_History._--During the 16th century and the early part of the 17th, the coast of Maine attracted various explorers, among them Giovanni da Verrazano (1524), Estéban Gomez (1525), Bartholomew Gosnold (1602), Martin Pring (1603), Pierre du Guast, Sieur De Monts (1604), George Weymouth (1605), and John Smith (1614), who explored and mapped the coast and gave to the country the name New England; but no permanent English settlement was established within what are now the borders of the state until some time between 1623 and 1629. In 1603 De Monts received from Henry IV. of France a charter for all the region between 40° and 46° N. under the name of Acadie, or Acadia, and in 1604 he built a fort on Neutral Island at the mouth of the Saint Croix river. This he abandoned in 1605, but some of his followers were in the vicinity a few years later. In the same year George Weymouth explored the south-west coast, kidnapped five Indians, and carried them to England, where three of them lived for a time in the family of Sir Ferdinando Gorges, who soon became the leader in founding Maine. In 1607 the Plymouth Company, of which he was an influential member and which had received a grant of this region from James I. of England in the preceding year, sent out a colony numbering 120 under George Popham (c. 1550-1608), brother of Sir John Popham, and Raleigh Gilbert, son of Sir Humphrey Gilbert. The colony established itself at the mouth of the Kennebec river in August, but, finding its supplies insufficient, about three-fifths of its number returned to England in December; a severe winter followed and Popham died; then Gilbert, who succeeded to the presidency of the council for the colony, became especially interested in his claim to the territory under his father's charter,[6] and in 1608 the colony was abandoned. In 1609 the French Jesuits Biard and Masse established a fortified mission station on the island of Mount Desert, and although this as well as the remnant of De Monts' settlement at the mouth of the Saint Croix was taken in 1613 by Sir Samuel Argall (d. 1626), acting under the instructions of the English at Jamestown, Virginia, some of these colonists returned later. In 1620 the Council for New England, the successor of the Plymouth Company, obtained a grant of the country between latitude 40° and 48° N. extending from sea to sea, and two years later Gorges and John Mason (1586-1635) received from the Council a grant of the territory between the Merrimac and the Kennebec rivers for 60 m. inland under the name of the Province of Maine. In 1629 they divided their possession, Gorges taking the portion between the Piscataqua and the Kennebec. Numerous grants of land in this vicinity followed within a few years; and in the meantime permanent settlements at York, Saco, Biddeford, Port Elizabeth, Falmouth (now Portland) and Scarborough were established in rapid succession. The Council for New England surrendered its charter in 1635. In the division of its