THE COLONY ON THE JAMES.--Meanwhile another band of Englishmen (one hundred and forty-three in number) had been sent out by the London Company to found a colony in what is now Virginia. They set sail in December, 1606, in three ships under Captain Newport, and in April, 1607, reached the entrance of Chesapeake Bay. Sailing westward across the bay, the ships entered a river which was named the James in honor of the king, and on the bank of this river the party landed and founded Jamestown (map, p. 44). With this event began the permanent occupation of American soil by Englishmen. At this time, more than a hundred years after the voyages of Columbus, the only other European settlers on the Atlantic coast of the United States were the Spaniards in Florida. [Illustration: RUINS AT JAMESTOWN. Church tower as it looks to-day.] SUMMARY 1. The Huguenots tried to found French colonies on the coast of South Carolina (1562) and of Florida (1564); but both attempts failed. 2. In 1565 all America, save Brazil, either was in Spanish hands, or was claimed by Spain and not yet occupied. 3. During the next twenty years English sailors began to fight Spaniards, Drake sailed around the globe, Frobisher explored the far north, and Sir Humphrey Gilbert attempted to plant a colony in Newfoundland. 4. Gilbert's half-brother Raleigh then took up the work of colonization, but his attempts to plant a colony at Roanoke Island ended in failure. 5. The attacks of English buccaneers on the American colonies of Spain led to a war (1585-1604), in which the most memorable event was the defeat of the Spanish Armada. 6. After the war two companies were chartered to plant English colonies in America. The Plymouth Company's colony was a failure, but in 1607 the London Company founded Jamestown. FOOTNOTES [1] The forests supplied the trees for timbers. The seams were calked with the moss that hung in clusters from the branches, and then smeared with pitch from the pines. The Indians made them a rude sort of rope for cordage, and for sails they sewed together bedding and shirts. On the voyage home they ate their shoes and leather jerkins. Read Kirk Munroe's _Flamingo Feather_. [2] These men were adventurers, not true colonists, and little disposed to endure the toil, hunger, and dreariness of a life in the wilderness. It was not long, therefore, before the boldest of them seized two little vessels and sailed away to plunder Spaniards in the West Indies. Famine drove them into Havana, where to save their necks they told what was going on in Florida. Sixty-six mutineers presently seized two other vessels and turned buccaneers. But the survivors were forced to return to Fort Caroline, where the leaders were put to death.