Within a few years after the destruction of the Armada a great colonizing company was established in England for the purpose of sending out men to settle the New World. Sir Thomas Gates, Sir George Somers, and a number of associates asked King James the First of England to grant them a charter of incorporation. He consented, and on April 10, 1606, transferred to them the vast district called Virginia, which comprised practically all the territory later occupied by the thirteen American colonies. The charter which made the grant clearly declared “that all and every the Persons … which shall dwell and inhabit within every or any of the said colonies or Plantations, and every of their children, … shall have and enjoy all liberties, Franchises, and Immunities … as if they had been abiding and born within this our Realm of England.” This was a promise of self-government for all English colonies in America, and if England had carried it out in good faith there would not later have been the necessity of fighting the Revolutionary War; since all that the Americans demanded at the opening of that conflict was to be taxed only by their own representatives, a privilege which Englishmen in England had enjoyed for many generations. [Illustration: JAMESTOWN MONUMENT _A shaft to commemorate the first permanent English settlement on American soil. Jamestown was founded May 13, 1607._] The Virginia Company, as this great corporation was called, was divided into two subcompanies, the London and the Plymouth Companies, to each of which was assigned the task of colonizing one-half the territory. Before many weeks had passed George Popham attempted to plant a colony in the part assigned to the Plymouth Company, but it utterly failed. The London Company, meanwhile, had fitted up three small vessels, the Godspeed, the Discovery, and the Susan Constant, placed one hundred and five colonists aboard, and sent them forth to plant a colony. They sailed from the Downs on New Year’s Day, 1607, and after a stormy voyage of almost four months dropped anchor off a pleasant point of land, to which in gratitude they gave the name “Point Comfort.” JAMESTOWN, THE FIRST ENGLISH SETTLEMENT As they had been warned, however, to establish this settlement far up a navigable river, out of danger from wandering vessels of the Spanish Main, they entered the beautiful river of Powhatan, which they called the James, and sailed up it for some fifty miles until they came to a wooded island, which they chose as the site of their colony. There they cut logs and built the rude huts which marked the site of Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement within the limits of what we now know as the United States of America. [Illustration: THE MAYFLOWER _The pilgrim ship is shown as it entered Plymouth Harbor bringing the first New England settlers._]