Pioneers of the Old South | Page 4

merchants might send their wares, and from which might be drawn in
bulk, the raw stuffs that were needed at home. The idea of a surplus
population persisted; England of five million souls still thought that she
was crowded and that it would be well to have a land of younger sons,
a land of promise for all not abundantly provided for at home. It were
surely well, for mere pride's sake, to have due lot and part in the great
New World! And wealth like that which Spain had found was a dazzle
and a lure. "Why, man, all their dripping-pans are pure gold, and all the
chains with which they chain up their streets are massy gold; all the
prisoners they take are fettered in gold; and for rubies and diamonds
they go forth on holidays and gather 'em by the seashore!" So the
comedy of "Eastward Ho!" seen on the London stage in
1605--"Eastward Ho!" because yet they thought of America as on the
road around to China.
In this year Captain George Weymouth sailed across the sea and spent
a summer month in North Virginia--later, New England. Weymouth
had powerful backers, and with him sailed old adventurers who had
been with Raleigh. Coming home to England with five Indians in his
company, Weymouth and his voyage gave to public interest the needed
fillip towards action. Here was the peace with Spain, and here was the
new interest in Virginia. "Go to!" said Mother England. "It is time to
place our children in the world!"
The old adventurers of the day of Sir Humphrey Gilbert had acted as
individuals. Soon was to come in the idea of cooperative action--the
idea of the joint-stock company, acting under the open permission of
the Crown, attended by the interest and favor of numbers of the people,
and giving to private initiative and personal ambition, a public tone.
Some men of foresight would have had Crown and Country themselves
the adventurers, superseding any smaller bodies. But for the moment
the fortunes of Virginia were furthered by a group within the great
group, by a joint-stock company, a corporation.

In 1600 had come into being the East India Company, prototype of
many companies to follow. Now, six years later, there arose under one
royal charter two companies, generally known as the London and the
Plymouth. The first colony planted by the latter was short-lived. Its
letters patent were for North Virginia. Two ships, the Mary and John
and the Gift of God, sailed with over a hundred settlers. These men,
reaching the coast of what is now Maine, built a fort and a church on
the banks of the Kennebec. Then followed the usual miseries typical of
colonial venture--sickness, starvation, and a freezing winter. With the
return of summer the enterprise was abandoned. The foundation of
New England was delayed awhile, her Pilgrims yet in England, though
meditating that first remove to Holland, her Mayflower only a ship of
London port, staunch, but with no fame above another.
The London Company, soon to become the Virginia Company,
therefore engages our attention. The charter recites that Sir Thomas
Gates and Sir George Somers, Knights, Richard Hakluyt, clerk,
Prebendary of Westminster, Edward-Maria Wingfield, and other
knights, gentlemen, merchants, and adventurers, wish "to make
habitation, plantation, and to deduce a colony of sundry of our people
into that part of America commonly called Virginia." It covenants with
them and gives them for a heritage all America between the
thirty-fourth and the fortyfirst parallels of latitude.
The thirty-fourth parallel passes through the middle of what is now
South Carolina; the forty-first grazes New York, crosses the northern
tip of New Jersey, divides Pennsylvania, and so westward across to that
Pacific or South Sea that the age thought so near to the Atlantic. All
England might have been placed many times over in what was given to
those knights, gentlemen, merchants, and others.
The King's charter created a great Council of Virginia, sitting in
London, governing from overhead. In the new land itself there should
exist a second and lesser council. The two councils had authority within
the range of Virginian matters, but the Crown retained the power of
veto. The Council in Virginia might coin money for trade with the
Indians, expel invaders, import settlers, punish illdoers, levy and collect
taxes--should have, in short, dignity and power enough for any colony.
Likewise, acting for the whole, it might give and take orders "to dig,
mine and search for all manner of mines of gold, silver and copper . . .

to have and enjoy . . . yielding to us, our heirs and successors, the fifth
part only of all the same gold and silver, and the fifteenth part of all the
same copper."
Now are we ready--it