New Sweden, which at the same time fell into the English hands, was sold as a proprietary plantation to a Jersey man, Sir George Carteret, and to a Quaker, William Penn.

By this somewhat high-handed procedure the whole coast-line down to Florida was in English hands.
Both the London and Plymouth Companies had started to form plantations in 1607, and in that very year the French made their first effective settlements in America, at Port Royal and at Nova Scotia, then called Arcadie; while, the following year, Samuel de Champlain made settlements at Quebec, and founded French Canada.

He explored the lake country, and established settlements down the banks of the St.Lawrence, along which French activity for a long time confined itself.

Between the French and the English settlements roved the warlike Five Nations of the Iroquois Indians, and Champlain, whose settlements were in the country of the Algonquins, was obliged to take their part and make the Iroquois the enemies of France, which had important effects upon the final struggle between England and France in the eighteenth century.

The French continued their exploration of the interior of the continent.