Netherlands of America.[1] This wealth of navigable rivers was to exercise an extraordinary influence upon the future of the country. At every half mile of their course, there were safe roads for great fleets, allowing masters of ships to sail wherever it was most agreeable to the convenience of the planters, who were thus furnished at their very doors with highways leading directly to England and other foreign countries. Not only were the main streams, the York, Powhatan, Potomac, and Rappahannock, full of safe and spacious harbors, but the streams of secondary importance, the Nansemond, Chickahominy, Pocoson, Pamunkey, Mattapony, Corotoman, Wicocomico, and Pyanketank were deep enough in their lower stretches to afford the amplest room for very large merchantmen.[2] It was soon discovered that most of the rivers were distinguished at their mouths for the narrowness of their channels. When the first colonists attempted, in the spring of 1607, to make their way into the present Hampton Roads, the soundings disclosed such shallow water, the depth not exceeding a fathom and a half,[3] that they despaired of a further advance until a small party embarking in a boat and rowing over to the northern side, found immediately by the shore an entrance measuring as much as six, eight, ten, and twelve fathoms in depth. So relieved were the whole company by this discovery that the adjacent land was given the name of Point Comfort, which it has borne to this day.[4] The
- ↑ Clayton’s Virginia, p. 11, Force’s Historical Tracts, vol. III.
- ↑ Beverley’s History of Virginia, p. 93.
- ↑ Report of the Voyage to Virginia in behalf of Don Diego de Molina, 1611, Spanish Archives, Brown’s Genesis of the United States, p. 519.
- ↑ Percy’s Discourse, p. lxiii. The statement as to depth is confirmed in the Report of Molina, Spanish Archives, Brown’s Genesis of the United States, p. 519. The original depth of the harbor, advancing up the Roads, is said by Molina to have been from eight to five fathoms. He
