LONDON COMPANY

also called Virginia Company Of London, commercial trading company chartered by England's King James I in April 1606 with the object of colonizing the eastern American coast between latitudes 34 and 41 N. Its shareholders were London men, and it was distinguished from the Plymouth Company (q.v.), which was chartered at the same time and composed largely of Plymouth men. The London Company quickly (in December 1606) sent out three ships with 120 colonists, led by Capt. John Smith and Bartholomew Gosnold. In May 1607 the colonists reached Virginia and founded Jamestown at the mouth of the James River. After some initial hardships, the colony took root; and the London Company itself was reconstituted on a broader legal basis. It obtained two new charters, one in 1609 and one in 1612, which appropriated to it a great belt of territory 400 miles (640 kilometres) wide extending through the American continent to the Pacific Ocean. It also obtained large rights of government, authorizing it to appoint and hold full control of the resident governor, his resident council, and other officers. In 1619 the company established continental America's first true legislaturea two-part legislature, one part consisting of the governor and his council, named by the company in England, and the other a house made up of two burgesses from each settlement. Despite increasing prosperity in Virginia over the following years, the company's role came under attack as internal disputes among the shareholders grew and because the King himself was offended both by the trend toward popular government in Virginia and by the colony's efforts to raise tobacco, a noisome product of which the King disapproved. A petition submitted to the King calling for an investigation of conditions in the colony led to a trial before the King's Bench in May 1624. The court ruled against the company, which was then dissolved, and Virginia was transformed into a royal colony.