Great Epochs in American History, Volume 2: The Planting of the First Colonies: 1562—1733 — John Shaqi
Great Epochs in American History, Volume 2: The Planting of the First Colonies: 1562—1733
History
Great Epochs in American History, Volume 2: The Planting of the First Colonies: 1562—1733
United States -- History
Hap, to take in cedar wood, leaving me and nine more in the fort, only
with three meals meat, upon promise to return the next day....
The thirteenth, began some of our company that before vowed to stay,
to make revolt: whereupon the planters diminishing, all was given
over. The fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth, we spent in getting
sassafras and fire-wood of cedar, leaving house and little fort, by
ten men in nineteen days sufficient made to harbor twenty persons at
least with their necessary provisions.
The seventeenth, we set sail, doubling the rocks of Elizabeth's
island, and passing by Dover Cliff, came to anchor at Martha's
Vineyard, being five leagues distant from our fort, where we went
ashore, and had young cranes, herneshowes, and geese, which now were
grown to pretty bigness.
The eighteenth, we set sail and bore for England, cutting off our
shallop, that was well able to land five and twenty men or more, a
boat very necessary for the like occasions. The winds do range most
commonly upon this coast in the summer time, westerly. In our homeward
course we observed the foresaid floating weeds to continue till we
came within two hundred leagues of Europe. The three-and-twentieth of
July we came to anchor before Exmouth.[5]
[1] Gosnold sailed from Falmouth, England, in 1602, Raleigh being
interested in the expedition. He reached the New England coast in
May of the same year, and discovered Cape Cod, to which, because of
the abundance of codfish in neighboring waters he gave the name it
bears. He afterward discovered Martha's Vineyard, and on the
neighboring island of Cuttyhunk founded a settlement called
Elizabeth, the first ever made in New England by Englishmen. This
settlement lasted only a few weeks, the settlers returning to
England.
[2] The entire group of islands, of which Cuttyhunk is one, are now
known as the Elizabeth Islands. The township which these islands
comprize bears Gosnold's name. Gosnold became active afterward in
promoting the expedition which In 1607 resulted in the settlement
of Jamestown. The report of the expedition to Cape Cod, from which
this account is taken, is known as "The Relation of Captain
Gosnold's Voyage." It was "delivered by Gabriel Archer, a gentleman
in the said voyage." Archer's account is printed in "Old South
Leaflets."
[3] Vineyard Sound.
[4] Now Cuttyhunk, the westermost of the chain of islands called
the Elizabeth Islands, which separate Buzzard's Bay from Vineyard
Sound.
[5] From Exmouth the ship sailed for Portsmouth, her real
destination.
II
GOSNOLD'S OWN ACCOUNT[1]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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