possible to raise the needed funds in London. Moreover, Sir George
Somers, by being shipwrecked there and subsequently by dying there, had
provided a name for the islands that was both English and suggestive of
a climate so healthful that even Lord De la Warr might prosper there.
Accordingly, the leading members of the Virginia Company in 1612
undertook the colonization of the Somers Islands, a designation often
written as the Summer Islands, and for that purpose they subscribed to
a new joint-stock fund. The Bermuda joint-stock, however, seems to
have been a much more modest fund than that subscribed either in 1609
or 1611.

There was nothing unusual in thus creating within the framework of the
Virginia Company a special stock for investment under the direction of
its own officers and committees in the colonization of Bermuda. In the
great companies of London it was customary that each stock should be
separately administered. The only technical difficulty lay in the fact
that Bermuda was located outside the geographical limits granted the
Virginia adventurers. Under the second of their charters, rights at sea
(on both seas) had extended out from the coasts for only 100 miles,
which for the purposes of 1612 was not far enough. The adventurers,
therefore, sought and secured a third charter granting them rights
along the coast of Virginia, within the limits of 41 deg. and 30 deg. of
northerly latitude, to a distance of 300 leagues, in order to include
"divers Islands lying desolate and uninhabited, some of which are
already made known and discovered by the industry, travel, and expences
of the said Company, ... all and every of which it may import the said
Colony [of Virginia] both in safety and policy of trade to populate and
plant."

This extension of bounds undoubtedly represents the chief reason for
seeking the third Virginia charter, but the leaders of the company,
while they had the opportunity, also included other significant
provisions. Especially significant was a decision to enlarge the
authority belonging to the general assembly of the adventurers. To its
former prerogatives, which had been chiefly to elect members of the
council and to determine the apportionment of lands, the third charter
added three fundamental rights: to elect all officers of either company
or colony, to admit new members to the fellowship of the company, and
to draft laws and ordinances for the welfare of the plantation.
Heretofore, th