nturers, by
the voice of the greater part of the said Company and Adventurers, in
their Assembly for that purpose." In language less repetitious than
that used by the company's lawyer, this meant that the council now
became an agent primarily of the adventurers. Even so, the king
retained a veto over any choice they might make, for members of the
council were still required to take a special oath administered by one
of the high officers of state, and refusal to give the oath could mean
disqualification for the office. The company's later history would
show, whatever its legal advisor may have assumed in 1609, that this
requirement was no mere formality.

It is not easy for the modern American to read with full assurance the
scanty record of Virginia's first years. How, for example, should he
interpret the suggestion at the beginning of the first charter that the
adventurers sought chiefly to propagate the "Christian Religion to such
people, as yet live in darkness and miserable ignorance of the true
knowledge and worship of God?" It is simple enough to point out that
the first adventurers in Jamestown showed very little of the
missionary's spirit, that they included only one minister, and that he
had enough to do in ministering to the English settlers. It is also
easy to draw an obvious contrast between the dedicated missionaries who
so frequently formed the vanguard of Spanish and French settlement in
America and the adventurous and often unruly men who first settled
Virginia. In the absence of immediate and continuing missionary
endeavors, one is naturally inclined to dismiss professions of a
purpose to convert the Indian as nothing more than a necessary gesture
toward convention in an age that was still much closer to the medieval
period than to our own. And yet, on second thought, one begins to
wonder just how sophisticated such a conclusion may be. He remembers
how deep was the rift between Protestantism and Catholicism at that
time, how fundamental to the patriotism of an Englishman was his long
defense of a Protestant church settlement against the threat of
Catholic Spain, and how largely the issues of religious life still
claimed the first thoughts of men. He then may feel inclined to observe
that the English adventurers, after all, did undertake to establish a
mission in Virginia at a relatively early date. True, ten years elapsed
before the effort to provide a school and college for the Indians had
its beginn