This brave expedition was involved in a contest with a hurricane

　　This brave expedition was involved in a contest with a hurricane; onevessel was sunk, and the Sea Venture, with the three commanders, onehundred and fifty men, the new commissioners, bills of lading, allsorts of instructions, and much provision, was wrecked on theBermudas. With this company was William Strachey, of whom we shallhear more hereafter. Seven vessels reached Jamestown, and brought,among other annoyances, Smith's old enemy, Captain Ratcliffe, aliasSicklemore, in command of a ship. Among the company were alsoCaptains Martin, Archer, Wood, Webbe, Moore, King, Davis, and severalgentlemen of good means, and a crowd of the riff-raff of London.
　　Some of these Captains whom Smith had sent home, now returned withnew pretensions, and had on the voyage prejudiced the company againsthim. When the fleet was first espied, the President thought it wasSpaniards, and prepared to defend himself, the Indians promptlycoming to his assistance.
　　This hurricane tossed about another expedition still more famous,that of Henry Hudson, who had sailed from England on his third voyagetoward Nova Zembla March 25th, and in July and August was beatingdown the Atlantic coast. On the 18th of August he entered the Capesof Virginia, and sailed a little way up the Bay. He knew he was atthe mouth of the James River, "where our Englishmen are," as he says.
　　The next day a gale from the northeast made him fear being drivenaground in the shallows, and he put to sea. The storm continued forseveral days. On the 21st "a sea broke over the fore-course andsplit it;" and that night something more ominous occurred: "thatnight [the chronicle records] our cat ran crying from one side of theship to the other, looking overboard, which made us to wonder, but wesaw nothing." On the 26th they were again off the bank of Virginia,and in the very bay and in sight of the islands they had seen on the18th. It appeared to Hudson "a great bay with rivers," but tooshallow to explore without a small boat. After lingering till the29th, without any suggestion of ascending the James, he sailednorthward and made the lucky stroke of river exploration whichimmortalized him.
　　It seems strange that he did not search for the English colony, butthe adventurers of that day were independent actors, and did not careto share with each other the glories of discovery.
　　The first of the scattered fleet of Gates and Somers came in on the11th, and the rest straggled along during the three or four daysfollowing. It was a narrow chance that Hudson missed them all, andone may imagine that the fate of the Virginia colony and of the NewYork settlement would have been different if the explorer of theHudson had gone up the James.
　　No sooner had the newcomers landed than trouble began. They wouldhave deposed Smith on report of the new commission, but they couldshow no warrant. Smith professed himself willing to retire toEngland, but, seeing the new commission did not arrive, held on tohis authority, and began to enforce it to save the whole colony fromanarchy. He depicts the situation in a paragraph: "To a thousandmischiefs these lewd Captains led this lewd company, wherein weremany unruly gallants, packed thither by their friends to escape illdestinies, and those would dispose and determine of the government,sometimes to one, the next day to another; today the old commissionmust rule, tomorrow the new, the next day neither; in fine, theywould rule all or ruin all; yet in charity we must endure them thusto destroy us, or by correcting their follies, have brought theworld's censure upon us to be guilty of their blouds. Happie had webeene had they never arrived, and we forever abandoned, as we wereleft to our fortunes; for on earth for their number was never moreconfusion or misery than their factions occasioned." In this companycame a boy, named Henry Spelman, whose subsequent career possessesconsiderable interest.