[Sidenote:  The London and Plymouth Companies.] In 1606 two great joint-stock companies were formed in England for the purpose of planting such colonies.  One of these companies had its headquarters at London, and was called the London Company; the other had its headquarters at the seaport of Plymouth, in Devonshire, and was called the Plymouth Company.  To the London Company the king granted the coast of North America from 34 deg. to 38 deg. north latitude; that is, about from Cape Fear to the mouth of the Rappahannock.  To the Plymouth Company he granted the coast from 41 deg. to 45 deg.; that is, about from the mouth of the Hudson to the eastern extremity of Maine.  These grants were to go in straight strips or zones across the continent from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific.  Almost nothing was then known about American geography; the distance from ocean to ocean across Mexico was not so very great, and people did not realize that further north it was quite a different thing.  As to the middle strip, starting from the coast between the Rappahannock and the Hudson, it was open to the two companies, with the understanding that neither was to plant a colony within 100 miles of any settlement already begun by the other.  This meant practically that it was likely to be controlled by whichever company should first come into the field with a flourishing colony.  Accordingly both companies made haste and sent out settlers in 1607, the one to the James River, the other to the Kennebec.  The first enterprise, after much suffering, resulted in the founding of Virginia; the second ended in disaster, and it was not until 1620 that the Pilgrims from Leyden made the beginnings of a permanent settlement upon the territory of the Plymouth Company.

[Sidenote:  Their common charter.] These two companies were at first organized under a single charter.  Each was to be governed by a council in England appointed by the king, and these councils were to appoint councils of thirteen to reside in the colonies, with powers practically unlimited.  Nevertheless the king covenanted with his colonists as follows:  Also we do, for us, our heirs and successors, declare by these presents that all and every the persons, being our subjects, which shall go and inhabit within the said colony and plantation, and every their children and posterity, which shall happen to be born within any of the limits thereof, shall have and enjoy all liberties, franchises, and immunities of free denizens and natural subjects within any of our other dominions, to all intents and purposes as if they had been abiding and born within this our realm of England, or in any other of our dominions.  This principle, that British subjects born in America should be entitled to the same political freedom as if born in England, was one upon which the colonists always insisted, and it was the repeated and persistent attempts of George III. to infringe it that led the American colonies to revolt and declare themselves independent of Great Britain.