With this charter, however, and with these colonial laws, such as we have seen them to be, the two companies went into operation. A few adventurers, hastily drawn together by the company of London, undertook the settlement of South Virginia, (A. D. 1607,) and, after a long struggle with the difficulties inseparable from their situation, succeeded in laying the foundations of that rich and powerful commonwealth. The company of Plymouth, with which alone the scope of our proposed remarks connects us here, was feebler than its associate, and therefore slower in effecting the purpose of its creation. Some principal members of the company of Plymouth, among whom sir John Popham, lord chief justice of the court of king's bench, and sir Ferdinando Gorges, a gentleman of influence and fortune in the west of England, were the most zealous, sent two vessels, soon after they were incorporated, to explore their new acquisitions. One of these vessels was seized by the Spaniards, as an interloper; but the safe return and favorable report of the other encouraged the adventurers to prosecute their undertaking. A colony was therefore organized, (A. D. 1607,) consisting of George Popham, as president, Raleigh Gilbert, as admiral, and six inferior officers, with about one hundred private individuals; the fancy of the projectors having fashioned the outlines of a large and flourishing state. They selected a small island at the mouth of the river Kennebec for their place of residence, induced by the commodiousness of its situation, as a port for fishermen, and wholly unconscious of the excessive coldness of the climate. Arriving here towards the close of the year, they were barely enabled to build and fortify a store-house before the cold became intense; and they were afterwards oppressed by a rapid succession of hardships, unforeseen and unprepared for. Having emigrated in the expectation of enjoying a perpetual spring in America, it is easy to conceive how great was their disappointment, when they found themselves exposed to the premature and unusual severity of a northern winter. The loss of their store-house by fire, and the death of their president had already depressed their courage, when tidings arrived of the death of sir John Popham, who was the very soul of the expedition. Gilbert, also, returned to England in the spring, having succeeded to a rich inheritance, by the death of his brother, sir John Gilbert. A tradition has existed among the neighboring Indians, that this colony, without any New Series, No. 11. 6

provocation, killed a number of their ancestors by an atrocious and unprincipled stratagem, and thus converted a friendly tribe into persevering and implacable foes.* The resolution of the adventurers seems to have sunk under these accumulated misfortunes; for the settlement was soon afterwards abandoned in despair.

This

North Virginia now became the subject of detraction as violent and unauthorized, as its former celebrity had been extravagant. The prostrate colonists seemed anxious to hide their disgrace by invectives against the cold, sterile regions which they had forsaken; and they were so far successful, that the company of Plymouth never made another effort of equal magnitude with the expedition to Sagadehoc. part of America continued to draw the attention of merchants, by whose ships it was frequently visited, and a few enterprising individuals, among whom sir Ferdinando Gorges was pre-eminent, defrayed the expense of several voyages thither, which combined the pursuits of science and gain. These voyages were instrumental in developing the true character of the country, and in making its advantages more notorious; but were seldom productive of any more important or memorable consequence. Many attempts were made by Gorges individually, both in person and by his agents, to establish colonies in North Virginia, with a perseverance worthy of better fortune, than it obtained; for, after spending a large portion of his life and estate in these attempts, and involving himself in several vexatious suits, the whole issue of his exertions was the establishment of an inconsiderable settlement in Maine, which one of his descendants was glad to sell for a small consideration to the flourishing colony of Massachusetts. John Smith, also, so well known in the early history of Virginia, for his address and heroism, and for the romantic interest awakened by him in the breast of Pocahontas, undertook two voyages to this country, once in the service of private individuals, and again in that of the company of Plymouth. His first voyage was wholly commercial in its object, and as such was very successful; but it was more remarkable for the circumstance, that, in the course of it, Smith made a personal survey of the principal islands, rivers, bays, and capes, from which he constructed a chart of the coast, and presented it to the

* The particulars of this tradition may be seen in the Collections of the Mass. Hist. Society, vol. i. p. 251.

prince of Wales, afterwards the unfortunate Charles I, who bestowed on the country the distinguishing name of New England. The energy of Smith prevailed on the company of Plymouth, soon after his return (A. D. 1615,) to make one more languid exertion; but this second voyage ended unhappily; for the ship, in which the colony embarked, and which Smith himself commanded, being unjustly seized and detained by the French, this expiring struggle of the adventurers likewise proved ineffectual.

Thus it appears that every attempt of this company to effect the design of its institution, was eventually frustrated. The furs, fish, and other productions of New England, continued to be an object of commercial enterprize, both to the company and to private merchants; but, although one or two petty voy ages were made for the purpose of farther discovery, few persons retained any serious thoughts of colonization. Nor ought this, when we consider the subject attentively, to occa sion any surprise. So long as the object of establishing colo nies in America was the acquisition of riches, it was not to be expected that shrewd and calculating capitalists would engage in it, until they discerned a fair prospect of success. They would be slow to hazard a certainty for the sake of what was exceedingly uncertain. Large sums of money were necessary for the collection and transportation of colonists, and the maintenance of them until they should be capable of supporting themselves, in a wild and uncultivated country. Nor was it easy to find persons, who were willing to quit England for America. The nature of the voyage, the hardships to be expected from residing in the new world, the want of precious metals in the country, to allure and stimulate adventurers; the love of home implanted in the breast even of the lowest of the populace, all these difficulties would render it no easy task to gather together a respectable body of colonists. passage across the Atlantic was not then considered as it is now, to be safe at any season, and as an agreeable voyage at all times excepting in the coldest months of the year, but, on the contrary, was regarded with apprehension by all but experienced mariners. Besides, the early attempts of Raleigh and others to make settlements had completely failed, and every fresh disaster, not only disheartened the merchants and gentry, who lost by means of it, but deterred others from engaging in such hazardous experiments.-If, indeed, the first Eng

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lish navigators had found upon this coast a succession of mighty, polished, and wealthy barbaric empires, overflowing with a population that was rich without strength, luxurious without refinement or knowledge, factious and divided without skill in war, in short, laboring under the infirmities, without enjoying the corresponding benefits attendant on a high degree of civilzation, and therefore presenting an easy prey to the conqueror; if the English emigrants, like the Spanish, had been introduced to a country covered with cultivated lands, and abounding in large and populous cities, to monarchs, encompassed with the whole pageantry of empire, to princes and nobles dwelling in sumptuous palaces, to priests performing their holy rites, in temples illuminated with diamonds and costly gems, instead of the frail products of European art, and walled up with massive columns of molten silver and gold instead of marble, temples adorned with such lavish profusion of gorgeous magnificence, that the most splendid edifices of the old world would seem comparatively poor and mean; if, indeed, the English had fallen upon a northern El Dorado, there is no doubt that they would speedily have rent assunder the ties which bound them to their natal soil, and flowed into Virginia, no less eagerly, swiftly, and precipitately, than the Spaniards inundated Peru and Mexico. But far different was the real situation of things, and different, therefore, the progress of colonization, in the Spanish and English possessions on the continent of America.

So great was the difficulty of obtaining settlers for the first colonies in North and South Virginia, that none but men of ruined fortunes and blighted expectations at home could be prevailed upon to adventure themselves upon what was accounted a forlorn and desperate expedition. Excepting the truly great men, who put themselves at the head of some of the colonies, the mass of the emigrants, were spendthrifts, 'unruly sparks,' in the expressive language of the Virginian Stith, packed off by their friends to escape a worse destiny at home,' needy adventurers, men deeply and irrecoverably involved in debts, and such others, continues the same historian, as were much fitter to ruin a commonwealth, than to raise or maintain it. It was this desperate character of the early emigrants, their incurable spirit of insubordination, their idle, dissolute, and irregular habits, the absence of any strong and fixed principle, to reconcile them to a perpetual separation

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from their native land, added to their ignorance of the country, which so much retarded the growth of the settlement at James-Town. Nothing but the indefatigable exertions of capt. John Smith prevented its being abandoned, almost in the very outset ; and there is little doubt that, notwithstanding the zeal of capt. Smith, sir Thomas Dale, lord Delaware, and other gentlemen of the like spirit, this colony would have shared the fate of its contemporary at Sagadehoc, but for the superior mildness of the climate of South Virginia. It is impossible to say, therefore, how soon the council of Plymouth would have succeeded in colonizing the territory committed to their charge, in the ordinary course of events, by the means, on which they had hitherto relied, and if no stronger motive had intervened, than the remote prospect of individual or national emolument. Nay, there is too much reason to believe that, in a short time, New England' would have been irrecov erably lost to Great Britain. French establishments on the

north and east, as we shall presently see, and Dutch on the south, were gradually extending themselves more and more into the heart of New England, so that the very name itself was fast yielding place to those imposed on the country by France and the Netherlands. But a mightier principle of action was now at work in England, than either ambition or avarice; a principle, that could steel men against suffering, and shield them from hardship, in situations where any different influence would have proved impotent. An animated, eager, unconquerable love of civil and religious freedom had sprung up under the scourge of ecclesiastical intolerance, a high and ardent enthusiasm, which enabled a band of persecuted pilgrims to do, what rank, power, and wealth had been striving in vain to accomplish.

We have been thus particular in showing the intercourse of the English with this country previous to the settlement of Plymouth. We will now extend the inquiry, although more briefly, to the enterprises of other nations, so far as they had immediate connexion with the history of New-England. To begin with the French, whatever may have been the truth in regard to the conflicting pretensions of France and England, it is certain that the former nation displayed more eagerness than the latter to confirm her title, and place it beyond the reach of dispute, by the formation of colonial establishments in North America. We have already mentioned