The Jamestown Experiment (14 page)

Another broadside,
Concerning the Plantation of Virginia New
Britain,
spotlighted the fact that the company offered economic opportunity to all classes in the New World. While it had the support of nobles, gentlemen, and merchants, it was advertising to “all workmen of whatever craft they may be…men as well as women, who wish to go out in this voyage.” Blacksmiths, bakers, carpenters, weavers, shipwrights—all were invited to consider the opportunity to start over in Virginia and establish a thriving trade. To sweeten the pot a bit, readers were reminded that the company would provide “houses to live in, vegetable gardens and orchards, and also food and clothing” at no expense. Not only that, but every settler would “have a share of all the products and the profits that may result from their labor.” In Virginia, the Reverend William Symonds promised, English laborers would find “a land more like the garden of Eden, which the Lord planted, than any part else of all the earth.” It seemed almost too good to be true, and it was. There was not a word about the difficulties the colonists had encountered since May 1607, the fruitless searches for gold and the Northwest Passage, or the lack of any significant commodities to export home.
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The same message was finely crafted for the “better sorts,” who held commoners in contempt, assuring them that the colony would be a dumping ground of sorts for the teeming masses. In
Nova Britannia,
Robert Johnson reminded the nobles and gentlemen, although he did not need to, “Our land [is] abounding with swarms of idle persons, which having no means of labor to relieve their misery, do likewise swarm in lewd and naughty practices.” He warned his readers of the dangers they posed because of the resentments caused by “oppression, diverse kinds of wrongs, mutinies, sedition, commotion and rebellion, scarcity, dearth, poverty, and sundry sorts of calamities.” The answer was evident: send the “idle persons to Virginia where greater opportunities “will make them rich.”
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Ministers preached widely of the divine mandate that was calling
them to support the efforts of the company. The Reverend William Symonds compared the providential mission of the settlers to that of Abraham and the ancient Jews in the book of Genesis. England was a chosen nation called to “go and carry the Gospel to a nation that never heard of Christ.” The Reverend Daniel Price spoke from the pulpit at St. Paul’s Cross, arguing that the Indians “know no God but the Devil.” It was the responsibility of English settlers to go forth and “obtain the saving of their souls.” The version of Christian salvation that the English would instruct the natives in was militantly Protestant and steeped in not a little anti-Catholicism. The imperial, economic, and religious objectives all dovetailed perfectly in the English hatred of their mortal enemy: Catholic Spain.
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The national mission of England called on Englishmen to rally around the unity of that mission for the glory of England and the Crown. Anyone who doubted the future success of the colony was construed a traitor. Reverend Price declared, “Every opposition against it [Virginia] is an opposition against God, the King, the Church, and the Commonwealth.” Dissenting opinions and honest appraisals of life in the colony were not to be tolerated, since they undermined the national glory.
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Of course, the Virginia Company did not depend merely upon pamphlets and sermons to get its message to a broad audience. It also relied upon the personal appeal to the friends and connections of its eminent members. For example, Thomas Smythe met with the heads of some of London’s guilds. The Virginia Company followed up, asking council member Humphrey Weld, the lord mayor of London, to sell shares to “the best disposed and most able of the companies.” Fishmongers, grocers, clothworkers, tailors, and more than fifty other guilds invested in Virginia.
²²⁷

The Earl of Southampton was Shakespeare’s patron and had
connections with James’s court, the Globe Theatre, and St. Paul’s. He attracted a group of nobles that wrote to the English ambassador in the Netherlands to push subscriptions and military recruitment there. The merchants of London appealed to their counterparts in Plymouth who had worked with them in 1606, inviting them to “join your endeavors with ours.”
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The results of the campaign were a stunning success for the company. Investors flocked to risk their money on the overseas venture that seemed almost to guarantee great returns on every share. Spanish Ambassador Don Pedro de Zúñiga noted, “The people are mad about this affair.”
²²⁹
More than 650 individuals bought shares in the new Virginia Company, and 56 companies and guilds invested money as well, corporately representing many hundreds more. The number included nobles as well as commoners in this broad effort to support the national mission for the greatness of England.

Most of the investors risked their fortunes, large and small, on the outcome of the colony in Virginia. They were persuaded the settlement would work by the glowing promotions that flooded London as well as the appeal to their national pride.

But the people recruited by the company to settle in America risked more than a few pounds on a share of stock; they bet their lives on the outcome of the colony. They were in a sense investing themselves in the company, and they received a share for agreeing to settle in Virginia. Those with higher social status received an additional share, but their share of the expected bounty of gold and profits from exports was worth exactly the same as that of the poor laborers who only had themselves to invest. With the positive messages driving excitement, some six hundred people decided to seek opportunity in the New World under the English banner.

During the spring, Zúñiga witnessed the colonial promotion
with great alacrity and correctly judged the national sense of mission among the English against Spanish interests. In a series of insistent letters, he informed Philip III of the preparations for the 600-person expedition that attracted widespread investment among the English public. Zúñiga warned his king that the English enemy sought nothing less than “the exaltation of their religion and its extension throughout the world.” The English, he was told, were aiming to alter the character of settlement by ending the previous attempts of “sending people little by little, but now we see that what we should do is establish ourselves all at once, because when they open their eyes in Spain they will not be able to do anything about it.” They would also establish a base for piracy to raid Spanish trade routes.
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Don Pedro de Zúñiga described English goals as “villany” and “insolent.” He urgently advised Philip to take rapid action to “put a bridle” on their overseas ambitions while it was still possible. If “they get away with this, it will not be long before they will give themselves airs,” while the appeasing Spanish king would appear weak and have “trouble getting them out of there” as they strengthened their position. Zúñiga became desperate and frustrated that his warnings were again ignored by a complacent king. Philip should not combat the English through “abjurations” or prayer, but through firm action. But still his admonitions fell on deaf ears, and the ambassador disconsolately felt that “It seems that I always fall short,” when his king failed to act as he wished.
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For all of his bluster, Zúñiga essentially captured the character of the Gates expedition, which signified the promise of a new step foreword in the success of the colony. It heralded a massive wave of settlers inspired by national pride who would create a thriving colony through force of will. As a national mission of such grand importance, there was a sense of national destiny that it would
succeed. The existing Jamestown colonists did not conceive of the magnitude of the fleet or its sense of mission.

With the infusion of money and interested settlers, the company made preparations to launch a massive expedition to Virginia that matched its grand expectations. The members of the company worked feverishly to organize the fleet. First, nine ships and smaller boats were bought or leased to carry hundreds of settlers and the supplies they would need for their transatlantic journey and when they arrived in the colony.

The flagship was the
Sea Venture,
a three-masted ship measuring 100 feet and rated at 250 tons. She would sail armed with twenty-four cannons, in case privateers found the fleet an attractive catch. She could carry some 150 closely packed passengers in her decks and tug a tiny ketch behind her. The vice admiral, the
Diamond,
was nearly as big, while the smaller rear admiral was the
Falcon.
Four smaller vessels—
Blessing, Lion, Swallow,
and
Unity
—were smaller ships that kept in the middle of the fleet. The
Virginia
was a pinnace that could be used for exploration.

Captains and crews were found to sail the ships. The company selected Sir George Somers as the admiral of the fleet. Somers was nearing sixty years old, but no one could deny his illustrious résumé. He had fought the Spanish with Drake and Hawkins, making a fortune in the process. He was knighted and held a seat in Parliament. The Virginia Company listed him as one of its charter members in 1606. He now invested a small fortune of £300 in the company and was part owner of the
Sea Venture
and two of her companion ships.

Many of Somers’s subordinate captains had been to Virginia before and were well known to the colonists. Christopher Newport served Somers as master of the
Sea Venture
and was the most experienced man in the fleet in crossing the Atlantic, which he
had accomplished numerous times since the forty-nine-year-old captain had hunted Spanish treasure ships with the sea dogs. Vice Admiral John Ratcliffe commanded the
Diamond.
He had captained the
Discovery
on the original Jamestown voyage and served as the colony’s president until he was deposed. His thoughts were not favorable toward John Smith as he prepared for the crossing. John Martin was also returning to Jamestown, this time as the commander of the
Falcon.
His ship’s master was the experienced Francis Nelson, who had arrived late on the
Phoenix
while sailing on the first relief expedition with Newport. Nelson understood the importance of this mission, considering the state of the colony the last time he was there.

Mariners were not hard to recruit, especially since peace with Spain had given them less opportunity to work. They read broadsides and spoke with recruiters at seedy taverns about the voyage and negotiated their wages. Even though most were in their twenties, they were weathered and experienced old salts. Some had even been to Jamestown previously and based their decision on that trip. They were hired for their specific skills: carpenters, cooks, coopers, and ordinary sailors.

Tons of beer, biscuits, salt pork and fish, peas, cheese, and butter was purchased. They were loaded into the holds of the ships at wharves along the Thames. The food would turn rancid and spoil during the voyage. Passengers and sailors would have to pick out worms or cut off mold. They also would suffer from scurvy.

Sailors brought aboard pigs, chickens, and some other live animals, making a small racket aboard the
Sea Venture
and some of the larger ships. They would supply fresh meat for the passengers and crew during the voyage and populate the farms in the colony. The unfortunate consequence of ferrying the animals was the variety of smells that emanated from their pens, especially in the heat of the tropics.

Large guns and a supply of shot were also loaded on the
Sea Venture.
Other weapons in the ships’ arsenals included matchlock pistols, swords, and daggers, in case the ships were boarded. The sailors laded the ship with the usual rigging, sails, and ropes. Navigational charts and instruments were brought aboard.

This third supply mission was a highly organized venture, as were most overseas voyages. Merchants and captains had lengthy experience in exploration, privateering, fishing in Newfoundland, and establishing companies like the East India Company or the Muscovy Company, and were well acquainted with the needs for a long voyage. The provisions for the voyage and the colony were loaded, the fleet was properly armed against attack, and equipment was ready in case of emergencies, which were always expected at sea. It was a dangerous trip under the best of circumstances, not lightly undertaken, but the crew would use their experience and wits to adapt to any difficulties. The only thing they needed now were their passengers.

In mid-May hundreds of Englishmen and women traveled to the town of Woolwich’s docks on the Thames, ten miles downriver from London. Most walked individually or in small groups. Some family members made the trek in the spring weather to see their loved ones off. Others paid to be ferried along with their belongings by a London wherry. Wealthier gentlemen made the bumpy ride in their carriages, accompanied by servants who handled the baggage. They arrived in Woolwich and boarded the ships with a mixture of unspoken dreams and trepidation.

Among their number was only one Anglican minister, the Oxford-trained Reverend Richard Buck. He believed in England’s mission to settle the New World and planned to minister to the souls of his congregants in Jamestown as well as the Indians of Virginia.
Yet not everyone on board believed in the tenets of the Anglican Church. Stephen Hopkins and others were religious dissenters who were sympathetic to the growing Puritan movement, which was equated with sedition against king and church.

Another passenger was William Strachey, a poet on the fringes of London’s literary and theater circles. His friends included John Donne and Ben Jonson, but he produced little significant literature of his own. Dreaming of literary greatness, the aspiring poet had consumed most of his inheritance and loans. He had recently served as a secretary to the English ambassador in Turkey, but that ended badly, and he was in debt. He stowed his writing materials for the journey, hoping to compose a travel narrative of the exotic New World that would become popular reading throughout Europe.