History of Virginia :: :: University of Virginia Library

Such in discursive outline was the region which the London
Company was organized to exploit for purposes of trade, and
incidentally only to colonize. Such were the aboriginal people
who occupied it, and such the uses which its natural resources
permitted them to make of it. It was a country blessed with
abundance in an hundred forms, and endowed with a climate
that, during the greater part of the year, was temperate and
invigorating. The soil along the banks of all the streams
was fertile to a degree hardly surpassed in the valley of the
Nile. Here, it would have been said, was a land which was
exactly adapted to settlement by a practical people like the
English. Every condition, except the presence of a treacherous
population of barbarous natives, appeared to be favorable
to successful colonization; and even that one antagonistic
condition seemed to be capable of being overcome by the
superiority of the gun and breast-plate over the bow and the
tomahawk. With every physical and moral advantage on their
side, let us see what was the history of the first adventurers
who went out to make use of this virgin region, which surpassed
their own mother country in the profusion and quality
of its natural gifts.

The little fleet which set sail from the docks of foggy
Blackwall in East London in December, 1606, the bleakest
part of the year, comprised three vessels whose names should
be sacred in the hearts of all Americans as the names of the
three most memorable ships that were ever steered across
the wild reaches of the North Atlantic—the Sarah Constant,
the Goodspeed, and the Discovery. The admiral of the fleet

was Captain Christopher Newport, a veteran mariner who had
done a yeoman's part in singeing the beard of the Spanish
King. He was in sole charge of all the officers, soldiers, sailors,
and other persons, who were enrolled in the expedition. The
vice-admiral was Captain Bartholomew Gosnold, who was
already familiar with those seas through his share in the
explorations of Sir Walter Raleigh. Captain John Ratcliffe
commanded the Goodspeed, which was a mere pinnace in its
dimensions. His real name was Sicklemore, and he seems
to have deserved the description afterwards given of him "as
a poor counterfeited imposture," and, therefore, of very different
stuff from the two experienced seamen who overtopped
him in rank.

The company housed in the three ships numbered about
one hundred and twenty persons in all, without counting the
forty or fifty hardy sailors who had been enlisted to man the
vessels. It embraced a great variety of people, not one of
whom, in going out to the West, perhaps, was not influenced
by that spirit of adventure which had carried Englishmen so
far in that daring age. The absence of women was a proof
that the uncertainties of the undertaking were deeply lodged
in the minds of all. These people, whatever their antecedents,
whether laborers or aristocratic gallants, or men of solid fortunes
at home, looked upon themselves as engaged in a quest
that was to have, if successful, a profound influence upon the
destiny of their race as a whole. London, at this time, was
a city of three hundred thousand inhabitants, and as was the
case so often before and afterwards, was suffering from the
ravages of a great plague. But the voyage of the little fleet
does not seem to have been hastened by this fact. That it
fixed the interested attention of Englishmen at large was
shown by the splendid ode which the poet Drayton addressed
to the departing company. An important object taken on
board of the flag-ship was the locked box which contained a
list of the persons who had been selected to make up the
resident council in Virginia, but whose identity was not to be

proclaimed until the shores of the country of their destination
had been reached. The list was accompanied by a series of
instructions for the guidance of these men in the performance
of their official functions.

In January, 1607, the fleet was forced to cast anchor in
the downs to wait for a favorable wind; and it was detained
in sight of land until late in February. On the eighteenth day
of that month, the vessels dropped from the coast, and steered
boldly out into the boundless western ocean. Four days later,
a comet appeared in the vault of the nocturnal heavens, to be
watched with superstitious awe and fear until it faded from
view. Having passed Cape Finisterre and the Canary Islands,
the ships turned westward, and spreading their sails to the
steady impact of the trade winds, were, in a few weeks, wafted
into the seas that washed the strands of the West Indies.
Halting in March, at Dominica, the company on board were
welcomed by the Indians with profuse gifts of pine-apples,
potatoes, plantains, and tobacco. Here too they witnessed a
mortal combat between a whale and a sword-fish, in which the
whale appeared to churn the great body of water about him
into foam with his enormous tail. At Guadaloupe, in April,
they stood and looked on wonderingly at the fierce boiling of
a hot spring, in which a piece of raw pork was cooked thoroughly
in the course of a few minutes. At the Isle of Virgins,
they succeeded in capturing on the strand a large number of
turtles which had come up at night to lay their eggs in the
sand. While exploring the interior recesses of the Mona
Isle, they jumped and shot down two wild boars, but failed
to kill a huge wild bull that carried a pair of horns of the
length of an ell between the double curves. Disembarking
on the shore of another island, they picked up bird eggs in
quantities sufficient to load two boats, while the clouds of
shrieking wild fowl, wheeling overhead, darkened the sun.

At the close of the seventeenth day, the fleet had sailed
beyond the outer border of the West Indian Seas, but here the
ships were struck by a great tempest, dispersed, and driven

Virginia Chart, 1608

far from their intended track. It was not until the first week
in May (n. s.) that they were reunited. On the sixth (n. s.),
the watchmen in the crows-nests called out, "Land ahead."
Soundings were at once taken, and cautiously the fleet
advanced to the mouth of Chesapeake Bay, now visible
between the north and south capes. When the passage
within had been made, some of the company on board went on
shore at a point not far from the modern Cape Henry. But
there was little at first to satisfy their eager curiosity, beyond
the sight of tall trees, and green savannas, and running
streams, which appeared to them peculiarly ravishing after the
monotonous plains of the ocean. As the explorers, however,
were making ready to go on board of their vessels, they unexpectedly
became the targets for a shower of arrows sent after
them by a band of Indians, who had crept forward, bow in
hand, on their knees, in shooting distance. Captain Gabriel
Archer was wounded slightly in the assault, and one of the
sailors was so grievously hurt that he died of the stroke. The
Indians fled away in the darkness, after giving a great shout
of triumph. It was the first time, but unhappily not the last,
that the shrewd and sly savages were to take cruel advantage
of the imprudent exposure of the English. It was not until
after the massacre of 1622 that the colonists as a body were
to learn that the Indians were always to be distrusted, and
that they were never so dangerous as when they seemed to be
most amiable and conciliatory.

On the night of the attack at Cape Henry, the box containing
the names of the members of the council was unlocked and
opened; and it was disclosed that the persons who had been
chosen for that body were Christopher Newport, Bartholomew
Gosnold, Edward Maria Wingfield, John Smith, John Ratcliffe,
and John Martin. A brief reference has been made to
the careers of Newport, Gosnold, and Ratcliffe. Of the latter,
it may be added that he had been a soldier in the wars of the
Low Countries, the principal school in which the military
training of so many men of that day had been acquired. Wingfield

had served both in the Low Countries and in Ireland. He
was a gentleman by birth, but not fitted for the duties to
which he was so soon called. Indeed, he enjoyed but one real
distinction in this first council—he was the only one of the
patentees of the charter who came out to Virginia with the
first expedition. Martin was the son of a baronet, and was
originally designed for the law, but, changing his ambition,
took part, as the commander of a ship, in Drake's dramatic
excursion of 1685-86. He was to prove himself to be a tempestuous
character in the subsequent history of the colony.

Smith was sprung from parents who occupied the social
position of tenants on an English estate. While still a youth,
having accompanied Lord Willoughby, his patron, to France,
he was engaged, during several years, in fighting in the Low
Countries; was afterwards shipwrecked in the waters of Scotland;
was thrown into the sea by the French as a Huguenot;
participated in the wars in Hungary for the expulsion of the
Turk; was present at many sieges; took part in duels with individual
enemies; and enjoyed a great variety of stirring experiences.
He seems to have become interested in the Virginia
enterprise several years before it was actually launched. The
opportunities of prolonging his adventures, which it seemed to
open up, must have appealed irresistibly to his restless and
daring spirit.

The interval between April 26, and April 30, was used by
the voyagers in spying out the character of the country adjacent
to the Cape. First, there was an incursion inland, during
which the fires of the Indians, with large and delicate oysters
temptingly roasting on them, were found along the shores of
the inlets, but no trace of villages was discovered and no
savages were seen. Next the Bay of Lynnhaven, as it is now
known, was explored in a shallop, and on its beach a deserted
canoe, which had been made out of a single tree, was discovered.
This primitive boat was forty feet in length. The only
other sign of the presence of the Indians in the country visible
was the cloud of smoke which rose above the top of the forest

at a great distance off. The ground near the streams was
overrun with strawberry vines, on which grew berries four
times larger than any that could be produced in England's soil.
Captain Newport sounded the water along the southern shore
of the Bay, and it was found to be so shallow that he began
to fear that the further progress of the ships would be entirely
blocked for lack of a channel; but an investigation of the
bottom on the north side was more successful. Deep water
was found at that spot, which led the relieved commander to
name it Point Comfort. These explorations had been made
in a shallop, which now returned to the fleet to report its
discovery.

Before the Cape was left behind, it was given the name of
Prince Henry, the heir to the throne, while the one on the
other side of the mouth of the Bay received the name of Prince
Charles, his brother.

On May 10 (n. s.), the three vessels moved up to Point
Comfort, and here dropped anchor; while Newport in the barge
continued to follow the line of the shore as it bent around to
the main body of the modern James River. Near the site of
the present town of Hampton, these advanced voyagers
obtained their first interview with the Indians. But it
required many peaceful signs to allay the suspicions of the
savages so far as to persuade them to put up their weapons
and accompany the strangers to their village, known in their
language as Kecoughtan. Here the English were welcomed
by the chief men with barbarous pomp and feasted with many
native dainties. The peace pipe was smoked, and there was
an aboriginal dance, full of strange and comic antics, and
accompanied by a noise worthy only of a crew of devils or a
pack of ravenous wolves.

From Kecoughtan, the shallop made its way slowly up the
Powhatan in careful search for a permanent place of settlement
for the colonists. At Paspaheigh on May 14 (n. s.),
Newport was received by an old werowance with a very loud
but unintelligible speech. On the south side of the great river,

Henry Stuart, Prince of Wales

another werowance, with a retinue of stalwart warriors, welcomed
him to the tune of his own reed flute, which he played
whilst he walked at the head of his tawny procession. The
top of his head was covered with a crown of deer hair colored
red, and each side was adorned with a large plate of burnished
copper; his body was painted crimson and his face
blue, with a sprinkling of silver ore; while from his ears were
suspended large mussel pearls.

Bidding this highly decorated host farewell, the explorers
on the barge on May 18th (n. s.), moved on up the river until
they came to the region of the Appomattox River. Here the
attitude of the Indians was not so friendly at first. Returning
down stream on the 22nd (n. s.), they were attracted by the
aspects of the country at a point afterwards known as Archer's
Hope. The soil was a fertile loam; the vines there grew in
great profusion; and flocks of birds were seen on all sides. A
sounding, however, soon demonstrated that the water was
too shallow to allow the ships to ride near shore. It was in
the end perceived that Paspaheigh possessed all the advantages
of Archer's Hope without the disadvantage of an unsafe
anchorage. The distance between the two localities was only
eight miles.

Unhappily for the immediate prosperity of the colony,
Newport's search for a permanent site, on this occasion, did
not carry him beyond the mouth of the Appomattox River.
North of that mouth, there existed a site quite as secure in
itself as Paspaheigh, and much further away from the
unwholesome marshes than the valley of the lower Powhatan.
The modern Farrar's Island, then a peninsula, was more
easily protected from attack than the Jamestown peninsula
at the hour of the first landing; and it was located in a more
salubrious atmosphere and on higher ground, with a far larger
area of soil available for tillage. Newport decided in favor of
the modern Jamestown because it seemed to him to fulfill more
exactly the conditions called for in the instructions to the
council than any other site which he had seen in his preliminary

survey. The water near the line of shore was so deep that the
ships could be tied by cable to the trees, and, for that reason,
could be used as floating forts for the defense of the people
within the town so soon as it had been founded. The soil in
every direction was highly fertile and could be at once turned
up for crops. Above all, this site was, at this time, cut off
from the mainland, with the exception of a narrow neck that
could be easily closed against invasion. Finally, it lay a long
distance from the Bay, a fact which rendered it less vulnerable
to Spanish assault by water. The voyage which Newport
made to the falls after the debarcation of the main body at
Jamestown either did not suggest to him and his companions
a more favorable spot for the colony, or if so, it was thought
by him to be too late to change the already adopted ground so
abruptly. In accord with his report of what he had observed
from his barge, the fleet moved up the river, and came to
anchor at the modern Jamestown on the twenty-third of May
(n. s.), a day that will be forever memorable in the history of
the western hemisphere.