Narrative and Critical History of America, Vol. 3 (of 8): English Explorations and Settlements in North America 1497-1689
History
Narrative and Critical History of America, Vol. 3 (of 8): English Explorations and Settlements in North America 1497-1689
America -- Discovery and exploration; America -- History; United States -- History
The ship being loaded with iron ore, sassafras, cedar posts, and
walnut boards, Newport, with Archer[233] and Wingfield as passengers,
sailed on the 10th of April from Jamestown, and on the 20th of May,
1608, arrived in England. The diet of the colonists was soon reduced
to meal and water, and through hunger and exposure death diminished
them one half. While they were engaged in re-building Jamestown and
in planting, to their great joy Captain Nelson, who had left England
with Newport, but from whom he had been separated by storm and detained
in the West Indies, arrived in the ship “Phœnix,” with provisions
and seventy settlers, being the remainder of the first supply of one
hundred and twenty. He departed for England on the 2d of June with a
cargo of cedar-wood, carrying Martin of the Council. Smith, in an open
boat, with fourteen others,—seven gentlemen (including Dr. Walter
Russell of the last arrival), and seven soldiers,—accompanied the
“Phœnix” down the river, and parted from her at Cape Henry, with the
bold purpose of exploring Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries, and
establishing intercourse with the natives along their borders. To
the islands lying off Cape Charles, Smith gave his own name. After a
satisfactory cruise, having crossed the bay, visited its eastern shore,
and explored the Potomac River some thirty miles, the party returned
late in July to Jamestown for provisions. Smith again embarked on the
24th of July to complete his explorations, with a crew of twelve,
similarly constituted as before, but with Anthony Bagnall as surgeon.
At the head of Chesapeake Bay they were hospitably entertained by a
tribe of Indians, supposed by Stith[234] to have been of the Iroquois,
or Five Nations, and also by the Susquehannas, at a village on the
Tockwogh (now Sassafras) River. The highest mountain to the northward
observed by them was named Peregrine’s Mount, and Willoughby River
was so called after the native town of Smith. The Indian tribes
on the Patuxent, and the Moraughtacunds and the Wighcomoes on the
Rappahannock, were visited. Richard Featherstone, a “gentleman” of the
party, dying, was buried on the banks of the last-named river, which
was explored to the falls, near where Fredericksburg now is. Here
a skirmish took place with the Rappahannock tribe. The Pianketank,
Elizabeth, and Nansemond rivers were in turn examined for a few miles.
From the results of these discoveries Smith composed his Map of
Virginia, a work so singularly exact that it has formed the basis of
all like delineations since, and was adduced as authority as late as
1873 towards the settlement of the boundary dispute between the States
of Virginia and Maryland. The drawing was sent to England by Newport
before the close of the year, and in 1612 was published in the _Oxford
Tract_. Returning to Jamestown, Sept. 7, 1608, Smith was elected
President of the Council over Ratcliffe (who suffered from a wounded
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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