ABSTRACT
1590 sees the end of the series of expeditions despatched by Raleigh to Virginia and the abandonment for more than ten years of his American colonizing ventures. Though it is still unexplained why John White did not make a voyage in 1589, we have now got something more than his own account of the circumstances under which he set out in 1590. The story begins with the preparation by John Watts, the greatest of the privateering entrepreneurs, 3 and his partners (who in 1591, but probably not in 1590, included 580Raleigh), 1 of three privateers in the Thames in January 1590. They were the Hopewell or Harry and John of 140–160 tons, Abraham Cocke captain, Robert Hutton master, with 40–84 men and 16–24 guns ; 2 the Little John or John of 100–120 tons, Christopher Newport captain, Michael Geare master, with anything up to 100 men and 19 guns; 3 and the John Evangelist, a pinnace, William Lane captain. 4 On 1 February the privy council, in view of the possibility of another Spanish naval attack on England, ordered all merchant shipping to remain in port, 5 and Watts’s privateers were stopped with the rest.
