CkUMRINK : i'ENNSVLVANlA I'l il X I i.\R V Ci i\ I KOVKKSY. 511 



The first charter or patent for the ( olony of \ irginia was by Queen 

 Elizabeth in 1583, and it had neither name nor bounds. The settlers 

 under this i)atcnt. |iartl\ from misconduct and partly from the opposi- 

 tion of the Indians, and other calamities, abandoned their efforts and 

 the i)atent became extinct. But in 1602 James I. succeeded l->lizal)eth, 

 and in 1606 he issued a new jjatcnt incorporating two com[)anies, 

 called the South \'irginia Company, and the North Virginia Comjjany, 

 afterwards called respectively the London Company and the Plymouth 

 Coinpanw Kavh was to be limited to a square of one hundred miles 

 backward from the sea. The London Company, with which we are 

 concerned, settled at Cape Henry, and hence the scjuare of one hun- 

 dred miles granted by that patent could not have extended to the 

 eastern base of the Blue Ridge. But in 1609, the London Company 

 received a new patent, with the boundaries of their grant enlarged by 

 the following terms : 



"All those lands . . . lying and being in that part of America 

 called \'irginia, from the i)oint of land called Cape or Point Comfort, 

 all along the sea-coast to the northward two hundred miles ; and from 

 the said Point or Cape Comfort all along the sea-coast to the south- 

 ward two hundred miles ; and all that space and circuit of lands lying 

 from the sea-coast of the precinct aforesaid up into the land throughout, 

 from sea to sea, west and northwest." 



Observe the ambiguities in the terms of this grant, the chief of 

 which is in the words " up into the land throughout, from sea to sea, 

 west and northwest," as containing directions br the northern and 

 southern boundaries. Shall the due west line he drawn from a jjoint 

 on the sea-coast two hundred miles north of Point Comfort, and the 

 northwest line be drawn from a point on the sea-coast two hundred 

 miles south of Point Comfort? If so, then the London Company was 

 limited to a triangle which extended to no territory in our western 

 border. Or, shall the west line be drawn from a ]joint on the sea- 

 coast two hundred miles south of Point Comfort, and the northwest 

 line from a point on the .sea-coast two hundred miles north of Point 

 Comfort? This was the interi)retation claimed by \'irginia, and one 

 will .see that if it were correct, the northwest line would run through 

 the heart of Pennsylvania, passing east out of Erie City ; while, the 

 southern boundary line, running due west, the two would never meet, 

 and \'irginia would have owned the greater part of the entire continent. 

 But, without discussing further the propriety of either intcrjiretation. 



