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Poutrincourt having returned from Canada to France the last 1608. year, and presented to the king the fruits of the country; the king now confirmed to M. de Monts the privilege for the trade of beavers with the natives, for the purpose of enabling him to establish his colonies in New France. De Monts accordingly sent over three ships with families, to commence a permanent settlement. Champlain, who took the charge of conducting this colony, after examining all the most eligible places for settlement in Acadie, and on the river St. Lawrence, selected a spot at the confluence of this river and St. Charles, about 320 miles from the sea. Here he erected barracks; cleared the ground; sowed July 3. wheat and rye; and on this spot laid the foundation of Quebec, of Quebec. the capital of Canada.1

2

1609.

Foundation

THE company of South Virginia, not realizing the expected May 23. profit from its colony, obtained from king James a new charter, Second with more ample privileges. This measure served to increase charter of Virginia. the number of proprietors, among whom we find the most respectable names in the nation. With this augmented wealth and reputation, they pressed forward with bolder steps. The council of the Virginia company now appointed Thomas West, lord Delaware, governor of Virginia for life; Sir Thomas Gates, his lieutenant; Sir George Somers, admiral; and Christopher New- Nine vesport, vice admiral; and fitted out seven ships, attended by two sels with small vessels, with 500 people for that colony. Lord Delaware sail for Vir500 people remained in England. The ship, in which the three other ginia.

there was the clause, autant que le pays seroit vacant ou habité par des Pay-
ens. Cette clause, dans le fait, annulloit la Charte qu'il accordoit; ce pays
ayant été occupé par les François dès 1604, & depuis constamment habité."
Mem. de l'Amérique, i. Mem. des Commiss. du Roi sur les limites de l'Acadie.
1 Champlain, liv. 3. c. 2. Lescarbot, liv. 5. c. 2; who says the design of De
Monts was," there to begin Christian and French Commonwealths." Purchas,
v. 1640-2. Charlevoix, Nouv. France, i. 121, and Fastes Chron. Chalmers,
b. 1. 82. Univ. Hist. xxxix. 412. Brit. Empire, Introd. i. 47. Minot, Mass.
i. 127. Quebec was the Indian name of the place. "Trouvant un lieu le plus
estroit de riviere, que les habitans du pays appellent Quebec, j' y bastir et edifier
une habitation, et défricher des terres, et faire quelques jardinages." Champlain.
It was "some fortie leagues above the river of Saguenay." Purchas.

2 Copies of this second charter, containing the names of the proprietors, are preserved in Stith, Virg. Appendix, No. ii; and in Hazard, Coll. i. 58-72. By this charter the company was made "one Body or Commonalty perpetual," and incorporated by the name of The Treasurer and Company of Adventurers and Planters of the City of London, for the First Colony in Virginia. Charter. To them were now granted in absolute property, what seem formerly to have been conveyed only in trust, the lands extending from Cape Comfort along the sea coast Southward 200 miles; from the same promontory 200 miles Northward; and from the Atlantic Westward to the South Sea; and also all the islands lying within 100 miles along the coast of both seas of the aforesaid precinct. Chalmers.

June 2.

1609. officers' sailed, becoming separated from the rest of the fleet in a violent storm, was wrecked on the island of Bermudas, where July 24. all the company, consisting of 150 persons, were providentially One ship saved. One small ketch was lost in the storm; the other ships, Bermudas. much damaged and distressed, arrived about the middle of August at James river.2

wrecked on

Nansamond.

Plot of the Indians

The infant colony was still destined to calamity; and the very accession to its numbers, which should have added to its security, heightened its danger.3 President Smith having sent about 200 of these newly arrived adventurers to the falls of James River, and to Nansamond, with a design to plant there, they imprudently offended the neighbouring Indians, who cut off many of thern. The few, who escaped, returned in despair, to beg the protection of that authority, which they had lately contemned.

A systematic design was now meditated against the whole colony by the sovereign of the country; but it was providentially against the discovered and frustrated. Pocahontas, the tutelary friend of English, disclosed Virginia, though but a child of 12 or 13 years of age, went in a very dark and dreary night to James Town, and, at the hazard of her life, disclosed to the president a plot of her father to kill

by Pocahontas.

1 Each of these gentlemen had a commission; and he who should first arrive, was authorized to recall the commission, that had been previously given for the government of the colony; but "because they could not agree for place, it was concluded they should go all in one ship." Smith, Virg. 89. The ship in which were "all their three commissions," was called the Sea- Venture.

2 Smith, Virg. 89, 164, 174. Keith, 115, 116. Purchas, i. 758; v. 1729-1733. Chalmers, i. 27, 28. Stow, Chron. 1019, 1020. Belknap, Biog. ii. 23-25. This storm came from the north east, and began on Monday 24 July. After it had blown twenty four hours with extreme violence, the ship sprung aleak; and three days and four nights the whole company (about 140, exclusive of women) laboured incessantly at the pump. On Friday the fourth morning, "it wanted but little" says the narrator of the voyage, "but that there had bin a general determination to have shut up hatches, and commending our sinfull souls to God, committed the shippe to the mercy of the sea;" but, in this desperate extremity, Sir George Somers, who during the whole time had not once left the quarter deck, discovered land. Not expecting to save the ship by coming to anchor, they ran her aground within three quarters of a mile of the shore, whence all the company (about 150 in number) by the help of their boats arrived safely at the island. Purchas, v. 1735-1737. This perilous and distressing scene appears to have occurred in the Gulf Stream, the course of which, off the coast of the Southern States, is from southwest to northeast. A gale from the northeast, in direct opposition to the current, makes a great sea in that stream; a fact, which I have had repeated opportunities to observe.

3 Smith [Virg. 90.] calls the people, who last arrived, "a lewd company," containing "many unruly gallants, packed hither by their friends, to escape ill destinies." To them he ascribes the anarchy and confusion that soon pervaded the colony. See also Stith, 103. Chalmers, 518. Nansamond was the most southern settlement in Virginia, under the 36th degree of north latitude. The president sent " Mr. West, with 120 of the best he could chuse, to the Falles; Martin with neare as many to Nansamond." Estate of Virginia, 1610. "The ground of all those miseries was the permissive providence of God, who, in the forementioned violent storme, separated the head from the bodie, all the vital powers of regiment being exiled with Sir Thomas Gates in those infortunate (yet fortunate) Ilands." Ib.

him and the English people. This timely notice put the colony 1609. on its guard; and some accidents soon after contributed still farther toward its preservation. An Indian, apparently dead through the effect of a charcoal fire in a close room, was, on the application of vinegar and aqua vitæ by the president, reanimated. This supposed miracle, with an explosion of powder, which killed two or three Indians and scorched and wounded others, excited such astonishment, mingled with such admiration of the power and art of the English, that Powhatan and his people Peace with came to them with presents of peace; and the whole country, during the remainder of Smith's administration, was entirely open to the unmolested use of the English. The colony now pursued Progress of its business with success. It made tar and pitch, and an experi- the colony. ment of glass; dug a well of excellent water in the fort; built about 20 houses; new covered the church; provided nets and weirs for fishing; built a block house, to receive the trade of the Indians; and broke up and planted 30 or 40 acres of ground.1

the Indians.

President Smith, enfeebled by an accident to his person from an Smith reexplosion of powder, and disgusted with distractions in his colony, turns to England. returned to England toward the close of the year; leaving three ships, seven boats, upwards of 490 persons, 24 pieces of ordnance, State of the 300 muskets, with other arms and ammunition, 100 well trained colony. and expert soldiers, a competent supply of working tools, live stock, and ten weeks' provisions. James Town was strongly palisaded, and contained 50 or 60 houses. There were five or six other forts and plantations in Virginia.2

Henry Hudson, an Englishman, in the service of the Dutch, Voyage of left the Texel in the beginning of this year, with with a design Hudson. of penetrating to the East Indies by sailing a northwestward course. Having attempted in vain to accomplish this purpose, he followed the track which the Cabots had marked for him above a century before. He coasted along the foggy shores of Newfoundland; shaped his course for Cape Cod; looked into the Chesapeak, where the English were settled; anchored off the Delaware; sailed into the river Manhattan ; and departed in October for England. Hudson can hardly be called the first discoverer of a coast, which had been often explored before,

1 Smith, Virg. 77, 85, 121, 122. Stith, 97. It appears, that 30 or 40 houses were built before.

2 Smith, Virg. 93, 94, 164. Stith, 106, 107. Purchas, i. 758. Chalmers, b. 1. c. 2. Smith's description of the Virginia colonists, at that time, is too curious to be omitted. There was "but one carpenter in the country; two blacksmiths; two saylers." Those, described as “ labourers," were for the most part footmen, and the adventurers' attendants, "who never did know what a dayes work was." Excepting the Dutchmen and Poles, and about a dozen others, "all the rest were poore gentlemen, tradesmen, serving-men, libertines, and such like, ten times more fit to spoyte a commonwealth, than either to begin one or but help to maintain one."

1609. from the days of the Cabots to the present. At Manhattan Hudson skirmished with the natives, who received him unkindly; but he did not land without opposition; nor did he, like Cabot, take formal possession. The Dutch sent ships the next year to Manhattan, to open a trade with the natives.2

Enters
Manhattan
river.
New at-

tempt to

ana.

1

After several attempts of Englishmen to discover the country of Guiana, and about the river of the Amazons, Robert Harcourt settle Gui- undertook to settle a plantation in this region. He took possession by turf and twig of all between the Orellana and Orinoco, for England, in the name of James I. with an exception of such parts as might at that time be actually possessed by any other Christian prince or state. James, in return, made him a grant of the whole territory from the Orellana to the Essequibo.3 The projected settlement, however, did not succeed, for want of due support from home. Harcourt, before his return to England, left his brother, Michael Harcourt, with 60 persons, at the river Wiapoco, where captain Ley had settled with some Englishmen four years before, but who, through the miscarriage of supplies, had been forced to abandon the settlement.4

1610.

NOTHING could have been more inauspicious to the colony, than the departure of Smith. The Indians, finding that the

1 Charlevoix, Nouv. France, i. 143. Chalmers, b. i. c. 19. Forster, Voy. 332, 333, 421, 422. Harris' Voy. i. 566. Europ. Settlements, ii. 286. Prince, 1609. Brit. Emp. i. 2. Smith, N. York, 2. "Third Voyage of Henry Hudson towards Nova Zembla, and, at his return, to Newfoundland and Cape Cod," in Biblioth. Americ. under A. D. 1609. Some historians say, that Hudson sold to the Dutch whatever right he may have acquired to the country by his discovery; but it satisfactorily appears, that he was fitted out by the Dutch East India Company, which furnished him with a fly boat, equipped with all necessaries, and with 20 men, English and Dutch. Histoire de la Republique des ProvincesUnies, iii. 22. Biog. Britan. Art. HUDSON. Chalmers remarks, that as Hudson had never occupied the land, he could not transfer what he never possessed. The sovereign of France in 1603, and the king of England in 1606, had formally declared their intention to appropriate the same region, which their subjects immediately planted. The journals of the four successive voyages of Hudson, during the years 1607-8-9-10, are preserved in the 5th volume of Purchas; and the three first, with an abstract of the fourth, are inserted in the 1st volume of the Collections of the New York Historical Society. The third voyage is that in which we are peculiarly interested.

2 Charlevoix, Nouv. France, i. 142. "Des l'année suivante quelques Marchands d'Amsterdam envoyerent des Navires dans cette Riviere [Manhattan], poure y faire la traitte."

3 Southey, Hist. Brazil, P. 3. c. 31.

4 Purchas, v. lib. 6. c. 16; "A Relation of a Voyage to Guiana performed by Robert Harcourt of Stanton Harcourt in the countie of Oxford Esquire. To Prince Charles." Anderson, 1601, 1609, from Smith's Voyages. Harris' Voy. lib. 5. c. 6, 7. Smith, Virg. continued, c. 24. Unexpected difficulties occurring, Harcourt merely sent over a few passengers, "with certain Dutchmen," and the country lay neglected several years. See A. D. 1617. Henry, prince of Wales by whose favour Harcourt obtained his patent, died in 1612, Æt. 19.

become

famine.

ed on Ber

person whose vigour they had often felt, no longer ruled the 1610. English people, generally revolted, and destroyed them wherever they were found. Captain Martin from Nansamond, and captain Indians in West from the Falls, having lost their boats and nearly half their Virginia men, had returned to James Town. Captain Ratcliff, in a small hostile. ship with 30 men, going to trade, and trusting himself indiscreetly to Powhatan, he and all his people, excepting two, were slain.1 One boy was saved by the benevolent Pocahontas. The provisions of the colony being imprudently wasted, a dreadful famine ensued, and prevailed to such extremity, that this period was many years distinguished by the name of The starving time. Extreme Of nearly 500 persons, left in the colony by the late president, 60 only remained, at the expiration of six months. In this exMay 23. tremity, they received unexpected relief. Sir Thomas Gates The Engand the company wrecked, the last year, at Bermudas, were lish, wreckable at length to get off from that island. Having built two small mudas, vessels, and paid the seams with lime and tortoise oil, they put arrive at to sea on the 10th of May, and on the 23d arrived at Virginia. Virginia. Finding the small remains of the colony in a famishing condition, Sir Thomas Gates consulted with Sir George Somers, captain Newport, and the gentlemen and council of the former government; and the conclusion was, that they would abandon the country. It was their intention to sail for Newfoundland, where they expected to meet with many English ships, into which, it was hoped, they might disperse most of the company, and thus get back to England. On the 7th of June they all embarked in four small vessels, and, about noon, fell down the river with the tide. "None dropped a tear, because none had enjoyed one day of happiness." The next morning, they discovered a boat making toward them. It proved to be the long Lord Delaboat of lord Delaware, who had just arrived at the mouth of the es with river, with three ships and 150 men. Hearing at the fort of the supplies. company's intention to return to England, he had despatched this boat with letters to Sir Thomas Gates, informing him of his arrival. Gates instantly changed his purpose, and, that night, with a favourable wind, relanded all his men at James Town. On the 10th, lord Delaware came up with his ships, bringing plentiful supplies to the colony, which he proceeded to resettle.3

1 Estate of Virginia, 1610. Smith, Virg. 105, 106;--" all slaine, only Jeffrey Shortridge escaped; and Pokahontas, the king's daughter, saved a boy called Henry Spilman, that lived many yeares after, by her meanes, amongst the Patowomekes." Keith, 120. Stith, 116.

2 Smith, Virg. 105, 106. Stith, 110. Beverly, 34. Chalmers, b. 1. 30.

3 Smith, Virg. 106. Estate of Virginia, 1610. Stith, 115. Beverly, 34, 35. Purchas, v. 1748. Prince, 1610. Chalmers, b. 1. 30. Belknap, Biog. Art. DELAWARE. The narrator, in Purchas, gives this vivid description of the scene: "The three and twentieth day of May we cast anchor before James Towne where we landed, and our much grieved Governour first visiting the Church caused the VOL. I. 18

ware ar

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