Historians may trace in the Royal charters issued to the Virginia
Company of London a course of empire; a Company organized for profit by
the ablest businessmen of their time--merchants, manufacturers,
statesmen, and artists who bound themselves together in a joint stock
enterprise. The historian may also find in the three charters here
published a pattern for a parliamentary system and its development into
the American form of government. He might even perceive the inception of
a new society.
The origin of the joint stock company was probably primitive. Its later
genesis may readily be seen in the medieval guild. It became an English
institution in its application by Sir Walter Raleigh to his magnificent
adventures in both honest trade and romantic piracy.
The Company provided an agency for assembling adventure capital and
supplying able management to enterprises of great moment. It offered an
invitation to the industrious to participate in the growing wealth and
expanding power of the great English middle class. It supplied an
opportunity to small investors and it limited their liability. It was an
adaptation by practical people to practical problems.
Subscribers, or shareholders, met in their quarterly courts to discuss
the business of the Company and participate in its management. These
courts were the counterpart of our present day corporate stockholders'
meetings and were characterized by the same sort of discussions. King
James could protest vehemently against the "democratical principles of
the Company." He could see in their charters the final death warrant of
feudalism. He could execute Raleigh "chiefly for giving satisfaction to
the King of Spain." He could revoke the charters in 1624, but he could
not stop the rising tide of representative institutions nor darken the
great vision of the liberal Elizabethans. A new day had dawned.
The General Assembly which met at Jamestown in 1619 was the natural
child of the Company. Some of the planters along the James River were
shareholders in the Company. They had a voice in its management. In the
management of the civil affairs of the Colony it was, therefore, logical
that the plantations should elect their representatives to the local
governing body. It was thus that the first freely elected parliament of
a self-governing people in the Western World came into existence. Its
principles were based on those of the corporation chartered and
organized for profit by businessmen.
The three charters here published, changed successively to meet changing
conditions, were the rules and the by-laws for the commercial, economic,
and political development of a homogeneous, industrious English society
in a land of opportunity. The principal authors and executors of the
charters, Sir Thomas Smith and Sir Edwin and George Sandys, were
businessmen. They were practical men. They found a practical way to
assemble capital and ability, and coordinate them in constructive
enterprise.
A hundred years before the great Virginia adventure, Luther, Erasmus,
and Columbus rang down the curtain on the weary and confined drama of
the Middle Ages. Expanding horizons challenged man's vision and
intellect. Great courage made Englishmen adventurers in all things.
The charters here presented are among the world's great documents. The
first which was drawn while Sir Edward Coke was Lord Chief Justice is
replete with certain traditional and feudal principles, reverence for
the English common law and the supreme authority of the King and his
agents. The second, principally the work of the liberal Sir Edwin Sandys
with the approving participation of Sir Francis Bacon, great exponent of
natural law, marks a transition from government by arbitrary royal
authority to the concept that government rests on the consent of the
governed and on the fundamental right of man to enjoy the fruits of his
labor. Students may read in this charter the first principles of the
American Constitution. The third charter is an attempt to refine
principles enunciated in the second in the light of experience. In
addition to its political significance, the second charter proved a
tremendous stimulus to the Virginia enterprise.
Gondomar, the Spanish Ambassador, wrote to his King that "fourteen
Counts and Barons have given 40,000 ducats, the merchants give much more
and there is no poor little man or woman who is not willing to subscribe
something." The landed aristocracy, gentry, merchants, and yeomen had
joined in a company which they directed to provide capital and ability
for a great enterprise.
The text of the three charters of the Virginia Company is taken from a
contemporary copy recently discovered among the Chancery Rolls of the
Public Record Office in London--contemporary enrollments "representing
the official text of the charters kept in official custody," according
to the Deputy Keeper, Mr. D. L. Evans. A photostatic copy of this
manuscript is in possession of the Virginia State Library. Each charter
was transcribed in England by Doctor Nellie J. M. Kerling for the
editor's use.
Heretofore scholars have had access to the charters only through the
text in William Stith's _The History of the First Discovery and
Settlement of Virginia_ (Williamsburg, Printed by William Parks, 1747),
in sources based upon this, or in Alexander Brown's _The Genesis of the
United States_ (Boston, 1890).
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.