The Gosnold Voyage of 1602: An Introduction by Lincoln P. Paine Bartholomew Gosnold was , so far as we know, the first European to come to the islands south of Cape Cod. His three-week stay on what he named Elizabeth 's Island , between Vineyard Sound and Buzzard 's Bay , heralded the beginning of sustained efforts to establish English-speaking people in North America. Two accounts of this voyage of 1602 were published , as well as a fragment of a letter from Gosnold to his father. The first to appear was John Brereton's A Briefe and True Relation of the Discoverie of the North Part of Virginia, published in 1602 with a dedication to Sir Walter Raleigh . The dedication and the final shape and tone of Brereton's narrative were motivated by complex political considerations. In 1583 , Raleigh had been granted a charter for overseas exploration under which he had sent out his Roanoke colonists . But because there was no definitive proof as to their fate . Raleigh's charter, which should have expired in 1591 , had taken a life of its own, and it seemed that the Gosnold voyage could have been in violation of his monopoly rights. When Gosnold returned to England with a load of sassafras, Raleigh attempted to have the cargo confiscated. The dedication of Brereton's narrative to him was part of an effort by Gosnold's backers , notably Bartholomew Gilbert who was also on the voyage, to avo id these legal difficulties . Raleigh's editorial influence is even more significant. In common with similar documents of the time, the aim of the Relation was to foster and encourage interest in overseas colonization in which , regardless of the particulars, Raleigh had a proven and vested interest. To this end, it was convenient to avoid any mention of hardships-such as the attack on Archer's men or the length of the voyage-which might discourage North American settlement. Another promotional aspect of the Relation was Brereton 's use , for the first time, of the phrase "the North Part of Virginia" to describe what had previously been referred to by the obscure " Norumbega," a legendary Indian city of riches on the banks of a great river. (It was not until 1616 that John Smith hit on the brilliant choice of New England to describe the region.) Nonetheless , the area was pleasant and fertile , and Archer and Brereton were surely in agreement with Gosnold 's sentiment that " it is as healthfull a Climate as any can be." Gabriel Archer' s account did not appear until 1625, when it was published in Samuel Purchas 's Hakluytus Posthumus: or, Purchas his Pilgrimes. It is a far less literary work than Brereton ' s, but it is lively , direct and certainly more frank in its appraisal of events. As Archer relates in the opening of his account, one of the specific aims of the Gosnold expedition was to establish an inhabited outpost as a trading center. Information about who
financed the voyage or what prompted it is scant, but incidental evidence for the latter seems to have been the knowledge of French establishments at Tadoussac , north of present-day Quebec , between 1600 and 1601 , and at Sable Island , 200 miles east of Halifax, which was begun in 1598 and lasted until 1603. There also seems to have been a surge of interest in exploration generally, occasioned by the re-release, in three volumes , of Richard Hakluyt 's Principall Navigations , Voiages , Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation between 1598 and 1600. Europeans were not unfamiliar with the northeast coast of America , and there is strong evidence that fishermen from Bristol and the Basque country had been fishing the Newfoundland banks as early as the fifteenth century. In 1524, Giovanni da Verrazzano had made a broad sweep of the coast between North Carolina and Maine , and poked into numerous bays and rivers. A letter describing his coastwise voyaging was published posthumously in 1556. We know from Gosnold's letter to his father that he was influenced by this letter , particularly with respect to Verrazzano 's mention of what is thought to be Narragansett Bay. Both Archer and Brereton record meeting Indians who had been in contact with the French Newfoundland or Cape Breton fisheries , as you will read , and what is remarkable in both their accounts is their lack of surprise at the Indians ' European accoutrements and language . Not a lot is known about Gosnold himself, other than that he came from a family of means and that he was engaged in privateering with his own ship as early as 1599 . As his North Virginia voyage proves , he was an accomplished navigator, and he seems to have been equally a practical man and sensible leader. He went on to have an active role in the founding of Jamestown in 1607 , which was the first English colony to take root in North America . Unfortunately, he did not live to see this achievement unfold , for he died of malaria that year, having protested the location of the settlement for its insalubrity.
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The text of Gabriel Archer' s account published here, as well as extracts from the works of Brereton and Gosnold , are taken from the texts printed in The English New England Voyages 1602-1608, edited by David B. Quinn and Alison M . Quinn (Hakluyt Society , London , 1983) . Abridgments are marked by ellipses . The only other change to the original is that " u" and " v" have been made to confonn with modem usage, for example " delivered" for " deliuered " and " upon " for " vpon. " Captain Paul Pinkham' s chart of Nantucket Sound, printed in 1791 , roughly halfway between Bartholomew Gosnold' s time and our own.
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