On the 20th of November, 1606, instructions were given by the crown for the government of the two colonies, directing that the council in England should be appointed by the crown; the local council by the superior one in England; the local one to choose a president annually from its own body; the Christian religion to be preached; lands to descend as in England; trial by jury secured in criminal causes; and the council empowered to determine all civil actions; all produce and goods imported to be stored in magazines; a clerk and treasurer, or cape-merchant, to be appointed for the colony. The stockholders, styled adventurers, were authorized to organize a company for the management of the business of the colony, and to superintend the proceedings of the local council. The colonists were enjoined to treat the natives kindly, and to endeavor by all means to convert them to Christianity.[37:A] Sir Thomas Smith was appointed treasurer of the company, and the chief management of their affairs intrusted to him. He was an eminent London merchant; had been chief of Sir Walter Raleigh's assignees; was about this time governor of the East India Company, and had been ambassador to Russia.[37:B] The frame of government thus provided for the new colony was cumbrous and complicated, the legislative and administrative powers being so distributed between the local council, the crown, and the company, as to involve the danger of delays, uncertainty, conflict, and irresponsibility. By the words of the charter the colonists were invested with the rights of Englishmen; yet, as far as political rights were concerned, there being no security provided by which they could be vindicated, they might often prove to be of no more real value than the parchment on which they were written. However, the government of such an infant colony must, of necessity, have been for the most part arbitrary; the political rights of the colonists must, for a time, have lain in abeyance. Their civil rights were protected in criminal causes by the trial by jury, and lands were to be held by a free tenure.