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 ERCENTENARY 
 
 of MARTIN FRINGES FIRST 
 VOYAGE TO THE COAST 
 OF MAINE =<«»b 'm 1603 - 1903 
 
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MONUMENT TO MARTIN PRING 
 
 St. Stephens Church, Bristol, England 
 
THE AVANT COURIERS OF COLONIZATION 
 
 BY HON. JAMES PHFNNEY BAXTEB, PRESIDENT OF THE SOCIETY 
 
 A paper read on November 19, 1903, before the Maine HiHorical 
 
 Society at a meeting commemorative of the tercentenary of 
 
 Martin Pring''s first voyage to America 
 
 How long before the discoveries of Columbus and 
 Cabot the western hemisphere had been visited by- 
 adventurers from other parts of the world will ever 
 be a matter of speculation. Traditions of prior dis- 
 coveries therein have engaged the attention and sup- 
 port of ingenious writers, but they are too vague to 
 stand the test of historical criticism. Such are the 
 alleged discoveries by Phoenicians, perhaps the most 
 daring navigators of antiquity, of Jews, Chinese, 
 Irish, Scandinavians and Welsh. Even the discov- 
 eries so generally believed to have been made by the 
 Norsemen in the tenth century, although the sagas 
 which describe them bear internal evidences of truth, 
 cannot be properly regarded as history. 
 
 The first known discovery of the North American 
 continent was made by John Cabot on June 24, 1497. 
 Even Cabot's landfall and the extent of his discov- 
 eries are matters of controversy. He was followed 
 in the spring of 1500 by the Cortereal brothers, 
 
Gaspar and Miguel, who penetrated the waters which 
 wash the shores of Labrador, but encountering ice 
 made a brief survey of the coast and returned to Lis- 
 bon in the autumn of 1500. 
 
 In the spring of 1501, Gaspar again set sail for the 
 New World with three ships, and striking the coast 
 south of his former landfall, he followed it northerly 
 for several hundred miles, when encountering ice he 
 turned back and skirted the coast toward the south. 
 A bit of a sword and silver earrings of European 
 manufacture, supposed relics of Cabot's visit, were 
 discovered in possession of the natives, who were so 
 unsuspicious of strangers that fifty-seven of them weer 
 made prisoners, probably by enticing them on board 
 his vessels. An eminent authority supposes these 
 people to have been captured on the coast of Maine.^ 
 Setting sail without their commander two of his ships 
 reached Lisbon in safety. Miguel, after watching in 
 vain for the return of his brother, set out with three 
 ships on the 10th of May, 1502, to seek him, and 
 safely reaching the American coast, began a careful 
 search for the missing ship. Finding the rivers and 
 inlets numerous, he divided his fleet so as to make 
 his search more effective, arranging a rendezvous for 
 the 20th of August. Two of the vessels met at the 
 appointed time and place and awaited the arrival of 
 the other bearing their commander, but he did not 
 appear, and weary with waiting, they returned to 
 Lisbon without him. When another spring returned, 
 the king dispatched an expedition in search of the 
 
 > Kohl in " Documentary History of Maine," Vol. I. 
 
 
 L 
 
brothers, but it returned without success. They had 
 disappeared in the gray mists which sweep mysteri- 
 ously along the northern shores of the American con- 
 tinent, leaving the world forever to wonder at their 
 fate, and relatives and friends to plan expeditions for 
 their rescue from perils wrought but in dreams. 
 
 Nor were the English idle, for on the 9th of March, 
 1501, Richard Ward, Thomas Ashurst and John 
 Thomas, ship owners of Bristol, associating them- 
 selves with three Portuguese mariners, Juan Gonsal- 
 vez and Juan and Francisco Fernandez, obtained 
 from Henry VII. letters patent for western discovery. 
 In pursuance of their object, two voyages, of which 
 no particulars have been preserved, were doubtless 
 made in 1501 and 1502, when the association ended, 
 and a new one was formed by Ashurst and another 
 Bristol merchant, Hugh Eliot, with two of the Portu- 
 guese, to whom letters patent were issued December 
 9, 1502. Under this association three successive 
 voyages appear to have been made in the years 1503, 
 1504 and 1505, but everything relating to them is 
 veiled in obscurity. Equally unsuccessful were the 
 efforts of the French to gather fruit from Cabot's dis- 
 coveries. In 1506, Jean Denys of Honfleur, and in 
 1508, Thomas Aubert, sailed from the shores of 
 France to the northwest with high hopes of winning 
 wealth and fame, but their efforts were barren of 
 results, and in 1518, an attempt at settlement on 
 Sable Island by the Baron de Lery proved abortive. 
 On March 15, 1521, Emmanuel, King of Portugal, 
 issued letters patent to Joao Alvarez Fagundes, to 
 
possess and colonize lands in tlie New World, and 
 from an ancient Portuguese chart it would appear 
 that he discovered the present Nova Scotia. For a 
 long time his name figures in the cartography of this 
 region. 
 
 On January 17, 1524, Jean Verrazano under the 
 patronage of Francis I., of France, set sail in a small 
 vessel called the Dauphine with fifty men and pro- 
 visions for eight months, on a voyage of discovery to 
 the northwest. Verrazano probably made his land- 
 fall on the North Carolinian coast. Finding no har- 
 bor, he skirted the coast for fifty leagues southward, 
 and then turning to the north explored the coast for 
 about seven hundred leagues, when, finding his pro- 
 visions growing scanty, he set sail for home and 
 arrived at Dieppe in July. 
 
 In the year 1525, Estevan Gomez under authority 
 of the Spanish king, set out on a similar voyage. His 
 landfall must have been near that of Verrazano and 
 his course to the north along almost the same lines. 
 He entered the Penobscot River which he named the 
 Rio de las Gamos, or river of stags, on account of the 
 abundance of these animals which he saw there. It 
 appears that he followed the coast to the vicinity of 
 Newfoundland. Before his return to Spain, with the 
 proverbial cruelty of the Spaniard, " He filled his ship 
 with innocent people of both sexes half naked," says 
 Peter Martyr, to be sold for slaves. 
 
 On the 20th of May, 1527, the Samson & Mary of 
 Guilford, under the command of John Rut, sailed 
 from the Thames, touching at Plymouth Harbor, from 
 
whence slie departed on tlie lOth of June, and on the 
 3d of August, came to anchor in the harbor of St. 
 Johns amidst a fleet of fourteen ships, Norman, Breton 
 and Portuguese, which had come to those far off 
 shores to gather the harvest of the seas. By the 
 fragmentary account which has been preserved of 
 this voyage, we see something of the extent of mari- 
 time enterprise in those waters even at this early day. 
 For several years we have no record of English 
 or French voyages to the northwest ; but in 1534, 
 Jacques Cartier, having obtained a commission from 
 the French king, Francis I., set sail from St. Malo, 
 with two ships each of sixty tons burden, to explore 
 the northern coast of America in order to find an 
 opening to India. Failing in this, he returned home, 
 but not discouraged he set out with three vessels on 
 another voyage to the same region the following year, 
 intending to establish himself there for the winter. 
 On this voyage he discovered the St. Lawrence, and 
 remained in the country until the spring of 1536, 
 when he returned home. Before the return of Cartier 
 from this voyage, there sailed from Gravesend at the 
 end of April, 1536, an English expedition consisting 
 of two ships commanded by Robert Hore. We hear 
 of him at Cape Breton, from whence he took his 
 departure for home the same year. It seems improb- 
 able that he sailed as far south as the Maine coast. 
 In 1541, Cartier in conjunction with the Sieur de 
 Roberval, attempted to settle a colony on the St. 
 Lawrence, but the enterprise came to a disastrous 
 close two years later. 
 
It is not until 1565 that we hear of another voyage 
 of exploration by either English or French. In the 
 late summer of that year Captain John Hawkins fol- 
 lowed the entire coast of North America from Florida 
 to Newfoundland, with three ships, exploring it as he 
 went. The coast of Maine with its many bays and 
 rivers, must have attracted attention, and the knowl- 
 edge he gained of the region must have passed to 
 others, and perhaps have been the means of subse- 
 quently arousing the interest of his countrymen 
 in it. 
 
 For some years we have no record of voyages to 
 the northwest for the purpose of discovery or coloni- 
 zation. Adventurers, discouraged by repeated failure, 
 had adopted the opinion of Peter Martyr to the effect 
 that, " They that seek riches must not go to the frozen 
 north." A few, however, like Sir Humphrey Gilbert, 
 continued to hold an adverse opinion. Inspired by 
 Gilbert, Martin Frobisher, who had won a reputation 
 in England, for seamanship, succeeded, with the aid 
 of the Earl of Warwick, in fitting out two small barks, 
 manned with thirty-four men, with which he crossed 
 the ocean, sailing from Gravesend in June, 1576. He 
 made two successive voyages in 1577 and 1578, but 
 did not approach the Maine coast. When he arrived, 
 however, in English waters, an expedition, consisting 
 of seven ships and three hundred and fifty men, was 
 ready to sail thither, under the command of Sir 
 Humphrey Gilbert. This heroic man had given 
 inspiration to the first voyage of Frobisher, and on 
 the 11th of the preceding June, had been granted 
 
by the queen, letters patent *' For tlie inhabiting and 
 planting an English colony in America." One of the 
 ships, the Falcon, was commanded by Walter Raleigh, 
 then twenty-six years old, but the undertaking proved 
 abortive, though under the command of two of Eng- 
 land's bravest and most accomplished sons. 
 
 Another scheme, however, had been under con- 
 sideration by Sir Francis Walsingham, the astute 
 Secretary of Elizabeth, who doubtless desired to 
 gather direct knowledge through a trusty servant of 
 the northern part of America, hence, shortly after 
 Raleigh's return, a vessel under the charge of Simon 
 Ferdinando, a Portuguese navigator, in the employ of 
 the Secretary, set sail from Dartmouth to make a 
 reconnoissance of the coast of Norumbega, which he 
 successfully accomplished. 
 
 At the same time, Gilbert, who was making active 
 preparations to renew his voyage, was obliged by 
 orders from the Privy Council, of which Walsingham 
 was a potent factor, to relinquish his undertaking. 
 Sir Humphrey, however, not to be baffled, succeeded 
 a few months later in sending a ship, under the 
 charge of a trusty agent, to the same region. The 
 name of the man was John Walker, and he explored 
 the entrance of the Norumbega, as the Penobscot was 
 then called, where, upon a hill nine leagues from the 
 river's mouth, he found what he called a silver mine, 
 and, obtaining "In an Indian house VII miles with 
 in the lande from the ryvers side, IIIc drye hides, ^ 
 whereof the most parte of them were eighteene foote 
 
 ''Doubtless these were hides of the moose, Alces Americanus. 
 
by the square," he set sail for home, which he reached 
 after a quick run of seventeen days. 
 
 Raleigh, however, cherished the purpose of plant- 
 ing a colony in America, and, when his growing for- 
 tune enabled him to put this purpose into execution, 
 he came to the aid of Gilbert, who was still striving 
 to get materials together for his proposed colony, and 
 who had been stimulated to new exertions by the 
 successful voyages of Walker and others with whom 
 he had personally conferred. 
 
 Gilbert also had the aid of Sir George Peckham, 
 Sir Thomas Gerard, and other influential men, in this 
 enterprise, and on the 11th day of June, 1583, with 
 five vessels and two hundred and sixty men, Raleigh 
 being detained at home by Elizabeth, he sailed from 
 Cawsand Bay. In his former voyage Gilbert had suf- 
 fered losses which crippled him, and he had struggled 
 against almost insurmountable obstacles to equip his 
 fleet. As it was, he was obliged to sail with an insuf- 
 cient supply of provisions, and although his tdtimate 
 destination was the coast of Maine, he laid his course 
 for Newfoundland, hoping to be able to supply his 
 scanty stores from fishing vessels, which he might 
 encounter, having a supply beyond their needs. On 
 the 7th of July, seven weeks after leaving home, land 
 was sighted. Reaching Conception Bay he found the 
 Swallow, one of his ships, lost in the fog, and, sailing 
 southward, entered the harbor of St. Johns on the 3d 
 of August, where he found the Squirrel, another of 
 his ships. Here he lost so many men from sickness 
 and desertion, that he had not enough to navigate his 
 
ships and lie therefore decided to leave the Swallow 
 behind to transport the sick home. On the 27th of 
 August, Sir Humphrey sailed from the harbor of St. 
 Johns with the Delight, the Golden Hind and Squir- 
 rel. Two days after sailing, the largest of his ships, 
 the Delight, was driven ashore in a gale and lost with 
 nearly all her crew. Finding it impracticable to con- 
 tinue his explorations to the coast of Maine, Sir 
 Humphrey turned homeward, cheering his comrades 
 with promises of a new expedition which should 
 result in good for all. As the ships passed north of 
 the Azores they encountered heavy seas, and on the 
 night of the 9th of September, the Squirrel foundered, 
 bearing to destruction the brave Gilbert and her 
 crew. Thirteen days later, the Golden Hind, the 
 only remaining ship of the fleet, battered and well 
 nigh disabled, entered the port of Falmouth. 
 
 During the remainder of the sixteenth century we 
 have no account of voyages of exploration to the 
 northeastern shores of the New World, either by 
 French or English. 
 
 On March 25, 1602, Bartholomew Gosnold sailed 
 from Falmouth in a small ship, named the Concord, 
 with thirty-two persons, eight of whom were mari- 
 ners. A portion of these were to remain in the coun- 
 try " for population." His landfall was north of 
 Massachusetts Bay. Sailing southward he passed 
 Cape Cod and came to an island which he named 
 after Queen Elizabeth, and there erected a small fort 
 and storehouse for his proposed settlement ; but, 
 while he was loading his ship with sassafras, cedar 
 
and other commodities obtained by traffic with the 
 savages, many of the colonists became homesick, and 
 in the end the settlement was abandoned and all 
 returned home.^ 
 
 Another expedition for the purpose of discovering 
 a northwest passage to India commanded by George 
 Waymouth was dispatched by the East India Com- 
 pany, May 2, of the same year. Taking a course far 
 to the north and encountering many dangers, Way- 
 mouth abandoned his undertaking and made his way 
 back to England. 
 
 A relation of Gosnold's voyage describing the 
 country in glowing terms was published upon his 
 return home awakening a fresh interest in the new 
 country and certain of the " Chief est merchants of 
 Bristol" fitted out two vessels, the Speedwell and 
 Discoverer, under command of Martin Pring, which 
 sailed from Milford Haven, April 10, 1603. On the 
 15th of the previous month Champlain sailed on his 
 first voyage to Canada, the scene of the exploits of 
 his noted countryman, Jacques Cartier, and the fol- 
 lowing year settled a French colony on an island, 
 which he named St. Croix, near the present town of 
 Calais, Maine. Having suffered the loss of many of 
 
 1 The Earl of Southampton, the patron and friend of Shakespeare, was also a 
 patron of Gosnold in this voyage, and the Rev. Edward Everett Hale calls attention 
 to the resemblance of passages in "The Tempest" and the description of the land- 
 ing at Cuttyunk by Gosnold. Mr. Hale supposes Shakespeare to have heard this 
 description and used it in his play, and concludes his interesting article on the 
 subject by saying that Shakespeare was "Describing an island which is in commu- 
 nication with the vexed Bermoothes; yet there is no allusion to an orange, a 
 banana, a yam or a potato, a feather cloak or a palm tree, or a pineapple or a 
 monkey or a parrot, or anything else which refers to the Gulf of Mexico or the 
 tropics. Does not this seem as if he meant that the local color of " The Tempest" 
 should be that which was suggested by the gentlemen adventurers and the seamen 
 who were talking of Cuttyhunk, its climate and productions, as they told traveller's 
 stories up and down in London." 
 
his colonists during tlie severe winter whicli followed 
 their arrival in the new country, he explored the coast 
 toward the south in the summer of 1605, but finally 
 removed his shattered colony to the north establishing 
 it at a place named by him Port Royal, now known as 
 Annapolis. In June, 1603, Pring was off the coast of 
 Maine, which he explored, noting the fine forests 
 and innumerable animals with which the country- 
 abounded. Being desirous of obtaining a supply of 
 sassafras he shaped his course to Massachusetts Bay, 
 where he loaded the Discoverer with the commodity 
 he was seeking and dispatched her for England, fol- 
 lowing himself later and reaching England, Octo- 
 ber 2d. 
 
 The meeting of the Society to-night is the tercen- 
 tenary celebration of this voyage of Bring, to whom 
 we must accord an honorable place among the 
 renowned seamen of the Elizabethan Age, and whose 
 name will forever adorn the early pages of our 
 history. While Bring himself never led a colony 
 here, his explorations of the coast, and the careful 
 charts which he made and exhibited to Gorges and 
 others on his return to England, explaining to them 
 the fertility of the soil which he had tested by plant- 
 ing seeds, and the many advantages which the coun- 
 try offered to colonial enterprise, were of great 
 importance in stimulating them to undertake the 
 settlement of the country. Many years, however, 
 elapsed before a permanent colony was founded 
 within the present limits of Maine. In the brief 
 review which I have given of voyages to our northern 
 
shores I have spoken chiefly of French and English 
 enterprises, because after the voyage of Gomez 
 we have no accounts of Spanish or Portuguese voy- 
 ages thither ; but we know that many vessels went 
 annually to Newfoundland and adjacent waters to fish 
 and traffic with the natives, and there can be no 
 doubt that voyages for discovery and exploration 
 were made by Spain who claimed the entire territory 
 as her own. The publication of such discoveries, 
 however, was not allowed. Nor is there doubt that 
 the coast of Maine was familiar to adventurers long 
 before Pring's voyage. Kohl, we know, expresses 
 his belief that the savages captured for slaves by 
 Cortereal in 1502, came from the coast of Maine, and 
 we know that the Penobscot appears on the chart of 
 Gomez in 1525. Yet we have no evidences of occu- 
 pation during the sixteenth century. Gosnold's and 
 Pring's voyages, however, with Waymouth's voyage 
 to the coast of Maine which followed, mark the begin- 
 ning of the movement towards the colonization of New 
 England. I have thought that a brief account of the 
 voyages to our northern coast, preceding those of Gos- 
 nold and Pring, would be a fitting introduction to 
 the subject which is to be presented to the Society on 
 this very interesting occasion. 
 
CAPTAIN MARTIN PRING, LAST OF THE 
 ELIZABETHAN SEAMEN 
 
 BY PROF. ALFRED L. P. DENNIS 
 
 A paper read on November 19, 1903, before the Maine Historical 
 
 Society at a meeting commemorative of the tercentenary of 
 
 Martin Pring''s first voyage to America 
 
 In the year 1603, Captain Martin Pring of Bristol, 
 England, sailed westward to this coast and, after 
 spending some weeks in Whitson Bay, now Plymouth 
 Harbor in Massachusetts, returned to England with a 
 shipload of sassafras. By many students this voyage 
 has been remarked chiefly because seventeen years 
 later the Mayflower, driven from her course by storms, 
 dropped anchor in the same waters where formerly 
 Captain Pring had found both safety and profit. 
 Such lovers of coincidence have sought to give to 
 Captain Pring's achievement merely an introductory 
 character, to credit him with sagacity in the choice of 
 a harbor only because other men of wider fame were 
 later compelled by the will of the winds to the same 
 harbor. In short these Greek givers would notice 
 and praise Captain Pring for something he could 
 neither help nor hinder, and thus would bury his 
 rightful glory beneath borrowed laurels ; by so doing 
 
tliey in reality deny him substantive value and make 
 his fame a poor ex post facto affair, at the mercy of 
 every judicial reader. 
 
 Such unearned honors and such unnecessary claims 
 to notice, Captain Pring himself would be the first to 
 reject ; for he could well cite better title to commem- 
 oration than mere coincidence. This better title is to 
 be found in the record of his life work, and that 
 not only because of what he did but also because his 
 career is itself a mirror to his times, because in him 
 are displayed the working of forces which were to 
 give substance and character to the course of English 
 history. 
 
 I feel the readier to recall to your minds the story 
 of his life, as far as it can be known to-day, because 
 from your vantage ground you have already seen the 
 truth of my contention. To declare the honor of 
 Martin Pring by a commemorative meeting is proof 
 that this Society is fulfilling those functions, both 
 delightful and valuable, which especially pertain to 
 an association by name singular yet by interests uni- 
 versal. For it is the good fortune of such societies 
 to stand where the path broadens to the highway, to 
 point the traveller down the country lane to the ham- 
 let whose life will show the deep rootages of ancient 
 custom and local habit, or to give him direction along 
 the avenue where a new nation has but just passed. 
 Such a position accommodates itself to the story 1 
 have to tell of a man by whom small matters were 
 well ordered and brought forth, yet who on occasion 
 was able to effect those greater deeds which enrich 
 
the memory and enliven the hope of our inherited 
 history. I shall speak to you this evening of Captain 
 Martin Pring, last of the Elizabethan seamen, adven- 
 turer in both hemispheres for the glory and gain of 
 England.^ 
 
 I. 
 
 First, however, I must speak of the England which 
 gave birth to Martin Pring, of the manner of men he 
 had for his example, of their purpose and endeavor 
 made evident in action and of the spirit which must 
 have been bred in him by the events of his time, that 
 we may the better judge how well this Benjamin, 
 
 ' Bibliographical Note. The materials for this paper are much scattered. We 
 have brief records made either by Captain Pring or by some scribe at his direction of 
 the voyage to America in 1603 and of voyages to the East Indies in 1614 and 1617. To 
 reinforce and check these we have also several notices in contemporary sources, 
 to wit, for the first American voyage a summary statement by Purchas and a bare 
 record preserved by Captain John Smith of Robert Salterne's short relation of the 
 same. For the Guiana voyage in 1604 there exist a letter of Charles Leigh to hie 
 brother, Sir Olive Leigh, and the relation of Master John Wilson, who was also con- 
 cerned in that unfortunate venture. The character of the second American voyage 
 (1606) is explained by letters and a narration of Captain Challons, who was to have 
 been Pring's partner in colonization on that occasion, by writings of Sir Ferdinando 
 Gorges, by Strachey in his " Historie of Travaile into Virginia " and by the " Brief 
 Relation of the President and Council for New England," published in 1622. The 
 story of Pring's services in the employ of the East India Company is given in the 
 records of his fellow-sailors, notably in the diary of Captain Nicholas Downton and 
 in the relation of Master John Hatch, both of the Company's service; the despatches 
 and diary of Sir Thomas Roe, British envoy and resident at the court of the Mughal 
 Emperor, Jahangir, are valuable, as are also the papers of the Company, and other 
 official documents to be found in the Calendar of State Papers. The only evidence 
 concerning a third voyage to America is the will of one Miles Prickett, a baker, who 
 died near Canterbury, England, in 1626 or 1627. The secondary sources which 
 deserve special notice are few; they consist chiefly of brief biographical notices in 
 Brown's " Genesis of the United States," in the " Dictionary of National Biography " 
 and in a pamphlet by Dr. James Pring of Plymouth, England, published in 1888. 
 Articles in several periodicals and in Winsor's " Narrative and Critical History " 
 are of varying merit; those by Dr. De Costa, however, are valuable for disputed 
 matters in early American discovery. On close examination the whole sifts to 
 comparatively little of determined value. Many gaps remain and much may still 
 be open to debate; but no attempt has been made to proceed beyond the limit set 
 by the evidence available. A bibliography of titles cited will be found at the close 
 of the paper. 
 
youngest and last of the breed, gave sign of the stock 
 from which he sprang. 
 
 At the start of his essay " Of the True Greatness of 
 the Kingdom of Britain " Sir Francis Bacon wisely 
 says : " The just measure and estimate of the forces 
 and power of an estate is a matter, than the which 
 there is nothing among civil affairs more subject to 
 error, nor that error more subject to perilous conse- 
 quence."^ It would have been easy indeed to mistake 
 the measure of England's power in the year when 
 Martin Bring was born, for in 1580 modern England 
 was approaching the first great crisis of her life. 
 Not again till the day of Louis XIV or of Napoleon 
 were the vital forces of the state to be so vehemently 
 attacked from abroad. It is true that men were to 
 dispute the nature of sovereignty and its proper loca- 
 tion in the nation ; men were to make petitions, grand 
 remonstrances, solemn covenants and declarations of 
 right ; one king was to die for his prerogative and 
 another was to lose his throne for his faith and 
 conduct, yet throughout the long struggle of the 
 seventeenth century the existence of England as an 
 independent nation was never so vitally at stake as in 
 the years when Martin Bring was coming to youth. 
 
 Later Montesquieu was to write of the English as 
 the people who above all others had known best how 
 to "profit simultaneously by three great forces — relig- 
 ion, commerce and liberty."^ For the problems which 
 troubled England in 1580 were not of one category ; 
 
 •Bacon: " Works," VII, p. 47. 
 '"Esprit des lois," 1. XX, c. 7. 
 
nor did each stand separate ; rather did politics, relig- 
 ion and economics form an equilateral, inseparable 
 and fundamental, on which modern England was to 
 rise a free, Protestant and maritime power. 
 
 In the opening years of Elizabeth's rule there stood 
 foremost the question of religion, disastrous legacy of 
 earlier reigns. On the one hand was a body of Cath- 
 olic bishops holding manfully to ancient dogma and 
 tradition and attempting a loyal fealty to both Papal 
 tiara and royal crown. On the other hand were those 
 divines whom an exile on the continent, enforced by 
 Mary's persecutions, had innoculated with a Calvinism 
 hitherto foreign to English minds. Between the two 
 was the great bulk of the English people. These 
 " wished for a national church, independent of Rome, 
 with simple services, not too unlike those to which 
 they had been accustomed " before the will of Henry 
 VIII had swept the church into the employ of his 
 passions. Some must be dissatisfied whatever solu- 
 tion be finally attained of the problem thus pro- 
 pounded. One thing, however, was certain — Papal 
 jurisdiction could not be revived in the domain of a 
 queen to be adjudged illegitimate and heretical by 
 Papal Europe. Another thing was desirable — 
 namely, to proceed with such leisurely liberty as 
 might allow men to compose their minds to a regime 
 of discussion without animosity, yet with such order 
 and sympathy that both ecclesiastical continuity and 
 religious consciousness might find one roof to shelter 
 them. For the nation had a conservative belief in 
 God and wished opportunity and place to express that 
 
belief. The England of Elizabetli was a religious if 
 not a pious country. Men might trade in slaves, 
 range the seas as pirates, speak and write broadly, 
 yet they rarely forgot to commend their souls to God 
 or to thank Him who, in the words of Hawkins, the 
 slave-trader, " preserveth his elect." Elizabeth knew 
 her people well and nursed them in religious matters 
 with the hope that a Catholic might still remain a 
 patriot, though England might never again be 
 Roman. ^ 
 
 Despite the tortuous negotiations concerning her 
 marriage and the succession to the throne Elizabeth 
 emerged from them surrounded by a " personal loy- 
 alty of unswerving devotion" on the part of men who 
 conceived it their greatest pleasure to be the " instru- 
 ment of her glory," their highest honor to merit her 
 approval and their gravest duty to unite in enthusi- 
 astic association to defend her person. By the spirit 
 thus inspired men did things with a dash that had 
 much of a swagger ; they learned to die with a grand 
 manner. All England was ready to go crusading 
 with Spenser in the name of the Faerie Queen. Sir 
 Walter Raleigh as he entered Cadiz harbor and " all 
 the Spanish forts and ships opened fire on him at 
 once scorned to shoot a gun and made answer with a 
 flourish of insulting trumpets." Again the Earl of 
 Essex when the news reached him that the attack on 
 Cadiz had been decided threw his hat overboard for 
 pure joy, as a school boy would toss his hat in the air 
 at the news of a holiday. Yet Essex was a peer of 
 
 » Creighton: " Queen Elizabeth," pp. 47-49, et passim. 
 
the realm, a man of great possessions, who was to be 
 allowed to risk his life.^ Sir Richard Grenville of 
 the Revenge furnishes, perhaps, in the manner of his 
 dying, the best example of them all. After his fight 
 with the Spaniards off the Azores, at odds of one to 
 fifty-three, crying at the end, in the words of the 
 ballad 
 
 " ' I have fought for Queen and Faith like a valliant man and true; 
 I have only done my duty as a man is bound to do : 
 With a joyful spirit I Sir Richard Grenville die.' 
 And he fell upon their decks, and he died." 
 
 Against the personal charm and beauty of Mary 
 Stuart, against the conspiracies of those Catholics to 
 whom civil obedience was less than religious fanati- 
 cism, against fears of Jesuit assassination and of for- 
 eign invasion, Elizabeth had to match all the capacity 
 of her mind, all the wisdom of her temporizing policy, 
 and at the last to rest on the patience, affection and 
 bravery of her people. And surely that patience was 
 sorely tried by those outbreaks of petulant cruelty, of 
 wayward despotism, by that practise of parsimony 
 and hesitating compromise which checker her reputa- 
 tion. At times politics sank to a " low level of 
 absurdity " because of her wavering policy; yet at the 
 crisis of her reign, when not only her fate but possi- 
 bly the course of English history were in the balance, 
 the entire nation rallied to her support and to the 
 defence of the state. For the religious question, 
 linked as it was to that of Elizabeth's marriage and 
 the succession to the crown, had found a stern solution 
 
 »Cf. Stevenson's Essay on the " English Admirals" in " Virginibua Puerisque ;" 
 and Creighton : "Queen 'Eliz&heta," passim. 
 
in the political diflSculties whicli became clear to 
 all in 1580. In that year, with Papal approval and 
 Spanish furtherance, a plan was made to attack 
 England through Ireland, through Scotland, and 
 through conspiracy at home. The defeat of these 
 endeavors and the execution of Mary Stuart cleared 
 the way for the greater Spanish attack, the Invincible 
 Armada. 
 
 And here the economic interest, long efficient in 
 the affairs of the nation, becomes essential to the 
 course of events. Under its stimulus politics redis- 
 covered an old trinity, that of commerce, colonies 
 and sea-power. For in the Tudor period a great 
 change took place in the material life of England. 
 Where men had formerly planted crops they now 
 pastured sheep, whose wool was to busy increasing 
 looms. Where once Walter of Henley had written a 
 " Treatise on Husbandry " John Hales now published 
 a " Discourse on the Common Weal." Hakluyt was 
 compiling the *' Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and 
 Discoveries of the English Nation," and a few years 
 later Thomas Mun was to defend and spread a new 
 theory of national economy by writing his "Discourse of 
 Trade" and "England's Treasure by Forraign Trade. "^ 
 During the sixteenth century the place long held by 
 manorial agriculture was suffering encroachment 
 
 ' Walter of Henley : " Le Dite de Hosebondrie " (edited by Lainond), London, 1890. 
 Written during the XIII century. Cf . " Royal Hist. Sec. Trans." 1895, IX pp. 21B- 
 21. J. Hales: " A discourse of the common weal of this realm of England," (edited 
 by Laraond), Cambridge, 1893. Written 1549; first published 1581. Cf. Cunningham 
 in " Econ. Jour." December, 1893. Hakluyt's first edition appeared in 1589; the com- 
 pleted work was printed 1599-1600. Mun : " A Discourse of Trade from England unto 
 the East Indies," was printed in 1621 and republished in Purchas, Vol. I ; "England's 
 Treasure by Forraign Trade" was not published, however, till 1064. 
 
by new national industrial and commercial inter- 
 ests ; and the domestic economy of mediaeval England 
 was disappearing as the establishment of capital 
 transformed the relations of land and labor. Great 
 vistas were opening dimly to merchants in whom 
 imagination and a spirit of adventure had been bred. 
 
 The craft guilds, weakened by internal divisions 
 and external changes, were surrendering the control 
 of industry itself into the hands of the government. 
 Enactments such as the Statute of Apprentices 
 (1563) became part of a legislative code whose ration- 
 ale "was the deliberate pursuit of national power." 
 Foreign commerce, once intermunicipal, became inter- 
 national. Chartered companies traded to all parts, 
 each, however, under supervision and with carefully 
 defined privileges or spheres of monopoly.^ An 
 economic theory arose which, overlooking subtler laws 
 of credit, regarded a flourishing export trade and a 
 treasure store at home as essential signs of national 
 prosperity and safety. Shipbuilding and the training 
 of sailors became a national occupation ; and soon 
 Bacon was to write that the " vantage of strength at 
 sea (which is one of the principal dowries of this 
 
 kingdom of Great Britain ) is great because 
 
 the wealth of both Indies seems in great part but an 
 accessory to the command of the seas."^ 
 
 To draw to England, whether by arms or trade, the 
 riches of America and Asia, became, therefore, a 
 principle of the national economy. There followed 
 
 •Cf. Cunningham: "Growthof English Industry and Commerce" (Modern Times, 
 pt. 2 ) Section VI, parts 1 and 2. 
 
 * Bacon : '♦ Works," VI, p. 451. 
 
naturally the establishment of plantations and facto- 
 ries. Yet this system was not developed in a year ; 
 and I have gone beyond the limits of Elizabeth's reign 
 to show yovi to what purpose this policy was destined. 
 Our concern is with the evolution of this system 
 rather than with its completion or full operation ; 
 our special interest lies with the men who supported, 
 indeed created, this policy. For as pioneers of trade 
 and colonization, as forerunners of companies and cor- 
 porations, there came men, half statesman, half pirate, 
 who by their personal endeavors were to lay the foun- 
 dations of England's greatness as an industrial and 
 commercial power. 
 
 These Elizabethan seamen had been raiding to the 
 Antipodes and the Spanish Main and plundering 
 Spanish ships to such purpose that when the day of 
 trial came Elizabeth found ready to her hand a fleet 
 manned by crews, anxious to face the unequal odds 
 offered by the Spanish Armada and able to assist the 
 elements in a victory of supreme importance to our 
 race. For a new England grew out of that great 
 struggle, and the Queen, who had found the country 
 " dispirited, divided and uncertain " saw toward the 
 close of her reign a proud, united and confident peo- 
 ple, possessed by a sense of national self-conscious- 
 ness, which was to mark the age with a freshness and 
 vigor all its own. The new England had found itself. 
 
 n. 
 
 Martin Pring was eight years old when the men of 
 his race and in particular the men of his own shire, 
 
 10 
 
Devon, went out to meet the Spanish fleet ; he was 
 eleven when Sir Richard Grenville won death and 
 everlasting glory in his fight off the Azores. As he 
 came to manhood the older men were telling their 
 tales of wild raids and rich plunder ; but the younger 
 men talked of the new companies formed for the 
 Russia, the Levant, the Barbary and the Guinea 
 trades, of prospects of further discoveries, of coloni- 
 zation and of commerce ; yet young and old alike 
 familiar with the Spanish Main and curious for the 
 Spice Islands and the Norumbega shore. Small won- 
 der then that Pring chose the sea ; but greater honor 
 that amid such competition as the period forced he 
 soon won his way to command. He gained the confi- 
 dence of Richard Hakluyt, compiler of the "prose 
 epic of the modern English nation," and of John 
 Whitson, twice mayor of Bristol and four times mem- 
 ber of Parliament, and thus the patronage of the Mer- 
 chant Adventurers of Bristol. This was manifest 
 when at the age of twenty-three Captain Pring was 
 placed in charge of a venture to Virginia. It was in 
 1603, the year in which Francis Bacon was knighted 
 and William Shakespere's play, the " Taming of the 
 Shrew," was first enacted. In this year also the 
 Queen died, as if for sign that a new age in English 
 history was at hand.^ 
 
 1 The Russia or Muscovy Co. was chartered in 1554; the Eastland Co. in 1579; the 
 Levant or Turkey Co. in 1681 ; the Barbary or Morocco Co. in 1585; the first Guinea 
 Co. in 1588; and the East India Co. in 1600. Cf. Cunningham: op. cit. "Modern 
 Times " pt. I, pp. 234 et seq. ; Cawston and Keane : " Early Chartered Companies." 
 On the commerce and importance of Bristol at this time see Anderson: "Origin of 
 Commerce," II, pp. 48, 106, 151-52. For biographical sketches of Whitson and Pring 
 see " Dictionary of National Biography," and Brown : " Genesis of U. S.", II, pp. 972, 
 1052. Cf. also Pring: " Captaine Martin Priuge," p. 8. Martin Pring was probably 
 born in the parish of Awliscombe near Honiton, Devon, in 1580. 
 
 11 
 
Voyages to Virginia were large matters in those 
 days ; but Captain Pring, as tlie record reads, was 
 regarded as "a man very suflGicient for tlie place." 
 His destination was to be the northern part of Vir- 
 ginia, Norumbega as some called it, where during the 
 century past some half a dozen known discoveries had 
 been made by Englishmen. In 1527 John Rut had 
 seen off Newfoundland a flock of French fishing-ves- 
 sels ; and later John Hore of London had sailed after 
 him. Thirty years were to pass and Ingram by his 
 fantastic tales of a city of silver and crystal on the 
 Penobscot gave the New England region the reputa- 
 tion of the land of Eldorado. Others followed and 
 soon Sir Humphrey Gilbert, that flower of Elizabethan 
 chivalry, gave up his life in an attempt to plant in 
 Norumbega. A year after that melancholy event, in 
 1584, the Queen was pleased, as the result of a voyage 
 by Amidas and Barlow to the southern coast, to name 
 the whole region Virginia for herself and to bestow 
 in conjunction with Parliament an ample patent for 
 that country upon Sir Walter Raleigh. Then the 
 struggle with Spain came on to engross English ener- 
 gies ; the Atlantic became the scene of a vast naval 
 struggle ; and within four years the Spaniards had 
 lost 800 ships. But a further attempt to plant in 
 Virginia had again failed. 
 
 Yet many vessels had in the meantime crossed the 
 ocean to the Banks to fish and to the mainland to get 
 furs. Finally with larger purpose came Gosnold in 
 1602 and with him Bartholomew Gilbert. Their voyage 
 led them in accordance with Verrazano's directions 
 
 12 
 
by the direct passage to the main ; then turning 
 southward they made Cape Cod and at last Cutty- 
 hunk in the Elizabeth Islands. With a store of sassa- 
 fras root and cedar boards they returned to England 
 only to lose their profits at the hands of Sir Walter 
 Raleigh, promoter and monopolist. For he claimed 
 the venture as an infringement of his patent, protest- 
 ing also that the sudden dumping on the market of a 
 full cargo of the root would greatly lower the price, 
 which at that time ranged as high as twenty shillings 
 the pound. This unauthorized attempt to plunder 
 had for our purposes one merit in that, profiting by 
 such example, the Bristol merchants, who were to 
 father Pring's endeavors, first secured a license for 
 the venture from Sir Walter. Further, Robert Sal- 
 terne, who had been pilot to Gosnold, was engaged to 
 go with Pring.^ 
 
 The account of this first voyage made by Pring to 
 America, as published in Purchas, though credited to 
 Pring is obviously not all by the same hand. In the 
 first two paragraphs and the last Pring is referred to 
 in the third person ; and his own statements begin 
 only with the departure from Mi] ford Haven on April 
 10 and do not include the record of the home voyage. 
 It seems probable that the relation reached Purchas 
 
 1 Winsor : " Narrative and Critical History," III, pp. 169-218, especially pp. 173-174, 
 188-189. Pring: " Captaine Martin Fringe," pp. 16 18. Brown: op. cit. I, p. 26: II., 
 pp. 896, 904; and "Dictionary of Nat. Biog.," see Oosncld, B. Gilbert and Pring. 
 Brereton's and Archer's relation of Gosnold's voyage are in " Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll." 
 3rd series, VIII. Cf . De Costa in " Mag. of Am. Hist.," X, p. 146. One only of Gos- 
 nold's party saved his share by entering Raleigh's service; this was not Gosnold as 
 Dr. De Costa has it, but Bartholomew Gilbert who in the year following lost his life 
 in Chesapeake Bay. The statements in Bancroft: " Hist, of U. S.," (Orig. ed.), I, 
 pp. 129-30, in Palfrey: "Hist, of New Eng.," I, pp. 73-75, and in Belknap: "Am. 
 Biog.," II, pp. 228-37, appear to be in need of correction. 
 
 13 
 
among Hakluyt's papers. There was also a Dutch 
 abstract made of it by Gottfried and published by 
 Van der Aa ; this edition was embellished by a copper 
 plate representing an Indian attack. The mistaken 
 geographical interpretations which once obscured the 
 history of this voyage have now been corrected and 
 the identification with Plymouth Harbor of Whitson 
 Bay, as Pring called his final haven in honor of the 
 mayor of Bristol, has been so successfully accom- 
 plished by Dr. De Costa that it need not detain us at 
 present.' 
 
 The expedition consisted of two ships, the Speed- 
 well of fifty tons and the Discoverer of half that bur- 
 then, the two manned by less than fifty crew ; they 
 were laden with " slight merchandizes thought fit to 
 trade with the people of the Countrey," hats of divers 
 colors, clothing, tools and lesser toys — beads and 
 bells, looking-glasses and thimbles. By the voyagers 
 the beauties of the Maine coast were well remarked, 
 the value of the fisheries and of the lumber ; but 
 though small explorations were made in Casco Bay, 
 the main purpose was not secured till good sassafras 
 was found within Cape Cod. Here experiments in 
 agriculture were made to discover the excellent qual- 
 ity of soil and climate, the abundance of fruit being 
 a special cause of satisfaction. Here the Indians 
 were seen first, dances were given for them, and all 
 went well till near the end when a treacherous attack 
 
 1 In addition to materials noted under the last footnote the main sources for this 
 voyage are in Purchas: " His Pilgrimes," IV, pp. 1654-56; V., p. 829. Salterne's rela- 
 tion is given in J. Smith: "General Historie of Virginia," (Arber's reprint), p. 336. 
 Cf . De Costa in " Mag. of Am. Hist.," VIII, pp. 807 et seq., 840, ct seq., and in " New 
 Eng. Hist, and Gen. Reg.," XXXII, pp. 76 et seq. 
 
 14 
 
on the voyagers was attempted. On this occasion 
 two great mastiffs brought from Elngland were useful 
 in dispersing the savages. The sassafras root with 
 which both ships were laden was highly esteemed at 
 this time in England as a remedy for serious plagues 
 and fever and was sometimes called the ague root. 
 By October all were safely home, bringing profit and 
 information to the patrons of the venture. 
 
 Voyages such as this showed that the day of 
 Hawkins and Drake had passed for America ; that 
 the buccaneers were becoming merchants ; that plan- 
 tations would soon take the place of piracy and that 
 a new England bent on commercial advancement and 
 colonial expansion was now in the making. Indeed, 
 what may possibly be direct indication of this change 
 is to be found in the use by Pring of the Speedwell, a 
 west of England pinnace. A vessel of the same name 
 and tonnage, hailing from the same part of England, 
 was in Sir Francis Drake's fleet employed by him in 
 
 1587 for that characteristic raid in Cadiz, which he 
 described as " singeing the beard of the King of 
 Spain." Furthermore Drake had under his command 
 in the fight with the Armada in the next year a ship 
 of approximately the same tonnage, also called the 
 Speedwell, Hugh Hardinge, Master, apparently one of 
 many merchantmen which either were volunteered or 
 were chartered for sj^ecial service. It seems fair to 
 assume that the same boat is referred to in 1587 and 
 
 1588 and if so the question of her identity with Pring's 
 ship becomes the more interesting. In any event, 
 that two or perhaps three ships whose similarity is so 
 
 15 
 
marked as to suggest possible identity should have 
 been put to this variety of employment within sixteen 
 years ( 1587-1603 ) is significant of the change taking 
 place in all England/ 
 
 Pring's next great voyage was to the Guiana coast 
 in 1604 as master in the Phoenix of Charles Leigh's 
 ill-fated expedition. In turning thus from Virginia 
 to Guiana Pring gives further proof of his lineage. 
 For Sir Walter Raleigh was to show the interests of 
 his time by likewise transferring his ventures from 
 the Chesapeake to the Orinoco. Pring was drawn in 
 the later Elizabethan manner. Those of you who are 
 fortunate enough to retain clear memories of " West- 
 ward Ho ! " that finest of Elizabethan tales, will recall 
 the dangers and privations endured by the wanderers 
 in South American forests. To such the story of the 
 reckless yet gallant ventures, the terrible sufferings 
 and pitiful rescue of Charles Leigh's party, will 
 afford an interesting parallel. It is all written out 
 in the fourth volume of Purchas. Pring, however, 
 showed himself to be more sensible if less loyal than 
 others ; for when he found that despite of the climate, 
 the lack of victuals and the desperate character of the 
 endeavor, Leigh was firm to colonize, he led a party 
 in mutiny and finally was quit of the whole matter by 
 
 'Laughton: "The Spanish Armada," II, pp. 182, 326. The variations in measure- 
 ment of tonnage make it possible to disregard a difference of ten tons, p. 323. 
 Clowes: "Hist, of Royal Navy,"!, pp. 423, 487, 591. Corbett: " Drake and the Tudor 
 Navy," II, p. 68 n. Oppenheim: " Adm. of the Royal Navy," pp. 120, 123, 139, 160, 
 163, 202, 203, 214, 251 n. The two pinnaces mentioned in the text should not be con- 
 fused with the galley Speedwell, built at Woolwich in 1569 and carried on the navy 
 list till 1579, nor with the 400-ton Speedwell to be found on the navy list of James 1 ; 
 she was formerly the Swif tsure, rebuilt in 1607, but was lost near Flushing in Novem- 
 ber, 1624. The use of private vessels by the government was frequent; in 1588 there 
 were 163 not on the royal navy list but either in pay or in use for the struggle in the 
 Channel. 
 
 16 
 
sailing Lome in an Amsterdam ship that chanced on 
 that coast. The rest of the party were with difficulty 
 persuaded to remain, and within two years Leigh 
 himself and many more were dead of disease and 
 want ; others were in Spanish prisons, and less than 
 a dozen out of the whole ship's company returned 
 direct to England. 
 
 These events, however, did not in any way affect 
 Pring's reputation, if we may judge of it by his next 
 employment. This was at the hands of Sir John 
 Popham, the Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench. 
 At his appointment Pring was to make a second voy- 
 age to North America and to spend some weeks in a 
 careful examination of the Maine coast. The purpose 
 of this expedition, moreover, was no mere matter of 
 cedar boards or sassafras root. It resulted in fact 
 from a carefully reasoned plan of colonization bred in 
 the mind of Sir Ferdinando Gorges, Governor of 
 Plymouth, by earnest talk held by him with certain 
 Pemaquid Indians. These Captain AVaymouth had 
 brought back in 1605 from St. George's Harbor. As 
 Sir Ferdinando later wrote — these savages were 
 " the means, under God, of putting on foot and giving 
 life to all our plantations."^ 
 
 iPurchas: IV, pp. 1253 etseq., 1260. Cf. Brown: op. cit., I, p. 27; II, p. 937. A 
 relief expedition sent in 1605 by Sir Olive Leigh to his brother, Captain Charles 
 Leigh, in Guiana, never reached there. Capt. Leigh died March 20, 1605. On July 2 
 he had written to the Privy Council in England that he was " resolved to remain 
 with 40 men and return the rest for England. The natives desire that he will send 
 for men to teach them to pray. Doubts not but God hath a wonderful work in this 
 simple-hearted people. Beseeches the Council to send over well-disposed 
 preachers." Cal. State Papers, Colonial, America: Vol. I, ( 1574-1660 ) p. 5. 
 
 2 Gorges : " Advanceipent of Plantations," p. 50. For Waymouth see " Mass. Hist. 
 Soc. Coll.," 3rd series, VIII; Burrage in " Gorges Soc. Publ.," 1887. For Popham see 
 "Diet, of Nat. Biog." and Brown: op. cit., II, p. 969. 
 
 17 
 
As a preliminary private colonization was aban- 
 doned, and in April, 1606, a charter passed the royal 
 seals for the incorporation of two companies to colo- 
 nize in Virginia. For the " plantation and habita- 
 tion " of the northern part of Virginia, as the charter 
 reads, " sundry Knights, Gentlemen, Merchants and 
 other Adventurers of our cities of Bristol and Exeter, 
 and of our Town of Plimouth " were empowered to 
 send out an expedition.^ Sir John Popham, who had 
 himself probably drawn the first draft of this charter, 
 chose in October of the same year, Captain Martin 
 Pring, a Devonshire man, to join in this Devonshire 
 venture and to make a voyage to America. There 
 Pring was to meet Captain Challons ( or Challoung ), 
 who had already sailed in August with special direc- 
 tions from Sir FerdiDando Gorges. Together they 
 were to choose a site for the new colony. These 
 arrangements, however, miscarried ; for Challons 
 failed to reach the rendezvous. He had been 
 instructed to cross to Cape Breton and then to follow 
 the coast southward till he should find a suitable 
 location and meet with Pring near the entrance to 
 Penobscot Bay. But contrary winds forced him from 
 the northern routes to the West Indies ; after several 
 delays at Porto Rico his ship was seized by the Span- 
 ish authorities and he and a part of his ship's com- 
 pany were carried prisoners to Spain.^ 
 
 iMacDonald: " Select Charters," pp. 1-11. 
 
 2 Purchas: IV, pp. 1832 et seq.; "Cal. State Papers," Col. Am., Vol. I, (1574 1C60) p. 6; 
 Brown: op. cit.. I, pp. 64, 96, 98, 127. Strachey in his " Historic of Travaille into 
 Virginia," p. 163, is responsible for the statement that Pring was captured by the 
 Spanish, thus confusing Challons and Pring. 
 
 18 
 
Captain Pring, on tlie other hand, who had the same 
 instructions as did Challons, happily arrived on the 
 Maine coast. He had with him one of Waymouth's 
 Indians, Damheda by name ; and not hearing by any 
 means what had become of Challons he began to 
 explore. To quote again from Gorges : Pring " after 
 he had made a perfect discovery of all those rivers 
 and harbors he was informed of by his instructions, 
 ( the season of the year requiring his return ) brings 
 with him the most exact discovery of that coast that 
 ever came to my hands since ; and indeed he was the 
 best able to perform it of any I ever met withal to 
 this present, which with his relation of the same 
 wrought such an impression in the Lord Chief Jus- 
 tice and us all that were his associates that notwith- 
 standing our first disaster we set up our resolutions 
 to follow it with effect and that upon better grounds 
 for as yet our authority was but in motion."^ Earlier 
 in the " Brief Relation of the President and Council 
 of New England " [ 1622 ] a similar statement had 
 been made, to wit — that on hearing Pring's relation 
 of this voyage " the lord chief justice, and we all 
 waxed so confident of the business, that the year fol- 
 lowing ( 1607 ) every man of any worth formerly 
 interested in it was willing to join in the charge for 
 the sending over a competent number of people to lay 
 the ground of a hopeful plantation."^ As the result, 
 therefore, of Pring's encouraging information and 
 despite Challons' failure, Sir John Popham "failed 
 
 1 Gorges: " Advancement of Plantations," pp. 51-53. 
 2 " Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll.," 2nd Series, IX, p. 3. 
 
 19 
 
not to interest many of the lords and others to be 
 petitioners to his Majesty for his royal authority, for 
 setting two plantations upon the coast of America."^ 
 What success this further attempt to colonize in 
 Maine met with I leave to the historians of the Saga- 
 dahoc settlement to relate. 
 
 For our purposes let me point out to you, first, that 
 it was only because Challons failed to obey his orders 
 that Pring was unable to share in the honor of found- 
 ing the first English settlement on the mainland of 
 New England ; second, that failing this, Pring was 
 nevertheless the instrument by which the plan gained 
 perseverence to another attempt ; and lastly, that in 
 the opinion of Gorges, writing many years later out 
 of a full experience of men and affairs, Pring was of 
 all the men of that manly time the ablest in discovery 
 and relation. This relation unfortunately has been 
 lost, but other explorers made use of it, for on a map 
 drawn by the King's surveyor in 1610 are many places 
 marked by virtue of Pring's knowledge. His name 
 of Whitson Bay is shown thereon, for it was not till 
 four years later that the Dutch suggested Crane Bay 
 and Captain John Smith fixed on Plymouth Harbor 
 as a name for the roadstead first discovered in 1603 
 by their predecessor, the Bristol captain.^ 
 
 HI. 
 
 If all this be so you may well ask why we hear noth- 
 ing more of Captain Pring in the further exploration 
 
 'Gorges: op. cit., p. 53. 
 
 '^ De Costa in " Mag. Am. Hist.," VIII, pp. 655 etseq.; Brown: op. cit., I, pp. 99, 
 
 457-59. 
 
 20 
 
and colonization of New England. The answer is 
 to be found in the widening interests of English- 
 men. The partial closing of the old trade routes 
 between Asia and Europe during the fifteenth cen- 
 tury and the burdensome restrictions and costly tar- 
 iffs laid on eastern trade had well nigh precipitated 
 an economic crisis. Asiatic trade had for centuries 
 been one of the most profitable as well as one of the 
 most extensive of commercial investments ; and the 
 supply of spices from the oriental tropics had become 
 a necessity both for the preservation of food and to 
 render it palatable to the gastronomic taste of Europe. 
 The northern peoples do not seem to have been 
 attracted by the possibilities of unseasoned vegeta- 
 rianism ; and fashion of flavors as well as the lack of 
 satisfactory methods of refrigeration in southern 
 Europe made the situation there even more acute. 
 Nor did the prospect grow better as the close of 
 the century came nearer. For while the Ottoman 
 advance had partially closed the routes which opened 
 on the Black and ^Egean Seas, the unsettled condition 
 of Syria made trade uncertain by the Persian routes. 
 The Red Sea route, so long the golden channel of 
 Muslim monopoly, might have sufficed had» it not 
 been for the mistaken policy of the independent 
 Mamluk sultans of Egypt. As early as 1428 these 
 inaugurated a heavy tariff on oriental goods bound 
 for Italian ports and made pepper a state monopoly. 
 Other spices were soon added and even sugar was 
 subjected to close growth and manufacture. By 
 1443 the opinions of the theological jurists of Cairo 
 
 21 
 
had been secured in defence of the system ; and 
 to-day it seems doubtful whether the Ottoman con- 
 quest of Egyptian dominions ( 1516-17 ) had immedi- 
 ately much worse results for this intercontinental 
 trade than had already followed the policy of the 
 Circassian dynasty.^ 
 
 These facts were in large part responsible for the 
 rapid geographical advance of the fifteenth and six- 
 teenth centuries. The disappearance of domestic 
 economy and the restoration of capitalism required 
 larger fields for investment and at the same time 
 urged on the search for new supplies of bullion. 
 While these operated generally the geographical sit- 
 uation, the religious feeling and the traditional polit- 
 ical policy of Portugal were such as to make the 
 success of her sailors in African waters a natural 
 sequent to her history. The stimulus thus derived 
 
 1 For suggestive comment on the spice trade vide Robinson : " Western Europe," 
 p. 348. The economic policy of the Mamluk sovereigns is referred to in Muir: 
 "The Mameluke or Slave Dynasty of Egypt," pp. 14'2, 153. Though of uncertain 
 value because of changes in money values, the price of pepper in England is worth 
 noting: 1412, pepper was 4s. a pound, though in 1411 Parliament had fixed the price 
 at Is. 8d. In this year a pound of standard silver was worth £1 10s. Od. (Cotton: 
 " Abridgement," p. 482; Walshingham, p. 381, quoted by Macpherson: "Annals," 
 IV, App. II and III). In 1512 with silver about 10s. a pound higher, pepper was 
 Is. 4d. In 1559 it was 2d. an ounce and silver was at £3; in 1598 near Christmas, pep- 
 per was 8s. a pound {Stowe: " Annales," p. 130 ). Between 1597 and 1599 the Dutch 
 had raised the price from 3 to Cs. a pound on pepper which probably had not cost 
 more than 6d. Macpherson: "Commerce with India," pp. 77, 82; Birdwood: "Old 
 Records " ( ed. 1891 ), p. 199; Hunter: " British India," I, pp. 241, 279. I have chosen 
 pepper because it was one of the cheapest spices but very generally used. The 
 rapid rise in the price of pepper at the close of the sixteenth century is paralleled 
 by that of other more expensive spices. It is evident that both Macpherson and 
 Birdwood believe it was the immediate cause of the meetings on September 22 and 
 24, 1599, of certain London merchants which led to the chartering of a British East 
 India Co. Of. Stevens: " Dawn of British Trade," pp. 1-7. Both the influence of 
 English participation in the spice trade and the great profit from it can be seen from 
 the prices given by Malynes in his "Center of the Circle of Commerce" (1623) 
 quoted by Cawston and Keane: "Chartered Companies," p. 96. 
 
 Cost in the Indies per lb. Sold in England per lb. 
 Pepper os. 2>id. la. 8d. 
 
 Cloves 9 5 
 
 Nutmegs 4 3 
 
 Mace 8 6 
 
 22 
 
carried them to a greater achievement by the end of 
 the fifteenth century and once in Asiatic waters they 
 were able to deprive the Arabs of the monopoly of 
 the spice trade. At the same time the Portuguese did 
 not attempt the distribution of oriental products in 
 Europe. The profitable trade of the middleman fell 
 to the Dutch. It followed that the submersion of 
 Portuguese interests in those of Spain aroused both 
 Dutch and English to a further realization of the lim- 
 itations they had hitherto endured. While the inde- 
 pendent search for northeastern and northwestern 
 passages to the East was not abandoned, the desire 
 to use the Cape of Good Hope route closed to deter- 
 mination by the end of the sixteenth century. The 
 search under Spanish auspices for a free route to 
 Asia had already led to an unintentional and for a 
 time unconscious discovery of America, as the new 
 world was afterwards called. But Europe then fronted 
 not to the Atlantic but to Asia ; for many years men 
 were to seek the " backside of America " where lay 
 the " Kingdomes of Cataya or China " ; and in the 
 closing years of Elizabeth's reign the chartering of 
 the East India Company marked the inauguration of 
 a policy, which though new in form, was intimately 
 related with many of the previous American ventures. 
 English merchants now asked for more than uncertain 
 piracy in the West ; they hoped to develop a regular 
 commercial inliercourse with the East.^ 
 
 'The instructions of the East India Co. to Waymouth in April, 1602, for his Amer- 
 ican voyage in search of a passage to Asia, contain the following passage — " or as 
 he shall fynde the Passage best to lye towards the parts or kingedomes of Cataya or 
 China or ye backside of America." Stevens : " Dawn of British Trade to the East 
 Indies," p. 212. 
 
 23 
 
Were all the other years of Elizabeth's reign a 
 blank in our history, the granting of the charter for 
 the East India Company would nevertheless make 
 her reign a landmark in the history of the world. 
 For this company, the greatest corporation the world 
 has ever seen, was destined to work a change in mod- 
 ern world-politics to which that resulting from the 
 establishment and development of the United States 
 is alone comparable. Indeed the connection of these 
 imperial merchants with the creation of English estab- 
 lishments in America is in some respects so close that 
 it is surprising greater attention has not been given 
 to it. Many whose names are familiar to students of 
 our colonial period figure in the early operations of 
 the British in Asia ; and American ventures often 
 served to train the men who were to lay the founda- 
 tions of British Empire in the East. Among those 
 who responded to this broadening of the field of Brit- 
 ish activities and thus transferred their interests from 
 America to Asia was Captain Bring. 
 
 IV. 
 
 The exact 3'ear in which Bring entered the East 
 India service is unknown. Bossibly it was soon after 
 the death, in 1607, of his former patron, the Lord 
 Chief Justice. The first certain mention we find is 
 of his appointment as master of a large new ship, in 
 1614. It is perhaps doubtful whether he would have 
 got so important a post were that to be his first ven- 
 ture in Asiatic waters ; however, no mention of him 
 as going to sea under the auspices of any recognized 
 
 24 
 
authority from 1606 to 1614 has been as yet discov- 
 ered. Pring's new ship was the New Year's Gift, of 
 550 tons, " armed and strongly built for trade or 
 war," bound then to India on her maiden voyage. 
 She was to act as the flag of a squadron of four ships 
 making in that year the first voyage of the newly- 
 formed "joint stock." ^ 
 
 From 1600 to 1612 the trade of the East India 
 Company had been carried on by a series of so-called 
 separate voyages. One or more ships would be out- 
 fitted as a distinct venture and the accounts of each 
 fleet would be kept separate. Such an expedition 
 was theoretically complete in itseK and on the return 
 the profits of each venture were divided among those 
 of the Company who had supplied the capital. In 
 1612, however, a system of joint stock subscriptions 
 was proposed by which several voyages during a 
 number of years were made possible by largely 
 increased investments. The first attempt under this 
 system resulted in a capitalization of £429,000 of 
 which this first voyage of the joint stock represented 
 an investment of £106,000. Eighteen thousand eight 
 hundred and ten pounds in money and £12,446 in 
 goods were exported ; and the cost of ships, the 
 maintenance, the supplies and the extraordinary 
 expenses involved represented the remainder. While 
 the average profit for four voyages, 1613-1616, was 
 
 ^This voyage is aometimes called the second, and though it did not sail till 1614 is 
 technically the " voyage of 1618." " Letters Received by the E. I. Co." Ill, pp. 175, 
 3'26; Markham: "Voyages of Sir James Lancaster," Hakluyt Soc. Publ., Vol. LVI, 
 p. 15; Hunter: " Hist. British India," I, p. 307; " Cal. of State Papers, Colonial E. I., 
 ( 1513-1616 )" p. 270. On Jan. 17, 1614, ( " Court Minutes of E. I. Co.") : " Thirty great 
 ordinance for the New Year's Gift." Pring condemned for not having performed 
 his promise to lie on board." 
 
 25 
 
to be 87| per cent, on £429,000, the dividends on the 
 voyage of 1G13 were to be 120 per cent, and Pring's 
 cargo v^hich had cost £9,000 in the East was to be 
 sold in England for £80,000.i 
 
 The profits were great but so also was the risk. 
 The Company, however, took every possible precau- 
 tion, and to make this particular investment as sure 
 as might be had placed in command Nicholas Down- 
 ton, a tried man who had served with distinction as 
 second to Sir Henry Middleton on the sixth separate 
 voyage, in 1610.^ Downton's instructions gave him 
 ample power for the maintenance of discipline ; and, 
 though he was directed to seek no quarrel with Euro- 
 pean competitors on the other side the Cape, he was 
 charged to " suffer no spoyle to be made of any goods 
 or merchandize " committed to his care, and, if 
 attacked because of the " emulation and envye which 
 doth accompanye the discouerye of Countryes and 
 trades," to defend the pretensions and desires of the 
 English as best he might.^ 
 
 Such language was to the point ; for then, as later 
 in the eighteenth centuiy, small attention was paid 
 by Europeans in either Asia or America to the dip- 
 lomatic agreements of the home countries. Peace in 
 Europe was often no check to rivalry and bloodshed 
 in foreign establishments. As in the West England 
 was to struggle for commercial and political suprem- 
 acy with Spain and France, she was already the rival 
 
 > Bruce: "Annals," I, pp. 166-7; Hunter: op. clt., I, p. 307. 
 
 ■"' Letters Ucceivod by the K. I. Co.," I, pp. l<i5-92, passim, and pp. 241-61; "Cal. 
 Stote rapera. Col. E. I., ( 1513-1016)," No8. 629, 668. 
 » Birdwood and Foster: '• First Letter Book," pp. 449-62. 
 
 26 
 
in the East of Portugal and Holland. In India and 
 the Far East native states and rulers were being 
 drawn into these quarrels ; and there was likely to be 
 as much of diplomacy and war as of seamanship and 
 trade in the successful conduct of a voyage to Asiatic 
 waters. In India the Mughal iMnpire, no longer ruled 
 by an Akbar, was nevertheless still strong enough to 
 check the pest of eager I^uropean seekers for the spoil 
 of a peninsula, richer in that day than many a conti- 
 nent. An I'^nglishman must still be a beggar for 
 permission to trade in the domain of the great 
 Muhammadan state, while foreign rivals, whether ])y 
 intrigue or open attack, sought to make the task 
 harder. The first stage in the struggle for privilege 
 was to pass in the second decade of the seventeenth 
 century. Portugal was to give way to England, thus 
 leaving for a time the Dutch as sole rivals of power 
 to contest for the trade of India with the merchants 
 of London. 
 
 In 1G12 Captain Best had made a running fight of 
 near a month against the vastly superior forces of the 
 Portuguese, and in that time had broken in the minds 
 of the natives "the reputation the Portuguese had 
 won in India by the sea achievements of a hundred 
 years." ^ But the issue was still in doubt ; a defeat 
 would lose the Imglish all they had gained and they 
 well knew that Portugal would not abandon her pri- 
 macy and monopoly without a stubborn fight. It 
 
 ' Hunter: op. clt., I, p. 303. DeHpatchei deacribing thla fight are to be found In 
 " Letters It<;(;eived by the K. J. Co.," I, pp. 2.13 et eeq.; U, p. l.W; i'urchan: I, pp. 4W 
 et Heq.,Aifi. etseq.; "Cal. State I'aperB, (Jol. K. f. (1613-](;ie)," Noa.638, WJ. The accountB 
 In Low: " Indian Navy," I, pp. 13-14; CIowch: " Iloyal Navy," 11, i»p. 3a-84, have been 
 corrected in Hunter. Cf. JJruce; " Annals," I, p. 103. 
 
 27 
 
could, therefore, have been with no surprise that 
 Downton heard, soon after his squadron reached the 
 Swally roads, off Surat, that the Portuguese viceroy 
 at Goa was equipping a great force against him/ 
 
 Surat was then the headquarters for the English 
 trade in the Mughal Empire ; but the Company's 
 hold on the native governor was slight and the 
 Emperor's policy was itself uncertain and largely 
 dependent on the outcome of the immediate future. 
 A brief explanation of the exact situation will make 
 this clearer. The victory of Captain Best in 1612 
 and the favorable reception thus won by the English 
 had grieved the Portuguese, who in revenge had in 
 September, 1613, taken a native ship of Surat, lately 
 come from the Red Sea, " being richly laden, ahnost 
 to the value of a hundred thousand pounds, and car- 
 ried her away, and ahnost 700 persons in her ; by 
 which means none of them [the Portuguese] dare 
 appear in those parts as they were wont, insomuch 
 that had we [ the English ] shipping here now from 
 England we should strike all dead," because this con- 
 duct " hath made them odious " to the natives.^ 
 Jahangir, the Emperor, retaliated by causing Daman, 
 a Portuguese post, to be besieged by Mukarrab Khan, 
 the local governor, and by giving " order for the seiz- 
 ing of all Portingals and their goods within his king- 
 
 1 Hunter: ( I, p. 308 n.) states that the journal of Pring's ship, the New Year's 
 Gift, is still preserved in the India OflQce " Marine Records," 1605-1701. For the 
 voyage to India and the movements of this ship ( March, 1614-8pring of 1616 ) see 
 Purchas: I, pp. 500 et aeq., 516, 629; " Letters Received, etc.," Vols. II, III and IV; 
 and " Cal. State Papers, Col. ( 1513-1616 )" paesim, by index references to the name. 
 
 2 Aldwortb to Marlowe, Nov. 9, 1613, " Letters Received, etc.," I, p. 308. Cf . Dan- 
 vers: " Portuguese in India," II, p. 162. States the ship belonged to the Emperor. 
 
 28 
 
doms." Their churches were closed, and " Xavier, 
 the great Jesuit, whom before he loved," was dis- 
 missed ; and other Indian rulers were incited to 
 attack Portuguese establishments. The English in 
 the meantime were in great favor. But since no 
 English ships came to trade, the natives soon longed 
 for peace and doubted " whether it were not wiser to 
 yield to the viceroy's demands and expel the Eng- 
 lish." Such was the temper of the times when 
 Downton cast anchor, in October, 1614. Great was 
 the joy of the English agents ; and eager the wish of 
 Mukarrab Khan to use Downton's force for the war 
 against the Portuguese. But Downton, mindful of 
 his instructions, would not agree, and the situation 
 became even more difficult. Finally the knot was 
 cut by the attack of the Portuguese ; and Downton 
 once fairly on the defence made ready to fight for the 
 hope of English leadership in western India.^ 
 
 The English squadron of four ships, with 400 
 crew, carried 80 guns, but their caliber was inferior 
 to that of the Portuguese armaments. The viceroy, 
 Don Hierome de Azevedo, had under his command 
 the entire naval strength of Portuguese India, assem- 
 bled for this struggle, consisting of eight galleons, 
 five lesser ships and sixty " frigates " or rowed barges 
 carrying thirty fighting men apiece and eighteen oars 
 on a side. The whole was manned by native crews 
 
 I" Letters Received, etc.," II, pp. 18, 96 e« seq-., 104, 130, 137-39, 148 et seq., 156,187-172, 
 178,185. The .Jesuit, Xavier, is not, of course, Francis Xavier, ( Cal. State Papers, 
 E. I., ( 1513-1616 ) No. 763 ), as the editor of " Letters Received, etc.," ( II, p. 96 and 
 index at Xavier ) appears to think. He was probably Jerome Xavier, a nephew of 
 St. Francis; at least a priest of that name was for long a favorite at the court of 
 Akbar. Yale : " Cathay and the Way Thither," II, pp. 632, 552. 
 
 29 
 
to tlie number of 6,000, witli 2,600 Europeans free to 
 work the 134 guns wliicli the fleet mounted.^ This 
 force began to assemble in the end of December and 
 by January 18, 1615, Downton's small fleet was well- 
 nigh blockaded in the Tapti Estuary ( apparently in 
 what is known to-day as Sutherland Channel.) The 
 odds were those which would have appealed to Sir 
 Richard Grenville. Downton had decided at the 
 council held aboard the New Year's Gift to await 
 attack near the shallower waters of the roadstead 
 where the larger Portuguese ships would be at a dis- 
 advantage ; but in this he must have acted contrary 
 to the bolder judgment of Pring, who later wrote of 
 his regret in having been caught at Swally, agreeing 
 with Sir Thomas Roe that it would have been better 
 to have forced a passage to open sea and there in a 
 " more spacious place" have beaten the Portugalles 
 like a man.^ 
 
 However that may be, Downton, if not reckless, was 
 far-sighted enough to realize the import of the whole 
 matter. For he wrote in his diary : " My care is not 
 
 iPurchas: l,j)j). 505 et seq., 519; " Cal. State Papers, Col. E. I. 1513-1616," No. 935; 
 " Letters Received, etc.," II, p. 137; Clowes: " Royal Navy," II, p. 35; Low: •' Indian 
 Navy," I, p. 19, who follows Orme : " Oriental Fragments." Orme follows Purchas and 
 the account by Faria de Souza; by the latter Is apparently meant Manuel Faria y 
 Sousa: " Asia Portugueza, 3 Vols., 1674. This work is largely based on Karros and 
 Couto: " Decadas, etc." An English translation by Stevens was made in 1695 of 
 Sousa with much omitted. ( "Whiteway : " Rise of Portuguese Power in India," p. 14.) 
 Danvers: " Portuguese in India," II, pp. 170-171; though no authorities are cited 
 Danvers has evidently depended largely on Portuguese sources, and offers some 
 explanation of the discrepancies found elsewhere as to numbers. Two fleets united 
 in the attack on Downton, and this is not noted elsewhere. In Hunter: " Hist, of 
 British India," I, p. 321, Lewis followed, but the statement of 234 guns for the Portu- 
 guese is obviously a misprint. Unfortunately, the Portuguese authorities are not at 
 band to enable me to follow the statements further. The superiority of the Portu- 
 guese fleet is, however, beyond question. I have taken the figures given by Purchas 
 and modified them somewhat by other sources. 
 
 -Foster: " Sir Thomas Roe," II, p. 417 n. 
 
 30 
 
small, how to do my best in maintaining the Honour 
 of my Country, not negligent in the memory of the 
 estates and charge of friends and employers in this 
 journey ; not only for the hazard of this at present 
 committed to my charge but also all hope of future 
 times, if I should now be overthrown ; by reason the 
 enemy in getting the upper hand of me would make 
 his peace with these people upon what he lust to 
 the expelling my nation this country forever." Two 
 things, however, he continued, were his comfort at 
 this juncture : " My people, though much with death 
 and sickness shortened, all from the highest to the 
 lowest seems very courageous and comfortable and 
 ever as I could be solitary I craved very earnestly 
 aide and assistance from the Lord of hosts and from 
 that mighty and merciful God who hath manifold 
 wayes formerly delivered me, often I say, desiring 
 his Majesty so to guide and direct me that I might 
 omit nothing which might tend to the safety of 
 my owne charge nor the danger of the enemy and 
 that God would grant my request I had a strong 
 confidence."^ 
 
 On January 20 the fighting began and so skillful 
 were the English captains in the handling of their 
 vessels and so accurate was the English gun fire that 
 the viceroy drew off with heavy losses. A blockade 
 of nearly three weeks followed till with reinforce- 
 ments the Portuguese on February 8 came driving 
 up on the flood against the English fleet, only to 
 make away again as fast as they might from the 
 
 1 Furctaas : op. cit. I, p. 506. 
 
 31 
 
deadly fire of Downton's guns. Two days later the 
 viceroy fell off in disgust, and on February 13 the 
 Armada sailed away and soon was seen no more. It 
 was a victory dearly bought, for many English had 
 died of disease and wounds. On February 3 Down- 
 ton had been compelled to write in his diary : "It 
 pleased God this day at night when I had least leisure 
 to mourn to call to his mercy my only son " ; and not 
 many months later a tropical fever set free the Admiral 
 to follow his son.^ 
 
 The death of Downton was at Bantam where the 
 New Year's Gift had gone for spices. This was 
 Pring's introduction to a region he was soon to know 
 better, but his orders on this occasion required him 
 to return to England. The success of the venture 
 was great ; political, military and commercial ends 
 had all been well served. Mughal dominions had 
 been saved from Portuguese pilfering ; the sea power 
 of England had been valiantly maintained, and the 
 Company's profits were beyond the usual high 
 average.^ 
 
 iPurchas, I, pp. 506 et seq.; "Letters received by the E. I. Co." etc., II, pp. 296, 
 302, 303; III, pp. 15, 22, 23, 26 (Downton to Sir Thomas Smythe, Feb. 28, 1614 (1615) ). 
 He makes criticisms on his command, saying they had not known what to do. " I 
 acknowledge your care in preparing ordnance, powder and shot, but no way like 
 your choice of people to use them," pp. 44, 48 et seq. 55, 71, 170, 300. Low: " Indian 
 Navy," I, pp. 20-23, quoting largely from Orme: "Oriental Fragments," pp. 346-56. 
 Hunter: "Hist, of British India," I, pp. 323 et seq, Clowes: " Royal Navy," II, p. 35. 
 For Jahangir's pleasure at the defeat of the Portuguese cf . " Waki' at-i Jahangiri " 
 in Elliot : " Hist, of India," VI, p. 340. 
 
 2 " Cal. State Papers E. I. ( 1513-1616 ) " Nos. 1011, 1022, 1055, 1091, 1124, 1127, 1130. 1187. 
 " Letters received, etc.," Ill, pp. 95, 149, 170, 173 ( it had at first been the intention of 
 the Company to detach the New Year's Gift and send her to Japan in 1615), 174. 
 The voyage home from Bantam to England (Dec. 21, 1615 — July, 1616) maybe 
 traced in the following despatches: pp. 180, 210, 230, 232, 257, 259, 261, 266, 268, 272, 
 294, 295, 297, 300, 315, 317, 337, and " Cal. State Papers " as above. No. 1130. Bruce: 
 " Annals," I, pp. 171-74. Details as to the movements of the Gift and her lading are 
 also to be found in "Letters received, etc.," IV, pp. 25, 29, 30, 34, 66, 121, 278, 291 
 et seq. Markham: "Voyages of Sir James Lancaster," p. 266. Cf. also pp. 296 
 et seq. 
 
 32 
 
V. 
 
 That Pring had served with credit in the eyes of 
 the Company may be judged by his appointment in 
 1617 to the government of a new squadron which was 
 to make the fifth voyage for the joint stock. Here he 
 had the James Royal of a thousand tons as his flag- 
 ship. Besides were two ships nearly as large and 
 two others smaller. These five set sail from the 
 Downs the first of March, 1617. The outward voyage 
 was attended with some peril, as off the Arabian coast 
 the James sprang a leak which was with difficulty 
 stopped. While the flagship was thus disabled the 
 other vessels were nevertheless able to capture a 
 Portuguese ship from Mozambique laden with " ele- 
 phants' teeth," as ivory was then called. Moreover, 
 what was important, they took two English ships, 
 interlopers in these waters, who had had in chase a 
 native craft belonging to the Emperor's mother. It 
 soon appeared that these two English vessels had 
 been outfitted to prey on Spanish shipping. This 
 had been at the orders of Lord Robert Rich, soon to 
 be the Earl of Warwick. He had been importuned 
 to this end by his friend. Count Scarnafissi, ambassa- 
 dor in London of the Duke of Savoy who was at the 
 time at war with the King of Spain. These ships 
 were then privateers flying a neutral flag ; moreover, 
 what was far worse — they were within the Company's 
 monopoly. They had further imperiled the Com- 
 pany's interests by their thoughtless greed in attack- 
 ing a merchant vessel belonging to the imperial court. 
 
 33 
 
They were, therefore, promptly confiscated by Pring's 
 orders/ 
 
 The consequences of this act, though for the most 
 part beyond the scope of this paper, may serve to 
 illustrate the more or less close connection which at 
 this time existed between the East India and Virginia 
 Companies. In London was Sir Thomas Smythe, 
 merchant and man of affairs. Governor of the East 
 India Company and likewise Treasurer of the Vir- 
 ginia Company. Hi^ yo'iiiig son had recently, against 
 the will of the father, been married to Lady Isabella 
 Eich, a sister to Lord Robert Rich, the owner of at 
 least one of the captured vessels. Bad feeling 
 between the two families had thus been bred. The 
 news from India was not calculated to make either 
 Sir Thomas Smythe or Lord Robert Rich more 
 friendly ; for when Lord Robert made urgent com- 
 plaint to the Governor of the Company concerning 
 the capture of his ship by Captain Pring, the 
 
 * "Letters received by the E. I. Co.," Ill, p. 326. Pring's journal of the voyage is 
 In Purchas: op. cit., I, pp. 618, 631 et seq. Cf. also his letter to the Company from 
 Swally Roads, Nov. 12, 1617, in " Letters received, etc.," VI, pp. 171-8, in which one 
 of the interloping ships is stated to have been owned by Philip Barnadi, an Italian 
 merchant of London. Pring comments on the capture ( p. 174 ) : "I praise God with 
 all my heart that we lighted so on them, for if they had taken the junk and known 
 to be English ( which could not long have been concealed ) all your goods in thii 
 country could not have made satisfaction according to their desire ( and that is 
 commonly their law in these cases )." In a letter from Kerridge and Rastel, factors 
 at Surat, to the Company, ( Ibid, pp. 158, 164 ) much the same is said, though one 
 ship is said to have been owned in the name of the Duke of Florence. Still another 
 account is by Edward Monnox, who came out as factor in Pring's fleet, pp. 269 
 et seq. For further references to Pring's voyage and his activities off Surat see pp. 
 95, 107, 112, 114, 120, 122, 129, 137, 146, 149, 151, 156, 163, 166, 177, 215, 218, 278. The Voyage 
 and the above events may also be followed, though in less satisfactory fashion, in 
 the "Cal. of State Papers, Col., E. I. n617-1621 )." Here care should be taken not to 
 confuse the operations of the James under Capt. Childs and the James Royal under 
 Capt. Pring; the index is not always clear. The references to Pring in the index 
 are correct; of these the more important are to be found in Nos. 154, 162, 186, 187, 
 193, 302. Sir Thomas Roe wrote of the capture of the English rovers, " if shee ( tho 
 Queen Mother's ship ) had bin taken, we had all bin in trouble." Foster: " Roe," 
 II, pp. 420 n., 421, 480. 
 
 84 
 
Company, determined both by its own interests and by 
 the wishes of the Governor, supported Pring's action 
 against those two marauding rovers and refused to 
 grant the damages demanded. So hot did the action 
 become that Lord Robert brought the case before the 
 Privy Council and to the King's attention ; and in 
 the end the whole matter was referred to arbitration. 
 In the meantime, however, by way of personal revenge, 
 Lord Robert, who was himself a man of influence in 
 colonial affairs, set to work to oust Sir Thomas Smythe 
 and his friends from control of the funds of the Vir- 
 ginia Company. At the next meeting of that Com- 
 pany in April, 1619, the party of Lord Robert all gave 
 their votes to an independent and victorious candi- 
 date, one Sir Edwin Sandys, that he might be Treas- 
 urer of the Virginia Company in succession to the 
 candidate set up by Sir Thomas Smythe, who himself 
 had not wished to continue in office. The result, 
 however, was much to the astonishment of all. In 
 this fashion was Sir Edwin Sandys given office in 
 the management of the colony of Virginia, to what 
 results for the benefit of the colony and for the 
 directing of its future history I leave the readers of 
 Virginia records to recall.^ 
 
 > " Cal. State Papers, Col. E. I. (1617-21 ) " Nos. 193, 230, 267, 302, 467, 532, 657, 567, 591, 
 694, 666, 772, 774, 778, 781, 783, 801, 810, 823, 825, 829, and many others to be found noted 
 in the index. Cf . also pp. LXXVI-LXXX. 
 
 "Historical MSS. Commission, Fourth Report, Lords' Papers," p. 19. Gardiner: 
 "Hist, of England," III, p. 216. "Cal. State Papers, Dom. ( 1619 1623)," Nos. 2, 67. 
 "Cal. State Papers, Col. (1574-1660)" Nos. 44, 51. Brown: "Genesis of United 
 States," II, pp. 980, 1014. "Diet. Nat. Biog.," see "Rich" and "Smythe." Cf. 
 " Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll.," 4th Series, III, pp. 36, 37. The full bearing of the election 
 is not recognized in Neill: "Virginia Company," pp. 143-45, 151. Foster: " Roe," II, 
 pp. 240 n., and " Letters received by E. I. Co.," VI, p. XXIX, contain brief sum- 
 maries with some of the above references. 
 
 35 
 
On turning once more to Pring's career in tlie east, 
 one of the most significant episodes in his biography 
 is to he found in his relationship to Sir Thomas Roe, 
 British ambassador to the Mughal Emperor, Jahangir. 
 Roe was the first British diplomat sent east by the Cape 
 and won for himself great fame by able conduct in a 
 post of extreme difficulty. He gave Pring, an old 
 friend, warm welcome when the James Royal arrived 
 off the Indian coast early in the autumn of 1617 ; and 
 his testimony to Pring's worth is full the equal of that 
 given by Sir Ferdinando Gorges. I quote from Roe's 
 letter of welcome to Pring, written October 5, 1617 : 
 " Honest Man, God, that Knowes my hart, wittnesse 
 you are the welcomest man to this Country that Could 
 here arriue to assist my many troubles."^ Four 
 months later to the Company in London he also wrote 
 that Pring " now by his great Modesty and discretion 
 hath both reformed many abuses, gayned you much 
 good will, himselfe all mens loue and his owne Cred- 
 itt. An honester man I suppose you cannot send, 
 and that his Actions will approue : one that Studies 
 your endes, is ready to ioyne with any, without insist- 
 ing vpon disputes and tearmes."^ To another he 
 wrote : " Captain Pring is every way sufficient and 
 discreet."^ The quotations might be further con- 
 tinued. 
 
 Together Roe and Pring concerted measures for 
 the final ousting of the Portuguese, for the extension 
 
 » Foster: " Roe," II, p. 421. 
 
 « Ibid, II, p. 468. 
 
 ' " Letters received, etc.," VI, p. 120. Cf . also pp. 136, and 151 et &eq. 
 
 36 
 
of Britisli influence and trade in the Red Sea, the Per- 
 sian Gulf and Persia, and for keener competition with 
 the Dutch. Against the latter Roe frankly advocated 
 a piratical policy in order thereby to give the English 
 a monopoly in Asiatic waters.^ Yet in the midst of 
 this planning we find at times the burden of a lonely 
 responsibility weighing heavily on a mind perplexed 
 by oriental duplicity. Thus passages such as the 
 following to Pring are frequent in Roe's letters : 
 ** Wee Hue in a Barbarous unfaythfull place ; you in 
 the sea with more securitie and Constancy e. Pray 
 for Vs, that God wilbe Pleased to keepe vs, that 
 among heathens wee may bee as light in darknes ; 
 at least that wee shame not the light. "^ And again 
 in a farewell letter : "I am reddy to breake for want 
 
 of an honnest free conference God in 
 
 heaven blesse you and send me once among men, for 
 these are monsters."^ It was the weight of an impe- 
 rial burden still unrealized that lay heavy on unaccus- 
 tomed shoulders. 
 
 On his departure from India Pring sailed for 
 Jacatra on the island of Java and off Bantam joined 
 his fleet to that of Sir Thomas Dale, also of Virginia 
 fame. During the autumn Pring endeavored to secure 
 a favorable treaty from the king of Jacatra, but was 
 not successful till early in January when the Dutch 
 were no longer such powerful rivals.'* This was due 
 
 » " Letters received, etc.," VI, pp. 108, 112, 129, 151, et seq. " Cal. State Papers, Col. 
 E. I. ( 1617-21 ) " Nos. 155, 156, 298. Foster: " Roe," I, pp. 128, 421, 429, 434; II, pp. 407 
 et seq., 418, 466, et seq., 470. 
 
 2 Foster : " Roe," II, p. 490. Roe oflfers to assist Pring with the Company. 
 
 3 Ibid, II, p. 502. 
 
 * " Cal. State Papers, Col. E. I. ( 1617-21 ) " Nos. 245, 423, 424, 444, 447, 477. 
 
 37 
 
to tlie attack made on tlie Dutch by botli fleets under 
 Dale on December 23, 1618, in Jacatra Bay. It was 
 a desperate engagement and much, disputed, both 
 sides claiming the victory ; the Dutch, however, 
 sailed away. Pring wrote home that the fight " con- 
 tinued about three hours, in which time the English 
 shot above 1200 great shot from six ships. Chased 
 the Dutch the next day through the Bay of Jacatra 
 insight of their castle." Dale wrote home that it had 
 been " ' a cruel bloody fight ' ; 3000 great shot fired ; 
 many men maimed and slain on both sides, but the 
 Dutch had four times as many slain and maimed as 
 the English ; three of the Dutch ships reported to be 
 sunk ; knows not how true it is, but is sure they were 
 soundly banged."^ 
 
 This fight was one of a long series of bloody strug- 
 gles between Dutch and English for the spice trade 
 of Malaya. After cruising from January to March 
 and suffering severely by disease and damage of the 
 shipping, both fleets met again at Masulipatam. There 
 reports reached them that the Dutch were once more 
 at work and threatening to drive the English out of 
 the islands; and there on August 9 Sir Thomas Dale 
 died, leaving Pring in supreme command. A short time 
 afterwards the factor at Masulipatam wrote home that 
 he could not " suJG&ciently commend the present com- 
 mander. Captain Pring." The condition of the fleet, 
 
 1 " Cal. State Papers, Col. ( 1617-21 ) " Nos. 601, 609 ( Dale's Account ), 643 ( Prlng'a 
 account ), 742. Professor Laughton in " Diet. Nat. Biog.," Art. " Pring," says Pring 
 did not take part in this fight: but the language in Nos. 508 and 524 would seem to 
 make it probable that, though the James Royal was detained at Bantam by a leak, 
 Pring, possibly on board the Unicorn, was present at the engagement. As late aa 
 February 1619 Pring had not taJien the James to sea and was cruising in the Unicorn 
 off the Straits of Sunda looking for the Dutch. 
 
 38 
 
however, was such as to persuade Pring to avoid the 
 Dutch and during the autumn of 1619 and early win- 
 ter of 1620 English interests suffered much loss. 
 Such being the case, the news of a peace made at 
 home with the Dutch in the year previous was wel- 
 comed by Pring in March, 1620. Indeed he had 
 already informed the Company that he favored a 
 union of the English and Dutch to overthrow both 
 Spain and Portugal, thereby securing a joint monop- 
 oly of tropical trade. The allies could then buy all 
 commodities in the East and sell them in Europe at 
 such prices as they pleased. Whereby, as he wrote, 
 they might expect " both wealth and honor, the two 
 main pillars of earthly happiness.'" 
 
 At news of the peace Pring, now recognized as 
 General in command of the East Indian fleets, entered 
 into friendly relations with the Dutch commander, 
 General Coen ; "and there [perhaps Bantam] they 
 feasted each other that day [March 13 ( 23) 1620] ; 
 then all the prisoners of each side were set at liberty, 
 and taken again aboard their own ships. "^ Thus 
 assured of the safety of English interests in India 
 and the spice islands, Pring then ventured further 
 east and made the voyage to Japan. On his arrival 
 at Firando he was made welcome by the Company's 
 agent, Richard Cocks. The news of peace with the 
 Dutch was joyfully received ; and Pring, looking to 
 
 I " Cal. State Papers, Col. E. I. ( 1617-21 )" Nos. 538, 562, 602, 607, 643,670 ( cruising for 
 the Dutcli ) ; 747, 759, 775, 782, 787 ( at Alasulipatam ) ; 802, 844, 948 ( the Dutch ). Cf. 
 "Diet. Nat. Biog., locus" Pring. Clowes: op. cit., II, p. 39; several inaccuracies 
 are to be noted here. 
 
 » Op. cit., No. 934. 
 
 39 
 
the future, was led to believe that if the China trade 
 could be drawn to Japan it " would prove the best 
 factory in the world. "^ William Adams, the first 
 Anglo-Japanese merchant, had died in the May prior 
 to the arrival of the James Royal, which was on July 
 23, 1620 ; but with Cocks, who had been in the coun- 
 try now ten years, a five months' stay was made in 
 which the ships were repaired.^ Indeed, Pring and 
 Cocks appear to have enjoyed the visit ; for in his diary 
 Cocks speaks of several dinners in company with the 
 captains of the squadron. On the occasion of the 
 sailing of the James Royal, Cocks noted, December 
 12, 1620 : " We supped all at Duch howse, both Capt. 
 IVing, Capt. Adames, and all the masters of the 
 shipps and merchants ashore, where we had great e 
 cheare and no skarsety of wyne, with many guns 
 shott affe for healthes all the night long."^ Finally, 
 with rich cargo on board, Pring started on the long 
 voyage home, being at last signaled in the Downs on 
 the morning of September 19, 1621, nine months and 
 two days out from Cochie Road off Firando.'* 
 
 The temper of the Company had been sorely tried 
 since Pring had started for Japan ; the Dutch had 
 not kept the treaty ; and events were preparing for 
 
 1 Op. cit., No. 1133. 
 
 2 Op. cit. No3. 844, 878, 883 ( Pring declined to command a fleet bound for Manila ), 
 910, 929, 930. Cf. for the voyage of the James Royal Purchas: op. cit., I, pp. 629 et 
 seq.; Rundall: "Memorials of Japan," p. 87. Cocks to the E. I. Co. Dec. 131620: 
 " The coppie of his [ Adams ] will with another of his inventory ( or account of bis 
 estate ) I send to his wife and daughter, per Captain Martin Pring, their good 
 friend, well knowne to them long tyme past." Cf. Cocks: "Diary," II, p. 321. 
 
 3 Cocks: "Diary," II, p. 116. 
 
 « Cocks: " Diary," II, pp. 54, 112-116, 318, 322. " Cal. State Papers Col. E. I. ( 1617- 
 21 ) " No. 1100. 
 
 40 
 
that terrible massacre of the English at Amboyna in 
 1623, which was to drive them from the spice islands 
 for so many years. Signs of all this are to be seen 
 in the fault the Company now found with Pring for 
 not having opposed the Dutch more vigorously after 
 the death of Sir Thomas Dale, for having been 
 friendly with the Dutch after the signature of peace, 
 for having taken the James Royal to Japan for full 
 repairs when the interests of the Company were still 
 in jeopardy, and above all for having indulged in 
 private trade to his own profit. This last charge 
 might well be true, for it was a common thing among 
 the captains and factors in the service, though much 
 disliked by the Company. Matters indeed came to 
 such a pass that Pring was near brought before the 
 Privy Council to answer charges brought against him 
 by the Company's Court. Eventually, however, Pring 
 was able to clear himself from several charges and 
 the matter was dropped. But he had to wait a good 
 part of a year for his wages, and when he finally quit 
 the service in August, 1623, the customary gratifica- 
 tion of money from the Company was withheld. The 
 general opinion seems to have been that Pring was a 
 better navigator than merchant. Yet in no instance 
 did he fail to secure the approval of men who watched 
 him in the active performance of his duty. The ideal 
 commander in the eyes of the Company must be 
 " partly a navigator, partly a merchant, with knowl- 
 edge to lade a ship, and partly a man of fashion and 
 good respect." While Pring may not have risen to 
 that condition, he was by all other accounts a man of 
 
 41 
 
service to the corporation. His misfortune was to 
 have returned home an avowed supporter of a Dutch 
 alliance, now unpopular, and too honest and indepen- 
 dent to deny that he had indulged, as had others, in 
 private trade. ^ 
 
 VI. 
 
 After nearly a decade of adventuring to the east 
 the closing years of Pring's life show significantly a 
 return to western interests. Indeed it is possible 
 that after his return in 1623 to his home port of Bris- 
 tol, he once more assumed a voyage to Virginia. He 
 had been elected a member of the Company of Mer- 
 chant Adventurers of Bristol, the organization that 
 had supported his maiden venture in 1603 ; and 
 there is one bit of evidence which would point to 
 his having sailed to America again in 1626. For in 
 that year one Miles Prickett, a baker of Holy Cross 
 Parish, outside of Canterbury, made his will and 
 declared therein that, " Whereas there is or will be 
 certain money due me in consideration of my adven- 
 turing into Virginia under the Worshipful Captain 
 Pryn [ Pring ], his charge, which goods, if they shall 
 prosper well in the said voyage I freely dispose of 
 the benefit that shall be due to me unto my brother."^ 
 
 i"Cal. of State Papers, E. I. (1513-1616)," No. 700 (the ideal captain). Ibid 
 ( 1617-22 ),N08. 979, 982. 1110, 1130, 1133, 1134, 1136, 1138, 1145, 1161, 1171; Ibid (1622- 
 24 ), N08. 98, 103, 332 ; p. 92. Cf . " Pring " in " Diet. Nat. Biog." 
 
 » New Eng. Hist. Gen. Reg.," XL, p. 62. Brown: " Genesis of the U. S.," II, p. 974. 
 
 42 
 
But whatever hesitancy may be felt in asserting a 
 third American voyage by Captain Pring, the 
 evidence of his continuing interest in American affairs 
 is derived from other and less doubtful sources and 
 may perhaps add to the probability of the third 
 voyage. It appears that in 1621, while on the home- 
 ward voyage from Japan in the James Royal, the 
 ship's chaplain, the Reverend Patrick Copland, had 
 gathered from the " gentlemen and mariners " on 
 board the sum of £70 8s 6d towards the building of 
 a free school in Virginia. The largest single amount 
 subscribed was £6 13s 4d by Pring himself and " so 
 decreasing to one shilling." This Mr. Copland had 
 attended Sir Thomas Dale at his death-bed in Masuli- 
 patam, August, 1619, and had on that occasion prob- 
 ably heard much of Virginia's needs from the lips of 
 her former governor, then dying in the eastern trop- 
 ics. At least talk of America and inquiries concern- 
 ing Virginia were frequent on Dale's lips. The 
 possibility that this plan and this subscription were 
 in part the results of these talks is calculated to give 
 pause when we consider the character and labors of 
 Dale in Virginia. Whether the suggestion came from 
 him or no, it found hearty furtherance from Pring. 
 Copland also found on landing in England others 
 ready to take up the matter ; by several anonymous 
 gifts the fund was by 1622 increased to £192 Is lOd ; 
 and the total was given to the Earl of Southampton 
 for what the Council of the Virginia Company was 
 pleased to call the East India School. A thousand 
 acres of land also were voted by the Company to the 
 
 43 
 
scliool, which, was to be situate at Charles City.^ 
 The Virginia Company thus declared itself to be heart- 
 ily in sympathy with the proposal and voted that 
 " ciuility of life and humane learninge seemed to carry 
 with it the greatest weight and highest consequence 
 unto the plantacons as that whereof both Church and 
 Common wealth take their originall foundacion and 
 happie estate."^ 
 
 Carpenters were sent out to build the school and 
 two teachers were successively engaged to conduct its 
 affairs. Difficulties supervened, however, and no 
 further record of the establishment is to be found. 
 But the gratitude of the Company found special 
 expression in the Quarter Court of July 3, 1622, when 
 it was thought fit to make Captain Pring a freeman 
 of the Company and to give him two shares of land 
 in Virginia. This, as the record reads : "in reguard 
 of the large contribucon w^^ the gentlemen and mari- 
 ners of that shippe [ James Royal ] had given toward 
 good works in Virginia whereof he was an especiall 
 furtherer."^ Thus it was that Pring became both 
 a landowner and a supporter of an infant educational 
 system in America. He might, therefore, have gone to 
 Virginia in 1626 in the interest of both his personal 
 
 1 Brown: op. cit., II, pp. 972-3. On Copland's career to 1623 see " Cal. State Papers 
 Col. E. I. ( 1617-21 ■)," Nos. 270, 289, 302, 054, 979, 1125. In 1617 the sailors had raised on 
 the James Royal a sum of money for a gallery in St. John's Chapel, Wapping, of 
 which Master Rowland Coitmore, formerly of the James, became warden in 1622. 
 Brown: op. cit., II, p. 856. In 1624 the E. I. Company, profiting by such example, 
 voted in the future to take up subscriptions on their vessels for "those hurt or 
 
 maimed in the Company's service which they think will be more proper, 
 
 than for erecting a school in Virginia." " Cal. State Papers Col. E. I. ( 1622-24 ) " No. 
 710. Neill : " Virginia Company," pp. 251 et seq. 
 
 » Neill : op. cit., p. 264. 
 
 3 Neill: op. cit., p. 314. 
 
 44 
 
gift and his real estate. However that may be, 
 he must, nevertheless, have died soon after his return 
 to England, for Prickett's will was dated November 
 30, 1626, and by the record on the monument in St. 
 Stephen's Church at Bristol, Pring died in that year 
 at the age of forty-six. This monument, restored in 
 1733, is inscribed : " To the Pious Memorie of Martin 
 Pringe, Merchaunt, Sometyme Generall to the East 
 Indies, and one of ye Fraternity of the Trinity House." 
 It bears the arms of the Merchant Adventurers of 
 Bristol, at whose expense it was probably erected ; 
 and at each of the four corners are carved ships 
 representing those in which Pring had sailed as 
 commander.^ 
 
 I hope that as you have patiently followed my 
 attempt to tell you of the life of Martin Pring you 
 will have seen how historic is his biography, how 
 typical is his career of the epochal changes which 
 took place in England during his lifetime, and with 
 what close and at times curious connection are bound 
 the efforts of those who were enlarging the power and 
 interests of the English nation both in America and 
 in Asia.^ The place and time of his birth as well as 
 other circumstances recall the close of the Elizabethan 
 
 » A description of the monument is in "Mag. Am. Hist.," IX, p. 211. Cf. Brown: 
 op. cit. II, p. 974. "Diet. Nat. Biog." locus Pring. Pring: "Captaine Martin 
 Pringe," contains a plate of the monument with a transcription of the inscription 
 and epitaph. For further information on the interesting career and personality of 
 the Reverend Patricli Copland ( or Copeland ) cf . Neill : " Virginia Company," pp. 
 251 n., 374, 377, and " Virginia Carolorum," pp. 31, 19,5-197. See also Clews: " Educa- 
 tional Legislation and Administration of the Colonial Governments," pp. 351-354. 
 
 2 Aside from the interest which naturally associated such men as John Davis, Sir 
 Tliomas Smythe, George Waymouth, and many others in the expansion of England 
 in two hemispheres, it is worthy of note that William BaflSn sailed as master's mate 
 in the Ann Royal of Pring's fleet in 1617. Cf . Markham : " Sir James Lancaster," p. 
 267. 
 
 46 
 
age, that period when men with " happy heart and a 
 bias toward theism " followed " asceticism, duty and 
 magnanimity," that time when statesmen wrote son- 
 nets and sailors enacted plays, when a Grenville had 
 a Raleigh for his historian, when 
 
 " Drake went down to the Horn 
 
 And England was crowned thereby — " 
 
 in short that time when Englishmen made discovery 
 of mankind, of new lands and seas and of themselves. 
 Moreover, Pring's character and work, as well as 
 the esteem in which he was held by men such as 
 Richard Hakluyt, the Lord Chief Justice and Sir Fer- 
 dinando Gorges, in the Occident, and by Sir Thomas 
 Roe in the Orient, entitle him on the personal side 
 still further to our consideration. He was an English 
 seaman, pointing the way to England's glory and 
 power, a forerunner of Anglo-Saxon empire in two 
 hemispheres, an explorer, a fighter, a trader, a diplo- 
 mat, and a patron of education, yet withal a man of 
 piety, perseverance and modesty. In the quaint 
 language of his epitaph : 
 
 " His painful, skillfull travayles reacht as farre 
 
 As from the Artick to th' Antartick starre 
 
 Hee made himself A Shippe, Religion 
 
 His only compass and the truth alone 
 
 His guiding Cynosure ; Faith was his sailes, 
 
 His Anchour hope, a hope that never failes 
 
 His freight was charitie and his returne 
 
 A fruitfull practise. In this fatal urne 
 
 His shipp's fayre Bulck is lodg'd but ye ritch ladinge 
 
 Is housed in heaven, a haven never fadinge 
 
 Hie terris multum jactatus et undis.'^ 
 46 
 
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 SO 
 
A PIONEER VOYAGER OF THE SIXTEENTH 
 CENTURY: SIR HUMPHREY GILBERT 
 
 BY REV. HENRY O. THAYER 
 
 Bead before the Maine Historical Society, November 19, 1903 
 
 Disaster and frustrated enterprise are the black 
 headlines in the early history of America. European 
 adventurers were repeatedly driven back or gained 
 possession at great cost of treasure and life. A glance 
 at events in the sixteenth century is a pertinent intro- 
 duction to the purpose of to-day. Its annals include 
 a startling record of failure in attempted entrance to 
 the western world. 
 
 The genius to discover an unknown continent did 
 not give Columbus power over adverse conditions, 
 but two colonies begun utterly failed and another 
 scarcely survived. Ojeda on the Carribean coast, 
 Las Casas at Cumana, Ponce de Leon and next Nar- 
 vaez and a score of years later the Dominicans, each 
 seeking possession of Florida, are names recalling 
 speedy collapse. Cartier and Roberval, scheming for 
 France on the St. Lawrence, had hopeful beginnings 
 crushed. Like failure attended Colingny's Huguenot 
 colony at Rio Janiero and Ribault's at Port Royal. 
 The names of Laudonniere, Menendez, De Gourges, 
 stand on the pages of history testifying how France 
 and Spain murderously destroyed each other's work. 
 De la Roche's colony of convicts placed on Sable 
 
 51 
 
Island, and an English attempt on Newfoundland, 
 quickly abortive, only tell of wretchedness and canni- 
 balism. Raleigh's lost colony of Roanoke is ever a 
 pitiable mystery. 
 
 Dreams of empire in the west, attempts to seize the 
 prize, all fntile, mark the sixteenth century, and 
 nearly five and one-half score years had gone by from 
 the time when Cabot by discovery on the northern 
 coast gave England valid claim to North America, 
 before permanent occupation was achieved. 
 
 One of these regretted failures is treated in this 
 paper, the disastrous expedition of Sir Humphrey 
 Gilbert. 
 
 In a Devonshire family of distinction he was born, 
 1539, son of Sir Otho Gilbert, of Compton Castle. 
 His mother was a Champernown. A younger half- 
 brother was the distinguished Walter Raleigh. 
 
 Student at Eton and Oxford ; in youth a servitor 
 of the great Elizabeth and enjoying her favor to 
 the end ; of scholarly tastes but inclined to active 
 life ; in military service in Normandy in 1563, prob- 
 ably a lieutenant ; in '66 in Ireland, a captain under 
 Sir Henry Sidney, and by him knighted in '70 ; 
 sent back in '67 to settle an English colony which 
 failed ; in '69 governor of Munster, rigorous and 
 feared, avowing his method, " neither parley or peace 
 with any rebel " ; in Parliament in '71, also surveyor- 
 general of forces and munitions of war ; next year 
 sent to the Netherlands against the Spanish tyrants ; 
 for several years following in retirement ; now evolv- 
 ing a plan for a literary institution in London .... 
 
 52 
 
called an academy ; in '66 petitioning the qneen for 
 privilege to discover the Northwest Passage, with 
 glowing views of expected results ; in the following 
 year urging anew his proposal ; author of a tractate 
 on the subject, now extant, " Discourse of a Discovery 
 for a new Passage to Cataia," a sample of scientific 
 ideas of that century ; in '77 putting forth a scheme 
 showing how to weaken the power of Spain — these 
 are brief hints at his varied activities and responsi- 
 bilities up to his thirty-eighth year, when he devoted 
 himself to plans for colonization. 
 
 Evident is his interest in public affairs, but more a 
 dominant trend toward geographical research and 
 participation in projects and movements relating to 
 America. 
 
 In 1577, by Elizabeth's favor, Frobisher sailed on 
 a luckless voyage, and countenancing similar aims, 
 next Gilbert's friendly queen in variant mood bent 
 ear to his long-disregarded requests, and by her royal 
 patent of 1578 permitted him to discover and possess 
 heathen lands not possessed by any Christian prince. 
 Large privileges enhanced the grant. With enthu- 
 siasm and energy he made preparation, cast his prop- 
 erty into the venture, and aided by his brother 
 Raleigh, assembled eleven ships and four hundred 
 men off the coast of Devon. Dissensions, rivalry of 
 captains, weakened authority, riotous conduct, dis- 
 persed part of the fleet, so that the second attempt at 
 sailing in November showed but seven ships and two 
 hundred and fifty men. The expedition, obscure in 
 movement, achieved nothing intended in the line of 
 
 53 
 
discovery, and returned in a few months with loss of 
 one ship and a valiant captain in a clash with Spanish 
 ships. 
 
 Undaunted, Gilbert held to his purpose, persistent 
 under enforced delay. Funds and co-operation were 
 not easily obtained. He had already in his fruitless 
 venture largely sunk his fortune, his credit, even 
 influence at court. Urging payment for his ships 
 chartered by the government, he confesses how har- 
 assed he had been by debts and executions, even 
 forced " to sell his wife's clothes off her back " to 
 meet pressing demands. Yet funds were raised from 
 friends and by assigning rights in lands yet to be 
 seen and possessed. Years had gone by in the vex- 
 ing endeavor till but one remained before his patent 
 would expire, but with desperate earnestness he over- 
 came the adverse conditions and had five ships and 
 two hundred and sixty men ready. The queen gave 
 him a token of favor, — a silver anchor, — and wished 
 him equal safety and success as if she were in his 
 ship. Thus equipped. Sir Humphrey put forth to 
 sea on June 11, 1583, from Causand Bay near 
 Plymouth. 
 
 The vessels were : 
 
 1. The Delight, alias the George, the admiral, or 
 flagship, one hundred and twenty tons ; William 
 Winter, captain and part owner, Richard Clarke, 
 master. 
 
 2. The bark Raleigh, provided by Sir Walter 
 Raleigh, two hundred tons ; Butler, captain, Robert 
 Davis, of Bristol, master. 
 
 54 
 
3. The Golden Hind, forty tons ; Edward Hayes, 
 captain and owner, William Cox, master, John Paul, 
 mate. 
 
 4. The Swallow, forty tons ; Maurice Brown, master. 
 
 5. The Squirrel, ten tons ; William Andrews, cap- 
 tain, Cade, master. Sir Humphrey was doubtless 
 
 owner. 
 
 Men of various occupations required in a colony 
 were a part of the force, also a historian and mineral- 
 ogist and refiner. 
 
 A history of the enterprise and voyage was written 
 by Captain Hayes, also a brief account by Master 
 Clarke, and Sir George Peckham, heartily seconding 
 Gilbert in the venture, sketched events, adding con- 
 siderations on the benefits of colonies.^ 
 
 It has been written that Gosnold, in 1602, was the 
 first navigator to sail directly west to America, avoid- 
 ing the circuit by the West Indies. But this expedi- 
 tion took the direct course and was probably not the 
 first. The sailing orders put forth by Sir Humphrey 
 and pilots directed that after running down to lati- 
 tude forty-six degrees they should endeavor to keep 
 that parallel directly to Newfoundland, and if sepa- 
 rated by storms to rendezvous in a harbor near Cape 
 Race. 
 
 Sir Humphrey's information had formed his pref- 
 erences for colonies in the southern parts, and he 
 proposed to begin examination at the southward and 
 sail up the coast. One fact changed his plan. The 
 departure from Plymouth was delayed beyond 
 
 1 " Hakluyt's Voyages," Ed. 1600, Vol. 3, pp. 143-160. 
 
 55 
 
intention, so that supplies in tlie ships were in a 
 measure consumed, therefore it was deemed wise to 
 go direct to St. John's and there re-supply the ships 
 from surplus stores of vessels about to return and 
 thence sail southward. Two days out, the largest 
 vessel, the Raleigh, reported sickness on board, then 
 soon put about, and though it was afterwards told 
 there was contagious disease, suspicions arose of 
 other causes for the return to England. 
 
 Storms and adverse winds made the voyage hard 
 and long, and not till Saturday, August 3, did all the 
 vessels reach St. John's. Only Gilbert's high com- 
 mission gained him peaceable entrance to the harbor 
 of St. John's, where were thirty-six ships, English, 
 Spanish, Breton, French. On Monday, 5th, on shore 
 in audience of seamen and traders of the several 
 nations, he declared his authority, and took formal 
 possession by usual ceremonies for Elizabeth and the 
 crown of England of the territory of two hundred 
 leagues. Then he re-supplied his fleet with all nec- 
 essaries and abundant food and luxuries, levying on 
 the captains and agents according to his wants. 
 Grave difficulties, however, arose : — much sickness, 
 many deaths, desertions, insubordination, attempt of 
 lawless fellows to abscond with one ship, so that his 
 force was much weakened. Gilbert decided to dis- 
 miss one craft, the Swallow, which should take the 
 sick and those proved unsuitable back to England. 
 Captain Brown of the Swallow was transferred to the 
 flagship, whose captain returned, as also Andrews of 
 the Squirrel. 
 
 56 
 
With this diminished fleet, three vessels, Delight, 
 Golden Hind, Squirrel, one hundred and twenty, 
 forty, ten tons respectively, Sir Humphrey began his 
 real work, examination of the coast to locate the site 
 for his colony and others yet to come. The "General," 
 as Gilbert is styled in the narrative, left his flagship 
 and sailed on the little Squirrel, whose light draft 
 allowed it to enter bays and rivers and furnish him 
 chance for close personal inspection. 
 
 Sailing out of St. John's they reached Cape Race 
 the next day, August 21, where becalmed they caught 
 abundance of fish, a supply for many days, and on 
 Thursday, 22d, took their departure from the cape. 
 But whither ? The narrator of this part of the voy- 
 age writes : " We directed our course to the isle of 
 Sablon or isle of Sand which Sir Humphrey would 
 willingly have seen," He had been informed that 
 cattle and swine in large numbers were there multi- 
 plied from a few left there by Portuguese ships thirty 
 years before, which might be a valuable source of 
 supply for the colonists. 
 
 Captain Hayes writes : — " We shaped our course 
 to the island of Sablon if conveniently it might so fall 
 out, also directly to Cape Breton." There may be 
 two interpretations, — Cape Breton the objective point, 
 visiting Sable by the way if convenient ; or, Sable 
 Island directly and Cape Breton afterwards. We 
 know that after sailing they were seven days at sea and 
 on the eighth the admiral ran aground and was lost. 
 
 Certain relations of tliis disappointing voyage to 
 our Maine history make inquiry pertinent regarding 
 
 57 
 
the place of the wreck, and likewise that of Gilbert's 
 death. In various histories and biographical sketches 
 the wreck has been assigned to the coast of Maine, 
 and of Massachusetts, and to Cape Breton and to 
 Sable Island, or not located.^ 
 
 A paragraph in Bancroft's " History of the United 
 States " read some twenty years ago excited my curi- 
 osity and led me to the study of this voyage in the 
 original sources.^ Our historian wrote that after 
 leaving St. John's the ships sailed for the coast of 
 the United States, " but had not proceeded towards 
 the south beyond the latitude of Wiscasset when the 
 largest ship was wrecked." Why did he write Wis- 
 casset ? The casual reader's immediate presumption 
 will connect the disaster with the central coast of 
 Maine. Thus he was interpreted ^ by the author of 
 the "Ancient Dominions," and the opinion may have 
 been held by others, and seems to have been 
 reflected in General Chamberlain's inspiring Centen- 
 nial address on " Maine, Her Place in History," as 
 sketching Gilbert's final disaster,^ he wrote cautiously 
 as if distrustful of his authorities, " as some say, not 
 far off Monhegan." Mr. Bancroft's statement, if not 
 misleading, is inadequate, for the latitude of Wiscas- 
 set is also that of the Isle Haute, of Liverpool, N. S., 
 nearly, and even of the Bay of Biscay. Evidently 
 seeking a more graphic sentence, he employed a 
 local name, — Wiscasset being precisely in latitude 
 
 1 See note at the end. 
 
 2 Ed. 1876, Vol. 1, p. 75. 
 
 3 Mem. Vol. of Popham Celebration, p. 135. 
 *P. 21. 
 
 58 
 
forty-four degrees north/ — to designate that latitude, 
 the main fact to be stated, and thereby to most readers 
 he did designate the Maine coast, whether near to or 
 remote from Sheepscot Bay. Not alone latitude do 
 we require but also longitude, for which evidence 
 must be sought in the narrations which give meager 
 accounts of events associated with the wreck. 
 
 After departure from the Cape the ships sailed west 
 along the coast, then soon saw no more land, and in a 
 few days fell into unpropitious weather, making nav- 
 igation difficult and doubtful. On Tuesday, 27th, 
 soundings were taken in thirty-four fathoms, and by 
 Captain Hayes' report they were in latitude forty-four 
 degrees about. Master Clarke of the admiral tells his 
 story of what happened. On Wednesday, Gilbert 
 from the Squirrel hailed the Delight to consult 
 regarding the course to which Clarke proposed south- 
 westerly (W. S. W.) The General objected and said 
 northwesterly ( W. N. W.) Clarke told him Sable 
 Island was in that direction, fifteen leagues off, and 
 they would be on it before morning. The General 
 declared him in error and commanded him with all 
 authority to take that course. 
 
 We notice that Clarke writing this statement after- 
 wards in England was making defense for the loss of 
 his vessel. He had no papers, only memory, and did 
 not hesitate to cast the blame on Gilbert, and whether 
 a man of truth or not, he was seeking to make out a 
 good case for himself, and if no witness of the 
 
 iBut the original narrative, — not the log, — does not allow forty-four degrees to 
 be the place of wreck, but at a later stage of the stormy voyage. 
 
 59 
 
conversation was alive, might be believed. Indeed the 
 compiler, Hakluyt, gives in the margin, — " He untruly 
 chargeth Sir Humphrey," which shows opinions 
 adverse to his truthfulness, and Hayes of the other 
 vessel declares Clarke was stubborn in holding the 
 northerly course, claiming he could not make his ship 
 work well otherwise. The Hind necessarily followed 
 the admiral, though against the judgment of its pilot. 
 Cox. Hayes' story is clear and candid and seems 
 worthy of full credit. Wherever lay the blame, the 
 disaster followed. 
 
 The story by Clarke and the mention by Hayes that 
 on Tuesday they were in about forty-four degrees, 
 seem to be the only basis for the opinion that the 
 wreck occurred at Sable Island, except it be assured 
 their intention was to sail first to the island. But 
 Cape Breton first is an inference from the title of the 
 log by Cox : " Log kept from Cape Race to Cape 
 Breton and the island of Sablon " to the place of the 
 wreck. Sir George Peckham wrote that they went 
 ashore at Placentia, then having wind fair and good 
 " they proceeded on their course toward the firme of 
 America,'' which seems full evidence of their purpose. 
 
 Fortunate is it that the narrative by Captain Hayes 
 furnishes clearer evidence. The main facts show 
 slow and imcertain sailing after leaving land, with 
 baffling winds and " hindered by the current," — tiU 
 on the seventh day the wind came south and they ran 
 before it ( W. N. W.) all night while it increased into 
 a " vehement " gale with rain and mists such that 
 they could not see a cable's length. In the morning 
 
 60 
 
they found shoals, flats, sand with recurring deep 
 water, and Master Cox dimly saw white cliffs, or per- 
 haps breakers, and soon the admiral drawing fourteen 
 feet struck. The other vessels at once put about and 
 escaped the peril. In the wreck of the flagship nearly 
 one hundred men were lost, but fourteen managed to 
 get into the barge, which had been constructed at St. 
 John's and was towing astern, and after five days of 
 hunger and exposure, by which two died, reached the 
 land and were taken to England. Clarke was one 
 but the captain ( Brown ) manfully held his place and 
 was involved in the ruin as the ship was broken to 
 pieces. The lighter vessels beat about as near as 
 they dared if they might rescue any survivors. 
 
 Captain Hayes introduced into his narrative the 
 entries in the log-books of his master and mate, in 
 order to give, as he hoped, other seamen means to 
 determine the place and avoid the danger. The two 
 logs I have put imder the eye of experienced Kenne- 
 bec shipmasters for expert opinion. Dead reckoning 
 is not esteemed in large degree trustworthy, but one 
 navigator believed far more confidence could be put 
 in it in former times when seamen were experienced 
 in its use than now when the chronometer is an 
 every-day reliance. 
 
 Inspection of these logs does not support the idea 
 of a visit first to Sable. They sailed directly west by 
 Trepassey, also as Sir George Peckham tells, went 
 ashore to examine Placentia, then bore northwesterly, 
 afterward southwesterly as if making for Cape 
 Breton. The whole distance run southward in all 
 
 61 
 
tlie courses — the actual southing — would not extend 
 to the latitude of Sable if put into one direct course, 
 but there were northerly courses also, and the differ- 
 ence of northing and southing, or the largest actual 
 change in latitude, is less than half the distance 
 required to reach the latitude of Sable. The results 
 of computation show substantial agreement in the two 
 seamen's reckonings. The testimony of the logs is 
 explicit that the wreck was not at that island, but 
 points unmistakably to Cape Breton. 
 
 It is obvious that dead reckoning, and when held 
 eight days, can yield only approximate results. The 
 figures given me show that Cox and Paul differ in lat- 
 itude eleven miles and in longitude twenty-six miles, 
 and one may be rather surprised that their variance 
 is not greater. The log of Cox will make the place 
 of the wreck latitude forty-five degrees, fifty-seven 
 minutes, and longitude sixty degrees, seven minutes, 
 which is in the vicinity of Louisburg ; and that of 
 Paul gives latitude forty-six degrees, eight minutes, 
 which looks toward the harbor of Sydney, while the 
 longitude, sixty degrees, thirty-three minutes, lies far 
 to the west. In a problem precluding accurate solu- 
 tion it will be sufficient to presume upon some point 
 of the southeasterly part of the island of Cape Breton, 
 as from Gabarus Bay to Scatari Island or from Lou- 
 isburg to Sydney. 
 
 If Clarke really told Sir Humphrey that they were 
 southeasterly of Sable he seems so far astray that we 
 can hardly believe him sincere, yet if previously on 
 the other ships it was the opinion that they were in 
 
 62 
 
about forty-four degrees, it appears to be proof that 
 these navigators had made large errors in their reck- 
 onings. Such opinion is the more surprising since 
 then they had the same log now furnished us, and its 
 testimony should have shovpn that they had made no 
 such southing as would carry them to forty-four 
 degrees, the latitude of Sable. This difficulty is not 
 easily removed, but certainly to one now the log- 
 entries have superior and final claim to show the 
 position of the ships. Evidently these seamen were 
 deceived. Baffling winds, currents of whose trend 
 and strength they knew nothing, bore them far from 
 their presumed position. Now it is a new sad tale 
 nearly every year, some treacherous, undiscerned cur- 
 rent driving a noble ship toward Cape Sable or Cape 
 Race, those " graveyards of ships." These seamen 
 did not make the progress southward as they seemed 
 to think. Their last day and night's run — twelve to 
 twenty leagues — northwesterly was before a strong 
 and then vehement south wind. It carried them 
 unsuspecting to the vicinity of Cape Breton. 
 
 It is a fair implication of Hayes' story that on the 
 day after the disaster, while they waited for clearing 
 weather, his company were bewildered as men lost, 
 and he mentions that they judged the land was not 
 far off, either the continent or some island, yet some 
 thought they were in the Bay of St. Lawrence. Such 
 views are incompatible with a presumption that they 
 were near and south of Sable, as Clarke's tale would 
 imply, but fully agree with an intention first to make 
 Cape Breton and the belief that they had been driven 
 
 63 
 
into the wide passage between it and Newfoundland. 
 But again he implies the direction of their voyage as 
 he states that " from Cape Race to Cape Breton is 
 eighty-seven leagues in which navigation we spent 
 eight days." The Sable Island opinion should be 
 summarily dismissed. 
 
 During the present study I chanced to learn that 
 this problem had been considered in a paper pub- 
 lished by the Royal Society of Canada in its volume 
 for 1897.^ It seems to have been occasioned by an 
 assertion of the Sable Island opinion in the previous 
 volume. The writer rejects that view, and with for- 
 cible arguments makes conclusions in behalf of Cape 
 Breton. He sets aside the statement of Clarke, uses 
 only the log of Master Cox, gives the full computa- 
 tion of it and has result, latitude forty-five degrees, 
 fifty-seven minutes, and longitude sixty degrees, 
 twelve minutes. This points to the Bay of Louisburg 
 and he thinks the wreck may have occurred on the 
 north side of the bay. A doubt may arise if this 
 wind-driven fleet could sail in, lose one vessel, then 
 the two should tack and sail directly out though the 
 entrance is but half a mile wide, and remain as near 
 as they could to the scene of wreck and yet have no 
 knowledge of the near land but by soundings. The 
 writer regards the report of shoals and sand bars as 
 agreeing with present conditions. Still one may think 
 three centuries have changed the soundings in no 
 slight degree. He also finds probable corroboration 
 in the fact that some fifty years ago there was found 
 
 »" Transactions," Series 2, Vol. 3, Sec. 2, pp. 113-129. 
 
 64 
 
on tlie shore of tlie bay an old gun — a hooped cannon 
 of ancient style — said to be that of the sixteenth cen- 
 tury, which might well be a relic of Sir Humphrey's 
 expedition. 
 
 What changeful fortunes ! This man of honorable 
 birth and station, commended and successful in mili- 
 tary service and civil administration ; favored by the 
 great queen and knighted in her service ; student of 
 science and history, author and explorer ; aiming at 
 achievement by colonization ; holding royal patent to 
 possess foreign lands ; gathering a fleet of eleven 
 ships for his purpose ; gratified if not satisfied at 
 each new stage of success thus far ; hopeful to win 
 further honor and emolument in the coming enter- 
 prise. But here his star no more ascendant begins 
 to sink. The voyage returns only losses. He faints 
 not ; expends fortune and credit ; equips after dubious 
 years five ships for a second venlv^^e ; one abandons 
 him ; another is forced home ; with weakened force 
 he begins his work ; soon another ship with supplies 
 and men is broken in pieces on an angry shore ; two 
 little craft alone remain, abject remnant compared 
 with the Devon fleet formerly launched on his grand 
 design ; but the man himself tossed on an uncertain 
 sea in a puny thing like a fishing boat, carries still 
 an undaunted heart ; and not in the least unhinged 
 by loss and the compelled surrender, in bold self- 
 confidence promises to himself and his men another 
 endeavor and sure achievement, for thus hope buoys 
 up the strong as the weak, while the distressing fact 
 was concealed, — one more last quick stage in 
 
 65 
 
fortune's wreck, his doom two weeks later to sink in 
 riotous waves in mid-ocean. 
 
 When the crews, shocked and terrified at the loss 
 of their flagship, had gained composure in the ensu- 
 ing day, they disclosed to their grieved but steadfast 
 leader their wreck of courage, their sense that further 
 endeavor was futile. Supplies and men had been 
 devoured by the angry sea, so now weak and timid, 
 they entreated Sir Himaphrey to give over explora- 
 tion. He yielded and gave the word " Homewards," 
 a bitter necessity to him if grateful to them. On 
 Saturday, 31st, the return voyage began. 
 
 Twice in the days following did Gilbert leave his 
 cockle-shell craft and go on board of the Hind, once 
 to see the surgeon for an injured foot. Urgently 
 entreated by friends to remain and not trust himself 
 to the smaller vessel, he refused, declaring " I will 
 not forsake my little company with whom I have 
 passed so many storms and perils," a dictate of a 
 generous spirit, rather than true manly prudence. 
 Captain Hayes says that " he would not bend to rea- 
 son," and also states that the Squirrel was overladen, 
 by her supplies and chiefly by her guns and material 
 to put her in fighting trim, which does not accredit 
 the general with wise seamanship ; yet how easy for 
 one to think what has been will be, and so Gilbert 
 could be confident that his vessel, after years of ser- 
 vice at sea, could endure other storms and having just 
 crossed the ocean could make sure a return. It seems 
 to have been his own vessel and he undoubtedly had 
 special regard for it, and so casting off fear or 
 
 66 
 
prudence which his friends would infuse he went back 
 to his own. They had made some three hundred 
 leagues of the voyage. Later there broke upon them 
 a severe storm in which they battled with such " out- 
 ragious seas " as few of their seamen had ever 
 encountered. They had reached the longitude of the 
 Azores but were far northward. The men of the 
 larger vessel watched the Squirrel in imminent peril 
 with anxiety, and could see the undismayed General 
 sitting in the stern with his book, who was able once 
 to hail them cheerily, " as near heaven by sea as by 
 land." The gale continued into the night of Septem- 
 ber 9, and in the midnight hours, while the intrepid 
 Sir Humphrey held his little bark in the lead, to the 
 lookout of the Golden Hind its " light suddenly went 
 out," and the searching eyes of watchful seamen 
 could find it no more, though unwilling to accept the 
 manifest truth that one last high whelming wave had 
 borne the Squirrel down in terrible plunge, making 
 there in mid-ocean the end of the man and his 
 schemes, and his unmarked burial place, who, as 
 Hakluyt wrote, " is deserving honorable remembrance 
 for his good mind and expense of life in so virtuous 
 an enterprise." 
 
 Pitiable was the fate of this English knight and 
 adventurer. A series of disasters brought to an 
 inglorious ending a grand enterprise. One failure 
 among many indeed, but to us possibly having larger 
 meaning. We may especially deplore it, for mani- 
 festly the history of Maine and adjacent coast has 
 been a loser. Careful exploration with full and precise 
 
 67 
 
record was intended, as was declared on leaving 
 Newfoundland, " without delay to proceed unto the 
 south, not omitting any river or bay which in all that 
 large tract of land appeared to our view worthy of 
 search." An important member of the expedition 
 lost with the wrecked flagship, was a Hungarian 
 scholar, Stephen Parmenius, writer of elegant Latin, 
 having the duty to preserve descriptions of places 
 visited and all conditions bearing upon establishment 
 of colonies. Valuable for use in these centuries of 
 historical study would have been information then 
 obtained regarding Maine's rivers, harbors, its soil, 
 minerals, forest trees and also its native inhabitants. 
 We would thankfully welcome even one-half as full 
 description of the Maine coast as Captain Hayes then 
 wrote out regarding Newfoundland. 
 
 It was a grievous overthrow of an important 
 undertaking for England and the extension of her 
 domain, but also to us now it has sent down a his- 
 torical disappointment. The *' might have been " 
 is ever a serious factor in human affairs. By Sir 
 Humphrey's success, information would have been 
 put in store for him and assigns then and for 
 the following century of actual entrance, but not 
 alone information but a colony on the Maine coast 
 then or a few years later can be named as a possi- 
 bility. Likewise had Gilbert lived and carried for- 
 ward his colonial schemes, and established enduring 
 colonies on Newfoundland or on the Bay of Fundy, 
 they might have debarred the French, and the 
 rivalry of the next one hundred and fifty years and 
 
 68 
 
bloody contention for supremacy in North America 
 had been avoided. 
 
 The narrative, bowever, sbows that Sir Humphrey's 
 ships carried out ill-assorted elements, many vicious 
 and lawless men, and it may be doubted if any colony 
 he then could have set on foot would have had more 
 than transient existence. If his brother Raleigh's 
 failed in the next years, what better expectation for 
 his scheme ? Still it is agreeable to allow imagina- 
 tion to spare this bitter disaster and to send him on 
 to explore and colonize and so to build fair structures 
 changing thereby the course of history in beginning 
 the United States. 
 
 Gilbert's opinions had been formed favorable to 
 southern latitudes, and had he been able to sail to the 
 southward as first intended, the whole outcome of the 
 enterprise might have been different. At Newfound- 
 land, however, his preferences for the south were sup- 
 planted. Visions of riches seized his ardent, eager 
 mind, more glowing visions because of the wreck of 
 property and penury in preceding years. The man 
 of minerals, Daniel of Buda, discovered rocks laden 
 with rich silver ores as he believed. Specimens were 
 put aboard of the admiral, yet covertly, in view of the 
 cupidity of the crews or the merchants on shore. In 
 emphatic asseveration he assured the General that the 
 ores were rich, were abundant, no need to seek 
 further, all he could want was there, — and Sir 
 Humphrey's head was turned. He had been a stu- 
 dent of the miserable science of the times, had stud- 
 ied alchemy, had dabbled in schemes to transmute 
 
 69 
 
iron into copper, was ready for tlie tales of this Daniel 
 of science, was equally or more visionary than other 
 explorers of the New World of his times who imag- 
 ined gold and silver ore was scattered profusely there 
 for him who knew how to search, and Frobisher just 
 before had laden a ship with shining worthless dirt. 
 Sir Humphrey's hopes ran high, his future success, 
 unto what might it not attain? He hastened his 
 designs, went on to search the south also, and when 
 the wreck of the Delight broke all his immediate 
 plans, when tossing on the sea deciding to give over, 
 when sailing on his fateful return voyage, fortune was 
 his in hope, riches and honor and the gratitude of 
 his queen. In the mournful plight of turning back 
 he was buoyant ; another and larger expedition would 
 be set out, Elizabeth would furnish money and ships 
 at his word, and the ignis-fatuus gleaming to beckon 
 him to greater achievement and renown was some 
 shining silicate in Newfoundland rocks. Captain 
 Hayes tells of his hopes, his plans, his constant talk 
 of " something " that held the key of future success, 
 which Hayes finally discovered to be those ores and 
 all they promised. So vivid these hopes, so engross- 
 ing his dreams of gains yet to be, that they broke his 
 self-control, and when on the Golden Hind at sea, the 
 memory of those specimen rocks lost in the wreck so 
 roiled in him that seeing the boy who, formerly ordered 
 to get them from the Delight, had forgotten, he seized 
 him and gave him a sound drubbing so long after. 
 Weakness may be joined with strength. This man 
 
 had strength. He planned, he achieved, yet in the 
 
 i 
 
 70 
 
last grasp lost ; is one among tlie valiant purposeful 
 souls who through danger, difficulty, repeated failure, 
 opened the way to the possession of America. Maine 
 lost, we believe, in his loss, for one of his men wrote 
 of plans including more than Cape Breton, — " a 
 voyage to Norumbega," and in the shadowy or real 
 Norumbega, Maine was always central. 
 
 Sir Humphrey Gilbert deserves honorable recogni- 
 tion ; — a man of visions and also of deeds ; a man of 
 large hopes and ambitions and also of performance in 
 lighter degree. The ocean's violence was mightier 
 than he, broke his plans but not his courage nor his 
 will, and then took him to his rest. But he has this 
 place of honor on the page of the ancient narrator, — 
 " first of our nation that carried people to erect an 
 habitation and government in those northerly coun- 
 tries of America." 
 
 SOME HISTORICAL OPINIONS REGARDING THE 
 
 WRECK OF THE FLAGSHIP, THE DELIGHT, 
 
 AFTER SAILING FROM ST. JOHN'S 
 
 1, Capk Bbeton. 
 
 Grahame's " North America," 1827. " Approaching continent . . . 
 
 was dismayed by the inhospitable aspect of the coast of Cape 
 
 Breton. . . largest vessel was shipwrecked." 
 Palfrey's '* History of New England," 1858. "Off Cape Breton." 
 "Encylopedia Brittanica," 1879. " Near Cape Breton." 
 Hannay's " Acadia," 1880. •' On the rocks of Cape Breton." 
 Harper's " Cyclopedia of United States History," 1881. "Off Cape 
 
 Breton." 
 "Dictionary of National Biography," 1890. "On flats and shoals 
 
 between Cape Breton and Newfoundland." 
 
 71 
 
L 
 
 " Universal Cyclopedia," Johnson, 1895. " Wrecked on Cape Breton." 
 "Transactions of Royal Society of Canada," 1897. ( G. Patterson). 
 Cape Breton, probably Bay of Louisburg. 
 
 2. Sable Island. 
 
 Brown's "History of Island of Cape Breton," 1869. " By the reck- 
 oning . . . on flats off the west end of Sable Island. " 
 
 Murdock's "Nova Scotia." "One vessel lost there," i.e., Sable 
 Island. 
 
 Prince's " New England Chronology." " Loses ship on the shoals of 
 Sablon," i. e., Sable Island. 
 
 "Transactions of Royal Society of Canada," 1896. (Brymner). 
 Accepts Sable Island. 
 
 "Narrative and Critical History of America" (chapter by B. F. 
 DeCosta). "In latitude forty-four degrees north, near Sable 
 Island." 
 
 "Historians' History of the World" (Frost). "Among the shoals 
 near Sable Island." 
 
 3. Indefinite Regarding Locality. 
 
 Fox Bourne's " English Seamen under the Tudors." "Sighted Cape 
 Breton .... struck a rock." [Narrative has many erro- 
 neous statements]. 
 
 Froude's " Forgotten Worthies, in Short Studies." " Explored coast 
 south from St. John's .... as near the coast as they 
 dared .... vessel lost." 
 
 Belknap's "Biographies," 1798. Coasted along southern part of 
 Newfoundland, intending " to make Cape Breton and the Isle of 
 Sable ; entangled among shoals .... the Delight struck 
 . . . . was lost." 
 
 Holmes' "Annals." " From Cape Race towards Cape Breton . . 
 cast away." 
 
 Hildreth's "History of the United States." "Set sail for the conti- 
 nent .... struck .... was lost." 
 
 Ridpath's " History of the United States." " Off the coast of Massa- 
 chusetts." 
 
 Appleton's "Cyclopedia of American Biography." "Set sail for 
 Norumbega .... vessel foundered." 
 
 "Modern Cyclopedia." " Sailed to explore coast .... lost in 
 storm." 
 
 Bancroft's " History of the United States," edition 1876. "Intend- 
 ing to visit the coast of the United States .... had not 
 proceeded towards the south beyond the latitude of Wiscasset 
 [Me.] .... wrecked." 
 
 72 
 
General Chamberlain's "Maine, Her Place in History." "Encoun- 
 tered a terrific storm, as some say, not far off Monhegan." But 
 this narrates Gilbert's death, not the previous wreck of the 
 Admiral. 
 
 Prowse's " History of Newfoundland," 1896. " Lost off Cape Sable." 
 
 "International Encyclopedia," 1897. "Vessel lost off Cape Sable, 
 or Cape Breton Island." 
 
 "Memoir of Gilbert" ( E. F. Slafter), Prince Society, 1904. "Fell 
 into dangerous shoals probably not far from the island [ Sable ] 
 he intended to visit .... sailed northwesterly . . . 
 ran aground." 
 
 73 
 
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