description” and Strachey’s “Travaile” are page after page literally the same.  One was taken from the other.  Commonly at that time manuscripts seem to have been passed around and much read before they were published.  Purchas acknowledges that he had unpublished manuscripts of Smith when he compiled his narrative.  Did Smith see Strachey’s manuscript before he published his Oxford tract, or did Strachey enlarge his own notes from Smith’s description?  It has been usually assumed that Strachey cribbed from Smith without acknowledgment.  If it were a question to be settled by the internal evidence of the two accounts, I should incline to think that Smith condensed his description from Strachey, but the dates incline the balance in Smith’s favor.

Strachey in his “Travaile” refers sometimes to Smith, and always with respect.  It will be noted that Smith’s “Map” was engraved and published before the “Description” in the Oxford tract.  Purchas had it, for he says, in writing of Virginia for his “Pilgrimage” (which was published in 1613): 

“Concerning-the latter [Virginia], Capt.  John Smith, partly by word of mouth, partly by his mappe thereof in print, and more fully by a Manuscript which he courteously communicated to mee, hath acquainted me with that whereof himselfe with great perill and paine, had been the discoverer.”  Strachey in his “Travaile” alludes to it, and pays a tribute to Smith in the following:  “Their severall habitations are more plainly described by the annexed mappe, set forth by Capt.  Smith, of whose paines taken herein I leave to the censure of the reader to judge.  Sure I am there will not return from thence in hast, any one who hath been more industrious, or who hath had (Capt.  Geo. Percie excepted) greater experience amongst them, however misconstruction may traduce here at home, where is not easily seen the mixed sufferances, both of body and mynd, which is there daylie, and with no few hazards and hearty griefes undergon.”

There are two copies of the Strachey manuscript.  The one used by the Hakluyt Society is dedicated to Sir Francis Bacon, with the title of “Lord High Chancellor,” and Bacon had not that title conferred on him till after 1618.  But the copy among the Ashmolean manuscripts at Oxford is dedicated to Sir Allen Apsley, with the title of “Purveyor to His Majestie’s Navie Royall”; and as Sir Allen was made “Lieutenant of the Tower” in 1616, it is believed that the manuscript must have been written before that date, since the author would not have omitted the more important of the two titles in his dedication.

Strachey’s prefatory letter to the Council, prefixed to his “Laws” (1612), is dated “From my lodging in the Black Friars.  At your best pleasures, either to return unto the colony, or pray for the success of it heere.”  In his letter he speaks of his experience in the Bermudas and Virginia:  “The full storie of both in due time [I] shall consecrate unto your view....  Howbit since many impediments, as yet must detaine such my observations in the shadow of darknesse, untill I shall be able to deliver them perfect unto your judgments,” etc.