Special administrative bodies.—From time to time special bodies were created for aiding the development of commerce and industry. In 1622 James constituted a council of trade for investigating commerce, shipping, and industry. Charles I, in 1625, created a similar council, but it did not become very active, and soon its duties devolved upon a committee of the privy council, which investigated all phases of economic activity, the regulation of the tobacco industry of Virginia being one of the important subjects which occupied its attention.
THE FOUNDING OF VIRGINIA
Opposition of the Early Stuarts to Spain.—The settled policy of Spain was to maintain a territorial and commercial monopoly in all the lands west of the line of the treaty of Tordesillas. During the reign of Elizabeth, the mariners of England had struck at Spanish commerce and had made unsuccessful attempts at colonization; in the reigns of the first two Stuarts, serious attempts were made by Englishmen to wrest from the Spanish colossus some of his island possessions, and to occupy Guiana and portions of North America. The attitude of James I toward these enterprises depended upon the state of his negotiations with Spain. In 1604 a treaty was signed which brought the long war between the countries to an end. By the treaty the English crown surrendered the right of trade to the Indies. The English mariners snapped their fingers at the treaty and continued to visit the Indies, either running the chance of being taken as pirates, or registering their vessels under the flags of Holland or Savoy. The difficulties besetting this trade led some of the merchants to invest their capital in enterprises of colonization.
Settlements in Virginia, 1634.
The charter of 1606.—Between 1602 and 1606 several voyages were made to America, the most important being that of George Weymouth, who visited the New England coast in 1604; his favorable report greatly stimulated the desire to plant colonies. In April, 1606, a charter was drawn up which provided for two companies; one composed of men from London, familiarly known as the London Company, which was to operate between the thirty-fourth and forty-first degrees of latitude; the other made up of men from Plymouth, Bristol, and Exeter, known as the Plymouth Company, which was to plant colonies between the thirty-eighth and forty-fifth degrees. Each company was to have control of fifty miles both north and south of its first settlement, a hundred miles out to sea, and a hundred miles inland. Neither was to settle within one hundred miles of the other. Each company was to have a council of thirteen persons, and each was to have the right to mine gold, silver, and copper; the king was to receive one-fifth of all the precious metals and one-fifteenth of the copper. No import duties were to be levied for seven years. The charter also provided that the Christian religion was to be spread among the natives. Colonists who went to the New World were guaranteed all the privileges of Englishmen.
Founding of Jamestown.—In August, 1606, Henry Challons was sent ahead in the Richard to select a site for the London Company, but was captured off Florida by a Spanish fleet and taken a prisoner to Seville. In December, three vessels, which belonged to the Muscovy Company, the Susan Constant, the Godspeed, and the Discovery, sailed for Virginia under the command of Sir Christopher Newport. They followed the southern route by the Canaries and the West Indies, arriving in Chesapeake Bay in May, 1607. Of the hundred and twenty colonists who had embarked, sixteen died during the voyage. Sealed instructions had been sent for the government and management of Virginia. When opened, they disclosed the names of the members of the council, a body possessed of executive, legislative, and judicial powers, presided over by a president. A site was to be selected on an island in a navigable river, marshy or heavily wooded ground to be avoided. Contrary to instructions, the site selected was on a swampy peninsula, located near the mouth of the James River. Near the western end of the peninsula a triangular log fort was laid out. The settlement was in the district known to the Spaniards as Axacan, and not far from the site of the Jesuit mission founded in 1570. While the fortification was being built, Newport explored the James River as far as the site of Richmond. While he was gone, the Indians attacked the fort but were driven off. Besides the fortification, a church and storehouse were erected. In July Newport sailed for England, taking with him worthless specimens of rock which were believed to contain gold.
Early difficulties.—Shortly after the departure of Newport the colonists began to suffer from famine, malaria, and Indian attacks. President Wingfield husbanded the stores left by Newport, an action which angered the settlers, and he was soon deposed. John Smith was sent to secure food from the Indians, and succeeded in obtaining a considerable supply. When Newport returned in January, 1608, he found only forty survivors. During 1608 and 1609 the little settlement was barely able to hold its own. The few additional settlers who came merely offset the ravages of disease and starvation. During this period John Smith appears to have been the chief factor in keeping the colony alive. So precarious had conditions become by May, 1609, that he dispersed the colonists in groups, one being sent to live among the Indians, another to fish at Point Comfort, and a third to obtain oysters. In July a vessel commanded by Samuel Argall arrived with supplies, bringing the news that the first charter had been repealed and a new one granted.