The Sea: Its Stirring Story of Adventure, Peril, & Heroism. Volume 2

Many and vast are the subjects which naturally intertwine themselves with the history of the sea! Great voyages have not been organised for the mere discovery of so much salt water—except as a means to an end—and the good ship has almost always sailed with a definite and positive mission. The history of but a single vessel involves the history, more or less, of hundreds of people; it may mean that of thousands. So the history of the ocean is that also of lands and peoples, far off or near. Subjects the most diverse are still intimately connected with it. In the space of a few years’ time, war and peace are strangely contrasted; brilliant discoveries are succeeded by disastrous failures, and heroic deeds stand side by side with shameless transactions. Take only a few of the succeeding pages, and we shall find recorded in them the stories of the early colonisation of America, and of the disastrous voyages in quest of the fabled El Dorado, followed by the brave and daring deeds of one of our greatest naval heroes; these again by the establishment of the great commercial company which once ruled India, succeeded by stories of pirates on the sea, and “bubble” promoters ashore. Sketches of maritime affairs must be “in black and white,” so great are the contrasts. But let us turn to our first subject, the early voyages to, and colonisation of, the great New World.

About one hundred men formed the first little colony landed in Virginia from the expedition of Greenville in 1585. Raleigh, at his own expense, sent a shipload of supplies for them next year, but before it arrived the settlers, and the very Indians of whom such flattering accounts had been given, had quarrelled, and so many of the former had fallen as to imperil the existence of the colony; the survivors thought themselves fortunate when Drake unexpectedly arrived off the coast, and took them away. When Greenville reached the settlement, a couple of weeks after, they had left no tidings of themselves, and, wishing to hold possession of the country, he landed fifteen men, well furnished with all necessaries for two years’ use, on the island of Roanoake. This voyage paid its expenses by prizes taken from the Spaniards, and by the plunder of the Azores on the way home, where they spoiled “some of the towns of all such things as were worth carriage.”

Raleigh, next season, fitted out a third expedition of three vessels, with one hundred and fifty colonists, under the charge of John White, who was to be Governor, with twelve chosen persons as assistants: their town was to be named after himself. After narrowly escaping shipwreck, they arrived off Roanoake, and White, taking the pinnace, went in search of the fifteen men left in the preceding year, but “found none of them, nor any sign that they had been there, saving only the bones of one of them, whom the savages had slain long before.” Next day they proceeded to the western side of the island, where they found the houses which had been erected still standing, but the fort had been razed. They “were overgrown with melons of divers sorts,” and deer were feeding on the melons. While they were employed repairing these, and erecting others, one George Howe wandered some two miles away, when a party of half-naked Indians, who were engaged in catching crabs in the water, espied him. “They shot at him, gave him sixteen wounds with their arrows, and after they had slain him with their wooden swords, they beat his head in pieces, and fled over the water to the main.” Captain Amadas had taken an Indian named Manteo to England with him, and this man, now with White, was sent to the island of Croatoan, where his tribe dwelt, to assure them of the friendship of the English, and an understanding was established. It was ascertained that the men left the preceding year had been treacherously attacked by hostile natives, and that two had been killed, and their storehouse burned; the remainder had successfully fought through the Indians to the water’s edge, and had escaped in their boat, whither they knew not. Their fate was never learned. Manteo’s friends entreated that a badge should be given them, as some of them had been attacked and wounded the previous year by mistake. Something similar occurred shortly afterwards, when the English, burning to avenge Howe’s death, attacked a settlement in the night, shooting one of the men through the body before they discovered that the natives there were of the friendly tribe. According to Raleigh’s instructions, Manteo was christened, and called lord of Roanoake. About this time, the wife of Ananias Dare, one of the twelve assistants, was delivered of a daughter, who, as the first English child born in that country, was very naturally baptised by the name of Virginia. And now the ships had unladen the planter’s stores, and were preparing for departure. It was deemed advisable that two of the assistants should go back to England as factors and representatives of the company, but all appeared anxious to stop. At length the whole party, with one voice urged White to return, “for the better and sooner obtaining of supplies and other necessaries for them.” This he very naturally refused, as it would look at home as though the Governor had deserted his band, and had led so many into a country in which he never meant to stay himself. But at last he yielded to them, and was furnished with a testimonial setting forth the reasons. White arrived in England at a period when the danger of a Spanish invasion was imminent, a most unfortunate time for the colonists. When Raleigh was preparing supplies for them, which Greenville was to have taken out, the order was countermanded. White represented the urgency of their wants, and two small pinnaces were despatched with supplies, and fifteen planters on board. Instead of proceeding to America, they commenced cruising for prizes, till, disabled and rifled by two men-of-war from Rochelle, they were obliged to retreat to England. And now Raleigh, who is said to have already expended £40,000 over these attempts at colonisation, appears to have sickened of them, and to have assigned his patent to a company of merchant adventurers. White did his utmost for the poor settlers he represented, and learning that some English ships were about to proceed to the West Indies, tried his best to arrange that they should take some provisions and stores to Virginia, the upshot of which was that he only obtained a passage for himself.

The colony had now been left to itself for two years. When the vessels anchored near the spot, they observed a great smoke on the island of Roanoake, and White, who had a married daughter among the colonists, hoped that it might proceed from one of their camps. Two boats put off from the ships, and the gunners were ordered to prepare three guns, “well loaded, and to shoot them off with reasonable space between each shot, to the end that their reports might be heard at the place where they hoped to find some of their people.” Their first search was vain, for though they reached the spot from which the smoke came, there were no signs of life there. The next day a second search was made, but one of the boats was swamped, and the captain and four others were drowned. The sailors averred that they would not seek further for the colonists; they were, however, over-ruled, and another attempt was made. Again they noted a great fire in the woods, and when the boat neared it, they let their grapnel fall, and sounded a trumpet, playing tunes familiar at the time; but there was no response. They landed at daybreak, and proceeded to the place where the colony had been left. “All the way,” says White, “we saw in the sand the print of the savages’ feet trodden that night; and as we entered up the sandy bank, upon a tree at the very brow thereof were curiously carved these fair Roman letters, C R O, which letters presently we knew to signify the place where I should find the planters seated, according to a token agreed upon at my departure.” He had told them in case of distress to carve over the letters or name a cross; but no such sign was found. At the spot itself where he expected the settlement, he found the houses taken down, and the place enclosed with logs or trees. Many heavy articles, bars of iron, pigs of lead, shot, and so forth, were lying about, almost overgrown with grass and weeds. Five chests, of which three were his own, were found at last, but they had been evidently broken into by the savages. “About the place,” says White, “many of my things, spoiled and broken, and my books torn from the covers, the frames of some of my pictures and maps rotten and spoiled with rain, and my armour almost eaten through with rust.” But on one of the trees or chief posts of the enclosure, the word CROATOAN was carved in large letters, and he now understood that they were with Manteo’s tribe. It was agreed that they should make for that place; but again fortune was against them.

One disaster followed another, and when at last they left Virginia, it was with the intention of wintering in the West Indies, and returning the following spring; but even this was not to be. Stress of weather drove them to the Azores, and once there it was naturally decided to return to England. No later attempt was made to succour them, and the fate of ninety-one men, seventeen women, and nine children, and of two infants born there, the names of which are preserved in Hakluyt, was never known. Raleigh has been greatly blamed for inhumanity in this connection. His excuse is that it was the busiest part of his eventful life. He had just borne his part in the defeat of the Armada; had been one of eleven hundred gentlemen who ventured on the unfortunate Portuguese expedition; had been sent, in what was regarded as an honourable banishment, but none the less an exile, to Ireland; on regaining his place in the queen’s favour had taken an active part in Parliamentary service; was concerned in a fresh naval expedition from which he was recalled by the queen, and had his first taste of that cell in the Tower, which later on he left only for the scaffold.

In 1595, we find Raleigh bent on a discovery which had long been a feverish dream with him—the conquest of the fabled El Dorado. It was but the result of the discoveries of the Spaniards in Mexico and Peru; and all over the Spanish main there was a fond belief extant in something greater and richer than anything yet found. One of the traditions of the day was that a relative of the last reigning Inca of Peru, escaping from the wreck of that empire, with a large part of its remaining forces and treasure, had established himself in a new country, which was found to be itself as rich in mines as that from which he had migrated. “The Spaniards,” says Southey, “lost more men in seeking for this imaginary kingdom than in the conquest of Mexico and Peru.”

Raleigh was encouraged in this enterprise by such men as Cecil, and the Lord High Admiral Howard, who contributed to its cost. His idea was to enter the land of gold by the Orinoco, and prior to his own voyage he despatched a ship, under Captain Whiddon, to reconnoitre on that part of the coast, and to seek information at the island of Trinidad. When Raleigh and his squadron had arrived at one of its ports he found a company of Spaniards from whom he cautiously extracted all they knew or believed concerning Guiana. “For these poor soldiers,” says he, “having been many years without wine, a few draughts made them merry; in which mood they vaunted of Guiana, and of the riches thereof, and all what they knew of the bays and passages, myself seeming to purpose nothing less than the entrance or discovery thereof, but bred in them an opinion that I was bound only for the relief of those English whom I had planted in Virginia, whereof the bruit was come among them, which I had performed in my return if extremity of weather had not forced me from the said coast.” Raleigh stopped some time here, not merely to extract all the information possible, but also to be revenged on the Governor, who the year before had behaved treacherously, entrapping eight of Captain Whiddon’s men. This he accomplished by taking and burning one of their new towns, and detaining the Governor, Berrio, at his pleasure on board. The same day two more of his ships arrived, and they prepared for the purposed discovery. “And first,” says Raleigh, “I called all the captains (i.e., caciques or native chiefs) of the island together that were enemies to the Spaniards; * and by my Indian interpreter, which I carried out of England, I made them understand that I was the servant of the queen, who was the great cacique of the north, and a virgin, and had more caciqui under her than there were trees on that island; that she was an enemy to the Castellani (i.e., Spanish from Castille) in respect of their tyranny and oppression, and that she delivered all such nations about her as were by them oppressed; and having freed all the coast of the northern world from their servitude, had sent me to free them also, and withal to defend the country of Guiana from their invasion and conquest. I showed them her Majesty’s picture, which they so admired and honoured as it had been easy to have brought them idolatrous thereof.” Raleigh used the Governor with courtesy and hospitality, and sounded him well concerning Guiana; and Berrio conversed with him readily, having no suspicion of Raleigh’s intentions. But when Sir Walter told him that he had resolved to see that country, the Governor “was stricken into a great melancholy,” and tried all he could to dissuade him. He described the rivers as full of sandbanks, and so shallow that no bark or pinnace could ascend them, and scarcely a ship’s boat; that they could not carry provisions for half the journey, and that the “kings and lords of all the borders of Guiana had decreed that none of them should trade with any Christians for gold, because the same would be their own overthrow, and that for the love of gold the Christians meant to conquer and dispossess them altogether.” The golden country was 600 miles farther from the coast than he had been informed, which piece of news Raleigh carefully concealed from his company, for he was resolved “to make trial of all, whatsoever happened.” After many explorations, on the part of his captains, of the rivers, the mouths of which were found to be as shallow as he had been told, he, with 100 men divided in a galley, four boats and barges, and carrying provisions for a month, resolved to see for himself.