The Great Events by Famous Historians [Volumes 1-14]

As the first of the original English colonies in North America, Virginia enjoys a primacy in our history which, however other sectional claims may be contested, is beyond dispute. The name Virginia, which in 1584 Sir Walter Raleigh gave to his settlement on the Carolina coast, at first covered an indefinite extent of the great central territory of the continent.

After the failure and disappearance of Raleigh's colony, no further attempts were made to settle the region until 1606, when new interest in American colonization had been aroused in England. The credit for awakening this interest is given to Bartholomew Gosnold, an English navigator who, in 1602, sailed directly west and in May reached Cape Cod. Then, coasting along New England, he found and named Martha's Vineyard, and in July returned to England.

English adventurers were so much impressed with his enthusiastic reports and his arguments in favor of new endeavors to occupy western lands, that they began to urge a fresh undertaking. Gosnold's views were strongly supported by the geographer Richard Hakluyt, "to whom America owes a heavy debt of gratitude." There were numerous offers of money and service, and when application was made to King James I he was quite ready to sanction the project. He is said to have thought of the profits that might return to him and also of the satisfaction to be found in being rid of the "turbulent spirits" sure to be drawn into the enterprise.

On April 10, 1606, James I issued a patent to Sir Thomas Gates, Sir George Somers, Richard Hakluyt, and others with them associated, under which they proposed to embark upon their eagerly sought scheme. This royal grant deserves our close attention, as it will explain the nature of the enterprise and the powers originally enjoyed by those who entered upon it.

Selecting for the scene of operations the beautiful belt of country lying between the thirty-fourth and forty-fifth parallels of north latitude, the King certainly provided an ample field for the success of the patentees. This tract extends from Cape Fear to Halifax, and embraces all the lands between its boundaries in North America, except perhaps the French settlement in Arcadia, which had already been so far matured as to come under the excluding clause of the patent. For colonizing this extensive region the King appointed two companies of adventurers—the first consisting of noblemen, knights, gentlemen, and others in and about the city of London, which, through all its subsequent modifications, was known by the title of the London Company; the other consisted of knights, gentlemen, merchants, and others in and about the town of Plymouth, and was known as the Plymouth Company, though its operations were never extensive and were at last utterly fruitless.

To the London adventurers was granted exclusive right to all the territory lying between the thirty-fourth and thirty-eighth parallels and running from the ocean to an indefinite extent westward into the wilds of America, even to the waters of the Pacific. They were also allowed all the islands, fisheries, and other marine treasures within one hundred miles directly eastward from their shores and within fifty miles from their most northern and most southern settlements, following the coast to the northeast or southwest, as might be necessary. Within these limits ample jurisdiction was conferred upon them. To the Plymouth Company were granted in like manner the land and appurtenances between the forty-first and forty-fifth parallels. Thus the whole region between thirty-eight and forty-one was left open to the enterprise of both companies; but to render angry collision impossible, the charter contained the judicious clause above noted, by which each colony might claim exclusive right fifty miles north or south of its extreme settlements, and thus neither could approach within one hundred miles of the other.

The hope of gold and silver from America was yet clinging with tenacity to the English mind. James grants to the companies unlimited right to dig and obtain the precious and other metals, but reserves to himself one-fifth of all the gold and silver and one-fifteenth of all the copper that might be discovered. Immediately after this clause we find a section granting to the councils for the colonies authority to coin money and use it among the settlers and natives. This permission may excite some surprise when we remember that the right to coin has been always guarded with peculiar jealousy by English monarchs, and that this constituted one serious charge against the Massachusetts colony in the unjust proceedings by which her charter was wrested from her in subsequent years.