In 1605 Hakluyt brought his arguments to bear upon various men of condition, friendly to colonization, to induce them to join in a petition for patents for the establishment of two plantations on the coast of North America. The issue of this petition was James’s charter bearing date of April tenth, 1606, by which the two companies, subsequently designated the London and the Plymouth Companies, were created, between whom were divided in nearly equal parts the vast territory then known as Virginia, stretching from Cape Fear to Halifax, and back a hundred miles inland: the company occupying the southern part to be called the “First Colony of Virginia” and that occupying the northern part, the “Second Colony of Virginia.”
Sir Thomas Gates, Sir George Somers, Richard Hakluyt, and Edward Maria Wingfield, as patentees, were the chief adventurers in the London or South Virginia Company. Ten of the nineteen adventurers styled merchants, remaining in England, at the establishment of the corporation of “The Governour and Assistants of the Citie of Ralegh in Virginia” became subscribers to the South Virginia Company. Sir Thomas Smith, chief among the nineteen merchants, was made their first treasurer. Just a year after the issue of the patent their “First Colony of Virginia,” sailing from England in December, 1606, arrived out at Chesapeake Bay, the region which Ralph Lane had determined as the fitter place than Roanoke for settlement, and in which Raleigh had directed White with the Second—the Lost—Colony to plant, as they would have done had Captain Ferdinando been true to them. And in May, 1607, the permanent settlement here was at last begun as Jamestown.
Raleigh was condemned to be executed on the eleventh of December, 1603, but the day before he was reprieved, and he was held a prisoner in the Tower, with this unjust sentence hanging over his head, for thirteen dismal years. During this cruel imprisonment his great talents were occupied in philosophic and literary work, and he wrote out his notable Historie of the World. Meanwhile his statesmanlike interest in the developing American colony continued constant and keen. At one time he sought release for a visit to Virginia, promising to bring the king rich returns therefrom. At length, in 1616, James liberated him for the purpose of making another expedition to Guiana upon his pledge to find the fabulous gold mine or else bear all the expenses of the undertaking. Thus at liberty, while making his preparations for this voyage, he was enabled to see Pocahontas from Virginia, who was in England that year. He sailed on his forlorn hope in June, 1617, with a fleet of fourteen ships and four hundred men, accompanied by his son Walter, and his faithful friend Captain Keymis. The expedition was a tragic failure, for his plans were betrayed to the court at Madrid, through the Spanish ambassador, under whose influence James had fallen, and immediate steps were taken to thwart them. The fleet were attacked by the Spaniards at a new Spanish settlement on the Orinoco, and in the fight that ensued young Raleigh was killed. Sir Walter himself had been detained at Trinidad, sick with a violent fever, and when the report of this disaster with the loss of his beloved son was brought to him, his stout heart was broken. Upon his return to England he was rearrested at the representation of the Spanish ambassador, on a charge of breaking the peace with Spain. Again he was thrust into the Tower. Trial was denied him, and the truculent James, at the behest of the king of Spain, now ordered his execution, finding a legal cover for this judicial murder in the original sentence of 1603. He was brought before the Court of King’s Bench on the twenty-eighth of October, 1618, and the next morning was beheaded on Tower Hill, meeting death with great fortitude. “Prythie, let me see the axe, dost thou think, man, I am afraid of it?” he asked of the executioner; “a sharp medicine, but a sound cure for all diseases.”
In St. Margaret’s Church, Westminster, is the beautiful Raleigh Window, the gift of Americans, with this inscription from the pen of James Russell Lowell:
“The New World’s sons, from England’s breasts we drew
Such milk as bids remember whence we came;
Proud of her Past, wherefrom our Present grew,
This Window we inscribe with Raleigh’s name.”