to trade ranged all the way from India to Canada; the political services which their governments imposed upon them varied from the production of tar, pitch, and turpenti

be chosen which exerted a deep influence on American colonization, and which, with the English East India Company described in the last chapter, a

] however, which was granted at the request of the company, May 23, 1609, created a corporate trading and colonizing company closely analogous to the East India Company, as will appear from the following analysis: 1. The company was chartered under the name, "The Treasurer and Company of Adventurers and Planters of the City of London for the First Colony in Virginia." It was fully incorporated, with a seal and all legal corporate powers and liabilities. In the charter itself were named some twenty

g four hundred miles along the coast, north and south from Chesapeak

to the English law, but with the requirement that it be distributed by the company

lishmen not members of the company should pay a subsidy of five per cent, of the value of all goods brought into or taken out of the company's territory, and all foreigners ten per cent, of the value o

provisions fit and necessary for the government of the colony, and that the governor and other officers might, "within the said precincts of Virginia or in the way by sea thither a

ons attempting any hurt or annoyance to the colony. The governor might exercise martial law in the colony, and was provided with the general military powers of a lord

ent, and defence of its colonists, and for trade with the natives, free of all tax or duty; and for twenty years it should be free from customs on goods imported into Virginia, and should forever pay only five per cent import duty on goods brought from Virginia to England. Among privileges of less material value, but long after remembered for

embers of the council of the company were required to take an oath of allegiance to the king in the name of the company. The main requirement from the company was colonization. It was fully anticipated, and in the preamb

the desire to carry only true religion to the natives it was made the duty of the officials of the company to tender th

provided for. [Footnote: Osgood, "The Colonial Corporation" (Political Science Quarterly, XI., 369-273).] The charter of the Dutch West India Company was granted by "The High and Mighty Lords, the Lords States-General of the United Netherlands," June 3, 1621. It had already been under discussion in the various representative bodies of the Netherlands for fifteen years, and had been a fixed idea in the brain of its projector, William Usselinx, for at least fourteen years before that, [Footnote: Jameson, Usselinx, 21, 28, 70.] advocated in a do

l the islands lying in the Atlantic Ocean; on the east coast of America from Newfoundland to the Straits of Magellan; and even beyond the straits on its west coast, and in the southern lands which at that time were still believed to stretch fr

ed a general monopoly and extended

vernment in these colonies, their religious life, and the conversion of the natives. He had a picture in his mind of a great commercial dominion, settled from Holland and other countries, forming a market for European manufactures, and producing colonial goods for the use of the Netherlands. [Footnote: Jameson, Usselinx, 4

s, self-governing colonial empire as Usselinx should have insisted, in 1618, that the colonists were to pay taxes to the home government,

e: it could form alliances and make war, so long as the war was defensive or retaliatory, could bui

rins, the use of sixteen government ships and four yachts,

the government; the return of its ships whenever practicable to the ports from which they had set out; the preservation for military purposes of all prizes captured from enemies of the States-General; the periodical publishing

ation of the company's affairs. Below this central body were five territorial chambers, with a combined membership of seventy-eight. The numbers, powers, and influence on the policy of the company of these chambers were in proportion to the wealth of the cities they represented and to the amount of the stock subscribed from these cities. The Amsterdam chamber, which was to subscribe one-ha

periority for distant commerce, under the conditions of that period, of chartered companies over individual traders. He was also much impressed with the power and success of the great East India companies of England and Holland. His first plan was a general French company of commerce, to include all the outlying sections of the world, and at least two such companies were chartered in succession. They came to nothing, and soon gave place to compa

ootnote: Isambert, Recueil General, XVI., 216-222.] It was described as extending along the Atlantic coast from Florida to the arct

such portions and on such terms as it should see fit, except that if it should grant great fiefs su

th all powers and duties was to be for fifteen years,

as empowered to confiscate any French or other vessels coming to trade within its dominions. The value of Canada as a source of supply for furs was already known, and the fur trade was place

supported, and, in case of loss, replaced by the company. He also presented them with certain cannon formerly the property of the East India Company. The nature of these gifts se

be likewise exempt. Other privileges were permission to nobles, clergymen, and officers to join the company without derogation from their rank, and an agreement to ennoble twelve prominent members of the company; full n

usand within fifteen years; to lodge, feed, and provide them with the necessaries of life for three years after their emigration; and then to assign to them enough cleared land for their support and enough grain to sow it and to feed them till the first

ettlement the company was bound to provide at least three priests and give them support for fifteen years, or else provide them with cleared land sufficient for their support. After

of this colony from its inception was in striking contrast with the freedom from religious restriction of the

rown; and nominate military officials by sea and land over ships, troops, and fortresses, the king agreeing to appoint their nominees. The

organization of one hundred associates, whom it describes as a "strong company for the establishment of a colony of native F

he genius of Champlain and with much tribulatio

, and 1628, and representing England, Holland, and France, a compariso

ir period of rise in the sixteenth century; a rapid and wide-spread development in the seventeenth; and a subsequent decline and discredit in the eighteenth. The movement was European; every country whose situa

ce with a specified people, over a specified extent of coasts or lands, and during a definite period of years. This monopoly might be only as against the fell

upon such voyages." [Footnote: Letters to the Dutch West India Company, June 9, 1621.] The preliminary equipment of ships, the purchase of supplies and merchandise, the acquisition of land, the building of forts and the supply of weapons and military material; the payment of a military force to protect their commerce against natives or interloping Europeans; the expenses, in many cases, of transporting and supporting colonists; and, finall

companies very generally received, explicitly or by implication, rights of peace and war, of supreme justice, of administrative independence, and of legislation for their own territory, members, and servants. A chartered company was in many cases the holder from the crown of a wide fief in whic

the popular interest in Virginia another phase of the national hatred of Spain. [Footnote: Letters from Zuniga to Philip III, in Brown, Genesis of the United States, docs, xxviii.-xxxiii., etc.] It was at the close of the twelve years' truce between the Netherlands and Spain, just when the war was being resumed, that the Dutch West India Company was formed, and its greatest activity was in a warlike rivalry with its great opponent in South America. "The reputation of this crown" was combined with "the glory of God" in the charter of

distinction between two kinds of companies, one for commerce, the other for colonization, but simply one of relative attention given to the two interests, according to the character of the regions for which the companies had obtained their concessions. All the companies expected to carry on commerce; all expected to plant some of their fellow-countrymen on the soil of the country with which they meant to trade. If the region of their activity was the ancient, wealthy, thickly settled, and firmly gov

es sending over settlers. This distinction, and the gradual pre-dominance of the latter over the former, is the clew to much of the early history of settlement in America. The commercial object could only be carried out by employing the plan of colonization, but new motives were soon added. The patriotic and religious conditions of the times created an interest in the Am

on a more extensive scale, and each time to suffer heavier losses. [Footnote: W. R. Scott, "The Royal African Company" (Am. Hist. Review, VIII., 2).] They experienced much mismanagement and softie peculation and fraud on the part of their directors; in some cases false

iscourage them. [Footnote: Letter of October 8, 1607, from Zufiiga to the king of Spain, in Brown, Genesis of the United States, I., 121.] Their greatest difficulties, how-ever, arose from the very nature of the problem which they were trying to solve. Distant commerce with barbarous races, amid jealous rivals, carried on with insufficient capita

tions of their dependence upon other nations for some of the necessities and many of the luxuries of life. National independence was furthered, at the same time that foreign products were made much cheaper. Spices, sugar, coffee, tea, chocolate, tobacco, cotton, silk, drugs, and other articles were made accessible to all. New shipping was built by the companies and additional commercial intercourse cre