When the day had fully dawned, and the fleet stood in toward the noble
bay, between two capes, which were afterward named Cape Henry and Cape
Comfort, Captain Smith directed me to go on deck, in order to keep him
informed of what might be happening.
He told me there was no question in his mind but that we were come to
the mouth of Chesapeake Bay, where it had been agreed with the London
merchants we were to go on shore.
Standing at the head of the companionway, but not venturing out on deck
lest I should be sent to some other part of the ship, and thus be unable
to give my master the information which he desired, I looked out upon
what seemed to me the most goodly land that could be found in all the
wide world.
Trees there were of size fit for masts to the king's ships; flowers
bordered the shore until there were seemingly great waves of this color,
or of that, as far as eye could reach, and set within this dazzling
array of green and gold, and of red and yellow, was a great sea, which
Captain Smith said was called the Chesapeake Bay.
We entered for some distance, mayhap three or four miles, before coming
to anchor, and then Master Wingfield, Captain Gosnold, and Captain
Newport went on shore with a party of thirty, made up of seamen and
gentlemen, and my master, who had not so much as stretched his legs
since we sailed from Martinique, was left in his narrow cabin with none
but me to care for him!
I had thought they would open the box containing the instructions from
London, before doing anything else; but Captain Smith was of the mind
that such business could wait until they had explored sufficiently to
find a place where the new town might be built.
It was a long, weary, anxious day for me. The party had left the ship in
the morning, remaining absent until nightfall, and at least four or five
times every hour did I run up from the cabin to gaze shoreward in the
hope of seeing them return, for I was most eager to have the business
pushed forward, and to know whether my master's enemies were given, by
the London Company, permission to do whatsoever they pleased.