issensions in the company over the details, and
Middlesex, the patron of the measure, being a great favorer of the
Spanish match, changed sides upon his own proposition.[23]

In April, 1623, Alderman Robert Johnson, deputy to Sir Thomas Smith
during the time of his government, brought a petition to the king for
the appointment of a commission in England to inquire into the
condition of the colony, which he declared was in danger of
destruction by reason of "dissensions among ourselves and the massacre
and hostility of the natives." This petition was followed by a
scandalous paper, called _The Unmasking of Virginia_, presented to the
king by another tool of Count Gondomar, one Captain Nathaniel
Butler.[24] The company had already offended the king, and these new
developments afforded him all the excuse that he wanted for taking
extreme measures. He first attempted to cow the company into a
"voluntary" surrender by seizing their books and arresting their
leading members. When this did not avail, the Privy Council, November
3, 1623, appointed a commission to proceed to Virginia and make a
report upon which judicial proceedings might be had. The company
fought desperately, and in April, 1624, appealed to Parliament, but
King James forbade the Commons to interfere.

In June, 1624, the expected paper from Virginia came to hand, and the
cause was argued the same month at Trinity term on a writ of _quo
warranto_ before Chief-Justice James Ley of the King's Bench. The
legal status of the company was unfavorable, for it was in a hopeless
tangle, and the death record in the colony was an appalling fact.
When, therefore, the attorney-general, Coventry, attacked the company
for mismanagement, even an impartial tribune might have quashed the
charter. But the case was not permitted to be decided on its merits.
The company made a mistake in pleading, which was taken advantage of
by Coventry, and on this ground the patent was voided the last day of
the term (June 16, 1624).[25]

Thus perished the great London Company, which in settling Virginia
expended upward of L200,000 (equal to $5,000,000 in present currency)
and sent more than fourteen thousand emigrants. It received back from
Virginia but a small part of the money it invested, and of all the
emigrants whom it sent over, and their children, only one thousand two
hundred and twenty-seven survived the charter. The heavy cost of the
settlement was not a loss, for it secured to Engl