World would doubtless prove equally
so in the New; and in the year 1609, men who were already netting one
hundred per cent profit from their investments in the India Company were
prepared to venture something in a solid business scheme to exploit the
resources of America.

A tentative scheme, failing for want of efficient organization, had
already been set on foot. Three years earlier, in 1606, James had been
induced to license sundry of his loving subjects "to deduce and conduct
two several colonies or plantations in America." Among those active in
the undertaking were Bartholomew Gosnold, recently returned from a
Western voyage, Richard Hakluyt, Sir Thomas Gates, Sir George Somers,
and Edward Maria Wingfield, a London merchant. Though not incorporated,
the patentees were formed into two companies, the London Company, so
called because its members were mainly London merchants, and the
Plymouth Company, consisting mainly of merchants from Plymouth and the
west of England. Each company was permitted to establish one colony
having a jurisdiction one hundred miles along the coast and one hundred
miles inland; the London Company anywhere between 34 deg. and 41 deg., the
Plymouth Company anywhere between 38 deg. and 45 deg., north latitude; provided
only that no colony should be located within one hundred miles of one
already established. The patent provided that there should be in each
colony, for managing its affairs, a resident council of thirteen members
which was to take instructions from the Royal Council for Virginia, a
body of fourteen men--afterwards enlarged--residing in England and
appointed and controlled by the king. The patentees were permitted to
trade freely within the limits designated by the grant, and to enjoy the
customs dues exacted from other Englishmen and from foreigners who might
wish to compete with them.

After a single vain attempt to establish a colony at Sagadahoc, the
Plymouth Company confined its activities to trade and exploration within
the region to which John Smith in 1614 gave the name of New England. Sir
Fernando Gorges was one of the patentees actively interested in these
ventures; and in 1620 he procured, for himself and associates to the
number of forty, a charter which transformed the old company into a
close corporation under the title of the New England Council or
Corporation for New England. Upon the patentees the charter conferred
the sole right to trade, to grant title to land