The Birth of the Nation, Jamestown, 1607. Sara Agnes Rice Pryor
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were willing to brave the dangers of life among the savages.
Of the Indian they had learned enough to fear him. He had early dropped his "gentle and loving" mask, and revealed himself in his true colours. "An Englishman was his natural enemy to be slain wherever seen,"—shot to death with arrows if distant, and clubbed by wooden swords if nearer at hand; ambushed and trapped, deceived and betrayed, whenever circumstances forbade open warfare. And yet there was no military preparation for this expedition. Its authors affected to be inspired solely by zeal for the conversion of the Indian to Christianity, and their messengers were men of peace. Whatever their station, whatever their motives, these were the men ever to be held by us in grateful remembrance. They made many mistakes, of which we learn from their own confessions and criticisms of each other; but the sacrifices and sufferings awaiting them were beyond all precedent. They "broke the way with tears which many followed with a song."
The sailing of the ships awakened so little interest in England that the event is hardly noticed in history. All England was shaken to its foundations by the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot, and punishment of the conspirators. That three little vessels were to depart, as many had departed before, to seek a footing in America, was, by comparison with the troubles at home, of small consequence. The poet Drayton, however, composed a lyric in honour of the occasion, which I commend to the indulgence of my reader. It is not for me to criticise an Elizabethan poet or deny him space on my pages!
"You brave heroique minds
Worthie your Countries' name
That honour still pursue,
Go and subdue;
Whilst Loyt'ring hinds
Lurke here at home with shame.
"Britons, you stay too long!
Quickly aboard bestow you,
And with a merry gale
Swell your stretch'd sail
With vows as strong
As the winds that blow you.
"And cheerfully at sea
Success you will intice,
To get the pearle and gold,
And ours to hold
Virginia,
Earth's only paradise.
"And in regions far
Such heroes bring yee forth
As those from whom we came;
And plant our name
Under that starre
Not knowne unto our North."
And so with prayer and psalm and song—and doubtless tears—our pilgrims were sped on their way. New Year's day, 1607, found them on the great ocean in tiny vessels which were to be their homes for five wintry months.
Old London—1607.
CHAPTER V
The voyage of the Virginia colonists began, as it ended, in a storm. One of their number, Thomas Studley, tells the story in quaint language:[11] "By unprosperous winds we were kept six weekes in the sight of England; all of which time, Maister Hunt our Preacher was so weak and sicke that few expected his recoverie. Yet although he were but 10 or 12 miles from his habitation (the time we were in the Downes), and notwithstanding the stormie weather, nor the scandalous imputations (of some few little better than Atheists, of the greatest ranke amongst us) suggested against him; all this could never force from him so much as a seeming desire to leave the businesse so many discontents did then arise; had he not, with the water of patience, and his godly exhortations (but chiefly by his true devoted examples) quenched those flames of envie and dissension."
By "the Atheist of greatest ranke" was meant, doubtless, George Percy, the Roman Catholic; but in the light of his subsequent career it is impossible to believe him guilty of "scandalous imputations" or "disastrous designs." We can imagine young Percy wrapped in his cloak and pacing the deck of the ship, his face perhaps turned northward where lay his forefathers' estates, crowned by Alnwick Castle, the princely home for many generations of the Percys, Earls of Northumberland, "for virtue and honour second to not any in the country." From Alnwick Castle had gone forth more than one Harry Hotspur to risk all and lose all in the Border wars, and later in the intestine wars of England. An Earl of Northumberland had taken arms in defence of the unhappy Queen of Scots and paid for his devotion on the scaffold. His brother Henry, Earl of Northumberland, father of George Percy, had been committed to the Tower, accused of conspiring to liberate Queen Mary, and had destroyed himself "to balk Elizabeth of the forfeiture of his lands." Decision between conflicting parties had often been forced upon these noble earls, and been met openly, bravely, and loyally, whether or no the cause had prospered.
Upon the accession of James to the throne, the fortunes of the family had seemed to revive. To George Percy's brother had been assigned the honour of announcing to him the death of Elizabeth. The present Earl of Northumberland (the eldest brother of George Percy) had rapidly risen in favour. Then the discovery of the fatal Gunpowder Plot—the treason of fanatic Catholics—had revealed a Percy among its most active ringleaders. Although a distant relative of the Earl, he was still a Percy; and all who bore the name suffered from unjust suspicion. The Earl of Northumberland was now a prisoner in the Tower, accused of no crime except a desire to be a leader of the detested Roman Catholics. George Percy could hope for no honour, no career, no home in England. Nor could he expect to find career, home, honour in the wilderness, but there he could at least hide his breaking heart!
That he was a brave, honourable gentleman we know from the testimony of those who laboured with him for the good of the colony. Without doubt he held himself aloof from his fellows on the voyage. He was on the deck on the night of the 12th of February, and perhaps turning his longing eyes toward his northern home, when he saw a blazing star,—which flashed out of the sky for a moment and was as suddenly hidden in darkness,—fit emblem of the fallen fortunes of his house. He simply records the fact in his calm "Discourse of the Plantation," adding "and presently came a storm."
The baleful "flames of envy and dissension" were not altogether quenched by good Master Hunt's "waters of patience." They broke out again and again during the long voyage of five months. John Smith appears to have angered his fellow-travellers in some way, and he was held in confinement during part of the voyage. It is even stated that when they arrived at the island of Mevis a gallows was erected for him, but "he could not be prevailed upon to use it." He was, by far, the ablest man among the first colonists. In the twenty-nine years of his life he had adventures enough for all the historical novels of a century. Perhaps he boasted of them too much, and thus excited "envy and dissension." Have they not filled nearly a thousand pages of a late story of his life? He could tell of selling his books and satchel when he was a boy to get money to run away from home; of startling events all along until he fought the Turks in Transylvania; of cutting off the heads, in combat, of three of them "to delight the Ladies who did long to see some court-like pastime"; of inventing wonderful fire-signals which were triumphantly successful in war; of beating out the brains of a Bashaw's head; of imprisonment and peril, in which lovely ladies succoured him. What wonder that all this, and more, told in a masterful way, should have aroused suspicion that he intended to seize the government of the colony, aided and abetted by conspirators already at hand in all three of the ships!
Evidently the voyage was not a dull one. It was diversified also by frequent storms—no light matter in the little rolling vessels. The path of the ships was not the one we now travel in six days. The mariner in the sixteenth century and the early days of the next knew but one path across the ocean—that sailed by Columbus. They turned their prows southward, "watered" at the Bahamas, and then sought the Gulf Stream to help them northward again.
Captain Newport's destination was Roanoke Island;