PREPARER'S NOTE
This text is one of the items included in Voyages and Travels:
Ancient and Modern and was prepared from a 1910 edition,
published by P F Collier & Son Company, New York.
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
Sir Humphrey Gilbert, the founder of the first English colony in North
America, was born about 1539, the son of a Devonshire gentleman, whose
widow afterward married the father of Sir Walter Raleigh. He was
educated at Eton and Oxford, served under Sir Philip Sidney's father
in Ireland, and fought for the Netherlands against Spain. After his
return he composed a pamphlet urging the search for a northwest
passage to Cathay, which led to Frobisher's license for his
explorations to that end.
In 1578 Gilbert obtained from Queen Elizabeth the charter he had long
sought, to plant a colony in North America. His first attempt failed,
and cost him his whole fortune; but, after further service in Ireland,
he sailed again in 1583 for Newfoundland. In the August of that year
he took possession of the harbor of St. John and founded his colony,
but on the return voyage he went down with his ship in a storm south
of the Azores.
The following narrative is an account of this last voyage of
Gilbert's, told by Edward Hayes, commander of "The Golden Hind," the
only one to reach England of the three ships which set out from
Newfoundland with Gilbert.
The settlement at St. John was viewed by its promoter as merely the
beginning of a scheme for ousting Spain from America in favor of
England. The plan did not progress as he hoped; but after long delays,
and under far other impulses than Gilbert ever thought of, much of his
dream was realized.
SIR HUMPHREY GILBERT'S VOYAGE TO NEWFOUNDLAND
A report of the Voyage and success thereof, attempted in the year
of our Lord 1583, by Sir Humphrey Gilbert, Knight, with other
gentlemen assisting him in that action, intended to discover and
to plant Christian inhabitants in place convenient, upon those
large and ample countries extended northward from the Cape of
Florida, lying under very temperate climes, esteemed fertile and
rich in minerals, yet not in the actual possession of any
Christian prince. Written by Mr. Edward Hayes, gentleman, and
principal actor in the same voyage,[*] who alone continued unto
the end, and, by God's special assistance, returned home with his
retinue safe and entire.
[*] Hayes was captain and owner of the /Golden Hind/, Gilbert's Rear-
Admiral.
Many voyages have been pretended, yet hitherto never any thoroughly
accomplished by our nation, of exact discovery into the bowels of
those main, ample, and vast countries extended infinitely into the
north from thirty degrees, or rather from twenty-five degrees, of
septentrional latitude, neither hath a right way been taken of
planting a Christian habitation and regiment (government) upon the
same, as well may appear both by the little we yet do actually possess
therein, and by our ignorance of the riches and secrets within those
lands, which unto this day we know chiefly by the travel and report of
other nations, and most of the French, who albeit they cannot
challenge such right and interest unto the said countries as we,
neither these many years have had opportunity nor means so great to
discover and to plant, being vexed with the calamities of intestine
wars, as we have had by the inestimable benefit of our long and happy
peace, yet have they both ways performed more, and had long since
attained a sure possession and settled government of many provinces in
those northerly parts of /America/, if their many attempts into those
foreign and remote lands had not been impeached by their garboils at
home.
