IN THE YEAR 1613. 
13 
established the earliest English colonies on our soil. 
In point of time, it is midway between the first perma¬ 
nent settlement in Virginia and the landing of the 
Pilgrims at Plymouth; and, in the influences attached 
to it, has definite relations to both. 
A list of the members of the Muscovy Company is 
not within reach, if still extant; but the men who 
managed its concerns, and sent out this and other 
expeditions to Spitzbergen, were, some of them at 
least, among the assignees of Raleigh, and followed up 
successfully his . plans of colonization. Sir Thomas 
Smith, the Governor of the Muscovy Company, was the 
Treasurer and de facto Governor of the Virginia Com¬ 
pany. Sir Dudley Digges (his kinsman) and Sir John 
Wolstenholme were likewise patentees, and named of 
the Council by the king in 1609. Sir Dudley Digges 
was also one of the New-England Company. 6 
6 Sir Thomas Smith stands first in the list of Raleigh’s assignees. The next, 
William Sanderson, was a veteran merchant of the same class, whose name was 
given to the most northerly point on the Greenland coast attained by Davis in 1587. 
Smith was the leading manager of the Virginia Company, but became unpopular on 
account of a body of laws sent over by him, that were considered objectionable for 
their severity. He surrendered his office in 1619, “ being far advanced in years and 
of tender health.;” having, “in the time of greatest trouble and difficulty, continued 
above twelve years in the principal office of the company ” ( Stith's Virginia , book iii. 
pp. 158-9). “ During all which time, (he) was Treasurer and Governor of the Com¬ 
pany, with the expense of seventy thousand pounds, or thereabouts, brought in for 
the most part by voluntary adventurers; being, a great many of them, Sir Thomas’s 
near friends and relations, and, for his sake, joining in the business” (ibid., book v. 
p. 301, from Alderman Johnson’s “ Declaration of the Prosperous Estate of the Colony 
during Sir Thomas Smith’s Time of Government”). 
Sir Thomas Smith was second son of Thomas Smith, Esq., in the county of Kent. 
He was a Farmer of the Customs in the reign of Queen Elizabeth; and was so much 
in favor with King James, that he sent him ambassador to the Emperor of Russia in 
1604. He was prominent in almost every important maritime enterprise of his time. 
He built a costly house at Deptford, near London; which was destroyed by fire in 
1619. His eldest son married a daughter of Robert, Earl of Warwick. He was buried 
under a stately monument in Hone Church, Kent. The inscription is a summary 
of his history: “ To the glory of God, and to the pious memorie of the honorable Sir 
