New Albion was a short-lived 17th-century English and Irish colony in the area of modern-day New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Maryland in the United States.[1]
Colonization was unsuccessfully attempted by Sir Edmund Plowden, under the authority of a charter granted by Charles I in 1634. The charter was formally through the Kingdom of Ireland, which was in personal union with, and dominated by, the Kingdom of England. In that sense, New Albion was an Irish colony.
Settlement was first attempted under the command of Plowden in 1642, but this ended in an attempted mutiny, after which Plowden managed New Albion from the Colony and Dominion of Virginia, selling rights to adventurers and speculators, until he returned to England in 1649. Despite further attempts to return to his colony, Plowden died a pauper. A large area of his claim was later given by the Duke of York to John Berkeley, 1st Baron Berkeley of Stratton and Sir George Carteret, and became the Province of New Jersey.
Governor John Winthrop wrote in his journal that Sir Edmund Plowden returned "to England for supply, intending to return and plant Delaware, if he could get sufficient strength to dispossess the Swedes." Soon after Plowden reached England there was published "A Description of the Providence of New Albion."[2]
The Dutch Commissioners in 1659 visited Secretary Philip Calvert in Maryland and argued that Lord Baltimore had no more right to the Delaware River than "Sir Edmund Ploythen, in former time would make us believe he hath unto". Calvert replied "that Ployten has no commission, and lay in jail in England on account of his debts; that he had solicited a patent for Novum Albium [New Albion] from the King, but it was refused him, and he thereupon applied to the Vice Roy of Ireland, from whom he had obtained a patent, but that it was of no value."[2]
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