Part 24

"The history of English America begins with the three slave-trading voyages of John Hawkins, made in the years 1562, 1564, and 1567. Nothing that Englishmen had done in connection with America, previously to those voyages, had any result worth recording. England had known the New World nearly seventy years, for John Cabot reached it shortly after its discovery by Columbus; and, as the tidings of the discovery spread, many English adventurers had crossed the Atlantic to the American coast. But as years passed, and the excitement of novelty subsided, the English voyages to America had become fewer and fewer, and at length ceased altogether. It is easy to account for this. There was no opening for conquest or plunder, for the Tudors were at peace with the Spanish sovereigns: and there could be no territorial occupation, for the Papal title of Spain and Portugal to the whole of the new continent could not be disputed by Catholic England. No trade worth having existed with the natives: and Spain and Portugal kept the trade with their own settlers in their own hands. … As the plantations in America grew and multiplied, the demand for negroes rapidly increased. The Spaniards had no African settlements, but the Portuguese had many, and, with the aid of French and English adventurers, they procured from these settlements slaves enough to supply both themselves and the Spaniards. But the Brazilian plantations grew so fast, about the middle of the century, that they absorbed the entire supply, and the Spanish colonists knew not where to look for negroes. This penury of slaves in the Spanish Indies became known to the English and French captains who frequented the Guinea coast; and John Hawkins, who had been engaged from boyhood in the trade with Spain and the Canaries, resolved in 1562 to take a cargo of negro slaves to Hispaniola. The little squadron with which he executed this project was the first English squadron which navigated the West Indian seas. This voyage opened those seas to the English. England had not yet broken with Spain, and the law excluding English vessels from trading with the Spanish colonists was not strictly enforced. The trade was profitable, and Hawkins found no difficulty in disposing of his cargo to great advantage. A meagre note … from the pen of Hakluyt contains all that is known of the first American voyage of Hawkins. In its details it must have closely resembled the second voyage. In the first voyage, however, Hawkins had no occasion to carry his wares further than three ports on the northern side of Hispaniola. These ports, far away from San Domingo, the capital, were already well known to the French smugglers. He did not venture into the Caribbean Sea; and having loaded his ships with their return cargo, he made the best of his way back. In his second voyage … he entered the Caribbean Sea, still keeping, however, at a safe distance from San Domingo, and sold his slaves on the mainland. This voyage was on a much larger scale. … Having sold his slaves in the continental ports [South American], and loaded his vessels with hides and other goods bought with the produce, Hawkins determined to strike out a new path and sail home with the Gulf-stream, which would carry him northwards past the shores of Florida. Sparke's narrative … proves that at every point in these expeditions the Englishman was following in the track of the French. He had French pilots and seamen on board, and there is little doubt that one at least of these had already been with Laudonnière in Florida. The French seamen guided him to Laudonnière's settlement, where his arrival was most opportune. They then pointed him the way by the coast of North America, then universally know in the mass as New France, to Newfoundland, and thence, with the prevailing westerly winds, to Europe. {68} This was the pioneer voyage made by Englishmen along coasts afterwards famous in history through English colonization. … The extremely interesting narrative … given … from the pen of John Sparke, one of Hawkins' gentlemen companions … contains the first information concerning America and its natives which was published in England by an English eye-witness." Hawkins planned a third voyage in 1566, but the remonstrances of the Spanish king caused him to be stopped by the English court. He sent out his ships, however, and they came home in due time richly freighted,—from what source is not known. "In another year's time the aspect of things had changed." England was venturing into war with Spain, "and Hawkins was now able to execute his plans without restraint, He founded a permanent fortified factory on the Guinea coast, where negroes might be collected all the year round. Thence he sailed for the West Indies a third time. Young Francis Drake sailed with him in command of the 'Judith,' a small vessel of fifty tons." The voyage had a prosperous beginning and a disastrous ending. After disposing of most of their slaves, they were driven by storms to take refuge in the Mexican port of Vera Cruz, and there they were attacked by a Spanish fleet. Drake in the "Judith" and Hawkins in another small vessel escaped. But the latter was overcrowded with men and obliged to put half of them ashore on the Mexican coast. The majority of those left on board, as well as a majority of Drake's crew, died on the voyage home, and it was a miserable remnant that landed in England, in January, 1569.

_E. J. Payne, Voyages of the Elizabethan Seamen to America, chapter 1._

ALSO IN: _The Hawkins Voyages; edited by C. R. Markham (Hakluyt Society, Number 57)_.

_R. Southey, Lives of the British Admirals, volume 3._

AMERICA: A. D. 1572-1580. The Piratical Adventures of Drake and his Encompassing of the World.

"Francis Drake, the first of the English Buccaneers, was one of the twelve children of Edward Drake of Tavistock, in Devonshire, a staunch Protestant, who had fled his native place to avoid persecution, and had then become a ship's chaplain. Drake, like Columbus, had been a seaman by profession from boyhood; and … had served as a young man, in command of the Judith, under Hawkins, … Hawkins had confined himself to smuggling: Drake advanced from this to piracy. This practice was authorized by law in the middle ages for the purpose of recovering debts or damages from the subjects of another nation. The English, especially those of the west country, were the most formidable pirates in the world; and the whole nation was by this time roused against Spain, in consequence of the ruthless war waged against Protestantism in the Netherlands by Philip II. Drake had accounts of his own to settle with the Spaniards. Though Elizabeth had not declared for the revolted States, and pursued a shifting policy, her interests and theirs were identical; and it was with a view of cutting off those supplies of gold and silver from America which enabled Philip to bribe politicians and pay soldiers, in pursuit of his policy of aggression, that the famous voyage was authorized by English statesmen. Drake had recently made more than one successful voyage of plunder to the American coast." In July, 1572, he surprised the Spanish town of Nombre de Dios, which was the shipping port on the northern side of the Isthmus for the treasures of Peru. His men made their way into the royal treasure-house, where they laid hands on a heap of bar-silver, 70 feet long, 10 wide, and 10 high; but Drake himself had received a wound which compelled the pirates to retreat with no very large part of the splendid booty. In the winter of 1573, with the help of the runaway slaves on the Isthmus, known as Cimarrones, he crossed the Isthmus, looked on the Pacific ocean, approached within sight of the city of Panama, and waylaid a transportation party conveying gold to Nombre de Dios; but was disappointed of his prey by the excited conduct of some of his men. When he saw, on this occasion, the great ocean beyond the Isthmus, "Drake then and there resolved to be the pioneer of England in the Pacific; and on this resolution he solemnly besought the blessing of God. Nearly four years elapsed before it was executed; for it was not until November, 1577, that Drake embarked on his famous voyage, in the course of which he proposed to plunder Peru itself. The Peruvian ports were unfortified. The Spaniards knew them to be by nature absolutely secured from attack on the north; and they never dreamed that the English pirates would be daring enough to pass the terrible straits of Magellan and attack them from the south. Such was the plan of Drake; and it was executed with complete success." He sailed from Plymouth, December 13, 1577, with a fleet of four vessels, and a pinnace, but lost one of the ships after he had entered the Pacific, in a storm which drove him southward, and which made him the discoverer of Cape Horn. Another of his ships, separated from the squadron, returned home, and a third, while attempting to do the same, was lost in the river Plate. Drake, in his own vessel, the Golden Hind, proceeded to the Peruvian coasts, where he cruised until he had taken and plundered a score of Spanish ships. "Laden with a rich booty of Peruvian treasure he deemed it unsafe to return by the way that he came. He therefore resolved to strike across the Pacific, and for this purpose made the latitude in which this voyage was usually performed by the Spanish government vessels which sailed annually from Acapulco to the Philippines. Drake thus reached the coast of California, where the Indians, delighted beyond measure by presents of clothing and trinkets, invited him to remain and rule over them. Drake took possession of the country in the name of the Queen, and refitted his vessel in preparation for the unknown perils of the Pacific. The place where He landed must have been either the great bay of San Francisco [per contra., see CALIFORNIA: A. D. 1846-1847] or the small bay of Bodega, which lies a few leagues further north. The great seaman had already coasted five degrees more to the northward before finding a suitable harbour. He believed himself to be the first European who had coasted these shores; but it is now well known that Spanish explorers had preceded him. Drake's circumnavigation of the globe was thus no deliberate feat of seamanship, but the necessary result of circumstances. The voyage made in more than one way a great epoch in English nautical history." Drake reached Plymouth on his return Sept. 26, 1580.

_E. J. Payne, Voyages of the Elizabethan Seamen, pages 141-143._

ALSO IN _F. Fletcher, The World Encompassed by Sir F. Drake (Hakluyt Society, 1854)_.

_J. Barrow, Life of Drake._

_R. Southey, Lives of British Admirals, volume 3._

{69}

AMERICA: A. D. 1580. The final founding of the City of Buenos Ayres.

See ARGENTINE REPUBLIC; A. D: 1580-1777.

AMERICA: A. D. 1583. The Expedition of Sir Humphrey Gilbert. Formal possession taken of Newfoundland.

In 1578, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, an English gentleman, of Devonshire, whose younger half-brother was the more famous Sir Walter Raleigh, obtained from Queen Elizabeth a charter empowering him, for the next six years, to discover "such remote heathen and barbarous lands, not actually possessed by any Christian prince or people," as he might be shrewd or fortunate enough to find, and to occupy the same as their proprietor. Gilbert's first expedition was attempted the next year, with Sir Walter Raleigh associated in it; but misfortunes drove back the adventurers to port, and Spanish intrigue prevented their sailing again. "In June, 1583, Gilbert sailed from Cawsund Bay with five vessels, with the general intention of discovering and colonizing the northern parts of America. It was the first colonizing expedition which left the shores of Great Britain; and the narrative of the expedition by Hayes, who commanded one of Gilbert's vessels, forms the first page in the history of English colonization. Gilbert did no more than go through the empty form of taking possession of the island of Newfoundland, to which the English name formerly applied to the continent in general … was now restricted. … Gilbert dallied here too long. When he set sail to cross the Gulf of St. Lawrence and take possession of Cape Breton and Nova Scotia the season was too far advanced; one of his largest ships went down with all on board, including the Hungarian scholar Parmenius, who had come out as the historian of the expedition; the stores were exhausted and the crews dispirited; and Gilbert resolved on sailing home, intending to return and prosecute his discoveries the next spring. On the home voyage the little vessel in which he was sailing foundered; and the pioneer of English colonization found a watery grave. … Gilbert was a man of courage, piety, and learning. He was, however, an indifferent seaman, and quite incompetent for the task of colonization to which he had set his hand. The misfortunes of his expedition induced Amadas and Barlow, who followed in his steps, to abandon the northward voyage and sail to the shores intended to be occupied by the easier but more circuitous route of the Canaries and the West Indies."

_E. J. Payne, Voyages of the Elizabethan Seamen, pages 173-174._

"On Monday, the 9th of September, in the afternoon, the frigate [the' Squirrel'] was near cast away, oppressed by waves, yet at that time recovered; and giving forth signs of joy, the general, sitting abaft with a book in his hand, cried out to us in the 'Hind' (so oft as we did approach within hearing), 'We are as near to heaven by sea as by land,' reiterating the same speech, well beseeming a soldier resolute in Jesus Christ, as I can testify he was. On the same Monday night, about twelve o'clock, or not long after, the frigate being ahead of us in the 'Golden Hind,' suddenly her lights were out, whereof as it were in a moment we lost the sight, and withal our watch cried the General was cast away, which was too true; for in that moment the frigate was devoured and swallowed up by the sea. Yet still we looked out all that night and ever after, until we arrived upon the coast of England. … In great torment of weather and peril of drowning it pleased God to send safe home the 'Golden Hind,' which arrived in Falmouth on the 22d of September, being Sunday."

_E. Hayes, A Report of the Voyage by Sir Humphrey Gilbert (reprinted in Payne's Voyages)._

ALSO IN _E. Edwards, Life of Raleigh, volume 1, chapter 5._

_R. Hakluyt, Principal Navigations; edited by E. Goldsmid, volume 12._

AMERICA: A. D. 1584-1586. Raleigh's First Colonizing attempts and failures.

"The task in which Gilbert had failed was to be undertaken by one better qualified to carry it out. If any Englishman in that age seemed to be marked out as the founder of a colonial empire, it was Raleigh. Like Gilbert, he had studied books; like Drake he could rule men. … The associations of his youth, and the training of his early manhood, fitted him to sympathize with the aims of his half-brother Gilbert, and there is little reason to doubt that Raleigh had a share in his undertaking and his failure. In 1584 he obtained a patent precisely similar to Gilbert's. His first step showed the thoughtful and well-planned system on which he began his task. Two ships were sent out, not with any idea of settlement, but to examine and report upon the country. Their commanders were Arthur Barlow and Philip Amidas. To the former we owe the extant record of the voyage: the name of the latter would suggest that he was a foreigner. Whether by chance or design, they took a more southerly course than any of their predecessors. On the 2d of July the presence of shallow water, and a smell of sweet flowers, warned them that land was near. The promise thus given was amply fulfilled upon their approach. The sight before them was far different from that which had met the eyes of Hore and Gilbert. Instead of the bleak coast of Newfoundland, Barlow and Amidas looked upon a scene which might recall the softness of the Mediterranean. … Coasting along for about 120 miles, the voyagers reached an inlet and with some difficulty entered. They then solemnly took possession of the land in the Queen's name, and then delivered it over to Raleigh according to his patent. They soon discovered that the land upon which they had touched was an island about 20 miles long, and not above six broad, named, as they afterwards learnt, Roanoke. Beyond, separating them from the mainland, lay an enclosed sea, studded with more than a hundred fertile and well-wooded islets." The Indians proved friendly, and were described by Barlow as being "most gentle, loving and faithful, void of all guile and treason, and such as live after the manner of the golden age." "The report which the voyagers took home spoke as favourably of the land itself as of its inhabitants. … With them they brought two of the savages, named Wanchese and Manteo. A probable tradition tells us that the queen herself named the country Virginia, and that Raleigh's knighthood was the reward and acknowledgment of his success. {70} On the strength of this report Raleigh at once made preparations for a settlement. A fleet of seven ships was provided for the conveyance of 108 settlers. The fleet was under the command of Sir Richard Grenvillle, who was to establish the settlement and leave it under the charge of Ralph Lane. … On the 9th of April [1585] the emigrants set sail." For some reason not well explained, the fleet made a circuit to the West Indies, and loitered for five weeks at the island of St. John's and at Hispaniola, reaching Virginia in the last days of June. Quarrels between the two commanders, Grenville and Lane, had already begun, and both seemed equally ready to provoke the enmity of the natives. In August, after exploring some sixty miles of the coast, Grenville returned to England, promising to come back the next spring with new colonists and stores. The settlement, thus left to the care of Lane, was established "at the north-east corner of the island of Roanoke, whence the settlers could command the strait. There, even now, choked by vines and underwood, and here and there broken by the crumbling remains of an earthen bastion, may be traced the outlines of the ditch which enclosed the camp, some forty yards square, the home of the first English settlers in the New World. Of the doings of the settlers during the winter nothing is recorded, but by the next spring their prospects looked gloomy. The Indians were no longer friends. … The settlers, unable to make fishing weirs, and without seed corn, were entirely dependent on the Indians for their daily food. Under these circumstances, one would have supposed that Lane would have best employed himself in guarding the settlement and improving its condition. He, however, thought otherwise, and applied himself to the task of exploring the neighbouring territory." But a wide combination of hostile Indian tribes had been formed against the English, and their situation became from day to day more imperilled. At the beginning of June, 1586, Lane fought a bold battle with the savages and routed them; but no sign of Grenville appeared and the prospect looked hopeless. Just at this juncture, a great English fleet, sailing homewards from a piratical expedition to the Spanish Main, under the famous Captain Drake, came to anchor at Roanoke and offered succor to the disheartened colonists. With one voice they petitioned to be taken to England, and Drake received the whole party on board his ships. "The help of which the colonists had despaired was in reality close at hand. Scarcely had Drake's fleet left the coast when a ship well furnished by Raleigh with needful supplies, reached Virginia, and after searching for the departed settlers returned to England. About a fortnight later Grenville himself arrived with three ships. He spent some time in the country exploring, searching for the settlers, and at last, unwilling to lose possession of the country, landed fifteen men at Roanoke well supplied for two years, and then set sail for England, plundering the Azores, and doing much damage to the Spaniards."

_J. A. Doyle, The English in America: Virginia, &c., chapter 4_.

"It seems to be generally admitted that, when Lane and his company went back to England, they carried with them tobacco as one of the products of the country, which they presented to Raleigh, as the planter of the colony, and by him it was brought into use in England, and gradually in other European countries. The authorities are not entirely agreed upon this point. Josselyn says: 'Tobacco first brought into England by Sir John Hawkins, but first brought into use by Sir Walter Rawleigh many years after.' Again he says: 'Now (say some) Tobacco was first brought into England by Mr. Ralph Lane, out of Virginia. Others will have Tobacco to be first brought into England from Peru, by Sir Francis Drake's Mariners.' Camden fixes its introduction into England by Ralph Lane and the men brought back with him in the ships of Drake. He says: 'And these men which were brought back were the first that I know of, which brought into England that Indian plant which they call Tobacco and Nicotia, and use it against crudities, being taught it by the Indians.' Certainly from that time it began to be in great request, and to be sold at a high rate. … Among the 108 men left in the colony with Ralph Lane in 1585 was Mr. Thomas Hariot, a man of a strongly mathematical and scientific turn, whose services in this connection were greatly valued. He remained there an entire year, and went back to England in 1586. He wrote out a full account of his observations in the New World."

_L. N. Tarbox, Sir Walter Raleigh and his Colony (Prince Society 1884)._

ALSO IN _T. Hariot, Brief and true Report (Reprinted in above-named Prince Society Publication)._

_F. L. Hawks, History of North Carolina, volume 1 (containing reprints of Lane's Account, Hariot's Report, &c.)_

_Original Documents edited by E. E. Hale (Archæologia Americana, volume 4)._

AMERICA: A. D. 1587-1590. The Lost Colony of Roanoke. End of the Virginia Undertakings of Sir Walter Raleigh.