A compromise was offered, and the proprietaries, in their "proposal to all that would plant in Carolinia," promised emigrants from New England a governor and council to be elected from among a number whom the emigrants themselves should nominate; a representative assembly, independent legislation, subject only to the negative of the proprietaries, land at a rent of half a penny per acre and such freedom from customs as the charter would warrant.
Notwithstanding all these offers, but few availed themselves of them, and the lands were for most part abandoned to wild beasts and natives.
From Nansemond, Virginia, a party of explorers was formed to traverse the forests and rivers that flow into the Albemarle Sound.

The company which started in July, 1653, was led by Roger Green, whose services were rewarded by a grant of a thousand acres, while ten thousand acres were offered to any colony of one hundred persons who would plant on the banks of the Roanoke, or the south side of the Chowan and its tributary streams.

These conditional grants seem not to have taken effect, yet the enterprise of Virginia did not flag, and Thomas Dew, once the speaker of the assembly, formed a plan for exploring the navigable rivers still further to the south, between Cape Hatteras and Cape Fear.

How far this spirit of discovery led to immediate emigration, it is not possible to determine.

The country of Nansemond had long abounded in nonconformists, and the settlements on Albemarle Sound were the result of spontaneous overflowings from Virginia.