[159] However great our objections to every form of monopoly, it may well be questioned whether the merchant shipping of England could at this period have made any advance against the Dutch, Spaniards, Portuguese, Venetians, and others in their commercial intercourse with the East unless some inducement had been offered to great corporations to take the first and most hazardous risks of competing with established rivals. Indeed, most persons in England at this time felt, and not without valid reasons, that it would be impossible for individual capitalists to cope successfully with the powerful maritime associations which had in a great measure absorbed the most lucrative branches of commerce throughout the world. For these reasons the East India Company had been established, and for precisely similar reasons the English Government had been induced in 1606 to grant a charter to a company formed for trading to the Levant, though in this instance each individual traded on his own account subject to general regulations framed for the guidance of the whole of the members of the association. [160] ‘Select observations of the incomparable Sir Walter Raleigh relating to trade, as it was presented to King James.’—Published, London, 1696. See also Macpherson, vol. ii. pp. 233-239. [161] Made up thus:—a hundred last of barrels, 72_l._; salt, 88_l._; men’s wages for four months, 91_l._; and their provisions during that time, consisting of bread, 21_l._; beer, 42_l._; bacon and butter, 18_l._; and peas, 3_l._ [162] See miscellaneous and interesting details relative to English trade for the year 1615, with Sir Dudley Diggs’ ‘Defence of Trade,’ etc., in Macpherson, vol. ii. pp. 279-282. [163] Captain Gosnold had been employed in several of the previous voyages. He appears to have traded direct with the Indians, in lat. 42°, in peltry, sassafras, and cedar-wood. He was also the first to sow English corn in the Island of Martha’s Vineyard (so named by him). In the following year (1603) two ships from Bristol and one from London traded successfully to the same parts (Macpherson, ii. pp. 229-246, etc.). The most remarkable of all these expeditions was that of Captain John Smith, who sailed from London in 1607, and is deservedly considered the real founder of the colony of Virginia (see ‘True Travels, Adventures, etc., of Captain John Smith,’ Lond. 1627). Captain Smith is the hero of a famous old ballad, called ‘The Honor of a London ’Prentice; being an account of his matchless manhood and boyhood.’