The Virginia Company

Abstract

The responsible headship of the Virginia Company became a prime concern and leading activity of Southampton’s last and busiest years. But his interest in the plantation of America, in maritime and commercial affairs, in a forward, activist policy, went back a long way. It was this that aligned this former Catholic more and more with an aggressive, Protestant line of policy, and brought him very much to Ralegh’s standpoint, even to become a continuator of his colonial work — though there is no evidence of contact between the two men, and Southampton had belonged to Essex’s circle, Ralegh’s enemy. The pressures of life effect such transformations.