Despite having spent only a year in Virginia as surveyor-general in 1714-15, in 1738, Sir William Keith published this history of the colony and its resources. Keith had been dismissed from the post following the death of Queen Anne and the subsequent removal of Tories from official posts by the resurgent Whig interest under the new king, George I. He travelled to Philadelphia where he was able to persuade the governor of Pennsylvania, Sir William Penn, to appoint him as his deputy in 1717. After Penn’s death in 1718, Keith took over the governorship with the support of the colony’s merchants and remained in post until his dismissal by the Penn family in 1726. He returned to London and attempted to gain employment as governor of New Jersey and to found a new colony west of the Blue Ridge Mountains but by 1734, his debts, built up through profligate spending and the expenses incurred through his legal battles with the Penns after his dismissal from Pennsylvania, landed him in Fleet prison. On his release, Keith took up journalism and published pamphlets and books on North America including this history. He dedicated the book to Frederick, Prince of Wales, outwardly due to the Prince’s concern for ‘the Trading Part of this Nation at Home and…of the State of the Colonies and Plantations Abroad’, but perhaps also in the hopes of gaining royal favour and a suitable colonial position if the Prince became king.