The little satellite settlement was in disarray, with no discipline, no rule other than every man for himself. West himself, the putative leader of the settlement, was gone, searching for gold. The si...
By 1609 Strachey, like other Englishmen, knew that Seagull’s words were not true. He knew that no diamonds had been found on Virginia’s beaches, that no golden chamber pots had been discovered. But he...
The survivors had established their tiny settlement on the beach overlooking Gates Bay. The quarters were described as cabins thatched with palmetto fronds. Nearby stood the small enclosure they had b...
The deck appeared to be nothing more than a jumble of ropes and lines. The vessel was filled with objects that seemed to have no discernible purpose. Even the sailors appeared like aliens. They dresse...
Ravens and the others were able to find water deep enough to handle the longboat’s twenty-inch draft. Before his departure, Ravens promised Gates and Somers and Strachey and the other survivors that i...
Spoke from the open-air Paul Cross pulpit at St. Paul’s Church, praising the Virginia Company’s plans to bring the Christian faith to heathen natives of Virginia.19
It is unlikely that any of the ships’ captains seriously considered steering their damaged and undermanned vessels to either Barbuda or the Bermudas in search of the Sea Venture. Instead, the storm wo...
By that point, those on the vessel were almost beyond caring. Mountainous seas, driving rain, lightning, and screaming winds continued as the ship labored simply to stay afloat. Sylvester Jourdain, So...
Even before the boat was fully beached, he jumped into the shallow water. Gates, his bay! he supposedly shouted as he slogged ashore. Whether or not the tale is true, the bay on the eastern shore of S...
Sir George Somers, an experienced mariner, was put in charge of the fleet. Roughly sixty years of age, Somers, from the town of Lyme on England’s southwest coast, had a resume that included service un...
Somehow, though, Strachey and others on the vessel found the will to keep struggling, to fight for their lives though it seemed all was lost. Terrified now, the passengers forgot all class pretensions...
One unlucky sailor, who had been branded a liar by his shipmates, was given the unenviable job of cleaning the slop buckets and swabbing the privy in the ship’s beak.
Even in these cramped, almost intolerable conditions, there was still the awareness of rank that permeated English society as a whole and that made Gates and Somers unwilling to cede any preference to...
At about the same time that Sir Stephen visited Smythe, William Strachey formalized his intention to go to Virginia by agreeing to buy two company shares for £25. Given his financial problems, Strache...
Within days of leaving port, the ship stank of vomit and garbage and food scraps and other foul leavings that were discharged or that seeped into the ballast area. The stench was made even worse by th...
Of course, he had heard of Virginia. He was obviously fond of the theater, fond enough to put some of his money at risk as a shareholder of the Blackfriars Theatre Company.
Since the days of the earliest English voyages to the New World, ships crossing the Atlantic had typically followed a course that took them first to the Canary Islands, off the coast of Africa, and th...
The largest of the Bermudas is only about fourteen miles long and about a mile wide at its widest point. The highest point of land in Bermuda, now known as Town Hill, has an elevation of just 250 feet...
They had landed in the Bermudas. To those on the beach who had any knowledge of the island chain at all, the announcement would have been terrible news. The Bermudas were known, as passenger Sylvester...
Somers and Newport, too, knew there was no way to bring the Sea Venture to anchor. Her hull was so open, her planks so sprung, that the ship would sink like one of the cannon they’d already jettisoned...
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