The involvement of the London Companies is a very important ingredient in the Plantation, but the devisors of the Plantation recognised that this more commercial society which they hoped to develop, which would lead to the betterment of everybody, native as well as settler, could only happen if there were towns, porch towns particularly, and there were no porch towns in the planted area.

So that in that sense the requirement to have the development of urban settlements on the coast, which would provide the population in the interior with the opportunity of supporting their agricultural surplus or their outcomes of their manufacturing activity, and which would give them access to the commercial world outside, in London or Amsterdam or wherever it might be, that this required that a commercial element be introduced. And that as they advertise for would-be settlers as undertakers in the Plantation, that this commercial element was not forthcoming.

So the King and his advisors saw the necessity, effectively, of dragooning the London Companies to become involved - not only in the establishment of towns but undertaking the formal Plantation of one of the six counties, or at least a redesignated county - the county of Londonderry - which was the former county of Coleraine which was extended. And the London Companies, as well as establishing the two towns, were to become landed proprietors and establish estates, each of The Companies assuming responsibility for a particular area.

The London Companies certainly invested more money in the Plantation than any of the other proprietors. They monitored... not only were they subject to government monitoring, but the London Companies themselves monitored what their agents were doing on-the-ground, and they invested substantially, particularly in the development of the infra-structure, but some of The Companies seek also fairly actively to try and get tenants to settle on their land.