After the dissolution of the companies, and the granting of new
letters-patent to a company of some twenty noblemen, there seems to have
been a project for dividing up the country by lot. Smith says: “All this
they divided in twenty parts, for which they cast lots, but no lot
for me but Smith's Isles, which are a many of barren rocks, the most
overgrown with shrubs, and sharp whins, you can hardly pass them;
without either grass or wood, but three or four short shrubby old
cedars.”
The plan was not carried out, and Smith never became lord of even these
barren rocks, the Isles of Shoals. That he visited them when he sailed
along the coast is probable, though he never speaks of doing so. In the
Virginia waters he had left a cluster of islands bearing his name also.
In the Captain's “True Travels,” published in 1630, is a summary of the
condition of colonization in New England from Smith's voyage thence till
the settlement of Plymouth in 1620, which makes an appropriate close to
our review of this period:
“When I first went to the North part of Virginia, where the Westerly
Colony had been planted, it had dissolved itself within a year, and
there was not one Christian in all the land. I was set forth at the sole
charge of four merchants of London; the Country being then reputed by
your westerlings a most rocky, barren, desolate desart; but the good
return I brought from thence, with the maps and relations of the
Country, which I made so manifest, some of them did believe me, and they
were well embraced, both by the Londoners, and Westerlings, for whom I
had promised to undertake it, thinking to have joyned them all together,
but that might well have been a work for Hercules. Betwixt them long
there was much contention: the Londoners indeed went bravely forward:
but in three or four years I and my friends consumed many hundred pounds
amongst the Plimothians, who only fed me but with delays, promises, and
excuses, but no performance of anything to any purpose. In the interim,
many particular ships went thither, and finding my relations true, and
that I had not taken that I brought home from the French men, as had
been reported: yet further for my pains to discredit me, and my calling
it New England, they obscured it, and shadowed it, with the title of
Canada, till at my humble suit, it pleased our most Royal King Charles,
whom God long keep, bless and preserve, then Prince of Wales, to confirm
it with my map and book, by the title of New England; the gain thence
returning did make the fame thereof so increase that thirty, forty or
fifty sail went yearly only to trade and fish; but nothing would be done
for a plantation, till about some hundred of your Brownists of England,
Amsterdam and Leyden went to New Plimouth, whose humorous ignorances,
caused them for more than a year, to endure a wonderful deal of misery,
with an infinite patience; saying my books and maps were much better
cheap to teach them than myself: many others have used the like
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account