[Illustration: OLD CHURCH AT JAMESTOWN
_A ruined tower of the earliest colonial days._]
[Illustration: JAMESTOWN CHURCH
_A reproduction of the church built 1639-1647. This building was put up
for the Jamestown Exposition in 1907, using the old tower, which can be
seen in the background, for its entrance._]
Within a few years after the destruction of the Armada a great
colonizing company was established in England for the purpose of
sending out men to settle the New World. Sir Thomas Gates, Sir
George Somers, and a number of associates asked King James the First
of England to grant them a charter of incorporation. He consented,
and on April 10, 1606, transferred to them the vast district called
Virginia, which comprised practically all the territory later
occupied by the thirteen American colonies. The charter which made
the grant clearly declared “that all and every the Persons … which
shall dwell and inhabit within every or any of the said colonies or
Plantations, and every of their children, … shall have and enjoy all
liberties, Franchises, and Immunities … as if they had been abiding
and born within this our Realm of England.” This was a promise of
self-government for all English colonies in America, and if England
had carried it out in good faith there would not later have been the
necessity of fighting the Revolutionary War; since all that the
Americans demanded at the opening of that conflict was to be taxed only
by their own representatives, a privilege which Englishmen in England
had enjoyed for many generations.
[Illustration: JAMESTOWN MONUMENT
_A shaft to commemorate the first permanent English settlement on
American soil. Jamestown was founded May 13, 1607._]
The Virginia Company, as this great corporation was called, was divided
into two subcompanies, the London and the Plymouth Companies, to each
of which was assigned the task of colonizing one-half the territory.
Before many weeks had passed George Popham attempted to plant a colony
in the part assigned to the Plymouth Company, but it utterly failed.
The London Company, meanwhile, had fitted up three small vessels, the
Godspeed, the Discovery, and the Susan Constant, placed one hundred
and five colonists aboard, and sent them forth to plant a colony. They
sailed from the Downs on New Year’s Day, 1607, and after a stormy
voyage of almost four months dropped anchor off a pleasant point of
land, to which in gratitude they gave the name “Point Comfort.”