BEGINNINGS OF ENGLISH COLONIZATION 63 



forty followers. The King replied that the climate was not 

 too cold, but that Lord Baltimore was too soft, and had better 

 come home. But he had already flitted to the sunny south 

 with his faithful forty, and there they founded Maryland. 

 Those who remained behind were governed first by Sir A. 

 Aston, then by W. Hill (1632-8) — so, at least, Lord Balti- 

 more's son and heir averred.^ 



Sixthly, in 1622 Sir W. Alexander sent some Scotch (6) an tin- 

 colonists to Nova Scotia, but they wintered at St. John s, -^^f^^J^l, 

 where one of them found, or thought that he found a silver- at St. 

 mine, and all, or nearly all took service with the fishermen -Z^^^^' 

 who arrived in the succeeding spring. In 1623 Lord 

 Baltimore's patent referred to a 'colonia' or 'plantation' of 

 St. John's, occupying the eastern horn of Conception Bay, 

 and having as its base a line drawn from Salmon Cove 

 (Conception Bay) to the middle of Petty Harbour, and as its 

 apex Cape St. Francis. In 1627-8 nine twelfth shares in 

 this colony were, with the sanction of ' John Slaney, gover- 

 nor', offered for sale to Lord Conway. A prominent member 

 of Slaney's Company, named W. Payne, was at that date 

 allottee of ' the lot of St. John's ', which he described as ' the 

 principal, prime, and chief lot in all the whole country ', ' and 

 as it now stands, the ice being broken and some houses 

 already built, it will require no great charge to follow it.' 

 The silver-mine, and a chance that the holder of most shares 

 would, if J. Slaney permitted, be 'president of that lot', were 

 held out as additional inducements,* but Lord Conway 

 rejected these appeals to his cupidity and ambition. There 

 are no earlier contemporary references to a colony of St. 

 John's ; and Whitbourne's, Vaughan's, and Alexander's ex- 

 haustive lists of Newfoundland colonies (1620) do not include 

 a colony at St. John's. On the other hand, St. John's Harbour 



1 Br. Mus. Egerton MSS. 2395, ^ol- 3io- 



8 State Papers, Car. J, Domestic Series, vol. Ixxxiv, No. 13; vol. 

 cviii, Nos. 37, 61. 



