gotten for the moment. This exclusive attention to the discovery of the precious metals was perhaps chiefly due to the instructions which he had received from the Company in England. The “glad tidings” he had carried back in 1607 had no reference to the South Sea. They related to gold and silver alone. When Newport reached Plymouth in 1608, he not only had in the hold of his vessel a cargo of what he supposed to be ore, but he had also brought with him the reports that Smith had heard during his captivity, as to the proximity to Jamestown of the sea in the west; indeed, the Newes from Virginia, in which Smith had recorded these reports, was one of the documents that Newport took to England when he returned after the delivery of the First Supply. The cargo of gilded dirt proving to be worthless, the Company were disposed to attach a greater value to the reports as to the western sea than they would have done if the dirt when tested had shown favorable results. The most careful provisions were adopted to enable Newport, on his arrival in Virginia with the Second Supply, to penetrate to this sea by one of the routes which the Indians had referred to in their interviews with members of the Colony. There was constructed for him a barge specially devised to overcome the obstacles of the journey; it consisted of five pieces that could be taken apart and transported on the shoulders of men when mountains were to be crossed, or a portage was to be made from the head of one river to another, or falls in the streams were to be avoided.[1]
In passing up the Powhatan towards Jamestown, Captain Newport ran unexpectedly upon Captain Percy, who had been sent out to procure grain from the Indians; he ordered Percy to turn back without having performed his mission, as his boats would be needed in the exploration
- ↑ Works of Capt. John Smith, p. 434.
