Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 1.djvu/529

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

twelve pounds and ten shillings. The early shareholders subscribed with the understanding that they were to receive a certain proportion of the profits of the joint stock, and of the lands when the time for distribution arrived. It was intended originally that this should be in 1616, when it was anticipated that the population would have increased and the settlements have been extended very much.[1] The first division was to apply only to the soil in the valley of the Powhatan, and in the vicinity of the recently established towns.[2] Commissioners were to be dispatched to the Colony with instructions to make a survey, which was to be the basis of a map showing the allotments of every shareholder who had given in his name previous to the departure of these officers from England, and new adventurers were to be permitted to enjoy the same privilege as the old in having an interest in the dividends.[3] Each portion of land thus set apart was to be transferred as an estate of inheritance. The holder of a single share was to be entitled to one hundred acres in the first division of the soil and one hundred acres additional in the second division, when he had seated the first plantation.[4] The arbitrary conduct of Argoll, whose

  1. Nova Britannia, pp. 23-24, Force’s Historical Tracts, vol. I; A Brief Declaration, Brown’s Genesis of the United States, p. 777.
  2. A Brief Declaration, Brown’s Genesis of the United States, p. 778.
  3. Ibid. p. 779.
  4. Abstracts of Proceedings of the Virginia Company of London, vol. I, p. 153. It is interesting to observe that it was proposed at first that the first allotment on a single share should be only fifty acres of land. See A Brief Declaration, Brown’s Genesis of the United States, p. 777. The acquisition of one hundred acres by the purchase of a share was by the Lawes and Constitutions of 1619-1620 restricted to the “old adventurers, that is, to such as heretofore have brought in their money to the Treasurer for their Severall Shares.” See p. 21 of Lawes, etc., Force’s Historical Tracts, vol. III.