Bartholomew Gosnold and Bartholomew Gilbert, son of Sir Humphrey, with Raleigh’s consent and under the patronage of Henry Wriothesley, the brilliant and accomplished earl of Southampton, renewed the attempt at colonization.  With a small colony of thirty-two men they set sail from Falmouth March 26, 1602, took an unusual direct course across the Atlantic, and seven weeks later saw land at Cape Elizabeth, on the coast of Maine.  They then sailed southward and visited a headland which they named Cape Cod, a small island now “No Man’s Land,” which they called Martha’s Vineyard (a name since transferred to the larger island farther north), and the group called the Elizabeth Islands.  The colonists were delighted with the appearance of the country, but becoming apprehensive of the Indians returned to England after a short stay.[1]

In April, 1603, Richard Hakluyt obtained Raleigh’s consent, and, aided by some merchants of Bristol, sent out Captain Martin Pring with two small vessels, the Speedwell and Discovery, on a voyage of trade and exploration to the New England coast.  Pring was absent eight months, and returned with an account of the country fully confirming Gosnold’s good report.  Two years later, in 1605, the earl of Southampton and his brother-in-law, Lord Thomas Arundell, sent out Captain George Weymouth, who visited the Kennebec and brought back information even more encouraging.[2]

Meanwhile, Queen Elizabeth died March 24, 1603, and was succeeded by King James I. In November Raleigh was convicted of high-treason and his monopoly of American colonization was abrogated.  By the peace ratified by the king of Spain June 15, 1605, about a month before Weymouth’s return, the seas were made more secure for English voyages, although neither power conceded the territorial claims of the other.[3]

Owing to these changed conditions and the favorable reports of Gosnold, Pring, and Weymouth, extensive plans for colonization were considered in England.  Since the experiment of private colonization had failed, the new work was undertaken by joint-stock companies, for which the East India Company, chartered in 1600, with the eminent merchant Sir Thomas Smith at its head, afforded a model.  Not much is known of the beginnings of the movement, but it matured speedily, and the popularity of the comedy of Eastward Ho! written by Chapman and Marston and published in the fall of 1605, reflected upon the stage the interest felt in Virginia.  The Spanish ambassador Zuniga became alarmed, and, going to Lord Chief-Justice Sir John Popham, protested against the preparations then making as an encroachment upon Spanish territory and a violation of the treaty of peace.  Popham, with true diplomatic disregard of truth, evaded the issue, and assured Zuniga that the only object of the scheme was to clear England of “thieves and traitors” and get them “drowned in the sea."[4]