"The soyle along the coast is not deepe of earth, bringing foorth abundantly peason, small, yet good feeding for cattel. Roses, passing sweet, like unto our mucke roses in forme, raspases, a berry which we call harts, good and holesome to eat. The grasse and herbe doth fat sheepe in very short space, proved by English marchants which have caried sheepe thither for fresh victuall, and had them raised exceeding fat in lesse than three weekes. Peason which our countrey-men have sowen in the time of May, have come up faire, and bene gathered in the beginning of August, of which our generall had a present acceptable for the rarenesse, being the first fruits coming up by art and industrie, in that desolate and dishabited land. "We could not observe the hundredth part of these creatures in those unhabited lands: but these mentioned may induce us to glorifie the magnificent God, who hath superabundantly replenished the earth with creatures serving for the use of man, though man hath not used the fift part of the same, which the more doth aggravate the fault and foolish slouth in many of our nation, chusing rather to live indirectly, and very miserably to live and die within this realme pestered with inhabitants, then to adventure as becommeth men, to obtaine an habitation in those remote lands, in which Nature very prodigally doth minister unto mens endeavours, and for art to worke upon." The story of Gilbert's disastrous expedition and voyage home is well known; how some of his men sailed off in a stolen vessel, some ran away into the woods, and others falling sick were sent home in the _Swallow_; how he set sail on August 20th (that is, after a stay on the island of only a fortnight) with his three remaining vessels, overloaded and under-manned as they were; how his vessels, after the wreck of the _Delight_ off Sabre Island, were reduced to the _Golden Hind_ and the _Squirrel_; how in a prodigious hurricane he refused to transfer himself from the tiny _Squirrel_ to the larger vessel; and how he died encouraging his ill-fated company--"We are as near heaven by sea as by land." Though the expedition ended in disaster, and the intention to found a settlement failed utterly, the bold enterprise could not but exert a salutary influence on the hearts and souls of other adventurers and promotors of colonization. As has been well said:[22] "a halo of real enthusiasm illumines this foolish founder of the greatest colonial empire in the world, and where a hero leads, even though it be to ruin, others are apt to follow with enthusiasm, for tragedies such as these attract by their dignity more than they deter." More particularly, Gilbert's voyage is of great interest, because we may reasonably associate him with the colonial ideas of his greater half-brother, Sir Walter Raleigh. The slow and difficult process was beginning which was to make Newfoundland a permanent settlement instead of the occasional resort of migratory fishermen.