Pring was absent eight months, and returned with an account of the country fully confirming Gosnold's good report.

Two years later, in 1605, the earl of Southampton and his brother-in-law, Lord Thomas Arundell, sent out Captain George Weymouth, who visited the Kennebec and brought back information even more encouraging.[2] Meanwhile, Queen Elizabeth died March 24, 1603, and was succeeded by King James I.In November Raleigh was convicted of high-treason and his monopoly of American colonization was abrogated.

By the peace ratified by the king of Spain June 15, 1605, about a month before Weymouth's return, the seas were made more secure for English voyages, although neither power conceded the territorial claims of the other.[3] Owing to these changed conditions and the favorable reports of Gosnold, Pring, and Weymouth, extensive plans for colonization were considered in England.

Since the experiment of private colonization had failed, the new work was undertaken by joint-stock companies, for which the East India Company, chartered in 1600, with the eminent merchant Sir Thomas Smith at its head, afforded a model.

Not much is known of the beginnings of the movement, but it matured speedily, and the popularity of the comedy of _Eastward Ho!_ written by Chapman and Marston and published in the fall of 1605, reflected upon the stage the interest felt in Virginia.