s success
with tobacco, whatever the imperfections of the current product, could
be viewed as a harbinger of other successful attempts to produce
commodities the Spaniard had for so long and so profitably grown in his
West Indian plantations.

Further encouragement came from the willingness of the handful of
planters already in Virginia to remain there, and from the decision of
Ralph Hamor and Samuel Argall, both of whom had formerly served the
company in the colony, to return there. Especially significant were the
arrangements under which Hamor and Argall planned their return early in
1617. One of the problems that had undoubtedly discouraged the
adventurers from taking up the company's offer of a land grant in 1616
was the question of the supervision that could be provided for such
tenants as they might elect to put on the land. In Bermuda, the
adventurers had found an answer, or rather thought they had, by
dividing the land into tribes, later designated as parishes, over which
a bailif would exercise an office that was partly civil and partly
traditional on the landed estates of England. In Virginia, Hamor and
Argall pointed the way to a solution by entering into an association
with several of the adventurers in England for the development of a
jointly held plantation. Thus, in January 1617, the company awarded 16
bills of adventure to Hamor and six associates for the 16 men they
proposed to transport to Virginia at their own charge. The following
month saw a similar transaction with Captain Argall and his associates,
five adventurers who had joined with this seasoned veteran to send out
a total of 24 men. Argall went also as lieutenant governor in
succession to George Yeardley, who had been left as deputy by Dale on
his return to England in 1616, but the cost of getting the new governor
out to his post seems to have been met entirely by his own associates.
The arrangement has an obvious pertinence to an understanding of
Argall's unhappy experience as governor, for he was later charged with
neglect of the public interest through too great concern for his own
personal interests. But here the emphasis belongs to the equally
obvious fact that some of the adventurers were responding to an
opportunity to send out tenants who would work under the management and
direction of an experienced colonist.

In 1618 George Yeardley was back in London consulting with other
adventurers, including some of the leading members of the