Gosnold and his companions brought home such favourable reports of the country and the shortness of the voyage, that the following year a company of Bristol merchants despatched two small vessels, under the command of Martin Pring, for the purpose of exploring the country and commencing a trade with the natives. They carried out with them trinkets and merchandise suited for such traffic, and their voyage was eminently successful. They discovered some of the principal rivers of Maine, and examined the coast of Massachusetts as far south as Martha’s Vineyard. The whole voyage occupied but six months. Pring repeated his voyage in 1606, making still more accurate surveys of the country. English enterprises for discovery were rapidly continued. An expedition, promoted by the Earl of Southampton and Lord Arundel of Wardour, and commanded by George Weymouth, having explored the coast of Labrador, discovered the Penobscot River. It left England in March, and in six weeks reached the American continent near Cape Cod. We must, however, now return to the French and their colonies, of whom we have lost sight for some time. In 1598, the Marquis de la Roche received a commission from Henry IV. to found a French empire in America. But his enterprise utterly failed. His proposed colonists were the refuse of the jails; these he conveyed to the desolate Sable Island, on the coast of Nova Scotia, where, after languishing twelve years, they were allowed to return, and their offences pardoned in consideration of their sufferings. Five years later, in 1603, a company of merchants of Rouen resolved to attempt a scheme of colonisation, and Samuel Champlain, a man “marvellously delighting in such enterprises,” was placed at its head. He proceeded to Canada, carefully studied the geography of the country and the manners of the Indians, and selected Quebec as a commodious situation for a settlement, near the place where, in 1541, Cartier had passed the winter and erected a fort. Champlain returned to France, and De Monts, an able patriot and an honest Calvinist, obtained a patent from the French government, which conceded to him the sovereignty of Acadia from the fortieth to the forty-sixth degree of latitude, that is, from a degree south of New York city to one north of Montreal, with a monopoly of the fur trade, control and government of the soil, and freedom of religion for the Huguenots. Wealth and honour were expected from the expedition. He set sail with two vessels in March 1604, reached Nova Scotia in May, and spent the summer in trading with the natives and examining the coasts preparatory to a settlement.