CHAPTER II.
EARLY VOYAGES TO NORTH AMERICA.
GOSNOLD's VOYAGE. - PRING's. - ATTEMPT TO PLANT A COLONY AT SAGADAHOC. - VOYAGE OF CAPT. JOUN SMITH IN 1614: HE NAMEs NEW ENGLAND.-OTHER VoYAOES TO TBE COAST,-PLYMOUTH SETTLED. - PLYMOUTH COMPANY IN ENGLAND. - FURTHER ATTEMPTS AT SETTLEMENT.
Although the continent of America was first discovered within a few degrees of the prominent headland upon which Gloucester is situated, and although the century following that event was, for the most part, distinguished for maritime adventure and discovery, there is no account of a visit to any part of the shores of New England, from Cape Cod to the eastern coast of l\Iaine, for more than one hundred yean after the voyage of Cabot in 1497. During that time, some portions of the shores of North America were repeatedly visited by vessels belonging to the chief maritime nations of Europe. Within the first ten years of the sixteenth century, :French navigators had found the great fishing-ground of Newfoundland, and had sailed into the river St. Lawrence. In 1524, Verazzani, in the service of France, ranged along the American coast several hundred miles, and entered some of its harbors. About this time, too, several French vessels were engaged in the fisheries at Newfoundland; and, not long after, the memorable voyage of Cartier prepared the way for the ultimate permanent settlement of the French in North America. English fishermen, also, made voyages to Newfoundland at this early period; and the number of vessels of different nations resorting to that fishing-ground continued to increase from year to year, till, at the end of the century, it amounted to no less than four hundred. In the reign of Queen Elizabeth, the zeal for maritime adventure and discovery was the most conspicuous national characteristic. English ships circumnavigated the globe, and visited distant parts of the earth hitherto unknown. Many voyages were also made in the attempt to found colonies in Newfoundland and Virginia; but the intervening coast does not
seem to have attracted attention, nor does history relate that any navigator had sailed near the shores of Cape Ann, or come to
anchor in its vicinity, before 1602. There can be scarcely a doubt, however, as will immediately appear, that a European vessel had visited some part of the neighboring coast at the eastward just before that time
.
On Friday, the 14th of May, 1602, Capt. Bartholomew Gosnold, in a small ship called the "Concord," - carrying, besides the ship's crew, a company designed for settlement in the country,-fell in with the land somewhere on the coast of Maine, after a passage of forty-nine days from Falmouth, England. Standing along by the shore till about noon of the same day, he then came to anchor, and soon descried approaching his ship a Biscay shallop, in which were eight Indians, two of whom were dressed partly in European costume. These Indians came from a rock, which, from this circumstance, was called Savage Rock ; the first spot on the shores of New England that received an English name. The accounts of this day's navigation, by the journalists of the voyage, are not sufficiently clear to enable WI to determine with certainty the location of Savage Rock ; but it is nearly certain that it was not the ledge oft' our Cape now known as the Salvages.(1) From a comparison of the accounts, the most probable conclusion is, that the first land made by Gosnold was Cape Elizabeth ; and that Savage Rock was the
. Nubble, - a large, high rock, near the shore, on the east side of York Harbor, Me.(2) Gosnold anchored near Savage Rock; and after a few hours' intercourse with the natives, finding himsdf "short of his purposed place," he weighed anchor, and pro ceeded. Getting a sight, perhaps, of our Cape before dark, and passing the entrance of :Massachusetts Bay in the night, on the morning of the 15th he was off the mighty headland, which, on account of the great number of codfish with which the voyagers " pestered their ships " ther , then received the name of Cape Cod. Gosnold sailed thence along the coast, and discovered the islands forming what is now called the Vineyard Sound. On one of these islands - that now known as Cuttyhunk (3) - he erected a storehouse, and made preparations for the men who were to stay in the country: but, upon some disagreement, these con cluded not to remain ; and, after stopping at this place several days, during which the ship's company had considerable inter course with the Indians, he departed on the 18th of June for England, where, on the 23d of July, he safely arrived.
(1) The Salvages are two ledges, situated about t11·0 miles east of Straibmouth Island. One of them is covered by the sea at high water. Tradition baa preserved no account of the origin of their name, and mention of it in any printed accouut could only be e:a:pected on the occurrence of disuter or shipwreck on or near them. In such connection they are mentioned In December, 1768, when a schooner wu cut npon them in a heavy sea; involving, u an inevitable consequence, the lou of all on board.
(2) So at least it is in the opinion of Mr. Ebenezer Pool of Rockport, ,rho ia well acqnninted with the entire line of seacoast from Cape Ann to the Kennebec, and who, after reeding the narrativell, came at once to thie conclusion, and kindly communicated the same to me. Tbeee narratives - one by Archar, and the other by Brereton- are in ML,sacbusetts Hi•torlcal Collections, vol. :r.xviii. The fl1'11t eays, 11 The fourteenth, about six in the morning, we deACried land that lay north, &c. The northerly part we called the north land, which to another rock upon the eame, lying twelve leagues weat: that we called Savage Rock (beca'Ole the eavagee lint showed themselves there). Five leagues towards the said rock le an oat-point of woody ground, the treea thereof very high and straight, from the rock ast-north·eut. From the said rock came toward, us a Biscay ehallop," &c. He then relatea the visit of the Indiana to hie ehip, and mentions II leaving them and their coast." Ne:r.t he says, 11 About 11:r.teeu leagnea aouth-weat from thence, we perceived In that con1'11e two small lelauds,- the one lying eutward from Savage Rock, the other to the 10nthward of it." Brereton aaye, 11 We made the laud, being full offair tree,; the land 1Dmewhat low; certain bnmmocke, or bina, lying Into the land; the ebore foll of white sand, but very etony or rocky. And IUDding fair along by the ehore, about twelve of the clock the same day, we came to an anchor." He then givea an account of the visit of the Indians, and proceeds: "It 11eemed, by 1Dme words and elgne they made, that 1Dme Buqnea, or of St. John de Loa, have fished or traded In thle place, being In the latitude of forty-three degrees. Bat riding here in no very good harbor, and, withal, doubting the weather, aboat three of the clock the same day, in the afternoon, we weighed; and, standing 10utherly off Into aea the reet of that day and the night following, with a fre1b gale of wind, In the morn ing we found onl'1ltllves embayed with a mighty headland." This II headland " wu, of course, Cape Cod. The "north land," Mr. Pool thinks, wu Cape Elizabeth; and the 11 out-point of woody ground," five leagues toward• Savage Rock, Cape Porpoise. The expreeaion, "about 11:r.teen leagues from thence," refen, in hi• opinion, to the place where they made the land In the morning, and not to Savage Rock. And this 1eem1 reuonable; becaDII, after eaillng that distance 10Dtherly from the rock, It le hardly po•lble that they ebonld have "perceived" a ,mall island eaatward from It. Beside,, the time ,pent in eailing ei:r.teen leaguea from Savage Rock, where they weighed anchor about three o'clock, must have expired in the night; and that distance from Savage Bock, wherever the rock wu, muet have carried them more than half-way from that place to Cape Cod. Savage Rock, then, wu about ei:r.teen leagues eouth west from the "north land;" "the 1hore full of white sand," along which they sailed before reaching the rock, wu the long beach between Wood Island and Cape Porpolee, and the beach in Well'• Bay; the email Island eastward from it wu Boon Ialaud; and those IODth of it, the Isle• of Sboala, mistaken perhape, at the diatance of ten milee, for a eingle laland. Brereton eaya that the place of their anchorage wu In the lati tude of .so. York Ilea in .so 16'. The dietance thenc!I to Cape Cod le about eeventy milee; and u Gosnold wu about fourteen houn In 1aili11g from Savage Rock to that place, and considering that his bark wu " weak," and that be wu " lotb " to preu her with much sail," and, further, that be wae on an unknown cout, ,rbicb be would eo cautionely navigate u not to eall, "with a freab gale of wind," more than ftve miles ui hour, there le much probability for the auppoaitlon that the place of his fi1'11t -UIChorage wae near York, and that Mr. Pool, from tbeee and the other facts In the cue, has correctly located Savage Rock. It le pretty evident that it wu not a very prominent loeallty: for it 11 not, to my knowledge, mentioned in any enbeeqnent voyage, except that of Pring In 1603.
(3) Belkn11p; Americ11n Biography, art. 11 Gosnold." t Holmes'& Ann11ls, vol. i. p. 128.
Thus terminated a voyage which was not only the first attempt of the English to make a settlement within the limits of New England, but also the first voyage ·of discovery to its shores. At that time, not a single European family had a home in any part of North America, north of Mexico.t Three years later, the French made the first permanent settlement in this part of the country, at Nova Scotia; from which the leaders of. the enterprise desired in a short time to remove the colony to a milder climate. ·with this end in view, they explored the coast southerly as far as Cape Cod; but the hostility of the Indians, and other adverse circumstances, discouraged their attempts, and caused an abandonment of their design.
New England- or North Virginia, as it was then called was, by the voyage of Gosnold, brought prominently before the English people as a promising field for further discovery. The favorable reports carried home by that captain and his companions undoubtedly influenced the merchants and others, of Bristol; who, in the next year, despatched a second expedi tion to our coasts. Martin Pring, in a ship of fifty tons called the Speedwell," accompanied by a bark of twenty-six tons called the "Discoverer," sailed from England in April, 1603. They made the land at the mouth of Penobscot Bay, and ranged along the coast to the south-west, entering several inlets as they proceeded ; from the most westerly of which they shaped their course for Savage Rock. Here they tarried long enough to land on the main, in pursuit of sassafras ; to procure which article; then highly esteemed as a sovereign remedy for various diseases,(4) was one object of their voyage. ·where they landed they found inhabitants, but no sassafras. They succeeded, however, in finding an abundance of it in another part of the coast, to which they went from Savage Rock, and from which, after a stay of a few weeks, they sailed for England.
There is reason to suppose that Capt. Pring sailed along in view of our Cape : and perhaps he landed on its shores; for, according to the journal of the voyage, after leaving Savage Rock, the ships "bare into that great gulf which Capt. Gosnold overshot the year before, coasting, and finding people, on the north side thereof."
The next English navigator who visited the coast of New England was Capt. George Weymouth, who, in May, 1605, made the land somewhere about Nantucket, and then sailed off' northerly till he came to an island -which, it is supposed, was :Monhegan-near the entrance to Penobscot Bay. In this vicinity he remained about a month, and then departed for home ; first sowing the seeds of an abundant harvest of future trouble, by basely stealing, for transportation to England, fi.\'e of the natives. This act, the journalist of the voyage declares, " was a matter of great importance for the full accomplishment of our voyage ; " which had, according to the same authority, for its "sole intent," a "true zeal of promulgating God's holy church, by planting Christianity."(5) The natural rights of men were then little respected ; and the enslaving of Indians was, long before this date and many years subsequent to it, considered a lawful act. (6)
(4) Gosnold carried home a considerable quantity or It; and Archer, one or his com pany, tealiflea to ita medicinal effect: "The powder or sauaf'ras, In twelve houn, cured one or our company that had taken a great eurfeit by eating the bellies of dogfish, - a very deliciom meat."
(5)See Weymouth'• Voyage in Massachussetts Historical Colleotlons, vol.xxviiii
(6)Bancroft; Hi1tory of the United States, vol. i. p. 168.
The accounts carried to England by these discoverers and explorers of the coast of North Virginia were favorable to projects for colonization on its shores. The bays and harbors were numerous, spacious, and safe; the climate healthy, and the disposition of the natives peaceable. The means of sub sistence were abundant, and industry might reasonably expect a sufficient reward for its labors. The waters abounded with cod larger than those of Newfoundland; and the hills and valleys of the land were full of animals, furnishing valuable skins and furs, in which a profitable trade was already commenced. Under such inducements, though permanent settlement was long delayed, the watery track between the two countries was regu larly navigated ; and, from this time, one or more English ships came annually to the coast.
The period for vigorous attempts at colonization had arrived. Possessing such right to dispose of the territory as Cabot's dis covery could give to the crown of England, King James I., in 1606, granted to certain persons of Bristol, Plymouth, and other parts of the west of England, a strip of land along the Atlantic coast of America, lying between the thirty-eighth and forty-fifth degrees of north latitude, for the purpose of planting a colony there. In furtherance of their design, some of the company despatched two ships; one of which, of fifty tons, commanded by Henry Challons, having two of W cymouth's stolen men on board, was taken by a Spanish fleet, and carried with her crew to Spain. The other ship, of which Martin Pring was master, proceeded to the coast, and, after making " a perfect discovery of all those rivers and harbors he was informed of by his instructions/' returned to England.
Not discouraged, those zealous friends of colonization in America sent out the next year, in two ships, "one hundred and twenty persons for planters," well prepared to lay the foun- dation of a permanent settlement. Pnder the presidency of George Popham, on the 20th of August, 1607, this company began to build a fort and erect their buildings on a penin sula at the west side of the mouth of the Sagadahoc, now the Kennebec River : but the rigor of a severe winter and other discouragements caused the abandonment of the plantation the next year; some of the colonists returning in a pinnace of thirty tons, which they had built, and called the " Virginia ; " (7) the first vessel built in New England. Sagadahoc and James town were planted at the same time. The latter survived its early disasters, and was the first permanent abode of the English in America. The former, under no very dispiriting circumstances, was abandoned in a year. The settlement was projected and planted by men of rank and wealth, in whose thoughts, without doubt, the few humble families, then fleeing across the German Ocean from religious persecution in their native land, were the last to be the founders of the first permanent Colony in New England.
The Sagadahoc colonists, on their return to England, branded the country they had left as "over-cold," and not habitable by English people. The chief movers of the enter prise were therefore disheartened ; but a zeal for making further attempts was kept alive in the breast of one of them (Sir Ferdinando Gorges), whose career from this time is inti mately connected with the history of New England. He became the owner of a ship himself, he says ; and sent her here for trade and discovery, under Richard Vines as leader of the enterprise. He does not say, in his account of his proceedings, when the first voyage was made ; (8)but he held this course " some years together : " and Vines and his men are said to have been in the country in the winter of the great "plague," which, according to all the early historians of Ncw England, destroyed many of the natives, and which is supposed to have made its ravages in 1616 and 1617.(9) The place to which Vines resorted, and where he spent the winter, was probably at the mouth of the Saco River. Another of the Sagadahoc adventurers (Sir Francis Popham) sent a ship for several years, on his own account, for fishing and trade, to the coast about Monhegan. He followed this business as late as 1614, certainly.(10)
(7)Massachussetts Historical Collection, vol. xxiL p. 248, t
(8) Williamson (History or Maine, vol. i. p. 227)says, it was in 1609
(9) Massachussetts Historical collectionl Collectiooa, vol.. xxvi. p. 67.
(10) Smith's Description of New England
The only voyage to the coast during the six years preceding the date last named, besides that annually made by Popham's ship, was one under the charge of Capt. Edward Harlow, who is said to have been sent to " discover an island supposed to be about Cape Cod." He fell in with the land at "Monahigan," and thence sailed to the place of his destination. On the coast he encountered hostility from the natives, and three of his men were wounded by their arrows; but he succeeded in making captives of five of them, with whom he returned to England. The voyage was fruitful in bad results only ; for one of the savages, named Epenow, thus ruthlessly tom away from his home, subsequently retaliated the injury inflicted upon him self and his countrymen.
It is not known that any English foot had, previous to 1614, yet pressed our soil ; and our Cape still remained without a name. But it was destined this year to be associated with that of a remarkable man, whose wonderful adventures and achieve ments give to ihe sober page of history a romantic interest, that, if history were not sometimes stranger than fiction, would seem to belong rather to products of the imagination than to the events of real life. Capt. John Smith had already been distin guished in planting and sustaining the southern Colony of Virginia; and he now gave his unsurpassed energy, and all the influence he possessed, to the foundation of a settlement on the northern coast.
In the employ of some London merchants, he set sail on the 3d of March, 1614, with two ships, and forty-five men and boys, for the coast of New England, or, as it was still called, North Virginia. On the 30th of April, they arrived at the Island of Monhegan, on the coast of Maine. " Our plot," he says, " was there to take whales, and make trials of a mine of gold and copper." After due trial, this purpose of the expedi tion was abandoned, and a more profitable occupation was fowid in trying for fish and furs, which were to be the " last refuge " to secure a saving voyage. While the ships and most of the company were engaged in fishing, Capt. Smith, with a few of his men, in a small boat, sought a more congenial employment in ranging the coast and trading with the natives. The employ ment was not only congenial, but it was one in which he had had much experience ; for he had explored the shores, rivers, and inlets of Chesapeake Bay, a distance of three thousand miles, in an open boat. In this new enterprise, he explored the coast from Penobscot Bay to Cape Cod ; within which bounds, accord ing to his own account, he "sounded about twenty-five excel lent good harbors." At the latter place he had a skirmish with the Indians ; but, within an hour after it occurred, the parties became friends again.
Capt. Smith made a map of the territory he visited, and affixed names to its most prominent parts. The outline of our Cape is not correctly drawn, and the harbor does not appear at all. In his description of the coast, he mentions "Augoam," on his map called Southampton, but now Ipswich. On the east of this place, he says, " is an isle of two or three leagues in length, the one-half plain mairsh grass, fit for pasture, with many fair high groves of mulberry trees and gardens ; and there is also oaks, pines, and other woods, to make this place an excellent habitation, being a good and safe harbor." Next he alludes to " Naimkeck," now Salem ; and says, " From hence doth stretch into the sea the fair headland Tragabigzanda, fronted with three isles called the Three Turks' Heads. To the north of this doth enter a great bay, where we found some habitations and cornfields." The isle cast of Augoam is, of course, Plumb Island ; and the " great bay " can be no other than Ipswich Bay.
It is not known that Capt. Smith landed on our Cape. The name he gave it was that of a Turkish lady, who showed him much kindness while a prisoner in her country. After his. return to England, Prince Charles substituted for it that of his mother, Queen Ann, consort of James I. The only other name given by Smith to any part of our territory was that of the Three Turks' Heads, to the three islands off the head of the Cape ; which were so called in memory of an exploit, by which three Turkish champions were successively slain by him in personal combat. This name seems also to have been soon transferred to another place ; (11) and-the three islands have long been known by their present separate appellations. Having received a name which it will probably keep as long as its rock bound coast shall resist the dashing surges of the Atlantic, Cape Ann does not again appear as a point of interest, or even notice, till about the time of its first occupancy by English resi dents ; though it can scarcely be doubted that it was often seen, , and perhaps sometimes visited, by the mariners who in the intervening years resorted to the coast for fishing, trade, or discovery.
Capt. Smith, with one of his ships, carrying his skins and furs and some of his fish, sailed for England on the 18th of July, and arrived there on the 5th of August. Hunt was left on the coast, with the other ship, to prepare his fish for a Spanish market; and, after having got them on board, sailed to Cape Cod, and thence to Spain. At Cape Cod, and another harbor, now Plymouth, this base man committed an act of vil lany, which consigned his memory to the execration of all man kind. Having, under false pretences, enticed twenty-seven of the natives into his ship, he secured them under the hatches, and carried them off, to sell in Spain for slaves. Seven years afterwards, an aged mother of three of these Indians could not behold any of his countrymen "without breaking forth into great passion, weeping and crying excessively (12)
(11) It was borne by another locality as early as 1880. Gov. Winthrop, In the journal of his passage to New England, says, " About four in the afternoon, we made land on our starboard bow, called the Three Turks' Heads; being a ridge of three hills upon the main, whereof the southmost is the greatest. It lies near Aquamenticus- Savage's Winthrop, vol. i. p. 24
(12)Young's Chronicles of the Pilgrims, p. 215
W'hile Capt. Smith was making trial for a mine of gold on the coast of Maine, another expedition, ha,ing the same object in view, was fitting out in England. Epenow, formerly men tioned, had fallen into the hands of Sir Ferdinando Gorges. He had art enough to invent a story of a mine of gold in his native place. A voyage was therefore undertaken by Gorges, who despatched a ship in June, 1614, under the command of Capt. Hobson, with Epenow on board, to guide to the desired spot. Epenow's story was, of course, a trick, to which he resorted for getting home; and soon after the arrival of the ship at llartha'a Vineyard, where he was to make good his undertaking, not withstanding every precaution had been taken to prevent his escape, he contrived to slip overboard, and, under cover of a shower of arrows from twenty canoes, to rejoin his countrymen, in spite of all the English could do with their muskets to pre vent it. Thereupon Hobson returned to England, though directed how, upon the failure of this scheme, to have spent the summer to good purpose. He must have been on the coast soon after Hunt left it; and the unfavorable termination of his voyage ia attributed to the treacherous dealing of the latter with the natives.(13)
Besides Capt. Smith and his men, other European mariners were in the vicinity of Cape Ann in 1614. He himself informs us, that at a place forty leagues westward from his station, at Monhegan, while he was trying the " conclusions " of whaling and mining, two French ships made a great voyage by trade. This place, it seems from his description of the coast, was in the great bay, north of the "fair headland Tragabigzanda." During the few years following this date, it is certain that ves sels from France visited the parts about Cape Cod ; where, in 1616 or 1617, one was cast away, the crew of which fell into the hands of the natives, who kept three or four of them, whom they used "worse than slaYes," and killed the rest. Hunt's villany left no claim for kindness to shipwrecked mariners here.
(13)Massachussetts Historical Collections, vol. xxvl. p. 132.
To that portion of North Virginia explored by Capt. Smith he gave the name of "New England ; " and, though he did not plant a colony here, his earnest and well-directed efforts to do so, and the employment of his pen and his imluence to encou rage colonization in this part of the country, merit, and will always receive, the grateful regard of the people who inhabit it.
The cargoes carried . home in Capt. Smith's ships yielded a handsome sum ; and preparations were immediately made, by persons of London interested in the South-Virginia Company, to engage in an expedition for fishing and trade to the coast of New England; The command of it was offered to Capt. Smith ; but he had already engaged himself to Gorges and others, of the Plymouth Company: and Michael Cooper, msster of the ship in which he had just returned, was appointed to the charge. Besides, the London Company did not design to make any settlement, and Smith had resolved to go only with a com pany for plantation; "for," said he confidently, "I know my grounds." But a succession of singularly untoward events prevented his coming to settle a colony, and his first voyage to New England was also his last. In pursuance of the engage ment of Gorges and his friends with him, two ships - one of two hundred and one of fifty tons - were fitted out. With these ships, - on board of which were fifteen men besides him self, who were to stay in the country, - Smith sailed again for New England, in March, 1615. He had just got clear of the coast when his ship lost her masts and sprung a leak, so that he was obliged to put back to Plymouth. Embarking again in a small vessel of sixty tons, and proceeding on his voyage, he was cap tured by a fleet of French men-of-war; and though his vessel got clear, and returned to England, Smith himself was detained as a prisoner for some time, but finally escaped in the night in an open boat, and, after twelve hours' exposure in a storm, succeeded in reaching land on the coast of France. In the next year (1616), he published his description of New England, - a work especially designed to awaken an interest in settling the country ; and, by zealous and unwearied personal efforts in the cause he had so much at heart, he succeeded in obtaining command of another expedition, which was got ready in the spring of 1617, in three ships, with a number of men to remain in the country. But this design was also frustrated. The ships were wind-bound three months ; at the end of which the season was too far advanced, and the voyage was abandoned. Discou raged by repeated failures, his friends could not be induced to make another effort ; and Capt. Smith was obliged to content himself at home with the empty title of Admiral of New Eng land, which, in consideration of his services, losses, and disap pointments, the Plymouth Company formally conferred upon him for life.(14)
The four ships fitted out :from London under Cooper sailed in January, 1615; and arrived on the New-England coast in March. They were so successful in fishing and trade, that eight ships were sent the next year from the ports of London and Plymouth ; six of which arrived safely back the same season, with cargoes of fish, oil, and furs. Two of the ships, sailing late, came by the way of the West Indies, and did not reach the fishing-ground till May, 1617.
Besides the ships before mentioned as visiting the New England shores in 1615, a voyage of Sir Richard Hawkins for the Plymouth Company is mentioned by Gorges. He left England in October, with how many ships it is not stated; and, arriving on the coast, found war raging among the natives. He sent a ship, laden with fish, to market; and then passed along the coast to Virginia, and thence, with " such commodities as he had got together," to Spain. Whether he wintered on the coast or not, we do not know; nor does it appear at what sea son his fish were caught.
(14) Capt. John Smith died in London, In 1631, aged about fifty-two. His as110Ciation of two of the mOBt remarkable events of his wonderful life with the territory of Cape Ann Invests them with a peculiar interest for us. His grateful recollection, at our Cape, of the kindness of the far-distant Turkish maiden, Chan\tza Tmgabigzanda, is an incident especially interesting. But the story is too long, even for a note. It is well told in the excellent " Life and Adventures" of Capt. Smith, by G. S. Billard, In Sparks'a American Biography.
A zeal for settling a plantation in Ncw England was still kept alive in the Plymouth Company; and Sir F. Gorges, too, was still intent upon prosecuting the work. They seem to have had this favorite object in view in sending Capt. Edward Rocraft on to the coast in one of the fishing-ships in 1618, and in making arrangements for Capt. Thomas Dermer to join him thern the same year from Ncwfoundland. Rocraft came in a ship of two hundred tons, which took a cargo of fish, and returned to Eng land, carrying the crew of a French vessel that he seized in one of the creeks upon his arrival. With this vessel and a company of men, he intended to winter on the coast ; but, dis covering that some of his company were conspiring to murder him, he put the culprits ashore at Sagadahoc, with provisions for their use, and then sailed to Virginia, where he was killed in a quarrel the next year. Dermer, instead of going from Newfoundland to join Rocraft, returned to England, and was sent from there, in the spring of 1619, by Gorges, with a com pany, to meet him on the coast. Upon his arrival at :Monhegan, he found Rocraft's mutineers, who had spent the winter there ; having, without doubt, come to the island from the main in a pinnace, which their captain probably left with them when he put them ashore, and which was now taken possession of by Dermer for his own use. These men appear to have been. the second company of Englishmen that spent a winter on the coast of New England.
In his pinnace (an open boat of five tons), Dermer coasted along the shore to Cape Cod, and redeemed at different places two of the Frenchmen who were cast away at that place a few years before. Returning to :Monhegan, he found the ship ready to depart; but, instead of going back in her, he embarked in his pinnace for Virginia, " searching every harbor and compassing every headland " as he went along. He spent the winter in Virginia, and came again to New England in 1620. In the region about Cape Cod he met Epenow, who, fearl'ul of recap ture, instigated an assault upon Dermer and his company, by which the latter lost three of his men. Dermer received four teen wounds himself, and barely escaped with one man. He then went back to Virginia for the cure of his wounds, and died there not long after his arrival.
It nowhere appears what particular work Rocraft and Dermer. were commissioned to do ; but it undoubtedly had reference to the selection of a place for a planting and fishing settlement, and such general arrangements and information as would pro mote the ends at which their employers aimed. It was already certain that the best cod-fishing ground vet discovered in the world was on the coast of :Sew England. ,'About llonhegan, "within a square of two or three leagues," where Capt. Smith found the "strangest fish-pond'' he ever saw, a single ship, in 1619, got a fare that yielded twenty-one hundred pounds in money; and, the next year, several ships did even better than that) The shores of the country, it is true, were rocky and barren : but inland were noble rivers, forests, and fertile fields ; and only industry and enterprise seemed necessary to com·ert the most favorable spots into flourishing settlements. The com mon worldly views which influence mankind, would, in time, do this ; but who should begin the work ? While this great ques tion was occupying the minds of Gorges and others, a few feeble men and women of a despised religious sect, upon the divine idea of conscience, laid the foundation of all the glory and prosperity that New England can justly boast of, and esta blished at Plymouth the first permanent colony. The most important and interesting voyage ever made to these shores, or, we may say, ever undertaken by men, terminated when the "Mayflower" anchored in Cape-Cod Harbor, in Xovember, 1620. About four months before, not far from this place, Dermer had reaped the bitter fruits of the crimes of his countrymen, and had fled, fearfully wounded, for his life. The six or seven fishing-ships that had been on the coast in the summer had long since departed; and it is not known, that, besides the Pil grim band, a single European was anywhere in the country between Hudson River and the Penobscot.
About the time of the landing of the Pilgrims, a fresh impulse was given to New-England colonization by the grant of a new charter from the king to Gorges and others, " noble men, knights, and gentlemen," conferring upon them that portion of forth America between the fortieth and forty-eighth degrees of latitude, and extending in length from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The grant gave all that cupidity could crave. This famous corporation is known in history by the name of "The Council established at Plymouth, in the County of Devon, for the planting, ruling, ordering, and governing of New England in America." Their charter, says the annalist Holmes, "was the only civil basis of all the subsequent patents and plantations which divided this country." Under its authority, some portions of the territory were overlaid with patents ; and vexatious dis putes and lawsuits were the consequences.
One of these patents was that by which, in March, 1621, Capt. John Mason, who had been a merchant in London, sea offi.cer, and Governor of Newfoundland, obtained from the Plymouth Council a grant of all the land from the river Naum keag, round Cape Ann, to the river Merrimack, and up each of these rivers to the farthest head thereof; thence to cross over from the head of the one to the head of the other ; with all the islands lying within three miles of the coast. This tract of country was called Mariana, and it was the first grant by the /· council of the territory of Cape Ann ; but no use was made of it in the way of settlement.
By virtue of a grant from the same council, Thomas Weston, in 1622, attempted to settle a colony at Wessagusset, now Wey mouth ; but his agents were ill chosen, and the enterprise soon came to an end. Another attempt to plant a colony on the same spot was made in September, 1623, by Robert Gorges, who remained in the country but a few months. A few of his people were left behind, and were probably the nucleus of the subsequent permanent settlement at that place.
Such were the attempts at colonization on the New-England shores, prior to the first occupation by Englishmen of the terri tory of Cape Ann. The continued success and increased num ber of the fishing voyages to the coast (15) led those engaged in them to seek convenient places for their stages all along the shore, from Monhegan to Piscataqua River; and finally to the establishment, in that region of the country, of plantations for fishing, agriculture, and trade. The late arrival of one of the fishing-ships at the usual resort, in 1628, led to the founding of a similar plantation in the harbor of Cape Ann, and to the settle ment of the Massachusetts Colony.
(15) In 1621 came "ten or twelve ships to fish, which were all well fraughted. Those that came first at Bilbow made seventeen pounds a single share, besides beaver, otter, and marteus' skins." In 1622, "from the west of Eugland, thirty-five ships only to fish." -Smith', New England Trials
Milton Avery