The circumstances which placed Arlington in Virginia began to take shape even earlier than 1608. The two companies organized to colonize Virginia were granted their first charter by James I of England on April 10, 1606.[4] This was styled "Letters Patent to Sir Thomas Gates, Sir George Somers, and others, for two several Colonies and Plantations, to be made in Virginia, and other parts and Territories of America." The patentees were authorized "... to make habitation, plantation, and to deduce a colony of sundry of our people into that part of America, commonly called Virginia ..." between 34 deg. north latitude and 45 deg. north and within 100 miles of the coast. Within this area the spheres of operation of the two companies (which came to be known as the London and Plymouth Companies because their principal backers hailed from one or the other of these English towns) were delineated. To the former was given the right to plant a colony within the area from north latitude 34 deg. to 41 deg., and to the latter within the area from 38 deg. to 45 deg. inclusive. The overlapping area from 38 deg. to 41 deg. was open to settlement by either company, though neither might establish a settlement within 100 miles of territory occupied by the other. The actual jurisdiction of each company was limited to 50 miles in each direction from the first seat of plantation. This last restriction was not carried over into the second charter. (Map I.) [4] Hening, Vol. i, p. 57. Cf. also Title 7.1, Sec. 1, _Code of Virginia, 1950_. [Illustration: MAP I Bounds Set by First Two Charters of the Virginia Company Drafted by W. B. Allison and B. Sims] Although the Plymouth Company sent out ships in the spring of 1607, the settlement attempted by them on the coast of Maine was abandoned the following year. The first settlement which was to prove permanent was made by the London Company whose ships, sailing from London in December 1606, reached the mouth of the James River in Virginia in April 1607. The founding of "James Cittie" provided a point of reference for the second charter of the London Company (which came to be known as the Virginia Company). This charter,[5] granted in 1609, gave it jurisdiction over "all those lands, countries, and territories, situate, lying, and being, in that part of America called Virginia, from the point of land, called Cape or Point Comfort, all along the sea coast, to the northward 200 miles, and from the said Point or Cape Comfort, all along the sea coast to the southward 200 miles, and all that space and circuit of land, lying from the sea coast of the precinct aforesaid, up into the land, throughout from sea to sea, west and northwest; and also all the islands lying within one hundred miles, along the coast of both seas of the precinct aforesaid;..." [5] Hening, Vol. i, p. 80. Cf. also Title 7.1, Sec. 1, _Code of Virginia, 1950_.