Still, the Virginia Company and the colony it oversaw struggled to survive.
By 1618 the company had found a way to use its most abundant resource-land-to tempt settlers to pay their own passage from England to the colony and then, after arrival, to pay the company a quitrent, or fee, to use the land. What began as an enterprise of investors seeking a dividend was funded a decade later almost exclusively by a public lottery. The company established a settlement at Jamestown in 1607, and over the next eighteen years, the Crown granted the company two new charters, democratizing its governance and reforming its financial model. Investors, meanwhile, were protected from catastrophic losses in the event of the project’s failure.
Such a venture allowed the Crown to reap the benefits of colonization-natural resources, new markets for English goods, leverage against the Spanish-without bearing the costs. The Virginia Company of London was a joint-stock company chartered by King James I in 1606 to establish a colony in North America.
