The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Virginia Company Of London, 1606-1624, by
Wesley Frank Craven

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Title: The Virginia Company Of London, 1606-1624

Author: Wesley Frank Craven

Release Date: April 11, 2009 [EBook #28555]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VIRGINIA COMPANY OF LONDON ***

Produced by Mark C. Orton, Diane Monico, and the Online
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THE VIRGINIA COMPANY OF
LONDON, 1606-1624

COPYRIGHT(C), 1957 BY
VIRGINIA 350TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION
CORPORATION, WILLIAMSBURG, VIRGINIA

Second Printing, 1959

Third Printing, 1964

[Transcriber's Note: Extensive research did not uncover any evidence
that the U. S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

Jamestown 350th Anniversary
Historical Booklet Number 5

THE VIRGINIA COMPANY OF LONDON, 1606-1624

This is the story of the Virginia Company and only indirectly of the
Virginia colony. Those who seek an account of the early years at
Jamestown should turn to another number in this same series. Here the
focus belongs to the adventurers in England whose hopes gave shape to
the settlement at Jamestown, and whose determination brought the colony
through the many disappointments of its first years. In terms of time,
the story is short, for it begins with the granting of the first
Virginia charter in 1606 and ends with the dissolution of the company
in 1624. It thus covers a period of only eighteen years, but during
these years England's interest in North America was so largely
expressed through the agency of the Virginia Company that its story
constitutes one of the more significant chapters in the history both of
the United States and of the British Empire.

In the beginning there were two companies of the Virginia adventurers,
the one having its headquarters in London and the other in the western
outport of Plymouth. Englishmen at that time used the name Virginia to
designate the full sweep of the North American coast that lay above
Spanish Florida. In the original Virginia charter the adventurers were
granted rights of exploration, trade, and settlemen