CHAPTER II.

TRANSACTIONS DURING THE PERIOD OF SECOND CHARTER.

HE prospects of the colony were discouraging at the commencement of the year 1609, and in the hope of improving the condition of affairs, the directors in London applied for a more specific charter, with enlarged privileges. On the 23d of May letters patent were issued to them, authorizing the use of the corporate name of The Treasurer and Company of Adventurers and Planters of the City of London for the First Colony in Virginia, and granting that part of America on the sea coast, two hundred miles north, as well as two hundred miles south of Point Comfort, with all the islands lying within one hundred miles. A council and treasurer for the company were designated in the instrument, with the provision that vacancies should be supplied by the voice of the greater part of the company at a meeting called for that purpose. They were also allowed to make and revoke such regulations as would promote the interests of the colony in Virginia.

The fifteenth section was prepared in view of the dissensions of the colonists, and assumptions of the authorities, of which the company had been informed, and provided for a thorough reorganization in Virginia affairs. Its language is as follows:

"And we do also declare, that for divers reasons and considerations as thereunto especially moving, our will and

pleasure is, and we do hereby ordain that immediately from and after such time, as any such Governor or principal officer so to be nominated and appointed by our said Council for the government of the said Colony shall arrive in Virginia, and give notice unto the Colony there resident of our pleasure in this behalf, the government power and authority of the President and Council, heretofore by our former letters patents there established, and all laws and constitutions by them formerly made, shall utterly cease and be determined, and all officers, Governors and ministers formerly constituted or appointed shall be discharged any thing in our former letters patents concerning the said plantation contained, in any wise to the contrary notwithstanding."

This charter, as published in the Appendix of Stith's History of Virginia, contains the names of hundreds of members of the company, and there is nothing to indicate that all had not belonged from the year 1609.

The manuscript copy of the second charter, from which Stith printed, was sent to Virginia, probably, by Governor Yeardley, and the names of all adventurers up to that period were inserted. Sir Edwin Sandys, early in 1621, presented to the company the outline of a new charter, and in explaining the proposed modifications said:

"To avoide the infinity of names by reason of the multitude of Adventurers (encreasing still more and more, as for that many were already named in a former Patent,) he therefore thought good in this only to name the Lords of the higher howse of Parliament, and add those words compre

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hending in effect all the rest: viz: togeather with all other Aduenturers and Planters in Virginia."1

2

The Lord Mayor of London sent a precept to the great livery companies of the city, urging the desirableness not only of aiding the company, but also the necessity of freeing themselves of a swarm of unhappy persons who infested their streets, the cause of plague and famine, and of enticing them to go to Virginia. The Merchant Tailors' Company, in answer to the application, contributed 100l out of the joint stock of the house, 100l by joint subscription, and individual members adventured 587l, 13s, 4d in the enterprise. The influence of the pulpit was also enlisted in behalf of the projected expedition, and on April 25, 1609, William Symonds, preacher at Saint Saviour's in Southwark, delivered a discourse at White Chapel, in the presence of many of the adventurers and planters for Virginia, which was published for the benefit and use of the colony planted and to be planted there, and for the advancement of their Christian purpose.

A number of publications during the year appeared in behalf of the colony, among others, Nova Britannia, and A Good Speed to Virginia. Tobias Matthew, Archbishop

1 Manuscript Trans. Va. Co., Feb. 22, 1620-1.

2 In Herbert's Livery Companies, vol. I, p. 154, it is said: "An entry in the Merchant Tailors books, 1609, states a precept to have been received from the Lord Mayor touching this company making an adventure to Virginia. It stated the necessity of getting rid of a swarm of unhappy inmates, who inhabit the city of London, a continual cause of death and famine, and the very continual cause of all the plagues that happen in the kingdom and that they should make exertion to entice them to go to it."

of York, wrote in the month of June to the Earl of Somerset : "Of Virginia there are so many tractates divine, human, historical, political, or call them as you please as no further intelligence I dare desire," 1

Hakluyt, to attract attention, published a translation from the Portuguese entitled Virginia richly valued, by the description of the maine land of Florida her next neighbour, etc., and prefixed a letter, "To the Right Honourable, the Eight Worshipfull Counsellors, and others the cheerefull adventurors of the aduancement of that Christian and noble Plantation in Virginia," a portion of which is given:

"This worke right Honourable, right Worshipfull and the rest though small in shew, yet great in substance, doth yield much light to our enterprise now on foot: whether you desire to know the present and future commodities of our countrie; or the qualities and conditions of the Inhabitants or what course is best to be taken with them."

After reviewing the testimony of the Spaniards as to the presence of gold and other mines in Florida, he concludes with some statements relative to buffaloes and Indians:

"But what neede I to stand upon forran testimonies, since Master Thomas Heriot, a man of much iudgement in these causes, signified unto you all at your late solemne meeting at the house of the right honourable Earle of Exeter, how to the southwest of our old fort in Virginia the Indians often informed him, that there was a great

1 Lodge's Ill. Brit. Hist., vol. III.

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melting of red mettall, reporting the manner in working of the same. Besides, our owne Indians have lately ⚫ reuealed either this or another rich mine of copper or gold in a towne called Ritanoe, neere certaine mountaines lying West of Roanoac.

"But that, which I make no small account of, is, the multitude of Oxen, which from the beginning of the 16. to the end of the 26. Chapter, are nine seuerall times made mention of, and that along from Chiaha, Coste, Pacaha, Coligoa, and Tulla, still toward the North, to wit, toward vs, there was such store of them, that they could keepe no corne for them: and that the Indians liued upon their flesh. The haire of these Oxen is likewise said to be like a soft wooll, betweene the course and fine wooll of sheepe: and not so onely, but they make bootes, shooes, targets, and other things necessarie of the same. Besides the former benefits, their young ones may be framed to the yoke, for carting and tillage of our ground. And I am in good hope, that ere it be long we shall have notice of their being neerer vs, by that which I reade in the Italian relation of Cabeça de Vaca, the first finder of them; which writeth, That they spread themselues within the countrie aboue foure hundred leagues. Moreouer, Vasques de Caronado, and long after him, Antonio de Espejo (whose voiages are at large in my third volume) trauelled many leagues among these heards of Oxen, and found them from 33. degrees ranging very farre to the North and Northeast.

"To come to the second generall head, which in the beginning I proposed, concerning the manners and dispositions of the Inhabitants: Among other things, I finde them here noted to be very eloquent and well spoken, as the short Orations, interpreted by John Ortiz, which liued