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description of
New England, he spent many months
1 in visiting the merchants and gentry of the west of
England, to excite their zeal for enterprise in
America: he proposed to the cities, mercantile profits, to be realized in short and safe voyages; to the noblemen, vast dominions; from men of small means, his earnestness concealed the hardships of emigrants, and, upon the dark ground, drew a lively picture of the rapid advancement of fortune by colonial industry, of the abundance of game, the delights of unrestrained liberty; the pleasures to be derived from ‘angling and crossing the sweet air from isle to isle, over the silent streams of a calm sea.’
2 The attention of the western company was excited; they began to form vast plans of colonization;
Smith was appointed admiral of the country for life; and a renewal of the letters patent, with powers analogous to those possessed by the southern company, became an object of eager solicitation.
But a new charter was not obtained with-
out vigorous opposition.
‘Much difference there was betwixt the Londoners and the Westerlings,’
3 since each party strove to engross all the profits to be derived from
America; while the interests of the nation were boldly sustained by others, who were desirous that no monopoly should be conceded to either company.
The remonstrances of the
Virginia corporation,
4 and a transient regard for the rights of the country, could delay, but not defeat, a measure that was sustained by the personal favorites of the monarch.
After two years entreaty, the ambitious adventurers gained
every thing which they had solicited; and King James issued to forty of his subjects, some of them members
