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

by Virginia 350th Anniversary Celebration Corporation

No original of any of the charters is known to exist, although other copies of varying degrees of completeness have been located in England and on the continent. One copy, made with the authority of the Governor, Council, and House of Burgesses of the Colony, was used as evidence to support a petition against Lord Culpeper's land grants. This is included in the Henry Coventry papers in the library of the Marquess of Bath at Longleat, Wiltshire, England (Vol. LXXVI, Papers relating to Virginia, Barbados, and other Colonies, 1606-1675). These documents have been microfilmed by the American Council of Learned Societies, "British Manuscripts Project." Many of them will soon be published by the Virginia Historical Society under the editorship of Dr. W. E. Washburn.

Another copy of the charters is in the Public Record Office, "Entry books of letters, commissions, instructions, charters, warrants, patents, grants, etc." (formerly "Record book No. LXXIX"), an abstract of which appears in the Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, Vol. I. Microfilm copies of this text are in the Library of Congress and the Virginia State Library. Other copies have recently been discovered in France and Spain by Dr. George Reese who has been employed by the Virginia 350th Anniversary Celebration Corporation to search foreign libraries for documentary material pertinent to the study of 17th century Virginia. Ultimately, microfilm copies of these records will be made available to research libraries in the United States.

The seven accompanying documents, included to illustrate the practical rather than theoretical basis of the administration of the Colony, have been taken from the best available manuscript or printed source. These official papers, together with the three charters of the Virginia Company, may be termed the constitutions and are the basic sources for the study of the Colony during the first fifteen years of its existence.

A few necessary liberties have been taken in transcribing these documents: abbreviations and contractions have been spelled out, capitalization and punctuation have been adjusted according to modern usage and, to prevent possible confusion, certain letters used interchangeably (such as "i" and "j", "v" and "u") are employed according to twentieth century practice. In the text of the three charters, omitted words or phrases have been supplied in brackets from the text in Stith. Brackets are also employed to supply the name of an adventurer if there is any deviation in spelling between Stith and the manuscript version: e.g., "Sir Charles Willmott, Knight [Wilmot]."

This publication owes its issuance to the inspiration and leadership furnished by Dr. Earl G. Swem, Librarian Emeritus of the College of William and Mary. I should like also to acknowledge the faithful transcription of the text by Dr. Nellie J. N. Kerling, and the deep interest and active support of Dr. Gertrude R. B. Richards, who most patiently assisted in the transcription; also to Mr. Francis L. Berkeley, Jr., Archivist of the Alderman Library, University of Virginia and to Mr. John M. Jennings, Director of the Virginia Historical Society. To Mr. James A. Servies, Reference Librarian of the Library of William and Mary College, has fallen the arduous and difficult task of a comparative, detailed study of all the texts in the different versions. The printed text in these pages is from a typed copy by Mr. Servies, prepared with the most painstaking application, as the result of the comparison of copies transcribed by Dr. Kerling and Dr. Richards, and of the printed pages in Stith. The merit of an accurate and readable text must be ascribed to the industry and scholarly perception of Mr. Servies.

Samuel M. Bemiss

THE THREE CHARTERS OF THE VIRGINIA
COMPANY OF LONDON

THE FIRST CHARTER

April 10, 1606

James, by the grace of God [King of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith], etc. Whereas our loving and weldisposed subjects, Sir Thomas Gates and Sir George Somers, Knightes; Richarde Hackluit, Clarke, Prebendarie of Westminster; and Edwarde Maria Winghfeilde,[^[1]] Thomas Hannam and Raleighe Gilberde, Esquiers; William Parker and George Popham, Gentlemen; and divers others of our loving subjects, have been humble sutors unto us that wee woulde vouchsafe unto them our licence to make habitacion, plantacion and to deduce a colonie of sondrie of our people into that parte of America commonly called Virginia, and other parts and territories in America either appartaining unto us or which are not nowe actuallie possessed by anie Christian prince or people, scituate, lying and being all along the sea coastes between fower and thirtie degrees of northerly latitude from the equinoctiall line and five and fortie degrees of the same latitude and in the maine lande betweene the same fower and thirtie and five and fourtie degrees, and the ilandes thereunto adjacente or within one hundred miles of the coaste thereof;