At midnight black and cold:
As of a rock was the shock;
Heavily the ground-swell rolled.
Longfellow.
SIR HUMPHREY GILBERT.
The Death of Sir Humphrey Gilbert.
[Sir Humphrey Gilbert sailed from England for Newfoundland with a fleet of five vessels. The largest of these (two hundred tons), fitted out by Sir Walter Raleigh, soon returned to England; the next in size was lost; and the three others were the “Golden Hind,” forty tons; the “Swallow,” of the same size; and the “Squirrel,” of only ten tons,—merely a sail-boat. The loss of their largest vessel, or “admiral,” discouraged the crews very much; and they finally insisted on returning, as appears in the narrative which follows. The original account is in Hakluyt’s Voyages (edition of 1810), vol. iii. p. 199.]
OUR people lost courage daily after this ill-success, the weather continuing thick and blustering, with increase of cold, winter drawing on, which took from them all hope of amendment, settling an assurance of worse weather to grow upon us every day.The lee-side[181] of us lay full of flats and dangers inevitable, if the wind blew hard at south.Some, again, doubted[182] we were ingulfed in the Bay of St. Lawrence, the coast full of dangers, and unto us unknown. But, above all, provision waxed scant,and hope of supply was gone with loss of our admiral.[183]
Those in the frigate[184] were already pinched with spare allowance, and want of clothes chiefly.Whereupon they besought the general[185] to return for England before they all perished. And to them of the “Golden Hind” they made signs of their distress, pointing to their mouths, and to their clothes thin and ragged. Then immediately they also of the “Golden Hind” grew to be of the same opinion, and desire to return home.