Over the Seas

by Josephine Bell

  In spite of Will’s refusal Captain Smith ordered hunting parties into the forest, chiefly composed of the gentlemen adventurers.

  ‘They came here to find gold,’ Matthew Scrivenor told Alec, laughing heartily. ‘They find themselves set to hunt deer, not for pleasure, but of necessity.’

  ‘They must wish they had never come, but were back on their fathers’ lands, perhaps acting host to the King, who, I swear, is the most ardent hunter of deer in the two kingdoms.’

  ‘You speak with confidence of the King’s whims and ways,’ said Master Scrivenor, curiously.

  ‘Oh, aye,’ Alec answered, turning away to get on with his work.

  He was now engaged in building a landing stage and curing shed near to where the salt pans had been laid down. He wanted the fish to be landed where the catch would need little transportation. Also where in-shore breezes would not carry the smell of it to the town.

  September came to an end and the forest trees blazed a gold and scarlet welcome to the fall of the year. The stems of the dogwood glowed crimson: the trunks of the trees were festooned with crimson creeper. The steamy heat and sea mists gave place to clearer air with a nip of frost in it early and late.

  Alec, taking a regular crew with him, trawled the bay from its entrance to the mouth of the James River, while Matthew Scrivenor took the new pinnace into the ocean and hove to with lines and baited hooks and long spears to destroy the sharks that rose to rob them of their catch.

  One day early in the month the pinnace came sailing home far earlier than expected. She passed the shallop, where Alec was pulling in his nets, near enough for Matthew to yell, ‘A barque not ten miles from Cape Henry, making hither!’

  ‘A foreigner?’ Alec shouted back, half hoping it might be an enemy they could repel with honour. ‘A Spaniard?’

  ‘God preserve us!’ Matthew answered as they swept past, ‘I trust they do not deceive us! She bears our flag at the masthead and the Company pennant at the mizzen.’

  Alec nodded and yelled to his men to get in the trawl quickly, even if the net was only half filled. They returned to James Town at a fair speed, with the wind behind them filling the sail and the rowers pulling bravery.

  So the settlement was prepared when Mary and Margaret, Captain Newport, came to anchor in the usual spot off the main landing stage. President Smith, with Master Scrivenor beside him, the Reverend Master Hunt, the physician Dr Bagnall, with the settlers of birth and rank, including Mistress Forrest, stood by the stage to welcome the captain when he came ashore. The principal artisans and husbandmen, including Alec and the other three women, were just behind. The rest of those settlers who were healthy, on their feet and eager to see new faces, dispersed themselves along the bank of the river. They were not many. As usual, a substantial number were sick, about half a dozen not expected to live.

  Captain Newport came ashore with his principal ship’s officers and two new councillors appointed by the Company in London, Master Richard Waldo and Master Peter Winne. Newport bore a letter to President Smith. London had accepted the situation and confirmed his election, which Newport had told them was inevitable.

  Rather stiffly, for he had never felt he had gained Captain Newport’s full confidence, President Smith accepted the letter, immediately announcing to the general company that a public meeting in the Town Hall would follow in an hour, when news would be exchanged and plans for the future laid down.

  Smith then turned Captain Newport about and led him back to his ship’s boat where, stepping aboard, he said smoothly, ‘With thy permission, sir, I would have speech with thee in the privacy of thy vessel. I have a delicate, but not unfamiliar situation here.’

  He did not speak again until they were on board Mary and Margaret and sitting at the captain’s table in his cabin.

  ‘The situation is very like to that you found on your last arrival, Captain,’ he said, while Newport, silent, resentful, but attentive, waited, ‘Instead of Wingfield in restraint, I have Ratcliffe.’

  ‘And Master Martin returned with Captain Nelson. I know that,’ Newport said, rousing himself and speaking quickly. ‘But I trust no unfortunate fellow lies here in your own previous position.’

  ‘Nay,’ Captain Smith said with a grim smile. ‘I keep not my felons waiting for the rope.’

  Captain Newport’s face expressed his distaste, but he said nothing.

  In exactly an hour from the first landing, the party from Mary and Margaret made their way to the Town Hall, where all those who had watched the arrival of the big ship were waiting.

  Captain Newport made his report. He had brought with him stores of food and goods. Loud applause. Also seventy new colonists, of whom eight were foreigners, Dutchmen and Poles, skilled in the industry of house bunding and of metals. Also two women.

  The last item caused a stir, a murmur and a few audible questions, greeted by coarse laughs. As Captain Newport ignored this response and President Smith ordered silence, the captain was able to proceed with his presentation to the assembly of the two new councillors. There was more applause but of a subdued nature. Masters Waldo and Winne bowed several times, looking both astonished and fearful at the rough appearance of their future companions.

  President Smith then read aloud the orders sent by the Company to the colonists, setting out what was expected of them. Firstly they were to find and send home gold. Secondly they were to find and report upon a route to the Pacific Ocean. Thirdly they were to find, rescue or report the fate of, Sir Walter Raleigh’s colonists. Fourthly, they were to attend the court of Powhatan, the overlord of all the local tribes, explain the settlement of King James upon land that must now be considered to belong to England and at the same time serve Powhatan’s vanity by crowning him king in his own country, capable of concluding pacts, as required, with the English king. Powhatan’s man, Namontack, that Captain Newport had taken to England with him, was back in Mary and Margaret, therefore fully able to explain to his chief the great might and wealth of his new overlord.

  The meeting subdued by the obvious difficulty, if not impossibility, of the tasks demanded of the settlement, then broke up.

  Alec with his friends moved towards the door, where the former was stopped by a voice he knew.

  ‘Hast no word for me, lad?’ Captain Newport said, clapping him on the shoulder.

  Alec bowed, red-faced.

  ‘Your humble pardon, sir. I feared to set myself forward.’

  ‘Are we then grown so formal? Thy friends at home remember thee still. See, I have letters to give thee from them, Master Francis Leslie, his kinsman the alderman, and that Danish sea captain with his neat trading barque. He was lying in the Pool the three weeks of my fitting out in yonder Mary and Margaret.’

  ‘I thank ye with all my heart,’ Alec said, grasping the letters.

  ‘Away and read them!’ Captain Newport told him. ‘Come aboard me when you will. I would hear more news of the fishing. Master Angus Leslie told me thou’d never be long parted from the sea.’

  Alec walked away with a fast beating heart, moving towards the house by habit until he drew near to it and saw Polly in the doorway waving to him. He found he was stirred by the sight of her pretty face, her greater animation than usual. He did not know it was an immediate response to the unthinking kiss he had given her. But he quickened his steps until he recollected the letters in his hand. He then waved back to her but instantly decided he could not read these precious letters in her company, nor hurt her by a churlish refusal to do so. So he pushed the long sealed scripts inside his doublet and pointing towards the site of the new landing stage, where the shallop lay, still not fully unloaded, turned off in that direction. Polly, dejected, her new-found self-confidence all destroyed, watched him until he was out of sight.

  Alec found the vessel not more than half emptied, but with four members of his crew at work upon the catch. The others, they explained, were in the smoking shed, hanging up the smaller, gutted fish over a slow fire, in the Indian manner
taught them by Alec, who had it from Will Trent.

  Alec worked with them while a messenger went back into the town to find more of the errant crew. In a couple of hours the work was done and Alec was able to sit down, alone, in the stem of the shallop, to open his letters and read.

  Captain Olaf Henderson of The Queen of Denmark greeted his absent friend, rejoiced in his arrival at those distant parts and wished him further prosperity.

  ‘Survival,’ Alec corrected as he turned to the next missive.

  This was from Alderman Angus Leslie, with similar thanksgiving and praise for the efforts of his ‘dear boy’ and a short account of the merchant’s present success in trade and plans for the future. He would be pleased to consider, he said, any schemes the settlement had in hand for the export to England of precious metals and other things of value. He was a member of the Company’s council in London. If Alec could establish his own worth to them he might shortly be able to set about his restoration in the eyes of the Law.

  This meant an approach to a pardon, Alec thought, blessing the good merchant and remembering with a sudden warmth of feeling, his kindness in those distant first days in London.

  He took up the last letter. The writing was that of Francis Leslie, his dearest friend, who had sent no message the last time. With joy and a great uplifting of his spirit he began to read.

  ‘I have not wished before this to learn ought of thee, having for long considered thee lost and that thy death had wiped out that which lay between us. But time hath somewhat restored the balance. Katharine Ogilvy, my wife, hath given me a son and is already expecting her third child—’

  Alec, having read thus far, put the letter down upon his knee, a chilling fear seized upon him and for some seconds he could not bear to continue. Her third child! Then the first …?

  ‘The first, I think it will be no surprise to thee to know, is of thy begetting, though I have accepted him as my son from his birth. None know of this except those who saw him in his first days and recognised his true likeness. Nor shall any know, unless thou wish to claim him. Indeed ’tis a strong and fearless child, much to my liking, as his father, alas, was to me till this betrayal. Do not think, Sandy, that I have left in me any thought of revenge. I think that Kate egged thee on. I know that she would not have married me but to escape her shame and give her bastard a father. She hath been a good and careful wife to me. I will not say a loving one—’

  Again Alec put down the letter. Indeed, though he kept it safe, it was many days before he could bear to finish reading it. All his old guilt, his remorse, his contempt for the fleeting lust that had occasioned it, for the weakness that Katharine‘s exceptional beauty had found in him, all this drove now into his heart in burning actual pangs that brought him to his knees on the fishy deck of his shallop and forced from him real groans of pain and presently tears that had little in them of self-pity and much of self-contempt. Had he not frequented whores enough in the great city to satisfy his needs but he must debauch a silly girl, as loose in her morals as she was vague in her ideas of fame, but who was the idol of his love-blind friend? God had punished him for that single, never repeated act of infamy, in making it fruitful. Francis had suffered while he, in ignorance, thought and planned only his own welfare.

  When he was calmer, less confused, Alec tried by prayer to make his peace with God, but found little satisfaction in the exercise. He had no wish to engage the help of the Reverend Master Hunt, a prime gossip, as all knew, though saintly. Instead he walked about the plantations and the shores of the bay until the lights in the settlement went out. Then he went silently home and silently, supperless, to bed.

  Chapter Thirteen

  While the new colonists took possession of vacant houses, arranged in them the articles they had brought with them, made friends with the former settlers and in many cases tried to discover how best to employ themselves, the augmented Council discussed the orders brought by Captain Newport. President Smith was enraged by the repetition of old assumptions, long proved false or else impossible to demonstrate.

  There was no gold in their part of the New World; no gold ornaments, no gold utensils, made from ore dug up or washed in the rivers. Powhatan displayed no gold. He had a few ornaments of silver, but would not say where they came from.

  Then, the Pacific Ocean? Smith produced his latest maps, carefully and beautifully drawn and accurate, as was later proved, to an astonishing degree, allowing for the difficulty of making any observations at all from the barge and from his short sallies upon land. It was not in their competence, he declared, to mount an expedition able to fight hunger, Indians, mountains, waterfalls, disease and wild beasts in a continuous march into the interior. No one knew where the ocean lay, in which direction or how far off. True, some tribes had spoken of great waters in the north-west, but seeing how many wide rivers flowed into this Chesapeake Bay, might not their tales relate to an even larger main stream from which all flowed, or even to a great lake? London had no conception of the distances, the size of things, in this vast unexplored territory.

  The new councillors were impressed. They had already suffered some disillusionment, for they had been told of glittering prospects for any man of a sturdy, inquisitive nature. But here they found conditions worse than in any poor village at home deserted by its squire or decimated by the plague, that recurrent scourge.

  It was some knowledge of the plague that guided a number of the new settlers in making their homes. Where a hut or a house had been emptied by the dread dysentery, they cleaned it thoroughly, scraped down the walls, burned the existing furniture and any loose materials of any kind, dug over the floor and boarded it afresh with tarred wood sanded over to make a fine dry surface.

  These actions promoted a campaign, long due, to improve the sanitation of the town and though many newcomers suffered from the ague and other ills as winter advanced, the killing dysentery did diminish and the number of deaths by the spring of the next year, though serious, were more than halved from those of the first settlement.

  Captain Newport found the result of the Council’s deliberations most unsatisfactory. He was appalled to find so little progress made in establishing the settlement on a self-providing basis. Apart from the President’s two explorations with their meagre results, nothing had been accomplished, nothing really attempted. True, the chickens he had landed on his first arrival had made their natural increase, particularly those in the charge of Mistress Sugden, who understood their maintenance. The three sows had farrowed and the next pig generation would show an increasing number of productive animals as well as some for food. But the number of unskilled wastrels was as great as ever; young Master Scrivenor had not been able, in the absence of a firmer hand, to get them to make the least effort. And now here was President Smith, instead of supporting him, speaking of further exploration as undesirable, if not impossible, except for necessary food. He was driven to go about the town asking questions, describing the London Company’s dissatisfaction and complaining bitterly at the lack of any really valuable cargo to take back with him.

  At last William Trent agreed to produce his furs. Captain Newport was delighted. There was no point in giving money for them, he explained, but he would issue to Master Trent the equivalent in shares of the Company. He explained the system of joint-stock holding. Will was sceptical.

  ‘’Tis money of a kind, but that kind be in England, say’st?’ he argued. ‘Nowt of use to me an I do not return t’ it and that I never shall.’

  ‘You mean to stay here, then?’

  Will looked sidelong at the captain, a strange look, part cunning, part vagueness. Newport remembered his history and a discussion of his case he had held with Namontack, the Indian, one night at sea. So he did not press his question, but said, ‘You believe James Town will prosper, then?’

  While he again waited for a reply, but not receiving any, Alec came in, listened and then said, ‘Our Will hath a certain experience. Not personal only, Captain. He showed me a
stone with a date on it. Tell him, Will.’

  But Master Trent was not in the mood for further conversation, so they left him.

  ‘You must persuade him to show me this stone,’ Captain Newport said. ‘Mayhap ‘tis the evidence we seek for the fate of Roanoke.’

  ‘I think that be so,’ Alec answered. ‘The only evidence unless more stones exist. There is no white settlement but ours in the whole kingdom of the Algonquin nation. That I am sure of.’

  Left with his fourth order, the crowning of Powhatan, Captain Newport persuaded the President to make it a worthy occasion. He had brought with him a copper crown, some ornaments decorated with semi-precious jewels, also several articles of doubtful utility.

  Captain Smith was willing enough. It was time the settlement had some kind of festival to lift their drooping hearts before the coming winter. The new settlers were a more promising lot than the last, nearly all artisans of one kind or another. Perhaps the Poles would know how to find silver and work it and the Dutch seemed to have skills in house building. Some of the Englishmen had already joined John Laydon in his glass production.

  The women, too, might prove valuable or perhaps only a danger, promoting brawls. So far one of them, Joan Cook, had promised herself in marriage to a carpenter, while the other, keeping herself demurely aloof during the voyage, had now been approached by Mistress Forrest. With Anne’s marriage arranged for the early spring, the lady had need of a maid to replace her. Besides, the younger brother of Bartholomew Gosnold, Mistress Forrest’s deceased relative, had arrived in Mary and Margaret. She had welcomed this Anthony Gosnold with great joy and taken him into her house, but on Anne’s departure, would find it difficult to keep him without domestic help, she said.

  But Rose Bartlett had not engaged herself to Mistress Forrest, nor had she refused. Meanwhile the one-roomed hut she had quietly taken over, and which was already called ‘The Honeypot’, received an unending stream of kind neighbours, bearing gifts of varying sorts, also offers to do any interior work that was needed to make the place habitable. Mistress Bartlett accepted the gifts at the door but discreetly refused the offers. Though Alec, going out to his shallop early each morning, did see a succession of figures walking away from ‘The Honeypot’ and smiled sourly at the upright backs and springy gait of several formerly dejected young gentlemen.