University of Virginia Library

III.—DOCUMENTS ISSUED BY THE COMPANY

Of the official documents issued by the company during the decade from 1609 to
1619 the most important have been unknown up to this time. They include the
first instructions ever given to a governor of a colony by an English administrative
body, and the records of the first suits entered by the company in chancery for the
purpose of enforcing the payments of sums adventured in the company and of
securing a part of the income from the lottery, which the company claimed had been
withheld by the agent, William Leveson.[40]

The knowledge which the administrators of the affairs of the company had
gained from the early settlers, and their grasp of the necessities for exploration, for trade, and for the conduct of affairs in the plantation, has hitherto been a matter of
surmise based on the relations of the planters. From the "Instrucc̃ons, orders,
and constituc̃ons to Sir Thomas Gates,"[41] in May, 1609, and a similar document
given to "Sir Thos. West Knight Lo:Lawarr"[42] in 1609 or 1610 comes a revelation
of the motives of the adventurers, as well as of the policy adopted and of the
methods outlined for the prosecution of their efforts. These instructions to Gates
and De La Warr afforded the authority for the termination of the previous govern-
ment in Virginia, the stated ideas of the company as to locations for settlements,
forts, and magazines, and concerning journeys inland. It also included an interesting
reference to Raleigh's colonists. The general policy in administering the affairs of
the colonists and the detailed orders as to the relations with the Indians, as far as
they concern guards, trade, and treaties, and the daily life of the inhabitants, indicate
a definiteness in the control of the company which formerly was not understood.
In such a revelation of the knowledge of the country and of the natives there is a

basis for belief that the affairs of the company were managed and its records were
kept in a systematic and businesslike way.[43]

The company had become convinced that the policy of John Smith was a wise
one, and hence it ordered that a number of plantations should be settled and that
efforts should be immediately directed to building healthful and sufficient houses and
to planting widely enough for the self-support of the community. Here was the
germ which was to develop into the colony, but the plan was as yet by no means
so far-reaching. A common store, a common magazine, common refectories, labor
by groups with a superintendent for each five or six persons, the prohibition of
trade with the Indians except through the truck merchant were economic methods
which looked to the gain of the adventurer in London rather than to the develop-
ment of a colonial settlement. When the settlers had become self-supporting and
capable of defense, then measures were to be taken to provide returns, so "that our
fleetes come not home empty." Discovery of the seas and of royal mines, exchange
of commodities, the exaction of tribute, and the development of the resources of
the country for the purpose of securing "wines, pitche, Tarre, sope-ashes, Steele,
Iron, Pipestaues, hempe, flaxe," silk grass, fishing for pearls, cod, and sturgeon were
to be the sources of revenue. The instructions placed authority implicitly in the
hands of the governor, who was expected to hear, but not necessarily to heed, the
advice of the council and to judge according to "naturall right and equity then
vppon the nicenes of the lawe."

The agents of the corporation—the governor and his council in Virginia—received
their authorization for the exercise of judicial as well as legislative powers through
a commission. The one issued to Sir Thomas Gates is lost, but doubtless is as similar
to that given to Lord La Warr[44] as are his instructions. With the exception of a set
of "Instructions for such things as are to be sente from Virginia, 1610,"[45] these
orders and commissions are the only documents which show anything of the direct
authority exercised by the company over affairs in the plantation until the issue of
the "Great Charter of privileges, orders, and Lawes" in November, 1618.[46]

Otherwise, the whole course of the activity of the company under Sir Thomas
Smythe was in strong contrast with the work of Sir Edwin Sandys. It was a con-

tinual struggle to arouse such interest in the scheme as would result in investment.
The problem of marketing the products of the colony, which concerned the later
company, did not arise until toward the close of the period, when a single unsuccessful
effort was made to gain a monopoly of the sale of tobacco. In order to increase the
capital stock, the company made personal appeals and issued printed statements and
descriptions which it scattered broadly. The story is told in the lists of adventurers
cited above, in the earnest endeavors to secure new planters and new adventures from
individual town and guild, in the efforts to enforce the payment of sums already
adventured, in a few receipts concerning tobacco, in the lottery schemes, which were
legalized by the charter of 1612, and in printed broadsides and declarations. Thus the
sums adventured by individuals, by the various London companies, and by the towns
of England are given in a series of requests for adventure and in bills of adventure[47]
issued by the company and found in the records of those companies and towns[48] as
also in private collections. The chancery proceedings, in three suits, state that the
company attempted to secure an adventure of £18,000 and the equipment of 600
men during the year 1611, and the failure to accomplish its purpose was set forth by
the defendants as a reason for refusing to pay the sums adventured. Incidentally
there was mentioned an income in the year 1613 of £8,000 from the lottery, of
£2,000 from the sale of the Somers Islands, and of £600 or £800 from the disposal
of the ship De La Warr.[49] However, with the exception of an unpublished letter
from Sandys to the mayor of Sandwich[50] concerning the adventure by that town, in
which he inclosed a list of the subscribers to that particular adventure, with the sums
set down by each,[51] the official records reveal but little as to the sums which must
have been received by the company.

In a similar manner there are unauthentic records of economic value concerning
the lotteries and the importation of tobacco. Of the latter a few receipts and mem-
oranda among the papers of Lord Sackville[52] and the Earl De La Warr[53] are positively

all there is in existence relating to the origin of a trade which was estimated in 1619
to be worth £100,000. Of the former, there is a "Declaration for the Lottery,"
published in 1615 by the company, and an order of the Privy Council, together with
letters urging the towns of the Kingdom to adventure in this the second great lottery
of the company.[54] A letter from the governor of the Virginia Company to the
mayor and aldermen of Ipswich[55] is to the same effect, but none of these documents
tell of the income therefrom. The only record which will give an idea of the value
of the first lottery is in the chancery proceedings, and relates to a suit of the
company with William Leveson to secure moneys from the lottery,[56] in which the
sum received in 1613 is here stated to have been £2,793 and 10 shillings. The
answer of Leveson is of further interest in that it alone tells of the methods by
which the business was conducted and of the house built for the lottery west of St.
Paul's Church.