en the degrees of thirty-four and forty-one of northern
latitude. And that they should extend their bounds from the said first
seat of their plantation and habitation fifty English miles along the
seacoast each way, and include all the lands within an hundred miles
directly over against the same seacoast, and also back into the main
land one hundred miles from the seacoast; and that no other should be
permitted or suffered to plant or inhabit behind or on the back of them
towards the main land, without the express license of the council of
that colony, thereunto in writing first had and obtained. And for the
second colony, Thomas Hanham, Rawleigh Gilbert, William Parker, and
George Popham, esquires, of the town of Plymouth, and all others who
should be joined to them of that colony, with liberty to begin their
first plantation and seat at any place upon the coast of Virginia where
they should think fit, between the degrees of thirty-eight and forty
five of northern latitude, with the like liberties and bounds as the
first colony; provided they did not seat within an hundred miles of
them."

Sec. 14. By virtue of this patent, Capt. John Smith was sent by the
London company, in December, 1606, on his voyage with three small ships,
and a commission was given to him, and to several other gentlemen, to
establish a colony, and to govern by a president, to be chosen annually,
and council, who should be invested with sufficient authorities and
powers. And now all things seemed to promise a plantation in good
earnest. Providence seemed likewise very favorable to them, for though
they designed only for that part of Virginia where the hundred and
fifteen were left, and where there is no security of harbor, yet, after
a tedious voyage of passing the old way again, between the Caribbee
islands and the main, he, with two of his vessels, luckily fell in with
Virginia itself, that part of the continent now so called, anchoring in
the mouth of the bay of Chesapeake; and the first place they landed upon
was the southern cape of that bay; this they named Cape Henry, and the
northern Cape Charles, in honor of the king's two eldest sons; and the
first great river they searched, whose Indian name was Powhatan, they
called James river, after the king's own name.

Sec. 15. Before they would make any settlement here, they made a full
search of James river, and then by an unanimous consent pitched upon a
peninsula about fifty miles up the river