More from JAMESTOWN: THE NOVEL:
But at last they could see that it was
neither a galleon nor a pinnace, but a smaller craft, a longboat with a single
spritsail. In her bow, her commanding officer began waving both arms and
shouting.
“I
come from Lord de la Warr! Is Sir Thomas Gates aboard?”
“Good
God!” Aboard the Deliverance, Thomas Gates was thunderstruck. “I don’t believe
it! De la Warr!”
Around him and on the decks of the other
three ships arose a hubbub of voices that filled the air like the humming of
beehives suddenly disturbed....
Miracle of miracles: the relief
expedition, with Sir Thomas West, Lord De La Warr, the new governor of Virginia
and three ships-- the flagship De La Warr,
the Blessing, and the Hercules-- bearing a hundred and fifty
new colonists and “great store of victuals” for the Virginia colony--had come! That
meant food at last: dried beef, cheese, salted codfish, peas, oats, oil and
vinegar, cider, beer--enough to gladden hungry hearts. As soon as De La Warr had
heard from Davis’s men at Algernon Fort what had happened at Jamestown he had dispatched
a longboat upriver to intercept the little fleet of pinnaces.
He ordered Gates and
the whole company to return at once to Jamestown. One can only imagine what the emaciated colonists thought of
this plan.
Lieutenant Governor Gates, thinking of
the Indians, was glad he had buried the cannons. They could be dug up.
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