After a month's stay here, they returned for England, as well pleased with the natural beauty and richness of the place they had viewed, as they were with the treasure they had gathered in it: neither had they a head, nor a finger that ached among them all the time.
§ 11. The noise of this short and most profitable of all the former voyages, set the Bristol merchants to work also; who, early in the year 1603, sent two vessels in search of the same place and trade—which vessels fell luckily in with the same land. They followed the same methods Captain Gosnell had done, and having got a rich lading they returned.
§ 12. In the year 1605, a voyage was made from London in a single ship, with which they designed to fall in with the land about the latitude 39°, but the winds put her a little farther northward, and she fell upon the eastern parts of Long Island, (as it is now called, but all went then under the name of Virginia.) Here they trafficked with the Indians, as the others had done before them; made short trials of the soil by English grain, and found the Indians, as in all other places, very fair and courteous at first, till they got more knowledge of the English, and perhaps thought themselves overreached because one bought better pennyworths than another, upon which, afterwards, they never failed to take revenge as they found their opportunity or advantage. So this company also returned with the ship, having ranged forty miles up Connecticut river, and called the harbor where they rid Penticost harbor, because of their arrival there on Whitsunday.
In all these latter voyages, they never so much as endeavored to come near the place where the first settlement was attempted at Cape Hatteras; neither had they any pity on those poor hundred and fifteen souls settled there in 1587, of whom there had never since been any account, no relief sent to them, nor so much as any enquiry made after them, whether they were dead or alive, till about three years after this, when Chesapeake bay in Virginia was settled, which hitherto had never been seen by any Englishman. So strong was the desire of riches, and so eager the pursuit of a rich trade, that all concern for the lives of their fellow-christians, kindred, neighbors and countrymen, weighed nothing in the comparison, though an enquiry might have been easily made when they were so near them.
CHAPTER II.
CONTAINING AN ACCOUNT OF THE FIRST SETTLEMENT OF CHESAPEAKE BAY, IN VIRGINIA, BY THE CORPORATION OF LONDON ADVENTURERS, AND THEIR PROCEEDINGS DURING THEIR GOVERNMENT BY A PRESIDENT AND COUNCIL ELECTIVE.
§ 13. The merchants of London, Bristol, Exeter, and Plymouth soon perceived what great gains might be made of a trade this way, if it were well managed and colonies could be rightly settled, which was sufficiently evinced by the great profits some ships had made, which had not met with ill accidents. Encouraged by this prospect, they joined together in a petition to King James the First, shewing forth that it would be too much for any single person to attempt the settling of colonies, and to carry on so considerable a trade; they therefore prayed his majesty to incorporate them, and enable them to raise a joint stock for that purpose, and to countenance their undertaking.