Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 2.djvu/292

The affairs of the Magazine were administered by a director, who was assisted by a committee of five councillors; it was so far subject to the supervision of the Company, that its accounts were required to be passed upon by auditors specially nominated at a Quarter Court. The adventurers, however, held separate meetings, at which all routine business was transacted.^[1]

No outside trader at this time could send supplies to the Colony, the regulation being as strict after the adoption of the new joint stock as it was previous to 1616.^[2] Doubtless, however, the general rule was modified now, as it was under the Orders and Constitutions of 1619, which permitted any one, whether connected with the Company or not, to import cattle, grain, and munition into Virginia if the members of that body, when requested by the Quarter Court, declined or failed to subscribe to the Magazine.^[3] The vessels which before this year had carried supplies to the Colony, had also brought in a large number of persons who proposed to reside in Virginia. The ship now conveying the articles purchased by the adventurers who entered into the joint stock, was known as the magazine ship, and its loading was confined to goods and

1. Collingwood MS. Records of London Company, in Congressional Library, vol. I, pp. 22, 50. The first director was Alderman Johnson, who showed at this time the unscrupulous qualities which at a later period distinguished him so conspicuously as a member of the Warwick faction. In 1619, he was charged with diverting to the Magazine, funds which belonged to the Company. This had been done by him first in 1617, the sum being £341 13s. 4d., and afterwards in 1618, when he appropriated for the Magazine the money obtained from the sale of the tobacco produced in the common garden. See Ibid., p. 26.
2. A broadside, issued in 1616-17, gave permission to persons in England to send private supplies to their friends in Virginia. Brown’s Genesis of the United States, p. 798.
3. Orders and Constitutions of 1619, p. 23, Force’s Historical Tracts, vol. III.