interests and to secure their liberties and privileges. The reasons for my passing from the Jerseys to Virginia will soon be obvious. _Virginia_ was the original name for all the English North-American continental claims, given in honor to the virgin queen, Elizabeth. King James, being applied to, granted letters patent to a body of gentlemen on the 6th of April, 1606, with powers to divide themselves into two distinct companies, the one consisting of London adventurers, called the first or southern colony of Virginia; the second or northern colony, composed of merchants belonging to Bristol, Plymouth and Exeter. The territory granted to the first or southern colony, was generally called _Virginia_ without any distinguishing epithet; and retained that name after the second or northern colony obtained the name of New-England, in 1614. The London company applied their attention immediately to the forming of a settlement, and sent off a hundred and ten emigrants, who arrived on the coast of Virginia, April 29th, 1607: a party landed on the promontory, called, in honor of the prince of Wales, _Cape-Henry_; afterward proceeded to and took possession of a peninsula in James-river, and began a settement at _James-town_. The instructions given by the company of proprietors, when they sent out their second supply the following year, show that the most active projectors in England had for their chief objects discovery and gain, rather than colonization. [1609.] A new charter was obtained: many of the first nobility and gentry were added to the former proprietors, and were incorporared by the name of “The Treasurer and Company of Adventurers, of the city of London, for the first colony of Virginia.” To them was granted in absolute property the lands extending from Cape Comfort along the sea-coast southward 200 miles, from the same promontory 200 miles northward, and from the Atlantic westward to the South-sea. The company was empowered to make ordinances for the colony, and for those on the seas going thither. There was granted to the treasurer and company and their assigns, a freedom from all subsidies in Virginia for 21 years, and from all impositions on importations and exportations to and from England, or any other of the king’s dominions, “except only the five pounds in the hundred due for customs.” Little was conceded to the emigrants by the charter; and much conferred on the corporation. The colonists were to be governed by the ordinances of a corporation residing in England, in which they were not represented, and over the deliberations of which they had no control. The powers of the corporation were indeed controlable, as it was subject to the superintendance of the courts of justice within the realm, which could compel it to act agreeable as well to the grant, as to the laws of the state.