In 1592 the English adventurers got as far west as Anticosti Island (in a ship from Bristol), and in 1597 there is the first record of English ships (from London--the _Hopewell_ and the _Chancewell_) sailing up the St.
Lawrence River, perhaps as far west as Quebec.
In 1602, stimulated by Sir Walter Raleigh,[4] Bartholomew Gosnold sailed direct to the coast of North America south of the Newfoundland latitudes, and anchored his bark off the coast of Massachusetts on the 26th of March, 1602.

Failing to find a good harbour here, he stood out for the south and definitely discovered and named Cape Cod, not far from the modern city of Boston.

From Cape Cod he made his way to the Elizabeth Islands in Buzzard's Bay, and here he built a storehouse and fort, and may be said to have laid the foundations of the future colony of New England.

He brought back with him a cargo of sassafras root, which was then much esteemed as a valuable medicine and a remedy for almost all diseases.
[Footnote 4: In 1584, Sir Walter Raleigh, the half-brother of Sir Humphrey Gilbert, financed an expedition to sail to the coast of North America in a more southerly direction.

In this way was founded the (afterwards abandoned) colony of Roanoke, in North Carolina.