On June 7, 1609, a fleet of seven ships and two pinnaces left Plymouth, England, for Jamestown, Virginia. After a few days out, one of the pinnaces returned to England, but the other, the little Virginia, remained with the fleet as the tender to the flagship Sea Venture.
Sir Thomas Gates, Lieutenant Governor under Lord De La Warr, and Sir George Somers, Admiral of the fleet, embarked on the Sea Venture, commanded by Captain Christopher Newport, Vice Admiral. These three men were leaders of the expedition and in order to avoid any dispute as to precedence, they agreed to sail on the same ship “with several commissions sealed, successively to take place one after another, considering the uncertainty of human life. Turned out to be an unwise decision!
On July 28th, a violent storm arose which separated the Sea Venture from the rest of the fleet. This “dreadful tempest” was the tail of a West Indies hurricane and lasted four days and nights.
William Strachery, who was secretary to Lord De La Warr and a passenger on the ship, in an account written in 1610, described the storm which separated the Sea Venture from the rest of the fleet. It is said that his description led to the writing of The Tempest by Shakespeare. The letter was written to a person unknown, addressed as “Excellent Lady.” Some excerpts are given herewith.
“When on S. James his day, July 24, being Monday … the clouds gathering thicke upon us and the wind singing and whistling most unusually, which made us to cast off our pinnace towing the same until then asterne, a dreadful storm and hideous, began to blow from out the north-east, which swelling, and roaring, as it were by fitts, some hours with more violence than others, at length beat all light from heaven, which like a hell of darkness turned black upon us, so much the more fuller of horror, as in such cases horror and fear use to overrunne the troubled, and overmastered sences of all, which, taken up with amazement, the eares lay so sensible to the terrible cries, and murmurs of the winds, and distractions of our company…. For foure and twenty houres the storme in a restless tumult, had blown so exceedingly, as we could not apprehend in our imaginations any possibility of greater violence, yet did wee still find it, not only more terrible, but more constant, fury added to fury, and one storm urging a second more outrageous than the former; whether it so wrought upon our feares … as made us look one upon the other with troubled hearts and panting bosoms; our clamours drowned in the windes, and the windes in thunder. Prayers might well be in the heart and lips, but drowned in the outcries of the officers, nothing heard that could give comfort, nothing seen that might encourage hope…. The sea swelled above the clouds, and gave battell unto Heaven. It could not be said to raine, the waters like whole rivers did flood in the ayre…. The winds spake more loud and grew more tumultuous and malignant. What shall I say? Winds and seas were as mad as fury and rage could make them…. There was not a moment in which the sudden splitting or instant oversetting of the ship was not expected. Howbeit this was not all; it pleased God to bring a greater affliction yet upon us; for in the beginning of the storm, we had received likewise a mighty leake. And the ship in every joint almost, having spued out her okam, before we were aware … was growne five foote suddenly deep with water above her ballast, and we almost drowned within, whilst we sat looking when to perish from above. This imparting no less terror than danger ran through the whole ship with much fright and amazement, startled and turned the blood and took down the braves of the most hardy mariner of them all…. The leake which drunk in our greatest seas, and took in our destruction fastest could not then be found nor ever was by any labour, counsell or search…. Every man came duely upon his watch … working with tyred bodies and wasted spirits three days and foure nights destitute of outward comfort, and desperate of any deliverance…. During all this time the Heavens looked so black upon us that it was not possible the elevation of the pole might be observed; nor a starre by night, not a sun beame by day was to be seene. Onely upon Thursday night, Sir George Somers being upon the watch, had an apparition of a little round light like a faint starre, trembling and streaming along with a sparkeling blaze, halfe the height upon the main mast, and shooting sometimes from shroud to shroud, tempting to settle as it were, upon any of the foure shroudes … half the night it kept with us; running sometimes along the main yard to the very end, and then returning. At which, Sir George Somers called divers about him, and showed them the same…. It did not light us any whit the more to our known way, who ran now as hoodwinked men, at all adventures, sometimes north and north-east, then north and by west, and in an instant varying two or three points, and sometimes half the compass…. It being now Friday, the fourth morning, it wanted little, but that there had been a general determination to have shut up hatches, and commending our sinfull soules to God, committed the ship to the mercy of the sea. Surely, that night we must have done it, and that night had we then perished: but see the goodnesse and sweet introduction of better hope, by our merciful God given unto us. Sir George Somers, when no man dreamed of such happiness, had discovered and cried land!”
“The storm drove the ship toward the dangerous and dreaded islands of Bermuda. Nearing the shore, the ship was caught between rocks as in a vise and held there while all the one hundred and fifty persons reached the shore in safety. As soon as they were conveniently settled, after the landing, the long boat was fitted up in the fashion of a pinnace with a little deck made of the hatches of the wrecked ship, so close that no water could enter, and with a crew of six sailors, using sails and oars, Thomas Whittingham, the cape merchant, and Henry Ravens, the master’s mate, as pilot, the boat sailed for Virginia. It was hoped, when news reached Jamestown of the safe landing of the passengers from the wrecked Sea Venture on Bermuda, that a ship or pinnace from the fleet in Virginia would be sent to take them home, but the long boat was never heard from again.”
Source: Some Notes on Shipbuilding and Shipping in Colonial Virginia by Cerinda W. Evans
History of Bermuda - Wikipedia
Bermuda was originally discovered in 1503 by Spanish explorer Juan de Bermúdez. In 1609, the English Virginia Company…en.wikipedia.org
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