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...
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...
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...
A sea storm attacks the senses, the mind, the spirit, until the gut is filled with terror that can make a brave man cower belowdecks, curled into a ball like a whimpering child.
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...
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...
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...
Captain John Smith, the president of the colony during much of its earliest history, regularly complained of the quality of those sent to establish the settlement. The colony, he said, would have been...
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...
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...
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...
For almost seven weeks, the ships of the fleet sailed their leisurely way across the Atlantic. Since the ships’ captains wanted to stay in contact, the fleet could sail no faster than its slowest vess...
Even before those in Bermuda knew that Ravens’s mission was unsuccessful, Sir Thomas Gates ordered the construction of a pinnace that could carry survivors on to Jamestown. He may have figured there w...
At the same time, Smith decided that the best way, indeed the only way, to guarantee Jamestown’s future was to disperse settlers. In making this decision, he was taking a page out of the Indians’ play...
According to Oviedo’s history, a Portuguese ship bound for home port from San Domingo was driven onto the Bermudan reefs in 1542 or early 1543. Fortunately for the thirty seamen on the vessel, the shi...
Turned to gaze seaward at the grounded vessel that had carried them from home to the forlorn beach, the vessel that looked like nothing more than a dying creature, parts of its skeleton already expose...
The haunts of certain nocturnal birds which during the day remain in their caves but at night come out to feed.… At nightfall these birds come out from their caves with such an outcry and varying clam...
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
The admiral ordered extra lanterns flown from the flagship’s high yards in hopes that the other ships would not lose contact with the Sea Venture during what he knew would be a long, difficult night.
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...