Richard of Jamestown | Page 9

we were venturing into shoal water.
Nathaniel and I used to stand by watching them, and wishing that we
might be allowed to throw the line, but never quite getting up our
courage to say so, knowing full well we should probably make a tangle
of it.

THE NEW COUNTRY SIGHTED
As Master George Percy has set down in the writings which I have
copied for him since we came to Virginia, it was on the twenty-sixth
day of April, in the year of our Lord 1607, at about four o'clock in the
morning, when we were come within sight of that land where were to

be built homes, not only for our company of one hundred and five,
counting the boys, but for all who should come after us.
It was while the ship lay off the land, her decks crowded with our
company who fain would get the first clear view of that country in
which they were to live, if the savages permitted, that I asked my
master who among the gentlemen of the cabin was the leader in this
adventure.
To my surprise, he told me that it was not yet known. The London
Company had made an election of those among the gentlemen who
should form the new government, and had written down the names,
together with instructions as to what should be done; but this writing
was enclosed in a box which was not to be opened until we had come
to the end of our voyage.

THE LEADER NOT KNOWN
There could be no doubt but that Captain Kendall and Captain Martin
both believed that when the will of the London Company was made
known, it would be found they stood in high command; but there was
in my heart a great hope that my master might have been named. Yet
when I put the matter to him in so many words, he treated the matter
lightly, saying it could hardly be, else they had not dared to treat him
thus shamefully.
However, it was soon to be known, if the commands of the London
Company were obeyed, for now we had come to this new land of
Virginia, and the time was near at hand when would be opened the box
containing the names of those who were to be officers in the town we
hoped soon to build.
As for myself, I was so excited it seemed impossible to remain quiet
many seconds in one place, and I fear that my duties, which consisted
only in waiting upon the prisoner, my master, were sadly neglected
because of the anxiety in my mind to know who the merchants in
London had named as rulers of the settlement about to be made in the
new world.
One would have believed from Captain Smith's manner that he had no
concern whatsoever as to the result of all this wickedness and scheming,
for it was neither more nor less than such, as I looked at the matter, on
the part of Captain Kendall and Captain Martin.

Here we were in sight of the new world, at a place where we were to
live all the remainder of our lives, and he a prisoner in chains; but yet
never a word of complaint came from his lips.

ARRIVAL AT CHESAPEAKE BAY
When the day had fully dawned, and the fleet stood in toward the noble
bay, between two capes, which were afterward named Cape Henry and
Cape Comfort, Captain Smith directed me to go on deck, in order to
keep him informed of what might be happening.
He told me there was no question in his mind but that we were come to
the mouth of Chesapeake Bay, where it had been agreed with the
London merchants we were to go on shore.
Standing at the head of the companionway, but not venturing out on
deck lest I should be sent to some other part of the ship, and thus be
unable to give my master the information which he desired, I looked
out upon what seemed to me the most goodly land that could be found
in all the wide world.
Trees there were of size fit for masts to the king's ships; flowers
bordered the shore until there were seemingly great waves of this color,
or of that, as far as eye could reach, and set within this dazzling array of
green and gold, and of red and yellow, was a great sea, which Captain
Smith said was called the Chesapeake Bay.
We entered for some distance, mayhap three or four miles, before
coming to anchor, and then Master Wingfield, Captain Gosnold, and
Captain Newport went on shore with a party of thirty, made up of
seamen and gentlemen, and my master, who