That depends on who you asked and where they had settled.
The initial settlers, in Virginia and Massachusetts, had different views upon their
arrival.
In Virginia, they chose Jamestown as a settling
point merely because it was conveniently their spot of arrival. It was actually a very
poor choice, as that part of Virginia (at the time) was a mosquito-infested swamp. The
settlers of the day described it as such, as land which was difficult to live on, even
as the climate was favorable, the rivers easy to navigate and the soil ideal for
farming. They still found the environment there a little daunting for a self-supporting
venture.
In Massachusetts, they looked at both the land and
at what it represented to them. These were religious pilgrims, and even though the land
was rocky, cold and wet, to them it meant freedom of religion, and freedom from
persecution by the King. So their diaries, at least initially, speak of a more
promising land for settlement, even if compared to Jamestown, it
wasn't.
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