colonizers, acting individually or in groups, collected the ships, men and resources necessary for their enterprises, and procured from the Crown a charter. By this document the king conveyed to them a claim to the soil which would be valid in English law, gave them the right to transfer Englishmen thither as colonists, to trade with them and with the natives, and to govern the colony, subject to the conditions of allegiance and of British sovereignty in general. The rights and liberties of the colonists as British subjects, without attempt to define what they were, were guaranteed by the charters, and the grantee was prohibited from passing laws or issuing orders which were repugnant to those of England. In only a part of the charters—those chiefly which were issued subsequent to 1660—was express reference made to the calling of assemblies in the colonies. So general were the provisions of the charters that they only remotely determined the forms which government should assume under them and what the rights of the colonists should be. A considerable variety of institutions and social types existed under them. But their very indefiniteness made them valuable as objects of appeal to those who in time of controversy were upholding local rights and liberties.
5. Of the chartered colonies there were two varieties—proprietary provinces and corporate colonies. Though alike Proprietary Provinces in the fact that the patentees who founded them were mesne tenants of the Crown, they were quite unlike in their internal organization and to a considerable extent also in the character of the people who inhabited them. The proprietary province was a development from the principle of the fief, though with many variations. The early charters of discovery, those for example which were granted to John and Sebastian Cabot and to Sir Humphrey Gilbert, contemplated the founding of feudal principalities in the New World. The grant to Sir Walter Raleigh, which resulted in the abortive colonial experiment at Roanoke, was of the same character. At the period of transition from the rule of the Tudors to that of the Stuarts, trading companies and companies whose purpose was colonization were increasing in number and importance. The first half of the 17th century was distinguished by the founding of many such, in France and the Netherlands as well as in England. The joint companies which were chartered London and Plymouth Companies. by James I. in 1606, one to have its residence at London and the other at Plymouth, were of this character. They were granted the right to colonize, the one in northern and the other in southern “Virginia”; the intervening territory, three degrees in breadth, being left common to the two. The rights of the companies were confined to those of settlement and trade. The Plymouth patentees achieved no permanent result; but those of London founded Jamestown (1607) and other settlements along the James river, which later became the province of Virginia (q.v.).
6. But before this result had been reached the London patentees had secured in succession two new charters, one in 1609 and another in 1612. By means of these grants they had practically separated from the Plymouth Company, had secured a concession of territory 400 m. broad and extending through the continent, and had been able to perfect the organization of their company. By the grant of 1606 the right to govern the colonies had been reserved to councils of royal appointees, one resident in England and one in each distinct colony which should be founded. But by their later charters the London patentees were fully incorporated, and in connection therewith received not only the power to grant land but rights of government as well. This made the Virginia Company of London in the full sense of the word the proprietor of the province which it was founding. It now appointed resident governors, councillors and other officials for the colony, and instructed and controlled them in all ways, subject of course to the general supervision of the king in council. Under the charter of 1606, in order to facilitate colonization on a strange continent, joint management of land and trade was temporarily instituted. But under the fully organized company, as managed by Sir Thomas Smith, and especially by Sir Edwin Sandys and the Ferrars, this system was abandoned, and private property in land and the control of trade through private “magazines” were established. A number of distinct plantations and settlements were founded which later developed into counties and parishes. From these localities, in 1619, under authority from the company, representatives were elected who met with the governor and council at Jamestown and formed the first colonial assembly held on American soil. Its acts were duly submitted to the company in London for its approval or disapproval. Other assemblies were called, the tobacco industry was established and the principles upon which traffic in that staple was to be conducted with Europe were announced. Thus Virginia assumed the form of a proprietary province, with an English trading company as its proprietor.
7. Meantime west of England men had been making fishing voyages and voyages of discovery to northern “Virginia”, which New England Council. now was coming to be known as New England. In 1620 a new charter was procured, the reorganized company being known, in brief, as the New England Council. Like the London patentees, this body was now fully incorporated and received a grant of the vast territory between 40° and 48° N. lat. and extending through to the South Sea (Pacific). Full rights of government, as well as of trade and settlement, were also bestowed. The moving spirit in this revived enterprise was Sir Ferdinando Gorges (q.v.), an Anglican and royalist from the west of England. For a time John Mason (q.v.) was his most active coadjutor. Such backing as the company received came from nobles and courtiers, and it had the sympathy of the court. But lack of resources and of active interest on the part of most of the patentees, together with the development of a Puritan interest in New England, led to the failure of this enterprise. No colony was established directly by the council itself, but that part of its vast territory which lay adjacent to the coast was parcelled out among the patentees and by them a few weak and struggling settlements were founded. They were all proprietary in character, and those along the northern coast were more or less connected with Anglican and royalist interests. But, as events proved, Plymouth Colony (founded in 1620), which was Puritan and Separatist to the core, became a patentee of the New England Council; and the colony of Massachusetts Bay (founded in 1628-1630), which was to become the citadel of Puritanism in America, procured the original title to its soil from the same source. At the outset both Massachusetts and Plymouth must be classed as proprietary settlements, though far different from such in spirit and destiny. Massachusetts soon (in 1629) secured a royal charter for its territory between the Merrimac and Charles rivers, and thus took a long step towards independence of the council. At the same time the Plymouth settlers were throwing aside the system of joint management of land which, as in the case of Virginia, had been imposed upon them by adventurers who had lent money for the enterprise; were paying their debts to these same adventurers and securing control of the trade of the colony; were establishing a system of self-government similar to that of Massachusetts. Thus a strong Puritan interest grew up in the midst of the domain which had been granted to the New England Council, and in connexion therewith the type of colony to which we have given the name corporate came into existence.
8. In order to understand the nature of the corporate colony, it is necessary to explain the internal organization of that Corporate Colonies; the Virginia Company. type of company which, like the Virginia Company of London, was founded for purposes of trade and colonization. It was composed of stockholders, who became members as the result of the purchase of shares or of migration to the colony as planters, or of both acts combined. In the Virginia Company they were known as the “generality,” in the Massachusetts and other companies as the “freemen.” In them, when met as a democratically organized body under the name of “quarter court” or “general court,” was vested the governing power of the company. It
