Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 1.djvu/234

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soil for the desired crops.^[1] Dale decided to erect a new town at some point enjoying natural advantages, both in climate and situation, superior to those of Jamestown. While waiting until the planting at Kecoughtan was finished, a large number of persons who would be required in the construction of the projected town being engaged in that work, he set men to felling timber and fashioning rails, palings, and posts to be used as soon as the building should begin. When the completion of the planting at Kecoughtan permitted him to act, he proceeded very cautiously before he finally selected a site combining the advantages which he wished to secure. He first explored the Nansemond and afterwards the Powhatan. Many weeks must have been absorbed in these excursions, for it was not until September that he led a large body of colonists to Henrico, the modern Farrar’s Island, the spot which he had chosen for the new settlement.^[2] Sir Thomas Gates

↑ Dale to the Virginia Council in England, Brown’s Genesis of the United States, p. 493.
↑ Ralph Hamor’s True Discourse, p. 26. There is a sentence in the letter Dale Wrote to Salisbury in April, 1611, which at the first glance would appear to mean that he had been instructed before he left England to found a town on the site of Henrico: “At Arsahattacks . . . I have surveied a convenient, strong, healthie and sweete Seate to plant a new towne in (according as I had in nmy instructions upon my departure) there to build, from whence might be no more remove of the principall Seate.” Brown’s Genesis of the United States, p. 504. It is quite certain that Dale intended merely to say that he had on his departure from England received instructions to build a “new towne in Virginia,” and that he had “surveied Arsahattacks as a convenient, strong, healthie and sweete Seate” for this “new towne.” This is the only interpretation consistent with the excursion that he had made to Nansemond, to which not only Hamor testifies, but also Whitaker. See Brown’s Genesis of the United States, p. 498, where references to the exploration of both the Powhatan and the Nansemond by Dale will be found in a letter from Whitaker to Crashaw. Hamor declares specifically that when Dale arrived he had not determined upon the locality for the site of the new town. Works of Capt. John Smith, p. 507.

[1] Dale to the Virginia Council in England, Brown’s Genesis of the United States, p. 493.

[2] Ralph Hamor’s True Discourse, p. 26. There is a sentence in the letter Dale Wrote to Salisbury in April, 1611, which at the first glance would appear to mean that he had been instructed before he left England to found a town on the site of Henrico: “At Arsahattacks . . . I have surveied a convenient, strong, healthie and sweete Seate to plant a new towne in (according as I had in nmy instructions upon my departure) there to build, from whence might be no more remove of the principall Seate.” Brown’s Genesis of the United States, p. 504. It is quite certain that Dale intended merely to say that he had on his departure from England received instructions to build a “new towne in Virginia,” and that he had “surveied Arsahattacks as a convenient, strong, healthie and sweete Seate” for this “new towne.” This is the only interpretation consistent with the excursion that he had made to Nansemond, to which not only Hamor testifies, but also Whitaker. See Brown’s Genesis of the United States, p. 498, where references to the exploration of both the Powhatan and the Nansemond by Dale will be found in a letter from Whitaker to Crashaw. Hamor declares specifically that when Dale arrived he had not determined upon the locality for the site of the new town. Works of Capt. John Smith, p. 507.

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