“The Queen is dead, long live the King!”
James I, son of Mary, Queen of Scots, sits on the throne, while Sir Walter Raleigh, the “shepherd of the ocean,” lies a prisoner in the Tower of London, spending his last days in an effort for the good of mankind—he is writing his History of the World.
Shadows, which the glory of Elizabeth’s reign had hitherto hid, are overcasting the sky of England. Thousands of disbanded soldiers are returning home from the wars. The farmers have abandoned agriculture and taken to sheep raising. Everywhere there is distress. Is there nothing for the unemployed to do?
Yes, God has opened the land of Virginia.
New hope and energy spring into life and culminate in the formation of the London Company for the permanent colonization of Virginia, the territory between Cape Fear and Maryland.
CHAPTER II
New Year’s Day, 1607. The god of winter, holding high carnival in the vaulted heavens, snatched the icy stalactites from his frozen caverns, and crushing them in his iron grasp, hurled them down upon the shivering voyagers vainly trying to make headway against the storm. His bellowing laugh swayed the writhing trees until they clashed their branches together in unbridled fury. Countless millions of snowy flowers whirled and rioted in the icy blast.
Huddled in the cabins of the Susan Constant, the God-speed, and the Discovery were one hundred and eight cavaliers of fortune. Not yet out of sight of the spires of home, discontent was already lifting its hydra-head in search of food.
“What fools we were ever to have listened to that conniving Smith,” murmured Kendall, addressing Martin standing near. “He is already hatching plots for making himself King of Virginia. Watch him seated yonder studying the map of Amadas and Barlow. See how he is knitting his brows and gazing far in the distance as he sees in imagination his kingdom in his power. I tell you, he is dangerous. Yesterday I saw him talking with that sanctimonious parson Hunt. Doubtless his reverence does not stand very well with the Higher Powers, or there would be an abatement of this cursed storm.”