The geographical position of Devonshire suggests, what is also the fact, that the county had a considerable share in the colonization of the Western Hemisphere. The first port in Devon to send out ships to America for the purpose of establishing settlements was Dartmouth. In this enterprise, Humphry and Adrian Gilbert, who were half-brothers of Sir Walter Raleigh, and whose seat, Greenway, was close to Dartmouth, took the lead. The pioneer expedition, which took place in 1579, was productive of no result; but in 1583, Humphry Gilbert seized Newfoundland, the present inhabitants of which are largely of Devon ancestry. This navigator, though brave and skilful, rests under an ugly imputation which we must all hope is baseless. According to some, he proposed to Queen Elizabeth the perfidious destruction of the foreign fishing fleets which had long made the island their station. During his homeward voyage Humphry was drowned, and the manner of his death is depicted in an old ballad:— He sat upon the deck; The book was in his hand. “Do not fear; Heaven is as near By water as by land.” Adrian Gilbert interested himself in the discovery of the North-West Passage, but neither of the brothers did much more than secure for Dartmouth a principal share in the Newfoundland trade, for many and many a year one of the chief props of Devon commerce. Of far greater practical significance, as a centre of maritime adventure, was Plymouth. Hence sprang William Hawkins, the first of his nation to sail a ship in the Southern Seas. Hence sprang his more famous son, Sir John Hawkins, the first Englishman that ever entered the Bay of Mexico, and who spent the bribes of Philip of Spain in defensive preparations against that tyrant’s fleet. Here was organized the Plymouth Company founded for the colonization of North Virginia after the failure of Sir Walter Raleigh (who, like Sir Humphry Gilbert, had made Plymouth his base) to form a settlement. The efforts of the Plymouth Company were at first not very felicitous, but in 1620 it received a new charter, and although its schemes were absurdly ambitious, and fell ludicrously short of realization, and although it was administered for private ends rather than in a large spirit of enlightened patriotism, still the mere existence of the company must have tended to promote the flow of men and money to the new plantations beyond the seas.