Only a few days after the colonists of 1606 selected Jamestown Island as the place of settlement, Newport began to fit out a shallop to continue the exploration of the Powhatan towards the west in obedience to instructions received from the Council in England. The party who were chosen to accompany him were five gentlemen, four mariners, and fourteen sailors. The insignificance of the vessel, and the smallness of the number of persons forming the force, show very plainly that both Newport and his companions supposed that the journey from sea to sea would be short, and, therefore, required no elaborate preparations for its successful performance.[1] This impres-
- ↑ The object which the Council in England had immediately in view in instructing Newport to explore the river upon which the settlement was to be made, as far as it was navigable, was not to discover the distance to the South Sea, but to enable the colonies to choose the “strongest, most wholesome, and fertile place” as a site of their proposed town. Works of Capt. John Smith, p. xxxiv. It is impossible, however, not to believe that in the state of geographical knowledge prevailing at that time, the principal hope animating Newport and his companions in the voyage to the Falls related to the existence of the South Sea at a point attainable from the head of the stream which they were navigating. This is to be inferred from the account given in the Relatyon of the Discovery of our River (p. xli), written by one of the persons who took part in it. In an interview with an Indian, who laid out the course of the river, he told us (that is, Newport and his company) of two Iletts in the Ryver we should passe by, meaning that one whereon we were, and then come to an overfall of water, beyond that of two Kyngdomes, which the Ryver runs by, then a great distance off the Mountains Quirauk as he named them, beyond which by his relation is that which we expected. (That is, the South Sea.) This fellow parting from us promised to procure us
recent residence in that country, he declared that the colonists, in order to acquire mastery of the South Sea, had “determined to erect a fort at the end of every day’s march of the ten days’ march which lay between the head of their river and the South Sea * * * This they hope to accomplish in a short time, because they do not intend to fortify them very strongly, but only so much as would suffice to defend themselves against these savages.” Spanish Archives, Brown’s Genesis of the United States, p. 397.
