By the time of his attaining the age of five and thirty William Courten had already become—for that period—a great capitalist. He then, in 1606, established in London a commercial house which added to the ordinary business of merchants on the largest scale, that of marine insurers, and also that of adventurers in the whale fishery. His partners in the firm were his younger brother, Peter Courten, and John Mouncey. One half of the joint stock belonged to the founder; the other half was divided between the junior partners.
For nearly a quarter of a century this mercantile partnership prospered marvellously. Its annual returns are said to have averaged £200,000. It built more than twenty large ships, and kept in constant employment more than four hundred seamen and fishermen. The head of the firm gradually acquired a large landed property which included estates in the several counties of Worcester, Gloucester, Leicester, Nottingham, Essex, and Kent.
This great prosperity had, of course, its drawbacks. Amongst the earliest checks which are recorded to have befallen it was a Crown prosecution of Courten (in company with several other foreign merchants of note, among whom occur the names of Burlamachi, Vanlore, and De Quester) on the frequent charge—so obnoxious to the political economy of that age—of ‘the unlawful exportation of gold.’ |Domestic Corresp., James I, vol. cix, § 90; 96; vol. cx, § 86; vol. cxi, § 66. Signs Manual, vol. xii, § 26. (R. H.)| Courten was brought into the Star Chamber and was fined £20,000; a sum so enormous as to excite a suspicion of the accuracy of the record, but for its repeated entry. The prosecution was instituted in June, 1619; the defendant’s discharge bears date July, 1620. But it may fairly be assumed that only a portion of the nominal fine was really exacted.
Another and much more serious check to the prosperity of the enterprising merchant came from his embarking in the grand but hazardous work of planting colonies.
1626. Colonial Enterprises of Sir Wm. Courten.
In 1626, William Courten—then Sir William, having received the honour of knighthood at Greenwich, on the 31st of May, 1622—petitioned the King for ‘licence to make discoveries and plant colonies in that southern part of the world called Terra Australis incognita, with which the King’s subjects have as yet no trade,’ and his petition was granted. |Domestic Corresp., Charles I, vol. xiv, § 33.| What ensued thereupon is thus told in an authoritative manuscript account preserved in the Sloane collection:—
‘Sir William Courten being informed, by his correspondents in Zealand, that some Dutch men-of-war sent out upon private commission against the Spaniards had put into the island of Barbados, and found it uninhabited, and very fit for a plantation, did thereupon, at his own charge, set forth two ships provided with men, ammunition, and arms, and all kinds of necessaries for planting and fortifying the country, who landed and entered into possession of the same in the month of February, 1626 [1627, N.S.]... Afterwards, in the same year, he sent Captain Powell thither, with a further supply of servants and provisions, who, in 1627, fetched several Indians from the mainland, with divers sorts of seeds and roots, and agreed with them to instruct the English in planting cotton, tobacco, indigo, &c. Sir William Courten having, by his partners and servants, maintained the actual possession for the space of two years, and peopled the island with English, Indians, and others, to the number of eighteen hundred and fifty men, women, and children, thought fit to make use of the Earl of Pembroke’s name in obtaining a patent particularly for Barbadoes, although he had before a general grant from the king to possess any land within a certain latitude, wherein this island was comprehended. His Majesty having thus granted, by his Letters Patent, dated 25 February, 1627 [1628, N.S.] the government of this island unto the Earl of Pembroke, in trust for Sir William Courten, with power to settle a colony according to the laws of England, Captain Powell had a commission to continue there as Governor, in their behalf. The Earl of Carlisle,’ continues the MS. narrative, ‘having, before this Patent to the Earl of Pembroke, procured a grant, dated 2nd July 1627, of all those islands lying within 10 and 20 degrees of latitude by the name of Carliola, or Carlisle Province, with all royalties, and jurisdictions, as amply as they were enjoyed by any Bishop of Durham, within his bishopric or county palatine, and having also got another patent, for the greater security of his title, dated 7th April 1628, sent one Henry Hawley with two ships, who, arriving there in 1629, invited the Governor on board, kept him prisoner, seized the forts, and carried away the factors and servants of Sir William Courten and the Earl of Pembroke. |Ibid. Comp. Despatches in Colonial Correspondence, vol. v, §§ 1, 9, 13, 101, seqq.| The authority of the Earl of Carlisle being thus established was maintained.’
But it was only maintained after a long contest at the Council Board at home, which contest seems to have been largely influenced by the fluctuations of Court favour from time to time. A despatch in February, written in behalf of Carlisle, is followed in April by another despatch written in behalf of Pembroke and Courten. The one fact that becomes consistently evident throughout the proceedings is that grants of this kind were made in the loosest fashion, and often in entire ignorance even of the geographical positions of the countries given by them.[[39]] Indeed, the common course of procedure under the Stuarts, when a courtier had the happy thought of begging a territory in America, reminds one of those earlier days of the Tudors, when a favoured suppliant sometimes obtained the grant of a monastery, or the lease of a broad episcopal estate, with hardly more trouble than it cost him to win a royal smile.
To Courten and his colonists the issue of this quarrel about Barbadoes was very disastrous. To some of the latter it brought ruin. But to the founder himself a check to enterprise in one direction seems to have brought increased stimulus to new enterprise in another direction. He now embarked largely in adventures to the East Indies and to China. As usual, they were planned on a magnificent scale; excited great jealousy in the breasts of competitors; and were attended, in the long run, with very mixed results of good and ill.
Meanwhile, Sir William’s growing wealth—greatly exaggerated by popular renown—and the conspicuous position into which his varied pursuits had brought him, led to plans of enterprise by others, and of quite another kind, at home. He had lost his first wife, and also his eldest son. He had married a second wife,—Hester Tryon, daughter of Peter Tryon. Only one son survived, but Sir William had three daughters, whose prospective charms attracted many suitors. In September, 1624, King James wrote a characteristic letter in which he assured Courten that the son of Sir Robert Fleetwood, Lord of the Scottish barony of Newton, would make a fit match for one of the three daughters, and that the conclusion of such a match would be very acceptable to the King himself. |Alliances between the City and the Court.| |James I to Sir Willm. Courten; Dom. Corr., vol. clxxii, § 71.| The pretendant would gladly, and impartially, wed any one of the three ladies, but the King himself, continues the royal letter, ‘will regard, as a favour, any increase of portion given to the daughter whom Fleetwood may marry, over and above the portion given to, or intended for, the other daughters.’