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The colony at Jamestown seemed doomed to meet the same fate as the Roanoke Colony and the Popham Colony, two earlier failed English attempts to settle in North America, unless there was a major relief effort, despite the delivery of supplies in 1608 on the First and Second Supply missions of Captain Christopher Newport. Yet the investors of the London Company expected to reap rewards from their speculative investments. With the Second Supply, they expressed their frustrations and made demands upon the leaders of Jamestown in written form. They specifically demanded that the colonists send commodities sufficient to pay the cost of the voyage, a lump of gold, assurance that they had found the South Sea, and one member of the lost Roanoke Colony.
It fell to the third president of the council to deliver a reply. Ever bold, Captain John Smith delivered what must have been a wake-up call to the investors in London. In what has been termed "Smith's Rude Answer", he composed a letter, writing (in part):
Smith did begin his letter with something of an apology, saying "I humbly intreat your Pardons if I offend you with my rude Answer".
There are strong indications that those in London comprehended and embraced Smith's message. Their Third Supply mission was by far the largest and best equipped. They even had the newly constructed purpose-built flagship Sea Venture placed in the most experienced hands of Christopher Newport.
Comparably sized ships had survived such weather, but Sea Venture had a critical flaw in her newness: her timbers had not set. The oakum (a caulking) was forced from between the boards, and the ship began to leak rapidly. All hands were applied to bailing, but water continued to rise in the hold. The ship's starboard-side guns were reportedly jettisoned to raise her buoyancy, but this only delayed the inevitable. The Admiral of the Company himself, Sir George Somers, was at the helm through the storm. When he spied land on the morning of , the water in the hold had risen to , and crew and passengers had been driven past the point of exhaustion.
Whilst still being driven before the storm, the only choice was to try and pick a route through the offshore reefs. About from shore, the ship became wedged in a V-shaped gap in the reefs (in what later was named Sea Venture Shoals). (2025). 9781782970453, Oxbow Books. ISBN 9781782970453 The worst of the weather now passed. This allowed 140 men and 10 women (who mostly could not swim), and one dog, to be taken ashore in boats. The passengers and crew ferried to the beach at Gates' Bay, St. George's Island.
The survivors included several company officials: Lieutenant-General Sir Thomas Gates, the ship's captain Christopher Newport, Samuel Jordan, Silvester Jourdain, Stephen Hopkins (later of Mayflower), along with secretary William Strachey. Along with future English notables George Yeardley and John Rolfe, the Powhatan emissary Namontack and his companion, Machumps, were all stranded on Bermuda for approximately nine months.
During the time on Bermuda, the survivors constructed two new ships, the pinnaces Deliverance and Patience, from local Bermuda cedar, which was a wood especially prized by regional ship builders because it was as strong as oak, yet lighter. This misnamed juniper species could be worked with immediately after felling, and it has high resistance to rot and wood worms. Materials salvaged from the beached wreck were also used, especially her rigging. They were constructed between late fall 1609 and early spring 1610 under the guidance of Admiral Somers and James Davis, Captain of the "Gift of God" who possessed considerable ship building knowledge. These ships represented the second and third pinnaces built in the English colonies in the Americas, the first being the 1607–08 construction of Virginia at the Popham Colony in New England.
The original plan was to build only one vessel, Deliverance, but it soon became evident that she would not be large enough to carry the settlers and all of the food that was being sourced on the islands. The Deliverance was constructed under the direction of ship carpenter Richard Frobisher not far from Gates' Bay, at a beach is still known as Buildings Bay (or Building Cove). The Patience is generally believed to have been built on the at Walsingham Bay (on the western shore of Castle Harbour) said to be named after the coxswain Robert Walsingham). (2025). 9780341970989, Creative Media Partners, LLC. ISBN 9780341970989 Bermudian teacher and Lieutenant-Commander Royal Naval Reserve (Sea Cadet Corps) Dr. Derek Tully, however, has suggested St. David's Island as the construction site. In Stratchey's account:
While the new ships were being built, Sea Ventures longboat was fitted with a mast and sent under the command of Henry Ravens to find Virginia, but the boat and her crew were never seen again. Finally, under the command of Newport, the two ships with 142 survivors (of the 150-153 mariners and passengers Strachey reported surviving the wreck – Gates, Somers, Newport, and 150 others – those who died in Bermuda were: Mrs. Rolfe, the wife of John Rolfe; Edward Samuell, the sailor killed by Waters; Richard Lewis; William Hitchman; Jeffery Briars; and Henry Paine, who had been executed by firing squad. The Powhattan emissary Namontack had vanished while on a hunting expedition with Machumps and his fate was never discovered. Henry Ravens had been sent to Jamestown in command of the Sea Ventures longboat, fitted out for the ocean voyage, along with cape merchant Thomas Whittingham and 6 unidentified sailors; they returned several days later, having been unable to find a passage through Bermuda's reefline onto the open Atlantic, then set out for another attempt and were never heard of again. Two children were born in Bermuda: the daughter of the Rolfes, Bermuda Rolfe, who died and was buried in Bermuda; and Bermudas Eason, the son of Edward Eason and his wife. Minus Carter and Waters, this would give a figure of 137 passengers and crew that continued to Jamestown aboard the Deliverance and Patience, including one child born in Bermuda after the wreck of the Sea Venture) set sail for Virginia on 10 May 1610,according to William Strachey's account published in 'Hakluytus posthumus, or, Purchas his Pilgrimes: contayning a history of the world in sea voyages and lande travells by Englishmen and others'
On reaching Jamestown, only 60 survivors were found of the 500 or so who had preceded them. Many of these were themselves dying, and Jamestown was quickly judged to be nonviable. Everyone then boarded Virginia, Deliverance, and Patience, which set sail for England. The timely arrival of another relief fleet, bearing Governor Baron De La Warre, granted Jamestown a reprieve. All the settlers were relanded at the colony, but there was still a critical shortage of food. In the fall of 1610, Admiral Somers returned to Bermuda in Patience to obtain wild pigs and food that had been stockpiled there. Unfortunately, Somers died in Bermuda from a "surfeit of pork" and the pinnace, captained by his nephew Mathew Somers, returned directly to Lyme Regis in Dorset, England with the body in order to claim his inheritance. Christopher Carter and Edward Waters, who evidently had been forgiven their earlier desertion, remained behind in Bermuda, again, joined by Edward Chard, the first permanent settlers of Bermuda (Christopher Carter and Edward Waters were to be among the Counsell of Six appointed to advise the first Lieutenant-Governor of Bermuda, Richard Moore, in 1612, and amongst whom the Lieutenant-Governorship was rotated during the period in 1616 between the departure of Moore and the arrival of his successor). Memorials of the Discovery and Early Settlement of The Bermudas or Somers Islands, 1515–1685, Volume I (1511–1562), by Lieutenant-General Sir John Henry Lefroy, KCMG, CB, LL.D, FRS, Royal Artillery. The Bermuda Memorials Edition, 1981. The Bermuda Historical Society and The Bermuda National Trust. Printed in Canada by the University of Toronto Press Overall, the food and supplies brought by the Third Supply were not adequate. 80% of the colonists would die during the Starving Time of 1610. Afterwards, survivors at Jamestown had boarded Deliverance and Patience and were sailing downstream to the ocean when they met yet another resupply fleet. Lord Delaware was this expedition's leader and he turned the distraught settlers back. He had brought a doctor but food supplies remained inadequate.
After the wreck's submergence, her precise location was unknown until rediscovered by sport divers Downing and Heird in October 1958, still wedged into a coral reef. There was little left of the ship or its cargo. Despite the lack of artifacts to be found, she was positively identified in 1959, in time for the 350th anniversary of the wrecking. Subsequent research uncovered one gun and cannonball, along with shot for small arms. There were also some Spanish jars, stoneware from Germany and ceramics and cooking pots much like what had been found excavating Jamestown. Making landfall at Jamestown (2005) Accessed 22 January 2017
In the 1960s, a replica of Deliverance was displayed (in drydock) on Ordnance Island. Deeming the replica beyond repair and unsafe after decades of storms, it was demolished in 2022 (fifty years later).
In 2015, the remains of the Sea Venture hull was buried with sandbags, to protect the remnants from .
/ref> and arrived at the Jamestown settlement on the 23rd, a journey of less than two weeks. Two sailors, Christopher Carter and Edward Waters (whom some records name Robert Waters), remained behind on Smith's Island—Waters faced possible trial for the killing of another sailor and had fled into the forest. Carter, like many others of the settlers and crew, did not wish to leave Bermuda and had joined Waters in the forest to avoid being compelled to leave.
Later history
Sea Venture sat atop the reefs off Gate's Bay long enough to be stripped of all useful parts and materials, not only by her crew and passengers, but by subsequent settlers; what was left of her eventually disappeared beneath the waves. Two of her guns were salvaged in 1612 and used in the initial fortification of Bermuda (one was placed on Governor's Island, opposite Paget's Fort, the other on Castle Island).
In writing
See also
Notes
(1991). 052145817X, Cambridge University Press. 052145817X
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