The Boy's Hakluyt: English Voyages of Adventure and DiscoveryHakluyt, Richard
History
The Boy's Hakluyt: English Voyages of Adventure and Discovery
Hakluyt, Richard
Discoveries in geography -- English -- Juvenile literature; Voyages and travels -- Juvenile literature
Sir Francis renewed his offer, to which he said all the captains of his
fleet had assented, and asked for details of the colony’s needs.
Thanking him and his captains with warmth for their generosity Lane
craved the following: That Drake would take with him to England a number
of weak and unfit men of the colony, and in their places supply oarsmen,
artificers, and others; that he would leave sufficient shipping and
provisions to carry the colonists into August or later, when they might
have to return to England; also some ships’ masters, not only to convey
them to England “when time should be,” but to search the coast for some
better harbour, if there were one; provide them a number of small boats;
and supply them with “calievers, hand weapons, match and lead, tooles,
apparell, and such like.” All these desires Sir Francis stood ready
cheerfully to meet. At his request Lane sent to him the various officers
of the colony with their lists of needs—the “Master of the Victuals,”
the “Keeper of the Store,” the “Vice-treasurer.” Drake forthwith turned
over to Lane the “Francis” of his fleet, “a very proper bark of 70 tun,”
and ordered her to be provisioned for an hundred men for four months.
Also, two pinnaces and four small boats. And two of his masters, with
their consent, were assigned to Lane’s service till the time he had
promised for their return to England.
On the twelfth the bark was provisioned, the two loaned masters were
aboard her, and several of Lane’s best men, ready to pass from the
fleet’s anchorage to Roanoke Island. The very next morning an unwonted
storm arose which scattered the fleet. The tempest raged through four
days, and “had like to have driven all on shore if the Lord had not held
his loving hand over them, and the Generall very providentially forseene
the worst himselfe.” As it was, several of the fleet were driven to put
to sea, while the “Francis,” with her precious cargo, the two masters,
and Lane’s choice men, was seen to be free from the others and also “to
put cleere to Sea.” After the storm was over Drake came ashore and
offered Lane another ship, provisioned as the “Francis” had been, and
with another master. This was a large bark, the “Bonner,” of one hundred
and seventy tons, and Sir Francis said that she could not be brought
into the harbour but must be left in the road.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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