1613. CHAP. II. yielded enormous profits to their owners. From Manhattan, small trading shallops were dispatched into the neighboring creeks and bays of "Scheyichbi," or New Jersey, and up the Mauritius River, as far as the head of navigation. The Dutch had been the first, and, hitherto, the only Europeans to visit the Indian tribes in these regions, with all of whom they had continued to maintain a friendly and cordial intercourse. But while the Holland merchants promoted new explorations, they do not appear, as yet, to have directed the construction of permanent defenses; althought it has been said that, "before the year 1614," one or two small forts were built on the river for the protection of the growing peltry trade.* Loss of ship, and building of a yacht at Manhattan. By accident, Adriaen Block's ship, the Tiger, was burned at Manhattan, while he was preparing to return to Holland. Undismayed by his misfortune, the persevering mariner set about building a small yacht, out of the admirable ship timber with which the island abounded. This work occupied Block during the winter of 1613, and until the spring of 1614. To accommodate himself and his comFirst cab- panions during their cheerless solitude, a few huts were the island. now first erected near the southern point of Manhattan Island; and, in the absence of all succor from Holland, the friendly natives supplied the Dutch, through a dreary winter, "with food and all kinds of necessaries."† ins built on * In a memorial to the States General, dated 25th of October, 1634, the West India Company say, that "under the chief command of your High Mightinesses, before the year 1614, there were one or two little forts built there, and provided with garrisons for the protection of the trade."-Hol. Doc., ii., 138. De Laet, however, who wrote in 1624-ten years before the company's memorial-distinctly states that one small fort was built "in the year 1614," upon an island in the upper part of the river. In another place he says it was built in 1615.-De Laet, book iii., cap. vii., ix. For various reasons, which will be exhibited further on, I think there was only one fort built; that it was on "Castle Island," near Albany; and that it was erected in 1614. + De Laet, book iii., cap. x.; De Vries, 181; "Breeden Raedt aen de Vereeinghde Nederlandsche Provintien," &c., p. 14, 15. This latter very rare tract (for the use of which I am indebted to the kindness of Mr. Campbell, the deputy librarian at the Hague) is now for the first time quoted in our history. The statement in the Breeden Raedt, of the Indians themselves, is that "when our people (the Dutch) had lost a certain ship there, and were building another new ship, they (the savages) assisted our people with food and all kinds of necessaries, and provided for them, through two winters, until the ship was finished." De Laet, in his later editions of 1633 and 1640 (book iii., cap. vii.), says, that to carry on trade with the natives, "our people remained there during winter." De Vries, p. 181, repeats the same statement. The account in the Breeden Raedt, that Block built his yacht during the winter, seems thus to be fully confirmed. That the vessel was built 1609. Virginia af fairs. The infant colony of Virginia had, meanwhile, suffered CHAP. II. strange vicissitudes. Under the second charter of King James, which passed the great seal early in 1609, Thomas Lord Delawarr was appointed governor for life; Sir Thomas 23 May. Gates, lieutenant governor; Sir George Somers, admiral; and Christopher Newport, vice-admiral. An expedition, consisting of nine vessels, was equipped and dispatched for Virginia, with five hundred emigrants, a few days before the charter was actually sealed. Lord Delawarr himself 15 May. did not leave England with the expedition; but he delegated the command, in the interim, to Gates, Somers, and Newport.* on Bermu When near the end of their voyage, a hurricane separated the ship in which the three commissioners had embarked from the rest of the squadron, and wrecked it on shipwreck Bermuda. The remnant of the fleet reached Virginia to- da. ward the end of the summer; and to avoid anarchy, John 11 August. Smith, who had now been two years in the colony, assumed the chief command, in the absence of the newly-commissioned officers, whose fate was yet unknown. But the new colonists consisted of "many unruly gallants, packed hither by their friends to escape ill destinies." Against every possible discouragement, Smith resolutely maintained his authority, and his influence introduced something like order among the unruly emigrants. At length, an accidental explosion of gunpowder, which mangled his person, disabled him from duty, and obliged him to return home for surgical aid. Disgusted at the opposition he had met with in the smith recolony, which owed him so much, the "Father of Virginia" England. delegated his authority to George Percy, and embarked for October. England, a few weeks after Hudson had set sail for Europe with the news of his grand discovery. In the mean time, Gates and his companions, who had been cast away on Bermuda, had subsisted upon the nat ރ during the winter of 1613, and was finished and used in the spring of 1614, seems also certain from Hol. Doc., i., 47, 53. * Smith, i., 233; Purchas, iv., 1729. + Strachey's account of this shipwreck in Purchas, iv., 1734, is supposed by Malone to be the foundation of Shakspeare's "Tempest." This opinion, however, has recently been controverted. Smith, i., 239; ii., 102. turns to D CHAP. II. ural products of that fertile island, the luxuriance of which afterward won from Waller the matchless panegyric, 1609. Gates sails from Ber muda to 23 May. "Heaven sure has left this spot of earth uncurs'd, To show how all things were created first.” Virginia. During the autumn and winter, with admirable perseverance they constructed two small pinnaces out of the wreck of their old ship and the cedars which they felled on the island. After a nine months' sojourn in their delightful abode, they embarked in these vessels, in the spring of 1610. 1610, and in a few days arrived safely at Jamestown. But instead of a happy welcome, they met a scene of misThe "stary- ery, and famine, and death. The four hundred and ninety in Virginia. persons whom Smith had left in the colony, had, in six months, through vice and starvation, dwindled down to sixty. In their extremity of distress, they all now determined to desert Virginia, and seek safety and food among the English fishermen at Newfoundland. Embarking in four pinnaces, the colonists bade adieu to Jamestown. "None dropped a tear, for none had enjoyed a day of happiness.”* ing time" 6 June. Lord Delawarr. 6 June. Arrival of But unexpected relief was at hand. After nearly a year's delay in England, Lord Delawarr embarked at Cowes on the first of April, 1610, and set sail for Virginia with three vessels laden with supplies. The squadron followed the old route, by the roundabout way of Terceira and Gratiosa; and, early in June, Lord Delawarr first made the land "to the southward of the Chesapeake Bay." Running in toward the shore, he anchored over night at Cape Henry, where he landed and set up a cross. The next morning he sailed up the Chesapeake to Point Comfort, where he heard the sorrowful tale of "the starving time." At that very moment, the pinnaces conveying the remnant of the dispirited colony were slowly falling down the James River with the tide. The governor instantly dispatched a boat with letters to Gates announcing his arrival. The next day, the pinnaces were met descending the river; and 7 June. 8 June. * Chalmers, 30; Bancroft, i., 137–140. Gates immediately putting about, relanded his men the CHAP. II. same night at Jamestown. 1610. 10 June. Lord Delawarr soon arrived before the town with his ship; and, after a sermon by the chaplain, commenced the task of regenerating the colony. A council was sworn in; "the evils of faction were healed by the unity of the administration, and the dignity and virtues of the governor ;" and the rejoicing colonists now began to attend to their duties with energy and good-will. To supply pressing 19 June. want, Sir George Somers was promptly dispatched with somers and Samuel Argall, "a young sea-captain of coarse passions patched to and arbitrary temper," in two pinnaces, to procure fish and turtle at Bermuda.* Argall dis Bermuda. Argall an "Dela Bay." After being a month at sea, the pinnaces parted company in a fog; and Argall, despairing of rejoining his com- 27 July. rade, made the best of his way back to Virginia. Falling in with Cape Cod, he sailed to the southward, and in a 19 August. week found himself again within twelve leagues of the shore. Early the next morning, he anchored "in a very 27 August. great bay," where he found "a great store of people which chors in were very kind." The same evening, Argall sailed for the warr's Chesapeake, after naming the southern point of the bay in which he had anchored, "Cape La Warre." This Cape is now known as Cape Henlopen. The bay itself, which Hudson, in the Half Moon, had discovered just one year before, was soon commonly called by the English "Delawarr's Bay," in honor of the Governor of Virginia; but, notwithstanding received statements, there is no evidence Lord Delathat Lord Delawarr himself ever saw the waters which there himnow bear his name.† warr never self. Prosperity at length began to smile on Virginia. But Lord Delawarr, finding his health sinking under the cares of his office and the effects of the climate, sailed for En- 28 March. gland in the spring of 1611; and Gates having previously returned to London,‡ the administration of the colonial gov * Lord Delawarr's letter of 7th of July, 1610, in MS. Harl. Brit. Museum, 7009, fol. 58, printed by the Hakluyt Society; Purchas, iv., 1754; Bancroft, i., 141. + Argall's Journal, in Purchas, iv., 1762; Strachey's Virginia Britannia, 43; De Vries, 109, 110. See Appendix, note D. + Winwood's Memorial, iii., 239. Delawarr returns to England. CHAP. II. ernment was committed, during his absence, to Captain George Percy. Soon after Delawarr's departure, Sir Thom1611. as Dale, "a worthy and experienced soldier in the Low 20 May. Countries," to whom, at the request of the Prince of Wales, 20 January. the States General had just granted a three years' leave of absence from their service to go to Virginia,* arrived at Jamestown, and assumed the government. Finding that the colony needed more assistance, he wrote at once to England. Lord Delawarr, on his return home, confirmed Dale's accounts; and, with unusual promptness, the council at London dispatched six ships to Virginia, with three hundred new emigrants and large supplies. Administration of Gates. August. Sir Thomas Gates, who, like Dale, had served in the Netherlands, and, in 1608, had been allowed by the States General to resign the commission he held in Holland, "to take command in the country of Virginia, and to colonize the same," was now sent out with the new expedition, invested with full authority as lieutenant governor, and arrived safely at Jamestown in August. Under his careful administration, the English settlements on the Chesapeake rapidly prospered, and soon appeared to be firmly 1613. established. In the summer of 1613, Captain Argall, who had been sworn by Lord Delawarr one of the colonial council, while on a fishing voyage from Virginia to Nova Argall on Scotia, was overtaken by a storm, and driven ashore on the coast of Maine. Here he learned from the Indians that some French colonists had just arrived at the island of Mount Desert, a little to the eastward of the Penobscot. On this island, the Jesuit missionaries in the company, after giving thanks to the Most High, had erected a cross, and celebrated a solemn mass. The island itself they had His piratic- named "Saint Sauveur." Ascertaining the weakness of al proceed the French, Argall hastened to their quiet retreat, and soon overpowered them by his superior force. De Thet, one of the Jesuit fathers, was killed by a musket-ball; several others were wounded; "the cross round which the faithful had gathered was thrown down;" and Argall returned the coast of Maine. ings against the French missionaries. * Hol. Doc., i., 6. † Ibid., i., 5. See also ante, page 45, note. |