THE TREATY OF LONDON 77 though disputes and long-drawn wrangles on this subject were to endure until the very eve of the independence of the colonies in the nineteenth century. On the other hand, Spain found herself unable to guard every part of the regions that she claimed, and she had to concentrate her efforts. With very few exceptions her effective occupation had reached its maximum extension before 1604. From St Augustine at the mouth of the Florida Channel in the north to Buenos Aires in the south fairly effective Spanish or Portuguese control had been established along the whole of the American mainland coast save in Guiana. The greater islands of the Antilles were firmly occupied except the western part of Hispaniola, but the lesser were neglected, and North America above the latitude of St Augustine was untouched by the Spanish power. It was, therefore, to these three easily accessible but neglected regions, North America, Guiana and the Lesser Antilles, that the colonising activities of the other nations were mainly directed. The Dutch conquest of a part of Brazil is the only important example of another nation occupying an Iberian colony and that occupation was only temporary. Jamaica never had more than a handful of Spanish colonists. It was not until the conquest of Florida in the eighteenth century that the limits of actual Spanish occupation were effectively reduced. The Treaty of London is therefore an important landmark in the history of European expansion as the close of one epoch and the opening of another. The conclusion of the war and the attitude that the Government had taken up during the peace negotiations obviously made the time propitious for a revival of activity by the advocates of colonisation. Suggestions were soon made to the Council that private purses were inadequate to bear the heavy expense of the founding of such colonies as the country needed for the disposal of its surplus population, and that a public stock should be raised by commissioners appointed by the Crown "for the peopling and discovering of such countries as may be found most convenient for the supply of those defects which the realm of England most requireth".1 The King's honour should be pledged to assist and protect the project, for foreign nations would then be less likely to threaten the colonies, and contributions would be more readily obtained for their support. We have only fragmentary indications as to the deliberations of the Privy Council on such matters, but everything tends to show that the Earl of Salisbury and his colleagues were closely interested in the fostering of oversea trade as the best means of expanding the customs revenue2 and that they looked to colonisation as one method of assuring this. The way was thus prepared for governmental sanction and some measure of support for any schemes put forward by responsible persons. 1 "Reasons for raising a Fund," Brown, A., Genesis of U.S. 1, 37-42. * Newton, A. P., "The Great Farm of the English Customs" in Trans. R. Hist. Soc. 4th ser. 1, 129-55. There were two active groups who were interested in such projects. Sir Thomas Smythe and other London merchants who led the East India, the Levant and the Muscovy Companies had been the holders of such rights as remained under Raleigh's patent of 1584, and desired to find sources of raw materials that might be kept under English control and reduce our dependence on Spanish supplies. On the other hand, many of the fishing merchants in Bristol and the west of England were anxious to discover new fisheries and to profit by the fur trade with the savages on the coast of Norumbega that had already been exploited to some extent by the French. Various private voyages had been made to that coast between 1602 and 1605, and the ships had returned with cargoes of the valuable drug sassafras and optimistic accounts of the excellence of the fishing. There were associated with this west-country group certain of Sir Humphrey Gilbert's family and Devonshire friends who had a traditional interest in colonising schemes, and two public men of importance in the west country who advocated emigration as a relief for the growth of crime and pauperism, Sir John Popham, a Somerset lawyer who had risen to be Chief Justice, and Sir Ferdinando Gorges, a well-known soldier who held the governorship of Plymouth. Popham and Gorges were the link between the Government and the western group, and the latter's activities in the colonising field were for many years surpassed only by those of Smythe, the mouthpiece of the London associates. Hakluyt by his writings and by personal contact influenced both groups, and certain noblemen like the Earl of Southampton were associated with the scheme from the beginning, though the part they played at first was not so important as it became a few years later. From the first, therefore, the colonisation of Virginia excited national interest to a unique degree, and this had no doubt a considerable influence on the fortunes of the colony. The Government did not accede to any suggestions for direct assistance, and left the two groups of promoters to raise their own capital by subscriptions in the regular way of a commercial company. But in place of a grant of two charters for separate schemes, a single patent was issued establishing a system of management in which the Crown played an essential part and which was quite unprecedented. This was important as involving the national honour in the protection of the project, and the King of Spain was thus deterred from action against the colonists such as was urged upon him by certain of his advisers.1 A Royal Council for Virginia of thirteen or fourteen members nominated by the Crown was created to sit in London and to have general administrative control over the whole area included in the grant, i.e. between the 34th and 45th parallels of latitude. The 1 See, e.g. Brown, Genesis of U.S. 1, 100 and various letters of Zuñiga there printed. 2 Ibid. 1, 53. THE VIRGINIA CHARTER OF 1606 79 colonies were to be governed in accordance with "Instructions" issued by the Crown, and the first set of these Instructions prescribed the entire judicial, administrative and commercial system to be established. The exact area within which each colony was to be planted was indicated in the patent, but the land was not handed over to the patentees in such a way that they could give valid titles to the settlers. It was provided that such grants could be made only by the Crown, which therefore stood in the same legal position towards the land in the colonies as it did in England. In each colony a council of thirteen members was to be set up with power to choose a president and fill vacancies as they occurred, and grants of land by the Crown were to be made upon the petition of these local councils. The duties to be performed by the councils were naturally in the main of an economic character, but the councils were also empowered to make local regulations in the nature of laws so long as they were not repugnant to the laws of England. Thus from the beginning the colonists carried with them overseas into land of the Crown not only their allegiance, but also a matter of the greatest importance-their English law and their indefeasible rights as Englishmen. The colony was not a swarming-off such as all the ancient Greek colonies had been, but the passing of an organised group of English subjects into an outlying portion of the king's territories, expanding his Empire as they passed. The system of government outlined in the Virginia charter was dual in character, royal in matters of government, proprietary in matters of economic organisation—thus leaving a great deal to private initiative and admitting of diversity of detail within a strong and flexible framework of unity. The provisions of the charter and the "Articles and Instructions "2 that were handed to the first governor of the colony to guide him in its management represent the best thought of the time on colonisation. They were very carefully drawn up in consultation with Hakluyt and other theorists and with the legal advisers of the Crown and the Company, and that many of them proved unworkable is no reflection on their authors. The whole adventure was an experiment in a yet untrodden field, and we should rather remark the soundness and liberality of the principles than criticise the impracticability of many of the details. The Instructions show that their authors realised something of the fact that the foundation of a successful colony was dependent upon material considerations, but it took generations of experience and the sufferings and death of a multitude of pioneers before it was discovered how best to contend with the difficulties of the untamed wilderness. The early days of the "First" or "London Colony" in South Virginia were a time of almost unrelieved tragedy of famine and the 1 Clauses 18 and 19 of the Charter. * Hening, W. W., Štats. of Virginia, 1, 67-75; Brown, Genesis of U.S. 1, 65–75. ravages of disease, but we can only refer to them very briefly. The first expedition1 left England on 20 December 1606 in three ships, the Susan Constant, Godspeed and Discovery, hired from the Muscovy Company. They were commanded by Sir Christopher Newport, a seaman who had won high reputation during the war and who was later to do good service for the Empire in the East Indies. It was determined to establish the colony further to the north than the scene of earlier attempts and the land round the estuary of the Chesapeake was fixed upon as being further removed from any possible trouble with the Spaniards. Sailing out by the well-known route by the Canaries and the West Indies, they reached Virginia in May 1607, and the first settlement was made at James Fort or James Town on a low island or peninsula not far removed from the entrance to the river. The site was unfortunately chosen, for the neighbouring swamps bred malaria and the native Indian tribes were none too friendly. Newport left about a hundred settlers to man the fort and begin the clearing of the forest and sailed back to England for fresh supplies. When he returned six months later, more than half the little company, including the first governor, Bartholomew Gosnold, had perished, and the remainder were bitterly quarrelling and on the verge of starvation. Before he left again, fire had consumed the first dwellings and store-houses and only fifty-three men remained to continue the struggle. Luckily there was among them a born leader, Captain John Smith, and to him more than to anyone else their ultimate success was due. Meanwhile the "Second" or "Plymouth Colony" was founded in August 1607 in North Virginia on a rocky peninsula at the mouth of the Sagadahoc or Kennebec River, and was called Fort St George. Its management was most inefficient, and after a very short time the majority of the colonists returned to England complaining bitterly of their hardships and of the severity of the climate. The resources of the Plymouth Company were inadequate for the despatch of regular supplies, and after the final abandonment of Fort St George in 1608 the interest of the members was diverted from colonisation to the exploitation of the fisheries off the North Virginia coast. Some profit was also obtained from the fur trade with the Indians, and the coast was so fully explored as far as the entrance to the Grand Bay that by 1610 the Government was furnished with a fairly accurate map of the whole region.3 The London colony at James Town was now being slowly established upon a firm footing, and, profiting by earlier experience, the efforts of the colonists were directed to clearing some ground and 1 Brown, Genesis of U.S. 1, 152. 2 Brown, A., First Republic in America, pp. 55 seqq. 3 Reproduced in Brown, Genesis of U.S. 1, 456, and the northern portion in Burrage, H. S., The Founding of Colonial Maine. THE VIRGINIA CHARTER OF 1609 81 planting crops for subsistence; the cultivation of maize was learned from the Indians and certain men were charged with the regular duty of supplying the settlement with fish and game. It was long before the colony became self-supporting, but the attention paid to securing its own subsistence did more than all else to carry it through the early difficulties wherein so many previous attempts had failed. The new leader, Captain John Smith, who came into power by an extraordinary series of accidents, was a man of exceptional personality and fertility of resource. In his writings and speech he tended to paint his adventures in such glowing colours that he has sometimes been regarded as a braggart and his stories as self-glorifying romances. But it cannot be denied that he rendered first-rate service to the building of the empire, and that he deserves a more favourable verdict than some writers have accorded him. After an adventurous career as a soldier of fortune in the Turkish wars, Smith was named as a member of the first resident council in Virginia, and, becoming "capemerchant", he was responsible for the obtaining of supplies from the Indian tribes. The council system soon broke down, and he ruled the colony for a time as undisputed master. He held to the principle that he who would not work should not eat, and by his energy cured the evils of insubordination and laziness and carried the settlers through the critical winter of 1608-9. The popular interest in Virginia that had been excited in 1606 soon died away as it became clear that there were no rapid fortunes to be made, and that the establishment of the colony would be a toilsome and expensive process. The Royal Council ceased to function, and the control of the enterprise passed almost wholly into the hands of Sir Thomas Smythe and a few of his merchant associates. They found the proprietary provisions of the 1606 charter ineffective, for there was no authority charged with the double task of recruiting and supplying the colony and moved by the incentive of possible profits. In 1609 the merchants took the lead in petitioning the Crown for a new charter modelled on those of the trading companies, with the working of which they were familiar. Their petition was acceded to, and the London Company was incorporated as the proprietor under the Crown of the province of Virginia with the title of "The Treasurer and Company of Adventurers and Planters of the City of London for the First Colony in Virginia". Sir Thomas Smythe was appointed treasurer, and thenceforward for eight years he was the undisputed leader of the enterprise. This was a matter of great importance, for along with experience and skill in mercantile organisation he possessed determination, persistence and a command of capital that was essential to overcome the difficulties of a very costly experiment. Too much attention has been directed in the past to the men of high position whose names are mentioned in the charter as in most similar documents of the time, and the part played by the London CHBE I 6 |