The first English expeditions to make settlements in America were sent out under the authority of Sir Humphrey Gilbert, Sir Walter Raleigh, and other individuals. Later on, the difficult and expensive work of colonization was undertaken by companies. These had regular trading agents and workmen, and expected rich profits from trade with the colonies. The colonies in the New World were encouraged by the sovereign, also, who regarded them as a check on the power of Spain to the south and on that of France to the north. A band of about a hundred men sent out by the London Company, left England in December, 1606, in three little vessels, the Discovery, the Good Speed, and the Susan Constant. The party was led by Christopher Newport who had served under Raleigh and had himself captured Spanish treasure-ships. After a roundabout voyage by the West Indies, further delayed by contrary winds, in the spring of 1607 the colonists entered a noble bay. “The low shores were covered with flowers of divers colors; the goodly trees were in full foliage, and all nature seemed kind and benignant.” The Englishmen called the capes on either side of the bay Cape Henry and Cape Charles, in honor of the king’s two sons; the river up which they sailed and the settlement they founded were named for King James. The landing at Jamestown was made May 13, 1607. The band was ill fitted for the work before it. In it there were only a few workmen, carpenters, blacksmiths, and masons, and many “gentlemen”--men “that never did know what a day’s work was,” and that came for adventure or in search of gold. There had been, it seems, jealous disputes on the way out, and John Smith had been put under arrest. After they landed, the settlers opened the sealed instructions given when they left England and found that Smith was appointed one of the directors of the colony; at first he was not allowed to take his place, but in course of time he became not only a director, but president, of the colony. Some of the colonists busied themselves those spring days planting gardens as in England, and planting also cotton and orange trees, we are told. Others looked around for gold and set out to discover the Pacific Ocean, which they thought was near at hand. Unfortunately a malarial site had been chosen for the colony, and in the hot, wet summer, the men, unaccustomed to the climate, fell sick. Their ill-health was increased by bad water and lack of food. By September half of the hundred colonists had died of famine and fever: there were not enough able-bodied men to bury the dead in decent fashion; the bodies were “trailed out of their cabins like dogs to be buried.” Fortunately the Indians did not choose this time for an attack; instead, they brought corn and game to trade for beads, bells, and other trinkets.