[1] The Russia, or Muscovy Company, chartered as a company of Merchant
Adventurers in 1554, received from King James in 1613 an additional
charter giving them the exclusive rights to the whale fishery of
Greenland. For the subsequent career of this Company and their
struggles with the Dutch for the possession of the Greenland trade, see
Cawston and Keane, _Early Chartered Companies_, pp. 45-52.
[2] In 1613 the Muscovy Company set up the King's arms at Spitzbergen,
calling it King James's Newland. (Anderson, _Origin of Commerce_, ii,
343.) In vol. iv of the _Transactions_ of the American Antiquarian
Society is printed from the original manuscript the Narrative of a
Voyage to Spitzbergen, being "A Brief Description of the Country of
Greenland, otherwise called King James his New Land." The rise of
the Muscovy Company and its participation in the Greenland trade
is carefully treated by Dr. S. F. Haven in the introduction to the
Narrative. This recently discovered land was Spitzbergen and not
Greenland proper.
1617, December 23.
[Banishing Notorious Offenders to Virginia.]