Maine was yet another colony of New England, which had a purely independent foundation, but which was destined to be absorbed by its more prosperous neighbour. As early as 1623, Levitt established a settlement on Casco Bay;[156] while at the same time, Sir Ferdinando Gorges, "the Father of English Colonisation in North America,"[157] made a plantation at Saco. He followed this up by the formation of a company in 1631, but four years later the whole territory then called New Somersetshire was granted to Gorges. Five years later he received from Charles I. a charter granting to him "all that part and portion of New England lying and between the River Pascataway ... to Kenebeck even as far as the head thereof."[158] Sir Ferdinando very soon drew up a most grotesque constitution for his colony, creating almost more officials than there were citizens, and whose titles were very magnificent, but quite meaningless. In exactly the same district the New England Company claimed to have proprietary rights, and it was not long before many semi-independent settlements were made in the neighbourhood of Gorges Colony. The Civil War having broken out in 1642 Sir Ferdinando Gorges was too much engaged at home to pay any attention to Maine, "for when he was between three and four score years of age did personally engage in our Royal Martyr's service; and particularly in the siege of Bristow, and was plundered and imprisoned several times, by reason whereof he was discountenanced by the pretended Commissioners for foreign plantations."[159] Soon after his exploits at Bristol, Gorges died after proving himself a man of resolute purpose, but endowed with narrow ideas. He had certainly taken an active part in the struggle for gain and position amongst a large number of the most worthless and servile courtiers, but still around him and his memory there is a halo of grandeur, borrowed perhaps from the generation to which he really belonged, nevertheless reflecting upon his person something of that glory that ought to belong to him who was the last figure of that grand procession of giants which numbered amongst its train, Gilbert and Drake, Smith and Raleigh.