Calvert was very early interested in colonization. He was a member of the Virginia Company in 1609, and later one of the councilors for New England. In 1620 he was one of a commission appointed to settle the affairs of a Scotch company for colonizing Newfoundland, and in the next year he dispatched his first colony to the southeastern peninsula of that island which he had bought from Sir William Vaughan. In this latter year (1621) he secured a grant of the whole vast island, but in 1622 he accepted a re-grant of the peninsula alone, and this became his first proprietary colony. Captain Whitbourne's pamphlet on Newfoundland was just then circulating gratuitously by the aid of collections made in the churches with the sanction of royal authority. It described a Newfoundland of Edenic fruitfulness. Even cool-headed statesmen like Calvert appear to have been captivated by the stories of this veteran seaman and weather-beaten romancer. Calvert called his new province Avalon. The name signifies the land of apples--that is, the fruitful country. In old British mythology it was the paradise of the blessed, the island in the western seas to which King Arthur was translated in the famous legend. This name of promise suited the situation of the new island state, and fitted well the enthusiastic tales of Whitbourne and the groundless hopes of Calvert. The bleak Newfoundland coast had already blossomed with fanciful names; there was the Bay of Plesaunce and the Bay of Flowers, Robin Hood's Bay and the River of Bonaventure; there was the Harbor of Formosa and the Harbor of Heartsease. Avalon, the earthly paradise, was but the complement of these. IV. [Sidenote: The charter of Avalon.] [Sidenote: Note 4.] [Sidenote: Note 5.]