Some people have found fault with Sir Humphrey for not having exercised more forethought for housing his colonists in the winter; but the fault and the failure of the first settlement lay in the men he had been given to take out with him. For indeed many of them were lawless robbers, men who hated honest work—gaol-birds let out to avoid the expense of keeping them at home.
The bad men amongst them corrupted the weaker, and in a fortnight Gilbert had such a ruffianly crew that his heart must have sunk within him.
Some were for stealing away vessels by night and taking to piracy. One band of marauders carried away out of the harbour a ship laden with fish, after they had set the poor crew ashore. Others—and many of them—stole away into the woods, hiding themselves, and living as wild men; others lay about in drunken exhaustion. Some were sick of fluxes, and many died; and not a few craved licence to depart home.
So less than three weeks after the glad blowing of horns and booming of guns, the little colony had grown so weak and dispirited that Gilbert resolved to leave the Swallow behind, to carry home the sick as soon as they could travel, while he himself in the Squirrel, with the Delight and the Golden Hind, set out to explore the coast to the south. He preferred the little Squirrel, because she was so light and could search into every harbour and creek; for he intended to return next year and plant yet another colony, if it pleased God, of a better sort of men.
Under Cape Race, at the south-west of the island, they were becalmed several days, and laid out hook and line to fish: in less than two hours they took cod so large and so abundant that for many days after they fed on no other food. On reaching Cape Breton Isle, Gilbert intended to land; but the crew of the Delight turned mutinous, and sailed out to the open sea.
The Golden Hind and the Squirrel gave chase, but the Delight sped on faster, and her crew kept up their spirits with noisy music of drums and cornets.
Towards the evening of August the 27th, the crew of the Golden Hind caught "a very mighty porpoise with a harping iron"; they had seen many—a sure sign of a coming storm. Some declared that they heard that night strange voices which scared them from the helm. Men who would meet a known danger face to face were apt to run away from what seemed weird and ghostly. Next day the Delight, keeping ill watch, struck against a rock, and in an hour or two had her stern beaten in pieces. The others dared not venture so near shore to help them, but they could see the crew taking to their boats and to rafts in the raging sea.
Thus Gilbert lost his largest ship, freighted with great care, and with all his papers, and with her he lost nearly a hundred men; amongst whom were the learned Budæus of Hungary, who was to have celebrated their exploits in the Latin tongue, Daniel, the Saxon refiner, and Captain Maurice Brown, "a vertuous, honest, and discrete gentleman," who refused to leave his ship. One pinnace, overfull of passengers, had a narrow escape. There was on board a brave soldier, named Edward Headly, who said, "My friends, 'twere better that some of us perish rather than all. I make this motion, that we cast lots who shall be thrown overboard, thereby to lighten the boat. I offer myself with the first, content to take this adventure gladly, so some be saved."
But the master, Richard Clark, answered him thus:
"No, no! I refuse the sacrifice, and I advise you all to abide God's pleasure, who is able to save all, as well as a few."