In
September 1610, two of Lord De La Warr’s ships, the Blessing and the Hercules,
returned to England with unwelcome, disturbing news about Virginia. The
Virginia Company’s Jamestown settlement was still full of sick and hungry
colonists and, worse yet, there were no profits in sight. Investors looked in vain for their
returns.
The Spanish spy network in London
was full of predictions that England’s failing colony would soon be dead. On
September 30 Ambassador Velasco wrote to King Philip about news he had from one
of his key London sources, one “Guillermo Monco.” This was Sir William Monson,
former privateer, veteran of the battle of the Spanish Armada, one-time
prisoner of the Spanish in Lisbon, and, since 1604, Admiral of the Narrow Seas
[English Channel]. He was also a spy, handsomely paid for leaking English plans
to the Spanish ambassador. Monson told Velasco that the English were desperate
to recoup their investments in Virginia and were planning to send another large
expedition there early in 1611. Spain needed to move now to “drive out the few
people that have remained there, and are so threatened by the Indians that they
dare not leave the fort they have erected.”
The
Spanish ambassador was not far wrong.
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