Читать книгу The Beginners of a Nation - Eggleston Edward - Страница 24

Fall of the lottery. From the first nobody reaped any profit from investments made in the new colony except the clique of merchants who had been allowed to sell wretched supplies for the distant settlers at ruinous rates. Rich and those interested with him had abundantly reimbursed themselves for all outlays on their part. The Virginia Company, swindled by commercial peculators at home, robbed by a pirate governor in America, and embarrassed by Spanish intrigues at the English court, had also been deprived of the lotteries, large and small, which had supplied money for sending eight hundred emigrants to Virginia. The lottery, which had fallen into great disrepute and had suffered "many foul aspersions," was abolished in compliance with a public sentiment. 21 The company was tottering swiftly to a fall; vultures like Warwick were waiting longingly for its death.

Revival of interest, 1618. But there set in once more a widespread patriotic movement in its behalf. Such movements were characteristic of that vital age when love of country was fast coming to count for more as a motive to action than loyalty to the person of a prince. "Divers lords, knights, gentlemen, and citizens, grieved to see this great action fall to nothing," came to its rescue with one final effort which resulted after some years in putting the enterprise well beyond the danger of failure. They formed auxiliary societies within the Virginia Company, after the custom of corporations in that day. Each of these undertook to plant a settlement or "hundred." In one year the population rose from less than four hundred to about a thousand. The newly active element infused a more liberal spirit into the company, and set about correcting the abuses in its management.