Arrived in London, Ralph quickly disposed of his gold to the goldsmiths for about seven hundred and fifty pounds sterling. He then sought and found a vessel which he could charter for a voyage, a small bark of thirty tons, whose captain and owner was ready for a venture. When Ralph told him he wanted to go to Virginia for a cargo of sassafras wood and furs, the captain honestly advised him to get a larger vessel, as his little bark could not carry wood enough for a profitable voyage. But Ralph could not afford to hire, and did not need, a large vessel. The captain agreed to furnish the crew and make the voyage for three hundred pounds, provided he should make it in four months, which he was sure he could do with fair winds, as he knew the "short route." He wanted seventy-five pounds a month added for every month of the voyage beyond four, but Ralph feared if he made such a bargain the captain would purposely prolong the voyage. Finally the captain agreed to make the trip for three hundred and fifty pounds, two hundred to be paid in advance for furnishing the vessel. Considering the great value of money at that time, when the ordinary wages of a seaman was eightpence a day, and everything else in proportion, Captain Nelson did not make a bad bargain.
As before said, Ralph's brother-in-law, John Somers, was a personal acquaintance of the Treasurer of the Virginia Company, as well as a member of the Company, and through his influence Ralph readily got a license to make a voyage to Virginia to trade, on condition of giving two and a half per cent. of the value of his cargo to the Company.
Ralph's next oldest brother, Henry, had been a soldier since the age of eighteen, at first in the war between England and Spain, and afterwards fighting for the Dutch against the Spaniards in Flanders. He was now at home, and Ralph engaged him to make the voyage to Virginia. Ralph's brother next younger than himself, Charles, was now nineteen. Ralph engaged him, also, promising to pay him well, although Charles would have been glad to go to America without promise of pay.
Captain Nelson furnished his bark himself. Ralph, besides his private provisions and outfit, laid in a stock to traffic with the Indians: small mirrors, small, cheap pocket-knives, glass beads, red cloth, sheets of polished brass and copper which he cut in small pieces, fish-hooks, etc. So energetically did he work that by the twentieth of March, 1609, the bark was ready to sail. Dropping down to the mouth of the Thames, they waited there a few days for a fair wind, Ralph fortunately being able to spend the time at his home.
The voyage out was a good one. Captain Nelson knew his business, and the winds were not contrary, so that in forty-eight days after leaving the Straits of Dover our adventurers passed between the Capes of the Chesapeake.
Entering the Patawomek (afterwards known as the Potomac, which name we shall hereafter use), Ralph stopped at the several Indian villages, bought what furs and skins the Indians had, and told them he would be back in ten or twelve days, and would take all they could provide by that time. The last village to be passed on the river was that of the Nacotchtanks, about ten miles below the mouth of the creek on which was the gold mine. Ralph particularly wished to gain the friendship of these Indians and impress them with his power. So, after trading with them, he gave their chief some particularly fine ornaments (in the chief's opinion) as presents. On the vessel was a small cannon. This was carefully aimed at a tree near by on the river bank and discharged. At the thunderous sound the Indians, who were gathered on the bank, fell upon their faces, and it took several minutes to persuade them that they were neither hurt nor going to be hurt. When they saw how the cannon-ball had shattered the tree like a thunderbolt, they were little less astonished than at the sound. Ralph felt confident that the Nacotchtanks would not molest him.
Leaving this village, before night the vessel anchored in the mouth of the creek, which Ralph, in memory of the cliffs he had seen along it, named Rock Creek. That night he hid in the bushes a small shovel and a pick. The next morning he gave directions to the captain to set the crew at work cutting such sassafras trees as grew near the river or creek for loading the bark. By the help of small boats the timber could be floated on the river or creek to the side of the vessel for loading. He had brought along a stout ass, which he told Captain Nelson could be used that day in dragging the wood to the water's edge. By the way, sassafras wood was then in great demand in England for cabinet-making.
In good season in the morning Ralph set out for his mine, leaving his brothers to assist in loading the vessel. He was armed with his musket, sword, and pistols. He carried the pick and shovel before-mentioned, and in a large leather pouch, slung over his shoulder with a stout strap, he carried, among other things, a small sledge and two gads or steel wedges with which miners split rock.
He found the place he sought with little difficulty. It had not been molested. After a short rest, for his journey and his burden had tired him, he set to work. With the shovel he removed the dirt from the ledge for a space of five or six feet square, and put it carefully in a pile. Then with his pick and gads he attacked the quartz dike that surrounded the gold. The quartz was much cracked and fissured, and its removal was not difficult. He soon uncovered three masses of gold five or six inches thick, and eight or nine inches in length horizontally. They were shaped like human heads. Digging down a foot or more lie found that the three masses were attached below by necks to one still larger mass. These heads were separated from each other by a few inches of broken quartz. He also found another lump of about twenty-five pounds' weight attached by a slender neck to the mass. This neck he cut through with his knife and a gad, and put the lump in his pouch. He also found a number of detached lumps, varying in size from a pigeon's egg to an orange.
At noon he built a little fire at which he broiled some meat, and made a dinner of meat and bread he had brought in his pouch.
By careful measurements and calculations he determined that he would have to cut each of the three masses or heads in two before he could handle them alone. He must work alone, for he concluded to keep the mine a secret, even from his brothers, for a time. At first he had thought of sharing the mine with them, but as the possible vastness of the wealth occurred to him, certain vague plans began to outline themselves in his mind—plans for changing the face of a considerable part of the world—plans in which he wanted no equal partners, for he knew not how far he could trust even his brothers.
When the evening sun was about two hours high, Ralph hid the small pieces of gold and his gads under the stones, and his pick, shovel, and sledge in the creek, and started for the vessel. That large lump of gold was all he wanted to carry over that rough path.
The next morning he took the ass with him, provided with a pack-saddle. He also took a box, a short saw, a thin, flat chisel, and a small crowbar. Arriving at the mine, he set to work with the saw to split one of the heads perpendicularly. He placed a cloth so as to catch the sawdust and save it. When he had cut down to the smallest part of the neck he cut one-half of the head loose with the chisel and sledge. Then he brought forth the box. He knew that if he filled a box with gold the extraordinary weight would betray the nature of the contents. So he had made a number of strong boxes about two feet long, one foot wide, and six inches deep, each with three compartments, the middle one about six inches wide. Into the middle compartment he placed the great mass of gold and blocked it around tightly with pieces of wood. Each of the three compartments was provided with a false floor about an inch from the top. This little space Ralph intended to fill with the micaceous earth so that he could open the box and allow anyone to inspect it and find it apparently filled with the earth.
Ralph was young and strong, but he found it a hard lift to place the box with the gold on the ass. This done, he tied the box firmly to the pack-saddle, put in his pouch the little lumps of gold he had found the day before, and started for the vessel. Altogether, it was the hardest day's work he ever did in his life.
In the three succeeding days he finished splitting the other two masses or heads and cutting them loose from the underlying mass, bringing home a piece with him each day. By weighing them in his room in the bark, he found that the six large pieces and the several smaller ones would aggregate a weight of more than one thousand pounds avoirdupois. This Ralph concluded was quite sufficient for that trip, and as it would require great labor to cut any more pieces from the underlying mass, he determined to let it alone. So at the end of the fourth day he put back into the hole the rock he had removed, spread the dirt over it, and covered the whole with dead leaves. The fifth day he made two trips and brought in the remaining two pieces. The tools he hid in the mud of the creek.
The next day he collected a sufficient quantity of micaceous earth and prepared his boxes for inspection. That all this time he had been hunting for gold he did not conceal from Captain Nelson and his brothers, but he did not announce having found any.
While at work alone lie was naturally considerably apprehensive on account of Indians, partly because he feared to have the Indians discover his mine, and partly from a natural fear of an encounter with the savages. But he remembered how, when Captain Smith was captured he had kept at bay two hundred savages until he had mired and was unable to fight (at least, Captain Smith said he did, and there was no one to dispute him), and Ralph felt confident of being able to stand off, if not two hundred, at least eighty, which he knew was about the fighting-strength of the Nacotclitanks and greater than the ordinary number of a Massawomek war-party. He was in little danger from the latter, for they always came in canoes, and did not wander far from the shore.
After Ralph had finished getting his gold on the vessel, he remained three days longer, for appearance's sake, to allow the vessel to be loaded with sassafras and cedar wood. Then the bark dropped down the river, stopping at each Indian village to trade for peltries. The last village left behind, the vessel bore away for the Capes, and Ralph heaved a sigh of relief when he passed between them and was on the broad ocean and bound for England.
The voyage home was uneventful, the whole expedition being made in very little more than four months.