This pioneer charter providing definitely for English colonization in America bore date of eleventh of June 1578, and was limited to six years. The full text is given in the _Principal Navigations_. It conferred upon Sir Humphrey, his heirs and assigns, large powers, and provided the machinery necessary for the government of a colony. It gave him and them free liberty and license to “discover, finde, search out, and view such remote, heathen and barbarous countreys and territories not actually possessed by any Christian prince or people,” and to have, hold, occupy, and enjoy such regions with all their “commodities, jurisdictions, and royalties both by sea and land,” the single condition being that one-fifth part of the gold and silver ore that might be obtained be paid over to the queen. They were empowered to “encounter, expulse, repell, and resist as well by Sea as by land” all persons attempting to inhabit without their special license in or within two hundred leagues of the places occupied by them. They were to have a monopoly of the commerce of such places, no vessels being permitted to enter their harbours for traffic except by their license. The rights of Englishmen were promised to all people who might become members of the colony. Associated with Sir Humphrey in his enterprise under this charter were “many gentlemen of good estimation,” while his right hand in all the work of preparation was his notable half-brother, Walter Raleigh. By autumn was assured the assemblage of a “puissant fleet able to encounter a king’s power by sea.” There were eleven sail in all in readiness, and a volunteer company of four hundred men, gentlemen, men-at-arms, and sailors, collected for the venture. In the mean time, however, the enterprise had been diverted from its apparent original object to a secret assault upon the West Indies, with possibly an after attempt at colonization on the southern coast of North America, while the preparations had been hampered by divided councils and dissensions among the captains. The breaches in the organization had the more serious effect, for when the time for sailing had come the greater number of the intended voyagers had dispersed, and Sir Humphrey was left with only a few assured friends. Nevertheless, with his fleet reduced to seven ships and his company to one hundred and fifty men, he set off from the Devon coast, as agreed, on the twenty-first of September. But the ships had barely got to sea when they were driven back to port by hard weather. A second start was made on the eighteenth of November. Of the course and of the details of this voyage nothing satisfactory is recorded; and the fragmentary accounts are contradictory. All that appears to be clearly known is that, after an absence of several months, the fleet in part returned to Plymouth, Gilbert arriving first, and Raleigh with his ship last, in May, 1579; and that there had been encounters at sea with the