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| Link | Quote | Stars | Tags | Author |
| 0968e9e | As he walked the eight miles to where the Sea Venture lay docked, passing from his old life to his new, it would have been perfectly natural for him to wonder if he would ever again see the bustling, civilized city of London with its crowds and theaters and taverns and good food and, of course, his friends at the Mermaid and his family. | Kieran Doherty | ||
| f6ee0a4 | At about the same time that Sir Stephen visited Smythe, William Strachey formalized his intention to go to Virginia by agreeing to buy two company shares for PS25. Given his financial problems, Strachey almost certainly had to borrow the money to make his investment, perhaps from his brother-in-law, Edmund Bowyer, who invested in the company a year later. In any case, Strachey's name appears on the list of investors included in the charter-.. | Kieran Doherty | ||
| 7704e2c | the Virginia Company had floated an idea that all English pirates might be pardoned if they agreed to move to Virginia. | Kieran Doherty | ||
| 827b98c | Johnson praised Virginia for its uncivilized yet friendly natives and argued that the English settlers' goals included the betterment of the savages. Of course, the truth was different, as Johnson and Gray might have known had they visited the land they praised so lavishly. The English had high enough purposes, to be sure, but they were all too ready to take by force any land they wished. The Powhatan people, of course, were just as ready t.. | Kieran Doherty | ||
| 1a818e7 | These hard men were middle-aged in their twenties and ancient if they saw their thirties, made old by poor diet and lives filled with dangerous work performed under terribly harsh conditions. Many were scarred, missing fingers or ears or eyes. Most were nearly toothless, their skin wrinkled from constant exposure to the elements. They knew of the hazards they faced at sea, knew of the brutal conditions, yet they would have rushed to sign on.. | Kieran Doherty | ||
| dbf4b00 | Virginia was seen as a convenient place to send the poor and unemployed and to dump some of the criminals who infested London's crowded streets and alleyways. | Kieran Doherty | ||
| 17ff038 | More than 650 individuals became shareholders along with fifty-six city companies and guilds, including the Company of Drapers, the Company of Grocers, the Company of Brewers, and the Company of Poulterers. | Kieran Doherty | ||
| 72d31ba | 800 people of all sortes went in these 6 shippes | Kieran Doherty | ||
| cce55c8 | For that voyage, Frobisher packed one pound of biscuit and one gallon of beer per man per day, one pound of salt meat (beef or pork) per man for each "flesh" day, as well as one dried codfish for every four men on fast days. Each man was supplied with a quarter pound of butter daily, along with a half pound of cheese, as well as four bushels of peas (pease) per man during the voyage." -- | Kieran Doherty | ||
| 81bb43b | The Sea Venture, the "admiral" of the fleet, docked at Woolwich, the bustling royal dockyards about eight miles down the Thames from central London. There she and six other ships of the fleet--the Diamond, the Falcon, the Blessing, the Unity, the Lion, and the Virginia--anchored" | Kieran Doherty | ||
| 42f52f8 | For almost seven weeks, the ships of the fleet sailed their leisurely way across the Atlantic. Since the ships' captains wanted to stay in contact, the fleet could sail no faster than its slowest vessel. That meant even the larger, faster vessels only made about five or six knots under ideal circumstances. | Kieran Doherty | ||
| a2eb57e | have been built in East Anglia in about 1603, the Sea Venture was a three-masted vessel roughly a hundred feet long from the end of her bowsprit to her stern post. The vice admiral, or second-largest ship in the fleet, was the Diamond, probably just a little smaller than the Sea Venture. She was captained by Vice Admiral John Ratcliffe, who had served as captain of the Discovery, one of the three ships of the first Virginia fleet. The third.. | Kieran Doherty | ||
| 04354b3 | William Strachey, who would later write the most detailed account of the storm, must have made his way from his quarters to the deck so he could see conditions for himself. | Kieran Doherty | ||
| 4ec41c8 | Like other ships of her time, the Sea Venture was built of long, thick planks laid flush, edge to edge and end to end over oak frames. These planks were laid just close enough to one another to allow the shipbuilder to pound caulking between the planks. This caulking, called oakum, was typically made using fibers from unraveled rope. Impregnated with tar, these fibers were packed into seams and joints, making the ship watertight. Under idea.. | Kieran Doherty | ||
| d4be138 | One unlucky sailor, who had been branded a liar by his shipmates, was given the unenviable job of cleaning the slop buckets and swabbing the privy in the ship's beak. | Kieran Doherty | ||
| 8ba977a | hurricanes" in honor of Huracan, a god of evil and destruction recognized by the Tainos, an ancient Central American tribe." | Kieran Doherty | ||
| 80645db | The admiral ordered extra lanterns flown from the flagship's high yards in hopes that the other ships would not lose contact with the Sea Venture during what he knew would be a long, difficult night. | Kieran Doherty | ||
| 0c645cc | Within days of leaving port, the ship stank of vomit and garbage and food scraps and other foul leavings that were discharged or that seeped into the ballast area. The stench was made even worse by the mingled odors of unwashed | Kieran Doherty | ||
| 9c25bda | Since the days of the earliest English voyages to the New World, ships crossing the Atlantic had typically followed a course that took them first to the Canary Islands, off the coast of Africa, and then across the southern reaches of the ocean to the Spanish territories in the West Indies before swinging north to use the Gulf Stream to carry them to the coast of what they knew as Virginia. | Kieran Doherty | ||
| 2d8b652 | Passengers were crowded together, forced to live and sleep and eat in intolerably cramped conditions. There was almost no privacy, no water for washing, no break in the tedium as the ship rolled and pitched, hour after hour, day after day, even in fine weather. | Kieran Doherty | ||
| 1958d15 | Passengers in need of toilet facilities were forced to use slop buckets that soon spilled over and added to the general miasma below or to climb into the "beak"--all the way forward beneath the bowsprit--where they would perch precariously on a seat to relieve themselves as the vessel rolled with the waves and then clean themselves using a length of rope that hung from the bowsprit so that it trailed in the ocean below." | Kieran Doherty | ||
| 26f67b3 | It soon became clear that the ships of the fleet could not maintain contact. Somers ordered the little ketch cut free, knowing that he was almost certainly sentencing all on board to death when he did so, but also knowing it was just too risky to continue towing the smaller ship. At any moment, the ketch could be pooped or broached by a wave, devoured by the ocean, and she would drag the flagship and all her passengers and crew with her to .. | Kieran Doherty | ||
| b8a498c | Miraculously, though, the same coral heads that split the ship's sides held the wounded vessel fast, upright as if she were in the jaws of a vise. | Kieran Doherty | ||
| 453cc4c | Evangelista Torricelli, the Italian physicist who invented the barometer, the instrument used to forecast storms by registering fluctuations in air pressure, was an infant in mid-1609. The instrument he invented would not be in common use at sea for another hundred years. Without science to guide them, Somers and Newport and the other Sea Venture mariners were forced to rely largely on signs and portents to warn of bad weather. | Kieran Doherty | ||
| a054c7d | Even in the best of times, meals were rough affairs. Once their private stores ran out, not long after the voyage began, Gates and Somers and all the other important men and women on the vessel were forced to eat the same bad food as the lowliest of the deckhands: a hard biscuit and perhaps some cold porridge, washed down by sour beer or foul water. | Kieran Doherty | ||
| 2572067 | The deck appeared to be nothing more than a jumble of ropes and lines. The vessel was filled with objects that seemed to have no discernible purpose. Even the sailors appeared like aliens. They dressed their scarred, often disfigured bodies in strange clothing, ran around the deck barefoot, or scampered aloft like monkeys as they mouthed words that might as well have been Greek: | Kieran Doherty | ||
| 11b1683 | Sir George Somers, an experienced mariner, was put in charge of the fleet. Roughly sixty years of age, Somers, from the town of Lyme on England's southwest coast, had a resume that included service under Essex, Sir Francis Drake, and the privateering Sir John Hawkins.30 A member of parliament, he was an accomplished mariner and navigator. His second in command as master of the fleet's flagship was Captain Christopher Newport, whose maritime.. | Kieran Doherty | ||
| 959ca71 | Even in these cramped, almost intolerable conditions, there was still the awareness of rank that permeated English society as a whole and that made Gates and Somers unwilling to cede any preference to the other. Gentlemen, even those like Strachey and Henry Paine whose purses were empty, whose shoes were worn, and whose clothing was threadbare, hardly would have mixed with those they thought of as "the lesser sort." At meals, Mr. and Mrs. R.. | Kieran Doherty | ||
| 97bf895 | The passengers and crew gathered each morning and evening and each Sunday for prayers, | Kieran Doherty | ||
| 8e8b113 | labored almost without rest to save the ship and who had urged and cajoled his fellow passengers to bail and pump and then pump and bail some more, was ready to concede defeat. He waded out of the flooded hold saying that if he was to die, he did not want to perish in the hold of the ship, but on the deck, under the open sky, in the company of his friends. But the Sea Venture was not sinking--not yet, at least. And, probably at screamed ord.. | Kieran Doherty | ||
| 051ea20 | William Strachey and the others who had battled for four days to survive the hurricane threw themselves to the sand above the high-water mark to rest and to dry their sodden clothing. | Kieran Doherty | ||
| c450086 | Though the ship seemed secure, the steady wearing of the waves or a sudden squall could easily send her sliding off the reef or batter her to pieces, scattering the valuable supplies still in her hold, supplies that would be sorely needed if they were to survive. | Kieran Doherty | ||
| c3fa40a | Slop buckets filled and quickly spilled over. Floor planks were slick with waste and vomit. | Kieran Doherty | ||
| 33e1b90 | They sit roughly 900 miles north and east of the Bahamas; roughly 600 miles east of Virginia; and about 3,500 miles south and west of London. | Kieran Doherty | ||
| 8fed355 | The largest of the Bermudas is only about fourteen miles long and about a mile wide at its widest point. The highest point of land in Bermuda, now known as Town Hill, has an elevation of just 250 feet. It is much easier to miss a Bermuda-sized target in the middle of the ocean than it is to hit it. | Kieran Doherty | ||
| 9ac7e87 | Remarkably, all 150 men, women, and children on the ship were eventually brought safely to shore. Even the ship's dog was saved. | Kieran Doherty | ||
| 7fba131 | Somehow, though, Strachey and others on the vessel found the will to keep struggling, to fight for their lives though it seemed all was lost. Terrified now, the passengers forgot all class pretensions. Sir Thomas Gates and Admiral Somers and Captain Newport joined Ravens and Strachey and Rolfe and other crewmen and passengers in the half-flooded hold, where they began frantically searching the ship's innards to find places where the planks .. | Kieran Doherty | ||
| 7b5b627 | Frantic, knowing they could be lost at any moment, the sailors began to lighten the vessel. Masts were stripped and rigging was hurled overboard along with chests and trunks and anything that wasn't tied down. Butts of beer and hogsheads of oil, cider, wine, and vinegar were staved in and emptied. All the armament on the starboard side of the vessel was dumped overboard to ease the ship's list. It was proposed that the mainmast be chopped d.. | Kieran Doherty | ||
| d682ac3 | As the realization of their continued peril became clear, crewmen and passengers--men and women and older children--clawed and battled for position along the ship's rails, terrified that the horribly wounded ship would be torn to pieces or slip beneath the waves before the boats were launched. Somehow, Gates and Somers and Captain Newport managed to impose order on the ship's terror-stricken passengers and the equally frightened crewmen. Fo.. | Kieran Doherty | ||
| 1c5c600 | turned to gaze seaward at the grounded vessel that had carried them from home to the forlorn beach, the vessel that looked like nothing more than a dying creature, parts of its skeleton already exposed, in the waning day. | Kieran Doherty | ||
| d50a026 | A sea storm attacks the senses, the mind, the spirit, until the gut is filled with terror that can make a brave man cower belowdecks, curled into a ball like a whimpering child. | Kieran Doherty | ||
| 65baf49 | During all this time, the ship--without so much as an inch of sail flying--was being driven nine or ten leagues (roughly thirty miles) in each four-hour watch. And all this time, Strachey said, those on board, even those who had never done a hard day's work in their lives, struggled to keep the sinking ship from slipping beneath the waves. | Kieran Doherty | ||
| 56d7276 | Somers and Newport, too, knew there was no way to bring the Sea Venture to anchor. Her hull was so open, her planks so sprung, that the ship would sink like one of the cannon they'd already jettisoned if they tried to anchor in deep water. Their only hope was to run on until the battered ship took the ground. Closer and closer to land the vessel inched. By this time, Somers and the others could see a beach ahead. Sir George may have wanted .. | Kieran Doherty | ||
| 73c0397 | By that point, those on the vessel were almost beyond caring. Mountainous seas, driving rain, lightning, and screaming winds continued as the ship labored simply to stay afloat. Sylvester Jourdain, Somers's gentleman friend from Lyme, later said all the men on the ship "being utterly spent, tired, and disabled for longer labor, were even resolved, without any hope of their lives, to shut up the hatches and to have committed themselves to th.. | Kieran Doherty |