Over-population of England in the seventeenth century.
By the beginning of the seventeenth century it was quite evident to thoughtful men that England needed room for growth. The population of the island had greatly increased during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The extension of the wool trade had encouraged the turning of vast tracts of tillable ground into sheep-pastures, which elbowed large communities of farm-laborers out of their calling. England at large waxed great, the condition of the merchant and upper classes was improved, but the peasant remained where he was, the gulf widening between him and those above him. The growth of the merchant class and their appearance on the scene as large landholders, still further lessened the feudal sympathy between peasant and landlord. The land abounded with idle men. Everywhere was noticed the uneasiness which frets a people too closely packed to find ready subsistence. Starvation induced lawlessness. |Colonization as a means of relief.| Colonization was thought by many to be the only means of obtaining permanent relief from the pressing political and economic dangers of pauperism; and naturally America, from which Gosnold, Pring, and Weymouth had but recently brought favorable reports, was deemed most available for the planting of new English communities.
Chartered trading companies undertake the task.
But the temper of Englishmen had somewhat changed since the days of Raleigh's brilliant enterprises. A spirit of sober calculation had succeeded with the increase of the mercantile habit. Raleigh was out of favor, and there were no longer any private men who would undertake the task of colonization. If it were to be done at all, it must be by chartered trading companies; and naturally they looked upon all ventures with merchants' eyes rather than statesmen's. The career of the Muscovy Company, which had been profitably trading to Russia for a half century, and the rapid successes achieved by the East India Company, founded in 1599, were pointed to as examples of what could be done in this direction; although the obvious fact that Russia and India were old and wealthy countries, while America was a wilderness peopled by savages, appears not to have been considered.
29. The Charter of 1606.
Gosnold, returning from his voyage to New England, was ardent in the desire to establish a colony in the milder climate of Virginia, and easily won to his support six representative Englishmen,—Richard Hakluyt, then prebendary of Westminster, and now famous as an editor of the chronicles of early voyages; Robert Hunt, a clergyman; Sir Thomas Gates and Sir George Somers, two "brave and pious gentlemen;" a London merchant named Edward Maria Wingfield; and John Smith, a soldier. |The London and Plymouth Companies organized.| As a result of their endeavors,—seconded by Sir John Popham, chief justice of England, and Sir Ferdinando Gorges (page [41]),—a charter was granted by King James (April 10, 1606) to a company with two subdivisions,—1. The London Company, composed of London merchants, who were to establish a colony somewhere between the 34th and 41st degrees of latitude; that is, between the southern limit of the North Carolina of to-day and the mouth of Hudson River. 2. The Plymouth Company, composed chiefly of traders and country gentlemen in the West of England, with chief offices at Plymouth, who were to plant a settlement somewhere between the 38th and 45th degrees; that is, north of the mouth of the Potomac, and south of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. But neither was to make a planting within one hundred miles of the other, although their assigned territories overlapped each other three degrees. Later (1609), the southern colony was given bounds in more specific terms,—it was to extend two hundred miles along the coast in either direction from Old Point Comfort, and "up into the land from sea to sea, west and northwest;" this latter phrase being the foundation of the later claim of Virginia to the Northwest.
How the colonies were governed.
King James, unlike Elizabeth, did not favor colonization; but he was induced to yield his consent to this undertaking. The colonies established under the charter were directly under the king's control, and not under that of Parliament. The government of the two proposed colonies was placed in the hands of two resident councils, of thirteen members each, nominated by the Crown from among the colonists; while above them was a general council of fourteen in England, also appointed by the king. Afterwards, eleven other persons, similarly selected, were added to the council in England.
Royal instructions to the Virginia colonists.
The resident council was to govern according to laws, ordinances, and instructions dictated by the Crown. The royal instructions sent out with the first colonists to Virginia stipulated that the Church of England and the king's supremacy must be maintained, but the president of the council must not be in holy orders. The land tenure was to be the same as in England. Jury trial was guaranteed. Summary punishment must be enforced for drunkards, vagrants, and vagabonds, while the death penalty was prescribed for rioting, mutiny, and treason, murder, manslaughter, and offences against chastity. The resident council might coin money and control the extraction of all precious metals, giving one fifth to the Crown. It might also make provisions for the proper administration of public affairs; but all laws were to remain in vogue only conditionally, till ratified by the general council in England or the Crown. In another clause the king declared that all ordinances should be "consonant to the laws of England and the equity thereof." All trade was to be public, and in charge of a treasurer or cape merchant,—an officer chosen by the resident council from its own membership. All the produce of the colony was to be brought to a magazine, from which settlers were to be supplied with necessaries by the cape merchant. Doyle says: "The company ... was to be a vast joint-stock farm, or collection of farms, worked by servants who were to receive, in return for their labor, all their necessaries and a share in the proceeds of the undertaking." As a pious afterthought, the colonists were admonished "to show kindness to the savages and heathen people in those parts, and use all proper means to draw them to the true knowledge and service of God."