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diff --git a/28555-h/28555-h.htm b/28555-h/28555-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..23073e4 --- /dev/null +++ b/28555-h/28555-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,2732 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Virginia Company of London, 1606-1624, by Wesley Frank Craven. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> + + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + h1 { text-align: center; line-height: 1.5; clear: both; } + + h2,h3 { text-align: center; clear: both; } + + p.title { text-align: center; text-indent: 0; + font-weight: bold; + line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 3em; } + + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + .pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + } /* page numbers */ + + .center {text-align: center;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .caption {font-weight: bold;} + + .figcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center;} + + .footnotes {border: dashed 1px;} + .footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + .footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + .fnanchor {vertical-align: super; font-size: .8em; text-decoration: none;} + + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Virginia Company Of London, 1606-1624, by +Wesley Frank Craven + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Virginia Company Of London, 1606-1624 + +Author: Wesley Frank Craven + +Release Date: April 11, 2009 [EBook #28555] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VIRGINIA COMPANY OF LONDON *** + + + + +Produced by Mark C. Orton, Diane Monico, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + + + + +<h1> +THE VIRGINIA COMPANY OF<br /> +LONDON, 1606-1624<br /> +</h1> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + + +<p class="title"> +COPYRIGHT©, 1957 BY<br /> +VIRGINIA 350TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION<br /> +CORPORATION, WILLIAMSBURG, VIRGINIA<br /> +<br /> +<small>Second Printing, 1959</small> +<br /> +<small>Third Printing, 1964</small> +</p> + +<p class="center"><small>[Transcriber's Note: Extensive research did not uncover any evidence +that the U. S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]</small><br /><br /></p> + + +<p class="title"> +Jamestown 350th Anniversary<br /> +Historical Booklet Number 5<br /> +</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> +<h2>THE VIRGINIA COMPANY OF<br /> +LONDON, 1606-1624</h2> + + +<p>This is the story of the Virginia Company and only indirectly +of the Virginia colony. Those who seek an account of the early +years at Jamestown should turn to another number in this same +series. Here the focus belongs to the adventurers in England +whose hopes gave shape to the settlement at Jamestown, and +whose determination brought the colony through the many disappointments +of its first years. In terms of time, the story is short, +for it begins with the granting of the first Virginia charter in +1606 and ends with the dissolution of the company in 1624. +It thus covers a period of only eighteen years, but during these +years England's interest in North America was so largely expressed +through the agency of the Virginia Company that its +story constitutes one of the more significant chapters in the history +both of the United States and of the British Empire.</p> + +<p>In the beginning there were two companies of the Virginia +adventurers, the one having its headquarters in London and the +other in the western outport of Plymouth. Englishmen at that +time used the name Virginia to designate the full sweep of the +North American coast that lay above Spanish Florida. In the +original Virginia charter the adventurers were granted rights of +exploration, trade, and settlement on the "Coast of Virginia or +America" within limits that reached from 34° of latitude in the +south to 45° in the north, which is to say from the mouth of +the Cape Fear River in lower North Carolina to a point midway +through the modern state of Maine. The Plymouth grantees +had a primary interest in the northern area that Captain John +Smith would later name New England, and there they established +a colony at Sagadahoc in August 1607, only a few weeks +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span>after the settlement of Jamestown. But the colony barely survived +the winter, and was abandoned in the spring of 1608. +Thereafter, the Plymouth adventurers gave up. In contrast, the +London adventurers persisted, and their persistence served to tie +the name of Virginia increasingly to them and to their more southerly +settlement. As a result, the London adventurers became in +common usage the Virginia adventurers, their company the Virginia +Company, and their colony Virginia.</p> + +<p>The Virginia colony was especially fortunate in having the +backing of London. Indeed, it may not be too much to suggest +that the chief difference between the stories of Roanoke Island +and of Jamestown was the difference that London made. Consistently, +the leadership of Elizabethan adventures to North America, +including those of Gilbert and Raleigh, had come from the western +counties and outports of England, and with equal consistency +hopeful projects had foundered on the inadequacy of their financial +support while London favored other ventures—to Muscovy, +to the Levant, and more recently to the East Indies. It was not +merely that London had the necessary capital and credit for a +sustained effort; it also had experience in the management of +large and distant ventures, such as those of the East India Company +over which Sir Thomas Smith presided, as he would preside +through many years over the Virginia Company. London +had too the advantage of its proximity to the seat of government +in nearby Westminster, where King James had his residence, +where the highest courts of the realm sat periodically, and where +England's parliament customarily met. Already, in 1606, it was +possible to trace in the immediate environs of the ancient City +of London, itself still medieval in appearance and in the organization +of much of its life, the broad outlines of the great metropolis +that has been increasingly the focal point of England's development +as a modern state.</p> + +<p>In thus emphasizing the importance of London to the early +history of Virginia, one runs the risk of misrepresenting the true +character of the Virginia adventure. Contrary to the impression<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span> +that will be gained from many of our modern textbooks, the Virginia +Company represented much more than the commercial interests +of the port of London. Its membership included many +gentlemen and noblemen of consequence in the kingdom. Some +of them, no doubt, became subscribers to a Virginia joint-stock +for the same reason that often led members of the landed classes +in England into commercial ventures. But others, quite evidently, +subscribed because of a sense of public responsibility, or simply +because skilfully managed propaganda had put pressure on them +to accept a responsibility of social or political position. For the +Virginia adventure was a public undertaking, its aim to advance +the fortunes of England no less than the fortunes of the adventurers +themselves.</p> + +<p>It would be helpful if we knew more about the original Virginia +adventurers than we do. The records are so incomplete as to make +impossible anything approaching a full list of the first subscribers. +However, enough is known to suggest the broad range of experience +and interest belonging to those who now joined in a common +effort to build an empire for England in America. The original +charter of 1606 lists only eight of the adventurers by name, +they being the ones in whose names the petition for the charter +had been made. This list omits Sir John Popham, Lord Chief +Justice of the Kings Bench, who may well have been the prime +mover in the enterprise, and Sir Thomas Smith, who was an active +leader from an early date. Four of the eight men listed are +identified as belonging to the London group. Sir Thomas Gates +was a soldier and veteran of campaigns in the Netherlands who +would later serve as the colony's governor. Sir George Somers had +led many attacks against Spanish possessions in Queen Elizabeth's +day, was a member of parliament, and would meet his death four +years later in Bermuda while on a mission of rescue for Virginia. +Edward Maria Wingfield was another soldier who had fought +in the Netherlands. He belonged to a family which had acquired +extensive estates in Ireland, and he too would go to Virginia,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> +where he served as first president of the colony's council. The +most interesting of the four was Richard Hakluyt, a clergyman +whose chief mission in life had been the encouragement of overseas +adventures by his fellow countrymen. To them he had literally +given a national tradition of adventure by compiling and editing +one of the more influential books in England's history—<i>The +Principall Navigations, Voyages, and Discoveries of the English +Nation</i>, whose reading, in Michael Drayton's words, inflamed +"Men to seeke fame." Hakluyt had been advisor to both Gilbert +and Raleigh in their ventures, and since then he had consistently +promoted the idea that England might best find in North America +the opportunities that were needed for her prosperity and her +security.</p> + +<p>A significant indication of the extent to which the public interest +was considered to be involved in the Virginia project is +found in the provision that was first made for the government +of the two colonies. The powers of government, which is to say +the ultimate right to decide and to direct, were vested in a royal +council, commonly known as the Virginia Council and having +its seat in London. Its membership was probably drawn exclusively +from the two groups of Virginia adventurers, but the members +were appointed by the king and were sworn to his special service. +Among the first members were Sir Thomas Smith, chief of the +London merchants; Sir William Wade, lieutenant of the London +Tower; Sir Walter Cope, member of parliament for Westminster +and adventurer in a variety of overseas enterprises; Sir Henry +Montague, recorder of the City of London; Solicitor General +John Doderidge, subsequently justice of the Kings Bench; Sir +Ferdinando Gorges, who later would lead a reviving interest in +the settlement of New England and still later would become an +enemy of the Puritans who so largely accomplished that task; +Sir Francis Popham, son and heir to the Lord Chief Justice; and +John Eldred of London, Thomas James of Bristol, and James +Bagge of Plymouth, each of these three being described as a merchant.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> +This assignment of the powers of government proved to +be awkward, and it denied the adventurers direct control over +the more important questions affecting their adventures, as in +the choice of a plan of government for the colony or in the appointment +of its key officers. Consequently, the adventurers secured +a change in the second Virginia charter, granted in 1609. +It was then specified that members of the council thereafter +should be "nominated, chosen, continued, displaced, changed, +altered and supplied, as death, or other several occasions shall +require, out of the Company of the said Adventurers, by the +voice of the greater part of the said Company and Adventurers, +in their Assembly for that purpose." In language less repetitious +than that used by the company's lawyer, this meant that the +council now became an agent primarily of the adventurers. Even +so, the king retained a veto over any choice they might make, for +members of the council were still required to take a special oath +administered by one of the high officers of state, and refusal to +give the oath could mean disqualification for the office. The +company's later history would show, whatever its legal advisor +may have assumed in 1609, that this requirement was no mere +formality.</p> + +<p>It is not easy for the modern American to read with full assurance +the scanty record of Virginia's first years. How, for example, +should he interpret the suggestion at the beginning of the +first charter that the adventurers sought chiefly to propagate the +"Christian Religion to such people, as yet live in darkness and +miserable ignorance of the true knowledge and worship of God?" +It is simple enough to point out that the first adventurers in +Jamestown showed very little of the missionary's spirit, that they +included only one minister, and that he had enough to do in +ministering to the English settlers. It is also easy to draw an obvious +contrast between the dedicated missionaries who so frequently +formed the vanguard of Spanish and French settlement +in America and the adventurous and often unruly men who first<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> +settled Virginia. In the absence of immediate and continuing +missionary endeavors, one is naturally inclined to dismiss professions +of a purpose to convert the Indian as nothing more than +a necessary gesture toward convention in an age that was still +much closer to the medieval period than to our own. And yet, +on second thought, one begins to wonder just how sophisticated +such a conclusion may be. He remembers how deep was the rift +between Protestantism and Catholicism at that time, how fundamental +to the patriotism of an Englishman was his long defense +of a Protestant church settlement against the threat of Catholic +Spain, and how largely the issues of religious life still claimed +the first thoughts of men. He then may feel inclined to observe +that the English adventurers, after all, did undertake to establish +a mission in Virginia at a relatively early date. True, ten years +elapsed before the effort to provide a school and college for the +Indians had its beginning, but these were years of a continuing +struggle for the very life of the colony itself. In the circumstances, +perhaps ten years should be viewed as a short time.</p> + +<p>Be that as it may, there are other questions that have been even +more bothersome, if only because they have seemed more pertinent +to the modern interest in Virginia's history. The American +has been accustomed to view the Virginia colony as the first permanent +settlement in his country, as the point at which his own +history has its beginning, but he finds in the Jamestown colony +a pattern of activity somewhat different from that he associates +with the later development of the country. What kind of a colony +was it? Was it really a colony? Just what were the adventurers +trying to accomplish in Virginia? Were they actually interested +in colonization, in the proper sense of the term, or were their objectives +commercial? These and other such questions have claimed +much of the attention of those who have sought to interpret for +their fellow countrymen the early history of Virginia. The difficulty +arises partly from the American's insistence that the later +history of his country be taken as the standard for judging every<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> +action of the first adventurers, and partly from a failure to appreciate +the extent to which the earlier ventures in Virginia were +necessarily exploratory in character.</p> + +<p>If one of us could ask the adventurers in 1606 what it was they +hoped to accomplish in America, he probably would be told that +it depended very much on what they might find there. Although +Richard Hakluyt had been most industrious in collecting available +information from the earlier explorations of North America, +including those by Spanish and French explorers, the specific +information at hand was quite definitely limited. By the close +of the sixteenth century European explorers had charted the +broad outlines of the North American coast, and here and there +they had filled in much of the detail, as had the French in Canada, +the Spaniard and the Frenchman on the coast of Florida, +and the Englishman along the coastal regions to be later known +as Carolina and New England. But the information at the command +of the adventurers in one country was not always available +to those of another; indeed, within any one country there were +shipmasters who carried in their heads working charts of coastal +waters wholly unknown to the geographers and cartographers +who sought to serve the larger interests of the nation. Thus the +London adventurers in 1606, though having at hand a substantial +body of useful information regarding the coasts, the winds, +and the currents running northward from the West Indies past +St. Augustine to Cape Hatteras, and comparable information +regarding the more northern waters explored by Frobisher, Davis, +Gilbert, and others, had only a sketchy knowledge of the intervening +coastline that would soon be explored by Captain Samuel +Argall on commission from the Virginia Company and by Henry +Hudson, an Englishman temporarily in the service of Dutch +merchants. Even Chesapeake Bay, to which the London adventurers +dispatched their first expedition, was known to them chiefly +by the reports of Indians interrogated by Raleigh's agents as +they worked out from Roanoke Island. The first colonists in Virginia<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> +gave to London detailed information regarding the lower +Chesapeake and the James River, but not until 1608 did Captain +John Smith find the time to explore the upper reaches of the bay +and to identify the great rivers emptying into it there. It hardly +seems necessary to argue the utility of such explorations, to which +eloquent testimony exists in the new bounds immediately fixed +for the colony in the second charter. But many have been the +attempts to pass judgment on the success or failure of the first +settlers at Jamestown that have been written as though their +primary assignment had not been to explore.</p> + +<p>Exploration and fortification—these two terms are consistently +linked in the papers on which the early English adventurers jotted +notes for their guidance or for the instruction of their agents in +America. The very first objective of the explorers was to locate a +suitable site for fortification, in order that further explorations +might be conducted from a secure base. The fortifications to be +raised had to meet exacting standards, such as would be approved +by the military engineers with whom the adventurers consulted +along with the geographers, the cartographers, and the shipmasters +who also possessed useful information. For these fortifications +were intended to provide security not so much against the +native Indian as against the ships and soldiers of Spain. Over +the years there had been some debate as to how the fort might +be best located, with the result that in 1607 it was decided to +locate it some distance up a river that would afford navigation +for an ocean-going vessel but would force the enemy to fight his +way inland against the disadvantage of the warning that could +be given by an outer guard at the mouth of the river. Such were +the considerations that shaped the choice of Jamestown as the +site of the first permanent English settlement in North America. +To stand in the middle of the Jamestown peninsula for contemplation +of its many disadvantages for the purposes of agricultural +settlement, and even for the health of its people, is to lose sight<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> +of the main point. One should walk over against the river, and +consider there the field of fire that was open for well placed guns.</p> + +<p>And just what was the Jamestown fort supposed to guard? +Was it the few acres of the modern county of James City, or the +right of Englishmen to possess the Virginia peninsula, where so +much of importance to our national history has found its place? +Not at all. It was the right of Englishmen to be in North America, +to fish the waters that lay off its coast, to trade with its inhabitants, +and to exploit such other opportunities as an unexplored and +undeveloped continent might offer. How far these opportunities +might lead no one could tell in advance—perhaps even to China.</p> + +<p>A trade with China had been a major objective of English adventure +since the middle of the sixteenth century, when the Muscovy +Company had had its origins in an attempt to find a northeast +passage around the Scandinavian peninsula leading to Cathay—Marco +Polo's fabulous kingdom of northern China. The +explorers found instead a profitable trade with the territories +of Ivan the Terrible, but the Muscovy merchants continued to +support a variety of ventures seeking the establishment of an +Oriental trade. Their agents looked into the possibilities of an +overland trade through Russia to Cathay, and experimented none +too profitably with a trans-Russia trade with Persia. They gave +their support to renewed attempts to find a northeast passage +and claimed a right of license for the numerous efforts that were +made in Elizabeth's reign to find a northwest passage around or +through North America. Failing in these efforts, the English +merchants finally had challenged Portugal's monopoly of trade +with the East Indies by way of the Cape of Good Hope. The +East India Company, chartered by Elizabeth in 1600, had gotten +off to a good start, and was destined to become one of the great +empire builders of Britain's history. In 1606, however, the East +India merchants had had just enough experience with the new +trade to begin to appreciate some of its difficulties, as in the need<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> +to employ larger and more expensive ships than were standard +in England's maritime trade and the great distance to China by +way of the Cape of Good Hope. Perhaps, after all, some route +through America might have the advantage over the Cape route. +In the opinion of the late Sir William Foster, through many years +historiographer of the India Office, this was a chief reason for +the interest Sir Thomas Smith took in Virginia.</p> + +<p>Let it be noted that Sir Thomas' interest in Virginia outlasted +the hope that a successful search for a passage to China might +be based on Jamestown. Nevertheless, the point may help to +explain the marked emphasis on this hope that one finds at the +beginning of the project. Instructions to the first expedition directed +the choice of a seat on some navigable river, and added, +"if you happen to discover divers portable rivers, and mongst +them any one that hath two main branches, if the difference be +not great make choice of that which bendeth most toward the +North-West, for that way you shall soonest find the other sea." +The other sea, of course, was the Pacific, or as Englishmen were +likely to say, the South Seas, whose waters also washed the shores +of China. Vain as was this hope of trade with the Orient through +America, it was destined for survival, in one form or another, +through many years. As late as the middle of the nineteenth +century, it would be a principal argument for the construction of +a trans-continental railway.</p> + +<p>In 1606 the supposition was that the river system of North +America might be like that of Russia, where easy portages joining +rivers flowing in different directions made it possible to travel, +most of the way by boat, from the north to the south of the country +and return. "You must observe," advised the adventurers, +"whether the river on which you plant doth spring out of mountains +or out of lakes; if it be out of any lake, the passage to the +other sea will be the more easy, and [it] is like enough that out +of the same lake you shall find some spring which runs the contrary +way toward the East India Sea; for the great and famous<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> +rivers of Volga, Tanis and Dwina have three heads near joynd, +and yet the one falleth into the Caspian Sea, the other into the +Euxine Sea, and the third into the Polonian Sea." For this information, +the Virginia adventurers were indebted to the Muscovy +Company, with which Captain Christopher Newport, who +commanded the ships dispatched to Virginia, had formerly served. +It was a good enough working theory, based partly on knowledge +of the geography of Russia and partly on interrogation of the +Indians in Carolina by Raleigh's men. And the rivers of that part +of North America which lies east of the Mississippi form just +such a system as the Virginia adventurers envisaged, except for +the fact that the Ohio and other westward flowing streams do +not empty into the Pacific.</p> + +<p>The modern American has usually looked upon such a venture +as this as something distinctly apart from an agricultural +type of endeavor, but there is good reason for believing that the +London adventurers took a different view. They understood the +dependence of agriculture upon an opportunity to market its +products, and they considered the success of their commercial +ventures to be the surest and the quickest way of providing easy +access to a market. If a new and practicable route to China could +be found in America, any colony located close at hand to the +portage along which the goods of the Orient were moved for +transshipment to England would find a ready market for food +and other provisions by supplying the ships engaged in a highly +profitable trade. More than that, the plenty and the regularity +of this shipping would provide easy freightage for the encouragement +of a variety of agricultural and horticultural experiments +looking to the production of such commodities as sugar, ginger, +wine, or vegetable dyes and oils. The adventurers well understood +the advantage to be gained by duplicating the success +previously won by the Portuguese and Spaniards with such experiments +in the Azores, in Madeira, in the Canaries, and more +recently in the West Indies.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span></p> + +<p>To put the point briefly, Virginia was founded upon many different +hopes for profitable undertakings—some of them commercial, +some agricultural, and some industrial. The records show +an early interest in several extractive industries, including mining, +not just for gold but for copper and iron as well. First instructions +for trade with the native Indians reveal an immediate concern +for the establishment of good relations with them and for laying +in a good stock of Indian corn as a food reserve, but they show +too a concern for the policies that would shape the development +of a wider trade. Provision in the charter, and in the instructions +of the royal council, for the creation of individual estates according +to the laws and customs of England, not to mention the +guarantee of full legal rights for the inhabitants of the colony +and for their children, leave no more room for speculation as to +the intended permanence of the settlement than there is doubt +as to the expected diversity of its economic activity. But for the +time being, first things must take first place. Until it had been +demonstrated that Virginia could provide profitable freightage +for the ships of England, her future rested upon an insecure +foundation. Hence, the initial emphasis on the type of activity +which promised the more immediate or the greater return.</p> + +<p>Newport's fleet of the <i>Susan Constant</i>, the <i>Godspeed</i>, and the +<i>Discovery</i> sailed for Virginia in December 1606. While the adventurers +waited for his return and report on the first discoveries, +the Spanish ambassador excitedly reported to Spain that the +English intended to send two vessels to Virginia each month +until "they have 2,000 men in that country." Actually the plan +seems to have been quite different. Lord Chancellor Egerton is +reported to have declared in 1609: "We ... thought at first +we would send people there little by little." Whatever the plan, +this was the practice. Newport's total complement in the first +fleet was 160 men of whom 104 remained in the colony. He +was back at Plymouth by late July 1607, and from Plymouth he +came on to London in August. For cargo he carried clapboard,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> +and his sailors had picked up so much sassafras root that the +leaders of the colony feared that the market for this established +staple of the American trade might be ruined. He brought with +him also ore which he hoped an assay would prove to be gold, +and he declared the country to be rich in copper. With some +exaggeration, he announced explorations "into the country near +two hundred miles" and the discovery of "a river navigable for +great shippes one hundred and fifty miles." The adventurers +responded by sending him out again, in October 1607, with 120 +prospective settlers and what would be greeted in Jamestown as +the first supply.</p> + +<p>All told, Captain Newport would make five round trips between +England and Virginia before ending a career that included +service of the Muscovy Company by dying on the island of Java +as an agent of the East India Company. He has found no important +place in the American tradition, partly because Captain +John Smith, the Virginia colony's first historian, took care to see +that Captain Newport did not have a hero's role. But those of +us who would understand the context in which our history first +developed will do well to consider the career of Christopher +Newport.</p> + +<p>In carrying out the second supply, which reached Jamestown +in September 1608, Newport had aboard 70 new colonists, including +two women and eight Polish and German experts in +the manufacture of glass, tar, pitch, and soap ashes. He had a +broad commission for completing the exploration of the James +River above the falls that much later would fix the site of Richmond, +and for determining the fate of Raleigh's lost colony. He +found no answer to that riddle, which remains to our own day +an intriguing mystery; indeed, he seems not to have found the +time for any real investigation of the problem. As a result, he +brought back only rumors of four survivors living on the Chowan +River. The instruction gains its chief interest from the suggestion +it conveys of a renewed interest on the part of the adventurers<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> +in the area previously explored by Raleigh's men. Perhaps the +adventurers anticipated the further disappointments resulting +from the additional exploration of the James, and so thought +again of the Roanoke River, which Captain Ralph Lane had +partly explored in 1585 and 1586 with the hope that it might +lead to China. Perhaps they had an eye mainly for the publicity +that could be had for any news of Raleigh's colonists. Whatever +the fact, a renewed interest in the Carolina region would find +very concrete expression in a new charter the adventurers secured +shortly after Newport's return to England in January 1609.</p> + +<p>The actual bounds of the Jamestown colony under the first +Virginia charter ran 100 miles along the coast and 100 miles +inland from the coast. This, at any rate, was the area to which +title was promised by the charter. The second charter gave title +to an area reaching 200 miles both northward and southward +along the coast from Point Comfort, at the mouth of the James, +and "up into the Land throughout from Sea to Sea, West and +Northwest." In these greatly enlarged bounds one immediately +detects three major interests: (1) a desire to control the entire +extent of any passage that might be found to the South Seas, (2) +the hope that something might be accomplished in Carolina, and +(3) the need for a title to the whole of the Chesapeake, whose +exploration had been completed by Captain John Smith in the +preceding summer. In this exploration Captain Smith had pointed +the way for the colony's later expansion, but at the moment the +adventurers seem to have viewed the Chesapeake as having +value chiefly for its fish and trade and for further exploration. +Dissatisfied with Jamestown, as a place that was both unhealthy +and exposed to attack from the sea, they advised Sir Thomas +Gates, on the eve of his departure for Virginia in the spring of +1609 as the newly appointed lieutenant governor of the colony, +to move his principal city above the falls on the James, where he +would enjoy every advantage in an attack by a European foe, or +better still, that he locate it on the Chowan River in modern<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> +North Carolina, "foure dayes Journey from your forte Southewards." +In an earlier passage of his instructions, he had already +been advised that he should be guided by the general principle +of seeking the sun, "which is under God the first cause both of +health and Riches."</p> + +<p>Those who bother to read Gates' instructions will notice the +emphasis they place on the choice of a <i>principal</i> seat. There +were to be other towns, and Jamestown would be kept as the +chief port of entry, though not as the site of the main magazine +and storehouse. All told, perhaps three "habitations" would be +enough for the settlers now to be transported. Their number +was nothing less than 600 persons, men, women, and children—more +than all the men who had been sent to Virginia in the +preceding two years. If the reported statement of Lord Chancellor +Egerton be accepted, the adventurers after two years of exploratory +effort had come to feel that "the proper thing is to fortify +ourselves all at once, because when they will open their eyes in +Spain they will not be able to help it, and even tho' they may +hear it, they are just now so poor that they will have no means +to prevent us from carrying out our plan." It was indeed a poor +year for Spain, which in 1609 had to agree to a truce in the +long struggle with the Dutch that ultimately brought legal recognition +of the independence of Holland. This was the year +which also witnessed the exploration by Henry Hudson of the +river that has ever since borne his name, a river on which the +Dutch would soon lay the foundations of a shortlived North +American empire. Only the year before had the French built +their fort at Quebec. And now the English were determined to +fortify Virginia "all at once." A once proud monopoly of the +new world, and of its opportunities, was to be finally broken.</p> + +<p>The London to which Newport returned late in January, 1609, +was already astir with preparations for an adventure such as +England had never seen before. He sat in consultation with Sir +Thomas Smith, as did Richard Hakluyt, and Thomas Hariot,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> +who as a young man just out of Oxford had gone to Roanoke +Island for Raleigh in 1585, and whose <i>True Report of Virginia</i>, +published in 1588, still remained a chief dependence of the +London adventurers. Hakluyt was preparing for publication a +translation of the Gentleman of Elva's account of De Soto's expedition +through the southeastern part of the later United +States, an account published in April as <i>Virginia Richly Valued</i>. +To this he added in June a translation from Marc Lescarbot's +<i>Histoire de la Nouvelle-France</i> for the purpose of demonstrating +that Virginia "must be far better by reason it stands more southerly +nearer to the sun." Broadsides scattered about London announced +the special opportunities awaiting those who would +join in the new venture, while clergymen in their pulpits lent +the aid of divine sanction, as in Robert Gray's <i>Good Speed to +Virginia</i>. The broad outlines of the new plan had been presented +to the public in February by Alderman Robert Johnson in a tract +entitled <i>Nova Britannia: Offering Most Excellent Fruites by +Planting in Virginia</i>. By the end of that month the adventurers +had also completed negotiations for the granting of the second +charter, and had opened their books for subscription to a new +joint-stock fund.</p> + +<p>The device of the joint-stock fund had been increasingly relied +upon by English adventurers as they sought the means for financing +more distant and more expensive ventures. It had the advantage +of pooling the resources of more than one individual, and +of distributing the risk, and the Virginia adventure had depended +upon joint-stock methods of finance from the beginning. It is +impossible to speak with exactness regarding the financial arrangements +of the first years. A provision in the first instructions +directing the settlers to live, work, and trade together in a common +stock through a period of five years suggests the possibility +of a five-year terminable stock, i.e., a fund that would be invested +and reinvested through a term of five years before it was divided, +together with the earnings thereon. But other evidence indicates<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> +that there may have been a separate stock for each of Newport's +voyages, as was the case with each of the early voyages of the +East India Company to the Orient. The so-called joint-stock +company of that day rarely had a permanent joint-stock of the +sort identified with the modern corporation. Instead, it functioned +as a governing body representing all of the merchants +engaged in a particular trade, who traded individually or through +a variety of joint-stocks invested under the general regulation of +the company. And such was the character of the Virginia Company.</p> + +<p>Whatever may have been the specific terms offered earlier +investors, those offered in 1609 are clear enough. It was proposed +that men subscribe at the rate of £12 10s. per share to a common +stock that would be invested and reinvested over the term of +the next seven years. Although special good fortune might justify +a dividend of some part of the earnings at an earlier date, there +would be no final dividend, which at that time meant a division +of capital as well as the earnings thereof, until 1616. The dividend +promised then would include a grant of land in Virginia +as well as a return of the capital with profit. How much land +depended, like the profit, on the degree of success that had +attended the venture meantime.</p> + +<p>One of the inducements for subscription was a promise that +all adventurers would have a voice in determining the policies of +the company. Again, it is impossible to say just what had been +the organization through which the adventurers had previously +functioned. They probably followed custom by meeting in +assemblies or courts (both terms were common) when some +joint decision was needed, and no doubt they relied on the +designation of such committees and officers as were necessary +for the execution of decisions reached in their assembly. It may +be that the adventurers sitting on the Virginia Council functioned +also in the character of an executive committee for their fellows. +In view of the well known tendency for institutions to evolve out<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> +of earlier practices, with such adjustments as experience may +dictate, there is reason for believing that important features of +the organization outlined in the second charter were older than +the charter itself. But the charter of 1609 offers the first unmistakable +evidence as to the organization upon which the adventurers +depended.</p> + +<p>They were there incorporated by the name of "The Treasurer +and Company of Adventurers and Planters of the City of London, +for the first Colony in Virginia." Sir Thomas Smith was +designated treasurer with power to warn and summon the +members of the council and of the company "to their courts and +meetings." The adventurers, "or the major part of them which +shall be present and assembled for that purpose" were empowered +to make grants of land according to "the proportion of +the adventurer, as to the special service, hazard, exploit, or merit +of any person so to be recompenced, advanced, or rewarded." +They were to meet also as occasion required for the election of +members of the council, which was charged with the management +of the enterprise on the ground that it was not convenient +"that all the adventurers shall be so often drawn to meet and +assemble." The members of the council were listed by name, +more than fifty of them, beginning with Henry, Earl of Southampton, +and including the Lord Mayor of London, the Lord +Bishop of Bath and Wells, Thomas, Lord De la Warr, Sir +William Wade, Sir Oliver Cromwell, Sir Francis Bacon, Sir +Maurice Berkeley, Sir Thomas Gates, Sir Walter Cope, Sir +Edwin Sandys, Sir Thomas Roe, Sir Dudley Digges, John Eldred, +and John Wolstenholme. These and their colleagues of the +council, which included of course Sir Thomas Smith, were the +great men of the company, not necessarily the heaviest investors +but those whose experience, or social and political position, +argued that they should be on the managing board. In short, the +subscribers had a basic right to choose the directors of the business<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> +and to determine the division of its rewards, but the great men +would run it.</p> + +<p>For the assurance of the adventurers, each of them was listed +by name in the charter—all told, some 650 of them. In addition +to the individuals there named, the charter listed some fifty +London companies which had subscribed in their corporate capacity +in response to the appeals of London's clergymen and the +Lord Mayor. To list all these companies would be tedious, but +some of them should be named, if only for the picture they give +of London itself. Here were "the Company of Mercers, the Company +of Grocers, the Company of Drapers, the Company of +Fishmongers, the Company of Goldsmiths, the Company of +Skinners, the Company of Merchant-Taylors, the Company of +Haberdashers, the Company of Salters, the Company of Ironmongers, +the Company of Vintners, the Company of Clothworkers, +the Company of Dyers, the Company of Brewers, the Company +of Leathersellers, the Company of Pewterers, the Company +of Cutlers," and others, including the companies to which belonged +the city's cordwainers, barber-surgeons, masons, plumbers, +innholders, cooks, coopers, bricklayers, fletchers, blacksmiths, +joiners, weavers, plasterers, stationers, upholsterers, musicians, +turners, and glaziers. This was a national effort, but in a special +way it was London's effort to serve the nation in response to a +call from its leaders.</p> + +<p>There is reason to believe that the terms of the charter had +been agreed upon by the end of February, but the document remained +unsealed until May, when all who had subscribed could +be listed. By that date, too, some 600 subjects of the king had +agreed to make the adventure in person to Virginia. Some of +them were smart enough to discount the propaganda that had +persuaded them, and so they settled for the wages offered by +the company. But others agreed to go on adventure, i.e. to accept +the adventurers' offer that their personal adventure to Virginia<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> +would be counted as one share, at the minimum, in the +common joint-stock. This was to say that they would be entitled +to whatever rewards in 1616 might belong to any subscriber in +England for £12 10s.; and if the personal adventure of the settler +in Virginia was considered to be worth more, as in the case of a +surgeon or one of the high officers of the colony, then might the +rights of an adventurer in Virginia run as high as any belonging +to the great adventurers in England. The colonists who came to +America in 1609 were thus encouraged to view themselves as +being in no way inferior to those who sent them.</p> + +<p>Sir George Somers had been selected as admiral of the great +fleet which dropped down the Thames from London on May 15 +and sailed from Plymouth on the second of June with a full +complement of nine vessels. Somers rode aboard the <i>Sea Adventure</i>, +whose master was Newport and whose passengers included +Sir Thomas Gates and William Strachey, the newly appointed +secretary of the colony. Ahead of them had gone Captain +Samuel Argall, to find a new route to Virginia running north +of the Spanish West Indies, and to make a test of the Chesapeake +fisheries. Somers guided his ships along a route that had long +been familiar to him, the route discovered by Columbus for Spain +and the route that Newport and other English adventurers had +consistently followed to the more southern parts of Virginia, but +he tried to stay above the channels regularly followed by the +ships of Spain. Such, at any rate, were his instructions, and for +seven weeks out of Plymouth all went well. But then a storm +struck, no doubt an early hurricane of the sort so familiar to residents +of the east coast today, a storm which separated the <i>Sea +Adventure</i> from the other vessels and carried it to destruction +off the coast of Bermuda. Providence brought crew and passengers, +all 150 of them, safely ashore to begin an idyll that would +be celebrated in Shakespeare's <i>Tempest</i> and would be turned to +advantage by the adventurers in their later propaganda. In Bermuda +they found food in plenty—fish, fowl, and hogs that ran<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> +wild—and a most healthful climate. But for almost a year Virginia +would struggle without the leadership of Somers, Newport, +or Gates, and without the sure authority of instructions and commissions +they had carried aboard the <i>Sea Adventure</i>.</p> + +<p>After ten months the shipwrecked colonists had fashioned from +the cedars of Bermuda, which reminded them of the cedars of +Lebanon, two small vessels named the <i>Patience</i> and the <i>Deliverance</i>. +The ships were stoutly enough built to carry the full company +to Virginia in May 1610, but at Jamestown they found +only want and confusion. The other vessels in Somers' fleet had +straggled into the bay the preceding summer with their storm-tossed +passengers, but the following winter had been a nightmare. +This was the winter that was destined long to be remembered +as the starving time, the time when one man was reported even +to have eaten his wife. Only a handful of the settlers, new and +old, had survived, and Somers and Gates saw no choice but to +abandon the colony. It was saved by the providential arrival early +in June of Lord De la Warr, who brought with him 150 new +colonists and a commission as the colony's governor. Somers went +back to Bermuda in the hope of laying in a stock of pork for +Virginia, but there he died and his seamen ran for England.</p> + +<p>The disturbing news of these tragic events reached London +piecemeal. First came the news in the fall of 1609 that the <i>Sea +Adventure</i>, with Somers, Gates, Newport, and Strachey, had +been lost. This was a severe blow to the leaders of the company, +who had planned to send De la Warr out with perhaps as many +colonists as Somers had carried. Already the enthusiasm engendered +by the promotional campaign of the preceding spring had +begun to decline, as some men took second thought. Subscriptions +at that time had been enlisted on an understanding that +they might be paid in installments, and the adventurers now often +found it difficult to collect what had been promised. During the +winter they published an extraordinarily frank promotional piece, +<i>A True and Sincere Declaration of the Purpose and Ends of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> +Plantation Begun in Virginia</i>. In this pamphlet, they did the best +they could to stir again the high hopes of the preceding spring, +but they had to admit what all London knew, that the news was +not encouraging. And so they appealed to the honor of the subscribers, +that they remember those in Virginia who had staked +their lives on the promises made by other men. It must be said +that the adventurers did very well indeed, in the circumstances, +to get De la Warr away in the spring with three vessels and 150 +recruits for the colony.</p> + +<p>Had he been able to send back a favorable report on the situation +in Virginia, the adventurers probably would have found their +position not too difficult. Instead, Sir Thomas Gates returned +to London in September 1610 with a report that caused the adventurers +to consider seriously whether the whole project should +not be abandoned. Gates himself was subsequently credited with +having clinched the decision in favor of continuance by arguing +that sugar, wine, silk, iron, sturgeon, furs, timber, rice, aniseed, +and other valuable commodities could be produced in Virginia, +given the necessary time and support. The adventurers saw also +the promotional possibilities of Somers' shipwreck at Bermuda, +or rather, the remarkable experience which had followed it. Was +this not an encouraging sign of God's providential care? Of His +willingness to support the English in Virginia? This was a question +London was invited to contemplate again and again during +the months that followed.</p> + +<p>No doubt, the courage of a few key leaders, among whom Sir +Thomas Smith was now quite definitely the chief, had a large +part in the decision to continue. Certainly, it took courage to +launch the new campaign for funds to which the adventurers +committed themselves in the fall of 1610. The estimated need +ran to £30,000. All former subscribers were urged to subscribe +another £37 10s. on agreement that the subscription would be +paid in at the rate of £12 10s. per year over the next three years. +Others were invited to subscribe on the same terms. The Lord<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> +Mayor appealed once more to the London companies, and plans +were made for inviting the other towns of England to contribute. +In November the Company published <i>A True Declaration of the +Estate of the Colonie in Virginia</i> for the purpose of refuting +"scandalous reports" tending to discourage subscriptions. Richard +Rich presented, probably at the suggestion of the adventurers, +his <i>Newes from Virginia, the Lost Flocke Triumphant</i>, a poem +celebrating the shipwreck of the <i>Sea Adventure</i> and the providential +survival of its passengers. And to this Silvanus Jourdan added +his <i>Discovery of the Barmudas</i>, a pamphlet recounting the experience +of Somers and his colleagues in the islands. It was written, +declared the author, "for the love of my country; and ... +the good of the plantation in Virginia."</p> + +<p>It is not so remarkable that the adventurers failed to achieve +their goal of £30,000 as that they actually secured the subscription +of approximately £18,000 by the spring of 1611. The records +of the company are so incomplete for any time prior to 1619, +when the only surviving court minutes have their beginning, +that it is impossible to give the comparative figures one would +like to have. But there is evidence suggesting that the fund raised +in 1609 may not have been larger than £10,000. If this be true, +the success of this second campaign for funds becomes all the +more remarkable. One can hardly explain it in terms of the ordinary +calculations of a business community. Perhaps the adventurers +believed their own propaganda, were themselves responsive +to the kind of patriotic appeal that was made in the spring of +1610, when they were trying to get Lord De la Warr's expedition +ready. "The eyes of all Europe," said the adventurers, "are looking +upon our endeavours to spread the Gospell among the heathen +people of Virginia, to plant an English nation there, and +to settle a trade in those parts, which may be peculiar to our nation, +to the end we may thereby be secured from being eaten out +of all profits of trade by our more industrious neighbors."</p> + +<p>With the new funds, the adventurers equipped two expeditions<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> +which sailed for Virginia in the spring of 1611. The first to leave +carried 300 men, in three ships, under the command of Sir Thomas +Dale, another veteran of the Netherlands fighting who had +been commissioned as marshal of the colony. It was impossible +not to be impressed by the evidence that a lack of discipline had +contributed to the colony's woes, and Dale, who sailed in March, +undoubtedly was intended to draw upon his experience as a soldier +for the better discipline of the colonists. Sir Thomas Gates, +who followed Dale out in May, had a broader task. He would +continue to serve as the lieutenant governor under Lord De la +Warr, and, like Dale, he carried 300 passengers. But his six ships +also carried much more. One of the basic problems of original +colonization, though it has often been lost sight of, was to stock +the colony with cattle, hogs, poultry, etc. Later colonists, in Maryland +or Carolina, would buy these essentials in Virginia, but +the Virginia colonists had no established neighbor of their own +nation on which to rely, and during the starving time they had +literally eaten themselves out of stock. Nothing could better illustrate +the fact that the Virginia adventurers in 1611 had to begin +all over again than the 100 cattle, the 200 swine, and the +poultry in unspecified numbers Gates had aboard his ships as they +set their course westward. And if any one wishes to estimate the +value of a cow that had been transported across the Atlantic, let +him notice the penalty imposed by Dale's laws, so called, for +killing one.</p> + +<p>As Gates dropped down the Thames in May, the adventurers +must have relaxed with the satisfaction that comes from real +achievement. Twice now, within the span of two years, they had +raised a great fund with which they sent each time nine vessels +and 600 colonists to Virginia. Indeed, they had done even more. +Counting Argall's ship, which sailed ahead of Somers in the +spring of 1609, and the three vessels going over with De la Warr +in 1610, the company had dispatched to Virginia no less than +22 vessels and close to 1,400 colonists in a two year period. But<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> +Gates had hardly cleared the coasts of England before Lord De la +Warr, of all persons, turned up in London, to the great consternation +of his fellow adventurers.</p> + +<p>A general assembly of the adventurers on June 25 listened to +his explanation, which was promptly published by order of the +council. The story briefly was this. Ever since he had reached +Virginia the preceding June he had suffered a succession of violent +sicknesses—fevers, the flux, gout, and finally scurvy, "till I +was upon the point to leave the world." In preference to this he +left Virginia in a vessel commanded by Argall, and in the hope +that he might recover his health with the aid of hot baths in the +West Indies. Contrary winds had forced him to alter his course +to the Azores, where oranges and lemons had cured him of the +scurvy. He then resolved to return to his post, but was persuaded +to seek first a full recovery of health "in the naturall ayre of my +countrey." He deplored the ill effects on the Virginia project of +his return home, but argued that it would have been far worse +for Virginia had he remained there only to die.</p> + +<p>A nice advertisement this for the healthfulness of Virginia's +climate. One might wonder at the council's decision to publish +the report were it not for the obvious fact that the alternative +would have been worse still. Some explanation had to be given +the public, for the adventurers had counted heavily on the presence +of Lord De la Warr in Virginia to offset the discouragement +of earlier reports from Jamestown, as their promotional literature +amply demonstrates. He was a nobleman, the head of a great +family, and a member of His Majesty's Council for Virginia. +"Now know yee," reads the commission he had received in February +1610, "that we his Majesties said Councell upon good advise +and deliberation and upon notice had of the wisedome, valour, +circumspection, and of the virtue and especiall sufficiencie +of the Right Honourable Sir Thomas West, Knight Lord la Warr +to be in principall place of authoritie and government in the said +collonie, and finding in him the said Lord la Warr propensness<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> +and willingness to further and advance the good of the said +plantation, by virtue of the said authoritie unto us given by +the said letters pattents have nominated, made, ordained and +apointed ... the said Sir Thomas West, Knight Lord la Warr +to be principall Governor, Commander and Captain Generall +both by land and sea over the said colonie and all other collonies +planted or to be planted in Virginia or within the limits specified +in his Majesties said letters pattents and over all persons, Admiralls +Vice-Admirals and other officers and commanders whether +by sea or land of what qualitie soever for and during the term +of his natural life, and do hereby ordaine and declare that he +the said Lord la Warr during his life shall be stiled and called +by the name and title of Lord Governor and Captain General +of Virginia." And now, after little more than a year and before +the subscribers to the new joint-stock fund had paid in their second +installment, the Lord Governor and Captain General of +Virginia was back in London to make a public confession that +in Virginia he had nearly died of the ague, flux, and scurvy. +From time to time thereafter the company publicly suggested +that the Lord Governor might soon return to his post, but he did +not undertake to do so until 1618 and then he died on the way.</p> + +<p>Once more the leaders of the company showed determination. +Delinquent subscribers were carried to court in a series of chancery +actions extending into 1614. How much was collected in +this way cannot be said, but the complaints entered in chancery +have provided most helpful clues to an understanding of the +company's financial history. It seems unlikely that anything collected +as a result of these actions served to do more than reduce +an indebtedness incurred by the company in 1611 on the promise +of its subscribers. One thing is certain: there was no chance of +floating another subscription. By 1612 the adventurers were complaining +that only the name of God was more frequently profaned +in the streets and market places of London than was the name of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> +Virginia. After that year the Virginia lottery, its winning tickets +entitling the holder to an exchange for shares in the Virginia +joint-stock, became the company's chief dependence. Now and +again there would also be found some person who wanted to go +to Virginia at his own cost, and was willing to pay the cost in +return for shares of stock guaranteeing an ultimate title to land +in the colony. These transactions, at a time when Virginia's name +had lost its magic, were perhaps too few to suggest to any one of +the adventurers that here was the future, not only of the company, +but of English colonization in North America. Although +the Virginia Company continued to be active for thirteen years +after 1611, the last of its great joint-stock funds was the one to +which men made their subscriptions just before Lord De la Warr +came home.</p> + +<p>To this statement perhaps a qualification should be added. Virginia +at first had been to Englishmen America itself, and so it +had remained in a very real sense, despite an obvious tendency +since 1609 for the adventurers to pin their hopes increasingly +on what might be found within the reach of Jamestown. The +continuance of the Virginia adventure became thus not simply +a matter of keeping the Jamestown colony alive. What mattered +was that somewhere in North America the great task to which +the company had committed itself should go forward. And where +better, after 1611, could this be tried than in the Bermudas? +Divine providence had pointed the way, so clearly that it might +even be possible to raise the needed funds in London. Moreover, +Sir George Somers, by being shipwrecked there and subsequently +by dying there, had provided a name for the islands that was +both English and suggestive of a climate so healthful that even +Lord De la Warr might prosper there. Accordingly, the leading +members of the Virginia Company in 1612 undertook the colonization +of the Somers Islands, a designation often written as the +Summer Islands, and for that purpose they subscribed to a new<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> +joint-stock fund. The Bermuda joint-stock, however, seems to +have been a much more modest fund than that subscribed either +in 1609 or 1611.</p> + +<p>There was nothing unusual in thus creating within the framework +of the Virginia Company a special stock for investment +under the direction of its own officers and committees in the +colonization of Bermuda. In the great companies of London it +was customary that each stock should be separately administered. +The only technical difficulty lay in the fact that Bermuda was +located outside the geographical limits granted the Virginia adventurers. +Under the second of their charters, rights at sea (on +both seas) had extended out from the coasts for only 100 miles, +which for the purposes of 1612 was not far enough. The adventurers, +therefore, sought and secured a third charter granting +them rights along the coast of Virginia, within the limits of 41° +and 30° of northerly latitude, to a distance of 300 leagues, in +order to include "divers Islands lying desolate and uninhabited, +some of which are already made known and discovered by the +industry, travel, and expences of the said Company, ... all and +every of which it may import the said Colony [of Virginia] both +in safety and policy of trade to populate and plant."</p> + +<p>This extension of bounds undoubtedly represents the chief +reason for seeking the third Virginia charter, but the leaders of +the company, while they had the opportunity, also included other +significant provisions. Especially significant was a decision to enlarge +the authority belonging to the general assembly of the adventurers. +To its former prerogatives, which had been chiefly +to elect members of the council and to determine the apportionment +of lands, the third charter added three fundamental rights: +to elect all officers of either company or colony, to admit new +members to the fellowship of the company, and to draft laws +and ordinances for the welfare of the plantation. Heretofore, +the council had been the true governing body, though subject to +a right of election and displacement by the adventurers in general<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> +assembly. Now the general court of the adventurers was to +govern, with the council as its executive agency. Since voting +in the Virginia courts, as in those of other companies at the time, +was by head rather than by share, this provision of the charter +can be interpreted only as an attempt by the great men of the +company to encourage a renewed interest on the part of the general +body of adventurers by enlarging their influence on the conduct +of the company's affairs. It was the third charter which also +authorized the establishment of the Virginia lottery—the first of +many attempts in American history to exploit the gambler's instinct +for the support of a worthy cause. In the charter the king +also gave assurance that his courts would view favorably the company's +suits against delinquent subscribers.</p> + +<hr style="width: 33%;" /> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 426px;"> +<img src="images/image001.jpg" width="426" height="500" alt="Merchants of Virginia. + +The Company of Merchants, called Merchants of Virginia, +Bermudas, or Summer-Ilands, for (as I heare) all these additions +are given them. I know not the time of their incorporating +neither by whom their Armes, Supporters, and Crest were granted, +and therefore am compelled to leaue them abruptly. + +From John Stow, Survey of London, 1632 + +Photo by Virginia State Library." title="Merchants of Virginia." /> +<span class="caption"> +The Company of Merchants, called Merchants of Virginia, +Bermudas, or Summer-Ilands, for (as I heare) all these additions +are given them. I know not the time of their incorporating +neither by whom their Armes, Supporters, and Crest were granted, +and therefore am compelled to leaue them abruptly.<br /><br /> + +<small>From John Stow, Survey of London, 1632</small><br /> + +<small>Photo by Virginia State Library.</small></span> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 33%;" /> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"> +<img src="images/image002.png" width="600" height="379" alt="Virginia Seal + +Courtesy Mrs. L. T. Jester and Mrs. P. W. Hiden" title="Virginia Seal" /> +<span class="caption">Virginia Seal<br /><br /> + +<small>Courtesy Mrs. L. T. Jester and Mrs. P. W. Hiden</small></span> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 33%;" /> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"> +<a href="images/image033.png"> +<img src="images/image003.png" width="600" height="248" alt="A Declaration for the certaine time of dravving the great standing Lottery + +Heading for the Broadside issued by The Virginia Company, London, 1615 + +Photo by Virginia State Library. From photograph in Virginia Historical Society." title="Heading for the Broadside issued by The Virginia Company, London, 1615" /></a> +<span class="caption"> +Heading for the Broadside issued by The Virginia Company, London, 1615<br /> +<small>[Click image for larger view]</small><br /> + +<small>Photo by Virginia State Library. From photograph in Virginia Historical Society.</small></span> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 33%;" /> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"> +<img src="images/image004.jpg" width="600" height="350" alt="Royal Exchange, London. As it was in the time of the Virginia Company. + +Photo by New York Public Library" title="Royal Exchange, London. As it was in the time of the Virginia Company." /> +<span class="caption">Royal Exchange, London. As it was in the time of the Virginia Company.<br /><br /> + +<small>Photo by New York Public Library.</small></span> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 33%;" /> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 440px;"> +<img src="images/image005.jpg" width="440" height="600" alt="Captain John Smith + +From The London Company of Virginia (New York and London, 1908) + +Photo by Virginia State Library." title="Captain John Smith" /> +<span class="caption">Captain John Smith<br /><br /> + +<small>From The London Company of Virginia (New York and London, 1908)</small><br /> + +<small>Photo by Virginia State Library.</small></span> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 33%;" /> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 471px;"> +<img src="images/image006.jpg" width="471" height="600" alt="Thomas West, Third Lord de la Warr + +From Alexander W. Weddell, Virginia Historical Portraiture + +Photo by Virginia State Library." title="Thomas West, Third Lord de la Warr" /> +<span class="caption">Thomas West, Third Lord de la Warr<br /><br /> + +<small>From Alexander W. Weddell, Virginia Historical Portraiture</small><br /> + +<small>Photo by Virginia State Library.</small></span> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 33%;" /> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 556px;"> +<img src="images/image007.jpg" width="556" height="600" alt="Sir Thomas Smith (or Smythe) + +"The Right Worshipful Sir Thomas Smith, of London, Knight, one of his Maiesties Councell +for Virginia, and Treasurer for the Colonie, and Gouernour of the Companies of +the Moscovia and East India Merchants" + +From the Original Portrait by an Unknown Artist, now in the possession +of The Skinners' Company, London. + +From Alexander W. Weddell, Virginia Historical Portraiture + +Photo by Virginia State Library." title="Sir Thomas Smith (or Smythe)" /> +<span class="caption">Sir Thomas Smith (or Smythe)<br /><br /> + +"The Right Worshipful Sir Thomas Smith, of London, Knight, one of his Maiesties Councell +for Virginia, and Treasurer for the Colonie, and Gouernour of the Companies of +the Moscovia and East India Merchants"<br /> + +<small>From the Original Portrait by an Unknown Artist, now in the possession +of The Skinners' Company, London.</small><br /><br /> + +<small>From Alexander W. Weddell, Virginia Historical Portraiture</small><br /> + +<small>Photo by Virginia State Library.</small></span> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 33%;" /> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 387px;"> +<img src="images/image008.jpg" width="387" height="600" alt="Henry Wriothesley + +(Third Earl of Southampton) + +From the painting by Michiel Jansz van Miereveldt + +From The London Company of Virginia (New York and London, 1908) + +Photo by Virginia State Library." title="Henry Wriothesley" /> +<span class="caption">Henry Wriothesley<br /> + +(Third Earl of Southampton)<br /> + +From the painting by Michiel Jansz van Miereveldt<br /><br /> + +<small>From The London Company of Virginia (New York and London, 1908)</small><br /> + +<small>Photo by Virginia State Library.</small></span> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 33%;" /> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 435px;"> +<img src="images/image009.jpg" width="435" height="550" alt="Sir Edwin Sandys + +From the Original Portrait by an Unknown Artist, now in the possession +of Sir Edmund Arthur Lechmere, Bart, Bramham Gardens, +London, England + +From Alexander W. Weddell, Virginia Historical Portraiture + +Photo by Virginia State Library." title="Sir Edwin Sandys" /> +<span class="caption">Sir Edwin Sandys<br /><br /> + +<small>From the Original Portrait by an Unknown Artist, now in the possession +of Sir Edmund Arthur Lechmere, Bart, Bramham Gardens, +London, England</small><br /><br /> + +<small>From Alexander W. Weddell, Virginia Historical Portraiture</small><br /> + +<small>Photo by Virginia State Library.</small></span> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 33%;" /> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 331px;"> +<img src="images/image010.jpg" width="331" height="600" alt="Sir Thomas Dale + +Portrait by an unknown artist of the Anglo-Flemish +School painted in oils early in the 17th Century. The +original portrait is preserved in the Virginia Museum +of Fine Arts, Richmond, Virginia + +Photo by Virginia State Library." title="Sir Thomas Dale" /> +<span class="caption">Sir Thomas Dale<br /><br /> + +Portrait by an unknown artist of the Anglo-Flemish +School painted in oils early in the 17th Century. The +original portrait is preserved in the Virginia Museum +of Fine Arts, Richmond, Virginia<br /><br /> + +<small>Photo by Virginia State Library.</small></span> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 33%;" /> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 467px;"> +<img src="images/image011.jpg" width="467" height="600" alt="HENRY STUART + +Prince of Wales + +From Alexander Brown, The Genesis of the United States + +Photo by Virginia State Library." title="HENRY STUART" /> +<span class="caption">HENRY STUART<br /> + +Prince of Wales<br /><br /> + +<small>From Alexander Brown, The Genesis of the United States</small><br /> + +<small>Photo by Virginia State Library.</small></span> +</div> +<hr style="width: 33%;" /> + +<p>The new charter having received the final seal in March +1612, a new colony was established in Bermuda in the following +July. Its early history has a double significance for the later history +of Virginia. In the first place, the Bermuda colony emphasizes +the growing interest of the adventurers in what might +be produced in America as against what might be found by way +of America. The occupation of the Bermuda Islands might almost +be described as a retreat from the earlier search for a passage to +China. The move could be viewed also as a reassertion of an old +interest in plundering the Spaniard, for the Bermudas lay +athwart the homeward route of Spain's treasure fleets. But in +any case the primary interest was in America and its own peculiar +opportunities, and the attention given by the early settlers +in Bermuda to experiments with tobacco, sugar, wine, ginger, +and other such commodities suggests that their purpose was not +so much to plunder the Spaniard as rather to emulate his success +as a planter in the West Indies. Secondly, the adventurers showed +a marked inclination to encourage each adventurer to meet his +own costs. Provision was made for an early survey and division +of the land, with the result that men put their money chiefly +into the development of their own estates. A final survey was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> +not completed until 1617, but at that date some of the Bermuda +adventurers at least had known who their tenants were and +approximately where their land would lie for three full years. +Whether for these or for other reasons, Bermuda grew while +Virginia languished. By 1616 over 600 colonists had reached the +Somers Islands, where most of them survived. In contrast, Virginia +had that year 350 people.</p> + +<p>The Bermuda subscribers had been separately incorporated as +the Somers Island Company with its own royal charter in 1615. +Indeed, ever since 1612, when the Bermuda adventurers helped +to relieve the financial embarrassment of the Virginia Company +by paying £2,000 for its newly acquired title to Bermuda, the +Somers Island adventurers seem to have functioned increasingly +as a separate corporation. But the membership of the two companies +was much the same. It had been the more active and +interested of the Virginia adventurers who subscribed to the +Bermuda joint-stock in 1612, and for twelve years thereafter the +active membership of the Virginia Company came so close to +duplicating the membership of the Bermuda Company that the +two bodies often met virtually as one. Until 1619 Sir Thomas +Smith served as governor of both companies.</p> + +<p>The growing interest of the London adventurers after 1612 +in the colonization of Bermuda did not mean that Virginia was +wholly neglected. Funds secured from the lottery and from suits +against delinquent subscribers were enough to keep the project +alive. In 1612 the adventurers even sent out a stock of silkworms +for a test of silk production. Needless to say, returning ships +brought back no silk; nor did they bring sugar or wine. Lumber, +including the valuable black walnut, seems to have provided the +chief cargo for return voyages. A shipment of tobacco, Virginia's +first, in 1614 gave some ground for arguing that the agricultural +experimentation to which the colonists had been committed for +several years now would pay off eventually. So argued Sir Thomas +Gates on his return home this same year after three years of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> +service in the colony, but the fact that he had come back from +Virginia apparently made more of an impression than did his +argument. Others also came home, their contracted term of +service ended, and rarely did they bring any news from Virginia +which added good to its name. Instead, they talked of the severe +discipline under which they had been forced to live, and made +sport of the too hopeful propaganda which had first persuaded +them to become adventurers in Virginia. The discipline, chiefly +associated with Dale's office as marshal, made his loyal decision +to remain in the colony for another two years as lieutenant governor +a further contribution to the ill repute of Virginia's name.</p> + +<p>Dale finally came home in 1616, the year in which the dividend +on the 1609 joint-stock fell due. The contrast between +the high hopes of 1609 and the reality of 1616 was all too painfully +apparent. Six hundred men, women, and children had +sailed for Virginia in the first of these years under a plan to live +and work together for a seven year period. They would share, +each according to his particular skill or aptitude, in the common +task of planting a colony, and they would live out of a common +store. By 1616, towns were to have been built, churches and +houses raised, and an increasing acreage brought under cultivation. +A variety of profitable crops would have been tested, and +markets established for them. The original stock of cattle would +have increased through care until there were enough for all. At +the same time, the trade with the Indians would have been put +on a profitable basis, as would have mining operations and perhaps +even a trade to Cathay. Such was the general prospect to +which so many adventurers had responded in 1609. To the +modern student all this seems so unrealistic as to be almost unbelievable, +but unless one grasps the reality of the original dream +he cannot hope to comprehend the extent of a later disillusionment.</p> + +<p>There were no funds to be divided in 1616, but the company +did declare a dividend of land—not the 500 acres per share that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> +Alderman Johnson had suggested as a possibility in 1609 but +the more modest total of 50 acres. This 50 acres, however, was +designated as a first dividend. Others would follow, for an ultimate +total of perhaps 200 acres per share, as the area in the +colony's "actual possession" was enlarged. Plans were announced +for dispatching a new governor to Virginia with instructions for +completing the necessary surveys, and the adventurers were urged +to seize the opportunity to gain a desirable priority in the location +of their shares by contributing £12 10s. toward meeting the necessary +costs. In return for this contribution, the adventurer would +be entitled to an additional 50 acres. The land now to be divided +was that lying along the James River, and only those adventurers +who submitted to the additional levy would be entitled to share +in the division, except apparently for adventurers then living in +the colony. These were the old planters, as they came to be +called, whose rights paralleled those of the old adventurers in +England. It is evident that the adventurers were in no position +to claim a monopoly as the just reward of their past sacrifices, +for they also offered an immediate dividend, on terms no different +from those governing the rights of the old adventurers, to any +new adventurer who wished to join by paying £12 10s. per +share. Such was the estate to which the Virginia Company had +been reduced after ten years of effort.</p> + +<p>To employ a term that was destined to become common at a +later period of American history, the Virginia Company had +become nothing more than a land company. Its one asset was the +land that had been bought with the sacrifices of the first ten +years, and after 1616 all of its plans depended upon the hope +that it might use its power to give title to that land as an inducement +for investment in the colony. In its advertisement in 1616 +adventurers, both old and new, were invited to take up shares +for occupancy by themselves or for development by tenants sent +for the purpose. Perhaps because the first response to this appeal +was disappointing, the company provided an additional inducement<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> +in 1617 by promising 50 acres per head for every person +sent to the colony, the payment being due to the one who bore +the cost. This was the Virginia headright, as it came to be called, +which was destined to remain the chief feature of the colony's +land policy through many years after the demise of the company +itself. Intended at first to encourage the adventurers in England +to send the labor that was necessary for the development of the +land, it served thereafter as a land subsidy of the immigration on +which the colony lived and grew.</p> + +<p>By 1618 the fortunes of Virginia were taking a turn for the +better. The adventurers, or some of them at least, found encouragement +in continued shipments of tobacco. These shipments were +small and the quality of the tobacco could not be compared with +the Spanish leaf of West Indian production which was finding +a growing market in London despite King James's known disapproval +of the habit on which the market grew. But the quality +of Virginia tobacco, for which Sir Thomas Smith seems to have +found a first market in the East Indies, no doubt could be improved +as the planters learned the art of its cultivation and the +adventurers found for them a better weed. No doubt, too, this +success with tobacco, whatever the imperfections of the current +product, could be viewed as a harbinger of other successful attempts +to produce commodities the Spaniard had for so long and +so profitably grown in his West Indian plantations.</p> + +<p>Further encouragement came from the willingness of the handful +of planters already in Virginia to remain there, and from +the decision of Ralph Hamor and Samuel Argall, both of whom +had formerly served the company in the colony, to return there. +Especially significant were the arrangements under which Hamor +and Argall planned their return early in 1617. One of the problems +that had undoubtedly discouraged the adventurers from +taking up the company's offer of a land grant in 1616 was the +question of the supervision that could be provided for such tenants +as they might elect to put on the land. In Bermuda, the adventurers<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> +had found an answer, or rather thought they had, by +dividing the land into tribes, later designated as parishes, over +which a bailif would exercise an office that was partly civil and +partly traditional on the landed estates of England. In Virginia, +Hamor and Argall pointed the way to a solution by entering into +an association with several of the adventurers in England for +the development of a jointly held plantation. Thus, in January +1617, the company awarded 16 bills of adventure to Hamor and +six associates for the 16 men they proposed to transport to Virginia +at their own charge. The following month saw a similar transaction +with Captain Argall and his associates, five adventurers +who had joined with this seasoned veteran to send out a total of +24 men. Argall went also as lieutenant governor in succession +to George Yeardley, who had been left as deputy by Dale on +his return to England in 1616, but the cost of getting the new +governor out to his post seems to have been met entirely by his +own associates. The arrangement has an obvious pertinence to +an understanding of Argall's unhappy experience as governor, +for he was later charged with neglect of the public interest through +too great concern for his own personal interests. But here the +emphasis belongs to the equally obvious fact that some of the +adventurers were responding to an opportunity to send out tenants +who would work under the management and direction of an +experienced colonist.</p> + +<p>In 1618 George Yeardley was back in London consulting with +other adventurers, including some of the leading members of the +company, who were interested in forming associations for the +development of "particular plantations." Late in the year he sailed +for the colony as the newly designated governor of Virginia. +With him he carried instructions which record for us further +developments in the company's land policy. All adventurers, including +delinquents who would pay up their subscription, were +now promised 100 acres of land on the first dividend for each +share of stock, and another 100 acres as a second dividend after<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> +the first had been occupied. Such of the ancient planters as had +paid their own way to Virginia, which was to say those who had +settled at their own cost before Dale's departure in 1616, were +also to receive grants in like amount. The adventurers were encouraged +to pool their rights for a common grant of land by the +promise that their estate could be developed under their own +management and would be treated as a separate administrative +unit for civil and military purposes. What the company had in +mind were the larger associations already formed or on the point +of being formed, such as that for the settlement of Southampton +Hundred, which eventually embraced a nominal area of perhaps +as much as 100,000 acres and in which the associated adventurers +invested a total of some £6,000. Another example is the association +of Sir William Throckmorton, Sir George Yeardley, Richard +Berkeley, George Thorpe, and John Smyth of North Nibley +which early in 1619 received a first joint grant of 4,500 acres +and which founded above Jamestown the plantation known as +Berkeley Hundred. These new associations were very much the +same as the association of the Virginia adventurers which in 1612 +had undertaken the colonization of Bermuda. For the development +of their common grant they pooled the necessary capital in +their own joint-stock fund and directed its investment through +their own courts, assemblies, or committees as they saw fit. For +every tenant sent to the plantation, the associated adventurers +were entitled to an additional headright of 50 acres. They were +awarded also an additional 1,500 acres for the support of public +charges in the hundred, such as those incurred for the maintenance +of a church and minister.</p> + +<p>How many of the colonists who migrated to Virginia between +1618 and 1624 went by agreement with such associations as +these is difficult to say, but there can be no doubt that they were +a very large part of the total. The Virginia Company, which +had served theretofore as the immediate colonizing agent, was +becoming more and more a supervisory body for the encouragement<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> +of individual and associated adventurers in their own +colonizing efforts. For itself, the company looked forward to a +continuing revenue from quitrents to be paid, at the rate of two +shillings per hundred acres after a term of seven years from the +original grant, by all save the ancient adventurers and the planters +who had migrated before 1616 at their own costs. To this +revenue from quitrents could be added the benefit to be expected +from the company's control of the colony's trade.</p> + +<p>As in 1609, there seems to be no doubt that all plans looked +ultimately to the establishment of individual land titles. Where +the record has survived, the associated adventurers clearly intended +that their common grant would in time be divided. In +the case of Berkeley Hundred, the evidence suggests too that the +associates used the promise of a share in this division for the +recruitment of their first tenants. Yeardley's instructions reaffirmed +the company's promise of a headright in terms inviting +the migration of individual settlers at their own cost.</p> + +<p>To understand the plans of 1618, the modern American needs +to dismiss any idea that the isolated farm house of later America +represented the ideal toward which men looked at this time. He +should think rather of the English village community, or of the +New England town, where men lived together with the advantages +of a close social relationship and where the land they cultivated +lay close at hand to the village and its church. If the +associated adventurers continued to depend for a time on variations +of the original joint-stock plan, it was not merely because +they wanted to share the risk of a still uncertain venture or because +they were seeking some useful device for meeting the problems +of management. It was also because the plantation they +hoped to establish was to have at its heart a town, and it was +thought that the town could best be built through some common +effort.</p> + +<p>What has been said above is not intended to suggest that the +company's role after 1618 was to be purely supervisory. Although<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> +it had an accumulated debt of some £9,000, or possibly because +of this debt, the company agreed for the encouragement of individual +adventurers to assume heavy responsibilities of leadership. +It directed Yeardley to lay out four towns, or boroughs, +along the James in which grants to individuals or the lesser associations +would fall—Kecoughtan at the mouth of the James, +Henrico at the head of its navigation, and in between Charles +City and James City. From the Bermuda adventurers the company +borrowed the idea of establishing a public estate intended +to meet as nearly as possible all costs of government. In each +borough 3,000 acres were to be set aside as the company's land +for cultivation by its own tenants, who would work at half shares. +Out of the company's moiety would come the support of all superior +officers, excepting the governor, for whom an additional +3,000 acres would be set aside in James City. The company thus +committed itself to a not inconsiderable program of colonization +on its own responsibility.</p> + +<p>One wonders what it was that inspired this renewed, and most +ambitious, venture in Virginia—a venture that would carry to +Virginia over the next five years something like 4,500 colonists. +Several possibilities can be suggested. First of all, it should be +noted that the interest of the London adventurers in the colonization +of America had never faltered, despite repeated disappointment, +since they had originally laid their hands to the task in +1606. This, at any rate, is true of the adventurers who led, and +more especially of Sir Thomas Smith. After it had become no +longer possible to push the adventure in Virginia, they had turned +to Bermuda, where an initial success seems to have encouraged +another try in Virginia. The plans adopted for Bermuda and +later for Virginia indicate that the adventurers shrewdly capitalized +on the desire of Englishmen in many different walks of life +for title to the undeveloped lands of America. A newly stirring +missionary impulse had its part to play, if only by giving to the +name of Virginia more helpful associations. Argall had captured<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> +Pocahontas, the favored daughter of Powhatan, and with her as +hostage the colonists had forced a peace with a heretofore implacable +foe. More than that John Rolfe had married the Princess +Pocahontas, as the English liked to call her, and Sir Thomas Dale +as his last major service to the colony had brought her to England +in 1616. In London, at court, and elsewhere, she and her entourage +of Indian maidens had been a most effective advertisement +of Virginia. Even after her own death in 1617, her maiden +consorts had stayed on for many months before being finally returned +to Virginia by way of Bermuda. Since 1613 the Virginia +Company had leaned heavily on the missionary appeal in its +efforts to encourage continued support of the colony, and it may +well have been the company itself which prompted the bishops +of the Church of England in the year of Pocahontas' death to +sponsor a collection of funds for an Indian mission in Virginia. +In any case, the approximately £1,500 raised for the purpose +were turned over to the company, which in 1618 ordered +Yeardley to set aside 10,000 acres at Henrico for the support of +an Indian college.</p> + +<p>The adventurers in 1618 also decreed certain legal and political +reforms that were helpful in giving Virginia a better name than +it had enjoyed for several years past. Disgruntled colonists returning +from Jamestown had brought exaggerated stories of Dale's +discipline, with the result that Virginia had gained the reputation +almost of a penal colony. The company's renewed guarantee +that the settlers would enjoy the full common law rights of Englishmen +at home was coupled with provision for a general assembly +of the colonists, a body which first met at Jamestown in +1619. In short, the company had the benefit in 1618, as so frequently +in the past, of leadership of the highest quality.</p> + +<p>Sir Thomas Smith was still the governor of the company in +1618, and without question his leadership must be considered +to be a major factor shaping the new life then being infused into +the colony. But a factional strife that would soon help to destroy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> +the company already had made its appearance. The sources of +this factionalism were varied, and some of them had little to do +with the affairs of Virginia. Thus, at this time Sir Thomas found +a determined enemy in the Rich family, headed by the wealthy +Earl of Warwick and represented most ably by Sir Nathaniel +Rich, who for many years was an active leader in the House of +Commons. Warwick had a way of investing in voyages which +bordered closely on piracy, and as a result of one such investment +had become involved in a long and bitter conflict with +Smith as the governor of the East India Company. Unquestionably +of more fundamental importance was a growing opposition +to Smith that was based upon discontent with the former management +of the Virginia project. It seems almost as though the Virginia +adventurers, before they could place full confidence in the +new program for the colony's development, had to find some +more satisfying explanation for the company's previous failures +by charging gross mismanagement of its affairs. Such, at any rate, +was the conviction to which many adventurers came, chiefly it +would seem the lesser adventurers who were easily prejudiced +against the great merchants of London, of whom Sir Thomas +was the chief. In a company where the ultimate power to decide +had been vested since 1612 in a general assembly of the adventurers +voting by head rather than by share, the discontent of the +lesser adventurers could become under the guidance of an effective +leader a very potent force.</p> + +<p>The leader was found in Sir Edwin Sandys, one of the ablest +parliamentarians of seventeenth century England. Sandys himself +was not one of the lesser adventurers. He had been a member +of the Virginia Council since 1607, and in 1611 he had +responded to the company's appeal for a subscription of £37 10s. +by subscribing double that amount, thereby matching the subscription +of Sir Thomas Smith. With the aid of other prominent +adventurers, including the Earl of Southampton, and by making +common cause for the moment with the Rich faction, Sir Edwin<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> +won election to the governorship of the company in the spring +of 1619. In the absence of anything approaching a full record, +it is impossible to say what justification there may have been for +the charges of mismanagement that were brought against Smith's +administration. It would not be surprising if over the long and +frequently discouraging years of his leadership, and especially +in the period since 1612, some irregularities, some carelessness +had crept into the conduct of the company's business. A very +noticeable result of Sandys' election was an effort to systematize +the company's procedures by adoption of new standing orders +and regulations, and to bring order out of an alleged confusion +of the company's records, especially those pertaining to the rights +of the adventurers to land in Virginia. But it is possible to speak +with full assurance on only one point: no other of the adventurers +had shown more courage or more devotion to the colony, no other +of them deserves to be better remembered than Sir Thomas Smith.</p> + +<p>There can be no question, however, that the reviving interest +in Virginia received an additional stimulant from the fact that +the business now had a new management. At the close of 1618, +and largely as the result of emigration during that year, the population +of the colony stood at approximately 1,000 persons. During +the year after Sandys' election, a total of 1,261 emigrants left +England for Virginia, over 800 of them at the company's charge. +This substantial evidence of the company's determination to assume +the lead encouraged additional associations of adventurers +to take up patents for their own plantations, with the result that +by the summer of 1622 the council could announce that over +3,500 people had migrated to Virginia since the spring of 1619. +This was a remarkable record, testifying to the very great gifts +Sir Edwin possessed as a leader and the confidence men placed +in his leadership.</p> + +<p>The minutes of the company's courts have survived for the +period after the election of Sandys, and so it is possible to get +a clearer picture of the company's organization and procedures<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> +than can be had for any earlier date. Further help comes from the +"Orders and Constitutions" drawn up after Sandys' election and +published in 1620 as part of a pamphlet skilfully written to convey +the impression that Virginia's affairs were then being managed +much better than in the past. The company depended basically +upon decisions reached in four great quarter courts, which +were general assemblies of all the adventurers who wished to attend +and which were scheduled for regular meeting on next to +the last Wednesday of each of the quarterly terms in which the +king's courts sat at Westminster. Only a quarter court could +elect officers, either of the colony or of the company, enact laws +and ordinances, or determine policies governing the distribution +of lands in the colony and the conduct of its trade. On the Monday +preceding each meeting of the quarter court, a preparatory +court would settle the agenda for the following Wednesday, +in order that the members might have warning of the business +to be taken up at that time. Each fortnight, except in the "long +vacations" between court terms, an ordinary court would meet, +again on Wednesday, with a quorum that required the presence +of at least five members of the council, the treasurer or his deputy, +and "fifteene of the generality." The hour of meeting for all +courts was 2 P.M., and at no court could a question be put after +6 P.M. A decision reached by any lesser court, including the extraordinary +court that might be called in case of special emergency, +could be overridden by a quarter court. This was the governing +body of the company, a popular assembly in which Sir Edwin +often demonstrated his special talent as a parliamentary tactician. +Attendance varied according to the importance of the business at +hand, but as many as 150 might attend.</p> + +<p>The quarter court meeting in Easter term was a court of elections, +where the members cast their votes for all principal officers +by secret ballot. Except for members of the council, all offices +of the company were held by annual election. The chief office +was that of the treasurer, as the governor of the company was still<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> +officially designated. As frequently as not, in common usage he +was known as the governor, but the charters had fixed the title +of his office and in so doing had pointed up a primary responsibility +of the office. The governor of the Virginia Company was +in fact its treasurer. After 1619 no man could hold the position +for longer than three years, and no man was eligible for election +to it if already he was serving as the governor of another company, +except that he might also serve as the governor of the Somers +Island Company. The election court might vote a reward for +services rendered, but the treasurer, like other principal officers, +served without fixed compensation.</p> + +<p>His chief assistant, and the second officer in rank, was the +deputy. As the title suggests, he might be deputized to perform +virtually any function of the governor, including that of presiding +at courts in the governor's absence. But he also had important +functions of his own. He is perhaps best described as the chief +administrative officer of the company. He was specifically charged +with superintendence over all lesser officers, and he had a primary +responsibility for contracts and other business arrangements relating +to the dispatch of shipping, provisions, and passengers +to Virginia and to the receipt, storage, and marketing of cargoes +returned from the colony. At all times, he acted, or was supposed +to act, in accordance with instructions from the court, council, +or treasurer, but all such instructions were necessarily general +in character. Many were the opportunities to use his own judgment, +or to confer a favor, as he handled business transactions +involving hundreds or even thousands of pounds. For his assistance +and perhaps to keep a watch on him, he had a committee +of sixteen men chosen by the court under a provision requiring +that a fourth of the number should be changed each year "to the +end [that] many be trained up in the businesse." The committee +may have been new, but the deputy's office was old. It had been +occupied for many years before the spring election of 1619 by +Alderman Johnson. Some of the more serious charges brought<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> +against Smith's administration related to the management of +the magazine, as the stock of supplies periodically forwarded +to the colony was generally described. Johnson had managed the +successive magazines, each separately financed by its own joint-stock, +until in 1619 he was replaced by John Ferrar.</p> + +<p>The council, still described as His Majesty's Council for Virginia, +had become a large and unwieldy body, with many of its +members inactive. Its influence on the conduct of Virginia's affairs +was now decidedly less important than in the earlier years. According +to the Orders and Constitutions, no one "under the degree +of a Lord or principall magistrate" was thereafter to be elected to +the council except "such as by diligent attendance at the courts +and service of Virginia for one year at least before, have approved +their sufficiency and worth to the Companie." As this statement +strongly suggests, a place on the council was for many members +an honorary post through which one might lend the prestige of +a great name to a worthy undertaking without assuming much +real responsibility. Nevertheless, the legal powers of the council +under the Virginia charters made its services indispensable, and +made it desirable that at least a few of its members should be +intimately acquainted with the business. The treasurer was supposed +to consult with the council on important occasions, and +especially on matters pertaining to the government of the colony. +All formal instructions to officers in the colony had to be sent in +the name of the council and over its seal. In any case of removal +from office, in London or at Jamestown, the cause had to be considered +in council before it could be taken before the adventurers. +But any seven members made a quorum giving full power to +actions taken in council, and the treasurer, who was always a +member of the council, had the custody of its seal.</p> + +<p>Two of the seven auditors now required for annual review of +disbursements and receipts had to be members of the council. +The auditors' office had grown out of the disputes over the accounts +of Sir Thomas Smith, and in addition to the annual auditing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> +of the treasurer's report, which had to be submitted to the +Easter court, they were charged with responsibility for a close +review of all earlier records of the company. The primary purpose +was to establish a full and exact list of all subscriptions, with +notation especially of delinquencies. Salaried officers of the company +were a secretary, a bookkeeper, a husband (or as we would +say, an accountant), and a bedel or messenger. The secretary +served all courts held by the adventurers, the council, and the +auditors, or by standing and special committees, of which last +the adventurers appointed quite a number. In addition, the secretary +was custodian of the company's records.</p> + +<p>Although Sir Edwin Sandys continued to be the actual leader +of the company until its dissolution in 1624, his tenure of the +treasurer's office was limited to a single year. When the adventurers +assembled for the annual elections in the spring of 1620, +they were much disturbed to receive instruction from the king +that Sir Edwin was not to be re-elected. Instead, the king suggested +the choice of some merchant of means and wide experience—perhaps +Sir Thomas Smith, Sir Thomas Roe, Alderman +Robert Johnson, or Mr. Maurice Abbott.</p> + +<p>Whether Sandys could have been elected in the absence of +this interference by the king, which the adventurers protested +as an unwarranted invasion of their liberty, is itself an interesting +and debatable question. By his many criticisms of the previous +conduct of the company's affairs, Sandys had won the undying +enmity of Sir Thomas Smith and his important friends. More +than that, he had quarreled with his ally of the preceding year, +the Earl of Warwick, who had connections hardly less impressive +than those enjoyed by Sir Thomas. The quarrel with Warwick +was over a question of piracy, as Sir Edwin chose to regard it. +One of Warwick's ships, the <i>Treasurer</i>, had sailed from England +in April 1618 with a license to capture pirates, which was one +way of getting a ship cleared from English ports for depredations +against the Spaniard at a time when the king had set his face<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> +against all such activity. The <i>Treasurer</i> had called at Jamestown, +where Governor Argall, who had rendered important services to +the colony but who had special reason to understand that his +position in Virginia depended upon the good will of important +members of the company, helped to outfit the vessel for a raid +on the West Indies. Recent studies, and especially those of +David Quinn, a British scholar, argue strongly that the earlier +ventures of Gilbert and Raleigh had been inspired very largely +by the desire to establish some base on the North American +coast that would be useful in attacks upon Spanish possessions +and the trade routes which joined them to Spain. But it is evident +enough that by this time the leaders of the Virginia Company +were chiefly fearful that Spain might attack their colony before +it was securely fortified, and before it had fulfilled the promise +of rewards far greater than anything freebooting ventures could +offer. As a result, Governor Yeardley, on instruction from London, +denied the courtesies of Jamestown to the <i>Treasurer</i> on its +return in 1619, and won for Sandys thereby the bitter resentment +of the Rich family.</p> + +<p>The king's interference in the election of 1620 has naturally +become a celebrated incident in the history of Virginia. Sir +Edwin was a leader in parliament, which before the century +was out would establish its supremacy in the government of +England, and the Virginia Company in 1620 had only recently +established the first representative assembly in North America. +To historians who have sought the larger meaning of the American +experiment, it has often seemed that the king must have +been guided by a fear of representative government—in other +words, that his motives were largely political. No doubt, he was +more easily persuaded to enter an objection to Sandys' re-election +because of Sir Edwin's opposition to royal policies in the house +of commons, but there is no contemporary evidence to suggest +that the king had even noticed the Assembly which met at +Jamestown in 1619. Moreover, that Assembly had been authorized<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> +before Sandys' election, at a time when Sir Thomas Smith +was still in the chair, and anyone who thinks the motion had +been carried over Smith's opposition should take note that the +same kind of representative assembly was established in 1620 +for Bermuda, over whose fortunes Sir Thomas would continue +to preside until 1621. Not until the middle of the seventeenth +century, at the time of Cromwell, does it appear that anyone +even suggested that the primary reason for the king's interference +was fear of a significant development in the history of representative +government.</p> + +<p>What actually happened in 1620 would seem to be clear +enough. Sir Thomas Smith had connections that reached all the +way into the king's bedchamber, and there he effectively argued +that Sandys did not know his business. It was an argument that +found not a little justification in the fact that the company had +to admit by a broadside published in the very month of the election +court that hundreds of the colonists sent to Virginia in the +preceding year had died within a short time of their arrival +there, and it may be that Sir Thomas apprehended the even +greater disasters soon to overtake the colony. A more likely supposition, +however, is that he seized upon this news from the +colony as an opportunity to vent his resentment against Sandys, +a resentment that must have become more bitter with each of +Sir Edwin's promotional releases advertising the great improvements +now to be found in the management of Virginia's affairs. +The legal basis on which the king acted was probably debatable. +No doubt, he depended upon the provision in the charter requiring +that all members of the council, of which the treasurer +was the head, be sworn to the king's service. But membership +on the council was for life, and Sir Edwin had taken his oath as +a member of the council as early as 1607. Perhaps the king took +advantage of the company's regulations requiring an annual +election and that the treasurer be sworn following his election. +Whether this was a new requirement cannot be said. It can only<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> +be suggested that the king intended to say that if Sir Edwin were +re-elected he would not give him a necessary oath of office. It may +be, too, that he stood quite simply on the prerogative of his office +to insist that his subjects in Virginia were entitled to royal protection. +In any case, the adventurers chose not to defy the king's +wish.</p> + +<p>Having protested his interference as unwarranted, the quarter +court in May 1620 adjourned without electing a treasurer. +Instead, the adventurers appointed a special committee to call +on the king for the purpose of acquainting him with the true +facts regarding "the managing of their business this last year" +and to ask for a free election. Sandys himself appealed to the +royal favorite, the young Duke of Buckingham, but with no effect +on the king's decision. When the adventurers reassembled late +in June, they elected the Earl of Southampton as treasurer. Thus, +in a sense both parties to the dispute emerged victorious. Sandys +was no longer treasurer, but the adventurers had refused to elect +a merchant and Southampton would preside thereafter in behalf +of Sandys. There can be no doubt that Sandys continued to be +the leader of the company. Moreover, in 1621 he extended his +power by gaining control of the Somers Island Company through +the election of Southampton to its governorship.</p> + +<p>A question that naturally arises is that of how, or why, Sir +Edwin was able to survive this challenge to his leadership. The +news from Virginia was by no means encouraging. Given the +long record of disappointment there, and the many men who +previously had died there, the fact that several hundred of the +most recent settlers had succumbed might have been expected +to unsettle any administration. Perhaps it was the king's interference, +serving as it did to rally the adventurers in defence +of the company's liberty. Perhaps Sir Thomas was guilty of too +naked a display of his power, with the result that the lesser adventurers, +who already had been taught to view the great merchants +of the company with suspicion, rallied to the support of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> +Sandys. Perhaps it was because the Earl of Warwick and Sir +Thomas had not learned yet the need for effective teamwork; +both men disliked Sandys, but they had their own quarrels and +they would not form a real coalition against him for another two +years. All these possibilities must be given consideration, but +there would seem to be still another reason, possibly the most +important of all.</p> + +<p>Sir Edwin Sandys was a man of remarkable gifts, and nowhere +are these gifts better demonstrated than in his ability to stimulate +the highest hopes for Virginia. Before him only Richard Hakluyt, +a patriot now dead four years, had managed better to depict the +promise America held for Englishmen. Sandys wrote no major +work on the subject, and even the company's promotional pamphlets, +which he undoubtedly shaped in some large part, lacked +the fire that Hakluyt, or even Alderman Johnson, could impart to +that branch of literature. It must be said also that Sandys added +no new idea to those which for a generation past had guided +Englishmen in their American ventures. His program included +not a single objective that the Virginia Company had not theretofore +tried to realize; the chief contrast with former programs +was the absence of any emphasis on the prospect that a route to +the South Seas might be found, an objective the adventurers had +dropped for all practical purposes a good many years before Sandys +became their treasurer. But Sandys had confidence, a systematic +and orderly mind, and a persuasive way of talking in the quarter +court or in conference with the individual adventurer who contemplated +some new risk of capital. As a result, he managed to +convey the impression that plans had now been so well thought +through that Hakluyt's objectives in America had at last become +attainable.</p> + +<p>Leaving aside the search for a passage to China, which may +never have been so important to Hakluyt as it was to the people +whose interest in America he sought to enlist, Sandys undertook +to carry through, all at once, the program Hakluyt had outlined<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> +for Queen Elizabeth as early as 1584 in his famous "<i>Discourse +on Western Planting</i>." It was a program that looked to the development +in America of products that would free England of dependence +upon trades with other parts of the world which were in +any way disadvantageous to England, and that would guarantee +to any Englishmen who developed such products a sure profit on +their investment. It was a program that had taken its shape first +from the prospect, in Raleigh's day, of an early war with Spain, +and perhaps it should be noted that when Sandys came to office +in 1619 the Thirty Years War had only recently had its beginning +with the king's own son-in-law a central figure. The war has +gone down in our history books as the last of the great religious +wars, and many were the Englishmen who thought that England +should be, or would be soon involved.</p> + +<p>In Virginia, Sandys promised to produce iron. It is strange +that the attempt to develop an iron industry in Virginia, on which +the company spent all told something like £5,000, should have +made less impression on modern historians than has an early and +brief search for gold that was incidental to other explorations. The +iron industry in England was suffering from the depletion of the +island's wood supply, which was still depended upon for smelting, +and Virginia promised an unlimited supply. Other industries +that he hoped to develop in the colony are suggested by a list of +tradesmen the company invited to adventure to Virginia in 1620: +among them, sawyers, joiners, shipwrights, millwrights, coopers, +weavers, tanners, potters, fishermen, fishhookmakers, netmakers, +leather dressers, limeburners, and dressers of hemp and flax. Even +more important because so much depended upon persuading the +individual adventurers to invest their own money in the development +of their land, were plans for the production of sugar, wine, +indigo, silk, cotton, olive oil, rice, etc. In the development of these +products Sandys intended the public lands—those cultivated under +the direct supervision of the company and by its own tenants—to +serve more or less in the capacity of experimental farms. For<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> +their planting he sought seeds and plants from various parts of +the world. On the college land he had some 10,000 grapevines +set out, and sent for their care foreign experts imported from +the continent. To make sure that private estates would not be +devoted wholly to tobacco, as yet the colony's only proven staple, +he wrote into land patents a stipulation that other staples would +be given a trial.</p> + +<p>To find the money for investment in the public lands was no +easy task. No common joint-stock fund could be raised in 1619, +if only because the company's plans depended chiefly upon the +hope of inducing the adventurers to invest in their own lands. +It cannot be said how successful were the renewed attempts to +collect from delinquent subscribers, but perhaps some help came +from that source. Sandys depended also, as had Smith before +him, on the Virginia lottery, perhaps more than upon any other +source, for the lottery was terminated early in 1621 by order of +the privy council on grounds that included the complaint of parliament +that the lottery had become a public nuisance. A very +substantial help to Sir Edwin was the bishops' fund for an Indian +college and additional funds raised for the support of an Indian +school in the colony. The total ran to better than £2,000. It had +been decided in 1618, well before Sandys' election, that the money +from the bishops' fund would be invested in an estate to be known +as the College Land, and the precedent thus set was followed +in disposing of funds subsequently made available to the company +for an Indian school. In practical terms, these decisions meant +that all mission funds were used to send out tenants on the promise +that a half-share of the wine and other such commodities as +they might produce would in time provide a permanent endowment +for the school and the college. The decision reflects both +the extraordinary poverty of the company and the extraordinary +confidence with which its leaders approached their new ventures +in Virginia.</p> + +<p>By the spring of 1621, when the bulk of the college funds had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> +been expended and the lottery was terminated, Sir Edwin's financial +resources had become even more skimpy and uncertain. +Some projects, such as that for the settlement of Italian glass-workers +who were to manufacture pottery and beads for use in +the Indian trade, could be financed by subscriptions to a special +joint-stock, but this device offered no help in meeting general +expenses. As a result, Sandys continued to take certain shortcuts, +or perhaps the blame should rest rather on Deputy John Ferrar. +In any case, the colonists complained that shipping came out so +overloaded with passengers as to invite the epidemic disease with +which they usually suffered on landing, and which made of +newcomers a useless burden on the colony for some time after +their arrival. The deathrate among the colonists continued to be +high. The time and energy required to house them, or to feed +them, unavoidably forced delay with projects on which Sandys +had pinned his chief hopes. He was especially disappointed over +the slow progress of agricultural experimentation. Accordingly, +when Yeardley's three year term was ended in 1621 and Sir +Francis Wyatt was sent as his replacement, Sir Edwin also sent +his brother, George Sandys, as appointee to a new office of treasurer. +He was given special charge of all projects looking to the development +of new staple commodities and was intrusted with the +collection of rents, of which the company claimed £1,000 were +presently due. These rents, which were to be collected largely from +half-share tenants who had migrated within the preceding three +years, undoubtedly now constituted the company's main hope for +an immediate revenue. Except in a very few instances, no quitrents +would be payable until 1625, and so general had been the disappointment +experienced so far with special projects that further +time would have to be allowed before any return from them could +be expected. In short, the company had exhausted its very limited +resources in getting Wyatt and George Sandys out to Virginia, +and had nothing left but hopes for the future and the anticipation +of a small immediate revenue from the rents of its own tenants,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> +most of which had already been assigned to such special charges +as the support of public officers in the colony. In London, virtually +the only asset left to the company was the will and determination +of Sir Edwin Sandys.</p> + +<p>In these circumstances, Sandys necessarily devoted his main +energies after 1621 to the problem of tobacco, the only marketable +staple the colony had as yet produced. It was an old problem, but +one now filled with new difficulties. In earlier days, when it had +been hoped that tobacco might be one of a variety of staples produced +in the colony, the Virginia Company, like the Bermuda +Company, had lent encouragement to efforts looking to its production. +But hardly had early experiments proved successful +before the adventurers faced the risk that tobacco would take +over the colony entirely. There is nothing surprising in this development, +for a tobacco plant, unlike a grapevine or an olive +tree, matures within a few months of its planting, and the tobacco +habit at this time was a thing of comparably rapid growth in many +parts of the world. To settlers who had been staked by adventurers +ever insistent upon a prompt return of their capital, or who +wondered how best to procure the means to make payment for +the supplies brought in the next magazine ship, the obvious answer +was to plant the land to tobacco. After doing this, if time +and energy remained, they might try some of Sir Edwin Sandys' +ideas—maybe set out a few grapevines or mulberries, as they had +been instructed to do. There was good reason for the growing fear +among the leading adventurers in London that tobacco might put +a blight on all other projects.</p> + +<p>More than that, the increasing shipments of tobacco, especially +in view of the still relatively poor quality of the Virginia leaf, +gave the colony a bad name just when its good name was so important +to the promotional efforts of the company. The tobacco +habit did not yet have the respectable associations it would later +acquire in the eighteenth century. Instead, it was associated with +tippling or bawdy houses, where in truth a pipe was most easily<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> +had by the contemporary resident of London. Moral considerations +were reinforced by an additional concern for the public interest. +So much of the weed consumed came from Spain that thoughtful +men were inclined to consider how much England paid out, to +the profit of the Spaniard, for a commodity which added nothing +to the well being of the country. Had it not been for the influence +of Virginia and Bermuda adventurers in the House of Commons, +Parliament in 1621 might well have prohibited all importation +of tobacco into England. And in all England there was no more +vigorous opponent of tobacco than the king himself. Indeed, the +king had even written a book on the subject.</p> + +<p>The attitude of King James had a most important bearing on +another angle of the problem. Under its charter, the company +had been allowed a seven year exemption from import duties on +cargoes brought from Virginia. When this exemption expired in +1619, the government immediately imposed a duty that was +fixed early in 1620 at 1s. per pound of tobacco. Though this was +only half the duty paid by Spanish tobacco, it was nonetheless +a heavy burden to be imposed upon leaf that was declared never +to have sold at more than 5s. a pound and that brought an average +of only 2s. for the better grade in 1620.<a name="FNanchor_A_1" id="FNanchor_A_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a> The adventurers' +attempted escape by shipping their tobacco to Holland won them +a sharp reprimand from the privy council, and an order to bring +all of Virginia's tobacco to England for payment of his majesty's +customs. As negotiations with the king's ministers for some relief +continued, it was proposed in 1622 that the Virginia and Bermuda +adventurers might take over the tobacco monopoly, which was a +grant of the sole right to import tobacco of any sort into the +kingdom in return for a fixed contribution to the royal revenues. +The holder of such a monopoly—a very common device at the +time—was entitled to collect the customs and to hope that what<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> +he collected, plus the advantage of a monopolistic control of the +market, might enable him to clear a profit on the transaction. +Here, in other words, was a proposal that might provide the +needed relief, even some income for the company's hard pressed +treasury. The Virginia Company by 1622 was in no position to +ignore such an opportunity and fortunately, the Sandys faction +was now in control of the Somers Island Company. A joint committee +of the two companies, headed by Sir Edwin himself, entered +into negotiations for what was known as the tobacco contract.</p> + +<p>The bitterest factional strife in the history of the London adventurers +soon followed. It is a complicated story, too complicated +and too long to be told fully here. Briefly, both the terms agreed +upon by Sandys and his proposals for the management of the +contract, proposals which left Sandys and his cohorts in full +control, touched too closely the vital interests of some of his +bitterest enemies. In Bermuda, as in Virginia, the hope of an +early profit from the production of sugar, silk, wine, indigo, and +other such commodities had proved vain, and like Virginia, +Bermuda lived by the tobacco it grew. The Earl of Warwick and +members of his family had made especially heavy investments in +their Bermuda properties, and Sir Nathaniel Rich became the +floor leader, as it were, of an attempt to defeat the contract. Sir +Thomas Smith and his friends joined in the effort. Especially +objectionable in the view of the opposition were plans for placing +the management of the contract in the hands of salaried officials, +with Sir Edwin as director at a salary of £500. At one Virginia +court, meeting early in December, the debate got so out of hand +that it required several additional sessions to straighten out the +minutes in order that appropriate penalties might be imposed +upon Mr. Samuel Wrote, a member of the Virginia council whose +unrestrained charges of graft violated the company's rules and +offended the court's sense of its own dignity. In the end the +opposition elected to make the final test in a Bermuda court, whose<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> +consent was necessary to close the contract and where Sandys' +opponents included the more substantial investors in that colony. +The test came in February 1623, and Sandys won. But it could +be demonstrated that had the vote been by share rather than by +head, as was the rule in both companies, he would have been +defeated. Sandys' opponents in the Bermuda Company all along +had complained of a plan to distribute the charges of the contract +equally between the two companies, arguing that the Virginia +tobacco had a greater value and should therefore carry a +proportionately larger charge. And now they were in a position +to argue that the Virginia Company, in whose courts for some +time they had steadfastly refused even to vote on the salary question, +sought to exploit the younger plantation, as was evidenced +by the opposition of the adventurers to whom Bermuda's tobacco +chiefly belonged. With this argument, Sandys' opponents promptly +carried the whole question before the privy council.</p> + +<p>This was in the spring of 1623. During the course of the preceding +debate, news had come of an Indian massacre in Virginia +that had cost the lives of over 350 colonists. The faction-ridden +and bankrupt company had stirred itself to send such aid as it +could, but now came the word that this had not been enough. +By the testimony of Sandys' own brother, though this testimony +may not have been immediately available to his enemies, another +500 colonists had died before the year was out as a result of the +dislocations occasioned by the massacre, and as a result of the +failure of the company to send enough aid. The tobacco contract +dropped into a position of secondary importance as Sandys' opponents, +with Alderman Johnson taking the lead, petitioned the +king for a full investigation of the situation in Virginia and of +the recent conduct of its affairs.</p> + +<p>Whatever one may think of Sir Edwin Sandys, or of the motives +which inspired his opponents, there can be no question as to the +correctness of the action taken by the government. The leaders +of the two factions were called before the privy council on April<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> +17, where they displayed so "much heat and bitterness" toward +one another as to make it difficult to get on with the business. In +the end, the council won agreement that a special commission +should be established for an investigation of the state of the colony's +affairs, the agreement coming finally when the council conceded +the demand of Sandys' supporters that the investigation +should begin with the administration of Sir Thomas Smith. Accordingly, +on May 9, a commission was issued to Sir William +Jones, justice of the Court of Common Pleas, and six other gentlemen +"to examine the carriage of the whole business." Meantime, +a letter had been prepared by the privy council to acquaint the +colonists with the fact that their affairs had been taken into "His +Majesty's pious and princely care" and to encourage them "to go +on cheerfully in the work they have in hand." The central issues +all pertained to Virginia, but in the circumstances there was no +choice but to include both companies in the province of the Jones +commission.</p> + +<p>The appointment of the Jones commission ended, for all practical +purposes, the control of the Virginia Company over the +colony. The company lingered on as an agency chiefly through +which the Sandys faction prepared its briefs for the attention of +the commissioners, or through which orders from the commissioners +might be implemented. All of the company's records were +impounded by the commission, which also took charge of all correspondence +with the colony. The records of the company demonstrated +all too clearly the bankrupt state of its finances. The +hearings before the commissioners demonstrated with equal clarity +the hopeless division of the adventurers by bitter factional strife. +Correspondence from the colony brought evidence of a desperate +situation. Even Sandys had to admit that no more than 2,500 +colonists were still alive in the colony, which was to confess an +attrition, mainly by death, of something over 40 percent of the +colonists residing in Virginia, or sent to Virginia, since he had +assumed responsibility for the management of its affairs. Actually,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> +the situation was much worse than these figures suggested, for +a census taken in Virginia early in 1625 showed a total population +of only 1,275. In the fall of 1623 the privy council invited +the company to surrender its charter on the promise that a new +one would be issued to cover all individual rights and grants, but +with a revision of the plan of government that would place the +control of the colony under the more immediate supervision of +the king. In effect, the proposal was to return to something close +to the original plan of 1606. When the adventurers, in a court +from which Sandys' enemies largely absented themselves, rejected +this proposal, the government began quo warranto proceedings +against the company in the court of Kings Bench. On May 24, +1624, that court gave its decision for recall of the Virginia charters. +And so ended the Virginia Company.</p> + +<p>The Bermuda Company had been dragged into the investigation +chiefly because of the close ties joining it to the older company. +There was no emergency in the colony, and its debts were +not beyond the capacity of Sir Thomas Smith and other leading +adventurers to pay. As a result, the Somers Island Company +lasted on for another sixty years.</p> + +<p>One who looks back from 1624 over the brief and frequently +troubled history of the Virginia Company may debate, as historians +have often done in the past, just what should be said by way +of conclusion. Perhaps it is this: here were men who out of their +disappointment quarreled bitterly and by their quarrels helped +to destroy an agency through which in the past they had worked +together, with a remarkable devotion to the public interest, for +the achievement of great objectives. No doubt, their greatest fault +had been to set their goals too high. Certainly, their greatest +virtue was persistence in the faith that great things could be done +for England in America, a faith destined in time to be justified +by the course of history.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_A_1" id="Footnote_A_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_1"><span class="label">[A]</span></a> For purposes of comparison, it may be noted that Spanish +tobacco was declared to have been sold for as much as 20s. a pound. +The "filthy weed" was not yet "the poor man's luxury."</p></div> +</div> + + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Virginia Company Of London, +1606-1624, by Wesley Frank Craven + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VIRGINIA COMPANY OF LONDON *** + +***** This file should be named 28555-h.htm or 28555-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/8/5/5/28555/ + +Produced by Mark C. 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