BEVERLY, Robert, historian, born in Virginia about 1675; died in 1716. He became clerk of the council of Virginia about 1697, when Sir Edmund Andros was governor. This office his father, Major Robert Beverly, had held before him. His "History of the Present State of Virginia" (4 vols., London, 1705)included an account of the first settlement of Virginia, and the history of the government until that time. In 1707 a French translation, with fourteen wood-cuts by Gribelius, was published in Amsterdam, and in 1722 a second English edition was brought out, with the French illustrations. A third edition, with an introduction by Charles Campbell, appeared in Richmond (1855). Mr. Beverly was the first American citizen in whose behalf the habeas corpus act was brought into requisition.