 | The Old Dominion |  |
THE OLD DOMINION
HER MAKING AND HER MANNERS
I
THE BEGINNING OF AMERICA
"Some tracks of Feeting they found upon a Sandy Bank."
—
Strachey: First Travails into Virginia.
TO comprehend truly the achievement of
the settlement of Jamestown and what it
has signified to the world, and still signifies today,
if we but knew it, it is necessary to go back
among the forces that were at work in Western
Europe during the time when the Dark Ages
were giving way to the light of the New Learning.
Many forces combined to produce the results,
working with that patience which characterizes
the laws of Nature. The energies of
men had been engrossed by the exactions of
war, and of a civilization based on war. The
mind of man had been for ages monopolized
by war militant or spiritual. Person and intellect
alike lay under rule. Then gradually, after
long lethargy, men began to think. Historians
experimented. The mariner's compass, whether
brought by Marco Polo from the East, or invented
by the Neapolitan, Flavio Gioja, or by
some one else, came into use in Europe: other
nautical instruments were invented or improved.
Gunpowder was invented and gradually changed
the methods of war. The New Learning began
to sweep over Europe. The Art of printing
from movable types was invented. The ice was
broken up and the stream, long dammed, began
to flow. The Reformation came and men burst
the chains which had bound them.
The breaking up of the old conditions and relations
made necessary a great readjustment.
Two quite distinct peoples and civilizations were
found facing each other. The Latin race and
the civilization founded on the Civil Law and
the Roman Church were on one side; the Saxon
race and its civilization founded on the Common
Law and a greatly modified Ecclesiastical
System were on the other.
Spain, fighting under the banner of the Cross,
was just freeing herself from the Mahometan,
and in the very year in which Columbus gave
her a new world, Castile achieved her final
victory over the Moor. On the other hand,
the Moslem was strengthening himself on the
after a long struggle, fell before him
in 1453, and the Eastern Empire which had
been the asylum and nursery of civilization became
the prey of the Ottoman Turk. Her
trade, which had made Venice and Florence and
Genoa, was hemmed in on the eastward, and
the land which Marco Polo had visited was with
its fabulous wealth suddenly cut off.
Prince Henry, the Navigator, had set up his
observatory in Portugal, and drawn around him
the best cosmographers and navigators of the
world. Under his patronage bold Portuguese
and other mariners had coasted down the African
continent, and in 1486 Bartholomew Diaz
was blown so far south that when he turned to
strike the coast again he passed the southern
point without seeing it and turning north found
the land to the westward and himself on the
eastern coast.
Thus, the spirit of the age was alert, and in
the very moment of time came the Genoese
navigator, who on his first appearance in history,
is described as "Christopher Columbus,
Stranger." He had conceived and worked out the
noble idea that he could reach the East by sailing
boldly west, and he devoted his great powers
and his life to establish it in the minds of men.
The sphericity of the earth had been suggested
speculatively as far back as the time of Pythagoras;
Plato, who seems to have contemplated
everything in the heavens above, and the earth
beneath and the waters under the earth, discussed
it; Aristotle half taught it; and Ptolemy,
the geographer, laid it down as a probability.
Columbus probably did not even first among
Europeans touch this hemisphere; five hundred
years before his day, Eric the Red planted a
colony on the northeastern peninsula, and Lief,
his son, led explorers down to Vinland the Good,
somewhere on or near the northeastern coast
of the United States. Eric's colonies throve for
four centuries and then perished, whilst the
story of Vinland was lost so utterly that no
memory of it remained except in the Sagas.
Other later bold adventurers touched on those
shores—possibly among them the Zenos of
Venice, whose map shows all the knowledge of
the earth known in their time.
Much has been made of late by certain
scholars of the new and so-called critical school,
out of these earlier voyagings of Scandinavian
seamen, and the great Admiral has been even
a second time decried as an impostor; but the
difference between them and Columbus was
that they were bold seamen and captains, and
of booty as others of their race had done often
before, whilst the great Admiral, with a high
prevision and a noble enthusiasm, after a life
devoted to the work, struck boldly out across
the globe on lines of navigation which he had
mapped for himself to find in unknown seas
the shores of a continent which was to enrich
and save Christendom. He had no dream of a
new continent; any more than had others who
for many years followed in his wake; but he
braved the Sea of Darkness with all its terrors to
find by untried routes through unknown oceans
Cipango and Cathay. To set the egg up on end
was easy enough when once it had been done.
He was the man for the time; and the time
suited the man. Had he not discovered America
barring his way he would have found the
Indies. And had not America been here it is
likely that European enterprise and force would
have made Asia their field, and so the history
of the world would still have been different.
He found a land, not that, indeed, he sought;
but one richer than ever he dreamed Cathay to
be, and though, when he died, the records of his
town contain no mention of the fact, the half a
world he gave to Spain glorifies his memory four
hundred years afterwards as the greatest human
alone of all men of his time had a right conception
of the greatness of the work he was to accomplish.
There is nothing finer than the story
of the interview between him and Isabella: when
on her refusal to grant him all he demanded, and
it was a high demand, made as a king to a king,
he, on the eve of attaining all he had worked for,
striven for, pined for through long years of waiting
and struggling, turned his back on the Court
and set out to try once more a new king in a
new land. We know how he was recalled when
already on his way to leave Spain, and we know
how it is said Isabella pledged her jewels as security
for the loan she raised to help him; we
know how he set his prows steadily to the West
and held them there alike against threats and
entreaties, and how he found not the Indies, indeed,
but a land greater and richer and nobler
far; which, though he died in ignorance of the
greatness of his discovery, was the vastest fruit
that one man's genius ever produced.
The Wars of the Roses had ended on Bosworth
field (August 22, 1485). The rival houses of
York and Lancaster which had torn England
for generations had been united, and for the
first time in many years England had peace
within her borders, and soon had time to apply
to preparation for war abroad.
The news of the discovery of new shores by
a Spanish navigator and their possession by
Spain stirred England and her awaking people,
as it did the nearer nations. Spain freed from
Moorish domination and claiming a new world
of fabulous wealth suddenly loomed up as the
greatest nation of the earth, and with Portugal
proceeded under arbitrament of the Holy See
to parcel out between them the unknown world.
Portugal already had a right under papal decrees
to all heathen lands discovered or to be
discovered east of a line of longitude one hundred
leagues west of the Azore Islands, and Spain had
obtained from the same authority the right of
discovery to the westward. Portugal procured
the shifting of this line to a point three hundred
leagues west of the islands, a circumstance to
which was due at a later date her claim to Brazil.
The English had the blood of bold sailors in
her veins. Norseman and Dane had intermingled
with Celt and Saxon, and there was left,
if partly dormant, the undying spirit which had
flouted the fierce Baltic and in old days had
gone as far as Greenland to the north and Constantinople
to the south.
Spain's good fortune was viewed with envy,
were not wanting. Columbus, despairing
at one time of success in Spain, had sent
his brother, Bartholomew, to England to try his
fortune there, and he was there when Columbus
sailed from Palos. In the summer of 1480, according
to William of Worcester, two vessels
sailed to find the Island of Brazil, but put back
again by reason of foul weather. On the 21st
of January, 1496, Puebla, the Spanish Ambassador,
informed his sovereigns that "a person
had come, like Columbus, to propose to the King
of England an enterprise like that of the Indies."
On the 28th of March the sovereigns instructed
him to warn Henry VII. that such an enterprise
would be an infringement on the rights of Spain
and Portugal.
The Indies were the goal of all men's hopes,
and the idea of a northwest passage thither took
firm hold in the minds of men, especially of
Englishmen.
On the 5th of March, 1496, a charter for discovery
and colonization was granted to John Cabot
and his three sons; as similar charters were
granted to Richard Warde and others; but in
order to be "without prejudice to Spain and Portugal"
these charters extended only east, north
and west of forty-four degrees north latitude.
John Cabot sailed with a fleet of five vessels
in the spring of 1497, one of which was commanded
by his son, Sebastian, destined to become
even more famous than his illustrious
father, and explored the coast of New Foundland,
which they reached, according to Sebastian
Cabot's map, on June 24th, thus becoming the
first white men who ever touched the shores of
North America. They were back in England
again in August.
Sebastian Cabot, still seeking for the northwest
passage to India, the goal of all hopes,
sailed again the next year and penetrated that
Bay in which Henry Hudson, more than a century
later (1610), still looking for the unfound
passage to India, the El Dorado of the Arctic
Seas, was to be set adrift with his dying son,
and to which he was to give his name, a memorial
of his romantic and pathetic fate. Having failed
to find the northwest passage, Cabot took
service with Spain, whose growing possessions
and power were making service under her the
ambition of all navigators.
The Island of Hispaniola was settled and
planted, and from this as a centre of the work
of new discovery, conquest and colonization
went rapidly on. Diego Columbus took possession
as Admiral and Governor of the Indies
In 1509 Ojeda and Nicuesa took possession of
Darien, which La Cosa and Amerigo Vespucci
had explored under Ojeda in 1505-7. In 1511
Diego Columbus sent Valasquez to conquer Cuba.
In 1513 Nunez de Balboa crossed the Isthmus of
Darien and waded into the new ocean which he
discovered on the other side. The stories of the
Incas and their wealth reached him, and a few
years later (1517) he had fitted out three ships
and was about to start southward, when he was
arrested on a charge of treason and put to death
by the bloody Pedrarias, Governor of Darien.
In the spring of 1513 Juan Ponce de Leon, a
brave soldier who had been with Columbus in
his second voyage, and had now got permission
to lead an expedition in search of the fabled
Isle of Bimini and Fountain of Youth, told of
by Sir John Mandeville, set out to the westward,
and reaching a harbor on Easter day,
the Feast of Flowers, named the land Florida,
in honor of the day. He explored the land on
the east and the west, and found in some sort,
indeed, the fountain he sought, for though an
Indian arrow cut short his career, he still lives
in the perpetual youth of romance, the most attractive
character of all that time.
About this time, 1518, Grijaloa heard from a
Montezuma. This was the first time the newcomers
had found anything like the civilization
and wealth they had been dreaming of. As they
were still in Asia, this, of course, was the Great
Khan. Grijaloa bore the news to Cuba, and was
superseded for his reward, and the command of
the expedition that was sent out was given to
a young soldier of fortune who had been with
Valasquez in the Conquest of Cuba: Hernando
Cortez. By the end of 1521 Cortez had conquered
Mexico and found the way to the conquest
of all of what is now Central America,
justifying his proud rebuke to Philip II., that he
had given him more provinces than his father
had had cities.
In 1519 Alvarez de Pineda followed the western
coast of Florida as far around as Tampico
in Mexico, where he met Cortez exploring that
land. Turning back he entered and spent six
weeks in exploring the lower Mississippi, and
seems to have been the first European to sail on
its waters.
In September, 1519, Ferdinand Magellan set
out to circumnavigate the globe, and in the face
of starvation, desertion and mutiny, circumnavigated
it, the greatest feat ever accomplished by
a navigator, that of Columbus hardly excepted,
that he would sail to India if he had to
gnaw the leather from his ships' yards. The great
navigator lost his life in the Philippine Islands
after he had traversed the unknown seas and
reached lands that were known; but his work
was accomplished and he had circled the earth.
In 1531 the Pizarros began the conquest of
Peru, and added to Spain the richest province
she had yet found: the province, indeed, which
was to be her chief source of wealth.
From this time it may well be believed that all
maritime nations were looking to the region
where the East met the West. It was just beginning
to dawn on men that the new Land was
not Asia and the Indies at all, but a New
Continent which stretched across the track to
Asia; and enterprises began to be turned to the
work of finding a way through this land to far
Cathay. Bays and even rivers were explored
with the hope of discovering some passage.
Among the navigators who turned their attention
to this, the first was Lucas Vasquez
d'Ayllon; and he was the first that is certainly
known to have made any exploration of the
Coast of Virginia. In 1524 he sailed from Hispaniola,
and it is claimed that he sailed into the
Chesapeake, and up the broad river which
capes. Liking the country, he obtained a grant
from Charles V., and, returning in 1526, he is said
to have brought with him colonists and some
five hundred negro slaves, and to have begun
to found a town, which he called San Miguel,
on the banks of the river, near where the first
Anglo-Saxon settlement that was to live was to
be founded, almost a hundred years later. This
is the first reputed settlement of Virginia, and
the first importation of slaves within the borders
of the present United States. He lost his
life and his colony failed. The evidence, however,
is far from conclusive that this settlement
was not much further south than the Chesapeake.
In 1525 Estevan Gomez, who had been one
of Magellan's pilots and had deserted him, is
said to have coasted from Labrador to Florida,
taking notes of capes and rivers. But by this
time the growing wealth and power of Spain
were beginning to excite the jealousy of other
countries, and they were looking with envious
eyes to the new and not very well defined possessions
which she claimed.
More than one French navigator seems to
have preceded Gomez. Norman and Breton
fishermen were visiting the banks of New Foundland
to be the subject of more than question.
Bernal Diaz says that Francis I. sent word to
his great rival Charles V. to ask by what right
he and the King of Portugal undertook to claim
the earth. Had Adam made them his sole heirs?
If so, why, produce the will, and meanwhile he
should feel at liberty to seize all he could get.
In 1523 Giovanni da Verraza, a Florentine by
birth, but in the service of France, captured the
treasure sent by Cortez to Charles V. and next
year coasted from about Cape Fear to 50 degrees
north. Charles, however, so crippled Francis
in the Italian Campaign (1525) that it was not
until ten years later that Jacques Cartier explored
the lower St. Lawrence and founded
Montreal. It was now believed that the land
stretching from Labrador to Darien was a narrow
strip like the Isthmus itself and Spain bent
her energies to cross it. The first of her gallant
explorers to attempt it was Panfilo de Narvaez,
but the best known in history was Ferdinand
de Soto, who, in 1539, penetrated as far as the
Mississippi, on whose banks he died and in
whose waters his body was buried.
The penurious Henry VII. had meantime
died (April 21, 1509) and been succeeded by
Henry VIII., married to the Spanish princess,
monarchs in all history. A beast in his
personal tastes and private life, violating brutally
every law, human and divine, he was one of the
most able and powerful rulers of modern times.
To gratify his personal appetites he divorced his
Spanish wife, exploited the nascent Protestantism
of the English people, repudiated the Roman
Church, and slew all who opposed him; but he
laid the foundation of the English navy, and
once more established England as a great power.
The publication of "Utopia," by the first subject
in England, showed how the English mind
was working. The great intellect of Sir Thomas
More was already forecasting the establishment
of a mighty nation beyond the seas "where peace
and happiness, truth and justice, religion and
piety should be established for all generations."
In 1512 the Trinity House was founded by
Captain Thomas Spert as an "Association for
Piloting Ships," and it was incorporated in 1514.
In April, 1536, Master Robert Hore, of London,
sailed in John Cabot's track to New Foundland,
in two ships, with some twenty-five gentlemen
and ninety others, sailors, etc.
On the 28th of January, 1547, Henry VIII.
died, and his young son, Edward VI., succeeded
him. Strongly Protestant and under direction of
began to establish Protestantism in England.
They recalled Sebastian Cabot from Spain,
and proceeded to encourage the discovery of
new lands without reference to limits and claims
based upon papal decrees. The great association
was formed, known as "The Mysterie and
Company of Discoverie of Regions, Dominions,
Islands, and Places Unknown." It was to a
certain extent a re-issuance of the Charter of
1496 to John Cabot, but it no longer recognized
even by implication the bounds fixed by the Pope,
as that did when it confined discoveries to lands
north, east and west of England.
Queen Mary succeeded Edward VI. (July,
1553), after the sad little ten days' reign of that
sweetest and most pathetic of sovereigns, the
little Queen Jane. She married Philip II. of
Spain (July 25, 1554) and with an earnest
woman's zeal gave her life to restoring England
to the Papacy. The dazzling richness of the
Spanish retinue of the bridegroom, and especially
the wagon-loads of Spanish ingots hauled
through the streets of London on this occasion,
awakened the English people to a sudden realization
of the value of the prize Spain had seized.
It was an object-lesson which they never forgot.
On the 6th of July, 1555, Mary granted a second
them, however, henceforth to the north,
northeast, and northwestward of England, thus
reasserting recognition of the Papal decrees and
of the claims of Spain.
The spirit of discovery and adventure was,
however, now wide awake, and many merchant
adventurers visited the new world, and turning
southward inspected enviously the possessions
of the Spanish Crown. Their minds could not
have been insensible to the contrast between the
rich possessions of Spain, with its fabulous El
Dorado, and the bleak and barren latitudes to
which they themselves were restricted. "Adventure"
then meant simply coming to, and
commerce was its great motive. The great
coiner of a golden language a generation later
showed the spirit of the age by putting in his
lover's mouth the words,
I would adventure for such merchandise."
In 1555 Richard Eden published his "Decades
of the Newe Worlde or West India," the first
published collection of voyages in English. He
dedicated it to "Philip, King of England and
Spain."
Queen Mary, happily for the world, died (on
by the great Elizabeth. She was Protestant and
England was Protestant. With much of her
father's imperious nature, she meant that England
should be supreme and that she should be
supreme in England. She at once threw down
the gage. In her first Parliament (1559) a bill
was passed vesting in the Crown of England the
Supremacy claimed by the Pope; abolishing the
Mass and declaring England Protestant. Elizabeth
proceeded to enforce her claim. The question
passed from being one of religion only; it
became one of patriotism. She gathered about
her the ablest men of her realm, used them with
consummate art, governed them with extraordinary
ability and laid the foundation of England's
real greatness. The fight between Roman
Catholicism and Protestantism was becoming
fiercer and fiercer. In France the Huguenots were
making fast progress; in the Low Countries the
fight was yet more bitter. Spain was the head of
the Catholic powers. Elizabeth made England
the head of the Protestant powers. Spain became
her rival and enemy; and the whole trend of
English opinion and endeavor was to surpass
and overcome this mighty enemy. Elizabeth employed
all her arts to win. She encouraged the
Huguenots here, the Orange States there; she,
marriage, playing her royal game with royal
deception, and always with an eye to England's
and her own aggrandizement.
The struggle between Protestantism and
Roman Catholicism was now to add a new interest
to the new land. The great Coligny was
the first to attempt to found a Protestant State
on this continent. In 1555 he sent out a small
colony of Huguenots under Nicholas de Villegagnon
who, striking south, started a settlement
on the present site of Rio de Janeiro. Theological
disputes, however, soon divided his people;
Villegagnon returned to France to maintain
his side, and the Portuguese massacred the remnant.
Coligny's next attempt was on the coast of
Florida under one Jean Ribault. Ribault took
out a small advance party, who on May 1, 1555,
reached land in what is now South Carolina, and
started a colony at the present Port Royal.
Leaving thirty men there under a commander,
Ribault returned to France to bring out the rest
of the settlers, but was driven by the breaking
out of the war between the Huguenots and the
Guises to England, where he published in 1563
his account of Terra Florida.
In 1564, peace having been patched up, an
expedition came out under Réné de Laudonnière,
colony left at Port Royal had broken up. They
had pillaged and maltreated the Indians, after
the old custom, until the latter had turned on
them; then mutiny had broken out: they had
killed their commander and set to sea in a small
ship which they had. Their provisions had
given out and they had already resorted to
cannibalism when an English ship rescued the
survivors and brought them to England.
Laudonnière's expedition turned further south
and landed on the St. John's River in Florida,
at the mouth of which stream they built a fort
and laid out a town, called Fort Caroline,
after Charles IX.
This settlement is of special interest to us, because
on its fate in some sort hinged the
subsequent history of this country. It was a
large and well-equipped expedition; but consisted
mainly of soldiers and gentlemen adventurers
who had come in search of gold and were
unaccustomed to work. They explored and
searched for gold, and, finding none, presently
some of them fell to mutinying and, becoming
"a gang of malcontents," stole a couple of
pinnaces and went off to Cuba, where they captured
a Spanish boat, but were presently obliged
to put ashore for provisions. Here they were
they gave full information as to the unknown
colony on the St. John's. The news created
much excitement. Word that the Huguenots
were attempting to seize Florida, was sent to
Spain and caused a furore there. It so happened
that about this time Philip II. had found the man
just fitted to his hand in Pedro Menendez d'Arvilles,
a man who was (to quote Fiske) "an admirable
soldier and a matchless liar; brave as a
mastiff, savage as a wolf." Menendez had just
persuaded Philip to let him go to Florida to convert
the Indians. The news of Laudonnière's
colony enraged him. Both as Frenchmen and
heretics they were the enemies of Spain and of the
Lord. He would root them out. Rumor had added
to the report that Ribault was about to take
out reinforcements and supplies; so no time was
to be lost. Menendez increased his force and
set sail from Cadiz on the 29th of June, 1565.
Meantime, the colony on the St. John's had gone
through the common hardships of all such
colonies; the strong hand of Laudonnière had
quelled mutiny, but starvation was staring them
in the face, when, on the 3rd of August, Sir John
Hawkins, cruising in the Spanish Main, found
them and offered to take them home. This
Laudonnière refused, and, leaving them such provision
his ships to use at their need, the Englishman
cruised on. The rumor heard in Spain was
true, and, on the 28th of August, Ribault arrived
with three hundred men and abundant supplies.
When, therefore, on the 3rd of September, after
losing a number of ships, Menendez sailed down
upon them, he found them too strong to attack,
and too vigilant to surprise, and so sailed away.
He did not go far, however, but turning down
the coast, put in where stands to-day the oldest
town on the Continent—St. Augustine. Here he
proceeded at once to build a fort. His movements
had been watched by one of the French
ships, and information of his landing and work
was brought back to Laudonnière. There was
no time to be lost. It was decided that Ribault
should take the ships and most of the men and,
sailing down, fall upon him at once before he
could complete his fortification, whilst Laudonnière
should remain with such men as should be
left to defend the fort. The plan promised well,
and on the 10th of September Ribault sailed out
of the St. John's. Unhappily, however, next
day, just as he was bearing down upon the
Spaniard, one of those fierce equinoctial gales
common to that region and season sprang
up and soon changed to a storm, which blew
not a man to lose an opportunity or to waste
time. The continuance of the storm blowing
off shore made it certain that the ships could not
have got back to harbor, and rendered it equally
probable that precautions would be relaxed on
land. Accordingly, on the 17th of September,
whilst the storm still raged, he set out with five
hundred men and two Indian guides to surprise
Fort Caroline. It was a tremendous undertaking,
a three days' forced march through a Florida
wilderness, but it was completely successful.
Pushing on night and day through swamp and
forest, and across swollen streams, the bloody
Menendez, torn with briars and haggard with
fatigue, but his wolfish appetite only sharpened
thereby, just before dawn of the third night fell
upon the sleeping settlement and butchered men,
women and children to the number of one
hundred and forty-two souls. Laudonnière and
a few others escaped to the forest, and after untold
sufferings were picked up on the shore by
a friendly vessel. Meantime, Ribault's vessels
were wrecked one after another on the long sandy
beach to the southward, and the men who got
ashore divided into two bodies and set out to
march home. On the 28th of September the
first body, some two hundred in number, reached
miles below St. Augustine, and found Menendez
awaiting them on the other bank with some
seventy men. As they had no boat a parley
ensued, and a few officers got into a boat that
Menendez sent over and came across to negotiate
terms.
Just what followed is not known except from
Menendez. He says that they were informed
of the destruction of their town and surrendered
on what they understood to be a promise of
safety, but that he used equivocal words. Anyhow,
this is what happened. It was surrender
or starvation. They agreed to surrender. The
arms were first sent over, and then he brought
the men over in a boat ten at a time, and taking
them off behind a line of sand-hills, bound their
hands behind their backs. By sunset they were
all over and securely bound, and then he coolly
butchered every soul. A day or two later the
other body, about three hundred and fifty in all,
came up as the first had done, and again their
officers were courteously entertained, and surrender
was proposed. About two hundred refused
to surrender and marched away. The rest
surrendered as the others had done before,
Menendez swearing on the cross to spare them.
Again the same scenes were witnessed: a few at
the hill and bound, but to be butchered when all
were in the clutches of this wolf. Only five
were left alive, and one who was not quite dead
crawled off after the butchers had left. The
other party were caught later, but Menendez's
own men revolted at further butchery, and their
lives were saved. Menendez wrote his master
of his work as coolly as if he were speaking of
slaughtered pigs, and received from him the calm
reply, that as to those he had killed it was well,
and as to those he had left he would put them in
the galleys. Such was Philip II. The memory
of those dreadful scenes survives to-day in the
name of the pretty inlet just below St. Augustine
which so many visitors sail on each winter.
The name, Matanzas, is musical enough, but it
means "The Slaughtering."
This brief but bloody affair possibly settled
the destiny of the southern coast of the continent.
This was in a time of peace with France; but
Catherine de Medicis, who murdered Coligny
and planned the massacre of St. Bartholomew
a few years later (August 24, 1572), was not
likely to go to war with the master of the Duke
of Alva about the butchery of a few hundred of
Coligny's Huguenots. This, perhaps, Menendez
understood, for he put up over the heads of those
as Heretics." If, however, the Queen Mother
did not care about the butchery of her subjects,
there was one Frenchman who did care. Dominique
de Gourges, a noble Gascon, had himself
suffered at the hands of the Spaniards, having
been captured by them and put in the galleys,
and the story of this new outrage fired his heart,
as later the news of the slaughter of John Hawkins'
men fired Walter Raleigh's heart. He determined
to avenge it. He sold his family estates
and fitting out three vessels sailed for the coast of
Guinea with a commission to capture slaves.
Then, presently, he turned his course towards
Florida, and landed quietly on the coast somewhere
above the Spanish Fort. The Indians,
who had learned by this time what Menendez
was, joined the newcomers with joy, and, with
some five hundred of them as allies, Gourges
marched down upon the Spanish Fort. The surprise
was as complete as that of the French Fort
before, and the work as ferocious and thorough
as that of Menendez. Menendez, unfortunately
for poetic justice, was in Spain, and the Spaniards
not dreaming that a Frenchman was nearer
than France, and taking advantage of the
Governor's absence, had relaxed their watch,
and were just concluding their midday meal
man of the four hundred constituting the garrison
was put to the sword except some fifteen or
twenty whom he hanged, and over whose heads,
in grim repartee for Menendez's declaration,
"Not as Frenchmen, but as Heretics," he posted
a sign, "Not as Spaniards, but as liars and
murderers." Then he sailed back to France.
A couple of years later Menendez returned and
refounded his settlement. But by this time new
elements had come into being. The extension
of Spanish power in North America was doomed,
and the fate of Spanish ascendency in the world
was sealed. Spain, cohesive within her own
borders at home, abroad dominant on Land,
Mistress of the Seas, possessing a vast empire at
home and an even vaster one abroad, yet contained
a radical and fatal vice which was to destroy
her. She was the embodiment of the old
as opposed to the new; of the past as against
the future; of the out-worn as against the
fresh and vigorous; of the narrow as opposed
to the broad. She held to the established with
unspeakable pride and blindness, and permitted
no growth, no advance. She excluded the light
which was breaking on all sides and remained
in darkness, and whilst others advanced and
grew, she stood still and dwindled. Nor was
nations rise and fall by natural laws. It was
in the year 711 that the Moor first landed
in Spain, and, setting up the Crescent against
the Cross, he had in a short time established
himself and almost conquered the Land that
had withstood Rome at the zenith of her
power; but the Visigoth was a sturdy stock and
in the mountain sections he withstood the new
invader and maintained himself. In time the
Moor, under the influence of peace, applied himself
to the arts of Peace, and a civilization sprang
up based on Peace, whilst the Spaniard, always
maintaining himself hardly, remained a soldier
ready for the field. Religion being the battle-cry,
the cause was ever the more sacred, and the
question of faith became a vital one, by which
men were judged as friend or foe, loyal or traitor.
By degrees the Spaniards began to reconquer
their land; always using the same battle-cry—
the Cross against the Crescent, and in time, as we
have seen, they achieved complete success, and
won their final victory over the Moor in the same
year that Columbus discovered America.
This long struggle had a decisive influence
on the Spanish character. Trained to war, the
Spaniard was accustomed to blood. His religion
bred in the bone, he was a zealot, a bigot,
grow, no differences of opinion were tolerated.
Thus when, in the general awakening of Europe,
the new ideas had their birth and spread in other
countries, they could not exist in Spain. Men in
other countries began to think; in Spain it was
not allowed. The Reformation came elsewhere;
in Spain it never obtained a foothold; the Holy
Office not only repressed it when it appeared,
but made inquisition and stamped it out. Its
very name was significant. It was called the
Holy Office. Two hundred thousand executions
in a generation are computed to be the
number who fell victims to its furious zeal.
Thus, Spain cut off her thinkers, and blinded
and crippled her people. She not only crushed
Progress at home, but deemed it a sacred duty
to root it up abroad. The Duke of Alva was
sent to destroy it in the Low Countries, even if
he had to put the whole population to the sword;
and he did his work to his royal master's approval.
Spain built up against herself the hatred
of all the Protestant world everywhere.
Weakened as she was at home, she drew upon
herself the deadly hatred of the enterprising
and industrious Dutch, of the bold and earnest
Huguenots, and of the great Protestant
body of England; and now she made her last
she undertook to crush Protestantism in
England.
This was the opportunity of Protestantism.
Able as Philip was, he was easily outranked by
the extraordinary woman who sat on the English
throne. She knew her people, and she knew
how to govern them. She knew that Peace built
up a people; that whilst War might bring glory,
Peace brought power, and so she held to Peace.
"No war, my lords," she said, "no war." Thus,
when the time came she was strong enough to
fight.
She made laws that advanced her people; she
played one party against the other at home, and
both against other countries. She helped the
Prince of Orange on the one hand, and pretended
to consider a Catholic marriage on the other.
She kept Mary Stuart a prisoner to play as need
might demand; she persecuted Papist priests
and sternly curbed Protestant complainers. And
all the time she built up England. The hold
she had on her people is admirably illustrated by
the incident which Green relates of the Catholic
priest, whose hand had been chopped off for his
offense, waving the stump and crying, "God
save Queen Elizabeth!" Yet Catholicism was
the foe of England, and England was its foe, and
knew; and they were always on the watch.
They noted with keen anxiety as well as envy
the growing possessions of Spain in the New
World, and were eager to interpose. For it
was well understood now that Spain aimed at
rivalling ancient Rome as Mistress of the World.
In fact, Spain excelled Rome in the extent of the
territory she governed, and was becoming more
despotic in her sway. She undertook to rule the
minds of men no less than their actions. And
this hastened her downfall. She was the champion
of the Old, and England set herself to
become the champion of the New. It has
been well said that it became a contest between
Spain and the Inquisition and England and
the Bible.
English merchants had before this often visited
these shores and made exploration not only of
the coast, but had on more than one occasion
attempted some exploration of the interior.
England, on the ground of these visitations and
on the strength of John Cabot's first discovery,
now laid claim to such portion of the new land
as lay north of the actual possessions of Spain,
and south of that which France undertook to
claim by virtue of the expedition of Jacques
Cartier and others towards the St. Lawrence.
As early as 1530 two voyages had been made
by William Hawkins, of Plymouth, to the coast
of Guinea, and thence to Brazil, taking with
him cargoes of slaves—the first beginning of the
slave-trade by Englishmen.
Among the first, Thomas Stukeley, a gentleman
of Devonshire, the home of bold sea-captains,
bred on the traditions of Saxon and
Dane, laid broad plans to plant an English
colony in the forbidden land, where he was
to rule almost as an independent sovereign.
Though he never carried out his designs, his
plans remained a part of the history of the
movement.
In October, 1562, Captain John Hawkins, son
of William of Plymouth, sailed from England
on his first voyage to Guinea and thence to the
West Indies with slaves, and in September, 1563,
returned to England with much profit and with
accounts of his voyage. He sent two ships to
Spain, which were promptly seized there. In
October, 1564, he sailed again on his second
voyage, sent forth by such able patrons as the
Earl of Pembroke, Lord Robert Dudley, the
Lord Admiral Clinton, Sir William Cecil and
others, and cruised the Spanish Main and on
August 3, 1565, relieved for the time the unhappy
Huguenot colony at Fort Caroline.
our coast," as says the chronicle (observe the
pronoun), via New Foundland, and reached
England in September, 1565. Thus, we see
Englishmen were now asserting their claim.
They gave a lively description of Florida, and
brought back with them gold, silver, pearls,
tobacco, and other products, from which the adventurers
derived great gain. The next month
Laudonnière, Le Moine, Challeux, and such
Huguenots as had escaped Menendez's fury,
reached England and published accounts of the
country. November 17, 1566, a bill passed
Parliament enlarging the privileges of the
Merchant Adventurers of 1555, and changing
the company's name to "The Fellowship of
English Merchants for Discovery of New
Trades."
Some time before November, 1566, Humphrey
Gilbert, from that sea-indented southwestern
coast of England, whose men have ever followed
the sea, petitioned Elizabeth for privileges for
himself and his two brothers to discover the
northwest passage to Cathay. Soon after this
date he petitioned the Queen for privileges for
himself and "the heirs of Otes Gylberte" for discoveries
to the Northwest.
October 2, 1567, Captain John Hawkins sailed
voyage. They cruised first to Africa and took
four or five hundred negroes on to Dominica, but
found that the Spaniards had been forbidden to
trade with them, and they had substantially to
storm Rio de la Hacha. At Carthagena they
were repulsed and had to sail to San Juan
d'Ulua in Mexico for repairs and supplies.
Here they claimed the privilege of allies of the
Spanish and were well enough received. Twelve
Spanish ships were in the harbor with two hundred
thousand pounds on board, which Hawkins
looked on with envious eyes, but restrained himself
from attempting to seize. Next day a fleet
of twelve more Spanish ships arrived. Hawkins,
afraid to force hostilities with a friendly power,
let them enter the harbor, having first made
a compact for peace with the Government.
Four days later a concerted attack was suddenly
made on the Englishmen, and in the little
harbor was fought a fight which, although the
immediate issue was in favor of Spain, was the
beginning of the end of her supremacy, and of
England's succession to it. Only two of Hawkins'
ships escaped, the Minion and the Judith,
and the Minion was so overcrowded that Hawkins
had to put one hundred and seventeen of
his men ashore at Tampico; whence seventy of
Spaniards. It was an unhappy day for Spain
when she put in practice in that far-off harbor
the doctrine of the Inquisition that no faith
was to be kept with heretics. Among other
results, she drew down upon her the implacable
hatred of two men who, more than any others,
contributed to humble her power and wrest
from her her vast possessions. The commander
of the little Judith, at Vera Cruz, was
"Master Francis Drake," and from that day
he devoted his life and genius to fighting the
Spaniard. He ravaged the Spanish Main until
he acquired the title in Spanish annals of "The
Dragon."
Another Englishman no less great than Drake,
and more directly connected with Virginia, found
his chief inspiration to hatred of Spain in the
treachery shown to John Hawkins at Vera Cruz.
The arrival of Hawkins in England with his
story of treachery and defeat fired England from
end to end. Just then at Oriel College was a
young Devonshire gentleman of good family, of
strong Protestant blood, of vast ambition and of
extraordinary ability: Walter Raleigh, son of
Walter Raleigh of Fardel, in Devonshire, and
half-brother, by his mother, of John, Humphrey
and Adrian Gilbert, whom we have seen petitioning
to the northwest, and cousin to Sir Richard
Grenville of the Revenge. With him they were
to do more towards making this Land English
than any other family in England.
Raleigh was by descent of a stout Protestant
strain and a hater of Spain; for his father had
been a staunch opponent of the Spanish marriage,
and his mother is mentioned by Fox as
having comforted Agnes Prest in prison in 1557,
before she was brought to the stake. He was
also not unfamiliar with the sea, for his father
owned a barque which bore his cousin Peter
Carew safely out of England after the unsuccessful
Devonshire uprising of 1553. Raleigh was a
student at Oxford when the story of the Spaniards'
attack on Captain John Hawkins in the
harbor of San Juan d'Ulua reached England.
Some of his biographers say that this outrage
sent him abroad at once to fight the Spaniard.
It may well have been so; for as has
been well said, "All the materials for an explosion
had long been accumulating, and nothing
but a spark was necessary to fire the train."[1]
All England was fired by the story of Spanish
treachery. Elizabeth set to work in earnest to
be ready for the work in hand. She repaired
stronger measures against the papists. The
fight was on.
In the autumn of 1659 there was a rising of
the Roman Catholics in the North of England.
She crushed it.
On the morning of May 15, 1570, the Bull
declaring Elizabeth deposed and her subjects
absolved from their allegiance was found nailed
to the Bishop of London's door. It was met
with defiance and scorn. It only heated England's
rage the more against Rome and all that
supported her. It did much to make England
Protestant.
In 1572 the plot to assassinate Coligny having
failed, a deeper scheme was laid, and on the
25th of August the massacre of St. Bartholomew
took place, the miserable Charles firing from a
window with his own hand on his subjects. The
figures of the number of Huguenots murdered
throughout France in the three days of butchery
differ widely, some putting them at fifteen
hundred, some at three hundred thousand.
They were large enough to appall Protestantism
throughout Christendom.
The house of Walsingham, the English Minister,
became the sanctuary of the hunted fugitives
in Paris, and England became the refuge
all over France. England was struck with more
than horror at the crime. It was charged that
Rome instigated the plot, a charge as hotly repudiated
as laid. If, however, Rome did not
instigate the scheme, it chanted Te Deums over
its execution. It made the fight between the
old Church and the new a fight to the death
the world over, and that between the countries
which sustained them equally crucial.
America thus became not only a new field for
the discovery and production of wealth, but one
which might become a great strategic point in
the struggle for the existence and supremacy of
the nations.
Most of the Englishmen set ashore by Hawkins
in October, 1568, were in 1574 sentenced by
the Holy Office, and sixty were sentenced to the
galleys, whilst three were burnt at the stake.
It was in this year (March 22, 1574) that Sir
Humphrey Gilbert, Sir George Peckham, Mr.
Christopher Carlile, Sir Richard Grenville, and
others petitioned the Queen for a privilege to discover
certain lands, as they say, "fatally reserved
for England and for the Honor of your Majesty,"
and shortly afterwards Elizabeth, through Frobisher,
sent first a letter requesting, and then one
requiring the Muscovy Company "either to attempt
to another to do it by the northwestward."[2]
This license was thereupon granted by the company,
and Frobisher made his three voyages to
the Northwest in June-October, 1576, May-September,
1577, and May-October, 1578, respectively.
These voyages were undertaken by
a stock company, some of the members of which,
together with the heirs of many of their associates,
were interested in the expeditions which
came some thirty years later, and established a
permanent colony on James River.
Spain naturally regarded all this as an infringement
of her rights. Still there was not open war.
England was eager, her Ministers were ready,
but Elizabeth wisely still held back from war
and built up her strength. Her feeling, however,
was well known; and it is illustrated by the unsigned
"Discourse" presented to her November
6, 1577, setting forth, "How her Majesty may
annoy the Kinge of Spaine by fitting out a fleete
of Shippes, under pretence of Letters Patent to
discover and inhabit strange places, with special
proviso for their safeties whom policy requires
to have most annoyed—by which means, the
doing the contrary shall be imputed to the executors'
fault, your Highness's Letters Patent being
pleasure so to have it," etc. The writer to this
sly suggestion adds shrewdly, "If you will
let us first do this we will next take the West
Indies from Spain. You will have gold and
silver mines and the profit of the soil. You will
be Monarch of the Seas and out of danger from
everyone. I will do it if you will allow me; only
you must resolve and not delay or dally—the
wings of man's life are plumed with the feathers
of death."[3] This shows how men's minds
were working.
In January, 1578, Elizabeth and the United
Netherlands made a treaty for mutual support
against Spain.
During these years the young soldier, Walter
Raleigh, who was to play so important a part
in the making of Virginia, was piling up a store
of hatred of Spain in France and the Netherlands;
first under Coligny and then under the
Prince of Orange. In 1577 his brother, Humphrey
Gilbert, already a man of approved ability
and distinction, planned his expedition to capture
Spanish ships, sell them in Dutch ports, equip
vessels, and sailing, as under the Prince of
Orange, conquer all the Spanish possessions in
America. In 1578[4]
Elizabeth granted Sir Humphrey
and planting an English colony in America with
a special proviso that there should be no robbing
"by sea or land." In the fall of that year he set
sail with seven ships and three hundred and
fifty men. One of these ships, the Falcon, was
commanded by Walter Raleigh himself, and,
though the entire expedition was forced back by
the terrible storms, it is notable that the young
captain's vessel was the last to return, and did
not do so until he had fought with the Spaniard
and had run short of provisions.
Early in 1579 Gilbert was preparing again to
sail for America with "a puissant fleet able to
encounter a King's power by sea," but was
stayed by order of the Council, who were not
yet ready for war with Spain. Raleigh was not
one to waste time. Disappointed in his immediate
project, he at once took service in Ireland,
where he soon distinguished himself, both by
his dashing bravery and his bold and shrewd
criticism of his superiors. His hardy courage,
his strong understanding and his genius—equal
to every situation in which he was placed—soon
brought him into note, and he was quickly promoted
to an administrative position.
Francis Drake, who since the fight in San Juan
and had caught a glimpse of the Pacific, now
performed the greatest feat yet achieved by an
Englishman. Having swept through the Spanish
seas and though deserted by his four other
ships, having kept on in the Pelican, he sailed
up the western coast of America, captured the
great plate carrack of the Mar del Sud, and,
preferring to follow Magellan around the earth
rather than risk so rich a prize in the Atlantic,
safely circumnavigated the globe, and in September,
1580, brought his vast spoil, estimated
at something like three million dollars, into port.
The Spanish King demanded that the treasure
should be returned, and Drake surrendered as
a pirate. But the deed Drake had accomplished
was too great to be repudiated. It filled England
with enthusiasm. Elizabeth responded by
knighting Drake and dining with him on his
ship, and the Council responded by repudiating
Spain's right to all America, and boldly asserting,
on the contrary, the right to navigate freely
the Spanish Seas and transport colonies "to all
those parts where the Spaniards do not inhabit."
The Spanish Ambassador threatened that "matters
would come to the cannon." Elizabeth replied,
"quietly, in her most natural tone, as if
she were telling a common story," wrote Mendoza
she would fling me into a dungeon."
Spain knew that this was a gage of battle;
and Philip set himself to meet it. But he was
not in position at this time to go to war with
England: the provinces of Flanders were still in
revolt, and France was negotiating for Elizabeth's
aid to make them hers. Elizabeth fostered
this hope. The assassination of the
Prince of Orange threw Flanders into disorder
and the death of the Duke of Alençon left Henry
of Navarre, the head of the Huguenot party,
the heir to the French throne, and the Catholics
in England, finding their hopes vain, attempted
the same tactics there. Plots were set on foot
to assassinate Elizabeth; but were foiled, and
Mary Stuart, who had approved from her prison
at Fotheringay Castle the plot of Babington, fell
a victim instead, dying like a Queen, even if she
had not lived so. Philip was, excepting Mary's
weak son, the next heir to the English throne.
He knew that Spain's supremacy and what was
as dear to him, the Roman Church, trembled
in the balance, and he prepared to strike; for
the signs were unmistakable.
Meantime, the young Devonshire soldier
left in Ireland had prospered. He had shown
too bold a tongue and too strong a head for
to try his way at Court. He is described
as having "a good presence in a handsome and
well-compacted person; strong natural wit and
a better judgment, with a bold and plausible
tongue." No mean figure, indeed. Tradition
cherishes the story of the way in which this
dashing young cavalier won Elizabeth's favor.
Modern critics of the so-called scientific school
pretend to scout at it; but they scout at most
things human and divine which they do not discover
themselves. It is said that Raleigh had
not been long an attendant at Court when the
Queen going to Greenwich was stopped by a
muddy place in the park. The young courtier,
waiting for no one, flung his velvet cloak in the
mud for her Majesty to walk on. The story may
well have been true; for it exactly accords with
his nature. He was as bold as he was chivalrous.
At any rate, whether this was before or after he
secured Elizabeth's favor, he secured it, and his
fortune was made. He was no sooner in position
to act than he turned his energies to the attainment
of that which he so passionately desired,
the wresting of America from Spain, and
its settlement as a Protestant Land by England.
The time was propitious.
In 1582 we find Englishmen studying with
they possessed about America. Sir Humphrey
Gilbert was an authority on the subject. On
November 2, 1582, after conferences with Walsingham,
the Secretary, and others on the subject,
articles of agreement were indented between
Sir Humphrey and such as adventured
with him touching new lands to be discovered
and conquered by him. There was much work
to be done; and we find Raleigh now no longer
a subordinate and dependant, but a counselor
and patron, conferring with and assisting
him. March 17, 1583, Raleigh wrote him
telling him: "I have sent you a token from her
Majesty; an ancor guided by a lady," and conveying
him her Majesty's good wishes for his
voyage. March and April were spent in laying
plans and completing preparations. Merchants
of London and Bristol as well as others
contributed to the expedition, and privileges
were obtained for the settlers who should go.
June 11, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, having sold his
landed estates to fit out his expedition, set out,
sailing from "Caushen Bay neere Plymouth"
with five vessels. One of these Raleigh had
furnished. He himself was prevented from going
in person by the peremptory order of the
Queen. Gilbert landed in New Foundland,
in the name of the Crown of England.
August 31, after cruising southwest of Cape
Breton and compelling the fleet of thirty-six sail
of various nations in the harbor of St. John to
acknowledge the authority of England, whose
laws and religion he declared binding in the
new found land, he sailed for home. The work
of the brave Gilbert, however, was done. On
September 9, the little Squirrel, on which he had
chosen to take passage, went down in a storm
with all on board. Her gallant commander's
last words, which were reported as heard on her
consort, being the brave words that it was "as
near to heaven by sea as by land."
Another American venture was meantime fitting
out. It was ever believed that a northwest
passage could be found which would lead to the
East and be free from the dangers of the Spanish
Main. On February 6, 1584, the Queen
granted letters patent to Adrian Gilbert, Walter
Raleigh, Dr. John Dee, John Davis and others
for the search and discovery of the northwest
passage to China. And under this Captain
John Davis made three voyages.
On March 25, 1584, when Sir Humphrey
Gilbert's death was assured, the letters patent
issued to him were regranted, without
from this point the history of Virginia, England's
first colony, stretches in an unbroken
line.
Raleigh laid his plans for a permanent settlement.
His colonies were not only to possess
forever the soil in the lands he should discover,
but were to "have all the privileges of free
denisons, and persons native of England in such
ample manner as if they were born and personally
resident in our said realm of England."
They were, moreover, to be governed "according
to such statutes as shall be by him or them
established; so that the said statutes or laws conform
as near as conveniently may be with those
of England, and do not oppose the Christian
faith, or any way withdraw the people of those
lands from our allegiance," etc. These guarantees,
renewed in the charters of 1606, 1609 and
1612, were the foundation of the liberties of the
American people on which our fathers based
their rights when they stood out for them in
1776.
Two ships sailed on the 27th of April, 1584,
and on the 4th of July reached the American
coast, and sailing northward found the entrance
of the harbor (probably of New Inlet) and, after
returning thanks to God, put ashore and took
excellent Majestie, as rightful Queen and Princess
of the same," and afterwards delivered the
same over to Sir Walter Raleigh. Natives coming
aboard, they were asked the name of the
land, and their reply, Win-gan-da-coa, was mistaken
as the name.
The newcomers made some exploration, including
an island called Roanoke, and found the
natives friendly. They then returned to England,
taking with them two natives, and gave an
enthusiastic account of the new land which they
described as "the most plentiful, sweet, fruitful
and wholesome of all the world," and the people
as "most gentle, loving and faithful, void of all
guile and treason, and such as live after the
manner of the Golden Age."
Elizabeth graciously accorded the privileges
proposed by Raleigh, giving to this new land a
name in honor of her maiden state, and it was
called Virginia. Raleigh was knighted for his
service and given the title of "Lord and Governor
of Virginia."
The fitting out of the colony went swiftly forward,
and on the 9th of April, 1585, Sir Richard
Grenville sailed with seven ships carrying
"one hundred householders, and many things
necessary to begin a new State." The head of
called from Ireland to undertake "the Voyage
to Virginia for Sir Walter Raleigh at her Majesty's
command." A jealousy sprang up between
Lane and Grenville, but on the 26th of June
(1585) they came to anchor in Ocracoke Inlet.
On the 11th of July Grenville crossed Pimlico
Sound and discovered three Indian towns;
where, shortly afterwards, a silver cup having
been stolen by the Indians, an act of reprisal
followed in the burning of the Indians' corn and
villages, and the long contest between the English
and the Indians, so fatal to the latter, was
begun. Grenville landed the colony at Roanoke
Island and sailed for England August 25,
promising to return by the following Easter.
Lane built a fort and then began to explore the
country. He went southward some eighty miles,
and northward about one hundred and thirty
miles, and as far as Elizabeth River. He also
ascended the Roanoke River, perhaps as far as
Halifax. Here he found that the tribes who
had been friendly on his first visit had become
hostile. He was told that the river came out of
a rock on the shores of the Western Ocean and
ran through a land rich in minerals, so, though
provisions gave out and the men were reduced
to eating dogs, they pushed on. In time, however,
Lane now found it necessary to divide his men
into three parties to maintain them, one of
which he sent to Croatan Island, and another
to Hatorask. In a short time a plot by King
Penisapau to murder the whites was divulged
by a hostage named Skyco, and Lane promptly
met it by striking the first blow and slaying
Penisapau and seven or eight of his
leading men.
Meantime, affairs in England had progressed:
Philip had for three years been collecting such
a fleet as had never sailed since the days of
Xerxes, and its object was well understood.
Sir Francis Drake had been called to the sea
again, a service for which he was ever more than
ready, and taking the offensive, though war was
not yet declared, had sailed to the West Indies
and sacked Santiago, St. Augustine and Cartagena,
and was now sailing home to "singe the
Spanish King's beard" by burning his vessels
in the very harbor of Corunna. He reached
Roanoke Island on the 10th of June and relieved
the colonists, and finding that Lane declined
to return to England, handsomely offered him
one of his ships. The only one, however, which
he could spare that could enter the harbor (the
Francis), being blown out to sea, Lane and
to England. Meantime Raleigh had been busy.
Soon after their departure Raleigh's first supply-ship
sent for their relief arrived, but finding
the colony gone, returned to England. Fifteen
days later Sir Richard Grenville arrived with
three ships fully provisioned, but finding no one,
he, too, returned to England, leaving behind him
to hold possession fifteen men with two years'
provisions.
Lane brought with him to England a description
of the country, and also an account of
another and far better harbor of which he had
learned, a few days' journey to the northward.
Raleigh with undiminished enthusiasm immediately
set himself to work to found a colony on
this harbor. He granted a charter to thirty-two
persons, of whom nineteen were merchants of
London who put in their money, and thirteen,
who were to come personally, were styled "The
Governor and Assistants of the City of Raleigh
in Virginia." Of these nineteen merchants, ten
were afterwards subscribers to the company
which settled Jamestown. John White was
selected for Governor of the Colony, and the expedition
of three ships was under charge of
Simon Ferdinando. It was claimed that Ferdinando,
being a Spaniard, was guilty of treachery.
orders were first to take the men off of Roanoke
and then to sail to the Chesapeake. Instead, on
reaching Hatorask (July 22, 1587), where White
took a pinnace and forty men to go and relieve
the little colony left at Roanoke Island, he gave
the sailors orders that none of the men were to
be brought back, claiming that it was too late in
the season to seek a new location for the colony.
They were forced, therefore, to spend the winter
at the island. White found on his arrival that
the men left there had been murdered, a not uncommon
fate of colonists. The arrival of a
small vessel of the expedition, however, brought
the number of souls on the island up to one
hundred and twenty.
Among the new colonists were seventeen
women, the first English women who had come
to America. They had not been there long when
Eleanor Dare, a daughter of the Governor,
White, gave birth to a daughter, who, as the first
English child born on the continent was christened
Virginia. When the time came for the return
of the ships to England, White was unanimously
requested to return with them to set forth
the needs of the colony. Although averse to
leaving, he consented and left the colony, reaching
England November 5. He found England in
invasion for which Philip was massing his ships.
Raleigh, Grenville and Lane were all members
of the Council of War, and Raleigh was urging
the policy of England's defending herself at sea
rather than waiting for her antagonist to assail
her on land. He was at work drilling troops, but
he found time to fit out a small fleet for his
colonizing work. Every ship, however, was impressed,
and it was not until April 22, 1588, that
White got off with two small vessels. They had
not proceeded far when they had a fight with
Spanish ships and were forced to put back to
England.
On the nineteenth day of July, 1688, the sails
of the vast fleet which Spain was sending to
subjugate England and overthrow Protestantism
were descried from the Lizard. It was the land
of "Jack, the Giant-Killer." And for some time
Jack had been preparing to meet the Giant,
whose shadow had so long rested over England.
Beacons flamed from headland to headland,
and from shire to shire; England made herself
ready for the final struggle on which was to rest
her civilization, as more than a hundred years
later she made ready to meet Napoleon in his
victorious career of conquering the world.
From port to port and from hamlet to hamlet
the vast Spanish fleet entered the Channel every
man who could board a craft was girded for the
fray. The war-cry was England against Spain,
and Catholic and Protestant, no longer divided,
stood shoulder to shoulder to withstand the invader.
The Admiral of the English fleet was
Lord Howard of Effingham, the head of the
Catholic Peers of England. Behind him sailed
Drake and Raleigh and Grenville, and a long
line of Protestant fighters.
The history of that long and epochal battle
is too well known to need repetition here.
Spaniards have never lacked courage or gallantry;
but on the side of the English ships,
though they were smaller and weaker in armament,
was love of home—the spirit of freedom,
and the desperate courage which they ever give
to a freedom-loving people. For days the furious
battle raged through the English Channel, the
sea-dogs of England dashing in to cut out the
Spanish ships one by one; and then after Drake
had burnt a number of their vessels with fire-ships
in the harbor, where they sought refuge,
the Spanish fleet, broken and dismayed, made
its way as best it could into the North Sea in
a desperate attempt to sail around Britain,
only to fall a prey to its fierce storms, and to
to the south coast of Ireland. It was the end of
Spanish supremacy. Overweighted with wealth
and wealth's evil offspring, arrogance, from this
time her star declined, and in the morning skies
rose the resplendent star of a freer and a broader
Civilization.
| The Old Dominion | |