One consequence of the conviction of Raleigh was the loss of any rights that he might still have had under the patent of 1584 giving him the sole right to colonize the vast territory called Virginia. The patent had obligated him to settle Virginia within 6 years but so long as the mystery of the Lost Colonists remained unsolved, Raleigh could allege that his colonists might be living somewhere in Virginia and that in consequence his rights under the Charter of Queen Elizabeth were still in force. These claims he asserted as late as 1603. In fact, the abolition of Raleigh’s claims appears to have been one of the outstanding consequences of the Cobham plot trails. Because his patent was now clearly lost and because of his imprisonment, Raleigh was unable to participate in the movement that culminated in the settlement of Virginia in 1607. Yet this movement, and the movement to settle New England, had close ties with him. Among the leading spirits behind the later successful Virginian enterprise were Richard Hakluyt and Sir Thomas Smythe, two of those to whom Raleigh had deeded his interest in the Lost Colony undertaking on March 7, 1589. Likewise, among the early leaders of the North Virginia, or Plymouth, group were Raleigh Gilbert and Sir John Gilbert, sons of Raleigh’s half-brother, Sir Humphrey Gilbert. Raleigh Gilbert participated in the effort to plant a settlement on the Kennebec River in Maine in 1607 and was a member of the Plymouth Company as late as 1620. _Later Historical Information on Fort Raleigh_ According to a letter, dated May 8, 1654, from Francis Yeardley, of Virginia, to John Farrar, a young trader and three companions went to Roanoke Island in September 1653. An Indian Chieftain “received them civilly and showed them the ruins of Sir Walter Raleigh’s fort.” They brought back a sure token of their having been there, which they gave to Yeardley. John Lawson wrote that the ruins of the fort could be seen in 1709 and that old English coins, a brass gun, a powder horn and a small quarter-deck gun made of iron staves and hooped with iron had been found on the site. An act of 1723 regarding a proposed town on Roanoke Island speaks of “300 Acres of Land lying on the No. E’t side of the said Island, commonly called Roanoke old plantation,” thus suggesting that at that date the northeastern part of the island was regarded as the scene of Raleigh’s settlements.