1620: Duke of Mallard
Private papers
The town doth now stand complete—fifty stout houses, a town hall of timber and stone, a chapel consecrated for worship, storehouses filled with provisions, and stables stocked for horses and draft beasts. The builders have been dismissed, their labours ended, and the settlement established upon firm foundations.
Having thus seen this enterprise fulfilled to the very beam and nail, I have resolved upon a course heretofore unspoken, though oft in my more private hours conceived with righteous clarity. This township—remote and apart from England’s eyes—shall become a place of exile for those troublesome women of our family whose minds trouble the peace of our house. They shall be sent forthwith, accompanied by their family servants and supplied with what necessities we deem fit, though irregularly so.
In truth, this settlement shall become an asylum of sorts, where such inconvenient souls—whom I judge to be mad or ungovernable—may be kept distant yet sustained. Here they shall live apart from the salons and the court, their days marked not by fashion or folly but by the rugged demands of this far land.
It is a stern decree, but a necessary one for the good order and honour of our line. Thus this town, born of ambition and enterprise, shall serve also as a refuge and a prison, binding those who threaten our family’s dignity away where England’s judgment cannot reach.
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