University of Virginia Library

SETTLEMENT AT JAMESTOWN.

We have not space, in a work of this character, to notice in detail
that interesting portion of history known as the Period of Voyage and
Discovery. The world was ready for great events. With the fifteenth
century came the revival of learning in Europe; Copernicus had systematized
the universe; Vasco de Gama had doubled the Cape of Good
Hope, and Portuguese navigators were steering their ships over Indian
seas. The Turks had entered Europe and made Constantinople the
capital of the Mohammedan world; Amerigo Vespucci's first account
of the Western World had been published and eagerly read all over
Europe; Grecian scholars had "crossed the Alps" and laid the foundation
for that intellectual development which was to dispel the darkness
and gloom that had enshrouded Europe during the long centuries of the
Dark Ages. The printing press came just in time to supply the demand
which the thirst for knowledge had created, and now the next great
event in the world's history was to be the founding of a permanent
English settlement in the New World.

One hundred and fifteen years had passed away since the discovery, and
it was now the year 1606. In that year James I., who had succeeded his
cousin Elizabeth on the English throne, granted to a company of wealthy
London merchants a patent for all that part of the American continent
lying between the thirty-fifth and fortieth degrees of north latitude.
The London Company, as the corporation was styled, had, as the effect
of its creation, the founding of a colony on the Atlantic coast of Virginia.
An expedition was at once fitted out, and one hundred and five
colonists bade adieu to the shores of the Old World to find a home on
the shores of the New. On the 26th day of April, 1607, they reached
the entrance to Chesapeake Bay, and to the points on either side they
gave the names of Charles and Henry, in honor of the sons of King
James. Further within the bay, on another point, they bestowed the
name of Point Comfort, because of the comfortable anchorage they found
there. Captain Christopher Newport, an experienced navigator, steered
them up a beautiful river which, in honor of the king, they called
James river. The voyage was continued up the river about fifty miles,
when they landed, May 13th, began the erection of houses, and Jamestown
was founded. A distinguished historian has said, "This is the
most important event recorded in profane history." Here was planted
the germ from which was to spring the grandest republic the world has

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