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
Upon the return of his first colonists Raleigh at once bent his superb
energies to the formation of his second or New Colony. The failure of
the first colonists instead of dismaying inspirited him to larger
effort. Lane’s report and Hariot’s account of the excellencies of the
country moved him to plan his New Colony on a broader scale. He would
now plant in “Virginia” a prosperous English agricultural state. The new
colonists should include families, men, women, and children, and a
regular government should be established at the outset. In accord with
Lane’s theory, Roanoke Island should be passed by and the New Colony be
seated on Chesapeake Bay.
To these ends Raleigh sagaciously determined to admit a number of
investors to share in the privileges of his patent, and under date of
January seventh, 1587, he executed an instrument granting a charter to
thirty-two persons for the new settlement. These were divided into two
classes. Nineteen, comprising one class, were gentlemen or merchants of
London who were to venture their money in the enterprise; thirteen,
constituting the other class, were to venture their persons. The latter
were to be known by the corporate name of “The Governour and Assistants
of the Citie of Ralegh in Virginia,” and were described as “late of
London gentlemen.” The former were styled “merchants of London and
adventurers.” They were to be “free of the corporation, company, and
society ... in the citie of Ralegh intended to be erected and builded,”
and were to adventure “divers and sundry sums of money, merchandises and
shipping, munition, victual, and other commodities” into “Virginia.” In
consideration of their investment they were granted free trade in the
new settlement and in any other settlement that Raleigh might make by
future discovery in America; and were exempted from all duties on their
commerce, rents, or subsidies. An appropriation was made to them of one
hundred pounds, to be ventured in any way they should see fit, the
profits to be applied in “Virginia” in “planting the Christian religion
and advancing the same,” and for “the common utility and profit of the
inhabitants thereof.” In this indenture Raleigh as the grantor was
styled “Chief governour of Assamocomoc, alias Wingandacoa alias
Virginia.” In the list of the nineteen investing “merchants” appears the
name of Richard Hakluyt. At the head of the thirteen to be planters of
the “citie of Ralegh” was John White, the artist and man-of-affairs of
the “Old Colony,” as governor; and among these was his son-in-law
Ananias Dare, who became the father of Virginia Dare.
The company brought together to plant this colony numbered one hundred
and fifty persons, of whom seventeen were women and nine were “boys and
children.” They embarked on three ships in charge of Simon Ferdinando,
and sailed from Portsmouth harbour on April the twenty-sixth, 1587.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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