A School History of the United States | Page 9

3: Because the waters thereabout abounded in codfish. For a comparison of Gosnold's route with those of the other early explorers see the map on p. 15.]
[Footnote 4: Bancroft's _United States_, Vol. I., pp. 70-83. Hildreth's _United States,_ Vol. I., p. 90.]
%19. The Two Virginia Companies.%--As a result of this voyage, Gosnold was more eager than ever to plant a colony in Virginia, and this enthusiasm he communicated so fully to others that, in 1606, King James I. created two companies to settle in Virginia, which was then the name for all the territory from what is now Maine to Florida.
1. Each company was to own a block of land 100 miles square; that is, 100 miles along the coast,--50 miles each way from its first settlement,--and 100 miles into the interior.
2. The First Company, a band of London merchants, might establish its first settlement anywhere between 34�� and 41�� north latitude.
3. The Second Company, a band of Plymouth merchants, might establish its first settlement anywhere between 38�� and 45��.
4. These settlements were to be on the seacoast.
5. In order to prevent the blocks from overlapping, it was provided that the company which was last to settle should locate at least 100 miles from the other company's settlement.[1]
[Footnote 1: Over the affairs of each company presided a council appointed by the King, with power to choose its own president, fill vacancies among its own members, and elect a council of thirteen to reside on the company's lands in America. Each company might coin money, raise a revenue by taxing foreign vessels trading at its ports, punish crime, and make laws which, if bad, could be set aside by the King. All property was to be owned in common, and all the products of the soil deposited in a public magazine from which the needs of the settlers were to be supplied. The surplus was to be sold for the good of the company. The charter is given in full in Poore's _Charters and Constitutions_, pp. 1888-1893.]
%20. The Jamestown Colony.%--Thus empowered, the two companies made all haste to gather funds, collect stores and settlers, and fit out ships. The London Company was the first to get ready, and on the 19th of December, 1606, 143 colonists set sail in three ships for America with their charter, and a list of the council sealed up in a strong box. The Plymouth Company soon followed, and before the year 1607 was far advanced, two settlements were planted in our country: the one at Jamestown, in Virginia, the other near the mouth of the Kennebec, in Maine. The latter, however, was abandoned the following year (see

Chapter IV
).
The three ships which carried the Virginia colony reached the coast in the spring of 1607, and entering Chesapeake Bay sailed up a river which the colonists called the James, in honor of the King. When about thirty miles from its mouth, a landing was made on a little peninsula, where a settlement was begun and named Jamestown.[1] It was the month of May, and as the weather was warm, the colonists did not build houses, but, inside of some rude fortifications, put up shelters of sails and branches to serve till huts could be built. But their food gave out, the Indians were hostile, and before September half of the party had died of fever. Had it not been for the energy and courage of John Smith, every one of them would have perished. He practically assumed command, set the men to building huts, persuaded the Indians to give them food, explored the bays and rivers of Virginia, and for two dreary years held the colony together. When we consider the worthless men he had to deal with, and the hardships and difficulties that beset him, his work is wonderful. The history which he wrote, however, is not to be trusted.[2]
[Footnote 1: Nothing now remains of Jamestown but the ruined tower of the church shown in the picture. Much of the land on which the town stood has been washed away by the river, so that its site is now an island.]
[Footnote 2: Read the _Life and Writings of Captain John Smith_, by Charles Dudley Warner; also John Fiske in _Atlantic Monthly_, December, 1895; Eggleston's _Beginners of a Nation_, pp. 31-38. Smith's True Relation is printed in _American History Leaflets_, No. 27, and Library of American Literature Vol. I.]
[Illustration: All that is left of Jamestown]
Bad as matters were, they became worse when a little fleet arrived with many new settlers, making the whole number about 500. The newcomers were a worthless set picked up in the streets of London or taken from the jails, and utterly unfit to become the founders of a state in the wilderness of the New World. Out of such material Smith in