way through ice and snow to the sunny lands of the East. [Footnote 43: Hakluyt, vol. iii, p. 52.] [Footnote 44: Ibid. p. 56.] [Footnote 45: Ibid. p. 104.] [Footnote 46: Ibid. p. 105.] [Sidenote: _Sir Humphrey Gilbert._] In Great Britain the sixteenth century was the age of adventurers, casting about for ways to other worlds, or freebooting where Spain and Portugal claimed ownership of land and sea; but in that time two men stand out as having had definite views of settlement, and as having been colonizers in advance of their age. They are Sir Humphrey Gilbert and his half-brother, Sir Walter Ralegh. Edward Hayes, the author of a narrative of Gilbert's attempt to found a colony in Newfoundland, speaks of him as 'the first of our nation that carried people to erect an habitation and government in those northerly countries of America,'[47] and no nobler Englishman could well be found to head the list of English colonizers of the New World. Chivalrous in nature, bold in action, he was at the same time 'famous for his knowledge both by sea and land';[48] and it was his _Discourse to prove a passage by the north-west to Cathaia and the East Indies_, which is said to have determined Frobisher to explore the north. [Footnote 47: Hakluyt, vol. iii, p. 185.] [Footnote 48: From Fuller's _Worthies of Devonshire_.] [Sidenote: _His patent of colonization._] In June, 1578, Gilbert obtained from Queen Elizabeth his celebrated patent 'for the inhabiting and planting of our people in America.'[49] The grant was a wide one. It gave him full liberty to explore and settle in any 'remote heathen and barbarous lands, countries, and territories, not actually possessed of any Christian prince or people'; and it constituted him full owner of the land where he settled, within {29} a radius of two hundred leagues from the place of settlement. It was subject only to a reservation to the Crown of one-fifth of the gold and silver found, and to a condition that advantage should be taken of the grant within six years. For three or four years Gilbert's efforts to colonize under this patent were fruitless; he organized an expedition which came to nothing, and other men, to whom he temporarily resigned his rights, were equally unsuccessful. [Footnote 49: Hakluyt, vol. iii, p. 174.] [Sidenote: _His voyage to Newfoundland._]