Protestant Sea Rovers


was lost in a storm on the "Squirrel" which had only 10 tons.
In 1606 a colonizing patent was issued to Sir George Somers
and Richard Hakluyt Prebendary of Westminster adventur-
ers of London, and Sir Walter Raleigh and Captain William
Parker adventurers of Plymouth. Captain Christopher New-
port, the Captain Christopher Newport who took Puerto
Caballos in 1591, was placed in command of the expedition
sent out, and he founded the colony of Jamestown, Virginia,
in 1607, and he was with Sir George Somers in the Bermudas
in 1609 which was colonized before the charter was granted
in 1612. In 1609 Sir George Somers on his way to Virginia
was shipwrecked in the Bermudas, the still vexed Bermoothes
of Shakespeare, and in that year he built there the pinnace
"Patience" of 30 tons. Thus the English contact with the
Cockscomb Coast was never broken, because all of these men
of Bristol, Plymouth, and London I have mentioned were in
common accord on a common policy and their expeditions
were backed by statesmen and merchants in London. Not
every voyage was recorded and published, and then like now
state secrets existed.
 Phillip II of Spain had protested against these expeditions,
and there were times when England's great queen was prone
to be conciliatory and listen to the Spanish ambassador's view
on what were lands not actually in the occupation of a Chris-
tian prince or people. She would not grant a patent for the
Lamanay-Cockscomb area on which Sir Walter Raleigh had
an eye, and this was the only reason why he did not plant a
colony there. However, his friend Captain William Parker
used the Lamanay-Cockscomb Coast regularly as a base for
operating against the Spaniards during the twenty years be-
fore he took part in Sir Walter Raleigh's last expedition to
Guiana 1617. In the same way as Sir Humphrey Gilbert re-
garded the Bahamas as an extension of Newfoundland,,o'did
the English settlers of Virginia and the Somers IsleSin Sir
Walter's time regard the Cockscomb Coast as an extension
or one of the "New Found Lands."