 | The records of the Virginia Company of London |  |
1. The Character of the Company
The individual effort which had revealed itself at the close of the medieval
period in other phases of the economic development and in the military history of
the past quarter century was especially prominent in the movement in 1606 for a
society of adventurers to trade in Virginia. The commercial advance had been
due chiefly to private enterprise, and the naval expeditions into the West Indies
against the Spanish had been fitted out and prosecuted by such adventurous spirits as
Sir Francis Drake, while the zeal for exploration and for gold, which inspired John
and Sebastian Cabot to search for a passage to Cathay and the East Indies in 1497,
led Sir Humphrey Gilbert and Sir Walter Raleigh a century later to seek out the
resources of the lands from Florida to Newfoundland. It is the same spirit of
adventure which inspired the narratives of John Smith and Henry Spelman as
they told of their relations with the Indians of America. But it is in the progress
of both the commercial and the political life of England that the Virginia Company
is important. For the plantation founded and nourished by a private concern as an
enterprise purely for gain was the social cause from which developed the colony
as a form of government. Its political organization is seen in its relations to the
Crown, of which there were two distinct phases. During the first three years it
was distinctly a creature of the King, the affairs of which were conducted by the
King through a council created by himself and responsible to himself, while to the
investors were left the privileges of raising the funds, furnishing the supplies, and
sending out the expeditions. It was a modification of this form of management to
which the government reverted after the dissolution of the Company in 1624, and
again at the end of the century when royal colonies were substituted for proprietary
and corporate forms throughout America. In the second phase the undertakers
became distinctly proprietary, retaining the commercial responsibilities, but assum-
ing governmental functions in place of the King.
A comparison between the royal grants for discovery in the sixteenth century
and those of the Virginia Company shows that there was an increase in the
direct territorial relations between King and subject, a limitation upon monopoly
the powers of government. Thus, in the letters patent to Richard Warde, Thomas
Ashehurst, and associates in 1501,[1] to Sir Humphrey Gilbert in 1578, and to Sir
Walter Raleigh in 1584,[2] the Crown conferred proprietorship of land with the
right to grant it out in fee simple at will. But in 1606 the land was held by the
undertakers, and again in 1609 by the adventurers and planters in free and common
socage, as of the manor of Greenwich of the county of Kent. Under the first Vir-
ginia charter it was granted by the King to those approved by the council; under
the second, by the members of the company to anyone who should have adventured
a certain sum of money or his person. The fief, distinctly so called in the early
charters, for which homage was to be rendered, with no service, however, save that
of one-fifth of the gold and silver gained, had disappeared; and the only direct feudal
relation with the King which remained arose from the requirement of a per cent of the
precious metals. The monopoly of trade by which Warde, Gilbert, and Raleigh were
allowed to seize and detain any one who trafficked within two hundred leagues of a set-
tlement was altered in 1606 so that the planters had only the right of collecting a
tax from such interlopers. The rights of government which had been surrendered
absolutely to the grantees in the sixteenth century charters were reserved to the
King by the letters patent of 1606 to be exercised through the council. In 1609
these powers were conferred on the company as an open body, it must be remem-
bered, and thus differed from the earlier grants and from the later proprietary grants
to Lord Baltimore or to William Penn.
Although the charter emphasizes the government of the plantation, the Virginia
Company was purely a commercial enterprise conducted by a private concern, even
before the charter of 1609, as is shown by the history of its early years. It was
backed by the patronage of the King, but only for the purpose of advancing the trade
of the Kingdom in foreign parts and saving the Crown from expense and responsi-
bility, as had been the policy in regard to the other trading companies. Nevertheless,
it was a step toward colonial expansion, for, as has well been said, "the explorer is
potentially a colonizer," and the army of laborers on the plantation became in time
an army of free tenants in a colony.[3]
While in the spirit of its commercial life the
company was closely allied to the efforts for exploration and search for gold, morally
supported by Elizabeth in her feudal grants, in its organization, as well as in its pur-
pose, it resembled the private companies for trade based on ancient charters, and in its
development is to be understood only through a knowledge of both of these earlier
movements.
Thus in order to protect trade, but not for exploration and settlement, the ancient
charters granted to the Merchant Adventurers in 1407 and 1462, and particularly the
one of 1564, incorporated that company into a "Body Politick." The words of the
grant declared its purpose to be "for the good Government, Rule and Order of
the * * * Fellowship of Merchants Adventurers * * *. As also of all and
every other of the subject of our heirs * * * using the seate of Trade of the
said Merchants Adventurers * * *."[4]
This was also the object expressed in
the charter to the East India Company,[5]
although it contained an additional provi-
sion for the acquisition of lands by purchase. Monopoly of trade and powers of
government over factors, masters, or others in the employ of the company were
conferred, but the exemption from customs was to continue for only four years, and
the only settlements provided for were to have the form of factories. It had been
established as a regulated company, that is, one in which each individual invested his
own capital subject to the rules of the company; but in 1612 by increasing the
importance of the directors and investing sums for a limited period it became a
joint stock company.[6]
As a prototype of the companies later incorporated both for discovery and
trade, such as the Virginia Company, the Muscovy or Russian Company, known as
the "Merchant Adventurers of England for the discoveries of lands and territories
unknown," was established in 1555 with a joint stock of £6,000. Sebastian Cabot
was appointed governor for life and with him was associated a board of directors of
4 consuls and 24 assistants. However, this company had also the rights of the compa-
nies for exploration—that is, those of conquest, of acquiring lands, and of seizing the
ships of any who should infringe on their monopoly of trade.[7]
In 1583 a committee
from the Muscovy merchants drew up a set of resolutions concerning a conference
with M. Carlile upon his "intended discoverie and attempt into the hithermost parts
of America,"[8]
which was not dissimilar to the plan of Sir Walter Raleigh, and hence
foreshadowed companies of the seventeenth century. It proposed to send forth
100 men for one year, providing £4,000 for the adventure, in order to gain a
"knowledge of the particular estate of the country and gather what commodity
joint stock consisting of two groups, one of "adventurers" and one of "enterprisers,"
each to have one-half of the lands which should be divided among the members by
the generality, but all trade was to belong to the adventurers and the corporation was
to be closed after the first adventure. The scheme differed from the sixteenth century
enterprises, which were especially intended for exploration, in that no question of
government was considered, but it conformed to the ideas of Gilbert and Raleigh
and of the trading companies, in that its rights over trade were to be purely
monopolistic.
Apparently this plan of the Muscovy Company stands as a connecting link
between the ideas of the explorer and those of the trader and the planter, a plan which
may be said to have been carried out by the Virginia Company. It is significant that
many of the members of the Virginia Company were men who had taken part in the
expeditions of the late sixteenth century and had been interested in certain private
voyages of exploration carried on during the five years preceding the receipt of its
first charter, while most of the leaders of this company were at the same time stock-
holders and even officers in the Muscovy Company, the Company of Merchant
Adventurers, the East India Company, and later of the Turkey, the Guinea, and
the African companies.
It is unnecessary to cite the charters of other companies or to search the history
of the trading corporations of the sixteenth century in order to show that the Virginia
Company was similar in character. But, like the Muscovy Company and the East
India Company, it was established to carry on trade in new and uninhabited lands,
and hence had the additional features of a company whose purpose was exploration
and plantation. The latter characteristic appears more especially in the charter, the
former in the instructions and correspondence of the entire period of its life. The
object of its first undertakers was doubtless to search for minerals and for a route to
the southwest, and to secure for trade the materials which were native and peculiar
to those regions. The plantation was a necessity for this purpose, and incidentally,
because of the character of the country, it was forced to become a colony. To estab-
lish a settlement which should become a market for English goods, to advance the
shipping, to spread the religion of the Kingdom were doubtless motives which
aroused sympathy for the undertaking; but the arguments which brought investment
were the opportunities for gain.
The position of the Virginia Company in the development of English exploration
and trade was therefore important, and the study of its history is of value not only
for the light which it throws on Virginia itself but for an understanding of the
economic condition of England as well. Nor is this all. The few private records
which remain of the Merchant Adventurers Company and those of the East India
the Virginia Company that the similarity in form of organization and methods of
conducting business is established. The fact that the private records, the books
from which the knowledge of the actual financial transactions could be obtained,
are missing in most cases, may prove that their loss in the case of the early Virginia
Company is not due to intentional destruction, but to the general opinion of the
period that such material was valueless.
The only other enterprise of which there is sufficient material for anything like an
exhaustive study is the East India Company, and hence its records combine with
those of the Virginia Company to supply a source of information concerning all of
these companies. The conclusion seems valid, therefore, that the great mass of min-
utes, orders, instructions, letters, and memoranda of the company for Virginia will
aid in the interpretation of the comparatively few records of the earlier associations.
The records of this company are necessary to enable one to comprehend the life
of the other companies, as is its history to the understanding of their development.
It was during the life of the company that the plantation gradually assumed the
aspects of a colony, that the settlement which was originally planned for exploration
and the discovery of gold became a center for the development of the natural and
agricultural resources of the surrounding country. The origin within the colony
of the assembly, of local government, of private ownership of land, and of freedom
of trade is to be found before the dissolution of the company by the Crown. There-
fore the records of the company, as well as those of the colony, form the material
through which the history of the beginnings of English colonies, viewed from the
standpoint of the colonist, is to be gained.
Their value for the comprehension of the development of political institutions
in England is not so patent. The growing correspondence between the Crown and
the company and the interference in the acts of the company stand as evidence of
the gradual increase of the interest of the Crown or its council in the undertaking.
This interest was most apparent when the tobacco trade promised a revenue to the
Crown, but the encouragement of the growth of other staple products, the spasmodic
revival of acts touching English shipping and the balance of trade, and the main-
tenance of staple ports in England are all new activities appearing in the records of
the company. Throughout, also, is apparent the readiness to allow the already
uncertain economic policy to be altered or nullified by the political relations with Spain, or because of moral or whimsical views.
The gradual definition of policy on the part of the Stuarts, perhaps first apparent
under Charles I, is closely connected with the leaders of the Virginia Company. The
opinions expressed in the courts of the company by the adherents both of the Puritan
party and of the party of the Crown, the correspondence between the Privy Council
and the story of the formation of the Sandys and the Warwick factions, resulting in
the dissolution of the company, furnish evidence of the gradual development of the
despotic attitude of the Stuarts, especially in their reach for revenue and in their
repression of the principles of freedom. The appointment of the commissions to
investigate the affairs of the company and the condition of the colony, the creation
of a commission for the control of the colony after the overthrow of the charter, the
later appointment of a committee of the Privy Council for the same purpose are all
steps in the growth of a colonial system and of a colonial policy. Although the
maturity of this system and policy is not reached until after the Commonwealth, the
influence of the associates of James I and of Charles I is apparent.
Every phase of colonial development, from the mixed system which existed
under the patent of 1606 to the chartered proprietary company after 1609 and the
royal province after 1624, is here illustrated. The transition from the chartered
to the Royal Government in 1624, the prelude to "the most important transition in
American history previous to the colonial revolt," is only to be understood from
these records, since the tendency to self-government in the colony is one of the
pretended reasons for the overthrow of the company. All the steps of the change
are to be traced in the royal correspondence, in the memoranda of the royal party,
and in the record of the suit under the writ of quo warranto. The significance of
such material is best understood from the fact that "the constitutional law and
practice of the old colonial system has not yet been attempted to be known," and
as yet no book has been written concerning the forms or functions of the British
Government as employed in colonial administration.
Lingelbach, The Merchant Adventurers of England, 218–236 for extracts from the charters. The
first two are published in Rymer, Foedera, and Hakluyt.
Cunningham, W., the Growth of English Industry and Commerce in Modern Times (edition of
1903), Part I, ch. VI, sec. VII.
| The records of the Virginia Company of London | |