mpany, a band of London merchants, might establish its
first settlement anywhere between 34 deg. and 41 deg. north latitude.

3. The Second Company, a band of Plymouth merchants, might establish its
first settlement anywhere between 38 deg. and 45 deg..

4. These settlements were to be on the seacoast.

5. In order to prevent the blocks from overlapping, it was provided that
the company which was last to settle should locate at least 100 miles
from the other company's settlement.[1]

[Footnote 1: Over the affairs of each company presided a council
appointed by the King, with power to choose its own president, fill
vacancies among its own members, and elect a council of thirteen to
reside on the company's lands in America. Each company might coin money,
raise a revenue by taxing foreign vessels trading at its ports, punish
crime, and make laws which, if bad, could be set aside by the King. All
property was to be owned in common, and all the products of the soil
deposited in a public magazine from which the needs of the settlers were
to be supplied. The surplus was to be sold for the good of the company.
The charter is given in full in Poore's _Charters and Constitutions_,
pp. 1888-1893.]

%20. The Jamestown Colony.%--Thus empowered, the two companies made
all haste to gather funds, collect stores and settlers, and fit out
ships. The London Company was the first to get ready, and on the 19th of
December, 1606, 143 colonists set sail in three ships for America with
their charter, and a list of the council sealed up in a strong box. The
Plymouth Company soon followed, and before the year 1607 was far
advanced, two settlements were planted in our country: the one at
Jamestown, in Virginia, the other near the mouth of the Kennebec, in
Maine. The latter, however, was abandoned the following year (see
Chapter IV).

The three ships which carried the Virginia colony reached the coast in
the spring of 1607, and entering Chesapeake Bay sailed up a river which
the colonists called the James, in honor of the King. When about thirty
miles from its mouth, a landing was made on a little peninsula, where a
settlement was begun and named Jamestown.[1] It was the month of May,
and as the weather was warm, the colonists did not build houses, but,
inside of some rude fortifications, put up shelters of sails and
branches to serve till huts could be built. But their food gave out, the
Indians were hostile, and before September half of th