and thrown again into the Tower; and was brought to the block on the 19th of October following. Meanwhile, although the colony in Virginia went on increasing, and began, after many disappointments, to promise some return to the outlay of the adventurers, they had enough to do in defending their possessions against enemies and rival claimants on all sides of them. Besides the contests in which they were involved with the aboriginal inhabitants, they found themselves called upon to take measures for driving away both a number of Frenchmen who had crossed the St. Lawrence and settled in Acadia (the present Nova Scotia), and in the country now forming the New England States; and also a body of Dutch colonists who had built the town of New Amsterdam (the present New York) and the port of Orange (now Albany), in what they called the country of New Netherlands; for as yet all the eastern coast of the American continent, from the 34th to the 45th parallels of latitude, was considered as belonging either to southern or northern Virginia, and as, therefore, included in the grants to the two companies. Both the French and the Dutch were dislodged in 1618 by the English governor, Sir Samuel Argal; but the Dutch soon returned, and eventually made good their position. Many attempts had been made to establish English settlements in the northern parts of this territory; but it was not till the year 1620 that the first plantation was made which actually took root and became permanent, at a place called Plymouth, the country around which soon after received the name of New England from the Prince of Wales (afterwards Charles I.). About the same time, also, a grant of the island of Barbadoes, which had been taken possession of for the King of England by an English ship returning from Guinea in 1605, was obtained from James by his lord treasurer, Lord Leigh, afterwards Earl of Marlborough, for himself and his heirs in perpetuity; and, under his sanction, a settlement was made upon it, and the town of James Town founded, in 1624, by a colony sent out at the expense of Sir William Courteen, or Courten, an opulent and spirited merchant
