In the year 1607 the Plymouth Company, under the direction of Lord Chief Justice Popham, dispatched a vessel to inspect their territory of North Virginia. That vessel being captured by the Spaniards, Sir John Popham, at his own expense, sent out another, which, having returned with a favorable report of the country, he was enabled to equip an expedition for the purpose of effecting a settlement there. Under the command of his brother, Henry Popham, and of Raleigh Gilbert, a nephew of Sir Humphrey Gilbert, a hundred emigrants, embarking May, 1607, in two vessels, repaired to North Virginia, and seated themselves at the mouth of the River Sagahadock, where they erected Fort St. George. However, after enduring a great deal of sickness and hardship, and losing several of their number, including their president, Henry Popham, and hearing by a supply-vessel of the death of their chief patrons, Sir John Popham, and Sir John Gilbert, (brother of Raleigh Gilbert,) they gladly abandoned the colony, and returned to England in the spring of 1608. It was in this year that Henry Hudson, an Englishman, employed by the Dutch East India Company, after entering the Chesapeake, and remarking the infant settlement of the English, discovered the beautiful river which still retains the name of that distinguished navigator. The Dutch afterwards erected near its mouth, and on the Island of Manhattan, the fort and cabins of New Amsterdam, the germ of New York. Smith had hitherto declined, but now consented, September, 1608, to undertake the office of president. Ratcliffe was under arrest for mutiny; and the building of the fine house which he had commenced for himself in the woods, was discontinued. The church was repaired, the storehouse newly covered, magazines for supplies erected, the fort reduced to a pentagon figure, the watch renewed, troops trained; and the whole company mustered every Saturday in the plain by the west bulwark, called "Smithfield." There, sometimes, more than a hundred dark-eyed and dark-haired tawny Indians would stand in amazement to see a file of soldiers batter a tree, where a target was set up to shoot at.