Kieran Doherty Quotes

Remarkably, all 150 men, women, and children on the ship were eventually brought safely to shore. Even the ship’s dog was saved.

The Sea Venture, the admiral of the fleet, docked at Woolwich, the bustling royal dockyards about eight miles down the Thames from central London. There she and six other ships of the fleet—the Diamon...

There had been no difficulty recruiting sailors willing, even anxious, to sign on for the voyage to the Chesapeake. Since the end of the war with Spain and the end of privateering, out-of-work sailors...

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...

All any on the flagship could do was hope the other vessels were safe, pray that the other ships and their crews and passengers would survive the storm.

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...

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...

In addition to those who risked money, more than six hundred men and women—those who dreamed of a new life in a new land—invested themselves in the venture, signing on to make the voyage to Virginia a...

The island chain had achieved such a terrible reputation, thanks to its reefs and to the unearthly screams of the island’s millions of cahows, that mariners were calling Bermuda the Isle of Devils.

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...

The death toll on the Diamond and the Swallow was terrible. Between the two vessels, thirty-two passengers and crew—well over 10 percent of their total complement—had died at sea, their bodies thrown...

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...

For that voyage, Frobisher packed one pound of biscuit and one gallon of beer per man per day, one pound of salt meat (beef or pork) per man for each flesh day, as well as one dried codfish for every...

During all this time, the ship—without so much as an inch of sail flying—was being driven nine or ten leagues (roughly thirty miles) in each four-hour watch. And all this time, Strachey said, those on...

George Percy, the journal keeper who would later prove to be a terribly inept governor in his own right, said that Smith, fearing … thatt the seamen and thatt factyoin mighte growe too stronge and be...

The Virginia Company had floated an idea that all English pirates might be pardoned if they agreed to move to Virginia.

Of course, Sir George and Sir Thomas and Captain Newport had worries other than just food and water and shelter. They were bound, by duty and by desire, to fulfill their obligations to the Virginia Co...

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...

John Smith, for one, knew the value of good food during an ocean voyage. The want of good food, he said, occasions the losse of more men, then in any English fleet hath bin slaine in any fight since 1...

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...