and 5 per
cent, if they were aliens. The sums so paid were to be appropriated to
the company for twenty-one years from the date of the patent, and
afterward were transferred to the crown. James never forgot a prospect
for gain, and could not permit the colonists to enjoy forever the customs
which, as consumers of foreign goods, they must necessarily have paid
from their resources.

The jealous policy which at this time forbade the exportation, without
license, of English products to foreign countries, has left its impress
upon this charter. The colonists were, indeed, allowed to import all
"sufficient shipping and furniture of armour, weapons, ordinance, powder,
victual, and all other things necessary," without burdensome restraint;
but it was provided that if any goods should be shipped from England or
her dependencies "with pretence" to carry them to Virginia, and should
afterward be conveyed to foreign ports, the goods there conveyed and the
vessel containing them should be absolutely forfeited to his majesty, his
heirs and successors.

The lands held in the colonies were to be possessed by their holders
under the most favorable species of tenure known to the laws of the
mother-country. King James had never admired the military tenure entailed
upon England by the feudal system, and he had made a praiseworthy though
unsuccessful effort to reduce them all to the form of "free and common
soccage," a mode of holding land afterward carried into full effect under
Charles II, and which, if less pervaded by the knightly spirit of feudal
ages, was more favorable to the holder and more congenial with the
freedom of the English constitution. This easy tenure was expressly
provided for the lands of the new country; and it is a happy circumstance
that America has been little affected even by the softened bonds thus
early imposed upon her.

But how shall these colonial subjects be governed? and from whom shall
they derive their laws? These were questions to which the vanity and the
arbitrary principles of the King soon found a reply. Two councils were to
be provided, one for each colony, and each consisting of thirteen
members. They were to govern the colonists according to such laws,
ordinances, and instructions as should afterward be given by the King
himself, under his sign manual and the privy seal of the realm of
England; and the members of the council were to be "ordained, made, and
removed from time to time," as the same