there. But the smallness of their number, surrounded as they were with the Indians, the want of provisions, and the recollection of what had befallen the hapless settlers in Virginia, with the dissensions that sprung up, induced them, shortly after, to return to England. They arrived in less than four months from the time of their departure, without having suffered from any sickness; and spread on all sides most favorable reports of the soil and climate of the new-discovered lands, while the new course they had held was shorter by one third than any by which the shores of America had been previously visited.
The accession of James I. was speedily followed by peace between England and Spain. Many active and energetic men who had been engaged in the struggle, were desirous of new fields of labor and enterprise, and nothing promised so well as the New World. Merchants and others became deeply interested in the reports of Gosnold and his companions, and it was not found difficult to induce them to undertake the following up the discoveries already made. These projects were powerfully aided by the judicious counsel and zealous encouragement of Richard Hakluyt, a prebendary of Westminster, a man of eminent attainments in naval and commercial knowledge, the patron and counsellor of many of the English expeditions of discovery, and the historian of their exploits. By his persuasion, two vessels were fitted out by the merchants of Bristol, under command of Martin Pring, to examine the discoveries of Gosnold, arid ascertain the correctness of his statements. They returned with an ample confirmation of his veracity. A similar expedition, commanded by Captain Weymouth, equipped and despatched by Lord Arundel, not only produced additional testimony to the same effect, but reported so many further particulars in favor of the country, that all doubts were removed; and an association sufficiently numerous, wealthy, and powerful, to attempt a settlement, being soon formed, a petition was presented to the king for the sanction of his authority to its being carried into effect.
James listened with a favorable ear to the application. But as the extent as well as value of the American continent began now to be better known, a grant of the whole of such a vast region to any one body of men, however reputable, appeared to him an act of impolitic and profuse liberality. For this reason he divided that portion of North America, which stretches from the thirty-fourth to the forty-fifth degree of latitude, into two districts nearly equal; the one called the First or South Colony of Virginia, the other, the Second or North Colony. He authorized Sir Thomas Gates, Sir George Somers, Richard Hakluyt, and their associates in the London Company, being mostly resident in London, to plant anywhere between thirty-four and forty-one degrees of north latitude, or between Cape Fear and the east end of Long Island. The Plymouth Company, composed of residents in the west of England,
