When Captain Christopher Newport's expedition of three little ships
and one hundred and five men, sent out by the "Virginia Company" to
colonize America, after four months' buffeting by the rough winter
storms of the North Atlantic, sought a harbor of refuge in May, 1607,
they sailed into Chesapeake Bay. These three little ships were the
"Susan Constant," the "Good Speed" and the "Discovery;" and upon them
came Captain John Smith, the renowned adventurer, who, with Newport,
founded the first permanent settlement in North America, the colony of
Jamestown. The king who chartered the "Virginia Company" was James I.,
and hence the name. As the fleet sailed into the "fair bay," as Smith
called it, the headlands on either side of the entrance were named
Cape Charles and Cape Henry, for the king's two sons. Their first
anchorage was in a roadstead of such attractive character that they
named the adjacent land Point Comfort, which it retains to this day;
and farther inland, where Captain Newport afterwards came, in hopes of
getting news from home, is now the busy port and town of Newport News.
Sir Walter Raleigh, in the previous century, had sent out his
ill-starred expedition to Roanoke, which had first entered this great
bay; and at the Elizabeth River, which they had named in honor of
Raleigh's queen, they found the Indian village of Chesapik, meaning
"the mother of waters;" and from this came the name of Chesapeake Bay.
Raleigh had landed colonists here, as well as at Roanoke, and when the
"Virginia Company" sent out Newport's expedition it laid three
commands upon those in charge: First, they were to seek Raleigh's lost
colonists; second, they were to find gold; and third, they were to
search for the "northwest passage" through America to the Pacific
Ocean. So strong was the belief in finding gold in the New World that
the only consideration King James asked for his charter was the
stipulation that the "Virginia Company" should pay him one-fifth of
the gold and silver found in its possessions.
As none of Raleigh's colonists could be found, the expedition sailed
up the James River after considerable delay, and, selecting a better
place for a settlement, landed at Jamestown May 13, 1607, where Smith
became their acknowledged leader, and preserved the permanency of the
colony. This famous navigator and colonist was a native of
Willoughby, in Lincolnshire, England, born in January, 1579. When
scarcely more than a boy he fought in the wars of Holland, and then he
wandered through Europe and as far as Egypt, afterwards returning to
engage in the conflict against the Turks in Hungary. Here he won great
renown, fighting many desperate combats, and in one engagement cutting
off three Turks' heads; but he was finally wounded and captured. The
sober, investigating historians of a later day have taken the liberty
to doubt some of Smith's wonderful tales of these remarkable
adventures, but he must have done something heroic to season him for
the hardy work of the pioneer who was the first to succeed in planting
a colony in North America. After the Turks made him a prisoner, he was
sold as a slave in Constantinople, being condemned to the hardest and
most revolting kinds of labor, until he became desperate under the
cruelties and escaped. Then he was for a long time a wanderer through
the wilderness, traversing the forests of Russia, and pushing his way
alone across Europe, until, almost worn out with fatigue and
hardships, he arrived in England just at the time Newport's expedition
was being fitted out; and still having an irrepressible love for
adventure, he joined it.