Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 1.djvu/29

 his permission to enter, and to seize upon every ship, the master of which was found trading in that jurisdiction without his special license, and to appropriate its cargo. Gilbert and those who would succeed him were left at liberty to adopt whatever regulations they should consider necessary for the government of their colony, in every branch of its affairs, provided that the enactments were not repugnant to the written or unwritten laws of England. They could give an ownership in the soil in fee simple, subject only to the condition that one-fifth of all the precious metals found in each plantation was to be reserved for the sovereign. Those religious doctrines were to be supported which were professed in the Church of England. The inhabitants were to enjoy the personal and political rights which the English people possessed in their native country.

In the testamentary assignment which Gilbert made of the powers he acquired under these letters patent, in anticipation of a fatal ending to the new adventure he had then projected, he gave instructions as to how these powers were to be put into practice, which recall the various provisions that at a later period were enforced by the quarter courts of the London Company in carrying into effect the general rights conferred by its charter. The disastrous