Both companies at once took steps to plant their colonies, the Plymouth being the first in the field, although to the London Company was to accrue the earliest lasting success. The latter’s expedition, including in its members Bartholomew Gosold, who had already been in New England, and Captain John smith, who later was to become a factor there, sailed from London in three ships, on December 20, 1606. Arriving in Virginia the following spring, they established themselves at Jamestown, and so founded, what, in spite of many vicissitudes, was to be the first permanent English settlement in America.
Meanwhile, the Plymouth Company, mainly by virtue of the activity of Sir Ferdinando Gorges, who became indefatigable in his colonizing ardor, and of Chief Justice Popham, had also commenced operations. In 1600 had occurred Gorges’s unfortunate connection with the revolt of Essex, which had blasted his character in the eyes of the Puritans, and so served, perhaps, to embitter his future relations with Massachusetts. He had been for some time reinstated as Governor of Plymouth, when Weymouth returned from his voyage in 1605; and from him Gorges obtained possession of the three natives whom the captain had kidnaped on the coast of Maine. Having learned much from them of the nature of the country and its inhabitants, he despatched a vessel under Captain Henry Challons, in August, four months after the granting of the charter, with strict instructions to take the northern route to Cape Breton, and then to follow the coast southward to the place the natives had described.26 Challons disobeyed the order, went southward by the West Indies, and was captured by the Spaniards, some of the crew, with himself and the two natives, being carried to Spain, and others, by accident, to Bordeaux. The latter, after having filed claims with the authorities of the port, and left a “Letter of a Turnye,” returned to England, as did also, after some time and difficulty, Challons himself.27
Although the little ship of fifty-five tons had carried only twenty-nine Englishmen, it had been the intention to leave some of them for settling, “if any good occasion were offered”; and the Chief Justice had also dispatched a ship, under Captain Hanham, to meet and assist Challons in the enterprise. This, of course, he was unable to do; but he explored the shore, taking back with him to the company “the most exact discovery of that coast that ever came into their hands.”28 The reports were considered so encouraging that a much more considerable effort was next made by the adventurers.
On May 31, 1607, two ships, the Gift of God and the Mary and John, were dispatched from Plymouth under command of Raleigh Gilbert and George Popham, a relative of Sir John.29 The vessels became separated on June 29, and did not meet again until August 7, among the St. George’s Islands, off the coast of Maine.30 Having reached the mouth of the Kennebec, then called the Sagadahoc, the colonists explored the stream, and finally chose for their place of settlement a point at its mouth, on the high ground of the peninsula of Sabino.31 They landed on the 19th, when they had a sermon preached to them, and listened to the reading of their patent and laws. The next day they began the building of their fort, named St. George, followed by the dwellings and storehouse and the first boat built in America.
Meanwhile, the Spaniards were by no means oblivious of what was going on, both in North and South Virginia; and to the zeal of the Spanish ambassador in London in keeping his master posted as to the encroachments of the English upon his territories, we owe the preservation of a drawing of the fort in the infant colony, which he obtained from some one who had been there.32 From the first discussion of the Virginia charter, Zuñiga had written frequently to the King, telling him of the plans and doings of the English, and advising strong action to prevent their settling. For some years, Spanish spies were kept at Jamestown, who regularly sent home word of what was going on, by means of renegade English sailors, while evidently there was also a traitor at Sagadahoc, as even in the Royal Council itself.33 A vessel was once dispatched by Spain to wipe out both the colonies; but the crew proved faint-hearted, and no attack was made upon either, the King, moreover, having some hope, apparently, that both would conveniently prove failures of themselves.
At first, however, all went well at Sagadahoc, and early in October the Mary and John was sent home to carry word of the colony.34 The account brought back so pleased Gorges that he wrote a letter, “late at night,” to Sir Robert Cecil, to tell him of the “greate newes.” But he was doomed to disappointment. A couple of days later he had evidently heard more, and in a second letter wrote that the settlement was getting into trouble because of “childish factions, ignorant, timerous and ambitious persons.” Popham, who had been made president of the colony, he described as “an honest man, but ould, and of an unwieldy body, and timerously fearfull to offende, or contest with others that will or do oppose him, but otherways a discreete, carefull man.” Gilbert was declared, by hearsay, to be “desirous of supremacy, and rule, a loose life prompte to sensuality, little zeale in Religion, humerouse, headstronge and of small judgment and experience, other wayes valiant inough.”35 The next ship brought a letter from Popham to the King, but no better news for the company than the first, in spite of the president’s enthusiastic belief in the presence of nutmegs, cinnamon, and “other products of great importance,” in the imaginatively tropical climate of Maine.36 During the winter, which was unusually severe, the storehouse was burned, with most of the provisions; and before the arrival of the two supply ships sent out from England, Popham, the leader of the colony, died. The ships carried yet more serious news to the colonists in the death of the Chief Justice in England, which proved “such a corrosive to all, as struck them with despair of future remedy.”37 A later ship brought word of the death of Sir John, Gilbert’s elder brother, which necessitated that leader’s returning to England to look after his affairs. The colonists, in view of all these circumstances, resolved to quit the place, and return with Gilbert; and so all “former hopes were frozen to death,” and, by October, the wilderness of Maine was abandoned by the English, as, five years before, it had been by the French.38
The character of the colonists, and, more particularly, the unusual sequence of accidents, were enough to account for the failure of the attempt, without invoking, with Gorges, “the mallice of the Divell” to explain it. The company at home became thoroughly discouraged, and no further efforts were made to plant a settlement, although Sir Francis Popham, son of the late Chief Justice, continued to send over vessels for some years for trade and fishing, and it is probable that no year now passed without the temporary presence of Englishmen upon the coast.39 In connection with the obtaining of a new charter by the South Virginia Company, in 1609, the adventurers in the Northern Company were offered the opportunity to join with the Londoners on favorable terms, and to form with them “one common and patient purse,”