The Virginia Company.

Even before there was a Virginia Company there was Sir Walter Raleigh and his dream of a colony in America. The colony at Roanoke had been his venture, and even though it failed he still had hopes for an English settlement in the New World. But Raleigh was bankrupt, and in seeking support for a colony he turned to traders and businessmen such as Sir Thomas Smith, first president of the East India Company, which had just been chartered in 1600. It would be men like Smith, wealthy merchants, rather than men like Raleigh, gentlemen-adventurers, who bankrolled early colonies as business ventures. That they all lost money must be attributed not to their foolishness but to ignorance of what settlements in the New World truly cost. By 1605 England was poised for greater adventures overseas. That year it had signed a peace with Spain...