ony
in Virginia." Sir Thomas Smith was designated treasurer with power to
warn and summon the members of the council and of the company "to their
courts and meetings." The adventurers, "or the major part of them which
shall be present and assembled for that purpose" were empowered to make
grants of land according to "the proportion of the adventurer, as to
the special service, hazard, exploit, or merit of any person so to be
recompenced, advanced, or rewarded." They were to meet also as occasion
required for the election of members of the council, which was charged
with the management of the enterprise on the ground that it was not
convenient "that all the adventurers shall be so often drawn to meet
and assemble." The members of the council were listed by name, more
than fifty of them, beginning with Henry, Earl of Southampton, and
including the Lord Mayor of London, the Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells,
Thomas, Lord De la Warr, Sir William Wade, Sir Oliver Cromwell, Sir
Francis Bacon, Sir Maurice Berkeley, Sir Thomas Gates, Sir Walter Cope,
Sir Edwin Sandys, Sir Thomas Roe, Sir Dudley Digges, John Eldred, and
John Wolstenholme. These and their colleagues of the council, which
included of course Sir Thomas Smith, were the great men of the company,
not necessarily the heaviest investors but those whose experience, or
social and political position, argued that they should be on the
managing board. In short, the subscribers had a basic right to choose
the directors of the business and to determine the division of its
rewards, but the great men would run it.

For the assurance of the adventurers, each of them was listed by name
in the charter--all told, some 650 of them. In addition to the
individuals there named, the charter listed some fifty London companies
which had subscribed in their corporate capacity in response to the
appeals of London's clergymen and the Lord Mayor. To list all these
companies would be tedious, but some of them should be named, if only
for the picture they give of London itself. Here were "the Company of
Mercers, the Company of Grocers, the Company of Drapers, the Company of
Fishmongers, the Company of Goldsmiths, the Company of Skinners, the
Company of Merchant-Taylors, the Company of Haberdashers, the Company
of Salters, the Company of Ironmongers, the Company of Vintners, the
Company of Clothworkers, the Company of Dyers, the Company of Brewers,
the Company of Leathersellers, the Company of Pewter