[17] Born in 1546; died, 1596. English navigator, who reached Mexico in 1567 and South America in 1572; explored the Pacific coast from 1578 to 1579, and returned to England the next year, after having circumnavigated the globe.
[18] Born, 1552; died, 1618. English navigator, who, after serving with the French Huguenots in the Netherlands, and in Ireland, led an unsuccessful expedition to colonize America in 1579; attempted to organize others with similar results; was confined in the Tower for several years after 1603; made an unsuccessful voyage to Guiana; was rearrested on his return, and executed.
[19] It was Gilbert who told his companions not to fear, since heaven was as near by sea as by land.
[20] It is an interesting fact that the first English child born on American soil was Virginia Dare, granddaughter of John White, governor of this colony.

CHAPTER II.
the first plantations and colonies, 1607–1630.

THE SETTLEMENT OF VIRGINIA.

21. The Virginia Company.—At the beginning of the seventeenth century England undertook in earnest to plant colonies in North America. Her only important rival was France. Efforts were first directed toward the vast unoccupied stretch of country between Canada and Florida. The upper part of this region was explored, with favorable results, by Bartholomew Gosnold in 1602, by Martin Pring in 1603, and by George Weymouth in 1605. These enterprises were encouraged by the new king, James I., and Raleigh was soon out of favor. The work of colonization required coöperation; and the example of the Muscovite and East India companies led certain important citizens to obtain a charter authorizing them, as the Virginia Company, to promote and govern colonies in the unsettled region. It was a favorable time for such an undertaking, since changes in agricultural methods and other economic causes had created a spirit of unrest and filled England with men eager for employment. Besides, the passion for discovery and the energy that marked Elizabeth’s reign had by no means died out, and fortune seemed beckoning from the new shores.

22. The Sub-companies.—The Virginia Company’s charter covered a region extending from the thirty-fourth to the forty-fifth degree of north latitude. This was not to be controlled by one set of men, however, for there were two sub-companies, one consisting of the charter members living in or near London, and the other of those living in or near Plymouth. The Londoners could colonize from the thirty-fourth to the thirty-eighth degree; the Plymouth people from the forty-first to the forty-fifth, while the intervening space was left to whichever company should first colonize it, with the proviso that neither company should settle within one hundred miles of the other. This idea of competition between the companies led to nothing, and indeed the whole scheme of the charter was a cumbrous one that promised little permanent success.