Page:American Historical Review, Volume 12.djvu/527

Conditions siirrouiiding Settlement of Virginia 517 been at least partially populated, new plantations were carried out in Wexford, Longford, Leitrim, and Westmeath, and several parts of the old Munster settlement were recolonized, while to Virginia were added New England, Maryland, the Bermuda Islands, and other American settlements. A bond between 'irginia and Ireland is also to be found in the men who had a common interest in both. The Carews, Grenvilles, Courtenays, and Chichesters who planned a great colonizing expedi- tion from Somerset and Devon into Ireland in 1569 were the same men who were interested in the earliest attempts to colonize America. Sir Humphrey Gilbert had been a captain in Ireland in 1566 before he presented to the queen his first address advocating colonization in America; he returned to Ireland in 1567 in an unsuccessful attempt, along with Sir Henry Sidney, to make a settlement on Lough Foyle ; some years later he went again to Ireland in connection with a similar scheme for a settlement in Munster, and remained in military service in that province as colonel in the final campaign of the Des- mond rising. All this occurred before he made his first voyage to America in 1578, and he was still again in Ireland between his return and his departure on his last and fatal voyage of 1583.^ Raleigh's career had begun in Ireland, and when he abandoned his rights in Virginia in 1589 it was to return with new interest to the effort for the development of his estates in Cork and Waterford. Two years afterward, when this like the rest of the Munster planta- tions failed, it was again to an American project, the exploration of Guiana, that he turned. Sir John Popham took a deep interest both in the plantation of Munster and in that of Virginia. Sir Francis Bacoii was similarly interested in both countries, submitting plans for the settlement of Ireland, and as solicitor-general helping to draw up the charter of 1609 for Virginia. He was also a member of the royal council for Virginia. His valuation of the settlement of Ire- land was the higher of the two. In his Considerations touching the Plantation in Ireland, presented to King James on New Year's day, 1609, he treats the colonization of Virginia as a somewhat visionary scheme, that of Ireland as a serious reality, the former being " an enterprise in my opinion differing as much from this as Amadis de Gaul differs from Caesar's Commentaries ". At the same time he goes on to recommend the establishment of two councils for the Irish plantation, one to sit in London, the other in Ireland, similar to the two councils for irginia ; and long afterward he speaks of the plantations of Ireland and of Mrginia as two of the greatest glories of King James's reign. - '^Dictionary of National Biography, article on Gilbert. ^Spedding, Lord Bacon's Letters and Life, IV. 123; VII. i7S-