In the first decade of the seventeenth century England began a second round of colonizing attempts. This time jointstock companies were used as the vehicle to plant settlements rather than giving extensive grants to a landed proprietor such as Gilbert or Raleigh, whose attempts at colonization in the 1570s and 1580s had failed.
The founding of Virginia marked the beginning of a twenty-five year period in which every colony in the New World was established by means of a joint-stock company. A variety of motives intensified the colonizing impulse - international rivalry, propagation of religion, enlarged opportunity for individual men - but none exceeded that of trade and profit. The companies were created to make a profit; their in vestments in the colonies were based on this assumption. Early in the 1630's merchants and investors discovered that they could employ their money in other more rewarding enterprises. After 1631, therefore, no colony was founded by mercantile enterprise, but by that date the enterprisers had left a legacy of colonization that was to endure.
In these instructions for the Virginia Company, the power of Spain and the fear derived from past failures invade every line. The detail and precision of the instructions reflect the work of experienced men; Richard Hakluyt, the younger, for example, probably had a hand in writing them.