THE PERIOD OF BEGINNINGS
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nes to backe that project which succeeded not at the first attempt.” The Virginia Company was a semi-public undertaking and realised in many ways the author’s requirements.
It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of those composing it. It has been reckoned 1 that after the second Charter in 1612, the incorporators consisted of 56 City Companies and 659 private individuals. Of these latter 21 were Peers, 96 Knights, 11 doctors, ministers, &c. ; 53 captains, 28 esquires, 58 gentlemen, IIO merchants, and 282 citizens and others. At least 100 of them were at one time or another members of Parliament, and about 50 were members at the time of the granting of the Charter. Yet even the Virginia Company, started as it was on commercial lines, had not the patience to wait the necessary development and the hostile critic might see in the excessive cultivation of tobacco, which involved the abandonment of some at least of the ideals under which the Colony had been started a failure of the quid pro quo which had procured for it the aegis of state recognition.
2 Under the patent of 1606 to Sir Thomas Gates and others, t 6o6. the whole of North America between 34° and 45 0 N. latitude Charter of was claimed by the King of England, and the whole of this Company, vast territory was placed under the management of one and the same Royal Council of Virginia. Particular portions of this great tract, comprising not more than about 20,000 out of 2,000,000 square miles were allotted to two Colonies, the southern of which was apportioned to the Virginia or London Company, and the northern to a Company of adventurers to be known as the Plymouth Company. The exact situation of each Colony was not defined, but the Colonies were to have all lands stretching fifty miles in each direction from the first seat of their plantation, except towards the mainland in which direction each Colony was to extend for one hundred miles.
It was provided that no settlement in either Colony should be made within one hundred miles of any settlement belong-
1 Genesis of United States, ed. by A. Brown, 1890.
2 The Charters are set out in numerous books. By far the most lucid and satisfactory account of them is in the Genesis of U.S.