Sir William Vaughan, a poet and colonizer, was deeply concerned with the prevailing economic conditions of Wales in the early 17th century and became interested in establishing a colony in Newfoundland.
[4] His naming of the area as Cambriol, was a gesture of good will for his native country Wales where he envisaged a new country for his fellow countrymen "reserved by God for us Britons"[4] and as eloquently portrayed in the verse by fellow colonizer John Guy: New Cambriol's planter, sprung from Golden Grove, Old Cambria's soil up to the skies doth raise, For which let Fame crown him with sacred bays.
Upon arrival at Cambriol, Whitbourne was not pleased with the progress of the original settlers and sent all but six back to Wales citing a complete lack of pioneering initiative and thorough laziness.
[4] Withbourne was harsh and vitriolic in his description of the work the settlers had done in the year since they first arrived as can be seen in his correspondence to Vaughan: For certainly I have already seen and known by experience that the desired plantation can never be made beneficial by such idle fellows as I found there in 1618 when I was there with the power by virtue of a graunte from the Patentees, which people had remained there a whole yeere before I came theare or knew any or them and never applied themselves to any commendable thing, or not so much as to make themselves a house to lodge in, but lay in such cold and simple rooms all the winter as the fisherman had formerly built there for their necessary occasions the yeere before those men arrived there.
[1] Vaughan did eventually arrive at his colony in 1622[4] and during his three or four years stay wrote The Golden Fleece in an effort to stimulate the colonists into hard work.
The colony suffered terribly over the next few years due to harsh weather conditions and the constant destruction of property at the hands of the French and other Grand Bank fishermen.