* Another corporation to claim America during that time was the Massachusetts Bay Colony. They weren’t quite as successful, however, as the East India Company, and when the corporation wasn’t performing up to the measure of King James, he threatened to revoke its charter. One of the documents in the possession of the University of Virginia, compiled as “Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, Chapter 23” contains Jefferson’s note to himself of his possessing “an order of council for issuing a quo warranto against the charter of the colony of the Massachuset’s [sic] bay in New-England, with his majesty’s declaration that in case the said corporation of Masschuset’s [sic] bay shall before prosecution had upon the same quo warranto make a full submission and entire resignation to his royal pleasure, he will then regulate their charter in such a manner as shall be for his service and the good of that colony. 1683, July 26. 35. Car. 2.” Much of America was then considered plantation land for British corporations. Another of Jefferson’s documents in the same collection is titled “A proclamation for prohibiting the importation of commodities of Europe into any of his majesty’s plantations in Africa, Asia, or America, which were not laden in England: and for putting all other laws relating to the trade of the plantations in effectual execution. 1675, Oct. 1. 27. Car. 2.” The most powerful of the British corporations of the time, though, was the East India Company.