The first English attempt to plant a colony, at Roanoke, in North Carolina, between 1585 and 1587, was a complete
failure. In 1607 they tried again. Shortly before the end of
1606, three vessels, Susan Constant, Godspeed, and
Discovery, under the command of Captain Christopher Newport, set off for Virginia. The colonists, under the
auspices of the Virginia Company, sailed into Chesapeake Bay and up a river they named the James, after the ruling
English monarch, James I. On May 14, 1607, they founded
the settlement of Jamestown
surely suggests a most important lesson—to
avoid colonizing in northern latitudes.