plantation which our Heavenly Father hath not planted shall be rooted out.”[1]
In form, as well as in purpose, the Virginia Company of London was a commercial organization. It was unlike the majority of the companies of London employing shipping, in the particular that it had colonization in view in addition to trade and discovery. The two companies resembling it in this respect were the Somers Isles and the Newfoundland. The Turkey Company, the company of merchant adventurers who carried on trade with Germany and the Netherlands, and the company operating in the Baltic, were strictly commercial in their character. The Russia, the East India, and the Northwest Passage united purposes of trade with discovery. The close relation which all these corporations bore to each other is shown by the fact that the moving spirits in all were the same men. The connection between the East India Company and the Virginia Company of London was especially intimate, the two having one hundred members in common, and for some years they were under the control of the same executive head, Sir Thomas Smyth being the Governor of the East India and the Treasurer of the London Company, two positions corresponding with each other.[2] The same general features of administration marked the Russia, the East India, and the London Companies. The Russia, like the East India, was managed by a chief executive officer and a board selected from the body of the organization. The principal officers in the Turkey company were a Governor, Deputy Governor, and eighteen assistants. In the East India, the
