American projects, from which he looked backward only when he ordered Ralegh to the block in 1618. It is more than probable that, had it not been for his firm attitude, the early struggles of Virginia would have been ended by a military blow from Spain similar to that which destroyed the Huguenots in Florida in 1565. Turning to the East, and bearing in mind that Portugal and its empire remained under Spanish domination from 1580 to 1640, we find a like definiteness of policy. The actual wording of the treaty gave the East India Company little excuse for its intrusion. But James held in true Elizabethan fashion that European treaties did not run beyond the Cape of Good Hope, and he never countenanced the contention that English trade was illegitimate in the Indian Ocean. Thus far English expansion may be seen to have owed more to James I. than many historians, prejudiced by the record of home affairs, have cared to acknowledge. But, as regards the Dutch, the story is different. The conflict in the Spice Islands came at an unlucky juncture. The Spanish marriage project had just failed, the Thirty Years' War was beginning, and political reasons urged an alliance with the nation which had behaved with barbarous injustice in the distant east. A stronger king might have carried his point in both matters; James sacrificed imperial interests to the game of European statecraft.

One definite restatement of English policy emerges from the history of his reign. England no longer pretended to recognize the papal award of 1493. In time of peace she was prepared to respect Spanish and Portuguese rights based upon effective occupation, but, in default of the latter, she claimed that all non-Christian lands were open to any who were prepared to step in and exploit them. By the close of the seventeenth century the peninsular nations had each given a formal assent to this view.

Charles I., like his father, began his reign with a genuine kindliness towards commerce and colonization. Virginia had little cause for complaint in his treatment of her interests. Nor was he intolerant towards the religious element in expansion. His grant to the Catholic proprietor of Maryland was a model of liberality. He winked also at the obvious intention of the Massachusetts projectors to establish a nonconformist state across the seas: "His Majesty," wrote Winthrop, "did not intend to impose the ceremonies of the Church of England upon us; for it was considered that it was the freedom from such things that made people come over to us." In trade also he was anxious to promote the common welfare, and his ordinances showed him to be abreast of the advanced economic thought of the time. Then, with the fatal resolution to be absolute in Church and state, a deterioration appeared in his attitude towards national ambitions. Laud demanded universal submission to the Laudian religion, and Charles placed him at the head of the Commission of Plantations which would assuredly have goaded New England into revolt had not the Civil War broken out at home. Commerce suffered also from the

eleven years' tyranny. By 1640 the government was bankrupt, after long resorting to shifts which could not be reconciled with economic doctrines. Towards Portugal and the United Provinces Charles's policy is parallel to that of his father. He truckled to the Dutch, relying upon a diplomacy which both parties knew would not be backed by force; and one of his last diplomatic acts before the catastrophe was the conclusion of a treaty with Portugal (1642) by which English claims in the east were substantially recognized. For the colonial policy of the last seven years of his life he is not, of course, responsible : the Parliament, controlling the navy, controlled the maritime interests of the country.

CHAPTER II

VIRGINIA, 1603-1624

ALTHOUGH there is an apparent break of several years between the abandonment of Ralegh's efforts to colonize Virginia and the resumption of the task under James I., the subject in reality had never faded from the thoughts of English adventurers. As the contest with Spain declined in intensity the interested parties began again to send ships to reconnoitre the American coastline. We have already mentioned the expeditions of 1602. In the following year Richard Hakluyt and others sent out Martin Pring from Bristol with two ships. Their purpose was exploration and trade, rather than actual settlement. Pring examined the Virginian coast and returned with a favourable report. Still more notable was the voyage of George Waymouth in 1605, under the patronage of the Earl of Southampton. Waymouth gave a very glowing account of the prospects of successful colonization. In the meanwhile the treaty with Spain had been signed in 1604. Negative in all important respects, it omitted any express recognition by England of Spanish rights in North America. The Spaniards had pressed for such a recognition,1 but the influence of the English colonizing interest had been strong enough to secure the rejection of the clause, in spite of the undignified haste of James I. to conclude the peace. The way was thus open for the government to renew its patronage of the Virginia venture. In other respects also the time was favourable. The king's determination to put an end to privateering set free for colonization the services of many adventurers and the capital of the owners of private warships. Some of these energies were diverted to the East Indies; the remainder looked for their outlet in North, Central and South America, and more especially in Virginia.

Waymouth's report precipitated these floating aspirations. In April, 1606, not two years after the signing of the Spanish treaty, James issued a patent constituting a Royal Council for Virginia with the duty of supervising colonization on the American coast between the latitudes of 34° and 45° N. The adventurers willing to participate grouped themselves naturally into two divisions, those belonging to 1 Prof. E. Channing, History of the United States, New York, 1905, i. p. 159.

London, and those hailing from Plymouth and the west country. It was therefore determined that, in accordance with the project originally conceived by Sir Humphrey Gilbert, two colonies should be founded, one by the Plymouth Company in the northern part of the assigned area, the other by the London Company in its southern sector. The companies themselves were to enjoy commercial advantages and to furnish the needed capital, but the administration of the settlements was to remain in the hands of the crown acting through the medium of the Royal Council already mentioned. The arrangement was further complicated by the assignment of overlapping boundaries to the London and Plymouth Companies, the former having the right to plant between 34° and 41°, and the latter between 38 and 45° N. This division, which might have been a fruitful cause of future disputes, is possibly traceable to the devious mental processes of James I., whose talent for devising such subtleties earned him the title of "the wisest fool in Christendom."

As the event fell out no trouble actually arose from this source, the London Company alone proving to possess any vitality; and we may here conveniently dispose of the Plymouth Company before proceeding with the main course of events. In 1607 its directors despatched an expedition under George Popham and Ralegh Gilbert, who planted a settlement which they named St. George in the estuary of the Kennebec River (44° N). The settlers held out during a winter of great suffering and privation, and the survivors abandoned the enterprise in 1608. Thenceforward the Plymouth Company continued in practical abeyance until 1620, when Gilbert, Sir Ferdinando Gorges, and others belonging to it secured a reconstitution of its powers under the name of the Council for New England. Their subsequent proceedings will be dealt with later.

The London Company, which thus remained for practical purposes the sole Virginia Company, acted with greater perseverance. It was fortunate in securing the patronage of Sir Robert Cecil, and its influential members included Hakluyt, Sir Thomas Smith, Robert Rich, afterwards Earl of Warwick, Sir George Somers and Sir Thomas Gates. The original Royal Council for Virginia was evidently intended to be a government department for the regulation of colonial affairs in general. Later in 1606, the king appointed a special council to deal with the Virginia colony. It consisted ultimately of twenty-five members, and, itself remaining in England, was to nominate a resident council in the colony, who were to govern in accordance with instructions from home and to elect a president from among their own number. It is thus evident that the home authorities intended to keep a very tight control upon the doings of the actual colonists. It was further provided that the Company was to pay to the crown one-fifth of all precious metals that might be obtained. It might also, for a period 1 H. E. Egerton, Short History of British Colonial Policy, 3rd edit., London, 1910,

p. 28.

of twenty-one years, levy a duty of 2 per cent. on Englishmen and per cent. on foreigners trading with the colony. Under this final arrangement the Company set to work, and had its first expedition ready to sail in December, 1606.

The broad motives of English colonization at this period have already been considered. The particular designs of the London Company are revealed in the instructions to Captain Christopher Newport and his associates in the command of the first voyage. They were to find a navigable river and select a spot for the settlement as far inland as a 50-ton ship could penetrate, paying special attention to the defensibility and healthiness of the site chosen. On arrival they were to open sealed orders which they carried from England, in which they would find the names of the resident councillors appointed by the home council. Two-thirds of the colonists were to be employed in building and fortifying the settlement and in tilling the soil; the remaining third were to accompany Newport on an exploration of the interior, wherein he was to seek especially for deposits of precious metals and a passage to the South Sea. At the settlement itself all trade was to be for the public account, under the supervision of a "cape" or head merchant; the Church of England worship was to be maintained; conversion of the Indians was to be attempted, and they were to be treated with justice and kindness. Newport was to return two months after the establishment of the colony.

1

Captain Newport, the same who had brought the captured Madre de Dios to England in 1591, sailed from the Downs on January 1, 1607, with two ships and a pinnace carrying 120 emigrants 1 in addition to the crews. He took the southerly route used by Ralegh's expeditions, by way of the Canaries and the West Indies, and entered Chesapeake Bay on April 16. Chesapeake Bay forms an inland sea making a breach nearly two hundred miles deep westwards and northwards into the American seaboard. The estuaries of many rivers disembogue into it, dividing the coastal region of Virginia 2 into long peninsulas, themselves notched and jagged by smaller creeks and inlets. Of the larger estuaries two, those of the James and York Rivers, lead into the bay at its southern extremity, opposite the v opening to the Atlantic; and between these two rivers lies the peninsula upon which the pioneers of 1607 laid the foundation of Jamestown, the first permanent English colony beyond the seas. It was at Yorktown not twenty miles away upon this same tongue of land that Lord Cornwallis surrendered to Washington one hundred and seventy-four years later, and by so doing signalized the end of British power in the old colonies on the very soil which had been the scene of its earliest sufferings and triumphs. The site of Jamestown (called James Fort in the earlier despatches) was chosen on May 13. It was low-lying, 1 Channing, i. p. 165; J. A. Doyle, The English in America, London, 1882, says 143 (p. 152). Only 104 actually landed.

Virginia" is henceforward used in its more limited, modern significance.