ABSTRACT
Settlers, it was generally considered, had a responsibility towards the promoters (who had adventured their money) to ensure, by their diligence, that the investment should in due course earn its reward. The promoters, even more clearly, had a responsibility towards the settlers (who had adventured their lives), not only to transport them to the place of settlement, but to see that they were adequately equipped; to provide food and reinforcement at appropriately spaced intervals, during the critical early years; and to wait patiently for profits until the colony was sufficiently established to produce marketable commodities without neglecting its own immediate needs. According to Bacon-generalizing from a hundred years of Spanish experience as well as from the few English experiments of his own day-" . . . the Principall Thing, that hath beene the Destruction of most Plantations, hath beene the Base, and Hastíe drawing of Profit, in the first Yeeres."2
