Western planting now became the talk and fashion. Many projects were
hatching for new patents. Raleigh alone succeeded. Hakluyt's position
and circumstances in Paris seem made for the occasion, and he soon found
all these western eggs put into his basket. The materials of the several
previous writers and of the rival claimants were all apparently thrust
upon him. He thus became in 1583-4, though perhaps unconsciously, the
mouthpiece of a snug family party all playing into the hands of Raleigh.
There were Walsingham, and Sidney, and Carleil, and Leicester, all
connected with each other and with Raleigh. Then there were the papers
of Sir George Peckham, Edward Hayes, Richard Clarke master of the
Delight, and Steven Par-menius, rich alike in hints and facts. The
interests of these distinguished persons were by family ties or other
influence suddenly merged into a single patent and that Raleigh's. The
papers mostly passed through Raleigh's hands into Hakluyt's, who
acknowledges himself indebted to him for his chiefest light.

Raleigh, besides being the half-brother and representative of Sir
Humphrey Gilbert, held also a large share in that venture. Gilbert's
real aim, policy and plan, in this last yearof his patent, to prospect
for a suitable place in which to take possession and found a colony, was
to begin at the south and work northward as the French had done, but his
previous failures since 1578, the inevitable impediments and delays, the
advanced season of this his last year 1583, and the necessity of making
a final strike for success, in behalf of himself and his assignees,
compelled him at the last hour to go direct to Newfoundland, take
possession, and then, if thought best, work southward. He was however
unquestionably influenced or professed to be by rumours of metals or
gold mines in Newfoundland. This northern passage was his fatal mistake.
Had he taken a middle or southern course say between 37° and 42° he
might perhaps have succeeded.