emy to fight his way inland
against the disadvantage of the warning that could be given by an outer
guard at the mouth of the river. Such were the considerations that
shaped the choice of Jamestown as the site of the first permanent
English settlement in North America. To stand in the middle of the
Jamestown peninsula for contemplation of its many disadvantages for the
purposes of agricultural settlement, and even for the health of its
people, is to lose sight of the main point. One should walk over
against the river, and consider there the field of fire that was open
for well placed guns.

And just what was the Jamestown fort supposed to guard? Was it the few
acres of the modern county of James City, or the right of Englishmen to
possess the Virginia peninsula, where so much of importance to our
national history has found its place? Not at all. It was the right of
Englishmen to be in North America, to fish the waters that lay off its
coast, to trade with its inhabitants, and to exploit such other
opportunities as an unexplored and undeveloped continent might offer.
How far these opportunities might lead no one could tell in
advance--perhaps even to China.

A trade with China had been a major objective of English adventure
since the middle of the sixteenth century, when the Muscovy Company had
had its origins in an attempt to find a northeast passage around the
Scandinavian peninsula leading to Cathay--Marco Polo's fabulous kingdom
of northern China. The explorers found instead a profitable trade with
the territories of Ivan the Terrible, but the Muscovy merchants
continued to support a variety of ventures seeking the establishment of
an Oriental trade. Their agents looked into the possibilities of an
overland trade through Russia to Cathay, and experimented none too
profitably with a trans-Russia trade with Persia. They gave their
support to renewed attempts to find a northeast passage and claimed a
right of license for the numerous efforts that were made in Elizabeth's
reign to find a northwest passage around or through North America.
Failing in these efforts, the English merchants finally had challenged
Portugal's monopoly of trade with the East Indies by way of the Cape of
Good Hope. The East India Company, chartered by Elizabeth in 1600, had
gotten off to a good start, and was destined to become one of the great
empire builders of Britain's history. In 1606, however, the East India
merchants had had just enough e