rt's voyages, as was the case with each of the early voyages of
the East India Company to the Orient. The so-called joint-stock company
of that day rarely had a permanent joint-stock of the sort identified
with the modern corporation. Instead, it functioned as a governing body
representing all of the merchants engaged in a particular trade, who
traded individually or through a variety of joint-stocks invested under
the general regulation of the company. And such was the character of
the Virginia Company.

Whatever may have been the specific terms offered earlier investors,
those offered in 1609 are clear enough. It was proposed that men
subscribe at the rate of L12 10s. per share to a common stock that
would be invested and reinvested over the term of the next seven years.
Although special good fortune might justify a dividend of some part of
the earnings at an earlier date, there would be no final dividend,
which at that time meant a division of capital as well as the earnings
thereof, until 1616. The dividend promised then would include a grant
of land in Virginia as well as a return of the capital with profit. How
much land depended, like the profit, on the degree of success that had
attended the venture meantime.

One of the inducements for subscription was a promise that all
adventurers would have a voice in determining the policies of the
company. Again, it is impossible to say just what had been the
organization through which the adventurers had previously functioned.
They probably followed custom by meeting in assemblies or courts (both
terms were common) when some joint decision was needed, and no doubt
they relied on the designation of such committees and officers as were
necessary for the execution of decisions reached in their assembly. It
may be that the adventurers sitting on the Virginia Council functioned
also in the character of an executive committee for their fellows. In
view of the well known tendency for institutions to evolve out of
earlier practices, with such adjustments as experience may dictate,
there is reason for believing that important features of the
organization outlined in the second charter were older than the charter
itself. But the charter of 1609 offers the first unmistakable evidence
as to the organization upon which the adventurers depended.

They were there incorporated by the name of "The Treasurer and Company
of Adventurers and Planters of the City of London, for the first Col