The Sea: Its Stirring Story of Adventure, Peril, & Heroism. Volume 2

THE NAVAL FLAGS OF THE WORLD.
BY F. WHYMPER, AUTHOR OF “TRAVELS IN ALASKA,” ETC.

Extent of the Subject—The First American Colony—Hostilities with the Indians—117 Settlers Missing—Raleigh’s Search for El Dorado—Little or no Gold discovered—2,000 Spaniards engage in another Search—Disastrous results—Dutch Rivalry with the English—Establishment of two American Trading Companies—Of the East India Company—Their first Great Ship—Enormous Profits of the Venture—A Digression—Officers of the Company in Modern Times—Their Grand Perquisites—Another Naval Hero—Monson a Captain at Eighteen—His appreciation of Stratagem—An Eleven Hours’ hand-to-hand Contest—Out of Water at Sea—Monson two years a Galley Slave—Treachery of the Earl of Cumberland—The Cadiz Expedition—Cutting out a Treasure Ship—Prize worth £200,000—James I. and his Great Ship—Monson as Guardian of the Narrow Seas—After the British Pirates—One of their Haunts—A Novel Scheme—Monson as a Pirate himself—Meeting of the Sham and Real Pirates—Capture of a Number—Frightened into Penitence—Another caught by a ruse.
About one hundred men formed the first little colony landed in Virginia from the expedition of Greenville in 1585. Raleigh, at his own expense, sent a shipload of supplies for them next year, but before it arrived the settlers, and the very Indians of whom such flattering accounts had been given, had quarrelled, and so many of the former had fallen as to imperil the existence of the colony; the survivors thought themselves fortunate when Drake unexpectedly arrived off the coast, and took them away. When Greenville reached the settlement, a couple of weeks after, they had left no tidings of themselves, and, wishing to hold possession of the country, he landed fifteen men, well furnished with all necessaries for two years’ use, on the island of Roanoake. This voyage paid its expenses by prizes taken from the Spaniards, and by the plunder of the Azores on the way home, where they spoiled “some of the towns of all such things as were worth carriage.”