In 1620, the indefatigable Sir Ferdinando Gorges succeeded in obtaining a new patent for the Plymouth Company from the King, which dissolved its connection with the South Virginia Company, and gave to it all lands between the 40th and 48th degrees of north latitude; thus, as those who have carefully followed the course of our narrative will recognize at once, encroaching alike on the rights of the Southern English Company and of the French, who were now firmly establishing themselves in Canada. Regardless, however, of the clamor and excitement caused by the concession it had won from the English monarch, the new Plymouth Company lost not a moment in availing itself of its extended privileges; and in 1621, the year of the arrival in New England of the Pilgrim Fathers, a grant, to which the name of Nova Scotia was given, was made by it to Sir William Alexander of all lands between Cape Sable and the St. Lawrence.
The Scotch colonists sent out by Sir William to people his new territory, found the spots most suitable for settlement already occupied by fishermen of different nationalities; and, failing to obtain any recognition of their claims, they shortly returned to their native country. The sea-coasts of Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts were, however, still free to the emigrant; and in 1623, Sir Ferdinando Gorges, who had hitherto reaped no personal benefit in return for all his efforts on behalf of his Company, obtained from it, in conjunction with John Mason, a grant called Laconia, embracing all lands between the Merrimac and Kennebec, and stretching away to the great Canadian lakes, of which the first had been discovered by the Frenchman, Champlain, in 1608. A vessel bearing a number of emigrants started for New England in the summer of 1623, and, disembarking on the shores of New Hampshire, founded the two settlements of Portsmouth and Dover.
In the same year, Robert Gorges, a son of Ferdinando, was appointed governor-general over the whole of the lands belonging to the Plymouth Company, and received as his private share in these lands three hundred square miles on Massachusetts Bay. The governor did not, however, care for his new possessions, and, after a flying visit to them, ceded them to Captain Levett, one of his assistants, who made a thorough exploration of Maine, and built a house on its shores, to which he gave the name of York. A permanent English settlement was also founded in Maine, in 1625, by two merchants of Bristol, Robert Aldworth and Giles Eldridge by name, who, having bought the Monhegan Island and a neighboring point of the main-
