Prologue & Purpose
I admire succinct, mostly because my writing is anything but.
In his review of Oswyn Murray’s, the Muse of History, Robert D. Kaplan succinctly describes my problem in opening discussion of the Virginia Company civil war. ‘Myth of the past is necessary to justify contemporary preoccupations’. … In an age of media and sensatory-enhancing technologies that obliterate the past, with all of its lessons, we sometimes no longer seem to be part of a human continuum of the living and the dead, taking sustenance from the trials and tribulations of those who have gone before us”. [99] Robert D. Kaplan, Why we are all Athenians”, WSJ, Sept 28-9, 2004, p. C7
My problem is how do I demonstrate contemporary relevance to a obscure early 17th century joint stock corporation that underwent a fatal disruption almost four hundred years ago. The metaphor employed in this history is simple: Bend the twig of a young sapling and its growth will follow the bend—at least for a while, until it is bent again. Thus, the broken-at-birth joint stock corporation that was the Virginia Company survived its first twelve years. It barely survived and did not prosper, indeed was held together by the imposition of a military colony policy system. That imposition did stabilized the colony, but at the expense of discouraging investment and immigration.
In its twelfth year the London Company leadership made a last ditch effort to overcome its stagnation, but before it could implement the new program and strategy it conducted a near coup that threw out the previous leadership faction, at a cost of triggering what would prove to be a five year civil war that resulted in the loss of its Virginia charter. Succinctly, that loss, the termination of its governance of Virginia, finally bent the Virginia twig of political development in a direction that allowed the colony to survive the “administrative death” of its founder, and persist to the present day.
How? With each passing year the capacity and resources of the London Company sapped vitality from the implementation of the new plan and strategy, intensified the polarization with the shareholders and their factions, so that by 1621 through 1623 the London Company was hollowed out to the extent it could not in any meaningful way reverse the devastation of the Second Powhatan War, restart its economic strategy or even muster a successful London shareholder meeting to focus on those ends. In this period we see what amounts to a birth of a Virginia-based colonial policy system carried on through the use of Virginia-based company institutions with minimal awareness or assistance from London.
By late 1623, the king made aware of the incapacity of the London Company to manage its colony, suspended its charter, and imposed his will through the courts when the London Company under the dominance of the Sandys faction refused to surrender its charter. The courts in May 1624 ratified the kings suspension of the charter and from that point on, the London Company period ended. During this period, and the period after the death of James and ascension of Charles, the local policy system, legitimized by the Privy Council in August 1624, continued its governance, reporting and subject to the King, Mandeville Commission and Privy Council in London. Out of office, but not out of sight, the London Company lingered on the margins of Virginia’s hybrid policy system for another generation.
My task is to present sufficient evidence to the reader they understand my position that the failure of the Virginia Company was the precondition for a new start by something else. That something else would pick up the residue lying around and use it to survive, and persist. In its own way, that something else would rise to the challenge and accomplish, at least in part, what the Company could not. This module then simply describes the collapse of the Virginia Company in the location of the collapse: London England.
There’s got to be some irony that what caused the Company’s civil war, were macro dynamics of what caused the English civil war a generation later. While accurate to a some degree, the interplay of personalities was also compelling. Only one of the major players in this story will live to have a role in the English civil war (Second Earl of Warwick). That suggests we are dealing with the collapse caused by the resident generation that dominated Virginia; largely unmonitored and unaccounted for, they took advantage of the position and access to resources and established what was to become the core of Virginia’s First Migration transition from Tudor to Stuart, a generation that was not ready for prime time colonization.
But let’s give credit to those macro dynamics that wreaked havoc on the consensus that underlie the public-private partnership between the Crown, the English foreign commercial trade sector, and the Parliament that wanted in on the colonization fun and profits. Perhaps it would have been better to have simply waited until the English civil war was over and then begin this colonization thing. But time wounds all heels, and there were heels aplenty in our cast of characters. But let’s not make “myths” of any of them. In the next module, we will start creating our own “myth” as to how Virginia was truly “founded” as a successful colony.
My guru in this story, actually there are several, but the one on whose shoulders I stand is again Wesley Frank Craven. Why reinvent his wheel, I attempt to supplement it and make it stronger, update it, and integrate it into my larger theme described above.
Talk about succinct, his summary of his theme in Dissolution of the Virginia Company sets the stage:
The story of the London Company would be comparatively simple were it limited merely to a study of the failure of Sandys’ economic program. But although considerations of an economic character are fundamental in the interpretation of these famous disputes, it is also necessary to consider all sorts of personal dislikes, jealousies, and rivalries which arose from various causes to irritate the proceedings of the company. There are numerous instances in which the opposition to Sandys was motivated not so much by disagreement with his policies and sincere alarm at the state of the colony as by the simple fact that Smith and Warwick disliked Sandys and were anxious to satisfy some [not so] longstanding grudge. At the same time a bitter of feeling of personal injury was developed in Sandys and must be given due considerations in the explanation of many of his actions. [99] Craven, Dissolution, p.105
I think Craven, like most American historians, is to soft on Sandys. His plan for permanent settlement was like a “candle blowing in the wind”. Indeed, as we shall see Sandys was not above manipulating the Company’s shareholders, polarizing its shareholders, and tossing out his opposition. Using his grandiose hatred of the Tudor merchant adventurer heritage to impose his own, imposed a different vision of colonization, populated by new players of a new generation that was actually on stage during the Greate Charter’s aborted initiation. n elite.
That cast of characters used his resources when useful, but had their own plans in mind—and the determination to keep them alive through thick and thin, for good and bad, and never in good health, to lay the foundations of colonial Virginia. To be sure this cast of characters share more with Ralph than Piggy or Jack, their dilemma of being Lords of the Flies in a lost island will be replicated in 1620’s Virginia. For both better and worse they were Virginia’s First Migration.
The Bend in the Virginia Twig: Our Purposes Put to the Test
If American historians leave out the noise from London, the rivalries and internal divisions that were evident after the April-May 1619 change in leadership, the American reader could easily assume that Sandys was in charge of the Company after April, 1619. He was—and he wasn’t.
More importantly, that’s the wrong question to ask.
If one’s focus is on the colony, than, to me, the key question is whether or not the company was focused on the colony. I think the answer is that it was not—and that is the bottom line of this module. If you want a second question, I think it ought to be: did the company possesses the resources to demonstrate progress in its settlement and economic development strategy and initiatives? For me the answer is simple: the company was bankrupt and in heavy debt at the beginning, and at the end, of Sandys tenure in 1624.
If the answer to both questions is profoundly negative, what do you, the reader, think will be the impact of the company on the colony’s political, economic and social development—its heritage, its inheritance to Virginia?
More to the point, was the company in a position to manage effectively its governance of Virginia in the years between 1619 and 1624? My answer is No. However, correct or incorrect, good and noble or terribly faulty and unrealistic, its strategy and initiatives were on paper could the company effectively implement them in Virginia? Hindsight, and evidence I will cite in this module, strongly suggest to me its strategy and initiatives were in trouble the instant they reached Virginia.
Is the ultimate blame for their failure, and undisputedly they did fail, fall on the Massacre and the Second Powhatan? My answer is they were the coup de grace. By the time the Powhatan attacked, the company in London was a hollowed out shell under attack from both within and without. The company was not capable of governing itself, nevermind the colony. King James fired it in October 1623; I believe that at some point previous to early 1622, the company was in a zombie-like status, bankrupt, with few if any discretionary resources, and possessing an absentee leadership, as early as 1621. Mercifully, the Powhatan put it out of its misery.
The colony did survive, I guess. Who ran it if the company did not? To me the only answer I can find is the residents and leadership of the company in Virginia. Does this mean the colony was self-governing? Hell No! The folk in Virginia were hanging on, using whatever they could get their hands on. The couldn’t even get on ship and sail home; they had no trans-Atlantic ships.
If so, then as I suspect and assert, these folk, collectively referred to today as the First Migration, fabricated their own policy system over time, hung on, even when the deck chairs on their Titanic were reshuffled in 1624-6, and kept going, doing their thing, until the English sovereign, on the eve of his fatal civil war, put them on a leash and conceded their autonomy in 1639. If anybody kept the Virginia colony going until then, it was for the most part the First Migration. If so, like the Roman cubs of ancient times, it was the wolves who raised the colony and it was their heritage that saturated its future development.
Is this what Americans want to hear? I suspect not; we much prefer our myths. And that is my last task, to link what happened to what we have become—in a way so that we can be, not only knowledgeable, but proud of the spirit and the better angels that appeared at key times from their midst. Like Lincoln they arose from nowhere, did their thing, and left us; on the whole, a past of which we can have some respect, and on which we can turn to in tough times.
We have finally reached the point in this history where the rubber really meets the roads, when the wings run on tires that touch the ground. Using these mixed transportation metaphors this is the story of a great deal of American seventeenth century colonial history. It explains a great deal of my initial question as why and how American states, and their cities, are seemingly so similar, but so different that there is no mistaking a Boston for Jamestown-Williamsburg, or Charleston, never mind New York. Their states, and we shouldn’t forget that cities are the “creatures of the states”, are so different, yet seemingly similar, that anyone working in one and transferring to the other, will feel their difference.
They are similar and different because of their birth and early childhood during the seventeenth century. During that time the political, economic and social development “twigs” were bent at their birth and early years, and subsequent growth was never quite able to ignore that initial start. Each state’s future was not “caused” by the bend in the twig, the future offers ample time to reshape the mature tree, but the bend remains, be it visible or invisible four hundred years later.
To put my title’s metaphor to the test we need now to return to the Virginia Company in April 1619. Sandy’s incomplete coup replacing Smythe and his merrie band of long-in-the-tooth merchant adventurer traders, with his parliamentary, new generation semi-mercantile investors, had left him propped atop of the Virginia Company, and sandbagged over in the younger sister subsidiary company, the Somers, Bermuda, joint stock corporation. But Sandys perch in the Virginia Company in April was no “Iron Throne”.
From the start he had to wage his war, fight his battles to win his “game of thrones” over the early English colonization effort. It is the story of this module that we recount his version of merchant adventures that was to contest and contrast the initial start of the Virginia Company’s settlement strategy (if such it ever really had), by implementing his new revised and refined version, our Greate Charter reform, reorganization and its various initiatives and institutions. Seemingly, he did so beginning in the summer of 1619, with new immigrants on supply ships, a founding of the General Assembly, and the erstwhile restart of its economic base with the grand objective of adding to tobacco with all sorts of new “industrial” and agricultural initiatives that offered if nothing else a balanced, more stable, diversified economic base. No doubt the budding tobacco monoculture was shaking in its roots.
In the last module, Inside Virginia, the tale of the Greate Charter through the Great Massacre, I retold the attempt by Sandys, and the Virginians themselves, to establish plantations, install an economic base, and ideally survive and make ends meets during the period of the Greate Charter to early spring, 1622. Concentrating on the Virginia-based company leadership, the myriad varieties of settlers-free householders and indentured servants, with some mention of the wary Powhatan and other neighboring tribes. In this module we explain the core of the early First Migration and its start in what was hoped to be the Greate Charter golden era. At the end of the module things were not looking well, from the settler perspective at least. We left them confused and frustrated when they pleaded for assistance in their bleakest of days, receiving blame and told to figure it out for themselves. We will return to them after this module, and pick up affairs and make our principal case for the transfer of Virginia governance from London to Virginia.
This module on the other hand deals with London and their side of the story. We concentrate here on the first test of our argument, that London became so hollowed out in the 1619-23 period that the king was left with little option other than to fire the Virginia Company, and begin fabrication of another governance mechanism to replace it. So consumed in the machinations of this internal civil war, the leadership of all the factions had little focus, time or energy to spend much time thinking about colonial governance and oversight of the Greate Charter. Their game of thrones struggle occupied more of their thoughts, ambitions, and pride than colonization.
The implementation of the Greate Charter reforms, initiatives and reorganization was the last gasp hope of a already bankrupted joint stock corporation, and Sandys and his faction were still a minority of shareholders in that fragmented entity. Included in that as we described were Sandy’s gallant gentry and aristocratic adventurers, Warwick’s Somers Company privateers, the new association-investor joint stock corporations who were willing to get their hands dirty by setting up their own plantations, and the now semi-ousted Tudor offspring merchant adventurers who retained their control over the Somers Company. Off to the wings were a handful of individual free holders of all descriptions, each with a share, and each resident in Virginia. A motley crew they were, but for us they are the logs that lit were eventually burn the Virginia Company to the ground. It is their story we tell in this module.
I believe, to conclude that noise and division emanating from London did not reach across the Atlantic and permeate the upper crust of the Company’s provincial leadership, and into the implementation of the Greate Charter program as well as its core strategy. Matters always degenerated with each passing month, as Sandys, and his deputies, the Ferrar’s (John and Nicolas), were faced with contentious shareholder (quarterly court) meetings, the record of which was not faithfully reflected in the minutes—thus intensifying debate in following meetings. Even more disruptive was the open warfare between the rival Somers Company, headed by Smythe and Anderson, and the Virginia Company.
Sandys as Treasurer, April 1619:Because Sandys was in charge doesn’t mean he was in charge
Feeling between Virginia and Somers Island companies had become so embittered that hearty cooperation was impossible. Neither side was satisfied to let past disputes rest. … the supporters of [Sandys] showed themselves intolerant to the minority. One by one the more prominent members of the opposition were silenced. Canning, a former deputy governor of the Somers Company had been censured as ‘a great disturber of the peace’ … while Woodard who was said to have characterized an official publication of the Company as ‘libel’ was both censured and suspended from attending the courts for three months. A dispute initiated at the instance of Sir Thomas Worth raised a question so fundamental in so far as he challenged the accuracy of the minutes of the court as giving a fair representation of the general tenor of the proceedings. A careful inspection of the copy extant [of the meeting] shows that in the report of the meetings, the speeches of the members of Sandys party are recorded at considerable length, while those of the opposition are dealt with in summary manner. …. [Worth’s question] admitted that Sandys, but chiefly the two Ferrars—John and Nicholas junior—subjected the draft minutes to a considerable amount of editing … It is thus clear that the reliability of the court books is subject to no little suspicion. [99] Scott, Constitution, pp. 273-4
There should be no mistaking the Virginia Company for a modern highly bureaucratic business organization
Before we identify factional and personal fault lines with the conglomerate Virginia Company, a word or two about the organizational conglomerate/individual subsidiary Virginia Company capacity is in order. First, the Virginia Company was not the “day job” for Thomas Smythe nor Edwin Sandys. We have discussed this previously, but both designated deputies, Deputy Treasurers, as their day-to-day administrators and contact points. Smythe at least had more access in that the Company HQ was his mammoth house, but Sandys as we shall see was as committed to other responsibilities as Smythe, and while Sandys did have a London house (Alders gate), but after 1621 actually lived at his estate in Kent.
Running the Virginia Company was not a full time job for Johnson, it was for each Ferrar. John was about 31 years of age and Nicolas was about 28 when he assumed title as Deputy in 1621. With his father’s death in 1620 he is reported to have devoted himself entirely to the administration of the Virginia Company. Southampton “procured a parliamentary holding in Tamworth in 1621”. He was replaced as Deputy Treasurer by his brother Nicholas. The loss of the lottery, the Greate Massacre, the transition from Yeardley to Wyatt as governor, and the ill-fated tobacco contract episode were thus under Nicholas’s tenure as Deputy.in his estate in Kent. The Company HQ was that of his Deputy Treasurer’s father.
As such the position at minimum was chief clerk and bottlewasher for all daily affairs of the entity and all its subsidiaries, which were numerous. After 1621 when Sandys and John Ferrar were serving in the 1621 Parliament, Nicholas was probably alone in his administration of the company (with other clerks under his supervision). Not only responsible for the day-to-day implementation of initiatives, the Greate Charter program, the fiscal management of debt, revenues such as the linkage to the lottery until 1621, and no doubt a time consumer, the operation and servicing of the committees and shareholder court meetings of the Company. As confirmed by Yeardley, the office was responsible for the selection of settlers, the leasing and contracts with supply ships, and the purchase of supplies. The office certainly monitored the Magazine, and links with the Somers Corporation.
The point of this tangent is the company was not overstaffed and the administrative burden of the staff and the Deputy Treasurer was very heavy. To me it is very evident that experimental colonialism was not to be compared to modern versions of it. There are few plans of any consequence, tactics not strategy is paramount, and modern tools such as bureaucracy, audits and financial record-keeping, not to ignore the blurred line between personal profit and organizational profit, simply make decision-making outside of contemporary parameters. The involvement of an amalgam of diverse elites, whose only shared characteristics were an interest in colonies for multiple reasons, and whose involvement was grossly limited by extreme multi-tasking among different entities and policy areas, that rendered the holistic policy-system into a mobile chaos. It is hard to see where one man’s blame, and another’s’ glory begins and ends.
[999] Both Alderman Johnson (real first name Robert) and John Ferrar were merchants, the former was a grocer (guild) and the latter’s father was a Master of the Skinner guild, and an acknowledged privateer in the past war with Spain. It is not known how deeply either brother became involved with their father’s affairs and business. It is clear that John for sure had interest in colonization as did his father, also a very early 1608 shareholder in the Virginia Company. John, his son, and Deputy Treasurer was also a member of other trading companies. We know that both brothers were put under house arrest for “slandering Robert Rich the Earl of Warwick” (probably the duel episode) by the King. Also his family fortune was severely reduced in 1624, during which time the Company lost its charter in Virginia. It apparently was a life-style change and he appears to have withdrawn from worldly affairs, to his death in Sept 1657. https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1604-1629/member/ferrar-john-1588-1657 [999]
[999] Johnson was as deeply involved in other matters besides the Virginia Company as was his father-in-law, Thomas Smythe (he also held administrative positions in the East India and Levant companies in which Smythe was CEO). Johnson was a member of the Irish Society as early as 1606 and continued through his life, “a corporate body of London Alderman, merchants and representatives associated with the new plantation in Ulster. Formed in 1610 and chartered in 1613, it was a sub-committee of the City of London Corporation which “was identified by King James I as the most suitable organization to pay for, build and run the most substantial element of the Plantation, rebuilding the City of Derry [present day Londonderry]” and other Irish cities http://www.walledcity400.com/honourable-irish-society.html. Johnson, whose first name was Robert, became known as “Alderman” (a title not a name) after his appointment as a Sheriff of London in 1617, a post he held, as had Smythe (restated in 1604), and represented one ward of twenty-six in the City. He held that post till his death in 1626. Johnson’s involvement in the early years until the tweens was almost certainly focused on the activities of the Magazine joint stock corporation, entitled “Society of Particular Adventurers for Traffic with the People of Virginia in Joint Stock” [99] See Herbert Osgood, the American Colonies in the Seventeenth Century, Vol 1, p. 88ff, but he was also intensely involved in the pre-1609 administration of the Jamestown settlement by the Company. [999]
Secondly, in the course of this module, I will make the case events in Virginia exceeded the capacity of what was, by 1621, a hollowed out central office HQ in London. With both Sandys and John Ferrar mostly absent, and the former absent into 1623 and likely consumed by negotiations regarding the royal tobacco contract, high level decision-making, i.e. in particular reacting effectively to news of the Greate Massacre and the aftermath state of affairs in Virginia, may not have gotten the attention, or comprehension, or both that they deserved. This is a noteworthy, certainly material possibility that if correct seriously impacted the course of events in Virginia.
Third and final, my intermittent effort to comment upon the evolving mercantilist English colonial policy system, an effort to advance our understanding of colonialism as relevant to contemporary times, yields several suggestions. Earlier in other modules I have made the case and added to it the reality that the Virginia Company was a signature launch of English mercantile-early capitalist ventures. Certainly, the East India Company, the immediate predecessor of the Virginia Company was one, as was the Virginia Company itself (in both conglomerate and individual subsidiary companies as well).
The Virginia Company was not immune from the “Drift into the Civil War”
During the drift to the English civil war, and in this period the transition from Tudor to Stuart colonization, the policy area was high priority for short periods, and easily “mishandled” by the style of rule, governance, and policy-making of James I. Otherwise it drifted into the margins of the larger policy-making of the period. Still, the Virginia Company was in the “big leagues” of English policy-making when they received the king’s personal attention, but then drifted downward into the hands of his Privy Council, and were always vulnerable to intersections with the currents of Stuart court involvement. My sense was that this transition period was at the edge of generational change in English elites, and we will be shocked to learn that a good number of the players in this module will be dead by 1626, Sandys at 1629 being the outlier.
There was no mistake that Sandys had aroused Smythe, his deputy Johnson and a not inconsiderable faction. Smythe still was in the good graces of James I; Sandys was not. That meant the Privy Council, the 800lb gorilla in English colonization, was nest, cesspool if one prefers, of very powerful members with interests in its affairs. Sandys, mostly because he was an aggressive and troublesome major parliamentary leader who supported parliaments’ entry into foreign affairs, was viewed as a troublemaker by many in the Privy Council. Generally, not well reported in American comments, Sandys victory mobilized his enemies in the Privy Council, particularly Sir Julius Caesar (no relation to the Roman superhero) who detested Sandys for his own reasons and rivalries, but who was close to a very dissatisfied, private association investor, John Martin, who had a serious, longstanding and bitter run-in with Sandys policies in Virginia.
Accordingly, the Privy Council, without prodding by James, swiveled into positions contesting Sandys. In 1619 and after, the reader should understand the Privy Council was the Company’s ‘regulator” as well as the king’s instrument in trade and foreign affairs. Its oversight responsibilities over the Company were to consume much time and effort over the next year as we shall also see. The entry and rise of Sandys and Southampton, not to ignore the Warwick’s, into Company internal affairs would be notable for its injection of court-based personalities into Company affairs. During the Smythe years, the opposite was the issue as Smythe had trouble with the lack of involvement by court heavy-hitters, and this insulation seems to have petrified the company’s internal decision-making, as individual shareholders lacked leadership and apparently interest until about 1616 when the Bermuda Somers Company matured and the decision was made not to grant shareholders a cash dividend, but one in land, only if settled by someone, changed the dynamics of shareholder activism.
None of this would escape the ears of the king or his advisors, and it should be little surprise that by 1624, the former concluded the company had for all practical purposes imploded on itself, and was no suited to continue the administration of the colony. When we later relate events and discussion during 1623-4, the reader might keep in mind the stored frustrations and bad feelings on the audit.
Lastly, I would focus on the how the Virginia Company was, in its essence, an experiment—the first major experiment in England’s’ seventeenth century colonization of North America. The regulated joint stock corporation was the inherited and refined version of the organizational vehicle chosen to conduct this experiment. In a few sections below we will better understand how this organizational vehicle was simply not the best choice for colonization and permanent settlement and how the audit episode reveals how embryonic was the English joint stock corporation. It should not have been tasked with this signature national venture.
Joint stock corporations had been around since early Tudor foreign adventures. They had evolved to produce after the 1604 Addled Parliament something called the “regulated” joint stock corporation, which was intended to break the merchant adventurer monopoly over their management and the ability to profit from matters foreign. They did so be allowing any who could pay the price to invest in a share, and be able to involve themselves in the governance of the corporation. The Virginia Company was the first example of this regulated joint stock company, and by 1616, it had at least one thousand known shareholders.
The previous version, of which the 1600 East India Company was “unregulated” and its board of directors was restricted to merchant adventurers who had bought into the individual trading factor venture into foreign lands. With a relative handful of paid up investors, decision making was oligarchical. While the East India Company would evolve as the years went by, up to the time of the Virginia Company, it was a pretty oligarchical entity and the source of considerable friction with parliament because in reality it was a monopoly for those merchant adventurers allowed on the board of directors. As we shall see by the end of this module, the Virginia Company by 1624 left the strong impression to external observers that the only thing the regulated joint stock corporation accomplished was to facilitate mutinies by an endless horde of rambunctious shareholders. They never understood the first law of trading across seas was never rock the boat.
Yet is very unclear to what extent these shareholders attempted or did influence company policy-making previous to 1617-8. Americans constantly have bemoaned its “greedy shareholders” and attributed to them the pressure that resulted in bad decisions, and immoral activities. While there was more than a whiff of greed, the Virginia Company seems to have been plagued by just the opposite during the Smythe administration. Why? Listen to Sandys and his merrie crew, it was a tyranny run by Smythe and his motley old style merchant adventurer shareholders.
It is blatantly accurate to assert, however, that after 1609, until at least about 1613-14, the average shareholder did not get involved, did not demand any serious verification of what was going on, did not see or use any published financial records that held company officials accountable, and deferred to the king of merchant adventurers, Sir Thomas Smythe. They only came to life in 1617 and after, mobilized by their Deputy Treasurer, a parliamentarian named Sandys—and the crew he brought on board.
All this was remarkable because from virtually day one of its existence, the company was bankrupt and had a very difficult time paying its bills and raising funds for investment. Even Sandys who was a shareholder and assistant to the Treasurer Smythe since 1608-9, did little other than NOT rock the boat, and indeed do what he could to keep it floating. My guess is that the Parliament of 1614 mobilized Sandys, and off to the races we go. This shift in shareholder dynamics went on steroids during 1616 and 1617, and, as we shall see, with Sandy’s April 1619 “coup” it exploded.
Smythe was either out of his league, or was simply overwhelmed by the shareholder tumult, which he, and as we shall see, Sandys, could neither control nor easily manage. Sandys, better suited by his experience, would be able to “manage” shareholder activism, at least in the subsidiary London Virginia Company, but the Magazines and Somers Company were different matters. As will be evident as we proceed through this module, matters will get out of hand, degenerate greatly by late 1622, and certainly in 1623 transformed into a free for all—so obvious and so bad that it made it necessary for royal authority to intervene.
In hindsight, the April 1619 Sandys’ coup proved to be the point of no return. For many, arguably most, American historians, this is about the last time they will deal with the Company except to mention the loss of the charter in 1624. This is one English inheritance they will have nothing to do with. A pity. There is much to learn about Virginia if we take into account the failure of the Virginia Company. The failure to include the last five years of the Company crushes our understanding of Virginia’s First Migration, the Migration that founded the colony and installed the essentials of what would be Virginia’s colonial system.
In hindsight, the policy system of a regulated joint stock corporation was “soft”, poorly regulated, and hence unstable, prone to artificial factional majorities, vulnerable to external court antics and game-playing, and played at the edge of the “red line” that invited parliamentary involvement. There was no insulation provided the upper leadership of the Company from all these disruptions. To the extent Sandys created anything resembling order in the Virginia Company, it was the result of his expelling anybody who argued with him at a shareholder meeting. This is the guy who is frequently credited with trying to install democracy in America.
Say it another way: the Virginia Company policy-making system simply collapsed, as the Sandys’ opposition was effectively cast out of the internal policy-making process. Ironically, the effects of the Massacre and the Second Powhatan came late into this degeneration, and while weaponized by Sandys opposition, it is debatable if by that time shareholder activism on its own had essentially crushed the Company’s internal policy-making processes.
In either situation, the focus of the Company on Virginia colonization wilted greatly, and given the Company’s fiscal condition, general lack of organizational capacity, and poor quality leadership, it is doubtful the Company could have responded differently than it did in the three years after 1621. Its ship of state was sinking then, and it was so defective, it simply took three years to sink completely—sort of because even then half the ship survived into the 1680’s.
General Disruption of the Virginia Company intensified by the Sandys Coup: the Examples:
Rivalry of the Northern, Plymouth Company--One little known negative effect apparent in the post-coup period was that negotiations regarding the reorganization of the northern, i.e. Plymouth Company subsidiary (that were ongoing previous to the coup) had noted difficulty after. Efforts by Separatist Puritans to obtain a charter for a settlement in geographies under the jurisdiction of the Virginia Company that started as early as 1617 ran into unexpected troubles in 1619. Sandys had been involved in the beginning, probably because his brother, Samuel, was the lessor of the manor house and mill ‘where for many years the father of William Brewster Jr., had been receiver and bailiff, ordinary keeper and government dispatch agent’. Sandys and John Wolstenholme (Smythe’s representative) worked within the Virginia Company to forge a consensus for the project, including approval by the Privy Council. But …
Owning to the fact that the progress of affairs was delayed by the dissentions within the company in 1619 … the business of obtaining a patent for the private plantation, could not be perfected, the negotiations dragged on and many messengers passed to and fro between Leyden and London, … in the spring of that year must have watched with dismay the dislodgement of Smythe and the elevation of Sandys and have wondered when the turmoil would sufficiently abate for favorable action to be taken … brought great discouragement to the expectant people in Leyden [the Pilgrims]. … The election of Sandys to the Treasurership [however] brought temporarily at least peace to the Virginia Company [and] the petition for a patent was renewed in “May, but not until June 19th (1619) was the company’s seal finally attached to the patent for a particular plantation such as the Separatists hoped to establish in Virginia [99] Charles M. Andrews, the Colonial Period in American History (the Coming of the Puritans), pp. 257ff
Likely, that some of this peace and stability of conglomerate Company policy-making resulted from the impact of a rising young Second Earl of Warwick. His influence and active involvement in the reformed and restructured former Plymouth Company to the Council of New England, and assumed a seat on its governing council in 1620, provided the structure capable of issuing a patent-charter and monitoring its activity. It issued a patent to the Protestant Separatists in Leyden, Holland (our Pilgrims). On August 20, 1620, the Mayflower sailed off, ostensibly headed for the colony of Virginia, but blown off course and then “bewildered” wound up on Cape Cod.
Warwick, in the meantime very active in a new “Guiana” project, which quickly failed, “had for some time been in touch with Robinson’s congregation in Leyden who [originally] were contemplating settlement in Guiana … [but] the accidents of the voyage compelled the Pilgrims to land outside the limit of the Virginia Company’s patent, and Warwick’s influence was again employed to secure from the Council of New England a patent for the land on which the new settlement was founded [Plymouth]. It is another striking fact in Warwick’s career that he was the only person of high rank and influence connected with all the bodies with whom the Leyden Pilgrims negotiated before they could secure a home for themselves in the New World. He was a member of the Guiana Company, the Virginia Company, and the Council for New England, and it was he who, as president of the last of these, obtained the grant of the second Plymouth patent on January 13, 1630”. [99] Arthur Percival Newton, the Colonizing Activities of the English Puritans (Yale and Oxford University Presses, 1914,), p. 36
The rise from its ashes of the older, 1606, Plymouth Company subsidiary within the [conglomerate] Virginia Company created an alternative to the Virginia [London subsidiary] Company in North America in 1620. As with the 1615 Somers Company the new colony at Plymouth even with its mixed results, demonstrated more growth (as a religious refuge of the Separatists), and exposed to others interested in colonization that the Virginia Company involvement in Virginia was not working.
That necessarily put more pressure on Sandys’ Greate Contract initiatives to be successful in promoting population growth and economic development capable of tackling its fiscal problems. The settlement in Plymouth also, over the next several years, constituted a problem for Virginia as one of its key initiatives to diversity its economic base was to add fishing, which meant interest in the nearest fishing waters off Cape Cod. In short order the two colonies argued who had jurisdiction, and who could fish, when and where.
Simply put, aside from the meteoric rise of Warwick, North American colonization had become more complex and complicated—and while it was still located within the subsidiaries of the Virginia Company conglomerate, the two subsidiaries were clearly heading down their own paths, and it was also clear early on, they were not clones of each other. More to the point the stability and capacity for settlement exhibited by the subsidiary councils of both the Plymouth settlement, and the Council for New England shockingly but increasingly contrasted with the implosion within the subsidiary Virginia [London] Company.
Argall’s Removal Disrupts Virginia Company officials creating crosscurrents behind the implementation of the Greate Charter initiatives--As another example of just who was in charge of what after the April-May coup, I call attention to the very divided loyalties of the resident Company leadership in post coup Virginia. In this example the Earl of Warwick enters our story as a very independent actor in intra-Virginia Company office politics. Smythe and the Warwick’s (father and son) had drawn serious enmity regarding the 1617 privateering Warwick had supported Argall as governor of Virginia.
Still, Argall (who was Smythe relative) had been formally appointed by Smythe, but in 1618-19 with numerous reports of Argall’s actions and behavior roiling discussion in London shareholder meetings, Smith changed position, joined Sandys, and started the process for Argall’s removal from office. Accordingly, we further refresh the reader the Warwick’s then sent a ship to warn Argall of his dismissal as governor, and wound up transporting Argall back to England to escape any confrontation with incoming Governor Yeardley.
Smythe’s leading the ouster of Argall in 1618 generated “much heat” between him and Warwick. It also should be mentioned this overlapped with the previously discussed controversial “marriage of John Smythe” with the daughter of the elder Warwick (and sister of the younger). It is likely the tension carried over into the appointment of Yeardley as Argall’s successor. As we have previously discussed, the tension probably played a role in Smythe’s petulance regarding Southampton’s role in obtaining Yeardley’s knighthood. I suspect I don’t need to remind readers this series of misadventures is beginning to sound like a scripts taken from a bad TV soap opera.
But it continues. Smythe, and it appears Sandys, sent with Yeardley’s gubernatorial instructions an instruction that Yeardley should monitor the activities of the ship “Treasurer”, a vessel jointly owned by the younger Warwick and Argall—a vessel that played a long relationship as a contractor with the Virginia Company. The concern with the Treasurer was that the ship had earlier left England with a warrant from the Duke of Savoy to privateer; Yeardley was instructed to keep an eye out on the Treasurer before he left London.
After the April coup, Sandys doubled down on this instruction seriously concerned and offended that Warwick and the Treasurer were engaged in of illegal privateering, if not outright piracy, both against the king’s wishes and Privy Council regulation. for this, and to let the London office known if the Treasurer showed up in Virginia. Craven asserts that Sandys feared the Virginia Company could get in the crosshairs of both king and Privy Council over the issue—a legitimate enough concern, that ironically he still shared with Smythe, who for his own reasons held an intense distaste for privateering.
And yes there is still more! John Pory (Sandys new Secretary of the Colony) traveled with Yeardley to Virginia, ostensibly tasked by Sandys to oversee and secure rapid and effective implementation of the Greate Charter instruction. Unaware by others, Porys was retained privately by Warwick to, in the words of Craven, “look after [Warwick’s’] interests … and keep him informed”. In the cabin next to Yeardley, the two likely conversed during the two month trip to America. For their own reasons, however, neither thought much of the other as a friend. It is also of note that Yeardley’s relations with the discredited former governor Argall, are also ridden with complexity, as evident by Yeardley’s naming of his first son, Argall, born Aug 31st, 1618. [99] Craven, Dissolution, p. 122
In that both Porys and Yeardley were the chief implementers of the soon to be launched Greate Charter instructions, one suspects that effort generate a fear that each would undercut the other in London. Warwick had sent several letters to Argall previously, letters which alleged certain matters (unknown) about Yeardley; and Yeardley upon his arrival in Virginia acquired them. He also found letters from Porys to Warwick that compromised his relationship with Yeardley and Sandys. Probably still reeling and still upset with Smythe’s knighthood comments, Yeardley no doubt to endear himself with his new master, Sandys, sent the whole caboodle to him.
Porys was the immediate loser in that exchange, and that no doubt placed him and Yeardley in the “no love lost” category. Sandys replaced Porys upon expiration of his term of office. Pory’s effort to keep his position viable resulted in several subsequent letters which exposed the rather fragile and tension-filled relations between the upper crust of Sandys Virginia-based company leadership during the Greate Charter period. London’s internal conflicts replicated themselves in Jamestown impairing the cohesion of the Company provincial leadership during the critical Greate Charter implementation effort of 1620-21.
Finally, John Rolfe in Virginia, of tobacco fame, was engaged in writing his his substantial support of Argall to Warwick, discrediting those who criticized him. At that point, Rolfe was Secretary of the Colony about to be replaced by Porys. Rolfe was a powerhouse within the network of Company officials resident in Virginia.
The net implication of these behind-the-scene goings on was that upper leadership of the Virginia and Somers Companies were seriously conflicted, and that to coin a term were far from “happy campers”. Worse, they could not trust each other. Sadly, we are just beginning. The fault lines within the Companies were about to widen considerably during 1620 and 1621.
The Audit continues to polarize the Virginia Company and dilutes its Focus on Colonization
After the April-May coup/loss each Treasurer-elect seemingly was tasked to look internally for their priority-agenda. Sandys certainly had his Virginia-laden Greate Charter initiatives and reorganization to carry out, and with Smythe sent packing to the Somers Company the second item was to bring the audit to some sort of resolution. We could, and should add the coping with the tenuous fiscal-budgetary situation in light of the added costs the Greate Charter elements had to be financed. We have already mentioned that in July Sandys ran against Smythe for Treasurer of the East India Company—and was tackled in that effort by no less than the king himself.
That last priority seems, to me at least, a bit of an overreach, and a hint of ambitions that stretched beyond Virginia and the Virginia Company. The budgetary priority on the other hand lent itself to facilitating association-investor joint stock contracts, and freeholder headrights incentives, with the common denominator of both being increased immigration into Virginia.
Earlier, I made the point that the bottom line in Sandys’s settlement plan was his notion that Virginia’s workforce had to be expanded if more production of exports, and increased diversification of the economic base away from tobacco was to be achieved. Thus it is nt surprising that 1619 through 1621 witnessed an increase in contract-signing and negotiations with new groupings of investors whose end result was more bodies, yes I used that word, in Virginia. That immigration produced more bodies in Virginia is a thought I would like to leave in the reader’s mind, knowing full well I intend to make that point later on in the module.
Craven wastes no time in reporting that foremost of these London initiatives was to bring the audit to a successful close. Craven senses at the onset of his taking over, Sandys had hopes of getting some money out of Smythe from the audits—money which the Company needed to finance the Greate Charter program. As early as May 12, 1619 Smythe counterattacked and demanded-requested that his position on the audit committee be strengthen by adding three of his friends; Sandys acceded but secured the concession that a quorum required the attendance of his faction members on the committee.
At this point, I would restate the audit status. In May 1619, after over two years diving into the books and financial reports, the effort seemed more like what an oil producer would call a dry well. A lot of time consumed, a lot of shareholder charges and noisy shareholder meetings that complained about incomplete or entirely missing records, and no evidence of a seemingly comprehensive set of financial records in existence. Smythe said he would pay any deficiency, but called for a number to pay. Those sitting in the peanut gallery might think that was reasonable. None was forthcoming because the auditors and Sandys didn’t think they could come up with a defensible figure. After May, 1619 the options seemed to be set a figure, and cash Smythe’s check after he negotiated it down, or, delve deeper into the abysmal records and come up with defensible number. Sandys chose the latter.
The audit committee was enlarged, unwieldy; it was not likely to be efficient or speedy about completing the final report to which it had been entrusted. Smythe’s allies pressed that an earlier report of the audit committee on the “olde” accounts of the pre 1616 period be accepted, and the future activities of the committee be concentrated on the post 1616 period. Smythe also pressed for the location of the committees meeting be held at his house, in view of “his extraordinary business and disability in body”. He also restated his willingness to pay such damages as the olde committee report could require. Smythe won the vote in this effort in that committee meeting, but within days a subcommittee reversed the decision.
Smythe backtracked by allowing the review of the olde period to be continued, but the subcommittee took the position that Smythe’s house was out of the question because it “would be very inconvenient for Sandys who was by his experience of much more value in the work [audit] than Smith”. After much discussion, Smythe gave way on this point also. [99] Craven, Dissolution, pp. 107-8. Still as the summer of 1619 rolled on, the audit committee was unable to make progress on the matter. The inability of the audit committee to reach conclusions carried over to the quarterly courts and committees. Craven reports by the fall “the feeling [polarization] within the company reached a greater height than at any time preceding 1623”, and Sandys himself “was forced to recognize that the “matters of Accounts” were the first cause of the “distractions of the Company by partialities and factions”. [99] Craven, Dissolution, pp. 108- In several instances Craven asserts the drag out and continuous whining about Sandys, not only infuriated Smythe and his followers, but at least on one occasion frustrated a close Sandys follower, Sackville [99] Craven, Dissolution, p. 111.9.
Sandys himself, along with Danvers, restructured the work task and organized it to achieve more efficient results. The effort proved frustratingly unrewarding—“he and Danvers who were charged with auditing the records … found it a ‘most intricate and difficult piece of work’ because there was “disagreement of the books themselves” … [also] the committee [reviewing] the lotteries reported simply they had been able to find no books”, and a year later the committee was still pressing Smythe for his own records on lotteries. A third committee “could find no record of any goods brought from Virginia, and a request for an explanation was forwarded to Smythe. Again, we had reconfirmed the previous state of affairs, either there was never any set of completed records and books, or they were missing and had yet to be found. I vote for the first.
On the final matter of Smythe’s accounts, “the committee was at a loss because they could find neither warrants [bills] nor any other records of disbursement of money [payments]. In short, the committees examination of these records and accounts over a year later were unable to make any sort of an acceptable report—nevermind a determination of how much Smythe owed anybody on anything. Sandys himself returned to the audit himself during 1621 and 1622, to no avail—and by the end of 1623, when the King placed a panel to manage the Company in 1623 no report or determination had ever been made. [99] Craven, Dissolution, pp. 108-109. Looking yet further ahead, by the time the charter was stripped from the Company in May 1624 no resolution of the audit, and no number for repayment of deficiency had been set. From November 1616 through to the stripping of the Virginia charter on May 24th, 1624-roughly seven and one-half years had been consumed. Amazingly, with the loss of the charter, Sandys, in mid-1624 finally settled on a number [L800 pounds], but by that time he had lost the ability to commence a collection. [99] Craven, Dissolution, p. 112.
Was this the best use of Sandy’s free time while he spent his days in Parliament? It would seem he left much of the implementation of the Virginia Greate Charter initiatives to the only Ferrar left in the company headquarters.
Craven also follows through on the audit of the Magazine. Without going into detail, that audit yielded more insights and useful findings. As early as 1617 specific claims were made of Johnson, the administrator of the Magazine which involved the conversion of company funds into use by the Magazine and from which profit had been forthcoming. Yet even then the matter dragged on, without resolution. The dispute fed into the larger issue of dissolving the Magazine, and a later issue of starting a new one. In short, the Magazine audit got submerged with Sandys initiative to close the Magazine and set up his own.
A core problem in the Magazine audit was that two sets of books had been kept, by the cape merchant in Virginia. One, in which recorded figures on which he bought tobacco in Virginia, and the second by London officials who recorded the value of tobacco on what it was sold for in England—almost always lower than Virginia’s. The Company had as a matter of policy sold its tobacco barrels for less than they paid for them. Thus the audit of the Magazine, even thought the accounts were kept much better and more complete, defied reconciliation, and prolonging the audit only produced division and polarization without any real prospects of yielding a number which could be collected upon. Thus the Magazine became yet another battlefront of the audit fight. These questions will be even more relevant when we later discuss the Company’s administration of the royal lottery.
What Does the Audit Episode Suggest? — My suspicion is that most everybody who knew the man suspected Thomas Smythe, the “everready bunny of the Virginia Company”, had never really kept any systematic records. He just went running from one meeting to another, one company or assignment to another, one crisis to another, day after day, and in apparently declining health. If Smythe was so busy with so many assignments, offices, and responsibilities, the only thing all the parties associated with the audit could agree on, was that the question must be asked as to who was actually running this company?
In this context, simple criticism of his management style does not get to the heart of the matter. Not only do we need to recognize shareholder responsibility for company governance was not evident until late 1616; it was not instinctive to English shareholders until a decade or so into the colonization mission. One also wonders beyond few officials mobilized from time to time on company actions whether any sustained coherence to the company on a day-to-day level had ever characterized the operations of the London Headquarters? I would answer this last question by suggesting what coherence the company had was to be found in Virginia, three thousand miles away. It was a lost cause in London.
Craven strongly argues that Sandys ”would have served both the company and himself better had he accepted the fact the books were incomplete, and fixed upon some approximate sum by which he could have bargained with Smith”; he adds “the dragging out of so sore a question over a period of four years, added immeasurably to the feeling which divided the adventurers [shareholders]. The auditors … merely complained of the inaccuracy and confusion of Smith’s books or charged that some accounts either had not been kept or were being withheld … [and Sandys] was never able to arrive at a sum for [Smythe’s] indebtedness .. Smythe greatest offense was probably carelessness, and a tendency, because of his many interests and duties, to rely too much on his lieutenants, even Sandys himself recognized that Smith “neither kept the Accounts, nor made them … further then of neglect and that through multitude of business”. [99] Craven, Dissolution, p. 110
Such division and bad feelings poisoned discussion on other matters, and, at minimum, leave less time for discussion pertaining to Virginia. In support of my thesis that the London Company was unable to focus efficiently or effectively upon its on site (Virginia) difficulties, thereby leaving the latter to chronic unaccountability, or more positively to working out solutions to problems, or responding to feedback from the colony. That this went on for years leaves one with what to me is an inescapable conclusion: that the audit and mal-administration was a higher priority in London than effective colonial management.
I would add, to my concluding addendum Craven’s critique: that the audit and its non resolution was an open sore in shareholder relations that not simply inhibited compromise, but actually intensified emotions and division as time when on. The direct parties consumed way to much time, for far too long, arguing, even in the streets when they chanced to meet, or at social occasions, never mind at shareholder meetings. It is hard to imagine that four hundred years later so many paragraphs and pages on the Virginia Company are devoted to this issue.
Simply put, the issue consumed a disproportionate amount of shareholder and company official’s time, emotion, and focus that it would be a grievous omission in the story of Virginia development and the Company heritage if it was ignored. If there was any hope of somehow fabricating shareholder consensus on the Company’s leadership and organization so that it could focus on Virginia and monitor its operations and understand its feedback into their policy-making, it was lost looking in the closets of the Company headquarters for audit records. Each shareholder meeting that degenerated into discussion on the audit added one more log onto the fire that was consuming the Company.
It is possible to suggest the fixation of Sandys on the audit and his determination to get Smythe to repay the sums that were lost to either Smythe’s incompetence or his success in converting company initiatives into personal profit resulted from a very moral end that sustained Sandys through his political career—his hatred of merchant adventurer monopolies and their profits that came through their control over England’s foreign commercial trade and colonization. Or, if one is disposed to do so, as Craven did in his Dissolution, suggest that when the entire substance of Sandys’s behavioral pattern over the years is brought into view, one sees a obstinance, a stubbornness that carried over into a number of areas and policies, which prevented him from compromise to move on and see a larger picture that could result from compromise. If so there is no easy line to know when a moral stubbornness turns into administrative malfeasance.
Firing broadsides between Virginia and Somers Companies: Rupture of the Sandys-Warwick “Relationship”
Sandys’s alliance with Warwick, as we shall soon see, was unstable, based on little other than Warwick’s convenience. In this period young Warwick had his own pursuits—among which he was very active in the fledgling Guiana colony, the Plymouth/New England Council subsidiary companies within the Virginia Company, plus his favorite, privateering in several forms—With many balls in the air, Warwick played both sides of the Smythe-Sandys fight. A more astute compromiser than Sandys could have played him along, but as we shall see, astute compromiser was not an attribute Sandys held. Improperly handled, Warwick was a powerful and able potential enemy.
But the alliance between the two men, even under favorable circumstances could hardly have been permanent. Warwick was of the gentry-merchant class {merchant adventurers], a frequent participator in many commercial enterprises and an adventurer in the world of affairs. He was the largest stockholder in the Bermuda Company, and a heavy investor in the shares of other companies and many private undertakings. He was by instinct dominant, cool and aggressive. It is impossible to think of him as the tool of any man, least of all King James, with whose absolutist ideas and divine right doctrines he had no sympathy, as his later career shows. He was hard-headed and a shrewd business man, practical and scheming, possessed of generous impulses, and always ready to help … but thirty-six years of age.
Sandys, on the other hand, was sixty-two years old, high-spirited, something of a visionary, a tolerationist, and a liberal by temperament. When convinced of the rightness of his course, he could become intolerant and obstinate, and persistent in seeking his ends. He was not a good business man; nor were Nicholas and John Ferrar, his chief allies, as wise as they should have been; and while Warwick was often ruthless and a believer in strong measures, Sandys for the purpose of maintaining his control was willing to resort to devices that savor of political practices. Both he and Southampton seem at times to have manipulated votes in order to gain their point. He was charged by his opponents with suppressing information, and concealing the truth about the condition of the companies and the plantations, though the charge is not well sustained. [99] Charles M. Andrews, the Colonial Period in American History (the Coming of the Puritans), pp. 166-7
Craven on the whole would agree with Andrews’ description of Sandys, but would add a very important aspect to the description of young Warwick. To Craven “the second Earl of Warwick … continued throughout a long life [as] the greatest privateer in England. To him the spoiling of Spanish commerce was a legitimate, honorable, and patriotic part of his large commercial interests. He considered the use of colonies as a base for such activities a reasonable privilege belonging to one who had invested heavily in their establishment and partly for this reason he regarded the more southern colonies as of the greatest value. He attempted to divert the Puritan migration to the Caribbean area and he led in the work of the Providence Island Company, its settlement off the Mosquito Coast becoming in the 1630’s the most famous pirates’ base in the West Indies” [99] Craven, Dissolution, p.126.
To better track and explain the Sandys-Warwick relationship we need to take into account that Warwick was more concerned with, involved in, and had more influence in the Somers Company than Virginia.
Interactions within the Somers Company—To bring the reader up to speed with the Somers Company, in the aftermath of the April-May 1619 Annual Quarterly Courts coup, Smythe, whatever his fortune in the Virginia Company, was the underdog, but nevertheless victorious in the May Somers Company annual shareholder election. He and Johnson won. Who voted for whom, and why, and why did Warwick and friends not vote are all good questions. Have at them, reader.
The safest explanation is the Virginia and Somers Company membership were in key respects quite different, and considerably fewer in the Somers. An obvious reason was that Smythe made his deal with Warwick for appointment to the governorship, and otherwise left Warwick to his own devices in Bermuda and the West Indies. As we shall see, Sandys, however, played his hand differently, and clearly had plans regarding Bermuda and curtailing privateering from the colony. Smythe had friends and business acquaintance’s with the membership, and probably many felt it was a good idea to check Sandys with Smythe so to increase their own prospects. This resulted in very noisy shareholder council sessions, obstruction in the Magazine council sessions, and manipulations in the Privy Council where Smythe (and others) had allies besides James I. [99] Craven, Dissolution, pp. 105-6
In the immediate period after the April 1619 coup, two episodes, one involving Warwick ally the now former governor of Virginia Samuel Argall, and the other, Argall and Warwick’s’ jointly owned ship, the Treasurer, which I call “the Elfrith Affair”. Drawing upon previous discussions of the Argall administration and the recall of Argall by Smythe, Sandys and the Virginia Company [shareholder] council, the topic should be brought to an appropriate conclusion as the matter did not neatly resolve itself with the coup. Smythe had indisputably recalled his former protégé, and relative, who had by 1619 been drawn into Warwick’s circle. Whatever validity the charges and reports from Virginia had—and there were even at that time two sides to the Argall story—Argall was not to be replaced until late spring of 1619. When Yeardley arrived in Virginia on April 18th, he discovered Argall had left on a ship owned by Lord Warwick on April 9 (1619), transferring his authority in the interim to Nathaniel Powell. The coup was a week later in London. https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/argall-samuel-bap-1580-1626/
Argall Reenters the Dissention Within the Companies–With Smythe replaced by Sandys in April 1619, the latter activated charges against Argall, and commenced an investigation on Argall (in the Virginia Company). [see 999 below] As we would expect, Sandys encountered the serious opposition of Warwick with Warwick vigorously defending Argall at shareholder meetings. Reversing his previous position, Smythe also lent support to Argall. Thus the matter lingered on through the shareholder meetings until the following year. “The [shareholder] council became thus so equally divided that it was impossible to arrive at any decision. Accordingly, yet another derisive issue had arisen in the aftermath of the coup. A year later, Warwick attempted to force a resolution of the matter.
On June 26, 1620 (the same quarterly council meeting that elected Southampton to replace Sandys as Virginia Company Treasurer-see below] Nathaniel Rich presented in Argall’s name a petition signed by several [council shareholders] in which [Argall] agreed to submit to a trial before a committee of the council selected by himself [Craven argues Argall did not think he could get a “fair trail” from a committee selected by the Sandys’s faction]. But Sandys, although recognizing he would procure ‘a good deal of ill will and malice’ in so doing, strenuously objected and carried the court [shareholder council] with him. With the failure of this effort the council refused to make any further attempt at an agreement on Argall’s trial, reporting to the court two days later that the question had become such an intolerable bother that they would be troubled with it no more” [99] Craven, Dissolution, pp. 122-3
As we will come to expect from Sandys, he was not willing to let the matter slide, and he formally proposed a new committee to continue the Argall investigation-trial on regarding the Argall charges, which he hoped would bring to an end to his satisfaction to Argall and he charges that had lingered since 1618. He divided the committee assignment into three parts, each charge to be investigated by a separate committee—with reports to be made at the next quarter court, and a final judgement reached at that court session. But no committee produced any report on any charge, and so no judgement was made or attempted by the quarter court of July 1622—now the dispute was three years old and like the audit, nothing had been done.
So Sandys again brought up the matter and urged the committees to report “with all expedition and diligence” but no reports were forthcoming. [99] [Craven, Dissolution, pp. 123-4.
Argall, by this time had received several important promotions and assignment from the king, and in 1622 been knighted. He pursued his career as an adventurer and privateer, physically leaving England to do so. He died in service to his king at sea in 1626.
Craven concludes this matter with an observation that will be repeated in other issues and dynamics that assert, in essence, Sandy’s style of leadership instead of finding some consensus on issues that came before the shareholder council, time and time again kept them alive, consuming time, diluting focus, and aggravating the feud that rocked the company. Argall’s misdoings, whatever they might have been, clearly had two versions with neither supporters or opponents willing to back away. The issue lost its salience over time, however, and the king himself bore no ill towards Argall, and the chief byproduct of the three plus years of investigation was to worsen relations between Sandys and Warwick
A noticeable point in all these disputes is the peculiar helplessness and impotency of the company. So much of the time the machinery of the company [I call it capacity] as may be seen in the refusal of the [shareholder] council to make any further attempt at the settlement of the charges against Argall was paralyzed by factional distrust and strife. Neither side had any confidence in the good faith of the other. Both [factions] were willing to put themselves to trial by their friends, but apparently had no hope of fair dealing in the hands of any other. The lack of cooperation from Smythe, Johnson and Argall, so often interpreted as a sidestepping of justice, may have been just as well a fear of entrusting their reputations and records to rivals whom they believed not so much disposed to do them justice as to vindicate charges of crookedness which they [their opponents] had already noised [leaked] abroad.
Perhaps if Sandys could have approached these problems in the first without the air of one seeking to confirm some foul suspicion, he might have secured a more hearty cooperation, and a quick conclusion of these unpleasant questions. But his first step was unwise, though it might have been just, and in the turmoil of recrimination and abuse which followed, any real cooperation became an impossibility. [99] Craven, Dissolution, p. 1214 [999]
The original charges against Argall had initially been assembled by Smythe and sent with the then-current governor of Virginia Thomas West, De la Ware (May, 1618). De La Warr (his wife being Cicely as in the Shirley Hundred) traveled over to Virginia on the ship Neptune, to replace Argall and send him to London for review of charges. West died en route.
After his death the Neptune continued enroute and met the ship Treasurer, owned by Argall and Warwick, and captained by Elfrith. Boarding the Neptune to say hello and have supper, Elfrith wound up transferring De la Warr’s body to be buried in Virginia. De la Warr’s property was also transferred for the benefit of his wife.
When the ship landed in Virginia, Governor Argall got involved with the property, and with the transfer of at least forty-two indentured servants West had brought with him. It appears a number of the servants were acquired (somehow?) by Argall and either or both, transferred to assignments in Virginia under Argall’s disposition, or sent on the Treasurer to serve on future expeditions. This exchange and the disposition of said property resulted in a London, Privy Council investigation in 1621-1622.
This second investigation, not related to the Virginia Company charges, gave a second life to the charges against Argall. In my opinion, to be developed in a future module, one of these indentured servants, a “Mathewes”, an indentured servant of [Alderman] Johnson, Sheriff of London was selected by Argall to work for him, subsequently promoted to Captain, entrusted with several servants, may have served for awhile on the Treasurer, but then was tasked for several assignments in Virginia directly working with Argall, and living with him in the same dwelling. Mathewes was later deposed by the Privy Council to testify in London, which he did in 1622. Mathewes, in my research, is the future Virginia political leader, Samuel Mathews.[See Peter Wilson Coldham, the Voyage of the Neptune to Virginia, 1618-1619 and the Disposition of its Cargo (the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 87, No. 1, Jan, 1979), see p. 43, and Mathews, p. 50. In a later module I will more fully develop my position on Samuel Mathews. [999]
Let’s start with the Second Earl’s career as a privateer-pirate. The reaction to a single privateering-piracy episode unleashed a nest of entangling personal alliances that disrupted the internal stability, fragmented shareholder factions, and consumed what little organization capacity the near bankrupt Virginia Company possessed after 1619 until its end in 1624.
The Good Ship Treasurer: the Elfrith Affair–The story has many moving parts that reflect several intruding drivers or dynamics relating to England’s, more precisely James I, foreign policy around the early twenties. Underlying what I call the “Elfrith affair” is our earlier discussed use by Tudor and Stuarts of privateering as an off and on, semi-transparent non official instrument employed by Queen Elizabeth and never officially repudiated by James who rhetorically opposed it, but tolerated unofficially its practice by some English merchant adventurers.
From Drake into the early seventeenth century, England without yet having built its own navy, indulged itself with use of it maritime and commercial shipping entities as part time unofficial navies; they were the cornerstone of England’s war with Spain, but a war that James brought to an end, of sorts, in 1604. The tensions preceding and after the start of the Thirty Years War in 1618, a truly world war in terms of its day, raised the visibility of this issue, as did James I desire to wed his first born to the daughter of the Spanish king. In doing so James added a noticeable touch of religious intolerance to what previously was merely a major international relations concern within that world war.
That Virginia, its Chesapeake Bay and Jamestown, and Somers Island were adjacent to trade and travel routes to the West Indies, their location enhanced the potential that they could become hubs or bases for any English privateering efforts. That would invite Spanish attack on what were essential undefended colonies of England, with no recoats or any serious fortifications in place. In addition, privateering or attacks by the Spanish navy on English shipping would have brought the colonies to the point of starvation.
Since no action occurred, American historians have not needed to include these threats into their histories, but our concern with the viability of the Virginia Company as the agent of Virginia’s colonization, requires we include matters that were central to discussion and concern in their day. In this case, the tension played a role in Sandys’s relations with Warwick, and the deterioration it caused was a major factor in pushing Warwick into a working alliance with Smythe. Our previous example, involving Samuel Argall, and his connection to young, Earl of Warwick, the largest shareholder of the Somers Company, and now kingmaker in the Virginia Company, exhibited overtones related to privateering. Another episode, which most know as the 1619 sale in Jamestown of blacks captured in a privateer-piracy action, also intrudes into this time period.
These episodes were not out of the blue, the privateering proclivities of the Riches beset the Company in 1617, when as earlier described, Smythe, wearing his East India hat, entered into a heated and very extended conflict (not resolved legally until 1628) against the Riches piracy of an Indian ship, owned by the Grand Moghuls mother, a seizure that threatened the East India Company’s budding trade relationship. It was far from a “secret” to anybody, especially the King, that privateering was central to the Rich business model, and Warwick interest in the Somers figured heavily in an intensified plying of that trade, which included the controversial slave trade.
The Warwick’s have been discussed as arguably England’s best known privateering family, but also mentioned was the father of Sandys allies, the Ferrar brothers. Sandys in parliament danced around the issue and with relations with Spain as well. When Smythe was in charge, the issue was less salient to the Virginia Company because Smythe was a confirmed anti-privateer with a proven track record as CEO of the East India Company. The coup, however, stripped the Virginia Company at minimum of its insulation from charges of privateering and any association with acts which were labeled piracy by the Spanish. The ascension of the Warwicks into the inner circle of the Virginia companies, his open colonial venture into Guiana in 1619-20, placed the Virginia Company and its colonies squarely into the lime light.
Raleigh’s last voyage [into Guiana] in 1617, ended in disaster … [and led to his execution by James in the Tower in 1618], but the breaking off of the Spanish negotiations in 1618, and the downfall of the king’s pro-Spanish favorites, the Howards, seemed to the Earl of Warwick and his associates, a propitious opportunity to undertake the colonization of Guiana in a more ambitious way than had before been been tried. The company undertaking the project was largely organized by Warwick, a patent for the colony was obtained, and Capt. Roger North, brother of Lord North and Warwick’s cousin was dispatched to Guiana with one hundred and twenty men … But early in 1620, Gondomar [the powerful and aggressive Spanish ambassador to England] returned to England, the broken thread of negotiation for the Spanish Match [marriage of king’s son to daughter of the King of Spain] was taken up, and on May 7, 1620 Warwick was ordered by the Privy Council to deliver up the commission on which North had sailed … and on North’s return to England in December 1620 … he was imprisioned in the Tower and his goods confiscated. His men, abandoned in Guiana, dispersed themselves … [99] Arthur Percival Newton, the Colonizing Activities of the Early Puritans: the A Last Phase of the Elizabethan Struggle with Spain (Yale and Oxford University Presses, 1914, pp. 26-7
The Elfrith Affair arose out of Sandys concern as the Company’s new CEO that he protect his colonies from their being caught in the crosshairs of an extremely volatile, dangerous, and action or accident that intruded into privateering, piracy toward West Indies and Spanish possessions.
While [the Second Earl] had been content initially with the management of Sandys and the Ferrars, [after the coup] problems arose with Warwick’s enthusiasm for piracy … In the Western Hemisphere, the Earl invested in the Somers Island Company … that island’s location made it an ideal base for Daniel Elfrith and other skippers affiliated with Warwick that they used in their attacks against the Spanish; these privateers also called at [i.e. used] Virginia. Prior to 1623, however, this sort of activity ran afoul of the peace policy of James I. It therefore exposed the charters of colonies that harbored pirates to the threat of annulment for violating their corporate privileges. [99] L. H. Roper, Advancing Empire: English Interests and Overseas Expansion, 1613-1688 (Cambridge University Press, 2017, p. 27
The start of the Thirty Years War in 1618 moreover exposed Spain’s vulnerable position in the West Indies and Caribbean and generated schemes and preparations for English (including Rich) privateers to take advantage of opportunities. The tale of Rich and his co-owned ship the Treasurer, therefore was no surprise to Sandys or alert shareholders, quite the opposite, and Sandys had instructed Yeardley to report the activities of the ship to him previous to his January 1619 voyage to assume governorship and replace Rich’s protégé and ship co-owner, Governor Argall.
While Argall was governor, his ship Treasurer, co-owned with Warwick, under the command of Captain Daniel Elfrith was sent to the West Indies (April, 1618) by Rich with papers issued by Duke of Savoy, to privateer upon Spanish commerce (illegal in England this was common in Rich’s practice of privateering, using a foreign ruler to dodge and/or bypass James I’s prohibitions). Elfrith and the Treasurer headed for Virginia and Bermuda for refitting and supplies (provided by Governor Argall), and moved on to the West Indies where he joined up in an ad hoc venture with a Dutch man-of-war, and committed several seizures of Spanish and Portuguese shipping, relieving them of the cargo, which included African slaves.
Supplies exhausted, battered from their attacks, both headed for Virginia, got separated in a storm, and separately arrived in August 1619. The Dutch man of war was the ship that landed first, and exchanged slaves (to Yeardley and the cape merchant, and maybe Rolfe) for Company provisions. This is the basis for the “1619” affair that introduced slavery into Virginia [p. 131]; the Treasurer arrived a few days later. That triggered the series of interchanges that lead to the great disruption between Warwick and Sandys, and subsequently to Warwick breaking whatever alliance he had with Sandys, and allying with Smythe in what turned out to be a four year civil war that culminated in the King suspending the Virginia Company charter for Virginia. [99] Craven, Dissolution, pp. 127-8
Yeardley, as his instructions stated, sent word to Sandys regarding their activities as he understood them, including “constant rumors, not without many apparent probabilities that this Ship had gone to rob the King of Spain’s Subjects by seeking Pillage in the West Indies and that this was done by direction from my Lord of Warwick.”[99] Craven, Dissolution, p. 129. Also, Yeardley had earlier complied with an instruction from Sandys, delivered earlier, June 19th [previous to the incident in August], to seize the Treasurer if it manifested itself in Virginia, and, again, to inform the company. With the arrival of the Treasurer, Yeardley attempted to seize the ship, but somehow, Elfrith got away and sailed for Bermuda, very battered and not in sea worthy condition. In Bermuda the ship was seized by the Governor, an ally of Warwick ironically, which along with slaves and cargo it possessed.
Upon receiving this second message, Sandys called into session a shareholder council meeting (I estimate in late Oct or early Nov 1619), but to obscure the role of Warwick, Sandys blotted out Warwick’s name. While protecting Warwick, however, Sandys implicitly blamed the co-owner of the ship, former Governor Argall. The Council decided to inform the Privy Council, as they believed they were required to do. Before the message was sent, Sandys contacted Warwick’s agent/relative, Nathaniel Rich (also on the Council), and two meetings followed with Nathaniel Rich, Sandys and Southampton (who was on the Privy Council himself at the time). The meetings reached an agreement that key members of the Privy Council would be prepared in such a way as to characterize the episode as insignificant, therefore justifying Privy Council inaction. Warwick was tasked to “entreat their favor on Captain Argall’s behalf”.
Sandys, for reasons which I am uncertain, called for a second meeting of the shareholder council ([99] Rolfe’s letter to Sandys appears in Ferrar’s January 1620 notes), without notification, or warning, to Warwick (also presumably Rich and his allies). At that session Sandys informed the council in attendance that, in his [Sandys] opinion, he had to notify the Privy Council formally. The Privy Council was formally notified on February 25, 1620 with Sandys attending, making a statement that the Treasurer incident was in no way an action of the Virginia Company. Perhaps more controversial, he also had previously rendered the Spanish ambassador “full satisfaction” as to the company’s part in the affair.
Warwick, because of his former privateering, was in very bad standing with the Spanish. Once that was done the Spanish engaged in a “full court press’ to reestablish influence on James I so he could press the matter and demand that Warwick be handed over to the Spanish, or punished by James I as had been done to Raleigh a year earlier. Raleigh, of course, was executed by James for the matter. Warwick, justifiably believed Sandys had place his life in danger, and reacted against Sandys.
Nathaniel Rich defended Warwick to the Privy Council; observing that since the summer of 1619 Southampton had warranted that Yeardley would not interview, nor impair, the Treasurer upon its arrival., and Rich’s belief was Sandys was in agreement. Yeardley had not been so notified and did take action. Rich further asserted the affair need not have been brought to the attention of the Privy Council. Finally, Rich complained that after the Bermuda governor had taken possession of the Treasurer and cargo, Sandys would not return the Treasurer to him, with goods, until he completed his notification of the Privy Council on the matter.
Rich concluded Sandys’ action placed Warwick “in the mercy of our own king, but must have been brought under the clutches of the king of Spain which perhaps would not have been removed till he had crushed [Warwick] to pieces, for God deliver me from the clemency of the Spaniard …” [in essence Rich argued that James I upon hearing of the accusation against Warwick, would be reluctant to support Warwick, and would instead hand him over to the Spanish, implying Warwick was not in the king’s graces].
Sandys, however, further compounded the Elfrith affair, by linking it to Bermuda where Elfrith had gone to elude Yeardley’s seizure of ship. “Sandys charged that the Somers Islands were ‘infested’ with pirates and in the spring quarter court of the Bermuda Company (1620) Sandys had [personally] raised the whole question of piracy [to the Somers shareholder council]. His efforts were foiled by the dominant party [Smythe—and presumably Warwick]. In fact [Sandys] was not even allowed to deliver his speech [to the Somers’ council], but at the next meeting of the Virginia Company [Sandys] did enter his complaint on the ground that it was a matter vitally affecting the safety of Virginia. It was Sandy’s contention that so long as the Bermudas were safe from attack [that is if the pirates were removed] so also was Virginia.
Thus to Craven Sandys conflated and escalated the Elfrith affair into a two-colony campaign to remove pirates and privateering. Sandys directly questioned the behavior of the governor of Bermuda in assisting the pirates [Elfrith], and at Sandys’ request a Virginia Company committee was created, and tasked with considering if the matter should require the further notification of the Privy Council [an update so to speak] [99] Craven, Dissolution, pp. 133-140.
Sandys escalation of the Elfrith episode into two colony campaign against privateering-privacy is an excellent example, congruent with his treatment of the audit issue at that time, of Sandys approach to Company governance, and its contrast to that of Smythe—and certainly Warwick. Smythe as Treasurer of the Somers colony, was also being attacked, and while not directly cited, Warwick’s privateering business was threatened to be tossed out of both colonies. In this Sandys could reasonably claim he was acting in the better interest of the two colonies, certainly enhancing their exclusion from risky raids against the Spanish. It should be noted that Sandy’s actions were in conformity to the current king’s policy against Spanish privateering. His was the higher ground, and one, I might add, many historians were attracted to [999] for example, Craven overall supported Sandys on this matter, Dissolution, p. 138.
I would remind the reader that to this point, Warwick had been an ally of Sandys in the latter’s takeover of the Virginia Company.
[999] Craven’s interpretation of the Privy Council notification was that despite Rich’s defense of Warwick, the notification itself continued to blot out Warwick’s name, and did not directly link Warwick to the piracy engaged in by the Treasurer and Elfrith, leaving the blame again to Argall, implying the latter was rogue and acting on his own. Craven disputes the allegation against Argall by including later evidence from the Manchester Papers which Craven asserts leaves no doubt about Warwick’s responsibility on the Elfrith matter [p. 134]. Another letter from Bermuda’s governor to Warwick is discussed which also leaves no doubt the governor perceived the piracy as Warwick’s enterprise [p. 135]. Such correspondence, of course, was not available at the time of the Privy Council notification, thus no evidence tied Warwick to the piracy was presented to the Privy Council. Sandys’ accordingly could claim he had not violated his earlier assurances to Warwick. Warwick, as the reader might suspect, was not comforted, and Craven believes Warwick from that point on was deeply concerned Sandys might yet release the evidence of his involvement. [999].
But however “good government” Sandys was, in this interpretation of the Elfrith affair, at the time the reader might also note it was highly disruptive to the factions composing more than half of the Company’s shareholders—and carried out in such a manner to only polarize them further by leaving no opportunity for negotiation, and simply imposing a zero-sum, “my way or the highway, situation upon all the actors involved. The structure overall, and its processes of decision-making were highly stressed; the time available to its shareholder committees were limited, and these weighty matters of involving its regulator and the king into its affairs, were not inconsequential. To be remembered, anti-Spanish/Catholic fervor split the Jacobean policy culture, and the king’s foreign policy was at its divisive height at this point. Company shareholders were in no way insulated from these inclinations.
Lost in this good government and best policy for the good of the colonies was the Company’s capacity to raise revenues in the furtherance of the colonies, maintenance and enhancement shareholder consensus and attention to the implementation of reform and reorganization in the colonies, and the reality that disputes among multiple policy areas carried over into effective administration of the colonies. To say it in another manner, Sandys’ action lead to the rupture of Warwick with Sandys and produced a fragmented shareholder Virginia Company council, and a Somers Council in opposition to the Virginia Company.
Craven acknowledges this result. “To appreciate the importance of this factionalism in the company’s history, it is necessary to understand that it was largely the product of conflicting interests, and not so much the quarrels of men of good intent with those of mean purpose. It must be recognized that widely divergent interests and opinions, introduced into an atmosphere already fraught with distrust and resentment, made it impossible for these men to view any question dispassionately” [99] Craven, Dissolution, p. 141-2. That the King himself was of two faces in regards to this policy, it seems Sandys had put Warwick, and certainly Argall, in a position that was indefensible. I might add, as we have seen in the earlier module, it also place resident company administrators in awkward positions, or worse offered them opportunities that appealed to their worse angels.
Three thousand miles away, and with two months distance, their autonomy was increased and their discretion enhanced. While not generally receiving much attention from commentators, this period between 1619-1620 was both active and stressful, and the company was already a boiling pot giving off much heat. The autonomy to local officials to insert their judgements on these matters in their day-to-day actions, whatever their personal preference, put them in a position that no matter what they decided they were taking actions against a majority shareholder or the Company CEO. [999] The reader might be surprised to note company administrators in the two colonies were not supportive of the Sandys’ thrust against pirates and privateering. Believe it or not, serving as a base for pirates, a place where they could sell the cargos they stole (and repair/supply their ships) brought badly needed goods into the colony that were either cheaper than the Magazine offered, or not available at all.
Warwick did not accept Sandys’ explanation for his actions—or lack of notifications. Sandys anti-privateering position was stark and pointed in Warwick’s direction. From this point in time the two engaged in furious, and ofttimes personal, interchanges; Warwick worked with Smythe more closely against Sandys. Nevertheless, the knowledge of Warwick’s direct link was known only to Sandys, Southampton and Ferrar, and not by the Company shareholders. Thus the link between Sandys and Warwick was not yet broken, and would not be so until a year later. [999]
The Ouster of Sandys from Virginia Company Treasurer
Nathaniel Rich in the midst of this privateering affair, attempted a compromise on the increasingly raw audit investigation. His solution gave Smythe a month to pay up a number given to him and settle up on the audit; he proposed the outstanding issues with Argall be settled by impartial arbitration; the shareholder courts of the two colonies “should not meddle with each other”; and believe it or not, the settlement would culminate in Sandys, Smyth, Warwick, Rich and Johnson receiving communion at an agreed upon church [99] Craven, Dissolution, p.141
No surprise that got no where. So with both colonies now contesting the leadership of the other in the spring of 1620, previous to the annual May-June, 1620 Quarterly courts, Smythe carried the battle to new heights by commencing a campaign to oust Sandys from his position as Treasurer, or as Craven more precisely puts it, “to prevent the reelection of Sandys”. Precisely at the point in the Elfrith piracy/two colonies struggle when Sandys was at his lowest ebb in shareholder popularity Smythe launched his campaign with shareholders.
Smythe circulated arguments that Sandys didn’t play fair, and had in the previous 1619 Treasurer election “use[d] [his] powerful friends of the [Queens] bedchamber in effecting this end [i.e. the marriage of John Smythe episode]. Smythe also raised the question regarding Sandys inexperience in trade and organizational management, and, instead of directly running for office himself, Smythe called for the office to be held by a merchant whose background was the best fit for the government of a plantation—which proved to be the issue that was taken by the King when he entered into the fray. In correspondence to the shareholders of the Virginia Company, James advocated for the election of a merchant as Treasurer, providing a list of possibilities, Smythe, Sir Thomas Roe, Alderman Johnson or Maurice Abbott.
Delivered to the Quarterly Court on May 17th, 1620, the phrasing of James’ letter carried with it the implication the king was demanding the Treasurer be one on the list. The reaction among shareholders was widespread and intense; from their perspective, the request was a serious breach in their charter and their liberty in managing the affairs of their joint stock corporation. At the court session, a committee was formed whose purpose was to “call upon the king and ask for a free election”. The election was postponed. In the interim previous to the next meeting, there was considerable discussion, within the shareholder community.
Outside the court. Sandys wrote the king directly, pleading his case, and taking strong issue with Smythe and Johnson whose past administration he stated had failed in its purpose of successful colonization. It included the argument Smythe had used colonization for his own profit. Sandys called to the king’s attention, his Greate Charter reforms, then in process of implementation, and stated that in his short one year he had generated more growth and prosperity in Virginia than Smythe had since 1607.
Responding, the king, suggested the shareholders had misread his letter. His purpose had been to “recommend”, and if others were more suitable, he was open to them. But open as he appeared to be, James then included the order that they may “Choose the devil if you will, but not Sir Edwin Sandys”, asserting his authority in accordance with his view of his right to do so as sovereign. To the shareholders it was clear, Sandys’ election was forbidden. Reluctant to press the matter further, shareholders proceeded to elect unanimously Sandys closest friend and ally, the [Third] Earl of Southampton, Henry Wriothesley, a member of the Privy Council since 1619. On June 28th, 1620 Treasurer of the Virginia Company; in November of that year he was placed on the New England Council. Smythe was reelected to the Treasurer of the Bermuda Company in its annual Quarterly meeting (May). Sandys held the position as auditor in the Virginia Company, but in reality he ran the Virginia Company through the Ferrars.
As to why Warwick, and for that matter Smythe’s faction voted unanimously for Southampton, Nathaniel Rich is cited for “belief in the ‘justice and nobleness’ of Southampton, asserting that he was “indifferent between factions”. Craven postulates that while Warwick had broken personally with Sandys, he was not ready for a outright break with him in May-June 1620, and despite his “working with” Smythe as Treasurer of the Somers Island Company, he was distant from him personally. Craven then observes that from this point on “The Rich group chose rather to express their resentment [against Sandys] by dropping all connection with the [shareholder] courts and meetings of the [shareholder] council, except when their own interests were involved, and while they joined with Smith at times to support complaints against the [Virginia] company … it was not until the tobacco fight, late in 1622 that the two factions [Warwick and Smythe] joined forces with the purpose of overthrowing the Sandys’ party [99] Craven, Dissolution, pp. 144-5.
[999] Alexander Brown, Genesis of the United States, inserts in his biography of Wriothesley a character citation: “He was a man of no very unusual character in whom several fine qualities were shadowed by some important defects. His understanding seems to have been lively and acute; and his acquired talents united to a competent erudition, an extensive and a correct taste for polite letters and the most highly finished manners. His friendships were ardent and lasting, his personal courage almost proverbial; but his mind was fickle and unsteady; a violent temper engaged him in frequent quarrels, and in enmities injurious to his best interests; and he was wholly a stranger to that wary circumspection which is commonly dignified by name to prudence”, p. 1063. I will extend upon this biography and add his behavior and role in the Virginia Company and other matters in future (and past) modules. The reader is advised if necessary to revisit his association with the Essex Rebellion, and his close association with Queen Anna, membership on her Council, and close association with the Ladies of her Bedchamber—a not too subtle reminder of his role in the “Marriage of John Smythe’ [999]
The Tobacco Contract of James I: its Role in the Development of the Tobacco Monoculture
By this point the reader recognizes that I have marginalized the traditional reason many commentators have attributed the rise of the tobacco monoculture in Virginia: the geography of many inland rivers penetrating into the Tidewater that accommodated the export of tobacco from plantations scattered along the river, and as a consequence of which the development of a “shredded community” of isolated plantations that inhibited the development of larger settlements, as well as a functional port city.
Certainly, geography and its predilection for a shredded community plantation economy played a role, but it was far from casual; it left more than a few important questions unanswered.
So far we have called out the monumental role John Rolfe played in the development and promotion of tobacco, not to mention his positive contribution (I guess) to more pacific Native American relations. More central to the monoculture, his role as the promoter among the resident company elite led to the planting of tobacco in the newly granted, Dales Gift plantation-hundreds that spread along the James River previous to Dale’s departure in the spring of 1616. As the Company’s resident elite founded their new plantations, they planted John Rolfe’s seeds as their first intended export crop. The use of tobacco as a medium of exchange accelerated its use in Virginia, and the 1618 consensus of the shareholders, expressed in their actionable legislation included in Yeardley’s instructions elevated tobacco to the currency of the colony.
Dale, to whom Rolfe named his first born son with his new wife Rebecca-Pocahontas, took with him the couple to conduct a promotional tour (1616-17) of English upper society dedicated to advertise the success of the colony and the development of a new staple that promised profits to investors and pleasure to those who consume it—tying that product to higher role for England and James in the race for the colonization of North America. Thomas West, the governor Virginia, conducted the tour, even our John Smith now a resident in England played an important role in advancing the promising export, but more importantly inspired involving the Queen, and through her the King, into more meaningful support of Virginia (and tobacco as a taxable product). The tour was successful, and that success introduced a new element into tobacco politics: powerful English aristocrats and courtesans into the affairs, including shareholding into the Virginia Company
Critical to the ambitions and plans of Edwin Sandys, these aristocrats supported his dream of making the Virginia colony more successful than the past administration of merchant adventurer oligarchy. Sandys mobilized other shareholders who recognized the sad state the colony was in, and were well aware of the near bankruptcy of the Virginia Company. As we have thus far seen these mobilized shareholder rebelled in April 1619, ousted Smythe and his merchant adventurers-somewhat- from the Company.
By that point tobacco export to England had blossomed from a pittance of a few pounds in 1616, to a ton, not literally (44,000 pounds), of tobacco by 1619. A tobacco boom had already manifested itself, and, for the first time, Virginia seemingly had found an export staple with a promising future as an English import. If nothing else, that export was critical, if not essential to keeping fiscally alive the Virginia colonial effort. That is about where we are when we introduce the term “tobacco contract”.
Thus in mid 1619, two new dynamics entered the tobacco monoculture picture: first, the entry of his royal majesty, James I, now sixteen years into his English reign, who wanted “in on the action” for his own needs and purposes, and believing foreign export trade to be in his jurisdiction (as opposed to Parliaments’) as an expression of his larger belief in his divine right authority, began dickering around with a second dynamic, imposing a, shall we call it, a tax, on the import-export of tobacco, to the consternation of not only the Company and its settler planters, but others as well.
To this we can contrast, the role of tobacco as envisioned in Sandys new vision of permanent settlement and Company reorganization, which came to be called the Greate Charter reform and its failure to thrive in Virginia. In that view, tobacco was a temporary expedient to mitigate the budgetary and fiscal problems of the company, but was expected to diminish its impact on a more diversified Virginia economic base. Suffice it to say the flow of action from these two dynamics, and its tension with the grand vision of the Greate Charter economic base over the next several years (three or four) contributed mightily to the fall of the Virginia Company.
In the larger picture, this flow of policy and its impact on Virginia’s economic behavior was much like Hammerstein & Kehr’s, Paul Robeson’s “Ole Man River” (the Mississippi River) which I will call the “Tobacco River “ that “doesn’t care if the world got troubles, doesn’t care if de land ain’t free, just keeps rollin’, he keeps on rollin’ along”. To say it another way, no matter what I say in the remainder of this section, the chief beneficiary of the interaction of these two dynamics was the continued spread of the tobacco monoculture in Virginia and its simple flooding of the Great Charter hopes to a new Virginia economic base..
Tobacco Contract Debate
For us the Tobacco Contract is not simply the attempt at or imposition of taxes, fees, commissions and the like on the import and purchase of tobacco in England. They will be briefly discussed, but our focus lies in what underlie the tobacco contract, i.e. how the dynamics wound up promoting the continued planting of tobacco in Virginia tobacco. I include discussion on how the tobacco contract can be considered as an expression of James’s larger problem of reconciling his “divine right” aspirations into the English“ tweens” policy-making system”.
The reader ought to be informed that I am less concerned with discussion of the considerable literature on this topic, including positions by noted American historians, than I am on noting the impact of the dynamics associated with the tobacco contract on Virginia political, social and economic development. In other words, in what ways did the tobacco contract affect the heritage of the Virginia Company on Virginia. To complete this perspective I sense there are actually several somewhat competing perspectives; one that is focused on London politics, and another that is sensitive to settler behaviors and the reality of practical existence in the earliest decades of colonial Virginia—the First Migration period.
I suggest the two actually fed off each other: that the tobacco contract and the fiscal need of the Company for an export crop, albeit controversial, to pay is bill and debt that led to shareholder polarization which both fatally inhibited its ability to manage its colonization of Virginia, and, when combined with other aggravations, led to the suspension of the Company’s charter over Virginia. The bottom line was that Virginia and Virginians had to contend with its realities, the Second Powhatan comes to mind, for all practical purposes on its own, without resources or even support from London. In this situation, Virginians and their elites went “down the road to Tobacco Road” out of necessity, convenience, the lack of an alternative, and profit through land and headrights.
In Virginia, the net effect of the “tobacco contract” was that it channeled the continued spread of the tobacco monoculture during the tweens into 1622 and after. In 1620-2 the tobacco economy was only three or four years old, a mere baby economy, or a “twig” using my tree analogy. In these crucial and turbulent years of the corroding Virginia Company tobacco was the only realistic path to surviving in Virginia, a path that lead to the ability of the Virginia Company residential elite to establish themselves as a plantation elite in a social-economic system that was based on several inequalities, notably indentured servants in this period. It also led to a sustained war against the Powhatan and neighboring tribes.
To the extent that happened, because the tobacco contract superimposed itself upon the implementation of the Greate Charter economic reforms, inhibiting its economic diversification strategy in particular, thereby frustrating the restructuring of the Virginia economic base. At root, the king was on one hand rewarding himself and the planter with the proceeds drawn from the raising and exporting of tobacco, while at the same time urging the Company—and he was far from alone—to diversify Virginia’s economy and to draw from Virginia exports of more substance and utility than tobacco. The dilemma that Sandys found himself in 1621 through 1623 was embarrassing, unwise, and opposed to his sense of values and policy choices. His reaction to the deal proposed by Buckingham is disturbing to those who admire much of his impact and role, but more to the point his handling of the deal led directly to the final shareholder rebellion that toppled him and the Company’s Virginia charter.
The king wanted revenues he could access and control, and tobacco export to England filled his needs. That it left Virginia in desperate need when the spread of tobacco planting triggered the Second Powhatan attack, compelling the on-its-own domestic elite to rely even more on Indians for staples, cleared fields, and their desire for land accumulation that provided means to a workforce, and led to tobacco profits. Consciously or not, James, then the Mandeville Commission, and finally his successor Charles I continued the essentials of encouraging a pro-tobacco economy for satisfaction of their own needs and national objectives. One can argue this perhaps unintended nurturing of a tobacco economy in Virginia, unrestrained for future decades, allowed the forging of a tobacco monoculture, with all that implies.
What was the Tobacco Contract. How did it play out between 1619 and 1622
The Tobacco Contract as Linked to James Royal Prerogative—As introduced in our analysis of the Addled Parliament the issue of monopolies, the role of the parliament in trade-colonization and foreign affairs dominated the year-long session. Sandys role and positions in the Addled Parliament landed him in house arrest at its end. That Sandys had placed himself at the head of one of the monopolies which he so intensely disliked is ironic at best. But through the entire affair, Sandys was the dominant figure in the Virginia Company.
The Tobacco Contract overlapped, and was subsumed, by issues and problems associated with “monopolies”. That included trading companies, the initial policy and bureaucratic mechanisms England was applying to increasing foreign trade and colonization (customs farming of particular note), and the differing perspective of king and parliament on foreign affairs and commercial trade fed into what I call the “drift to the English Civil War. In turn the positions assumed by James reflected his perception of the Crown’s authority and scope of jurisdiction that by the end of the tweens had widely separated from those of many in parliament. It is in the tobacco contract we can see the policy effect of his “divine right” doctrine, and Parliament’s response to it in this period. Sandys, of course, is caught in the crosshairs.
The problem of reconciling the tobacco contract and the diversification of the Virginia economic base was a problem of “squaring a circle”. Said and done, however, much the king (and company shareholders) wished tobacco would go away, the thrust of his initiative to impose a tobacco contract to raise revenues and fees for his own purposes compelled colonists to produce more tobacco from which his custom farmers and he could derive from exports for their profit and his taxes. In this sense we see a fundamental and negative dynamic in the late“ tweens” and early twenties Stuart policy process toward Virginia that set and followed mutually opposed goals and had no means or apparent interest in their reconciling. Indeed, as we describe the tobacco contract as it played out through 1624, one wonders if London, at least formally (who knows what they thought privately), ever recognized the policy cul du sac in which London policy had imposed on Virginia.
If the Virginia planter needed to plant tobacco to pay for food, clothes and materials needed for housing and construction, he would need to plant more tobacco to pay for the costs imposed on the production and sale of tobacco in England by the tobacco contract. The problem was compounded enormously by the king’s refusal to allow coin to be minted for distribution and use in the colonies, thus imposing on the colony the need to employ a substitute currency for exchange in Virginia transactions. That currency by 1620 was tobacco; the official policy was set by the Company in 1618, and included in Yeardley’s instructions. Virginia, of necessity, had to grow and trade its own currency to pay for goods it need to survive, and to provide sustenance for the next year.
As Craven rightly asserted “an essential feature of Sandys’ program had been the restriction of tobacco with a view to diverting the planter’s attention to more wholesome commodities” [99] Craven, Dissolution, p.176. The irony, if such is the right word, is that Craven observes that “It is impossible to read through the records of the famous fight over the tobacco contract in 1622 and 1623 without recognizing that even Sandys had accepted the Company’s dependence upon tobacco. From the first of his administration to the last, despite that all he could do, the chief interest and energy of the Virginia planter was devoted to his tobacco crop [99] Craven, Dissolution, p.178. “Two years after his election, Sandys was still searching for some means of restricting that ‘smoky weed’ declaring that the present growth was displeasing ‘ to the king and scandalous unto the Plantation, and unto the whole Company [as we]]” [99] Craven, Dissolution, p.177.
James proposed his Tobacco Contract in response to the small but rapidly growing exports by Virginia to England—actually Sandys was sending them to Holland in opposition to royal and Privy Council dictums. It was part of a royal deal in which he forbade planting of tobacco in England (which had a small tobacco industry) in return for certain required fees and sale to customs farmers which he appointed. In effect he the created a trading bureaucracy to administer the import of trade of tobacco to England (whose sale provided him revenues), and to balance out other tobacco imports such as Spain by quotas. In effect, James set up the Virginia Company with a near monopoly of tobacco import. He also brought into being custom farmers, associated vendors, and determined the distribution and sale of the end product after it reached England.
This use of custom farmers and trading monopolies was not new to James. He inherited it from Elizabeth, recognized at the time, as supported by a speech of Sir Francis Bacon that served as a sort of legal precedent on the matter:
The Queen [Elizabeth], as she is our Sovereign, hath both an Enlarging and Restraining Liberty [as elements] of Her Prerogative; that is, She hath Power by her patents [i.e. awards and gifts] to set at Liberty Things restrained by Statute-Law, or otherwise: And by her Prerogative, She may restrain Things that are at Liberty. [99] Tawney and Power (eds), Tudor Economic Documents, II, 271 as cited in Ashton, the City and the Court, p. 83
I offer as a pithy and convenient summary the following “summary” provided by Robert Ashton:
[C]concessionaires of one sort or another formed a significant part of the business elite of London. During the last two parliaments of Elizabeth’s reign, one type of concessionaire, holders of internal patents of monopoly [East India, and other trading companies for example] had been the object of bitter attacks, and as the debate on monopolies in 1601 had made abundantly clear, monopolies raised issues which transcended [mere] considerations of economics. …
The debate on monopolies in 1601 thus highlighted the fact that concessionaires of the crown had everything to gain from the maintenance of the royal prerogative intact, and everything to fear from determined parliamentary assaults upon it. And this this attitude was common to a much wider variety of concessionaires than the actual patentees … Bacon’s arguments … were equally applicable to those great charted companies which dominated foreign trade. …
The peace which finally concluded between England and Spain in August 1604, [under James I] opened up the prospect of the revival of English trade with the Iberian peninsula. But the problem of what sort of trade this was to be still remained to be solved …. Was it to be strictly controlled and limited trade in the hands of a regulated company [such as the Virginia Company] … Or was the trade to be open to all … [as] vigorously advocated by the merchants of southwestern ports, who feared that any chartered company for trade with Spain would be dominated by Londoners [99] Robert Ashton, The City and the Court, 1603-1643 (Cambridge University Press, 1979, 2008), pp. 83-4
James I upon ascension as king continued his exercise of this authority. The response he received, from Parliament, but by many English elites, was qualitatively different from that given to Elizabeth. In this sense we see this as an extension of a transition of England from the Tudor to James’s Stuart dynasty. In any event, the Tobacco Contract policy nexus was considered by him to be within his “royal prerogative” (i.e. jurisdiction). That prerogative, which for hundreds of years, has been labeled as his “divine right” position on royal authority.
It is obvious the Tobacco Contract was an unwieldy and complex set of initiatives, involving a goodly number of “institutional actors”—such as concessionaires (farmers), as well as the competition from rival English ports and their parliamentary representative. The largest port, naturally, was London by far, which would be the site of its central administration. Rival ports such as Bristol or Plymouth wasted no time in figuring out how they could game the system. All of this is quite amusing in that Virginia tobacco was a very inferior product to that of Spain, and English demand for Virginia tobacco did not encourage high prices when sold.
As we shall see, the Virginia Company got itself into royal scheme that left it buying Virginia tobacco in Virginia for a higher price than it could see it in England—in return for a royal tax and fee system that was marginally better than what had been previous to the king’s proposal. Now we understand why Sandys was defying royal dictum and exporting to Holland—who also had limited demand because of its poor quality and therefore wound up selling it to North Africa and the Levant. They don’t teach this stuff in high school! Finally, to state the obvious, this only made the Virginia Company fiscal and budgetary situation worse
The Virginia Company was a major actor in this nexus, but it was not an especially powerful one. Engaged as its was by charter from the king as a public private partnership in the initial English North American colonization effort, the Company, was by no means a free or independent actor, despite its incorporation as a monopolistic trading and colonizing company. We must remember that in less than five years, the king by his Prerogative would suspend the Virginia Company charter, and assume His Prerogative to govern directly Virginia. Sandys aggravated dilemma was that not only was he in charge of a trading “monopoly”, which was supposed to be extorting profits, a phenomena he had been against in his entire parliamentary career, but now he was losing money in doing so. Not only that, he was helping the king acquire revenues that could sustain him in his fight with parliamentary ambitions. From Sandys’s perspective what’s not to like with this tobacco contract thing (sarcasm).
On top of this, the 1619 coup, and the intensifying civil war within the Company, fragmented and complicated the Company’s dealing with the king and other institutional actors. For example Smythe was Treasurer of the Somers Company, Sandys (and after June 1620 Southampton who sat on the Privy Council) replace Sandys as the overall Virginia Company CEO. Sandys in 1620 was a mere auditor. Individual shareholders in both companies had their own points of leverage in the various controversies. We certainly do not need to go into the detail for our purposes, but we ought to recognize the Tobacco Contract meant political and business battles, one of which was it that was textured by the king’s core assertion that it was all within his authority—with little to no parliamentary involvement, and only increased conflict between the two subsidiary companies.
Sandys in reaction to all of this, filed a bill in parliament in 1621 to ban the importation of tobacco except from Virginia and the Somers Island, and to patent that tobacco to entities composed of his supporters in both companies. As Ashton comments, these was “strange conduct for a supporter of free trade” [99] Robert Ashton, the City and the Court, p. 115.
Hence, the reader can see that every royal action usually generated a non-royal, parliamentary, or business reaction—and in some instances a potential reaction by the most powerful naval force of the period, Spain, who from its West Indies and Central American possessions was in a position to take action on southern geographies such as Virginia and Bermuda. Spain did not take kindly to having her tobacco import quota to England reduced to such an extent to suit the Virginia Company’s interests. We can begin to see how this intensified Spain’s concern with English privateers, the king of which was Warwick.
Living in the Atmosphere of the Tobacco Contract, the Greate Charter Economic Reform Doesn’t Take Root
In the past module, we discussed the “implementation” of the Greate Charter in Virginia. In this section we discuss “its failure to thrive”. While I cannot ignore implications as they were felt in Virginia, this module concentrates on the Virginia Company in London during the time period in which the Greate Charter was implemented in Virginia. The purpose of this module is to provide support for my contention that events in London crowded out the Company’s ability, capacity and even willingness, to administer, nevermind lead and impart its vision to the colony.
During these years the Company was marginalized as far as the colony was concerned—and vice versa. I leave out of the discussion the issues created by the Second Powhatan War I can suggest its effects were likely poorly understood and most importantly “felt” by actors and decision-makers in London. This is because the Company had in its last years been hollowed, and its governance capacity, alongside its fiscal condition, crushed into a polarized mass, lacking respect from those external to it. In my view Virginia was on its own from 1622 on, and from 1619 had coexisted with an increasingly savage and bitter civil war within the Company.
If we remember the Company was on the edge of bankruptcy, almost from its birth, and was in reality an experiment in colonization for its English shareholders and the royal partnership, we can sense the word “fragile” is not an appropriate adjective for the noun “the Virginia Company”. On a rare good day, the Virginia Company aspired to be merely fragile. This is a key element, if not the key element, in the Virginia Company heritage for its Virginia colony.
A cornerstone of Sandys’s economic strategy was to diversify the Virginia economic base beyond planting tobacco, and, to that end a number of other staples and exports were introduced. The intent behind the introduction of several new “industries”, ranging from fur trapping, to shipbuilding, iron-making, livestock and staples production, to founding a college, was from London’s perspective to export them for the benefit of, or the sale in England.
A secondary benefit was to relieve the fiscal burden of a permanent settlement strategy by raising the economy of the colony so it could support its own existence. Off to the sidelines, the Virginia Company prayed that export sales could reduce enormous debt and the burden of fiscal support provided directly by the Company that placed it on the edge of survival and bankruptcy. Virginians had other ideas on the subject.
Bluntly put, if economic diversification could not produce revenues for the Company to pay costs of settlement and pay down existing debt, it was not likely Virginia could sustain itself much longer. To accomplish these purposes, Sandys’ strategy required sufficient time first to “install” the new industries, and secondly to sustain the workforce for that industry while it was being installed until it could produce revenues at a volume sufficient to sustain itself.
Since the development of other commodities on a profitable basis was a long process which offered to the colonists no immediate prospect of a livelihood, it was especially necessary that they be well provided with the requisite supplies of food and clothing [I add tools and labor availability], in order that they might have both the time and will to devote their labors to Sandys’ newly projected industries”. [99] Craven, Dissolution, p.176.
That was never to happen. The Company had limited funds (almost all from the lottery while it existed), and, as we shall see, most was spent transporting settlers—indentured servants mostly—to serve as workforce for the new industry. The colony from the start was in London’s and Sandys’ mind tasked with that responsibility once the settler walked the pier off the ship to Jamestown.
The reality the colony did not know these numbers were coming, and when they would arrive meant the new settlers arrived with no corn or staples stored, nor housing available. Few, if any clothes or tools were made in Virginia, and no preparations had been made for settler existence after their arrival. Worse, London did not “time” its ships to match the food production cycle in Virginia, so that most settlers arrived near or even in winter or early spring so that staples could be planted, nevermind harvested.
But, instead his plans were foredoomed to failure by his policy of leaving to the colony the responsibility in the all important question of supply. From the first to the last, the chief and most urgent concern of the Virginian was an immediate supply of food and clothing … there was little time to think of the future when the provisions for the next year were a pressing and imperative question of the moment. As a result most of their time was given to corn, from which must come their food, and to tobacco, the only crop offering any promise of ability to purchase clothes [again I would add tools and materials needed for housing, planting, livestock, and gunpowder/muskets for self-defense] upon the arrival of the company’s magazine. There was thus, of course, little time to experiment with new staples. [99] Craven, Dissolution, pp.176-7.
In short since Virginia did not yet produce its own staples to eat, clothes to wear or tools for housing, livestock maintenance, planting, harvesting, storage, basic infrastructure-logistics, and gunpowder and weapons for self-defense, how was she supposed to provide all this while still be required to export tobacco to pay for past debt and the costs incurred by the Company to supply her, and for exchange transactions in Virginia? This was the classic chicken or egg syndrome, and it lay at the core of Sandys reform settlement strategy.
There was hope the association-hundred investment would transfer the costs to the volunteer non-Company investor, but that did not account for the costs the Company still possessed in paying for the immigration program required to import the workforce necessary and sufficient for the task, and the pace of the change—not to mention those costs necessary to supply the existing resident workforce which were primarily Company-owned. indentured servants.
While fundamental to the overall strategy the above situation, we must also admit there were other illogic’s that need to be considered as well. How did Sandys get himself into this situation?
The Economic Developer in Me
Think of Sandys’ plan as an exercise in seventeenth century national industrial planning—because that is pretty much what it was. Let’s see what can go wrong with central planning in London and implementation in Virginia—because if it can go wrong there is a high risk it will.
[999] Of course we have to substitute the Virginia Company, as the agent of England, Virginia as a country, and the individual plantation as the functional equivalent of company, but otherwise using either of the definitions cited here, the Greate Charter settlement instructions as an aggregate were tasked to achieve goals such as defined in these definitions. A Google created AI definition of national industrial policy is “National Industrial Policy is a set of government policies that aim to shape a country by focusing on specific industries, firms or economic activities. The goal is to change or maintain a particular pattern of production and trade”. We can compare this with a definition offered by International Monetary Fund: “Industrial policy refers to a set of policies that governments use to bolster national industries or companies deemed strategically important for economic competitiveness, social outcomes, or national security”, https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/fandd/issues/Series/Analytical-Series/industrial-policy-and-the-growth-strategy-trilemma [999]
Sitting in London, approximately 3727 miles from Virginia (not the usual trope of 3,000), and conversely Jamestown to Los Angeles or Seattle about 2,800 miles we can see the inherent difficulty of applying a national industrial policy across continents. Sandy’s feedback time from Virginia to England ranged, dependent on winds, weather and routes, around two and one-half to four and one-half months. As described previous, the London-based Company was itself consumed with its civil war, the negotiations and impositions of the king’s tobacco contract which were congruent with the Greate Charter implementation, and the implications of both as their exerted impacts on the policy-making of each actor involved in the colony’s affairs.
As we might expect, with each passing month the situation deteriorated in London, and likewise in Virginia. Thus, compared to a more casual description of the Greate Charter implementation offered in many commentaries, the actual state of affairs was more chaotic, ill-defined, perceived differently by the actors, and feedback was minimal. To demonstrate the actual implementation of specific instructions sent in the Greate Charter Yeardley governor’s instructions, Craven cites what was happening “on the ground” in Virginia. We can cite his feedback to London and then assess the response.
The following “picture” is not pretty, and we can more accurately see how the huge transformation implied by the diversification of the Virginia economy in conjunction with the colony’s need to provide the bulk of supplies and resources needed to perform the transformation simply overwhelmed the locals during the roughly two and one-half years of Greate Charter implementation. The ideas may, or may not, have been good-useful, but the implementation was from the beginning pretty much a foreordained disaster.
An early diversification initiative, iron (discovery and making) is easily an excellent example of the difficulty of starting a new commodity-staple from scratch. Since 1606 sporadic attempts had been made to find iron and export it. None were successful; mostly these meant a search for exposed iron ore and export of what they found (mostly fools gold). There was no systematic attempt to find a site(s) that actually showed promise. Still in May 1620 the first carpenters intended for the construction of mines arrived in Virginia. Unfortunately, “the chief men for the iron works” had already died on ship in transport over. Without their expertise, any survivors had neither the direction nor expertise to proceed. John Porys wrote back to Sandys, and indicated the best he could not under the circumstances was to build housing and storage areas for the project. By the end of the year (1620) all souls associated with the mining initiative had died in Virginia of one disease or another. [99] Craven, Dissolution, pp. 178-9
Silk, another example, the special project of James, not only in terms of interest but also sending over some of his cocoons, suffered a similar fate. The cocoons did not survive the trip over, in either 1619 or 1620. Wine planting, never mind production, did not prosper as the directions for site location and planting provided by the company were deficient, or did not respect the realities found in Virginia. A second attempt in 1621, however; on site of the university with an ample workforce successfully planted 10,000 vines by 1621—but none ever bore fruit. [99] Craven, Dissolution, pp. 180
Other targeted company commodities, salt, pitch, tar, soap and ashes—which the company supported with servants–languished, probably because of proper attention and priority by Virginians, which likely reflected their lack of known sites for which they could be found, developed and exported profitably. Pory’s, who seems to have been the coordinator on site for the diversification effort, did not believe they could be produced in volume, and likely were not profitable exports. His time and attention went elsewhere.
This was true of lumber, which Virginia did have plenty of, but their weight meant, given the few ships in transit to Virginia, no sufficient volume could be sent back to England to maintain profit—in his words “profit would be almost nothing”. As to pitch and tar, “the trees from which they they came were so scattered that the cost of production would make impossible any competition with Poland where the trees were found in compact groups” [99] Craven, Dissolution, pp. 180.
As to “flax, hemp, and ‘silke grasse’—“all of which the company had held to be of great hope’—had not materialized by the end of 1621. “Officials in London attributed [this] entirely to negligence and inexperience”, based on reports sent to them from Virginia which asserted the “difficulties of these industries were to great to be overcome”. The same could be said for ship-building and fishing. [99] Craven, Dissolution, pp. 180 My suspicion is there was a lack of suitable skillsets in Virginia, plus the quality of background of Company indentured servants proved no match for later Puritan artisans who settled in New England. Hence, the relative simplicity, and more easy profit of tobacco, likely was far more attractive to Virginia indentures.
In fact the only material commodity sent from Virginia to England in the Greate Charter period was tobacco. The few proceeds from tobacco combined with the net proceeds from the lotteries for the only material receipts-revenues the company had to pay its bills. Several factors combined to make even tobacco a loss to the company. Virginia tobacco in this period was so inferior in quality and taste (in part because Virginia processing was deficient and in need of investment and proper treatment by planters), and the cost and complexity of logistics from Virginia to England was sufficiently higher than competitive tobaccos, and the concessionaires-farmers mechanizing the product could not sell in Europe –and that is where Virginia tobacco mostly went. In 1620 the Company resorted to send tobacco direct to Holland— not to the king’s liking, but that did not resolve the taste differential that cheapened the price when sold there.
Frankly, the entire diversification initiative seemed nearly insane in hindsight because during the Greate Charter period—at least into late 1621, the Company’s Magazine—indeed the Company in this period had three Magazines, two competing Magazines in the Virginia Company (one controlled by Smythe, and the other, a Sandys creation of which we don’t even have a relatively firm date as to its founding), therefore little more than a magazine on paper, not a functioning magazine), and the other also under Smythe’s control in the Somers Company. On top of this, prices in the overall tobacco market were falling, due to the glut in cheap Virginia tobacco supplemented by West Indies tobacco. Say it another way, the economics of tobacco were not supportive of the industry as early as the beginning 1620’s, and the Company Magazines competed, and were poorly oriented to do more than cope with demand and supply issues.
Smythe’s Magazine was under attack for the excessive prices it charged, and setting a low price for tobacco purchase for what little high quality tobacco Virginia had from Virginia. Its sale abroad at a considerably higher price—despite the fact Sandys had set the Company ceiling on Magazine profit at no more than twenty-five per cent—only made matters worse. The effect was, as described above, that the Company purchased tobacco from the planters at a high price, and sold it to final user at a loss. By the time, Sandys was able to shut down the Smythe Magazine, its assets had been reduced by more than half relative to the investment of the Magazine shareholders.
The 1621 market fell even lower than 1620. this put Sandys now functioning Magazine in a position to either subsidize the Virginia planter (through the Magazine purchase) by purchasing in excess of what it could expect on final sale. This Sandys was unwilling, perhaps better said, unable to do. His reply to the colonists who advocated pricing sufficient to compensate the Virginia planters was typical of Sandys, and while it exposes an aspect of his personality, it also set a tone little to the planters liking:
The Company flatly refused to entertain the suggestion lest ‘we should maintain the Colony in their overweening esteem of their darling Tobacco to the overthrow of all other Staple Commodities, and likewise continue the evil will they have conceived there, and the scandalous reports here of oppression and exactions from the Company selling all their Commodities for three times the value of what they cost, upon which found and unjust surmises they think it lawful to use all manner of deceit and falsehood in their tobacco that they put in the Magazine. [99] Craven, Dissolution, p. 182
Say this another way, the Magazine as a vehicle of import of supplies and export of tobacco had simply broken down to the point that the Company lacked the ability to either provide supplies in Virginia, and export goods to the English and European markets—especially tobacco whose price had fallen sufficiently, because of a glut on the market and the lack of quality in Virginia tobacco that could only result in its sale at the lowest prices the market offered.
To a certain extent, therefore, the local Magazine insulated Virginia planters from the declining price of tobacco, and the loss of demand because of Virginia poor quality tobacco. Profit loss was felt in London, and Virginia was again to some extent encouraged to increase its tobacco production rather than keep it constant or reduced. The concern of the locals was more focused on the implied fees and taxes borne through the tobacco contract than confronting a rapidly deteriorating foreign tobacco market.
A side effect was that London purchased supplies insufficient for little more than the trip, and sent them over on its ships loaded with immigrants. Upon their arrival the burden fell on the Virginia Magazine officials, who were left to their devices in finding work, food, tools, clothes and housing from the only sources available, the larger usually company officials or hundreds administrators. Necessity therefore drew the Virginia officials and larger plantation owners into cooperation amongst themselves and opened a serious gap between locals and London company officials. Likely these relations as well as local autonomy would have developed in any case, but I argue they came unnecessarily early and with more intensity and created an unequal balance in the drive for diversification away from enhanced tobacco production during the Greate Charter years.
Intra-Company bureaucratic warfare between competing Magazines in London contributed mightily to forcing colonists to rely on their own devices and contacts and to bypass company regulations and institutions of foreign trade. It started the process early on in tobacco’s Virginia history that plantation owners would devise their own policy regarding export and import, and that minor and renter tobacco planters would rely on their larger, more connected, plantation owners. The Magazines previous to 1622 did still hold some notable sway in exports, but their quality of service and capacity were stressed and their reputation among the settlers was in no way enhanced. They would be the first to collapse in the future collapse in the Company’s management of the colony.
The second problem was company indentured servants and artisans, intended by Sandys to work on company lands for the achievement of company economic diversification initiatives, were often diverted (almost half) to the holdings of other company officials for reasons likely necessary. We are aware of this problem through the research of David R. Ransome [99] David R. Ransome, “Shipt for Virginia: the Beginnings in 1619-22 of the Great Migration to the Chesapeake (the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 103, No. 4 (Oct, 1995), p. 450. Ransome using the records of John Ferrar, who upon Sandy’s election of Treasurer, moved his company headquarters from Smythe’s Philpot Lane (at St Sithes Lane a half mile west, in his great house, which vastly improved company records now available to understand in more detail matters as who immigrated into Virginia during the Greate Charter period). [99] David R. Ransome, “Shipt for Virginia: the Beginnings in 1619-22 of the Great Migration to the Chesapeake (the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 103, No. 4 (Oct, 1995), p. 445
In those records, both Ransome and Craven find records particular to an association-hundred company, headed by William Weldon, that arrived in Virginia in the fall of 1619 on the ship Bona Nova. Various of his immigrants were “farmed out” by Yeardley. Yeardley, pleading the reason for his action to Weldon was that he “put half of Weldon’s immigrants out to servants of others “because their supplies [supplies in Virginia] were so inadequate”, without the shift they would, in effect, not be able to be fed. Arriving after the harvest of that year, they had not planted their own sustenance for the winter, and the only way they could be fed was to live off the harvest of others.
Weldon negotiated the best deal with Yeardley he could, but had to suspend his indenture rights for a year. Interestingly, Craven notes the transfer to another master, while disturbing, nearly caused a rebellion when the transferred servants were told they could not, in compliance with restrictions placed upon the amount of tobacco that could be grown (in order to encourage diversification into corn and other edible staples). [99] Craven, Dissolution, p. 177
Finally, Sandy’s obsession of sending ship after ship, full of Virginia immigrants to provide the workforce with which Virginia was to accomplish his economic development goals ceased two problems in Virginia. Augmented workforce supply in the absence of sufficient supplies in Virginia proved to be fundamental to the ultimate failure of his plan. The first problem is macro: he sent an oversupply of indentured servants in particular that the colony simply did not have the capacity to absorb, in particular to feed and cloth until they became productive.
That meant when his immigrants arrived, if the arrival was not at a time they could “successfully ‘season’ [survive] (therefore be available to plant in the year’s harvest), then they would have no food-clothes and possibly housing until the next harvest. Craven’s explanation for Sandys’ inability to understand and adjust his actions after more than two years of violating this reality seems fair and reasonable support to blame him for failure, more precisely inability to implement successfully, his grand Greate Charter scheme in Virginia:
Sandys exhibited a tendency to rush with too much haste and enthusiasm into plans that were not well thought out, and for which the necessary preliminary study and preparations had not been made”.[99] Craven, Dissolution, p. 178
The final observation to be added is Sandys and the headquarters staff expected Virginia would make some profit from its exports—even though it never did. That means Sandys included revenues in his budget that stood no chance of being recognized until a later point in time. All this did was to provide ammunition to his enemies, and convince outsiders the Company was not being operated well. Evidence for this belief was pervasive. Sandys and the Ferrars never notified Yeardley, or anyone, that the ships were coming, or who and what they brought with them. The ships and immigrants just arrived.
Even if he had, if it did not follow the planting schedule how could Virginia supply its new-found immigrants. Worse, the stories that issued from the lack of supplies on ship, their inferior quality, and how much spoiled in transit. Sickness and death followed; when immigrants arrived many of those who survived were sickened, the remainder too weak to work. If nothing else all that meant Sandys workforce policy forced colonists to produce what they could not, while simultaneously urging them to produce more despicable tobacco to pay the Company’s bills and debt —for more than three years. His program forced the settlers to rely, one way or another, on the Indians for sustenance; they could raid and steal, trade, or evict them from their cleared fields. Accordingly, that requires we finally bring into discussion how the Greate Charter implementation played its role in precipitating the Second Powhatan War.
New Leadership—Governor Yeardley had got off to a rough start before he even left England. The knighthood affair cut him loose from Smythe, which probably was a blessing. Adopted by Sandys and Southampton Sandys pledged himself to the implementation of his London instructions. His relations with John Porys, the Secretary of the Colony, were “not close” and both had ties with Warwick that rendered them as rivals to each other. Porys was much of the mastermind in the implementation of the company reorganization, presiding over the first session (and the others that follow, I assume) of the new General Assembly.
Yeardley on the other hand had a role in the set of a judiciary “circuit court”, and handle all matters tobacco. From his arrival, frequent associations of Yeardley with his private investment association, the Southampton (formerly Smythe) hundred probably consumed much of his time. Of some temper, his background being military, Indian fighting, and Gates’ body guard, his ambitions, expressed through his marriage, and acquisition of a large estate, his closeness with Argall, all suggest he had some rough edges; he is oft criticized by others in their private letters.
Still he seems to have been faithful as Virginia conditions and realities permitted to good-faith implementation of his instructions. He was not inhibited in giving good advice to Sandys, and he took a consistent risk in telling the latter than Sandys’ immigration program caused a great deal of trouble for the colony—and making it clear too many people in Virginia meant famine, hard times and sickness. He wanted more supplies from England, regularly sent—including to those on the first voyage over who usually arrived in Virginia sick, mal-nourished, depressed, or buried at sea. At some point early on, he wrote to Sandys that he wanted to be replaced, citing his “unhappy duties” and wanting to spend more time on his plantation, which he felt was suffering from his neglect. He nominated a replacement, who was ignored by Sandys. Sandys appointed Sir Francis Wyatt, a son-in-law, a well-thought of aristocrat of competence, to replace Yeardley effective on November 18th when the three year term expired. Wyatt did replace Yeardley and we will discuss him below.
Second Phase–Sandys simply could not send over immigrants whenever it was possible to finance and send a ship from England; he had to time the immigrant to match the seasons, otherwise he was condemning them to encounter mortality rates that stunned England, never mind Virginians. This last mistake, so apparent to others, would very quickly come back to haunt him.
So, if the initial phase of the Greate Charter economic development and diversification plan as constructed by Sandys, Smythe and the Virginia Company shareholders previous to the 1619 coup, had largely come to little positive result, despite the immigration of several thousand settlers and artisans, Sandys, probably during the spring and summer of 1621, decided to redouble his efforts to commence a second phase. From all appearances the design of this second effort was wholly devised in London, and probably by those close to Sandys.
In Sandys mind, the key driver of Virginia growth was an increase in its population, and the importation of a larger workforce able, almost by definition, creating the capacity to produce more, thereby increasing the volume of exports, and reducing costs by the planting of more staples, food, supplies and such, thus relieving the Company of that burden. Craven asserts that priority was made not to amass sufficient supplies to keep the new settlers fed on the voyage, and then to support their existence until the sale of its produce, but rather get the crowd on the boat and send them quickly to Virginia, “creating an impression deliberately encouraged by the company that new arrivals must quickly become self-supporting”. [99] Craven, Dissolution, p. 194. If so, it seems Sandys was insensitive to Yeardley’s previous correspondence, insensitive to the treatment of the settlers, and in general had learned little from the failure of the first phase.
Accordingly, summing the last of his available monetary resources, in the fall of 1621 provision and effort was made to send over a thousand settlers “under the terms of several patents issued to private associations” created specifically for the purpose of conducting each and various elements of the economic development plan”. The use of this organizational device, specific function investor-company owned entities, created a mechanism by which funds could be raised to pay such costs as the company encountered.
The fiscal effect of “paying for the costs” was of course illusionary as this was little more than a funding by issuing more debt to be paid in the future. Having accomplish such feats in my own economic development career, I feel qualified to assert such financial innovation is risky, can easily be short-sighted, and that whatever its good intentions can backfire through unforeseen events—like the Greate Massacre of 1622. These poor folk were to pay the costs over the next year.
The elements of the second phase were essentially replication of the first phase. If all the iron workers had died in the first phase, then send over another batch. Under the supervision and command of John Berkley a new group of ‘twenty skilled men” were recruited. Because the king really wanted silk, that element of economic diversification got special attention. More cocoons purchased from Europe were sent over during 1621. Mulberry trees, whose leaves the silkworms loved, were planted in many plantations. “Excellent books” were sent over by the Company to guide the Virginia planters. This dovetailed into some orchard and vineyard planting as well.
The new signature project, glass production, was staffed with skilled Italians, with a manager-commander Captain William Norton. Under his direction furnaces would be built to produce beads for the final making of various glass and pottery items. “Great stress was made on the possible production of naval stores” that produce silke grasses for roping, hemp and flax. Sandys instructions required all indentured or contract servants to stick to their original assignments, forbidden to migrate to “useless commodities” (tobacco).
Overseeing these economic development adventures was a newly created office or department headed by the the Treasurer of the Colony. Previously entrusted to the governor, the responsibility for economic development initiatives would after 1621 rest with that office and its occupant. To ensure the job would be done as intended by London, Edwin Sandys appointed his brother, the poet, George to voyage over and assume the office. His faithfulness and knowledge of ‘our intentions and counsels whereunto he hath been from time to time privy’ and committed to ‘the execution of all our orders, charters and instructions, tending to the setting up, increase and maintaining of the said Staple Commodities. George was also tasked with the collection of outstanding quitrents. He was granted by London fifteen hundred acres and fifty tenants, of which twenty-five were sent on the first ship in 1621.[99] Craven, Dissolution, pp. 187-9
In the short time left to the Greate Charter permanent settlement plan implementation, only a few mulberry trees were planted, and more vineyards were planted. They produced literally one barrel of the stuff by early 1622, and the reaction to it in London was that it was a “musky cask, that the long voyage had spoiled it, that, in the true Sandys’s spirit the cask was a scandal and of no credit to the company. The response ended with a “request” for some good wine. Nothing had come of the signature glass-making initiative, and the older in process iron-making initiative had yet to produce iron, saving “a little bar of iron”, which Sandy’s opponents used as support for their claim that Sandys’s plan had failed outright. The last shipment of settlers in the fall seems to have been more successful, fewer were sick, or got sick upon arrival (the fall, not spring or summer), but supplies were minimal, food was not plentiful
But as we enter into 1622, Craven describes Virginia as “a hopeless situation. Tobacco alone was produced in sufficient quantities to offer any possibility of payment [for the supplies sent over], and its poor quality together with marketing conditions at home [England] offered little prospect of profit … The situation in the colony was essentially the same as before 1621. … In truth, the only hopeful feature of the company’s finances was its inability to send colonists. This would have proved a real blessing to the colony had it not been that a large emigration continued to private plantations at the charge of individual associations of [investor] adventurers”. [99] Craven, Dissolution, pp. 193-4
The implosion of the Company in London renders it incapable of managing Virginia colony during the Second Powhatan War 1621: Company Polarization intensified into a Company civil war
Let’s remember the point being made in this module. I am presenting the case the Virginia Company, headquartered in London during the Sandys’ administration, was stressed and beleaguered to the point in 1620 that Sandys did not possess control over the Bermuda colony, and as we shall see had lost in the 1620 annual shareholder meeting his position as Treasurer of the Virginia Company. Working through his friend-proxy Southampton, the Sandys faction could achieve dominance over quarterly shareholder meetings of the Virginia Company, it had lost control over the Magazine, and was unable to set up its won viable alternative.
By that point the two colonies had also degenerated into warfare with each other. It was also apparent that James and the Privy Council had entered into the fray. As we enter into 1620, it will be demonstrated that what had been a limited warfare between the factions evolved into a full-fledged civil war, a war that led Sandys to mount what was an effective second coup in which using various voting practices, and ostracizing opponents from voting, he was able to dominate such shareholder meetings effectively becoming what was essential a dictatorial power that led the opposition shareholders to cease attendance at the shareholder meetings and instead appealing to the king to bring order to the Company.
The remainder of this module describes the key events and dynamics asserted above, and concluded in 1624 with the suspension, by the king, or the Virginia Company charter over Virginia (but not Bermuda).
The reader is reminded, yet again, the main point this history is making is that during this period until 1624 the Company was unable to effectively govern Virginia, consumed as it was with its own internal warfare in London. Thus by default the local Virginia Company elite, indeed compelling this elite, to assume local authority through use of the Greate Charter Company institutions to survive against Indian attack, and to do such activities and functions as were necessary to literally survive,(in particular to raise funds to do so) therefore compelling it to manage its economic base, essentially tobacco export, and conduct its war against the Powhatan without London Company support or even approval.
Indeed, for a noticeable portion of this period, it was very unclear how well the London Company and its shareholders, understood what was going on in Virginia, nevermind the conduct of the war which London demanded unrestricted warfare, while the colonists did not.
Finally before we enter into the detail of this period, I believe it helpful to lower the expectations of the readers regarding the capacity of the Virginia Company as a seventeenth century bureaucracy. To fully appreciate the state of the Virginia Company in this period, we must make the assertion that as a early modern, with more emphasis on the early, the Virginia Company was, as I have consistently stated, a bureaucratic experiment: a regulated foreign trade joint stock corporation chartered as a public partnership with James I and tasked for the first time with the permanent settlement of North American colonies, of which Virginia was first to take root.
What needs saying at this point is size or scale of the Company is very small indeed, and its mode of operations was as such considerably more personalistic, than formal. Beyond its shareholder organizational structure, its executive corporate bureaucracy, pretty much unstudied, was lodged in the private houses of first Smythe and than the Ferrar family. The latter was very large, and the former sizeable, but in both cases only a handful of clerks and administrators are known.
To the extent there were specialized structures we are not aware; we do know major bureaucratic functions, such as the lottery administration were “contracted or delegated out” to entitled outside of the Company formal structure. Smythe probably handled whatever his fiscal and audit functions in the same manner, likely bringing on board such expertise he could assign from other entities under his control. The word hap-hazard comes to mind. The very first Jamestown expedition seems to have been conducted by a handful of Smythe’s operatives and relatives, who were inexperienced in anything resembling the founding of a settlement, and who were probably under some pressure to launch the Virginia expedition in some haste.
The lack of resources through to 1613 seriously inhibited the Company’s ability to hire additional personnel, in particular its financing was through debt issuance for each supply ship and then expedition, with no ongoing revenues of scale other than the selling of shares in the company. I would not estimate the size of its formal bureaucracy during this period but I would be surprised if they exceeded the fingers of both hands.
On top of this, for those of us who think of bureaucrats or the civil service, as I am wont to do, the Virginia Company simply was not populated by any. Relatives of Smythe, friends of the Sandys’ faction and the occasional family members, such as Smythe’s ever-ready second in command Alderman Johnson, a very busy fellow and Mr. Fix It, were brought on board and left as their lives evolved or they were assigned other tasks elsewhere. Small bureaucracies of this size by nature were extremely personalistic.
Sandys in particular during this period populated the Company bureaucracy with some friends he recruited, such as Thomas Hobbes a young college graduate, to serve as audit clerk, and no doubt detailed with many other tasks, including becoming a voting shareholder. By 1623, it seems to me Company apparatus was confined to one Ferrar and what clerks he could muster. In this period the expression “blood out of a turnip” comes to mind.
Reduced to one statement all this description can be summarized as it would not take much to consume the bureaucratic resources of the Virginia Company in a period after the lottery ceased to bring in revenues for the corporation. Whatever was available seems to have been employed to recruit immigrants, contract with ships and sea captains, sign contracts with representatives of association joint stock corporations, and supply ships to send immigrants over to the colonies. In between they probably provided service to the various shareholder councils and committees, and prepared reports and communications to outside bodies such as the Privy Council. I suspect figuring out what was going on in Virginia, was not in their job description to any great degree.
The Policy Environment of the Virginia Company in this Period
As we enter this period in 1621, Francis Bacon was Lord Chancellor. Known to us today as a great philosopher, scientist and intellectual, Bacon was, and had to be, a political powerhouse who spent a great deal of his life in and around the close circle of James I. His personal life was unknown to me previous to this research, but I would offer it was “complicated”, multi-dimensional, controversial, and his financial honesty and integrity was publicly questioned during his later life when he accumulated titles, land, and was in a position to greatly influence affairs. As a central member of court politics, he was deeply caught up in the rivalries and intrigues. All these factors came to a head when he came under attack in the 1621 Parliament.
Whatever stability a strong intelligent and long-standing confidant to the king provided over the past twenty years ended after the 1621 Parliament. Bacon got caught up in the crosshairs of parliament, Coke in particular, and the bitter divisive debate on monopolies and patents. By the beginning of 1622 on his way out of power, Bacon’s departure opened up the paths and passages of policy-making to two courtiers of prominence, Lionel Cranfield, the Exchequer, and George Villers, the Duke of Buckingham. Cranfield was promoted to Earl of Middlesex, a magnificent title for a former merchant.
A capable administrator, close at this point, 1622 to the king, Middlesex stepped into the tobacco contract negotiations, and carved a policy passageway out so the Virginia Company could preserve the revenues of tobacco export and achieve some measure of liquidity. The effort came to naught, indeed the opposite as Sandys used the escape policy to his own ends, or so it seemed, to many shareholders and the opposition faction. Accordingly events in 1623 became chaotic, Cranfield withdrew to the margins, and in the vacuum that followed an in-and-out Buckingham involved himself with the King as the King called forth an investigation and a crown commission to deal with the matter.
The point of this brief interlude is to alert the reader that in his last days, James’s court politics was in transition, flux, and even a bit of turmoil. The Virginia Company matter was not center to court intrigues and concern, but it it did occupy a position on its agenda. James, himself, always in-and-out on policy-making, operated more through staff, and by 1624 the Company had navigated between a number of intermediaries, until it would fall into the purview of yet another, Lord Mandeville. The succession of names in the below discussion serves our purposes in proving to the reader than the Company was beset on a stormy sea of court politics and courtiers during the declining and last days of James. James would pull the plug on the Virginia Company Virginia charter, but the process was on the whole capably managed by the succession of names.
Caught up in the rough waters of London politics, itself caught up into the drift of the English civil war bled into the Virginia Company’s shareholder civil war. The aging of James I, the death of Queen Anna, the growing salience of religion as a driving factor in the court-parliamentary schism, the intrigues and events of the Thirty Years War created fears and opportunity for those engaged in foreign trade, privateering, and colonization. While 1620 proved in hindsight to be a turning point in the fortunes and priorities of the Virginia Company, with Virginia sunsetting and the all but prostrate Plymouth Company rising from the dead, the London Company of the Virginia Company (or subject and focus) was tossed about unable to set its own course.
In some ways most ominous to the future of the Virginia Company was the king’s decision in January 1621 to call Parliament into session. The king had an agenda, and so did Parliament. Both Sandys and John Ferrar were elected as M.P.s, and off to Parliament they went. So did Nathaniel Rich. So did Smythe, who had been defeated by Sandys in a Kent election, but then the King found him a spot and he too attended. Most ominous was the reality that followed the debates in the parliament which both confirmed and intensified the drift to an English civil war. The chasm between King and Parliament widened and the issue of monopolies, of which the Company and tobacco were examples, was an important theme of that disrupted parliament. Less commented on, but as far as Virginia itself was concerned was the hollowing out of the Virginia Company organization which shattered its little remaining capacity to act and manage, leaving it simply unable to provide even an illusion of management in regards to Virginia affairs, no matter how desperate and existential they seemed to be. While off to London parliamentary sessions the Company’s key leaders went, the central office of the Virginia Company was stressed, focused to meeting the requirements of the Greate Charter initiatives, the single most critical of which was sending more, and more, settlers to Virginia—and then there was economic diversification.
To me, the 1621 Parliament was an auger of things to come. Hence I include an extended description and summary of it offered by Peter Ackroyd:
It was time to call a parliament; it assembled in the middle of 1621. It did not auger well that the king had to be carried to its opening in a chair. His legs and his feet were so weak that it was believed he would soon lose the use of them. He did not in any case desire to consult with the Commons on matters of policy. He was there to deliver his demands. He ordered them not to meddle with complaints against the king, the church of state matters. He himself would ensure that the proposed Spanish match between his son and the infanta [the daughter of the King of Spain] did not endanger the Protestant religion of England; he also stated that he would not allow his son-in-law’s Palatinate to be broken up. And that he needed money. It was the only reason he had summoned them … It was the first meeting of the Parliament for almost seven years, and as such became a clearing house for all the complaints and problems that had accrued in the interim… The weather outside was bitter.
His statement at the last session in December, 1621—On December 18, 1621, by candlelight in the evening, the Commons issued a ‘protestation’ in which they asserted that their privileges and indeed their lives, are the ancient and undoubted birthright and inheritance of the subjects of England. They had every right to discuss foreign affairs. Any matter that concerned the defense of the realm, or the state of religion, came within the scope of their counsel and debate. They demanded freedom of speech and freedom from arrest. He {James] called for the Journal [daily record] of that Commons, and with his own hand ripped out the ‘protestation. It now had no status. ‘I will govern” he said, ‘according to the commonweal but not according to the common will’. He then consigned Coke and Phelips to prison and confined Pym to his house [likewise Edwin Sandys–all leaders of the Commons] [99] Peter Ackroyd, Rebellion, the History of England from James I to the Glorious Revolution (Thomas Dunne Books, 2014), pp. 70-1, 74
In England at the time [1621] legal sovereign, that is the supreme authority in the government, was in a condition of unstable equilibrium. The Stuarts not only insisted upon the prerogatives they inherited from the Tudor monarchs, but even sought to amplify them, basing their claims to legal omnipotence upon an extramundane sanction. On the other hand Parliament strenuously opposed this contention, and relying mainly on precedents established before the Tudor era, claimed rights that tended toward its ultimate supremacy in government. The constitutional struggles of the age were fundamentally concerned with this conflict of view, but the Crown in the beginning held the advantage that long-established possession of power conferred. The close connect of the colonies with the Crown arose from the fact, that the King stood as the embodiment of the sovereignty of the English state.
The union of colony and metropolis was in no sense a personal one. In such a relation each community is self-sufficient and, through often influences the other, works out its destiny by means of its own resources. The English colonies, however were not sister colonies of England, but dependent local jurisdictions for whose welfare and safety the mother country had assumed responsibility. The Crown’s claim to this exclusive jurisdiction over the colonies was opposed by Parliament, which asserted that it had authority to legislate for the Empire.
In 1621, in the course of the debate in the House of Commons on the bill for the freedom of the American fisheries [at the center of which was the Virginia Company] the Secretary of State denied the competency of Parliament ‘to make any laws here for those Countries which are not yet annexed to this Crown’ and asserted that ‘this Bill was not proper for this House because it concerneth America’. In answer thereto, it was contended that Parliament could legally ‘make laws here for Virginia; for if the King will Consent to this Bill, passed here and by the Lords, this will control the Patent’. The Crown was able to resist such claims, and during the entire period until the eve of the Civil War, Parliament passed no act, directly affecting the colonies. [99] George Louis Beer, the Origins of the British Colonial System, 1578-1660 (Chapter X, p. 3 (estimated) Made in the United States, North Haven CT, 28 October, 2024)
The Lottery Goes Bye-Bye, Inter-Company Rivalries, Sandys Takes Over Somers Island Company, Sandys Leadership Hollows Out, Defense as an example, and Second Phase of Greate Charter plan: 1621-March 1622
The Lottery Is Revoked—Since 1613 the lottery was the bulk of whatever discretionary revenues the Company had. To finance the settlement plan as best he could, Sandys used the lottery on a scale more intensified than the Smythe administration. In Craven’s words he used the lottery so much that it became “a general nuisance to the kingdom. … The lottery with its doubly effective appeal to the gambling instinct and philanthropic spirit of the people had rendered valiant service to the company, but there was a limit to the total revenue that could be derived from this source. And … by two years of energetic ‘surveys through England’ had well reached that limit [99] Craven, Dissolution, p. 183
Not at all understood in America, and under researched in England, the lotteries in this period generated a good deal of suspicion, scandal, corrupt practices, and incompetent administration that resulted in “foul aspersions unjustly cast upon it by malignant tongues” across the country—especially where the lotteries were conducted, and people could see for themselves what was going on. Certainly, some accusations were directly or indirectly coming from Sandys internal opposition after the lottery had been suspended. These criticisms focused on the lottery’s chief administrator, Barbor, who became the lightning rod for the incompetent conduct of many lotteries and the improper use to which the lottery had been put. In any event Barber was personally accused of diverting up to L8,000, a very large sum, for his own use, and then of having bribed the auditors to keep it secret.
With tobacco prices falling, and a still firm conviction that tobacco sales should be the last resort, Sandys was at a loss of how to supply Virginia during 1622. When he sent over his last 1621 supply ship he warned the colony that if it could not make the economic initiatives profitable, including the new ones included in his future instructions to a new governor, “it is vain ever to hope for like supplies from hence [here-England];”. But, in the manner we have come to expect from Sandys, any deficiency of staples and supplies for residents was the fault, not of him or the London HQ, but of the colony and Virginians. Continuing on from the above warning he made no uncertainty as to where responsibility and blame lay for any failure to supply the residents of Virginia:
for any want [that befell the colony], it the Colony fall upon any calamity or misery, theirs be the shame, and guilt whose fault it is; as for us [the London Company] it will be our comforts neither to have failed in abundance of charities, hitherto, nor in timely advice and warnings now given [99] Craven, Dissolution, pp. 192-3
To add to this burden Sandys further made clear to Yeardley (and the future governor) that he had to make his local economy work sufficiently well to provide supplies to those who lived in Virginia, but as to the paying out of the Company debt the produce of the colony should be profitable, and from those profits “nothing less than the principal [of the debt] laid out [returned to the Company to pay off the debt] [99] Craven, Dissolution, pp. 193. He wasn’t done with that last burden-responsibility but went on to warn that without debt being paid off, the likelihood of future investment hinged on the repayment of existing debt—which the reader might remember came from Sandy’s London-based shareholders and debtors. Sandy’s constituency would be unhappy if the colony could not pay its bills.
The one element of the strategy Sandys had some control over was sending immigrants over—and that is what he concentrated on. This worked only so long as the lottery generated revenues sufficient to do so. In November, 1620 minutes of the company council meeting admitted that nearly every last pound raised by the lotteries had been spent. [99] Craven, Dissolution, p. 183. Then, in 1621, the king revoked the company’s right to conduct a lottery.
Technically, the lottery was terminated by the Privy Council in early 1621. Its action was justified for a listed number of reasons, including, as a punch in the gut to Sandys, parliament’s opposition to it as it alleging the lottery was a “public nuisance”. [99] Craven, the Virginia Company of London, 1606-1624 (Virginia 350th Anniversary Celebration Corporation, Williamsburg, 1964), Historical Booklet #5, p.35. Scott, whose reporting I find quite creditable, sums up his take on the king’s motivations: “Whether James I was sufficiently antagonistic to Sandys to show his displeasure in relations with the Virginia Company, or whether, as it seems likely, he was urged to action by the Smythe party, it was not long before Sandys began to feel the royal displeasure … There were many at Court who were ready to show that the King’s wish [regarding the use of the lottery for the Virginia Company] had been evaded and the result was that the license to hold lotteries which was dependent on royal pleasure, and was determinable on six months notice was withdrawn on March 21, 1621 [99] William Robert Scott, the Constitution and Finance of English, Scottish and Irish Joint Stock Companies (Cambridge University Press, 1910), p. 272. I might suggest Sandys sale of Virginia tobacco direct to Holland, against the king’s policy, and ruling of the Privy Council, was known at that time, and could have entered into the king’s decision-making on the lottery.
Not enough stress is placed on the termination of the lottery by American historians. It is mentioned to be sure, but to draw the inevitable conclusion that its termination meant the end of its various strategies, its ability to service Virginia settlers, offer any hope of paying off existing debt and therefore suffocating serious and badly needed private investment. The colony was effectively placed on its deathbed in 1621. For the nest three years the polarized factions were essentially putting lipstick on a corpse, fighting to take possession of a soon to be dead body.
Interestingly, while the king had pulled the plug on the life support system of the colony, he triggered the start of a London pivot to something else to replace the Company. That the pivot culminated in James assuming responsibility for Virginia’s governance was a not very likely scenario in 1621, but surprise tho it was to be, the pivot was, in my view, a good one, saving, of course, the throne in 1624, through 1661 was essentially empty as far as Virginia was concerned.
Sandys Takes Over the Somers Company (May 1621)–Another even more disturbing, but interesting, action was taken by the Virginia Company to the detriment of the Somers Company. In November, 1620 Sandys got approved a future potential Virginia land distribution of 40,000 acres that applied to Virginia Company shareholders, including those Somers Company shareholders. who were also Virginia Company shareholders. Why? Previous land distribution in Bermuda yield less acreage. The Virginia acreage was in effect a land bonus to those shareholders who held shares in both companies-colonies; the bonus amount was significant.
Seven months later, in May 1621 at the Somers Company annual quarterly court and officer elections (during which the annual election to Treasurer was held) Sandys held out the prospect of such bonus to Somers Company if he were elected as Somers Company Treasurer. In the election that followed, Southampton unseated Smythe and John Ferrar was elected as his Deputy—by only a few votes. [99] Scott, Constitution, p. 274.
He did so, because as suggested by Scott that “Since Smythe had been narrowly defeated in 1621 at the election for governor of the Somers Island company” in which Warwick had abstained from voting [99] Scott, Constitution, p. 278 that the land distribution deal secured the support of Warwick for Sandys faction’s dominance over the Somers Company. Sandys, in reality bought Warwick votes in particular, and secured control over both companies. His hold on the Somers Company, however, was always tenuous, and Sandy’s opposition was noticeably stronger in the latter.
An Example of 1621 Virginia Company Policy Implementing: Defense
When in December 1621, it became evident to both London and Virginia that the Spanish were active, and in part based on a rumor from our friend Captain Elfrith, that they were in preparation for an attack on Virginia (generated by attacks of privateers like Elfrith). As described by John Rolfe, this alarmed Virginians greatly, as they were well aware if attacked they had no place to run or hide, so they had to strengthen their shore defenses with fortifications and militia. Alerted to this London responded that Virginia “should give no offense to the Spaniards”, by which I suspect he meant no support or sympathy for privateers or pirates, and the colony should build such forts, blockhouses and fortifications “at the mouth of the [James River]”, and wherever needed.
To this end, London authorized a new office in Virginia, the Marshall, for whom was entrusted the responsibility for Virginia defense, and to that position in late 1621, Captain William Nuce was appointed. He was provided, as was customary at that time, 1,500 acres and allotted fifty servants and tenants and authorized L400 to cover the expenses of these individuals. Nuce, however, did not leave England until late in 1622.
In the meantime, of course, much was to happen, and that generated much correspondence on Virginia’s need for military and defense assistance from London immediately—asking for instance for engineers to be sent over so that “the principal city” could be relocated to a more secure location. All of this predated the March 26th Great Massacre attack by the Powhatan. Indeed, it was the fear of the Spanish that prompted this call for defense. What I might add is the defense of the colony was paramount, existential (even though no Spanish attack occurred), but London’s response was limited, and again placed responsibility on the colony for the greatest part of its defense. If Virginia was to be defended, it was up to the Virginians
The take away has to be that London as a support for Virginia settlement was so exhausted and limited by the end of 1621 that whatever English colonization meant in theory or in the classroom by 1621, in practice and in reality its first colony, Virginia was on its own. I will reiterate a point made in a previous module that the leadership of the Company was more than distracted by their intensive participation in the Parliament of 1621.
1621 Hollowing Out of the Virginia Company– Sandys played a major role in that session, which by the nature of the institution was primary to his agenda and time management. I add both he and Southampton (who was not an M.P.) were by order of the king issued through the Privy Council. Confined to the jail of the Sheriff of London for the better part of two months over the summer, Sandys and Southampton no doubt had plenty of time to design and execute the second phase of the Greate Charter economic development implementation.
Obscured in the margins, it should be noted that in 1620, both ran against each other for M.P. in the same election district. Smythe lost, a seat he had held for years. Smythe’s brother procured (bought) a seat in the Cornish borough of Saltash—not a riding one would have thought the richest merchant in England would have gotten. Virginia was not an important topic in that session. Sandys in the meantime used his seat to occupy a central place in the session. After the session Smythe announced his retirement from the East India council, due to his “weakness of body”..
I find all this rather remarkable. For all his brilliance and his progressive ideas, Sandys displayed an enormous capacity to transfer responsibility to the Virginians, without providing them the resources that hitherto had been the responsibility of the London Company. While he took, and was given, the respect and praise for the formulation of a Greate Charter permanent settlement plan whatever he could send over in the remainder of 1621 was what the colony could expect for his doubling down on the first year and one half failure to deliver. His Greate Charter settlement plan had not produced profits, despite the resources sent over from England through 1621 was all that he could do; it was up to the colony to assume responsibility for whatever was required in the next year—and thereafter?
This position is congruent with that presented by Craven, who, after describing the inability of London to offer any serious assistance to Virginia in the aftermath of the Greate Massacre, and its written responses to the colony to that affect came to the same conclusion as I did by the end of 1621.
The plea of a stricken colony came to a [London] company which was in no wise prepared to offer any immediate and sufficient remedy. For a year the company’s leaders in every communication to the colony had been proclaiming its bankruptcy, and calling attention to the disappointment and waning interest of its adventurers [shareholders and investors]. They had seen no hope for the future except in a profitable trade with the colony, and had quite definitely shifted the responsibility in this upon the shoulders of the planters. With the supply of the previous fall [1621] had gone the warning that should this fail, as had all former supplies [from London], they could hope for no further aid from England. [99] Craven, Dissolution, pp. 200-1
With the loss of the lottery it was evident “that from the summer of 1621 the company was for all practical purposes bankrupt. Every crop since Sandys’ election had been sold at a loss, every magazine had been returned without a profit, the deputy had incurred a considerable indebtedness in the performance of his office, and in the following spring was still behind to the sum of L1,400 …[99] Craven, Dissolution, , pp. 189-90. The most obvious casualty had to be the Company’s inability to finance ships and supplies associated with new immigrants.
By 1622 if any immigrants were to be sent the funds had to be raised previous to their voyage over. Given the obvious deterioration in shareholder consensus, that was extremely difficult. Thus as the reader will soon hear when the Massacre occurred in March 1622, the Company was in no position to make commitments to the colony, and had no funds on hand to respond to the colony’s desperate pleas for assistance. Likely, the attack would have dampened even more any enthusiasm for new investment. Otherwise, only those who had heavily invested in Virginia to that point would have some reason to try to keep their investment viable, but those were all in Sandys opposition. By 1624 only the Mandeville Commission felt obligated to send supplies to relieve the colony’s plight.
Shady Deals in the Somers Company Bring Victory to Sandys-Southampton—In May, 1620, Sandys made the infamous ballot box available to the Somers Island Company. The ballot box had been used in the April 1619 Virginia Company ouster of Smythe. Upon its receipt in 1620, the Smythe Somers Company administration impounded–and then hid it. Smythe won yet again, and the minority Sandys faction complained loudly ‘that the courtesies of debate were not observed”.
Should we think of Smythe as an anti-democratic elitist who sought to preserve his own power against the majority shareholders? We have got to deal with the ballot box issue because it will not go away, and understanding of it reveals the underlying core issue that led the Company to lose its Virginia Charter—next to its failure in successful permanent settlement of Virginia. In short, we can see as early as May 1620 why the Company was to degenerate into a civil war. 1620 Virginia Company shareholder democracy had evolved from its previous practice whereby the big investors ran the company (for better or worse, to be sure) to a new definition of corporate shareholder democracy: the one man one vote democracy.
The ballot box issue is less a resistance to democratic shareholder elections than an agreed upon definition of what metric democratic should be measured. Smythe’s (and Warwick’s) contention is those who invested the most in the Company, i.e. held many more shares, could only count as a single shareholder, equal to a shareholder with one share. Someone who invested hundreds or even thousands of pounds held only one vote equal to a shareholder that invested in one share or about 7 pounds. One could forge shareholder majorities simply by selling your shares to your friends. Moreover, if a shareholder had two shares he could sell one to a friend who thought like him, and then there were two voters of the same ilk.
Arguably, Virginia’s successful permanent settlement required a few investors that could make huge investments into Virginia, not a ton of very small investors who in the aggregate could not provide the investment needed for sustained economic development. For democratic purists, one shareholder one vote defines democratic elections; for those investors that invested the sums needed to found and sustain a colony, democracy should be defined in terms of individual aggregate investment, weighted voting. What was the incentive to invest in Virginia if you could be outvoted in one share one vote elections?.
The big boys could never win a battle fought on those terms, and with so much already invested in the Company they had to look to others for recourse. For them there was no incentive to invest under leadership determined by Sandys’ ballot box—so they refused to attend the shareholder meetings, leaving the shareholder elections to the Sandys’ faction. They also appealed to the king and eventually that strategy won. For those who wonder why the example of the Virginia Company was an example of why the regulated joint stock corporation was an unfit vehicle to lead and manage permanent settlement—and why the Virginia Company would be the only example of such a vehicle among the thirteen American colonies—we can see the reasoning behind it. “Too many voices made policies” and that was too unstable a base for sustained, consistent and effective, colonization.
During the following year, Southampton (who in 1620 replaced Sandys as Virginia Company CEO) and Alderman Johnson (Smythe’s second in command and proxy who negotiated on his behalf in shareholder meetings) got into a heated argument concerning the competing company Magazines, and the Virginia Company Magazine which Smythe retained control over. In the argument Johnson, essentially called Southampton a liar. As we shall see the Magazines, and the profits they potentially could make, became a very prominent battleground between Sandys and Smythe. This particular fight-discussion, in hindsight, ratcheted up the civil war tone and division.
But even more salient was the price Anderson paid for disagreeing with Southampton/Sandys: Eventually after a very long battle, Anderson was denied his right to vote in—and attend-shareholder council meetings for a length of time. That practice more and more was applied to Sandys’s opposition over the next two years. If nothing else, this more than anything argued against the idea that one man one vote democracy characterized the Company electoral franchise. Instead, agreeing with Sandys and Southampton became the standard for voting.
Scott summarizes the state of relations between the two parties at this juncture in late 1621-early 1622: “Feeling between Virginia and the Somers Islands companies had become so embittered that hearty cooperation was impossible. Neither side was satisfied to let past disputes rest. Mention has already been made of the possibility that the Smythe party had influenced James I against Sandys; while in the Virginia Company the supporters of the latter [Sandys] showed themselves intolerant to the minority [Smythe]. One by one the more prominent members of the opposition were silenced [he goes on to describe in some detail particular examples of silencing of the opposition] … it was admitted that Sandys, but chiefly the two Ferrars—John and Nicholas—subjected the draft minutes [of shareholder meetings] to a considerable amount of editing…. It is clear [Scott asserts] that the reliability of the extant court [Company shareholder meeting records] is subject to no little suspicion. [99] Scott, the Constitution and Finance, pp. 273-4
With intercompany relations ever more bitter, noisy, partisan, dysfunctional and unproductive, Sandys took action against the Somers Company using his control over the Virginia Company as his weapon.
In July 1620 the evolution in the negotiation involved in the “tobacco contract” (to be discussed below), the company was notified by the two (“farmer”) patentees who had purchased from the king the sole rights to the importation of tobacco from Virginia to England that they were imposing a quota limiting import into England to 55,000 pounds of tobacco from the two colonies.
This was obviously a big deal to each colony as the quota would limit the ability of each plantation owner in each colony to produce tobacco. In aggregate it would determine how much investment capital would be available to the colony for its use in development. The “fine print” underlying this quota was the price paid to the farmers was lower than other alternatives each colony could select and employ, but adherence to the quota and price was what the king intended in his tobacco contract, at least at that point in time. If the colonies were to “play nice” in the king’s tobacco sandbox, they would equally share in the regulation and its implications. That, however, is not what happened. Sandys deceived the Somers Company, and then, unknown, made a better deal for Virginia. How?
“Sandys himself proposed that since the Somers Island subsisted solely on this crop and stood ‘in need of all the help which in that kind may be given them’ the whole amount specified should be assigned to the [Somers] company”. The Virginia Company, Sandys then placed itself at risk, and would trade on the open market, rather than the English markets for whatever price it could warrant. He did so unowning he had a deal to import the Virginia Company tobacco with the town of Middleburg (Holland—which the king forbade) at a rate of 1/12th of the patentee’s custom rate.[99] Scott, Constitution, p. 274. This was unknown to the king and Privy Council at the time, and its later exposure would have negative effects, but in the short run Sandys had set up the Smythe Somers Company, and as we would say today, “screwed them”. Scott describes yet other deals and cross-company actions that Sandys employed., again presumably enlisting Warwick’s support in the Somers Company that reveal a degeneration in the quality and integrity of both company’s decision-making in the later years of 1622-23.
1622-23: The Bottom Falls Out of the Virginia Company
Simply put, with the exception of one issue (dealing with the king’s tobacco contract) the Virginia Council lost its policy-making coherence during 1622. Imploding in 1623, the Company was stripped of its right to govern Virginia, in effect placed in receivership, and continued on as a shell of itself, with its formal leadership hollowed out, reduced to thunderous cannons firing at each other. Given the desperate straits Virginia was in during these two years, the plight of the colony was mostly used by the warring parties against each other, with little to no discernible benefit for the colony itself.
The November, 1620 minutes of the company council meeting admitted that nearly every last pound raised by the lotteries had been spent. [99] Craven, Dissolution, p. 183. Then, in 1621, the king revoked the company’s right to conduct a lottery. The only funds available was from the “bishops’ fund for an Indian college” and associated gifts from others supporting the venture. While several odds and ends, stock subscriptions an example, contributed some monies, the Virginia Company should be described at the end of 1621 as a fiscal dry well. That situation did not change over the next two years.
Those souls sent over in the year previous to the March 1622 Massacre suffered much the same fate as had previous ships of immigrants. Little had changed about survival and death rates. Sandys immigration as workforce strategy, given a coup de grace with the Massacre, was as dead as the lottery that was its only serious source of funds. By April 1622, economic diversification as a strategy had failed; as to the second instructions, i.e. the governance institutions, however, as we shall later see, were just the opposite. With London imploding, those institutions were the settlers principal vehicle for staying alive.
As for the colony itself in 1623, London was more focused on getting an idea of what was going in Virginia, providing a relief ship, and generating notable distrust from the settlers. By the end of 1623, London, read the Commission and Privy Council, was clearly pivoting away from the Sandys Company. Sandys was, however, doggedly resisting.
The one element of the strategy Sandys had some control over was sending immigrants over was by 1622 out of funds. 1622 was dedicated to the tobacco contract, admitting by its priority and the leadership behavior that tobacco was essential, however, distasteful. We can see now that the collapsing Virginia Company hung on to tobacco in its lean period—as did the settlers as well. The monoculture had already survived its first attack, rising victorious over the Greate Charter diversification strategy.
Scarce little effort was made to address the colony’s needs, or to provide assistance. If there is such a thing as mission or goal bankruptcy, the Virginia Company was there. The suspension of the Company charter in 1624, as far as Virginia governance went, the commission’s pivot in 1623 was of little significance other than it admitted reality, and, surprisingly, assigned Virginia’s responsibility to his royal Majesty. The age of the regulated joint stock corporation was over. Of the thirteen original colonies, Virginia was to be the only one. The age of the proprietary joint stock corporation began.
The reader might assume that by these years, any pretense of the Company, as a coherent entity, was gone, and from these years we can think of the colony as almost totally reliant on itself. During these years the resident Company elite and its plantation conquistadors were running the colony, seizing ahold of the company structures to assume and carry out governances. We are near the point where the Virginia narrative shifts to Virginia, with London a lurking after-thought.
The Tobacco Contract of 1622-23
Of special interest to Americans, historians and otherwise, is why and how a tobacco monoculture established itself in colonial Virginia. What is more remarkable to me, however is that the monoculture embedded itself so quickly in early Virginia. I will argue in this module that the monoculture’s development, its social, political, as well as economic foundations were well in place by the end of the Virginia Company tenure, certainly by 1630. That monoculture remains to this day a defining characteristic of the state’s early history, at least to, and through, the civil war, if not into the twentieth century. As far as I am concerned, the monoculture could have lit a celebratory cigarettes’ anytime after 1623.
Thus far in this history I have asserted several reasons for the monoculture, but I have finally reached a point in Virginia’s chronology that I can point to a significant episode that, in hindsight, is arguably the turning point in the institutionalization of tobacco in the Virginia economic base. It is the 1622-23 Tobacco Contract Episode.
As we begin the tale of that episode I offer the reader some insight at to what to expect. Tobacco was its own worst enemy. Few, if any, wanted it the primary export crop of Virginia. Virtually all company officials and shareholders, not to mention the King of England, wanted a lot more exports, a balanced economic base, and more consistent profits out of Virginia. That stinky weed was more than disliked; it was distrusted as a core to the Virginia economic base. That England established a colony and the benefit it got out of it was a stinky weed was disgraceful, shameful, and humiliating. But that is what the Virginia Company wound up giving them.
Why? Because tobacco was also its own best friend. Simply put, without tobacco in the 1620’s Virginia would likely have failed, and if so its tale would have been yet another story in alternative history. That stinky weed saved Virginia, only because it was the only economic friend Virginia had—and would have—that paid the bills. The tobacco contract episode of 1622-3 explains how that happened.
There was nothing inevitable, or planned, that led to the development and dominance of the Virginia tobacco monoculture. In my view we need not overthink its causes, nor should we embrace a single main cause for the monoculture as there were many. The interplay among the factors explains the blurring and blending that best explains why Virginia became so dominated by the stinky weed. The interaction of multiple drivers interacting created an atmosphere or “policy environment” characterized by multiple pulls and pushes, that without intention created the monoculture, overwhelming in the process counter pushes that tried to stop it. In the end there was nothing so permanent as the temporary.
While the Virginia Company was buffeted internally and externally in its policy initiatives regarding the tobacco contract, tobacco in 1621 was the only export that paid Virginia’s bills. The locals, left to themselves, found tobacco the only effective and realistic opportunity available to them to grow the colony, and more important to survive from one year to the next. The passion for it exhibited by the domestic elite was shared by its non-elite settlers, and the joint stock hundred investors. Ironically, the Virginia Company itself was unable to achieve its goal, a diversified economic base, primarily because it needed to fiscally survive and attract sustained investment in Virginia. As the settlers discovered on their own, tobacco was the only resource available to them during the second half of the tweens, and the first half of the twenties.
Arthur Pierce Middleton summarized that position in his classic work, Tobacco Coast [99] Arthur Pierce Middleton, Tobacco Coast: a Maritime History of Chesapeake Bay in the Colonial Era (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1953).
Among the objectives of the Virginia Company in planting a colony … was to secure a fruitful land from which England might import all necessary commodities she then had to buy from foreign countries … With this in view the Virginia Company urged the colonists to send home a great variety of products—lumber, naval products, wine, skins and fish besides roots and herbs to be used medicanally or as dyestuffs. As none of these pruducts commanded a sufficiently elastic market in England to make them suitable staples for Virginia [export], the colony languished during its early years. Eventually, as a result of experimentation, the Jamestown settlers stumbled upon a commodity that proved economically feasible … Becoming the rage almost overnight, tobacco captured the colonists imaginations like precious metal during a gold rush. They planted it in every available clearing … and by 1619 Virginia which three years before had sent eleven commodities to England, now sent nothing but tobacco and a little sassafras. [99] Arthur Pierce Middleton, Tobacco Coast: a Maritime History of Chesapeake Bay in the Colonial Era (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1953), pp. 105-6 .
In Middleton’s view, the main reason this was possible was “the [Chesapeake] Bay and its hundreds of miles of navigable tributaries made adoption of the staple possible, [thus] eliminating the need for cities and towns, and perpetuated a social and cultural dependence on Great Britain. [99] Gregory A. Stiverson, Foreword: Tobacco Coast, p. ix. Making it “possible” for tobacco to spread through Virginia [and Maryland], however, is not the driving factor for the initial adoption of the crop by Virginians.
In that Middleton focused primarily, if not overwhelmingly, on eighteenth century Virginia, his study becomes a classic in understanding the operation and dynamics of an economic base, a tobacco monoculture, that was already in place. I argue we have to look more deeply than a geography that could have favored other agricultural commodities. That monoculture, for all practical purposes, was founded previous to the Company’s loss of its charter to govern Virginia (1625), not in the eighteenth century..
Rather, as I shall argue in this section, a variety of drivers combined to force the Company to rely on tobacco to export—with the support of the King who hated it, and who truly desired a diversified economic base for his colony. His greed, need for money to finance his divine right reign, imposed a reality on Virginia, making it the best alternative for colonists to pay their bills and buy the foodstuffs and staples necessary to survive the year of planting, and offer opporunity for the attainment of resources for the next year. Those multiple drivers, as well as the fiscal and organizational implosion of the Virginia Company came to a culmination in the “tobacco contract” episode of 1620-22). That the tobacco contract led to Sandy’s defeat, a scandal that ought to leave a mark on his legacy, is usually ignored, or simply dismissed as incidential to the civil war.
The Tobacco Contract-Defined
James’s “tobacco contract” figures prominently in the reports of many American historians of the early Virginia period. The negotiations regarding the contract extended over several years, and indeed, were picked up from time to time by his son-successor, Charles I. The contract was certainly a noisy and detailed-ridden sub-topic in early English colonial trade-commerce. Certainly, the Virginia Company, as far as tobacco went, was drawn into the negotiations, and since the contract struck hard against the interests of the shareholder Virginia planters (which most planters of size were).
That by 1620 tobacco was the chief export of Virginia there was no escaping the turmoil it brought into managing the colony. To certain extent contract negotiations did unify the factions in opposing various aspects of the king’s proposals, but it was left to Sandys to negotiate the terms of the tobacco contract, leaving to him the blame and burden of defending the Virginia planter and the Company’s interests. Smythe and Warwick sat on their hands on the matter, quick to pounce when the opportunity open up.
The so-called tobacco contract is little more than the king imposing customs duties and fees on tobacco imported into England. It also entailed the royal requirement colonial tobacco must be imported to England, and only after that it could be reexported elsewhere. Both of these tenets were so fundamental to England’s conception of the purpose behind colonization that they became pillars of the future post Restoration English colonial trade system. The king started it, of that there is no doubt in 1619, when the charter specified tax exemption to Virginia (1621 to Bermuda) expired, and the king almost immediately started dickering with duties, fees and the like in order to get his hands on some cash unrestricted by Parliament.
Previous to 1618, Virginia enjoyed a tax and customs abatement by virtue of its royal charters. As luck would have it, when tobacco volumes increased, the abatement expired. England imposed several fees on top of the customs duties; these fees were linked to the practice of contracting with “customs farmers” employed in the required purchase of tobacco upon arrival in England and the “farmer” would impose the levies on the price of the transaction. The king, of course, selected the farmers who offered the best terms to him, and these farming monopolies, set for virtually any item or commodity that traded or was imported, were the core of what parliament was fighting His Majesty in the 1621 Parliament. The reader should realize there was nothing unusual with the treatment given to Virginia tobacco; it was standard fare in the Stuart period for foreign trade.
To a certain extent, competition among the various British ports, various farmers and commercial dealers did vary, not to ignore the ability of merchant deals with the farmers (which Smythe apparently was wont to negotiate) all contributed to a very leaky trade “system”. The Virginia Company under Sandys, despite the opposition of the Privy Council and the king, did send on occasion export directly to Amsterdam and other Dutch ports, bypassing any export to England. This, however, proved to be temporary because the low quality Virginia tobacco could not compete with the much preferred Spanish. From year to year, the Amsterdam market price for Virginia tobacco suffered. In essence, the reader should sense a fluid market in which price volatility existed, but the advantage gleaned from this, relative to the inferior quality of Virginia tobacco, was small—and not looked with favor from English officials or the Crown.
Custom duties were imposed first on weight, called at the time “subsidy”, and a second levied by the Crown, known as the imposition. The former lent itself to manipulation of its methodology; the latter went directly to the King, bypassed the royal treasury and Parliament. Impositions, therefore, given the king’s need for funds, and his distaste for tobacco, were a hard nut to crack when negotiating with the king, and its impact on the price for Virginia tobacco was felt. To preserve his own flow of funds from the imposition the King and Privy Council by 1621 were willing to negotiate the rates for tonnage, and to sweeten the negotiation offer with various protectionist actions.
The duties and fees that floated about in the years to follow were by no means a crippling addition to the market price of tobacco in the period previous to 1621 or so. But as will quickly become evident to the reader, the market was no longer favorable to tobacco and profit margins were small no matter which end of the sale one was at, and so fees, duties, and “farmer” expenses all mattered because there always seemed to be loopholes and bypasses available in this very rudimentary export system.
The market price of tobacco was always the more important factor. Determining the market price was more a function of the quality of the tobacco (i.e. which affected demand), and the volume of tobacco which, of course, increased each year while demand was more inelastic, as Virginia competed with West Indies tobacco. Volumes rose after 1618 and the market price fell accordingly. Rising volumes and relatively inelastic demand consistently depressed the price of tobacco into the 1640’s, lending yet one more factor that ought to have checked the growth of the monoculture—but didn’t.
Of note was that Virginia tobacco competed unfavorably with the more popular, better quality Spanish tobacco also imported into England and other markets in Europe. By 1620 it was evident that if Virginia tobacco were to enjoy success in England, the availability of Spanish tobacco needs be limited, and price of Spanish tobacco increased. Some form of protectionism could be employed to enhance the position of English colonies in the tobacco competition. As the reader shall soon see, protectionist tools such as volume quotas for import by the various parties, and the imposition of tariffs entered into the tobacco contract negotiations. Little known, much of the Virginia tobacco imported into England was reexported to Turkey and the various African Mediterranean markets, and sold at lower prices than paid in England. Smuggling, like privateering, was a viable alternative, and emerging New England ship owners would in the twenties see value in trade with Virginia planters, as did the pesky Dutch from New York.
Virginia tobacco was disproportionately of lower quality, partly because Virginia planters were just learning their trade, partly because Virginia did not set quality standards with any rigor, and partly because the Virginia Magazines could be bypassed by Virginia planters if the latter thought they could do better elsewhere. Previous to 1621, the most damaging action taken on market price was the decision of the 1618 Virginia Company shareholder court [board of director meeting], previously mentioned, that set the price the company magazine would pay for both quality and inferior lots of tobacco: the price set at 3shilling for the better grade, and 18d or pence for the lesser grades—and that benefited Virginia planters, whose definition of quality was both flexible, and not often congruent with market demand.
In either case the Magazine was compelled by its shareholders to buy Virginia planter produce at prices above the overall market level. With market prices falling, the company set price protected the Virginia planter but further crippled the Magazine. The shareholder action was set aside in 1621 when it became obvious the Magazines were effectively driven into near bankruptcy. A noticeably lower purchase price was set at that time—which of course coincided with more intense negotiations for the king’s tobacco contract.
In the same year James played the protectionist game by forbidding any tobacco planting by the Brits (there was such a creature and like bathtub booze in the U.S. 1920’s it had its clientele). Placing foreign tobacco under a quota system, James was able to reshape the British market for tobacco in the Virginia Company’s favor. In 1622, as we shall see below, that protectionist policy could be extended even further to the benefit of the Virginia Company—but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
In January, 1620 the king through the Privy Council informed the Company of an increase in the subsidy rate. The increase generated discussion within the Company and there was a number of calculations made on various rates in the months that followed. The king did not back down and given its standing with the king at the time, the Company felt compelled to accede to the king’s proposal. Thus the first negotiations on the royal tobacco contract had started. As hinted above, the king did subsequently sweeten his proposal by prohibiting English tobacco planting and sale thereby improving English market demand for Virginia tobacco. On the other hand, small fees were imposed for inspection (“garbling”). The farming “monopoly” was sold to a group headed by Sir Thomas Roe for L16,000.
From the Company’s vantage point, there was a fear the farming monopoly could favor Spanish tobacco whose high price supported the costs borne by the farming group. In July, 1620 the Company complained, but the monopoly only granted the Company a quota of 55,000 pounds of tobacco to import into England, a reduction from the previous year. That was not good, and Sandys handled it by convincing the Bermuda colony into taking the entire quota, leaving him free to sell on the larger market.
So, as described earlier, the Virginia Company, led by Sandys, offered the quota poundage to the Somers Company, and itself took the risk and advantage of selling its tobacco directly to Middleburg (Netherlands) at a higher rate than the English monopoly paid.
This practice, however, was not liked by either the Somers Company, nor the Privy Council, and clearly was a one time escape. The Company than turned to forces inside Parliament for legislation against the despised “monopoly; Parliament, however, got carried away with its reformist inclinations and only a combined effort of Sandys himself, Warwick and Smythe was able to persuade it to back off, and the proposed legislation failed. Thus, both the direct sale to Holland and the attempt to inject parliament into the contract, were not to the king’s liking. Still it was evident to all parties that pushed too hard the Virginia Company could go belly up, sticking them with a very bankrupt colony.
The close call with parliament did impress the Privy Council of its need to step in, recall the Roe monopoly, and issue a new farm patent in December that placed import quotas only on Spanish tobacco and allowed the colonies, Virginia included, to import to England such volumes as the could and would. The Privy Council did make note of its opposition of direct sale to Holland in the future—and reasserted that all colony tobacco be sent directly to England.
Thus by the end of 1621 the tobacco contract was left in an unsettled set of compromises that satisfied no one. It was the Privy Council led by a key court official that sought in late 1621-early 1622 to offer a creative deal to Sandys and the Company to see if the logjam could be broken
. With all the good intentions in the world, Lord Middlesex was about to propose a new approach to the tobacco contract that would do more to accelerate the demise of the Virginia Company than could be imagined.
With prospect of Virginia Company bankruptcy, Virginia-Somers Companies civil war fused with Tobacco Contract, June 1622-April 1623
Out of the blue, at least to me, in early 1622 the Privy Council’s key leader, the Early of Middlesex, made a “deal” that Sandys could not refuse to the Virginia Company—a deal which proved to be a the final straw in Sandys’s governance of the Virginia Company. Perhaps surprisingly, American historians in particular have not found this deal very interesting (a few have noted it, but have not attached the importance I ascribe to it). My emphasis on it will be a somewhat new tack, but it is important to my assertion how early the Virginia Company lost the capacity and will to focus on managing Virginia.
The context for the June 1622 Privy Council Tobacco Contract offer to the Virginia Companies (London and Somers) seems to have lay with the damaging effect of the 1621 ending of the Virginia Company lottery. Left visible to all was the virtual bankruptcy of the companies magazines, and the reality that neither could make a profit from the purchase of planter tobacco, export to England, and sale at 1621-22 prices and custom duties-import quotas and market prices.
As 1621 proceeded into 1622, even given London’s incomplete picture of the Greate Massacre, it was increasing obvious that whatever the merit of the Greate Charter plan and its initiatives, it had not been able to gather momentum, take root and had lost its thrust. A change of opinion was evident in England regarding the Virginia experiment, that transcended each of the particular events and complaints, and generated in the minds of the more perceptive such as Cranfield that extracting blood from from the Virginia Company turnip would bring on more problems concerning colonization and frustrations of those involved in it, that something creative had to be devised. C. A. Andrews calls attention to this in his comment in regard to this period that:
the elaborate programmes of 1620 and 1621, splendidly conceived and in part carried out, were not followed up in 1622 and 1623. This relaxation in effort was in part due, without doubt to the massacre of 1622 which checked further attempts at expansion in the colony and the refusal of many of its members who had lost confidence and interest in it to complete their subscription and even to attend its meetings. After 1622, the carefully prepared plans for churches, inns, a hospital, a free school and a college were all given up and very little was done for the colony during these last two years of the [Virginia] company’s career … the acrimonious debates of 1622 to 1624, years that mark the company’s ‘extreme poverty’, ‘the necessitous time’, when having lost the privilege of the lottery, without stock and in debt, and with all sorts of complaints and petitions coming in …. We can understand the widespread belief at the time that both companies had wasted their substance through bad management, and that the so-called ‘democraticall’ way of carrying on a business which had been established by the charter of 1612, was proving a lamentable failure” [99] Charles A. Andrews, the Colonial Period in American History, Vol. I (Yale University Press, 1934, 1964), pp. 168-9
By 1622 it was obvious to all the ending of the lottery brought the Company to the literal brink of bankruptcy. Its outstanding debt of L2000 could no longer be serviced (paid), and the only discretionary funds available to conduct Company operations and the settlement of the colony were restricted to all practical purposes to those raised by private investors in association joint stock corporations beyond the direct control of the Company—and which were declining precipitously. That the bankruptcy of the Company served neither of the faction’s interest, and was a situation that embarrassed the king and was not congruent with this wishes demanded some sort of solution.
In that tobacco export and sale seemed to be the only source of funds remaining available to the Company, the Lord Treasurer Lionel Cranfield proposed (secretly) to Sandys a tobacco-related initiative that promised, at least in theory, a financial solution to avoid bankruptcy and stabilization of Virginia settlement: a Virginia Company “monopoly” over tobacco import to England.
To this end, and recognizing the only future revenue sufficient for Virginia (and Bermuda) operations and settlement lay with tobacco revenues and some sort of reconciliation with the king’s need/desire to arrive at some contract for its importation to England. Lord Treasurer Cranfield, an appointee to the Privy Council (1619), a long-time (at least since 1613) member and participant in the affairs of the Virginia Company and its settlement of Virginia, and since 1613 surveyor-general of the customs seems to have been the author of a proposed solution to the Company’s dilemma.
Recently having married into the Earl of Buckingham’s family, (Buckingham being arguably the dominant faction in court politics of that period) Cranfield acquired appointment as Earl of Middlesex, Cranfield was thus in a position of considerable strength and influence sufficient to broker a behind the scenes deal that could save the Company. By career Cranfield had been a gentry merchant, but his standing as Earl elevated him to the aristocracy that allowed him considerable access to the king as well. His reputation as an able and thoughtful administrator led him to make the offer to Sandys, even though his relations with the fellow were quite uneven, and in the past year, not good at all.
According to Craven ([99] Dissolution, p. 232), Cranfield also enjoyed friendly relations with Sandys which allowed him to directly deal with Sandys (?). Sandys at the time was the auditor of the Virginia Company, who, for personal reasons (his wife’s illness), had left London, leaving Company affairs to the Ferrars. The actual date of their initial discussions is unknown precisely but it overlapped with the surprise attack of the Powhatan in March 1622 which, of course, was unknown to either party. Their discussions, which amounted to negotiations, took sufficient form only by June 5th, 1622 when Sandys brought to the shareholder court meeting a “proposed contract” with the government for a tobacco monopoly. Sandys kept the shareholder council “in the dark” until that submission.
In this proposed monopoly the Virginia Company (the conglomerate joint stock corporation within which were the two subsidiaries (London/Virginia and Somers Companies)) would form a third joint stock corporation to manage the affairs of such a monopoly. Included in its terms were a tobacco contract acceptable to the king, and the Privy Council. In essence, the larger Virginia Company would become a customs (farmer) monopoly exclusively empowered to trade and import tobacco into England. That this arrangement offered considerable potential to the Company, and incredible power and opportunity to reconfigure its fiscal condition is obvious.
The proposal was a major departure from the established practices of the period, as well as a creative innovative solution to a truly fractured but significant national project. In that the Virginia Company would be transformed into a customs monopoly, a structure that Sandys had devoted his parliamentary career to its opposition, meant the proposed deal was also no small departure from his previous and existing political positions, not to mention his sincerity and integrity. William Robert Scott makes note that “Sandys, the determined critic of exclusive privileges for foreign trade in 1604, by 1622 becomes the propounder of a monopoly much more far reaching than any of those he condemned” [99] William Robert Scott, the Constitution and Finance of English, Scottish and Irish Joint Stock Companies to 1720 (Alpha Editions, Cambridge University Press, 1910), p. 276.
The essentials of the proposal, agreed to only in principle at that point, was that the larger company would be empowered to import all tobacco, including Spanish tobacco, and in return for that award by the king, would pay to the king an annual amount of L20,000 (or as later changed to a one-third ownership of the annual tobacco imported), in addition to the customary 5% subsidy for import. The Company would pay the costs of its transportation, and the king’s share of cost (subsidy and transportation) would be borne by the king. The June 5th proposal required importation of 80,000 pounds of Spanish tobacco which placed the Virginia Company in the awkward position of managing import and sale of its chief market competitor, but which in return allowed it to recognize profits associated with its sale. The king on the other hand had creatively arrived at his “tobacco contract’ and in so doing had on a limited basis agreed to share costs associated with its import. That’s a big deal for an early Stuart.
At the sparsely attended (more on that later) June 5th, 1622 shareholder meeting, Sandys was able to secure approval to set up a committee to negotiate the specific terms of the agreement, which upon the satisfaction of the parties, would be brought to the shareholders of both the Somers and Virginia Companies for approval. The committee was composed of a majority sympathetic to Sandys. After several weeks of negotiation a more formal proposal was resubmitted to both shareholder councils on July 1, 1622.
In that session, the document was discussed, amendments made and offered, and the committee was tasked with continuing negotiations on points of disagreement and restructuring. That shareholder council meeting did not reflect the strength of the opposition to Sandys, and in effect, the opposition had not been sufficiently included in the seeming Company “consensus” tp bring it “on board” with the proposal. The opposition aware of the proposal at some level waited in the wings for events to unfold.
From that point on several months went by before a more final proposal was brought to the shareholder councils on November 27th, 1622. Sparsely attended (with Warwick faction not in attendance), the vote on November 27th was 21-20, even though the meeting was called in a special session with many of those who attended in Sandys’ faction [99] Craven, Dissolution, p. 241. After explosive discussion it was approved and sent to Cranfield for his signing and execution.
The approved document disappeared from view, thrust into limbo through to February 12, 1623. The cause was an eruption in Virginia Council shareholder factions. The company’s civil war saturated the tobacco debate and reacted intensely against the agreement and aspects of the monopoly, especially salaries to Sandys officials. It is worth note that while the Second Powhatan War raged on in Virginia, London was consumed with the tobacco monopoly still unsigned agreement. Certainly we can understand London’s preoccupation with the proposed deal to some extent, but we can observe Virginia was in a desperate situation at that point, and that was put aside.
As to the vehement reaction of the Sandys’ opposition, the reader should note that at this point, the literal future of the Virginia Company as a chartered joint stock corporation, empowered to conduct the settlement of Virginia, had entered into jeopardy, and a full scale internal war erupted ostensibly on the tobacco contract proposal, but in reality encompassing the totality of the disruption that had been developing since 1619. Moreover, the impression that the ensuing civil war left with those on the outside was quite literally a realization the Company had lost its capacity to govern Virginia. The participants in that civil war, however, carried on in their disruption (described in the next section), and a series of events and actions, seemingly like water flowing over a waterfall, followed their own logic and course.
What happened between November 27th, 1622 and February 1623? – First of all, it seems clear that both Smythe and Warwick factions had largely stropped attending shareholder meetings by 1622. Sandys’ opposition concentrated what attention it had into the Somers Bermuda colony where their strength was only marginally less than Sandys who held a very slim and tenuous majority. Warwick remained the largest shareholder by far, but was overwhelmed by the more numerous small shareholders loyal to Sandys/. Sandys, more focused on Virginia, was notably less involved in Bermuda affairs
.Smythe himself was not heavily involved with either, delegating his deputy and family member, Alderman Johnson as his Virginia and Somers company proxy. Warwick relied on Nathaniel Rich, a close relative to do the same. The absence of the opposition left Sandys in control over the shareholder councils, and his use of them in June and July 1622 to introduce, discuss and approve of the proposed tobacco monopoly simply did not stir an interest quick enough for oppositional reaction to the initiative.
This lack of involvement could help explain why the devastation and desperation of the Second Powhatan uprising did not permeate through the London shareholders. Whatever was known in London about the proposed tobacco monopoly or the true story of the Indian war was kept within a pretty closed circle. Since the Virginia Company shareholder meetings had quieted down, its interest was largely congruent with the agendas proposed by the Sandys leadership. The tobacco monopoly issue was sufficiently derisive to consume its attention, matters relevant to Virginia were limited to those on the agenda. Little was shared of what correspondence the leadership had received concerning the Powhatan War.
Both companies lacked organizational capacity and totally exhausted discretionary funding. There was little the London companies could effectively do to support Virginia in her hour of need. Existing on the razor’s edge, it is easy to sense the few in on the know within the Sandys faction played both matters close to their vest—the tobacco contract in particular because it was the lifeline for saving the company from what appeared to be a certain imminent fate. Craven provides support for the almost catatonic state of the companies in this period:
The terms of the tobacco agreement had not been concluded without strong opposition in the [shareholder] courts. It is true that the vote in the Virginia court of November 27, at which time final ratification of the contract was given, is reported as unanimous. But a few of those who later were so outspoken in their opposition were present at that court. For some time Sandys’ leading opponents had dropped regular attendance at courts, taking an active part in the company’s affairs as their own interests or those of their friends were affected, and they were frequently charged in succeeding months with having completely abandoned the courts except on occasion of trouble. During the tobacco negotiations they seem not to have been greatly concerned, and it was only with the announcement of plans for the management of the new monopoly (after November 27th) that they returned to raise their voices in the most bitter denunciation of the provisions for management and later of the contract itself [99] Craven, Dissolution, p. 335
Judging by their initial bitter and vociferous reaction, the catalyst was their realization that the contract, as agreed to, included the creation of a new joint stock corporation, a subsidiary of the Virginia Company, whose officials would be paid rather high salaries. ([99] confirmed by both Scott, p. 277 and Craven, pp. 235-6). The new corporation, structural apart from the core Virginia Company councils would be likely dominated by the Sandys faction, and the leaderships positions to which the salaries would be paid would by held by the Sandys leadership as well. Any profits derived from the monopoly would rest in the new corporation, apart from the existing company shareholder councils. Those who had invested heavily in Virginia were therefore rather distant from the decision-making and the benefits of the monopoly.
It was pretty much known Sandys himself was in rather dire financial situation (apparently accurate), and the perception was he was being paid off with a very sizeable salary. Since each Virginia and Somers Company shareholder would have to sell their plantation’s tobacco to the new corporation which would then export/import it to England, the lifeblood of Virginia would be totally in its control and jurisdiction. The potential disruption that Sandys could exert on their own plantations and estates, seemed rather threatening. Through their domination of the Virginia Company and Somers company shareholder meetings, it was obvious they would have little, if any, say in the matters concerning their overseas investments. To them this was the final coup, leaving them with little besides their stock.
It is not surprising that there should have been strong opposition to these salaries. For they represented an extraordinarily large sum, amounting to L500 more than the company’s total indebtedness, which was large enough in itself to cause the greatest worry to the [shareholders]. It [also] would entail an additional burden on the tobacco of the plantations, which in the minds of its opponents was not only unnecessary, but a burden the planters were not able to bear. Within the next few months numerous counter proposals designed to reduce the cost at least by half, and some even more, were pressed upon the [shareholder] courts with utmost vigor by lieutenants of Warwick and Smythe. This excessive compensation of the managers [of the monopoly joint stock corporation] seemed proof enough that the leaders of the dominant party [Sandys’ faction] had endeavored to allocate to themselves all the benefits expected from the contract. … The manner in which the appropriation [new contract] had been passed gave grounds for the chief complaints of Smythe and Warwick, whose spokesmen quickly and loudly declared the measure had ben carried ‘foully and surreptitiously’ by those who were to benefit thereby. The salary schedule had been decided upon by the Sandys’ faction in committee, and there was no mention of the sum to be allowed until the extraordinary court of November 27th [99] Craven, Dissolution, p. 236-7
The reaction started on December 4th 1622, the first shareholder council meeting after the contract was approved on November 27th. Samuel Wrote and Alderman Johnson led the attack and ‘expressed in a most violent manner their opposition to the arrangements”. With accusations of slander and dishonesty abounding, charges and expressions against particular persons, the meeting no doubt became a catharsis of all the resentment that had accumulated over the past several years.
Still in control of a majority of the council, however, the Sandys’ faction was able to focus the council upon the viciousness and uncivil behavior of their opponents, and turned the council into a body seeking to charge and suppress the opposition. The punishment of these two speakers in its turn carried over to the discussion of further shareholder councils through to February 5th 1623 when the former speaker was expelled from attending future meetings of the council [with loss of vote, of course] for a year, and could only return with approval by the council. In February, 1623 the disruption increased even more at shareholder meetings, and by the end of that month a total of thirteen active shareholders [all being members of the opposition] were suspended from the Bermuda [shareholder] court alone. [99] Craven, Dissolution, p. 241.
It took the Virginia courts all of two months to agree on just what he [Wrote] had said, and what punishment was due his contemptuous words. Through the whole of January all business was set aside while the [shareholders] endeavored to verify the minutes of December 4th. Final sentence was not passed until February 5th [99] Craven, Dissolution, p. 238
In the course of this struggle, the Warwick and Smythe factions formally united, developed a combined strategy, and committed to joint action. The opposition to, and mutual hatred of, Sandys was the core of their unity. It was he who they felt was expelling them from the Company, and seizing ahold of their plantations.
There had not been hitherto any strong alliance between Smythe and Warwick. They had embraced every opportunity to express their common dislike of Sandys, and had united to bring about his fall from office in 1620. But through a mutual hatred of Sir Edwin provided the basis for a coalition of these two groups, their union seems not to have been cemented until they joined hands in an attempt to overthrow the tobacco patent [of 1622]. Their plan of management affected deeply their chief interest in the American plantations, which [to that point] was Bermuda tobacco. Their heaviest investments since 1619 … had been in the Somers Islands, where their interests now far outweighed those of their opponents … it is apparent that most of the tobacco from the younger plantation belong to members of the Smith-Warwick coalition. On the other hand the chief interest and investment of the Sandys’ party was undoubtedly in Virginia [99] Craven, Dissolution, pp. 238-9
During this contested period that ran from November thru February, Sandys took advantage of shareholder voting on the basis of share ownership only, each shareholder no matter how many shares they owned, held one vote. By selling or even giving a share to friends, the Sandys faction increased their factional vote, and ensured its attendance at the shareholder council. Using this technique, Craven reports that Sandys was able to totally overwhelm shareholder voting in the Virginia Company, thus forcing the opposition to make their stand in the Somers Company council where Sandys was limited by Smythe’s and Warwick’s faction [both councils had to approve the future contract] [99] Craven, Dissolution, pp. 241-2 In the last year of its life, it was apparent that Sandys had achieved near total control over the affairs of the Virginia Company, and the new corporation to be formed to manage the tobacco monopoly.
Finally, the tobacco contract came to a vote on February 20, 1623 in the Bermuda shareholder council, The final tally left the Smith-Warwick coalition still in the minority, although they had twenty-four votes. Sandys election tactics had secured for him the approval of both councils. From that point, the Smith-Warwick coalition took their battle directly to the Privy Council, where they accused Sandys of rigging the vote. This done, they headed straight for a direct meeting with king.
As Craven then reports the shareholder councils were in ruin, totally in the control of Sandys: “After their defeat in February [20, 1623] Smythe and Warwick made no serious attempt to contest an issue in the courts of either company. … Their resentment was greater by virtue of the fact that they had much more at stake in the settlement of the tobacco question than their more numerous [shareholder] opponents. In the minority were found the larger number of the heaviest investors, men who in the number of shares held a decided majority. Had the franchise been based on the shares rather than the head, Smythe and Warwick would have controlled a clear majority. [99] Craven, Dissolution, p.242; see also p.243.
What The Hell Happened? – Well …Obviously, the Virginia Company imploded. It collapsed upon itself. Not only were its shareholders driven into frozen polarization, but the chief investors and landowners driven literally out of the shareholder meetings, into the arms of the King. Even more incredible, the immediate cause of the collapse, the approval of a contract transforming the company into a export-import tobacco monopoly, was an outcome nobody had not only never dreamed of, but absolutely didn’t want. A colony built around tobacco smoke was no one’s dream of a robust colonial economy. And yet that is exactly what would survive out of this mess.
Again, what had happened? To me at least four factors had come together to create a perfect storm of policy disorganization that manufactured not policy but chaos. (1) While many Americans have considered Edwin Sandys as a sort of John the Baptist, a precursor to American democracy and exceptionalism, Sandys at least as regards the tobacco contract episode, had undone whatever good associated with the Greate Charter reforms. (2) In part this was a reflection of England’s underlying drift into the English civil war. The parties involved reflected the tears in England’s social, economic and political fabric from which England’s early colonial venture could not escape; (3) Not screamingly visible are dynamics of generational change that played out within the opposition: generational change of “merchant adventurers” had passed the torch from Smythe to Warwick, opening up a new avenues and leadership relevant to England’s overseas commercial trade and colony-building; (4) and finally, we can see the well-intentioned first experimental colonial era joint stock corporation,-devised at a time when England lacked experience in overseas colonialism, could not evolved to become a consistent and functional vehicle, of political, social and economic development. Instead, it had broken down, turning its shareholders upon each other, and compelling the losers in that struggle to turn to the king for both fairness and a resolution of the injustice done them.
After the Merchant Adventurers Walked Out? – To access the king on this matter, the merchant adventurers had to deal with the author of this tobacco contract monopoly deal, the Earl of Middlesex, our former merchant adventurer, Lord Lionel Cranfield. On February 24th, the opposition leadership, along with customs chief official, Sir John Wolstenholme (who will play a serious role in Virginia’s London politics leadership well into the 1630’s), met with Middlesex.
According the Craven, Cranfield was initially reluctant to change the deal, and he apparently pressed Southampton (still Treasurer and co-Administrator of the Sandys faction) to press on and start importing Virginia tobacco into England. But over the next three weeks, he shifted his position and caused the Privy Council to abruptly rescind the contract. The deal was cancelled. What likely caused the 180 degree turnaround was the merchant adventurers told him how Sandys was violating the tobacco contract, an action of which he was not aware. Sandys, over the previous two years, despite royal orders set by the Privy Council, had shipped Virginia Company tobacco directly to Holland. Sandys had not acted in good faith on this matter and had deceived his regulators.
Accordingly, when the Privy Council met to rescind the deal, Sandys, Cavendish and Nicholas Ferrar were taken out to the woodshed and severely spanked. About a week or two later the Privy Council reissued their order for direct import of Virginia tobacco to England.
[999] Craven, Dissolution, pp. 243-4; I would also urge the reader to review Cranfield’s parliamentary biography reveals a larger picture of Cranfield-Sandys/Southampton relationships during this time period beginning with the termination of the lottery previous to the company’s tobacco contract affair. The two were not the best of friends.]https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1604-1629/member/cranfield-sir-lionel-1575-1645 [999]
Craven also credits the role of Warwick’s delegate, Nathaniel Rich, in making the case of the tobacco contract opponents to the Privy Council. Rich pressed hard on how the monopoly would negatively affect the colonies, especially Bermuda. In this argument the negaitve fiscal and trade repercussions of the monopoly would threaten the viability of the Company itself, and inhibit further settlement as well—the complete opposite of what Cranfield was attempting to do with the deal.
Nathaniel Rich frankly pointed out that those who had invested heavily thus far in the colony would find their plantations under fiscal attack, and certainly would be hard-pressed to invest further and grow the colony. Sandys had in effect removed from the Company the only shareholders with sufficient wealth able to invest in its future development. Rich also did not ignore the excessive salaries of those who were to operate the monopoly, and developed estimates that showed the monopoly would not benefit the king much more than the existing state of quotas and customs rates. More threatening to all, Rich suggested, was Spanish tobacco whose quota should be cut in half.
It is at this point we see can see the dog that didn’t bark: the tobacco monoculture. The deal, and all the politics surrounding it, centered around maintaining the tobacco trade as the export that would save the Company and satisfy the revenue objectives of the Crown. Despite the long-term desire of all for a more balanced and diversified colonial economic base, the non-diversified tobacco economic base was the only path if Virginia was to have a future.
Rich’s argument carried much weight on the Privy Council. On March 25, 1623, the Privy Council “after due deliberation considered he tobacco monopoly contract] ‘prejudicial unto the Companies’, [and ordered] tobacco to be delivered to” the customers and farmers that had purchased it in accordance with rates than in effect. This was a blow to the king’s expectations of what he could harvest out of the tobacco export-import. Moreover, as Craven observed, “the long wearisome tobacco question [king’s contract] finally concluded upon the most advantageous terms enjoyed by the Virginia Company since 1619. All tobacco from the planters was to be brought into England, and after the payment of 9d duties was left to the free disposal of its individual owners. In addition to the benefits of reduced tariff rates, the tobacco of the plantations was to enjoy a virtual monopoly of the home [England] market except for a limited quantity of Spanish tobacco. The credit for these more favorable terms belongs to Nathaniel Rich as spokesman for the Warwick party”. [99] Craven, Dissolution, pp. 249-50 In short for all his efforts the King had not reached a tobacco contract with Virginia that was congruent with his terms.
Sandys and his faction had been handed a complete defeat. His tobacco monopoly had been reversed, and all that was left to him and his followers was a hollowed out joint stock company, bankrupted, without its wealthiest investors, and undergoing an existential war with its neighboring Indian tribes. His artificial dominance by his faction over both companies had turned both into hollowed out shells incapable of pursuing, never mind achieving the colonization of Virginia.. Technically, at the end of the day of March 25th, 1623), his majority votes still existed in the company, but the appeal of his opposition to the king and Privy Council had been completely successful in breaking apart the royal public private partnership with that ruptured joint stock corporation. Aside from the fragile majority of his votes within the Companies, that allowed Sandys to carry on, Sandys was left with a Privy Council and King who were now arrayed against him.
By this time, the news of the Second Powhatan had more fully permeated a larger audience, and whether or not London truly understood the depth of Virginia’s despair and deterioration it was increasing apparent in 1623-4 that Virginia was under attack and reeling. Thus it was also clear and obvious Sandys’ Greate Charter reforms had not yielded the effect intended, and it was now time to deal with the issue if England was sincere in its commitment to colonization. Thus, it was likely no surprise to Sandys, that the next step was for the king to order a royal investigation of what the hell was going on in Virginia and the Virginia Company. If the reader has reached the conclusion that the Company has reached the point of no return, then the next section will very much demonstrate things can get even worse.
The Royal Investigation of 1623
Disruption within the Virginia Company caused by the final votes on the tobacco contract settled down in March 1623, For all practical purposes, the Sandy faction had either expelled its shareholder opposition, or at minimum convinced its attending shareholders they had no reason to think they could make change using their corporate shareholder rights. Hindsight, however, reveals that outside the Company much was going on.
The opposition had not given up. Just the opposite. Alderman Johnson put ink to parchment and prepared a petition for the king. At the same time, a former governor of Bermuda, Captain Nathaniel Butler (who was close to Warwick), who, having spent the winter of 1622-23 in Virginia left the colony in January and arrived in England, “full of information”, sometime in March. Butler a close ally of Warwick offers the suggestion that finally Warwick was willing to join with Smythe to oust Sandys. By combining they exposed Sandys’ weakness in the macro policy environment of James I. The Virginia Company had lost whatever luster or respect, and for that matter, hope to serve as England’s vehicle into the new world.
Butler wasted little time in drafting his version of Virginia affairs. He entitled his attack blog, “Unmasked Face of Our Colony in Virginia as it was in the winter of the Year 1622”. It was devastating—to the point that when it got to Virginia it generated a counter-reaction in part based on their conviction the colony could be restored to vigor and “Unmasked” was certain to tamper investor and settler enthusiasm. It may be an exaggeration that “Unmasked” was in the royal court’s top non-fiction list, but its impact was striking, and widespread.
A copy of Unmasking was received by the Company. On April 23, it had been officially sent, joined with Johnson’s completed petition, to the King and his Privy Council. Accordingly, there was only a matter of weeks after the March 25th votes that the Virginia Company became aware it was under petition to the king, and a substantial and credible report had been placed before the royal court’s public opinion. The seeming quieting down within its ranks was over in less than a month. In any event, the Virginia Company was now entering its final period of management of Virginia, but as we shall see, holding onto its authority to maintain its Virginia charter in London was ample enough disruption and time consuming to inhibit its attention to the goings on in Virginia. Indeed the pressure upon the Sandys’ faction stressed its members to the point they were in public arguments in the streets and elite saloons. A duel resulted which lent an almost comedic tone to its last days.
The Chronology—Anderson’s petition beseeched the king for the appointment of a royal commission to look into the condition and affairs pertaining to the then-current colony of Virginia. This commission should investigate the condition and situation in Virginia, commencing with the departure of the Smythe administration in 1619. The ostensible quest was to determine how much funds had been expended in the colony, to what purposes, and to determine the “true estate and condition of the plantation at this present” in Virginia. Johnson also requested an “inquiry into all abuses and grievances arising from the conduct of the business as well as all wrongs and injurires done to any adventurers or planters”. From these investigations, Johnson called for recommendations as to how they may be corrected and the colony’s management be improved, differences reconciliated, injustices punished and unity and peace restored. [99] Craven, Dissolution, pp. 258-9
The motives which prompted this appeal [the royal investigation of 1623] for royal interference were born not of one consideration alone, but of a strange mixture of personal jealousies and dislikes with an honest concern for the welfare of Virginia. It was to them both a duty and a labor of hate. [99] Craven, Dissolution, p. 251
The folks in Sandys faction reacted quickly. An immediate meeting scheduled on April 12. Bermuda’s Governor Cavendish convened the both shareholder councils in back to back meetings. They did not have a copy of the Anderson petition in their possession at that point, but Edward Sackville, who was acquainted with “the general substance”, briefly conveyed its contents and intents. Smythe, Warrick nor Johnson were present, but several of their faction were; the latter urged the shareholder council’s to defer their response until they could obtain a copy of what had been submitted. This request was rejected and the councils instructed the company’s leadership to begin preparing a formal rebuttal which should be sent to the Privy Council. Two reports were quickly sent to the Privy Council shortly after. The intent was the Privy Council would have it alongside Johnson’s when the Privy Council next met.
The Privy Council called its first meeting on the petitions on April 17, 1623. The meeting generated “much heat and bitterness between [the parties] at first, fitter to perplex than to settle the business”. “Sir Edward Sackville carried himself so insolently that the king [who was in attendance] ‘was fain to take him down soundly and roundly’, but by aid of the lord treasurer [Cranville] he {Sackville] was able to make ‘his peace’ the next day. [99] Craven, Dissolution, pp. 266-7.
Despite this rather bad start, the Privy Council established a commission, headed by Sir William Jones, the Justice of the Court of Common Pleas, and appointed Sir Nicholas Fortesan, Sir Henry Bourchier, Sir Henry Spiller, Sir Francis Gofton, Sir Richard Sutton, and Sir William Pitt. The scope of the commissions action included the period under the Smythe administration. They further instructed the parties that their submittals, letters, and materials be limited to relevant matters, and not include attacks upon the various parties. A letter was sent by the Privy Council to the “colonists” to notify them of the proceeding, a letter sent on April 28th. Final approval of the commission, its scope and jurisdiction was made on May 9, 1623.
Discussion and Proceedings of the Commission—That the matter was expedited, and conducted with follow, fairness, and competence is evident, and there was no “bums rush’ to arrive at anything like a forgone conclusion. The reader is free to make his or her own interpretation, but I do suspect that Johnson-Smythe had prepared the ground within the king’s court, and that Warwick was involved due to the submission of Butler, a member of Warwick’s faction. Smythe did participate but the yeoman work for him was done by Johnson; as to Warwick, his delegate was Nathaniel Rich. The opposition took the commission seriously. They presented a case that was certainly partisan to their faction, but refrained from bitter comment and was based on sound concerns with Virginia, not simply the wrongs against the opposition.
That the king was in attendance at the first meeting is also noteworthy as James, now well into his reign, was never noted as being firmly focused for any period of time on policy issues. Craven comments that “Of his personal interest in the colony there can be no doubt, but the attention given by him to its problems has probably been exaggerated. He was never noted for constant application to business, and here, as with so many other problems of his reign, his attention was probably only fitful and spasmodic. The actual work involved in hearing and deciding upon the petitions … and directing its labors devolved upon the lords of the Privy Council [and the appointees to the commission] [99] Craven, Dissolution, p. 266
The mission of the commission was not to repair the Virginia Company, but to assess the state and condition of the Virginia colony, determine what had transpired in the settlement of the colony, and to make recommendations of what should be repaired and what changes should be made. To a considerable extent the mission the commission seems to have been preparing itself, i.e. the Privy Council on which it was based and reported, for its own independent though on Virginia, not simply content to determine whatever past the Company had in respect to Virginia. I will suggest the Privy Council and its Commission had from the start perceived itself as engaged in a pivot from the Virginia Company.
The King’s missive to the colony emphasized his commitment to the colony and meant to encourage the colonists to do as well as possible, and to correct “misunderstandings and dissentions may be prevented … [so to] rebound to the particular contentment and benefit of every honest person”. Thus the royal investigation was conducted from the higher ground of policy-making, not as a hatchet job, nor an obvious taking of one side over the other. We shall later consider the response to this missive and the Commission by the Virginians.
As to the two parties involved in the civil war, they approached making their case differently. Smythe-Johnson’s petition made the case that Virginia was in disaster, the Company bankrupt and grossly indebted, stressed the high mortality rates which stood in the way of growing and developing the colony further—and stressed that each of these had been made worse over the last four years due to the mismanagement of the Company and its leadership. The verbal presentation of the opposition position to the Commission was led, and presented by Warwick’s Nathaniel Rich. As with the negotiations regarding the tobacco contract, the Warwick camp was the dominant partner in the attack on Sandys. Smythe and Anderson did participate, and attend when they thought wise and appropriate. From other materials, and the reality that Smythe was on the verge of his retirement—and death a little more than a year later-that Smythe was not in good health at that point.
This opposition position forced Sandys and his allies into a defensive reaction to the charges and conditions. Logically, they painted a picture far more positive, and stressed an optimistic future for the colony. To the extent faults were too obvious to ignore or refute, the blame lay with the earlier Smythe administration. That proved to be a difficult task because the focus of the commission was on the here and now; if things were disastrously deteriorating when Smythe was replaced four years previous, the question as to why the problems had not been resolved, or at least a positive trend line demonstrated was more the preferred expectation of the Commission members. It is very evident to me the Commission was interested in the reality of Virginia, not delving into one or another’s allegation as to why things were bad or good.
In particular, the various aspects and elements of the signature Greate Charter reforms were called into question. Rich was able to demonstrate the Greate Charter reforms were “wild and vast projects” that consumed at least L5,000, and had not by 1623 returned a dime toward payment of debt or their own investment. Iron mining was a case in point; four years in the attempt literally nothing had been manufactured and the facilities themselves in ruins from the Indian war. The silk-making project was in little better state. Rich would make the case that Sandys had been warned that he rushed these projects, underfunded them, and watched their inconsistent implementation. Worse, Rich contended Sandys concealed the performance of his initiatives by “a regular system of ‘double and contradictory’ letters, having the leaders in the colony compose one letter for the public reading at the shareholder courts, and another for conveying to Sandys the true facts”. [99] Craven, Dissolution, pp, 272-4
It became more apparent as the investigation matured that Virginia was in a terrible state and that the Greate Charter initiatives had come to no good end. The public reports, private writings and letters released by the Sandys administration stood in stark contrast to Virginia’s reality. Rich strongly pressed the point that Sandys had distorted the shareholder association joint stock franchises, and had manipulated its own shareholder voting to the extent it was impossible to present and approve reforms and corrections. Craven himself took the position the opposition case had validity (p. 275), and that the Company could not defend itself on these points.
Rich further turned Sandys 1619 position against Sandys observing that Virginia in 1619 only had tobacco as a meaningful export, and further demonstrated that four years later the dependence on tobacco was even more complete. Despite his attempt at a tobacco contract, the attack on the tobacco monoculture reflected what appears to have been a serious, if inconsistent, principle and objective of the king-one that could not be ignored by the Privy Council—that the monoculture was not a desired endpoint for English colonization. Once again the irony of the dislike of tobacco and a determination to alter the tobacco monoculture was in this instance turned against Sandys who had made such a point four years previous.
Such was the character of the testimony presented by the Warwick party in support of its request for some reorganization of the Virginia Company. From beginning to end it was an indictment of Sandys management of the economic interests of the company and colony [99] Craven, Dissolution, p. 276
Craven alerts his readers to a subtle but crucial distinction. It is his belief the attackers of the Sandys’ faction were just that—attackers of the Sandys’ faction and not attackers of the Virginia Company. The mistakes were made by the incumbent leaders of the Company, and the opposition made it abundantly clear that the faction was able to dominate the Company by means of manipulating the ballot box, the distribution of shares to friends to increase the number of shareholders, and finally by suppressing important and timely information so that the greater membership of the Company were not aware of what was transpiring in Virginia. The wish of the opposition was to retain the Company as the administrator of the colony, through the authority granted it by its charter.
Craven alerts us that from the beginning of the investigation, the royal commission did not draw a distinction between the Company and its leadership—they were one and the same. The attack therefore from their perspective was against the Company, and by implication wanted the Company separated from governance. Sandys’ defense, however, did not take into account that distinction in Commission attitude; Sandys’ proponents took the position that their opposition was attacking the Company, and wanted to replace the Company with something (a reorganized entity) the opposition could control. Whatever the state or substance of what was to be was never specified by the opposition, largely because the opposition simply wanted the Sandys faction removed from the leadership of the Company. In the minds of many, including presumably a majority of Company shareholders, the opposition was attacking the Company. It is likely in the minds of the Commission this was the wrong tact to take.
As noted earlier the Company had submitted two documents that constituted their initial petition to the king in an investigation by a royal commission. These documents were cornerstones in the Company’s defense of its actions. The first was a report ordered by Southampton in December, 1622. The report compared the state of Virginia with the present state of Virginia as of that time. It was entitled “a Declaration of the present state of Virginia with conditions in the past”. “The second document was a paper prepared by Lord Cavendish entitled “A Relation of the late proceedings of the Virginia and Somers Island Companies”. It addressed several of the attacks made by the opposition, and proposing a remedy. Both of these documents were read item by item during the investigation.
By May 7th a third document was delivered to the Commission, “An Answer to a Petition delivered to his Majesty by Alderman Johnson in the names of sundry Adventurers and Planters of the Virginia and Somers Islands Plantations”. Also, on the same date, a reply was submitted to the report of Nathaniel Butler, alluded to earlier, which was joined with the Johnson petition. In Craven’s Dissolution the thrust of these reports were completely economic in nature, asserting “that there had been much improvement since Sandys’ election, and that the condition of the colony, contrary to their opponents claim was now more than hopeful” [99] Craven, Dissolution, p. 287
The core of their defense lie in the sad state the opposition under Smythe had left the colony at the time of Sandys’ election. The history of the colony, sad, riven with high mortality rates, sickness, and a policy system we described earlier as a military colony, not to ignore the reality the Company was already near bankruptcy and indebt at that time. The Sandys’ program, the Greate Charter structures and initiatives, however, had reversed this sad state of affairs left to Sandys by Smythe. The shareholder councils during the Sandys period were better attended, at least doubled from the Smythe period, and excepting the outbursts of the opposition they were productive and efficient. Whatever disruption the Company governance had experienced during the Sandys’ administration were caused by the opposition. As to the opposition …
Their clamorous claim of injury to the old adventurers [shareholders] was entirely false, for the company had dealt in justice with all alike. The [Powhatan] massacre alone had given excuse for their accusations, and had it not been for this unhappy event, ‘these opposers must have been mute having nothing else wherewith to disgrace the Plantation. For the business had proceeded with steady improvement, as might be seen in the grant of forty-four land patents for private plantations in contrast to about six such grants in the previous administration, and in the employment of forty-two sail of ships, as opposed to not above twelve. Their good work had also been frequently attested to by benevolences amounting in all to L1500 [99] Craven, Dissolution, pp. 288-9
The obvious distress existing in Virginia at the time of the Commission, and the disruption in the reforms and economic initiatives introduced by Sandys since his ascent to leadership, were all attributed to the Indian attack and subsequent war. As to the course of that war, the defense stated that the future protection of the colonists would be secured upon the construction of a ‘fort at some good location’.[pp.289-90]. The defense finished up with a direct attack, written by Cavendish, on the motives and actions of the opposition. The maladministration of the colony and their own plantations by Sandys’ opposition, had driven them to transfer blame to the present administration they divert any attention that they were the authors of their own misery. The brunt of Cavendish’s attack fell on Warwick and his privateering, which raised potential dangers to the colonies, as well as scandal and loss to the Company.
The problem with this defense was that given the observable reality of Virginia’s then current condition, accompanied as it was by an Indian war for which the colony was totally unprepared, and a starvation that followed over the previous winter, any maladministration by Smythe and Anderson previous to 1619 added to it only meant that Virginia’s colonial experience had been a complete unmitigated failure, a failure shared by both competing administration.
On top of this the company, when pressed by the Commission and Privy Council to provide a complete census of how many living colonists remained in Virginia as of 1624, reported the total population of the colony was 1275, a number which was even lower than Butler’s estimation of 2000, and one-half of that claimed in Company reports to the Commission. The computed mortality rate hovered around seventy-five percent of those who had settled in recent years [p. 302].
Craven asserted “the appallingly high death rate cut the ground from under the whole case for the company, and gave to its opponents their strongest point. It alone was sufficient to establish the basic truth in their charges of mismanagement, negligence, pestilence, and starvation. It was impossible for [the Sandys leadership] who were forced to admit that more than half the population had died to prove that [the Virginia settlers] had led a happy and prosperous life” as claimed in their reports to the Commission. [99] Craven, Dissolution, p302, 303.
Sandys’ defense, that the Massacre and the Second Powhatan War had without doubt disrupted, if not crushed his initiatives to diversity the economy and deliver locally produced staples for the colonists’ benefit, was weak. If as I suggest, the King and Privy Council from the start of the Commission had in the back of their minds, that the Virginia Company had failed, at least in Virginia, Sandys’ defense changed little to nothing. Whatever their role in Virginia’s colonization, be in net-net positive or negative, the opposition factions were at least congruent with the London-perceived reality in Virginia. In my opinion, London did not yet understand how basic and at points desperate Virginia was in these years. The reports were yet to come from their investigations.
I believe it is valuable to note that the Commission did little to check the development of the tobacco monoculture in Virginia. The Powhatan did that for them. But as the reader shall see, Virginians, whether elites or non-elites, were economically and emotionally tied to the weed by this point; their struggle against the Powhatan was almost an unconscious crusade to restore the monoculture, its priorities and its exclusivity.
Historians have usually attributed to the First Migration elites a propensity to strong if not excessive individualism, may or may not have been fair, but tobacco was in the Virginian mind pretty much a settled priority. I am not sure how much thought and reflection went into that decision, but that was surely their reaction during the Second Powhatan War. The events in London played little role in Virginia of this period; it could not be otherwise in that their awareness and knowledge of those events was very limited—and what they did know was that the Company did not support them, and indeed in the main blamed Virginians for the Second Powhatan. As to the Commission and the King’s thoughts regarding the Virginia Company, Virginians were more concerned that they were uncertain and unknown to them—that the old adage that the king was great so long as he was far away ran true.
Virginians, submitted to the investigatory commission decision to come, but they were nervous about the future ability of the Company to insulate them from London, Privy Council and the King. The research attempts to discover Virginia’s reality were resisted by most Virginians because the loss of the Company could only mean their loss of a buffer on which their autonomy of thought and action rested.
The Commission’s Decision and the Aftermath: King James Moves On
The commissioners continued their investigation until the end of June, 1623.
They informed James, “it was already apparent, especially by letters recently come from Virginia, that the colony’s state was most ‘weak and miserable’, and unless fast action were taken to improve the situation, ‘the whole plantation lay in danger of ruin’. … Their poverty and famine could be relieved only by sending corn and other provisions, ‘not by way of merchandise as had lately been used … but either of free gift or at reasonable rates’. It would also be necessary to send competent leadership to settle the Indian confrontation. They also noted that the public lotteries had provided some L30,000, the company’s funds were ‘entirely exhausted’, and the company remained heavily in debt”.[99] Craven, Dissolution, p. 304
From their submission to James it was evident to the Commission that the facts as they stated them meant there was little hope the Company could provide needed solutions to the current situation, if only for fiscal reasons and internal chaos. What followed their submission, however, was that in the months after, while the king considered his options, the hostility between the two factions degenerated to an incredible intensity that Craven calls it a “white heat”. Craven placed the blame for this even further degeneration within the Company mostly on Sandys. It is of note that this attack preceded the June Commission decision decision, and was likely a factor in its making.
Sandys’ Easter eve “attempt to steal a court” [shareholder council at the annual shareholder meeting], an attempt that was leaked to Warwick’s friends who ‘presented themselves unwelcomed’, and who were declared as traitors by Lord Sackville, who was followed up by Lord Cavendish, Sandy’s principals. The focus of their attack continued to be on Warwick.
On May 7th this attack was followed up at another shareholder meeting by a letter written and read by Lord Cavendish, entitled “A Declaration made by the Council for Virginia and principal Assistants for the Somers Islands of their Judgements, touching one original great cause of the dissentions in the Companies and present oppositions”. In written form that Craven labels “as a long and malicious indictment of Warwick” Cavendish put down on paper every possible action taken by Warwick that could in any way be construed as damaging to the company or the colony. Warwick’s action were described in terms and language so intense as to leave no doubt that Warwick was the great Satan of both Companies. The reaction was predictable: “This distorted account of Warwick’s activities in the colonies constituted a severe indictment of his character and his record as an adventurer, characterized Warwick as little more than a privateer-pirate, and naturally aroused him and his friends to great wrath”. [99] Craven, Dissolution, pp. 305-6
During that shareholder meeting, the galleries’ had been stacked with women whose task was to spread out the news of this attack. It is possible this was a pale imitation of the staged marriage of John Smythe back in 1619. If so, this is almost certainly Southampton in action. Warwick, Craven later asserts, was particularly disturbed by this. He subsequently complained to the Privy Council that the episode was in violation of the instructions imposed on the parties by the Privy Council and the Commission.
The four offenders, including Sandys, Cavendish, and Sackville, were on May 13, 1623, “restrained of their Liberty, and confined to their several Lodgings or Housings, as persons guilty of a Contempt against the directions and commands of this Table, where they are to remain until His Majesty or this Board shall given further order. They were under house arrest that at least until the third week in June remained in effect. Again, this is previous to the Commission’s decision.
During that time street arguments occurred and “as the summer advanced the two courts [shareholder council meetings] became more turbulent and factious than ever’. The climax came at a meeting of the Somers Company council where Sandys “fell fowl of the Earl of Warwick”, strongly followed up by Cavendish, which led to Warwick and Cavendish agreeing to a duel. This is in the period immediately after the Commission’s decision.
The two lords both set out from London on July 17th where they could lawfully conduct their duel. Well publicized, and no secret, the affair in progress was ordered to stop, the ports were closed to them, and orders issued they be returned to London. Cavendish apparently got sick en route and was rounded up and sent back. Warwick, dressed as a fisherman, did get to Holland in a small boat, but was found by an English embassy official in Brussels, who carried him back to Ghent, where King James issued an order for his return.
The publicity of the event brought shame upon all, but degraded the company and the dispute in a much larger public opinion. That only served to reinforce the Commission’s June submission to the King. Accordingly the Commission’s mandate was enlarged by adding to its jurisdiction a determination of what future actions should be taken in regards to the Company and the Colony. It is at this time, late summer 1623, that we can clearly see the trend toward repudiating the existing charter with the Company.
On July 28th, 1623, the Attorney General was instructed by the Privy Council to issue a description of the process “recalling the patent [charter] and issuing another”. It was responded to on July 31st by the Solicitor-General, in a memo detailing how it may lawfully be accomplished. Thus, the decision and the future action was apparent by the end of summer. The problem, however, was whether the Company under Sandys control would surrender its charter to the king, or would contest the decision. Discussion then followed [actually it seemed to have started on July 22], and it was determined the Company should be pressed to agree to the dissolving of the charter, but it was also determined that before any action be taken by any party, the future government of the colony should be agreed upon by the Privy Council.
Accordingly, a special commission of Privy Council was announced composed of Lords Chichester, Carew and Grandison to make a study of the matter. These lords were leaders of some note and had in common their governorships of Ireland. “Their understanding of the Irish problems was obviously expected to give them special qualification for deciding upon the future government of Virginia [99] Craven, Dissolution, pp. 311-12. It is worth note that the recommendations of that body were desired before the king’s decision, and that even at this time he was open to options developed by advisors with experience on English colonization.
Interestingly, the first issue the new Commission considered was the appropriateness of the regulated joint stock corporation as a vehicle for English colonization. Its early consideration strongly suggests that as the dispute within the companies and the reports to and findings of the royal Commission were in process that many in the king’s court, and in general had wondered the extent to which that form of corporation was compatible for effective and successful colonization—and that the inappropriateness of the existing regulated joint stock corporation was a prime cause of the present situation.
As the complaints of Warwick and Smythe had earlier suggested: “that small [in number] and inexperienced adventurers [shareholders] were enabled to secure control of the [shareholder] courts to the injury of the plantations, and of more substantial investors”. Such complaints were also congruent with those of our old adventurer, Captain John Smith, and powerful members of the Privy Council such as Sir Julius Caesar. Indeed, earlier in 1620, a major reorganization of the moribund northern company (Bristol and Plymouth) within the macro Virginia Company had occurred previous to its issuance of the Plymouth patent. That reorganization did not employ the regulated joint stock corporation in any of its major bodies.
In any event, the findings of the special committee were issued on October 8, 1623, and Ferrar was called before the Privy Council. He was informed that …
Having taken into his Princely consideration of the distressed estate of that Colony and Plantation occasioned as it seemeth by miscarriage of the government in that Company, it appeared the remedy could be had only ‘ by reducing the Government into the hands of a fewer number of governors [shareholders] near to those that were in the first Patents [charters] of the Plantation”. It was proposed that there should be issued a new charter under which the king would select a governor and twelve assistants to take over from the company all responsibilities of government. All future selections were to be made in the following manner: the assistants were to nominate three men from whom the king would choose one for governor, and vacancies in the ranks of the assistants were to be filled by the principle of cooptation with the king holding the power of veto. The governor and six assistants were to be changed in this fashion every two years.
As summarized by Craven “The machinery of government in London was to be duplicated in Virginia where there were to be a resident governor with twelve assistants selected by the governor and assistants in England subject to the approval of the king. The authorities in the colony were to be directly responsible to their superiors at home [England] who would be held responsible by the king” [99] Craven, Dissolution, p. 313-4.
In summary, the new Commission made very specific its vision of the Virginia future governance, and as important was non partisan in its cause for the failure of the Virginia Company, blaming instead on a structure of governance unsuited to colonization.
Let’s stop for a moment to assess this action delivered to the Company and its leadership in particular. First, while most historians stress the date of the return of the charter seals to the King on May 24th, 1624, as the date by which the king determined the existing Virginia Company would cease its operations regarding Virginia. The reality is that date is really October 8th, 1623, more than seven months earlier. One could even assert that the date on which the Commission took action, late April, early May 1623 as the time which the Company was placed in a limited de facto receivership, incapable of new actions and decisions, and with contested legitimacy in its Virginia and Bermuda governance. It is quite clear that the belief the Company had deteriorated to the point that its policy-making, hence governance of Virginia, was in a state of paralysis—a conclusion which we hoped to have demonstrated was evident a full two years or more previous.
By reference to the reform of the problem being a corporate government “into the hands of a fewer number of governors” can be reduced into a simple statement too many unconstrained shareholders rocked the boat to the extent it could not achieve its purposes. Unconstrained shareholders could allow minorities to impose their will over the majority through manipulation of elections to control policy making bodies. This issue, as we shall also see shortly, was what the Commission determined destroyed the functionality of the Virginia Corporation.
Finally, I offer an observation that whatever I or the reader thought of the character, if not nature of the Stuart governance processes, the process by which the fate of the Virginia Company was decided was through sound legal investigation by a duly appointed neutral body that conducted itself properly, exercised responsible due diligence, and arrived at conclusions amply supported by the evidence. There was little that was arbitrary about it, even though it is equally obvious that the faction in charge of the Virginia Company was, if not hostile to the king, certainly opposed to many, if not most, of his policy preferences. In this instance, the King may not have given Sandys any favors, but he rendered him no injustice in process or decision.
It was hoped the Virginia Company would voluntarily surrender its seals at that point, but as we shall very soon discover it chose to dispute the king’s decision both in the judicial courts and in Parliament.
The Aftermath, a Delaying Action—Ferrar was instructed by the Privy Council to hold a shareholder court within a week of the notification by the Privy Council. The shareholder court was instructed to make a speedy decision, and was warned that any delay in handing over to the Commission would risk the existing Company charter as the government would take action against the Company. On October 15th, 1623 120 shareholders, absent of which were Smythe, Warwick, Johnson and Rich and most shareholders associated with their factions, determined, with 8 dissenting votes, to request more time to consider their options. The Privy Council responded with the order to make a decision on surrendering the charter, in their words, ‘a cleare direct and finall Aunswere’. .A second shareholder meeting, with 70 in attendance, and with nine dissidents, said it would not, comply with the Privy Council order.
The normal course of action was to issue a quo warranto degree, and that was issued from the King’s Bench on November 4th 1623. The law suit commenced on November 28th. Warrants were served only to those deemed to have used authority granted to them improperly. “The suit … was not issued against the company itself, nor against the whole body of [shareholders], but rather against that part of them which followed the leadership of Sandys”. This distinction seems warranted as there were a considerable number of shareholders who had not participated in the courts and many made clear they were willing to hand over the charter.
This meant the Company’s existence, in particular its governance of the Somers Island Corporation, was not affected by this action. While the Company may have had to surrender is Virginia patent at some point, the Somers Company could continue to exist and manage the affairs of the other subsidiaries within its corporate structure. The interests of the private investors were also assured and there would be no action against them. Craven suggests that many hoped for a replication of the organization used in the 1620 reorganization of the northern subsidiary of the larger conglomerate Virginia Council. [99] Craven, Dissolution, pp. 315-6 It must be stressed that at this point, and for a decade and a half to follow, the prospect that the patent could be returned to the Virginia Company, as amended as the government would require, and the Virginia Company under those terms could regain its rights to manage the Virginia colony. The charter at this point was not considered revoked, but suspended.
A Virginia Company shareholder council held on November 12 received an update on the prospective judicial action, and who had been served with a quo warranto. The council voted that these individuals were “the company”, and hence could hire counsel paid for with company funds. Opposition shareholders petitioned the government court against this, and that court issued a dictum (December 8th) forbidding the use of company funds for defense by those who had received a quo warranto. With that the trial proceeded.
The government court reached a judgement against the Virginia Company as early as April 11, 1624, but granted a delay until May 24th when the final judgement was issued. The court decided that the defense had provided “insufficient proof of their right to the privileges claimed and, therefore, convicted of usurpation of the said privileges, which were now assumed by the king. [p. 318]. Hence, the last session of the London Corporation of the Virginia Company was held on June 7, 1624, and that session concluded the formal records of the [London] Virginia Company. At such point the Virginia charter was surrendered to the government.
In the interim between October, 1623 and June 7th Sandys and his faction took action, mobilizing forces outside the Company to exert leverage against the government court—and the King for that matter. Robert Ashton, [99] the City and the Court, 1603-1643 (Cambridge University Press, 1979), pp. 98ff. Ashton concentrates on the City of London (and by implication those who competed with it), and in particular details the “relation of the municipality and of the City Fathers as business magnates with both of the early Stuart kings and their parliaments … explores the business connections of the City with the royal court”. Ashton delves deeply into the events of the merchant adventurer trading companies, the East India and Virginia Company and in so doing notes the conflict between the principals, Smythe and Sandys. What caught his attention initially was the position taken by Sandys in the tobacco contract, and how that rivalry carried over into 1624:
Sandys had then sought in the parliament of 1621 to obtain a ban on the importation of all tobacco except from Virginia and the Somers Islands, and moreover to get the patent for the sole importation of tobacco vested in the hands of his supporters in both companies—strange conduct for a supporter of free trade. Even before the parliament of 1624 met, however, the conduct of the affairs of both companies by the Sandys’ faction had given rise to considerable misgivings, especially among those wealthier London mercantile interests who were members of both companies, and this had facilitated the launching of a powerful counterattack by Smythe and the Earl of Warwick, Sandys former ally and now his implacable foe. The result was the institution of a commission of inquiry in 1623, the placing of Sandys under house arrest, the election of Smythe as governor of the Somers Company in December, 1624, and the dissolution of the Virginia Company [not so] in the following year. These events form the background to the savage attack on the management of the East India Company of which Smythe was also governor, which was mounted in the parliament of 1624 by Sandys’ supporters. [99] pp. 115-16
Sandys primarily turned for support from the Parliament which was in session. Lord Middlesex was in process of being impeached, and Sandys endeavored to attach a remedy to the Virginia Company trial to the proceedings. A committee was formed, and the alleged injustices brought about on Sandys and the Company during the process of the royal investigatory commission were cited as actionable and an abuse. The petition was referred to a committee of the whole in parliament on May 28 1624 [four days following the final decision of the King’s Bench Court regarding the Company].
James responded by issuing a letter to the Parliament on the 29th, informing the Commons that a final decision had already been made concerning the Virginia Company, and the Privy Council was in process of reviewing the Bench Court’s issuance. “And since interference by parliament would serve only to bring a renewal of factional feeling, all further discussion in the House was to be prohibited”. Choosing to pick a better battlefield for their objectives, parliament declined any further action on the Virginia question. [99] Craven, Dissolution, pp 319-321.
Ashton, however, does note the dispute involving the Virginia Company did support at least two facts of note: first, that the merchant adventurers and trading companies in parliament at this time was still relatively strong, and M.P.s associated with these groups were well represented on the parliamentary committee on trade; as important the debate, dialogue and discussion did lead to “a better appreciation of the realities of economic life, and therefore of the role which company organization [i.e. joint stock corporation], shorn of its more restrictive practices, had to play in that life. [p. 119]. … Ashton further offers that “there was no denying the fact that they made possible the abandonment of that indiscriminate condemnation of all business concessionary interests which had been so prominent a feature of the economic debates in the parliament of 1621. [p. 120]
In the interim before the king assumed direct authority and management of the colony, the Privy Council placed Virginia under, in today’s terminology, receivership—which BTW the Jones Commission [see below] had been functioning as during the Commission proceedings—under the Jones Commission. A second commission was formed in October 24, 1623 to research and assess the situation in Virginia. That second commission composed of John Harvey, John Pory, Abraham Piersey, Samuel Mathews, and John Jefferson [pp. 322-3, Dissolution]. The activities and consequences of the second commission will be considered in a future module.
The decision on the questions of the company’s [future] charter and of the machinery of government in England came more slowly. In the end events did not proceed exactly according to plan. The new charter for the company was never issued. And while it continued on in the lose form of a trading company until after 1630, its importance ceases in 1624. Its stock of more than L100,000 had been irreparably lost, and completely bankrupted the company in time disappeared. [99] Craven, Dissolution, p. 329
While I beg to differ with his last statements, I therefore, alert the reader that my view is the viability of the Virginia Company as a potential manager of the Virginia Colony materially continued to 1639, and was not completely out of the question as late as 1643. The possible return of the Virginia Company did notably affect public opinion in Virginia, and evidence that Virginia elites ebbed and flowed on their reaction to that possibility.
The Jones Commission Hands Off to A Fact-Finding Commission
To help the reader segueway into the next period, the new Virginia policy system that followed the Virginia Company, I sign off this module with a review of the Jones Commission, and its successor, the Mandeville Commission. These two royal commissions in effect managed the lengthy transition to more formal royal administration—under Charles I, the son of James who followed his father upon the latter’s death in 1625. This transition period I would add is important to the understanding of the evolution of Virginia’s own developing policy system as well.
The Jones Commission, even after the departure of of Jones, continued in existence. It acted in many ways like a receivership and kept as best as it could the management of the colony together while it foreclosed on the Virginia Company after its suspended the Virginia Charter, and even after the suspension went into effect by court order, the King’s Bench, on May 24th, 1624. The Privy Council, its parent, also remained involved.
On October 24th, 1623 the Privy Council created yet another commission which was in nature a fact-finding body tasked with directly ascertaining the state of affairs in Virginia. John Porys (former Secretary of the Colony who ran afoul of Sandys), a figure by this time in his own right, was its chief. Also appointed was John Harvey, later to be governor, Abraham Piersey, the former Smythe-Sandys cape merchant (and probably richest man in Virginia by that point), and Samuel Mathews, at that time a member of the Assembly, a plantation conquistador, former Argall protégé, and then planter (who was destined in my eyes as being the single most important leader of the First Migration). Another individual, John Jefferson was also appointed—but we do not know who he was, and he apparently was not active. Over the course of the First Commission, John Harvey assumed the most prominent role.
The task of the commission was to conduct a “a personal investigation of the fortifications, provisions, boats, public works, and general conditions of the colony. The [Virginia] governor (Wyatt) and Council [of State] was ordered to give them all possible assistance in their work” [99] Craven, Dissolution, pp. 322-3. With nothing but good intentions to discover what the hell was going on in Virginia so they could keep the place going, the commission members set off to Virginia to achieve their mission [Mathews was already in Virginia]. In this most treacherous of times, however, the folk in Virginia, no matter what faction they were, were extremely suspicious of what the “real” task and mission of the commission was—and they trusted it not at all. When the commission members arrived or started their job in Virginia they were given the least cooperation possible.
Interestingly, the chief Company officials in residence, naturally enough, had been members of the Sandys faction. Wyatt was married to Sandys’s daughter, and George Sandys, his brother. It is not likely they had any substantive connections with the Warwick-Sandys opposition, but there is an important “BUT”. The reaction by Sandys and the Ferrars to the desperate situation since March 1622 had generated in them a severe disappointment with Sandys and the London Company under his leadership. The external threat of royal action, however, prompted them to put aside these feelings and circle the wagon to protect Sandys from the onslaught amassed against hm.
Without making a point of it here, they had been on their own and had survived—with little help from any London element. George Sandys during this time attempted to mobilize his family in England to get Edwin’s attention and to muster help for Virginia. There is little evidence I uncovered to support any serious reaction from Sandys and Ferrar on that request. Craven asserts they had fears in 1624, however, that a return to the military colony state was in the cards, and no sense of where the Jones Commission takeover was going, and how it would affect them. So their paranoia affected those around them, and the reaction against the second commission was intense.[99] Craven, Dissolution, p. 322
Harvey, after he arrived on February 14, 1624, was tasked specifically at determining the reliability of Captain Butler’s “Unmasked Face of our Colony”, which had been an element of Johnson’s petition and subsequent testimony that impacted the Jones Commission greatly. The Assembly which had been convened for Harvey’s due diligence, was already engaged in preparing its defense of conditions in Virginia which they believed was, a hatchet job on the colony.
Their report [the Virginia Assembly] defended the performance of the Sandys administration and did everything possible to undermine the Johnson and Butler argument that things were going to hell in a hand basket. They did so, Craven asserts, because they wanted to safeguard the existence and autonomy of the Assembly. An element of their fear was that Harvey himself was hugely distrusted . During the period Harvey had lived in Virginia, he created a ton of bad feelings, and demonstrated at that time he little sympathy for the House of Burgesses in particular.
So on March 2, 1624 when Harvey attempted to secure the Assembly’s agreement with a draft of what he was to report to the Privy Council, the Burgesses would have none of it. To a considerable degree that was a natural reaction to what Harvey had written in the draft. It was an unqualified endorsement of the the king, and his takeover of the charter and governance of Virginia. Tossed in for good measure, was his recommendation that land patents made during the Sandys period be revoked—that meant taking away a huge body of land from the existing leaders, Burgesses and freeholders, and leaving a number destitute if not homeless. His explanation was these land patents stood in the way of the king regaining rightfully land given away by the Company. Without out any doubt, this activated what would become the third rail of Virginia post-company politics; it was the nuclear bomb of Virginia policy-making for a generation later.
Rejected on this matter, Harvey continued his mission to develop information on the condition of the colony. He sought info on where to locate future fortifications, the state of relations with the Powhatan, the future of the plantations still in exitance, and “the best means for attaining the hope of a prosperous colony”. He did suggest a fortification location (Point Comfort); he concluded relations with the Powhatan had deteriorated to the point of no return, and the “greatest problem” in securing a revenge on them was the shortage of man power. His assessment of Virginia’s future, however, was as unqualified as could be:
[Virginia was] the goodliest parts of the earth, full of rivers, good soil, fruits, and other gifts of nature. … And there was of little doubt of the early development of Virginia into a prosperous state, provided they were given adequate support from home against the natives, and newly arriving colonists came well equipped with cattle, food, and clothing. Special care should be had that’ ships come not over pested [too frequently, i.e. slow the rate of immigration] and with that plentie and goodness of diet which is provided in England, but seldome performed’. [Further] immigrants should first provide themselves with good houses, and for the first year should plant only corn, and a little tobacco to pay for their clothing. A supply of malt for the making of small beer would prevent physical disorders, resulting from the unaccustomed drinking of water. When by the guidance of these rules, the colony was well-settled with people and provisions, they might proceed to the discovery of the land and possible products for [England] [99] Craven, Dissolution, pp. 324-5
From the mouth of a improvident fool had come a rather sound policy for Virginia settlement, and siren call to save the colony and not abandon it.
During the summer [August] of 1623, the Privy Council had sent over a magazine of food valued at L700. Virginians were warned to produce staples and not tobacco. In response landed shareholders invested L1,800 in their plantations to rebuild them. Unfortunately, a good deal of this was canceled out by the landing of about 300 new colonists, without any excess food supplies. To this the Virginia government had complained, yet again, in January, 1624 that “the company’s ships had come ‘pestered Contrary to your agreements. Victualed with mustie bread, the relics of former Voyages, and stinckinge beer, heretofore so ernestly Complained, in great parte the cause of that mortalitie, which is imputed alone to the Countrey” [99] Craven, Dissolution, pp. 325-6
Virginia had survived by raiding Indian fields and villages and fishing. Except for a shortage of powder and ammunition, there was no starvation and the colony had survived the winter. Harvey reinforced this state of affairs with a letter to Nathaniel Rich (April, 24, 1624); he asserted that a decisive defeat of the Powhatan had been rendered, and that “the Plantation with good government would undoubtedly flourish”
The Third Commission (Mandeville Commission), Death of James &Ascension of Charles–
Harvey’s report was placed in the hands of a third commission established by the Privy Council on June 24, 1624. Chaired by Lord President, Mandeville, and including Lords Paget and Chichester, with Secretaries Calvert (of future Maryland fame) & Conway; Attorney-General Coventry; Solicitor-General Heath, Sir Richard Weston, Chancellor of the Exchequer; Sir Thomas Edwards, the Treasurer of the (King’s) Household; Sir John Suckling, Controller of the Household; Sir Robert Killegrew, Sir Thomas Smythe, Sir Francis Gofton, Sir John Wolstenhome, and Alderman Johnson. From this list of names, the reader might think of it as a “who’s who” in James’s “get things done right” in his near death Rolodex.
James would die on March 25th 1625, but he was already in failing health when the Mandeville Commission was set in place. From a king not noted for his attention to detail, and sometimes casual, at least intermittent, commitment to quality policy-making, James attached a preface which included his intention for the Third Commission to reform the structure and affairs of Virginia, and the reconstruction of a new Virginia Company charter to replace the one taken away. It is worth note that the Virginia Company retained the right to govern the colony of Bermuda, and did so to 1684. Thus the reader ought keep in their mind that the Virginia Company was still ongoing to that point and still occupied a role in the post 1624 Virginia policy environment. That role, quite impactful at times, suggests to me that I consider the Virginia Company heritage on the political and economic, if not social development of Virginia continued at minimum to 1639, if not 1643.
Recognizing the who’s who nature of conducting business James specified a quorum of six, with a minimum of two on the Privy Council. He tasked the Commission to propose and impose its reforms and reorganizations as expeditiously as possible (possibly because of his ill health), and instructed it to work closely with the Privy Council and report their actions to it. The preface which, I believe, was issued on July 15th, 1624 was clear the king was discouraged most by the reality “that most of the [people sent to Virginia] were dead, and that those that remained alive were living in great want”, although the land itself showed great promise. “The blame for its misfortunes … laid upon the company … in which much trouble had resulted from placing the government in the hands of too many men” [which I interpret as the adverse consequences of shareholder democracy perverted when placed into the hands of a few rival factions].
That was why the company charter had been “dissolved”. In its place the Third Commission was to replace the company and manage all the affairs of Virginia. Rectification of these errors once completed, the king reiterated his past intention of issuing an new charter and returning Virginia to the “adventurers”. Interestingly, the reform of government in Virginia was identified as the most immediate problem to be addressed. Craven offers his insight into this with a summation that concludes his book, Dissolution:
The story, as [Craven] have found it, is essentially one of commercial disappointment. Frequent mistakes in policy, and in execution though years of unsuccessful pioneering in the field of colonial adventure had contributed to a heavy indebtedness under which the company languished without much prospect of relief. The difficulties of the situation, and the conflicting interests of the adventurers [Virginia Company shareholders] had bred faction and distrust among them and left little disposition to cooperate for the removal of this burden. The [economic] failure in Virginia, the bankruptcy of the joint stock [corporation], and the bitter strife within the courts [company shareholder meetings] seemed sufficient proof to the king and his councillors of the incapacity of the company’s leadership under existing conditions [in 1624], and organization to achieve the high purposes for which the business [colonization] was designed. For a corporation thus bankrupted in purse and in morale, it was both natural and desirable to establish a receivership as the first step towards some reorganization, whereby the affairs of the colony might be placed in a more secure footing.
On August 26th1624 , the king appointed that Virginia government: Francis Wyatt to be continued as governor, and to his Council of State he appointed Francis West (of the De la Warr), former governor George Yeardley, former Treasurer still in residence George Sandys, Roger Smyth, Ralph Hamor, John Martin, John Harvey (who was not in residence and did not attend), Samuel Mathews, Abraham Piersey (both of the Second Commission) Isaac Madison, and Surveyor General, William Claiborne—all “subject to such instructions as were given by the king or by his commissioners”. No mention was made regarding the Assembly or its role. Craven after some review of the implications of this, concluded with the observation:
Under such circumstances [as existed at that time] it is not impossible that the assembly received little thought or, if it did, that it was considered advisable to leave its position in the new scheme to be determined upon more deliberation … if the assembly was deliberately left out of all plans, the decision was dictated not primarily by objections to the assembly itself, but by the problems nearer home [England] [99] Warren, Dissolution, pp. 331-2
Kenneth R. Andrews offered a more practical observation, centering on the reaction of Virginians to the new royal governance as set by Charles I: “Charles I’s government clarified its position by claiming that no [private joint stock] corporation could properly be entrusted with the running of [Virginia]. In practice, however, the crown did not effectively replace the [Virginia] company; it provided no funds for the settlement, nor did it attempt to organize private investment. In respect of policy [making], it simply commissioned successive governors to rule with the advice of an appointed council in accordance with general instructions, leaving almost everything else to [the colony itself]. It was an arrangement the colonists themselves appear to have preferred to the restoration of company rule, and it allowed them largely to make their own way so long as the weak and otherwise preoccupied regime of the early Stuarts lasted. [99] Kenneth R. Andrews, Trade, Plunder and Settlement, p. 326
As events turned out, no new charter to the Virginia Company was issued, but as the reader will discover that option did not disappear from impacting the course of Virginia-relevant policy-making, hence its potential exerted serious and negative impact on the political culture and the policy positions of the Virginia elite through 1639.
Ron W. Coan 