Sea Venture
 Artist's interpretation of Sea Venture on a Bermuda stamp, 1910 | |
| History | |
|---|---|
| Name | Sea Venture, Sea Adventure,[1] Seaventure,[2] Sea-Vulture[3] |
| Owner | Lionel Cranfield, 1st Earl of Middlesex[4] |
| Launched | probably 1603 |
| Fate | Wrecked |
| General characteristics | |
| Class & type | galleon[5]: 128 |
| Tonnage | 300 tons |
| Armament |
|
Sea Venture was a seventeenth-century English sailing ship, part of the Third Supply mission flotilla to the Jamestown Colony in 1609. She was the 300 ton flagship of the London Company. During the voyage to Virginia, Sea Venture encountered a tropical storm and was wrecked, with her crew and passengers landing on the uninhabited Bermuda. Sea Venture's wreck is widely thought to have been the inspiration for William Shakespeare's 1611 play The Tempest.
The Virginia Company
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The proprietors of the London Company had established the settlement of Jamestown in Virginia in 1607, and delivered supplies and additional settlers in 1608, raising the English colony's population to 200, despite many deaths. The entire operation was characterized by a lack of resources and experience. The company's fleet was composed of vessels that were less than optimal for delivering large numbers of passengers across the Atlantic Ocean, and the colony itself was threatened by starvation, diseases, and warfare with native peoples.
The colony at Jamestown seemed doomed to meet the same fate as the Roanoke Colony and the Popham Colony, two earlier failed English attempts to settle in North America, unless there was a major relief effort, despite the delivery of supplies in 1608 on the First and Second Supply missions of Captain Christopher Newport. Yet the investors of the London Company expected to reap rewards from their speculative investments. With the Second Supply, they expressed their frustrations and made demands upon the leaders of Jamestown in written form. They specifically demanded that the colonists send commodities sufficient to pay the cost of the voyage, a lump of gold, assurance that they had found the South Sea, and one member of the lost Roanoke Colony.
It fell to the third president of the council to deliver a reply. Ever bold, Captain John Smith delivered what must have been a wake-up call to the investors in London. In what has been termed "Smith's Rude Answer", he composed a letter, writing (in part):
When you send againe I entreat you rather send but thirty Carpenters, husbandmen, gardiners, fishermen, blacksmiths, masons and diggers up of trees, roots, well provided; than a thousand of such as wee have: for except wee be able both to lodge them and feed them, the most will consume with want of necessaries before they can be made good for anything [sic].[6]
Smith did begin his letter with something of an apology, saying "I humbly intreat your Pardons if I offend you with my rude Answer [sic]".[7]
There are strong indications that those in London comprehended and embraced Smith's message. Their Third Supply mission was by far the largest and best equipped. They even had the newly constructed purpose-built flagship Sea Venture placed in the most experienced hands of Christopher Newport.
Construction
[edit]Sea Venture was most likely built in 1603 and used in trade with the Low Countries – though there are competing theories which do not stand scrutiny. The archaeological evidence suggests that she was not a newly built vessel at the time of her loss. She was, however, built according to the latest methods for the early 17th century. As such her shape is a development from vessels such as Mary Rose. Her hull shape can be extrapolated from the limited archaeological remains to show a stable hull (even allowing for some inaccuracies in that process) – a finding that is confirmed by her surviving a hurricane (it was a leak that was the problem that arose during the storm).[5]: 117–135, 145
Voyage, the storm, and loss in Bermuda
[edit]On 12 June [O.S. 2 June] 1609, Sea Venture set sail from Plymouth, England as the flagship of a seven-ship fleet (towing two additional pinnaces) destined for Jamestown, Virginia as part of the Third Supply, carrying 500 to 600 people (it is unclear whether that number includes crew, or only settlers). Normally, ships destined for North America from Europe sailed south as far as the Canary Islands as at that latitude the mean direction of the wind is to the West, pushing them across the Atlantic (ships returning to Europe turned eastward at the Carolinas, as at that latitude the mean wind direction is to the East), then followed the chain of west Indian islands to Florida and from there followed the Atlantic coast of the continent. However, with the West Indies firmly in the grip of the Spanish Empire, the English fleet turned Northwards in the open Atlantic, intending to bypass the Spanish threat and head directly for Virginia. Days away from Jamestown, on 24 July, the fleet ran into a strong tropical storm, likely a hurricane, and the ships were separated. A pinnace, Catch, went down with all aboard lost.[8] Sea Venture however, fought the storm for three days. Among sheets of rain and tearing wind, passengers witnessed St. Elmo's fire atop the masts.[9]
Comparably sized ships had survived such weather, but Sea Venture had a critical flaw in her newness: her timbers had not set. The oakum (a caulking) was forced from between the boards, and the ship began to leak rapidly. All hands were applied to bailing, but water continued to rise in the hold. The ship's starboard-side guns were reportedly jettisoned to raise her buoyancy, but this only delayed the inevitable. The Admiral of the Company himself, Sir George Somers, was at the helm through the storm. When he spied land on the morning of 3 August [O.S. 25 July] 1609, the water in the hold had risen to 9 feet (2.7 m), and crew and passengers had been driven past the point of exhaustion.
Whilst still being driven before the storm, the only choice was to try and pick a route through the offshore reefs. About 0.5–0.75 miles (0.80–1.21 km) from shore, the ship became wedged in a V-shaped gap in the reefs (in what later was named Sea Venture Shoals).[5]: 117–119 [10] The worst of the weather now passed.[5]: 119 [a] This allowed 140 men and 10 women (who mostly could not swim[11]), and one dog, to be taken ashore in boats.[b] The passengers and crew ferried to the beach at Gates' Bay, St. George's Island.
The survivors included several company officials: Lieutenant-General Sir Thomas Gates, the ship's captain Christopher Newport, Samuel Jordan, Silvester Jourdain, Stephen Hopkins (later of Mayflower), along with secretary William Strachey. Along with future English notables George Yeardley and John Rolfe, the Powhatan emissary Namontack and his companion, Machumps,[14] were all stranded on Bermuda for approximately nine months.
Deliverance and Patience
[edit] | This section may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. The specific problem is: Contradicting accounts, too much detail. (June 2024) |
The settlers were unwilling to move on, having now heard about the true conditions in Jamestown from the sailors, and made multiple attempts to rebel and stay in Bermuda. They argued, as the Mayflower passengers later argued, that they had been freed from their contract by the hurricane and shipwreck, and could now choose their own government. Governor Gates suppressed escape attempts, and the new settlement became a prison labour camp, with settlers forced to build ships to carry them away against their wills.[15]
During the time on Bermuda, the survivors constructed two new ships, the pinnaces Deliverance and Patience, from local Bermuda cedar,[citation needed] which was a wood especially prized by regional ship builders because it was as strong as oak, yet lighter. This misnamed juniper species could be worked with immediately after felling, and it has high resistance to rot and wood worms. Materials salvaged from the beached wreck were also used, especially her rigging.[c] They were constructed between late fall 1609 and early spring 1610 under the guidance of Admiral Somers and James Davis, Captain of the "Gift of God" who possessed considerable ship building knowledge. These ships represented the second and third pinnaces built in the English colonies in the Americas, the first being the 1607–08 construction of Virginia at the Popham Colony in New England.[citation needed]
The original plan was to build only one vessel, Deliverance, but it soon became evident that she would not be large enough to carry the settlers and all of the food that was being sourced on the islands. The Deliverance was constructed under the direction of ship carpenter Richard Frobisher not far from Gates' Bay, at a beach is still known as Buildings Bay (or Building Cove).[16][17] The Patience is generally believed[better source needed] to have been built on the at Walsingham Bay (on the western shore of Castle Harbour) said to be named after the coxswain Robert Walsingham).[18][19][20] Bermudian teacher and Lieutenant-Commander