The Three Charters of the Virginia Company of London / With Seven Related Documents; 1606-1621

Virginia 350th Anniversary Celebration Corporation Williamsburg, Virginia 1957
COPYRIGHT©, 1957 BY VIRGINIA 350TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION CORPORATION, WILLIAMSBURG, VIRGINIA
Jamestown 350th Anniversary Historical Booklet Number 4
INTRODUCTION
Historians may trace in the Royal charters issued to the Virginia Company of London a course of empire; a Company organized for profit by the ablest businessmen of their time—merchants, manufacturers, statesmen, and artists who bound themselves together in a joint stock enterprise. The historian may also find in the three charters here published a pattern for a parliamentary system and its development into the American form of government. He might even perceive the inception of a new society.
The origin of the joint stock company was probably primitive. Its later genesis may readily be seen in the medieval guild. It became an English institution in its application by Sir Walter Raleigh to his magnificent adventures in both honest trade and romantic piracy.
The Company provided an agency for assembling adventure capital and supplying able management to enterprises of great moment. It offered an invitation to the industrious to participate in the growing wealth and expanding power of the great English middle class. It supplied an opportunity to small investors and it limited their liability. It was an adaptation by practical people to practical problems.
Subscribers, or shareholders, met in their quarterly courts to discuss the business of the Company and participate in its management. These courts were the counterpart of our present day corporate stockholders' meetings and were characterized by the same sort of discussions. King James could protest vehemently against the democratical principles of the Company. He could see in their charters the final death warrant of feudalism. He could execute Raleigh chiefly for giving satisfaction to the King of Spain. He could revoke the charters in 1624, but he could not stop the rising tide of representative institutions nor darken the great vision of the liberal Elizabethans. A new day had dawned.