A Brief History of the United States. John Bach McMaster
voyage since that of Magellan. He crossed the Atlantic, sailed down the coast of South America, and entered the Strait of Magellan. There four ships deserted, but Drake went on alone up the west coast, plundering towns and capturing Spanish vessels. To return the way he came would have been dangerous, for Spanish cruisers lay in wait. Drake, therefore, went on up the coast in search of a passage through the continent to the Atlantic. Coasting as far as southern Oregon and finding no passage, Drake turned southward, entered a harbor, repaired his ship, and then started westward across the Pacific. He touched at the Philippines, visited the Spice Islands, came home by way of the Cape of Good Hope, and won the glory of being the first Englishman to sail around the globe. [6]
[Illustration: DRAKE'S ASTROLABE. Now in Greenwich Hospital, London.]
THE ENGLISH IN THE FAR NORTH.—While Drake was on his voyage around the world, Martin Frob'isher discovered Hudson Strait, [7] and Sir Humphrey Gilbert failed in an attempt to plant a colony somewhere in America. The failure was disheartening. But the return of Drake laden with spoil aroused new interest in America, and (in 1583) Gilbert led a colony to Newfoundland. Disaster after disaster overtook him, and while he was on his way home with two vessels (all that were left of five), one with Gilbert on board went down at sea. [8]
THE ENGLISH ON ROANOKE ISLAND.—The work of colonization then passed to Sir Walter Raleigh, a half-brother of Gilbert. He began by sending out a party of explorers who sailed along the coast of North Carolina and brought back such a glowing description of the country that the queen named it Virginia and Raleigh chose it for the site of a colony. [9]
In 1585, accordingly, a party of men commanded by Ralph Lane were landed on Roanoke Island (map, p. 44). But the site proved to be ill chosen, and the Indians were hostile. The colonists were poorly fitted to live in a wilderness, and were almost starving when Drake, who stopped at Roanoke (1586) to see how they were getting on, carried them back to England. [10]
[Illustration: RALEIGH'S PIPES.]
THE LOST COLONY.—Not long after Drake sailed away with the colonists, a party of recruits arrived with supplies. Finding the island deserted, fifteen men remained to hold the place in the queen's name, and the rest returned to England. Not disheartened by these reverses, Raleigh summoned some men of influence to his aid, and (in 1587) sent out a third party of settlers, both men and women, in charge of John White. This party was to stop at Roanoke Island, pick up the fifteen men there, and then go on to Chesapeake Bay. But for some reason the settlers were left on the island by the convoy, and there they were forced to stay. [11]
[Illustration: INDIANS IN A DUGOUT CANOE. Part of a drawing by John
White.]
White very soon went back to England for help, in the only ship the colonists had. War with Spain prevented his return for several years, and then only the ruins of the settlement were found on the island. [12]
[Illustration: ENGLISH DRESS, SIXTEENTH CENTURY. Contemporary portrait of
Raleigh and his son, by Zuccaro.]
SPAIN ATTACKS ENGLAND.—The war which prevented White from promptly returning to Roanoke began in 1585. The next year, with twenty-five ships, Drake attacked the possessions of Spain in America, and burned and plundered several towns. In 1587 he "singed the beard of the king of Spain" by burning a hundred vessels in the harbor of the Spanish city of Cadiz.
Enraged by these defeats, King Philip II of Spain determined to invade England and destroy that nest of sea rovers. A great fleet known as the Invincible Armada, carrying thirty thousand men, was assembled and in 1588 swept into the English channel. There the English, led by Raleigh, [13] Drake, Frobisher, Hawkins, Lane, and all the other great sea kings, met the Armada, drove it into the North Sea, and captured, burned, and sank many of the ships. The rest fled around Scotland, on whose coast more were wrecked. Less than half the Armada returned to Spain. [14]
THE ENGLISH EXPLORE THE NEW ENGLAND COAST.—The war lasted sixteen years longer (till 1604). Though it delayed, it did not stop, attempts at colonization. In 1602 Bartholomew Gosnold, with a colony of thirty-two men, sailed from England, saw the coast of Maine, turned southward, named Cape Cod and the Elizabeth Islands, [15] and after a short stay went home. The next year Martin Pring came with two vessels on an exploring and trading voyage; and in 1605 George Weymouth was sent out, visited the Kennebec River in Maine, and brought back a good report of the country.
THE VIRGINIA CHARTER OF 1606.—Peace had now been made with Spain; England had not been forced to stop her attempts to colonize in America; the favorable reports of Gosnold, Pring, and Weymouth led to the belief that colonies could be successfully planted; and in 1606 King James I chartered two commercial companies to colonize Virginia, as the Atlantic seaboard region was called.
To the first or London Company was granted the right to plant a colony anywhere along the coast between 34° and 41° of north latitude (between Cape Fear River and the Hudson). To the second or Plymouth Company was given the right to plant a colony anywhere between 38° and 45° (between the Potomac River and the Bay of Fundy). Each company was to have a tract of land one hundred miles square—fifty miles along the coast each way from the first settlement and one hundred miles inland; and to prevent overlapping, it was provided that the company last to settle should not locate within one hundred miles of the other company's settlement.
[Illustration: VIRGINIA.]
THE COLONY ON THE KENNEBEC.—The charter having been granted, each company set about securing emigrants. To get them was not difficult, for in England at that day there were many people whose condition was so desperate that they were glad to seek a new home beyond the sea. [16] In a few months, therefore, the Plymouth Company sent out its first party of colonists; but the ship was seized by the Spaniards. The next year (1607) the company sent out one hundred or more settlers in two ships. They landed in August at the mouth of the Kennebec River, and built a fort, a church, a storehouse, and fifteen log cabins. These men were wholly unfit for life in a wilderness, and in December about half went home in the ships in which they came. The others passed a dismal winter, and when a relief ship arrived in the spring, all went back, and the Plymouth Company's attempt to colonize ended in failure.
THE COLONY ON THE JAMES.—Meanwhile another band of Englishmen (one hundred and forty-three in number) had been sent out by the London Company to found a colony in what is now Virginia. They set sail in December, 1606, in three ships under Captain Newport, and in April, 1607, reached the entrance of Chesapeake Bay. Sailing westward across the bay, the ships entered a river which was named the James in honor of the king, and on the bank of this river the party landed and founded Jamestown (map, p. 44). With this event began the permanent occupation of American soil by Englishmen. At this time, more than a hundred years after the voyages of Columbus, the only other European settlers on the Atlantic coast of the United States were the Spaniards in Florida.
[Illustration: RUINS AT JAMESTOWN. Church tower as it looks to-day.]
SUMMARY
1. The Huguenots tried to found French colonies on the coast of South Carolina (1562) and of Florida (1564); but both attempts failed.
2. In 1565 all America, save Brazil, either was in Spanish hands, or was claimed by Spain and not yet occupied.
3. During the next twenty years English sailors began to fight Spaniards, Drake sailed around the globe, Frobisher explored the far north, and Sir Humphrey Gilbert attempted to plant a colony in Newfoundland.
4. Gilbert's half-brother Raleigh then took up the work of colonization, but his attempts to plant a colony at Roanoke Island ended in failure.
5. The attacks of English buccaneers on the American colonies of Spain led to a war (1585–1604), in which the most memorable event was the defeat of the Spanish Armada.
6. After the war two companies were chartered to plant English colonies in America. The Plymouth Company's colony was a failure, but in 1607 the London Company founded Jamestown.
FOOTNOTES
[1] The forests supplied