ABSTRACT

The exploration of North Virginia, I6o2-8, the later New England (even if it was not known as such until r6I6} came into being for English ears and eyes in these years, I 602-8, and in the longer run this was to be an important event. As a small chapter in maritime achievement it was not without significance that twenty-five direct crossings, one way or the other, were made in these years without the loss of a single ship, a notable record marred only by the taking of the Richard by the Spaniards in I6o6 when she attempted the long, indirect route by way of the Caribbean. Moreover, navigators like Martin Pring, George Waymouth and Robert Davies showed that the combination of practical and theoretical knowledge which the Elizabethan pioneers like Hakluyt, Ralegh and Harriot had sought, now existed in the early seventeenth century. But alongside expertise in navigation and pilotage the routine of sending so many fishing voyages to Newfoundland on fishing fare had accumulated a body ofknowledge of seamanship in the North Atlantic which, like the parallel expertise in carrying through privateering voyages further south, could be built on successfully. The voyages of I6o2-8 may only have laid foundations for fishing, fur trading and colonisation between the latitudes 40 to 45 degrees North, but they proved to be foundations which stood later expeditions in good stead.