In pursuance of this general plan, though with some variations in detail, the settlement of Jamestown had been begun in 1607, and its success was now beginning to seem assured.  On the other hand all the attempts which had been made to the north of the fortieth parallel had failed miserably.  As early as 1602 Bartholomew Gosnold, with 32 men, had landed on the headland which they named Cape Cod from the fish found thereabouts in great numbers.  This was the first English name given to any spot in that part of America, and so far as known these were the first Englishmen that ever set foot there.  They went on and gave names to Martha’s Vineyard and the Elizabeth Islands in Buzzard’s Bay; and on Cuttyhunk they built some huts with the intention of remaining, but after a month’s experience they changed their mind and went back to England.  Gosnold’s story interested other captains, and on Easter Sunday, 1605, George Weymouth set sail for North Virginia, as it was called.  He found Cape Cod and coasted northward as far as the Kennebec river, up which he sailed for many miles.  Weymouth kidnapped five Indians and carried them to England, that they might learn the language and acquire a wholesome respect for the arts of civilization and the resistless power of white men.  His glowing accounts of the spacious harbours, the abundance of fish and game, the noble trees, the luxuriant herbage, and the balmy climate, aroused general interest in England, and doubtless had some influence upon the formation, in the following year, of the great joint-stock company just described.  The leading spirit of the Plymouth Company was Sir John Popham, chief-justice of England, and he was not disposed to let his friends of the southern branch excel him in promptness.  Within three months after the founding of Jamestown, a party of 120 colonists, led by the judge’s kinsman George Popham, landed at the mouth of the Kennebec, and proceeded to build a rude village of some fifty cabins, with storehouse, chapel, and block-house.  When they landed in August they doubtless shared Weymouth’s opinion of the climate.  These Englishmen had heard of warm countries like Italy and cold countries like Russia; harsh experience soon taught them that there are climates in which the summer of Naples may alternate with the winter of Moscow.  The president and many others fell sick and died.  News came of the death of Sir John Popham in England, and presently the weary and disappointed settlers abandoned their enterprise and returned to their old homes.  Their failure spread abroad in England the opinion that North Virginia was uninhabitable by reason of the cold, and no further attempts were made upon that coast until in 1614 it was visited by Captain John Smith. [Sidenote:  First exploration of the New England coast]