“Sea Venture”
In 1609 the Virginia Company had a decision to make. Continue business as usual and allow the settlers in Jamestown to slowly perish, and not recoup any money for its investors, or drum up more investors and send the single largest group of settlers the New World had seen. The decision that Thomas Smythe and the Virginia Company made would lead to the settlement of a new land, and save Jamestown. In February 1609, the Virginia Company acquired a new charter for Jamestown, the Second Charter of Virginia, from King James. The new charter not only restructured the Colony in the new world, but completely restructured the Virginia Company and gave them “full and absolute power and authority, to correct, punish, pardon, govern, and rule.” The new charter granted them this power in all of Virginia, as well as the on the seas to and from the new world. The charter prohibited breaking any English law in the colony, but otherwise “they, in their good discretion, shall think to be fittest for the good of the adventurers and inhabitants there” The restructuring of Virginia was also in the new charter, it expanded the colony from 10,000 square miles to over one million square miles. The first decision made by the Virginia Company was to send Sir Thomas Gates to Virginia as Governor. Admiral George Sommers was chosen to command the fleet, and England’s most renowned Captain, Christopher Newport, would sail the lead vessel. The Virginia Company rounded up investors and settlers over the next three months and publicized the Second Charter of Virginia on May 23, 1609 to hold the investors publically liable to the rescue mission. On May 15, 1609 seven ships set sail from London, bound for Plymouth. In Plymouth, they would take on necessary supplies, passenger, and two pinnaces that would join the fleet. While in Plymouth, Gates, Sommers, and Newport would make a fateful decision about which vessel’s they would sail on. Most likely due to a conflict about who should have authority while at sea, Gates and Sommers decided to sail together on the lead ship, captained by Newport, the Sea Venture. It was decided that they would leave in June, even though the sun would be brutal and the storms more intense, and to take a more direct route to America instead of the traditional route through the West Indies. The new route would take them south to the Canaries, and then due west near Bermuda to the coast of America. The fleet, led by the 300 ton vessel the Sea Venture, set sail from Plymouth on the 2nd of June. The voyage to Jamestown was an uneventful trip for the first 6 weeks. The fleet was able to sail together and remain in visual contact, “our whole Fleete then consisting of seven good Ships, and two Pinnaces, all which from the said second of June, unto the twenty three of July, kept in friendly consort together, not a whole watch at any time loosing the sight each of other.” On July 24, all that would change. The weather, which had been relatively mild, started turning for the worst. The clouds built up covering the sky, the winds picked up, and then the sky opened up bringing a torrential down pour. It was a hurricane, the likes of which most of the travelers had never heard of. “Windes and Seas were as mad, as fury and rage could make them.”3 The hurricane lasted for two days. According to Captain Gabriel Archer of the the Blessing, “the heavens look’d so black upon us that it was not possible the elevation of the Pole might be observed, nor a star by night, not sunbeam by day was to be seen.” When the storm finally passed, the Sea Venture fleet was scattered. The plan that the leaders of the voyage had come up with before leaving Plymouth was for the ships to sail to Barbuda if they became separated, then wait seven days for the rest of the fleet before continuing on to Virginia. After assessing damage from the storm, and calculating their positions, the individual captains, unknown to one another, decided to forgo the original plan and limp the damaged vessels into Jamestown. On August 11, 1609 four of the ships from the Sea Venture fleet, the Lion, the Falcon, the Unity and the Blessing arrived in Jamestown. Hundreds of weak and hungry men, women and children battered by a hurricane and the two month crossing of the Atlantic unloaded into a colony that was already struggling with starvation and sedition. The new leaders of the colony, who were to regain order and turn the colony around, were nowhere to be found. During the hurricane, the Sea Venture sprung leaks all along the hull of the ship and began taking on water. “Howbeit this was not all; It pleased God to bring a greater affliction yet upon us; for in the beginning of the storme we had received likewise a mighty leake.”3 The passengers and crew of the Sea Venture bailed water from the hold, with pumps and pails, for three days and four nights, “from tuesday noone till friday noone, we bailed and pumped two thousand tunne.”3 Everyone onboard knew that the leak was severe and that they must all do their part to combat the onslaught of water, “even our Governour, and Admirall themselves, not refusing their turne, and to spell each the other, to give example to other.”3 The passengers on the Sea Venture, regardless of their standing in society, joined together to try and save the ship, and themselves. They were unable to locate the source of the major leak, the oakum had been forced out of the hull of the ship in several areas, but even when they found one of those leaks, and plugged it, the water did not stop rushing in. In order to lighten the ship many passenger’s belongings as well as hogsheads of beer, all of the ruined food supply, and the ships ordnance were all thrown overboard. It was even discussed whether or not to cut down the main mast to lighten the load. Just when most of the passengers and crew had given up all hope of saving their sinking vessel, “even Rev. Richard Buck and the most faithful Christians must have questioned why God had brought them three thousand miles from home only to bury them in a watery grave,”1 Admiral Sommers spotted land. The land that Admiral Sommers spotted was the island of Bermuda. It was an uninhabited island that most thought was possessed, and therefore meant certain death if you could even reach her shores. Captain Newport pointed the ship towards the island and started to take depth readings. He was well aware of the reefs and shoals surrounding the island and was trying to get the ship as close to the island as possible before running aground and sinking the vessel. As the depths got shallower, everyone onboard began to prepare for the impact and the swim that was inevitably coming. Whether it was luck or fate, the Sea Venture ran aground wedged between two rocks that held her upright. The crew quickly launched the small boats and began the process of unloading all the passengers before the ship finally sank. Several hours later, after all 150 souls were safely on land, the brave crew went back to the sinking vessel to salvage not only any rations and supplies that were left, but also any piece of the ship itself that could be salvaged.
Finally, they were off of the seas, but who was in control of the shipwrecked passengers? “The shipwrecked in Bermuda had both charter and governor, but neither was legal for that location.” Sir Thomas Gates, the new Governor for the Jamestown, quickly took control and asserted his authority. He would immediately begin plans to reach Virginia. He sent passengers to look for sources of food on the island, sent sailors to find supplies to build new boats for self rescue, and assigned watches to look after the few supplies that they still had from the voyage. The Island of Bermuda turned out to be a very inhabitable place. The sounds that led previous sailors who had happened onto the island to believe it was “possessed” turned out to be the harmless Cahow bird. The Cahow actually provided an abundant source of food for the shipwrecked. The birds had no fear of man, so they could be picked up by hand to be taken back to the camp for eating. The eggs that they laid were also a great source of food for the new colony in Bermuda. There were plenty of fish in the lagoon, crabs and sea turtles were abundant on the beaches, and the palmettos, mulberry trees, and mangroves provided an ample supply of food. Perhaps the most unanticipated food supply on the island, were the wild pigs. A Spanish fleet, that had once explored Bermuda, left pigs on the island so that in the event that one of their ships became wrecked, they would have a food supply.
The first self rescue attempt sent 6 men on a boat, made from trees on the Island of Bermuda and salvaged parts of the Sea Venture to Virginia with the plans of sending two ships back to rescue the others. After two months of waiting for a rescue, it became clear that the small boat had not survived the journey. Two more ships were then constructed from the salvaged Sea Venture and materials from Bermuda that would hold the remaining castaways. There were several on the island who did not wish to leave their newfound paradise for Virginia. Sir Thomas Gates would again assert his authority and threatened them with death for treason if they did not continue on to Virginia. The two new ships, the Patience and the Deliverance left Bermuda on May 10, 1610. They reached the fort at Jamestown on May 24th and quickly realized that they were in a much worse place. The fifty or so remaining settlers at Jamestown were famished and emaciated. The shipwreck survivors had only brought enough rations for the one-hundred and forty of them for the crossing and were now facing finding food for two-hundred settlers in Jamestown.
Sir Thomas Gates quickly made the decision to abandon the colony and set sail for Newfoundland to replenish and find a ride back to England. On June 7, 1610 the colonists said goodbye to Virginia. They headed down the James River and on June 8th, they were met by a longboat. “The man piloting the longboat, Captain Edward Brewster, reached the Deliverance, he handed Gates a letter, which rerouted the governor’s course and that of American history.”1 Lord De La Warre had been dispatched from England to take over Jamestown after the charter and leaders of Jamestown were lost at sea. He brought three ships, carrying one-hundred fifty settlers and plenty of supplies to care for the colonists at Jamestown. The decision to return to the colony that they had just abandoned did not sit well with many of the starving colonists, but the arrival of supplies and new leadership was enough to convince Sir Thomas Gates that returning to Jamestown was the best decision.
The news of the survival of the shipwrecked on Bermuda, along with the timely arrival of Lord De La Warre sparked a renewed interest in the Jamestown colony back in England. Had the Sea Venture not been shipwrecked during the hurricane, they too would have fallen victim to the starvation that ravaged Jamestown. The combination of their survival and the supplies that Lord De La Warre brought to the colonists saved the English settlement in the new world. Without one, the other would not have been enough to keep the first colony in America going. The settlement at Jamestown would live on, and the English would continue to send settlers and supplies building a new civilization in the new world.