[September 22, 1612.] There is nothing so generally spoken of in the Courte as their intent to remove Our plantation from Virginia. And, for myne owne parte, I am of beliefe that the Spaniards will serve us as thei did the Frenchmen in Florida [Ribault's colony] unless wee undertake the business much more thoroughly and roundely then hitherto wee have donne.[11] [November 12, 1612.] I got a view of his [Zuñiga's] dispatch [by bribing some Spanish official, of course]. The chief matters were ... that there was no cause to apprehend so much danger in Virginia ... that he held it not unlikely _the Business might sinke of itselfe_, since it was maynteyned but by these shifts, which could last but for a yeare or two.... [For some months after the above, however, Digby sends frequent warnings of a Spanish expedition which he thinks is preparing against Virginia (Brown, _Genesis_, 603, 609, 623); but May 13, 1613, he writes again to James I:] ... theire resolution is not to stirre therein until they shall be better informed ... they are yet in a greate hope that the businesse will fall of itselfe. [Cf. other letters to the same effect, May 22, May 26, Aug. 15, in Brown's _Genesis_, 634, 635, 656.] FOOTNOTES: [5] See explanation of this form on page 44. [6] Observe that this important section of the charter is sandwiched in between two sections which ought not to have been separated. [7] Here follow the names of 659 persons and 56 gilds. The lists would fill some ten pages. It includes 21 of the greatest lords in England, 96 knights and some 90 other country gentlemen, 53 "captains," and a number of "sadlers," "drapers," "grocers," etc., with some professional men and others not classified. Fifty of the incorporators were members of the existing parliament, and fifty more were members of Parliament at one time or another. Among the 659 incorporators were Robert Cecil (the minister of Elizabeth and of James), the Earl of Southampton (Shakspere's friend), Sir Oliver Cromwell (uncle to the great Oliver), Francis Bacon, Richard Hakluyt, George Calvert (afterward Lord Baltimore), and Sir Edwin Sandys, soon to be the great Puritan leader in Parliament. [8] Hannis Taylor (in his _English Constitution_, I, 21), in a passage abounding in blunders, regards this Council as made up of Virginians and exercising local self-government. Unhappily there are other instances of the same error in standard works. [9] England in the seventeenth century still used the "Old Style" dates, instead of the "New" or Gregorian Style. The year began March 25, instead of January 1, and all dates between these two (from January 1 to March 25) were then given in the year previous to the one in which our "New Style" puts them. Moreover, the New Style moved all dates forward ten days. Therefore _March 12, 1611_, as the charter was dated at the time, means to us _March 22, 1612_.