Parliaments of J'antes I. and Plantation of America. in English politics. On Feb. 17, 1607, replying to Nicholas Fuller, Esq. (Barrister of Gray's Inn, Champion for the Puritans, and afterwards a member of the Virginia Company of London), in the debate in Parliament on the union with Scotland, Sir Francis Bacon denied that the Scots would overrun England; " but if the land was too little the sea was open. Commerce would give support to thousands. Ireland was waiting for colonists to till it, and the solitude of Virginia was crying aloud for inhabitants." Captain Henry Challons, on board The Richard, left England for North Virginia in August, 1606; was captured in the West Indies in November, and taken to Spain. Daniel Tucker, one of the officials of this vessel, made his escape to England, and on Feb. 4, 1607, wrote a relation of the cap ture to Sir Ferdinando Gorges, who sent it to Cecil, Secretary of State, and the matter was looked after at once. On Feb. 26 this matter, with others of the like character, was brought before the House of Commons in a petition addressed " to the King's most excellent Majesty, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and the rest of this honourable Court." The petitioners complained first "of the wrongs in fact," secondly "of the wrongs in law," and thirdly they desired the remedy by " letters of marque " to the value of their loss under the authority of the statute in that kind issued in the time of Henry V. On Feb. 28 the petition was referred to a committee (Parliament was not in session from 31st March to 17th April inclusive), who on May 13 made their report, and Sir Edwin Sandys (a leading member of the House of Commons, and of His Majesty's Council for Virginia) made a speech thereon. Three days thereafter (May 16) the Commons asked the House of Lords " for a conference (of committees) touching joining in petition to his Majesty for redress of Spanish wrongs," and " ex pressing the desire of the House to that
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purpose." The Lords consented, and on June 1 5 they proposed that the conference should take place the same afternoon. This was agreed to, and during this conference the Earls of Salisbury and of Northampton made speeches, which were reported on June 17 by Sir Francis Bacon to the House of Commons. The Earl of Salisbury (Secretary of State) divided "the wrongs in fact" into three: first the trade to Spain, second the trade to the West Indies, and third the trade to the Levant. As to the trade to the West Indies, Bacon reported his speech as follows : "For the Trade to the [West] Indies, his Lordship did discover unto us the state of it to be thus : — The policy of Spain doth keep that treasury of theirs [the Spanish West Indies, which according to their claim included Virginia] under such lock and key as a vigilant dragon keepeth his golden fleece. Yet His Majesty [James L] in the conclusion of the last treaty [1604-5] would not agree to any article excluding his subjects from that trade, nor acknowledge any right to Spain either by the donative of the Pope, whose authority he disclaimed), or by the title of a dispersed occupation of certain territories in the name of the rest; but stood firm to reserve that point in full question to further times. So as it is left by the treaty in suspense, neither debarred nor permitted, the tenderness and point of honour whereof was such, as they that went thither must run their own peril. But if His Majesty would descend to a course of intreaty for the release of the arrests in those parts, and so confess an exelusion, and quit the point of honour, His Majesty mought have them forth with released," etc., etc. The controversy over this petition and these prisoners, over the English settle ment in territory claimed by Spain, over the terms of the Treaty of 1 604-5, ar>d over the other national questions involved, was also carried on before the Privy Coun cils of England and of Spain. It was evi dent that the English could only secure "a lot or portion in the New World" through the means of a determined military
