Edwin M. Bacon

“ Her crew, as was some years after related by the single survivor, had marvellous adventures, which included the return passage through the strait; a voyage to the River La Plata; fights with Indians in woods on the shore; escape of those left alive to a lone island, where the pinnace was dashed to pieces on the rocks; two months on this island by the survivors, now only two, who subsisted on crabs, eels, and fruits with no water to drink; and final escape to the mainland by means of a raft of plank, where one of the two died from over-indulgence in the sweet water of a rivulet. ”

“ The first recorded English voyage having discovery with expansion of trade for its object was that of one Octher to the northward, at the close of the ninth century, about the year 890. Octher was a prosperous whale-hunter, of Heligoland in the North Sea. The special purpose of his venture was to “increase the knowledge” of the northern coasts and countries “for the more commodity of fishing of horse-whales which have in their teeth bones of great price and excellence.” ”

“ Then all the captains kissed the royal hand, and departed “every man toward his charge.”
At Harwich the general and his captains made formal view of the fleet and mustered their companies. Then the general handed to each captain his articles of direction for the conduct of the expedition. On the thirty-first anchors were weighed and the fleet were off.
The story of this voyage covers many pages in the telling by its chroniclers, but it can profitably be compressed into smaller compass. It is a tale of hardship with scant result, full of exciting incident and exhibitions of heroism and nerve. ”

“ Then with mutual exchange of good wishes Hawkins departed for his homeward voyage.
The tragic end of the hapless Huguenot colony was not far off. When shortly after Hawkins’s departure, Laudonnière and his people were about to embark on the ship bought from him, sails were descried of the long-looked-for French fleet approaching their port. These welcome ships brought out Ribault to take the command, with emigrants in families, implements of husbandry, domestic animals, and every supply for a well-equipped colony. New life and hope were instilled into the colony by the new comers. ”

“ While performing many parts,—courtier, captain of the queen’s guard, statesman, member of parliament, mariner, sea-fighter, explorer, gold seeker,—and with varying fortunes, now falling under the queen’s displeasure, imprisoned in the Tower of London, again restored to her favour, engaged in dazzling adventure, American colonization was ever paramount in his thoughts. ”

“ Drake and his companions stayed in this port for thirty-six days and had wonderful intercourse with the natives. These people greatly marvelled at the things they brought and the presents they bestowed and thought their visitors to be gods. The Englishmen pitched their tents and built a temporary fort about them near the waterside at the foot of a hill, while from its summit groups of natives gazed, wide-eyed, down upon their work. ”

“ The remainder of the fleet, the “Delight,” the “Golden Hind,” and the “Squirrel,”—supplied as generously as if they had been in a “countrey or some Citie populous and plentiful of all things,” besides necessities in fresh and dried fish and rusk, having rich stocks of wines, marmalades, figs, lemons, and other delicacies, nets and lines for fishing, and pinnaces “fit for discovery,”—set sail for the continuance of the voyage on the twentieth of August, seventeen days after their first arrival in St. John’s harbour: never to return to this port. ”

“ He had not progressed far before he had become impressed with the backwardness of England in Western occupation since the discovery of the North American continent under her auspices in 1497 and 1498. Great deeds had been performed by intrepid English explorers to the North and Northeast, and English commerce had been advanced in the rich regions of the East; but on the Western continent no further attempt of moment toward exploration or settlement had been made by Englishmen from the finish of Henry the seventh’s reign to Elizabeth’s time. ”

“ Veteran seamen strongly advised against the venture in such a frail craft, assured that it could have only a fatal end. Thereupon he called for the best judgment of the master and mariners of his ship upon the matter, and to foster a favourable decision, he urged the absolute necessity for the voyage now that ore had been found, to seek with Frobisher’s company the goldfiners who alone could test the value of their “find.” This court of last resort decided that by careful handling the pinnace might suffice. Then the master’s mate and Captain Upcot of the “Moone” volunteered for the voyage. ”

“ The king responded graciously, and sending Drake a signet, he offered himself and his kingdom to the service of the queen of England. Afterward he made a formal call at the ship. Preceding him there came four great canoes bringing out his men of state and their retinues. The dignitaries were all attired in “white lawne of cloth of Calicut,” and sat in the order of their rank beneath an awning of thin perfumed mats on a frame of reeds. With those in each canoe were “divers young and comely men,” also dressed in white. Guarding them were lines of soldiers, standing, on either side. ”

“ Accordingly he went with his pinnace among the neighbouring islands as if searching for a haven, but really to see if any ore might be found in them.
Meanwhile another “terrible tempest” suddenly came up from the southwest, and once more the fleet were in part dispersed. It was the twenty-sixth of July, and snow fell so hard and fast that “we could not see one another for the same, nor open our eyes to handle our ropes and sails.” The “Anne Francis,” the “Moone,” and the “Thomas of Ipswich” again plied seaward. The rest of the fleet stayed by the admiral. ”

“ When yet a boy Francis Drake was a trained sailor. He was early apprenticed to the master of a bark employed in a coasting trade, and sometimes carrying merchandise into Zealand and France. The youth’s industry and aptness in this business, says Camden, so “pleased the old man,” his master, that, “being a bachelor, at his death he bequeathed his bark unto him by will and testament.” At twenty, assuming the true date of his birth to have been about 1545, he joined with one Captain John Lovell in a trading voyage to Guinea and across to the West Indies and the Spanish Main. ”

“ Which work of mine I have not included with the compass of things duly done in these later days, as though little or nothing worthy of memory had been performed in former ages, but mounting aloft by the space of many hundred years, have brought to light many very rare and worthy monuments which long have lain miserably scattered in musty corners and wretchedly hidden in misty darkness, and were very like for the greatest part to have been buried in perpetual oblivion. ”

“ They had proceeded only three days on their voyage from Menatonon’s dominions and had come to the Moratocs’ country, when they found that all the people had withdrawn and taken their whole stock of corn with them into the interior. Not a single savage could be seen in any of the towns or villages, nor a grain of corn be found. The voyagers were now a hundred and sixty miles from “home”—Roanoke Island—and with only two days’ victuals left. It was evident that they had been betrayed by some of their own Indians, and that the intent was to starve and so destroy them. ”

“ The return voyage was made with such a merry wind that the distance from Cape San Antonio in Florida to the Scilly Islands was accomplished in twenty-three days. Plymouth was reached on a Sunday, August nine, during “sermon time,” and the news of Drake’s arrival "did so speedily pass over all the church and surpass their minds with desire and delight to see him that very few or none remained with the preacher: all hastening to see the evidence of God’s love and blessing toward our Gracious Queen and country, by the fruits of our Captain’s labours and success. ”

“ It was expected that they would then be dismayed by hunger and scattered over the island and elsewhere, seeking crabs and fish for food. For it was to be agreed that from the time of the formation of the conspiracy no corn or other supplies should be sold the colony, and that the weirs which had been built for them should be robbed at night and broken up. By these means Pemisapan felt assured that Lane would be enforced for lack of sustenance at Roanoke to disband his people into sundry places to live upon shell fish as the savages themselves were accustomed to do while their corn was growing. ”

“ Ley, the English ambassador in Spain, urging the immediate need of English discovery in the north parts, “even to the North pole,” to overcome the advantages gained by Spain and Portugal in their discoveries of “all the Indies and seas Occidental and Oriental,” so “by this part of the Orient and Occident” compassing the world. Who were the “divers cunning men” composing this expedition Hakluyt endeavoured to ascertain through much enquiry among “such as by their years and delight in Navigation” might inform him. ”

“ By autumn was assured the assemblage of a “puissant fleet able to encounter a king’s power by sea.” There were eleven sail in all in readiness, and a volunteer company of four hundred men, gentlemen, men-at-arms, and sailors, collected for the venture. In the mean time, however, the enterprise had been diverted from its apparent original object to a secret assault upon the West Indies, with possibly an after attempt at colonization on the southern coast of North America, while the preparations had been hampered by divided councils and dissensions among the captains. ”

“ This pointed to Chesapeake Bay and Craney Island, in Hampton Roads, at the mouth of the Elizabeth River. Lane had early become satisfied that Roanoke Island, with its poor harbour and the dangerous coast, was not the fittest place for a settlement; and having Menatonon’s information he resolved “with himself” that, should the expected supplies from England come before the end of April, and with them more boats or more men to build boats in reasonable time, he would seek out this king’s stronghold; and if the country were as represented he would move the colony to that point. ”

“ Instead of a “reverent opinion” that had formerly been shown toward the Englishmen’s God, they had begun “flatly to say that our Lorde God was not God since he suffered us to sustaine much hunger and also to be killed.” Pemisapan had further planned to starve out the rest of the colonists at Roanoke Island, and had now made ready to put this plan into execution. He proposed to take his savages off and leave his ground in the island unsown. This done, the English could not have been preserved from starvation. For at that time they had no fish weirs of their own, nor men skilled in making them ”

“ John White, to be the principal draughtsman, was a man of affairs as well as a painter of some note, and was later to become governor of Raleigh’s second colony and grandfather of the first English child born in North America—Virginia Dare; and in his drawings, with those of the artist Le Moine, of the Huguenot colony in Florida, 1562–1566 (afterward in London a “servant” of Raleigh’s) , we have the first accurate knowledge of the North American Indian and of the natural history of the country. ”

“ The pamphlet closed with a chapter of practical instructions for intending colonists and an inviting list of commodities growing “in part of America not presently inhabited by any Christian from Florida northward.”
Its publication was a revelation to the English public. Before it appeared the people in general of that day had little knowledge of the accomplishments of either their own or foreign voyagers in discovery and for commercial advantage. Merchants engaged in foreign trade or ventures—and adventurous mariners, to be sure—kept themselves informed on what was going on and had gone on. ”

“ One much used was a four-oared boat, which could carry not more than fifteen men with their trappings and provisions for seven days at the most. The largest apparently was the pinnace built at St. John, but she drew too deep water for the shallow sound about their settlement, and so could not be employed as readily as the smaller rowboats. Others were “wherries,” perhaps shipboats. With these slender facilities the extent of their explorations was surprising. Their discoveries were extended from Roanoke Island south, north, northwest, and west for considerable distances. ”

“ This time the natives were everywhere hostile and they had to be fought for. The sharpest battle was at a point below Cape Verde. An attack was made upon a town from which Hawkins expected to capture a hundred and more Negroes, men, women, and children, comprising the most of the population. But they fought desperately and only ten were taken while seven of Hawkins’s men were slain and twenty-seven wounded. Farther down the coast the hunt was more successful. By the close of January the ships were at Sierra Leone all laden with “a great company of Negroes” ”

“ All was changed by Lane’s safe return with the whole of his party, and by the reports of their adventures made to Pemisapan by three of his own savages whom Lane had had with him besides Manteo; also by the knowledge that Menatonon had been made prisoner, and his favourite son Skyko taken and brought to Roanoke. “Old Ensenore” again became potent in Pemisapan’s councils. He reasoned that the English were the servants of God and could not be destroyed by them. Contrariwise, that those savages that sought their destruction would find their own. ”

“ Hakluyt’s little book immediately gave a fresh turn to public interest. Its practical effect was the speedy forwarding of the expedition of Sir Humphrey Gilbert in the summer of 1583, the first of the English nation to carry people directly to erect a colony in the north countries of America. This was an unsuccessful attempt at an establishment at Newfoundland, and was followed by the loss of Sir Humphrey with the foundering of his cockle-shell of a ship on the return voyage. ”