now New England.

The following year, 1603, just after the death of Queen Elizabeth, some
merchant-venturers of Bristol sent out two vessels under Martin Pring.
Like Gosnold, Pring first made the coast of Maine and then felt his way
south. Unlike Gosnold, however, he 'bore into the great Gulfe' of
Massachusetts Bay, where he took in a cargo of sassafras at Plymouth
Harbor. But that was all the prospecting done this time. There was no
attempt at colonizing.

Two years later another prospector was sent out by a more important
company. The Earl of Southampton and Sir Ferdinando Gorges were the
chief promoters of this enterprise. Gorges, as 'Lord Proprietary of the
Province of Maine,' is a well-known character in the subsequent history
of New England. Lord Southampton, as Shakespeare's only patron and
greatest personal friend, is forever famous through the world. The chief
prospector chosen by the company was George Weymouth, who landed on the
coast of Maine, explored a little of the surrounding country, kidnapped
five Indians, and returned to England with a glowing account of what he
had seen.

The cumulative effect of the three expeditions of Gosnold, Pring, and
Weymouth was a revival of interest in colonization. Prominent men soon
got together and formed two companies which were formally chartered by
King James on the 10th of April, 1606. The 'first' or 'southern colony,'
which came to be known as the London Company because most of its members
lived there, was authorized to make its 'first plantation at any place
upon the coast of Virginia or America between the four-and-thirty and
one-and-forty degrees of latitude.' The northern or 'second colony,'
afterwards called the Plymouth Company, was authorized to settle any
place between 38 deg. and 45 deg. north, thus overlapping both the first company
to the south and the French to the north.

In the summer of the same year, 1606, Henry Challons took two ships of
the Plymouth Company round by the West Indies, where he was caught in a
fog by the Spaniards. Later in the season Pring went out and explored
'North Virginia.' In May, 1607, a hundred and twenty men, under George
Popham, started to colonize this 'North Virginia.' In August they landed
in Maine at the mouth of the Kennebec, where they built a fort, some
houses, and a pinnace. Finding themselves short of provisions,
two-thirds of their number returned to England late in the same year.
The remaining third passed a