STRACHEY, William, English colonist and historian: b. England, about 1585. Nothing definite is known of him before the sailing of a party of colonists, 15 May 1609, bound for Vir ginia. He sailed in the Sea Venture, which was wrecked on the Bermudas in July. An account of the wreck was written by Strachey and pub lished in (Purehas his Pilgrimes) (1625) under the title 'A True Repertory of the Wracke and Redemption of Sir Thomas Gates upon and from the Islands of the Bermudas, his coming to Virginia and the state of that Colony. Strachey and his party finally reached James town, 23 May 1610, where he was appointed an secretary d recorder of the colony by Lord De la Warr. He returned to England in 1611 and he edited the laws promulgated for Vir ginia by Sir Thomas Gates and Sir Thomas Dale, 'For the Colony in Virginia. Britannia Lawes Divine, Morall and Martial!, Alget qui non (1612). His larger work on Vir
ginia, (The Historic of Travaile into Virginia Britannia, expressing the Cosmographie and Comodities of the Country, Together with the Manners and Customes of the People. Gath ered and Observed As Well by those who went First Thither, As Collected by William Strachey, gent. Three Yeares thither Iinployed Secretarie of State,' failed of finding a Pub lisher during his lifetime and was brought out by the Hakluyt Society in 1849. This is re garded as the most ably written of the numer ous accounts of the settlement of Virginia. Nothing is known of the history of Strachey subsequent to 1618 when he tried unsuccessfully to interest Bacon in the publication of his book. Consult Brown, Alexander, (Genesis of the United States' (Boston 1891).