![]() On June 2, 1609, the Virginia Company of London sent across the Atlantic Ocean the largest fleet England had ever amassed in the West: nine ships, 600 passengers, and livestock and provisions to last a year. Rather, they undertook a wholesale reorganization of their company and its colony, and commenced an unprecedented public relations campaign to entice “adventurers”-their word for people who would wager either their money or their lives on Virginia. ![]() The response of Smythe and the principal investors in the Virginia Company was not, however, resignation and evacuation, although they considered it. Newport made two supply trips to Virginia, in January and October 1608, both times bringing home more bad news: John Smith, a brash commoner, had assumed authority over a quarreling, ineffective colonial Council, the colonists refused to take orders, the Powhatan Indians struck at will, and famine and illness raged.īy January 1609, with Newport back from the second supply trip, Sir Thomas Smythe, treasurer and de facto head of the Virginia Company of London, understood that his enterprise at Jamestown was failing in every conceivable way. Colonist George Percy quickly decided “There were never Englishmen left in a forreigne Countrey in such miserie as wee were in this new discovered Virginia.” Half the colonists who arrived in April 1607 were dead by October, and fewer than forty survived the winter. While the colonists futilely searched the forests for gold and the “other sea” (and a quick passage to the Far East), their leaders quarreled and alienated the powerful leader Powhatan (Wahunsonacock). Within weeks of being deposited on Jamestown Island by Captain Christopher Newport, the first settlers realized that the promises made by the Virginia Company of London-that the settlement would be safe, prosperous, and bounteous-had been greatly exaggerated. Most importantly for the still-floundering Virginia colony, the amazing story encouraged the English to stick with their American enterprise and even expand their colonial presence in North America.įrom its start, the Virginia colony suffered from unrealistic expectations, political infighting, violence between Indians and settlers, and deprivation. The tale also attracted London’s leading playwright: the Sea Venture contributed to the inspiration behind William Shakespeare’s last major play, The Tempest. Word of their odyssey fascinated English men and women, who saw in the story providential design: surely, many concluded, God had saved the Sea Venture voyagers. During that time, they built two small boats, which they named the Patience and the Deliverance, and sailed to Virginia, arriving on May 24, 1610. For ten months the castaways remained on Bermuda, while their countrymen in Virginia and England assumed them dead. Before the ship sank, crewmen salvaged many of their supplies and even the rigging. The 150 passengers and crew members, including Christopher Newport, the ship’s captain, and the colony’s intended new leaders, escaped death at sea but found themselves marooned on Bermuda. The storm separated the flagship from the other vessels and left it gravely damaged. On July 24, just off the coast of the uninhabited island chain of Bermuda, the fleet sailed into a hurricane. The Sea Venture was the flagship of a convoy sent from England in June 1609 to re-supply and revive the failing colony at Jamestown. ![]()
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