and of its
opportunities, was to be finally broken.

The London to which Newport returned late in January, 1609, was already
astir with preparations for an adventure such as England had never seen
before. He sat in consultation with Sir Thomas Smith, as did Richard
Hakluyt, and Thomas Hariot, who as a young man just out of Oxford had
gone to Roanoke Island for Raleigh in 1585, and whose _True Report of
Virginia_, published in 1588, still remained a chief dependence of the
London adventurers. Hakluyt was preparing for publication a translation
of the Gentleman of Elva's account of De Soto's expedition through the
southeastern part of the later United States, an account published in
April as _Virginia Richly Valued_. To this he added in June a
translation from Marc Lescarbot's _Histoire de la Nouvelle-France_ for
the purpose of demonstrating that Virginia "must be far better by
reason it stands more southerly nearer to the sun." Broadsides
scattered about London announced the special opportunities awaiting
those who would join in the new venture, while clergymen in their
pulpits lent the aid of divine sanction, as in Robert Gray's _Good
Speed to Virginia_. The broad outlines of the new plan had been
presented to the public in February by Alderman Robert Johnson in a
tract entitled _Nova Britannia: Offering Most Excellent Fruites by
Planting in Virginia_. By the end of that month the adventurers had
also completed negotiations for the granting of the second charter, and
had opened their books for subscription to a new joint-stock fund.

The device of the joint-stock fund had been increasingly relied upon by
English adventurers as they sought the means for financing more distant
and more expensive ventures. It had the advantage of pooling the
resources of more than one individual, and of distributing the risk,
and the Virginia adventure had depended upon joint-stock methods of
finance from the beginning. It is impossible to speak with exactness
regarding the financial arrangements of the first years. A provision in
the first instructions directing the settlers to live, work, and trade
together in a common stock through a period of five years suggests the
possibility of a five-year terminable stock, i.e., a fund that would be
invested and reinvested through a term of five years before it was
divided, together with the earnings thereon. But other evidence
indicates that there may have been a separate stock for each of
Newpo