On May 24, 1624, King James I of England revoked a charter that he had granted to the Virginia Company 18 years prior, and Virginia officially became a royal colony. The deeper layer behind this royal takeover is that it was essentially a state-enforced foreclosure on a bankrupt corporate enterprise. The Virginia Company of London had completely failed to find gold or a passage to the South Sea, and the colony was hemorrhaging both money and human lives due to disease, starvation, and conflict. By revoking the private charter and seizing control, King James converted a failing, mismanaged commercial venture into a direct asset of the crown, anchoring the British Empire permanently in the soil of the New World through tobacco taxation.