Nooks and Corners of the New England CoastDrake, Samuel Adams
History
Nooks and Corners of the New England Coast
Drake, Samuel Adams
New England -- Description and travel
The _Speedwell_, Pring's vessel, also made land in forty-three degrees.
It proved to be a multitude of small islands. Pring, after anchoring
under the lee of the largest, coasted the main-land with his boats. The
narrative continues to relate that they "came to the mayne in 43-1/2,
and ranged to south-west, in which course we found several inlets, the
more easterly of which was barred at the mouth. Having passed over the
bar, we ran up into it five miles. Coming out and sailing south-west, we
lighted upon two other inlets; the fourth and most westerly was best,
which we rowed up ten or twelve miles." Between forty-three and
forty-three and a half degrees are the Saco, then barred at the
mouth,[67] the Mousam, York, and the Piscataqua, the "most westerly and
best."
"We (meeting with no sassafras)"--to follow the narrative--"left these
places and _shaped our course for Savage's Rocks_, discovered the year
before by Captain Gosnold." Savage Rock, then, was by both these
accounts (Archer and Pring) to the southward of forty-three degrees,
while the Nubble, or rather Agamenticus, is in forty-three degrees
sixteen minutes.
"Departing hence, we bare into that great gulf which Captain Gosnold
overshot the year before." This could be no other than Massachusetts
Bay, for Gosnold, according to Brereton, after leaving Savage Rock,
shaped his course southward ("standing off southerly into the sea") the
rest of that day and night (May 15th), and on the following morning
found himself "embayed with a mighty headland," which was Cape Cod.
Pring, on the contrary, steered into the bay, "coasting, and finding
people on the north side thereof." If my conjecture be correct, he was
the first English mariner in Boston Bay.
It is hardly possible that a navigator falling in with the New England
coast in forty-three or forty-three and a half degrees, and steering
south-west, should not recognize in Cape Ann one of its remarkable
features, or pass it by unperceived in the night. He would have been
likely to find Savage Rock and end his voyage at the same moment.
Champlain and Smith are both in evidence. The former, who examined the
coast minutely two years after Pring (June, 1605), has delineated "Cap
des Isles" on his map of 1612, which accompanied the first edition of
his voyages. The account he gives of its position is as clear as that of
Archer is obscure. Says the Frenchman, in his own way:
"Mettant le cap au su pour nous esloigner afin de mouiller l'ancre,
ayant fait environ deux lieux nous apperçumes un cap a la grande terre
au su quart de suest de nous ou il pouvoit avoit six lieues; a l'est
deux lieues apperçumes trois ou quatre isles assez hautes et a l'ouest
un grand cu de sac."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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