Family Connections - Are They Important?

Sir Humphrey Gilbert’s American Voyages

Few Americans realize the magnitude of planning that was involved in the settlement of Jamestown.  In reality, it was as well designed as America’s space program which put a man on the moon. 

 

Sir Humphrey Gilbert

Walter Raleigh’s half brother, Sir Humphrey Gilbert was convinced that Americas was the most promising field for economic development for younger sons of the gentry as there was neither land to be hand nor economic enterprise for them to engage in England.  It is important to note that he had known Richard Hakluyt, the elder, who as a lawyer recognized that his primary financial interest was in the economics of the areas which he knew of through his correspondence with those in Spanish Mexico and Portuguese India.  Hakluyt also consulted with merchants about the chances of English oversea voyages as a new area of speculative investment. 

By 1578, Sir Humphrey Gilbert had reached the conclusion that the area that we now know as North America was ripe for a speculative investment and intervention which would reap riches and power.    Having some power at the Court of Queen Elizabeth, Gilbert persuaded her to give him more or less a blank check to engage in an imperial land and commerce venture in the West.  

It is possible, thought not proven, that Sir Francis Walsingham who was Elizabeth’s  secretary of state,  may have chosen to aid Gilbert’s cause as it is known that Walsingham disliked Spain and would have enjoyed seeing her humiliated by the English.  

 

Patent Awarded To Sir Humphrey Gilbert Showing Newfoundland and The Chesapeake Bay

Sir Humphrey Gilbert’s Patent

11 June 1578

This patent was unbelievably vague.  It gave Gilbert the right to explore lands not possessed by any Christian prince or people and to occupy them in the Queen’s name.  He had the right to take Englishmen with him who would remain or settle the area under the Queen’s allegiance, but Gilbert would have extensive rights to govern any settlements he might create, though the settlers would retain all their rights under English law and custom.  Gilbert could resist challenges to his authority.  This was interrupted to mean he could enforce his rule over the inhabitants as well as all Europeans.    For all of these things he would owe the Queen only one-fifth of all the gold and silver ore that might be found.   Gilbert accepted the grant which gave him monopoly rights extending from Spanish Florida to the Arctic including the Northwest Passage, if it should be found,  even though no limits were actually set.     

Was Gilbert able to carry off such an enterprise?    He most certainly had timed his venture right to appeal  to many of the courtiers,  to the West Country gentlemen that he knew,  and most of all to the piratical sea captains who had been carrying on a sea war against Spain and in reality, stealing other ships too.  There were ten heavily armed ships waiting in Plymouth harbor in November 1578 waiting to sail when there was a split caused by Henry Knollys, son of the Queen’s vice-chamberlain, Sir Francis Knollys, who refused to acknowledge Gilbert’s authority.   Knolly’s sailed off with three ships to carry out piratical attacks off the coasts of Western Europe.   This left Gilbert with seven vessels which included the Squirrel, a tiny vessel of only eight ton to which Gilbert was extremely attached.

Sir Walter Raleigh

Sir Humphrey Gilbert had involved his half brother, Walter Raleigh very heavily in this venture.  The great  Plymouth merchant, William Hawkins had refitted the Falcon, an old royal vessel for Raleigh’s first sea venture.  The Falcon was eighty tons and her pilot was the Portuguese, Simon Fernandes.    Off of the coast of the Scilly Isles the ship began to leak and held Gilbert back.  His ships were caught in a storm and forced to take shelter in Cork Harbour.  It appears that only the Falcon and one other vessel were able to get away.  Gilbert returned to  Plymouth with the rest.  The Falcon ran down the Atlantic coast to the Canaries as their supplies were low and the ship was increasingly unseaworthy.  By May  the Falcon was back in England.  Gilbert then went off to do Irish service for the Queen to recoup some of his losses.  

In 1580, Gilbert took out proceedings against William Hawkins in the Court of Chancery stating that the Falcon was ill-found for the voyage and demanded damages. [Quinn,D.B., Alison M. Quinn, and Susan Hiller, eds., New American World: A Documentary History of North America to 1612, 5 vols. [NewYork: Arno Press and Hector Bye, Inc., 1979], 3:3:204-9.]  Simon Fernandes, the pilot [captain] gave evidence about the ship as did Walter Raleigh who knew the Hawkins family well.  It seems that  Raleigh was very cautious about what he said about the defects of the ship and did not greatly help his half brother’s case against Hawkins.

It is important to note that at this time [3 February 1580] Walter Raleigh was noted as being “one of the extraordinary Esquires of the Body of the Queen’s Majesty.”   He knew Simon Fernandes , Sir Francis Walsingham and the Earl of Leicester very well.

Sir Humphrey Gilbert began a new campaign for capitalizing on his American venture by outright selling lands and commercial privileges in North America.  Simon Ferenandes had made a rapid visit to what we assume to have been Norumbega  or modern day New England in 1580.   Gilbert  was specifically targeting Verrazzano’s “Refugio,” or Narragansett Bay which had appeared on many maps.   There were many, including Catholic gentlemen who were threatened by increasing fines for nonconformity, courtiers like Sir Philip Sidney, some London merchants and some of the citizens from the declining port of Southampton who were all gradually drawn into Gilbert’s plan.

Queen Elizabeth I

On the 11 June 1583, after much planning and many problems Sir Humphrey Gilbert set sail.  Walter Raleigh must have been very disappointed to see his two hundred ton vessel, Bark Ralegh, sail without him; but, the Queen would not permit him to leave.   After two days, The Bark Ralegh under the command of Michael Butler who was a former lieutenant of Raleigh’s in Ireand, turn back and deserted Gilbert which fatally weakened the expedition.  Gilbert accused Raleigh’s men of being  cowards, but there is evidence that there was sickness on board and that the food supply was inadequate for the Atlantic crossing.  Regardless of the reason, Raleigh had no share in Gilbert’s last fatal enterprise.

In a ceremony at St. John’s Harbor, Gilbert annexed Newfoundland.  This was more or less a symbolic act of possession with the possibility of taxing the fish taken by the hundreds of vessels that visited the shore in the summer; however, the main purpose was to work the coastline to allocate lands for himself and for the many subscribers who had purchased about twenty million acres from him, sight unseen.   The wrecking of the Delight on Sable Island left Gilbert with only two vessels,  one of which was the tiny, Squirrel [eight tons]  in which he was lost at sea  off of  the Azores.

Edward Hayes returned to England in the Golden Hind on 22 September 1583 telling of the advantages of holding Newfoundland.  Sir George Peckham, who was one of Sir Humphrey Gilbert’s supporters made a final attempt to arouse support for a venture of his own, but he had to admit defeat in January 1584.

Humphrey Gilbert assigned his rights north of 50 degrees to Dr. John Dee, but Dee passed these rights on to his brother Adrian Gilbert when he left for an extended visit to the continent in September.  Adrian Gilbert had these rights confirmed by patent on 6 February 1584, though it was left to the London merchant William Sanderson and others to finance the voyages made by John Davis under this patent between 1585 and 1587.  The rights, too, of Sir John Gilbert, as Sir Humphrey’s heir, had to be safeguarded, or at least the fishing interests assured so that a fresh attempt would not be made to control them.  Thus, when all of these things had been settled, the way was clear for the drafting of a patent for Raleigh, dated 16 March 1584 which was formally issued on 25 March 1584 which was to last for seven years only if he had not established a settled colony within that period.