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It was, therefore, a great service to England when Captain Argall, under the authority of Sir Thomas Dale, in 1613, dislodged the French at Mount Desert, Port Royal, and St. Croix. Shortly after Argall's visit John Smith sailed, in 1614, for the northern coast, with two ships fitted out by some private adventurers.
So Pocahontas and her husband took passages in his boat. But Pocahontas was never again to see her native shore. She went on board Captain Argall's boat, the George, and indeed set sail from London, but before she reached Gravesend she became so ill that she had to be taken ashore, and there she died. She was buried in the chancel of the Parish Church.
Exulting at their good fortune, Argall's men butchered or carried off the animals, ransacked the buildings, plundered them even to the locks and bolts of the doors, and then laid the whole in ashes; "and may it please the Lord," adds the pious Biard, "that the sins therein committed may likewise have been consumed in that burning."
The arrangement has an obvious pertinence to an understanding of Argall's unhappy experience as governor, for he was later charged with neglect of the public interest through too great concern for his own personal interests.
Notwithstanding that a member of Argall's company speaks of him as "a gentleman of noble courage", that does not prevent us from considering him a rascal; for at this time France and England were at peace, and he was unauthorized in his base and tyrannous invasion of Port Royal. Before his attack on this quiet, peaceful station, he had shown greatest treachery at Somes Sound, Mt.
But Port Royal and the land about it called Acadia, though much hurt, survived Argall's fishing.* * Argall, on his fishing trip, has been credited with attacking not only the French in Acadia but the Dutch traders on Manhattan. But there are grounds for doubt if he did the latter. There was also on Virginia in these days the shadow of Spain.
But the half dozen I had taken off Argall's hands; the Dutchmen who might have been own brothers to those two Judases, Adam and Francis; the thief and the highwayman I had bought from the precious crew sent us by the King the year before; the negro and the Indians small wonder that she shrank and cowered. It was but for a moment.
Argall's thoughts about salt manufacture were followed up in June, 1614 when a group of some twenty men under Lieutenant Craddock was dispatched to the area to set up a salt works and to catch fish. This was the first settlement "across the Bay" and it was known as "Dale's Gift" after Sir Thomas Dale then deputy governor in Virginia.
Samuel Argall returned to Virginia, which he had served well in the 1609-14 days, as governor in 1617. He, likewise, is credited with having granted "some small parcells" here. Argall, too, is identified with the creation of a distinct settlement in the area, one that, for a time, bore his name. This was Argall's Guift, more often mentioned as Argall's Town.
"Praised be God, behold two thirds of our company safe in France, telling their strange adventures to their relatives and friends. And now you will wish to know what befell the rest of us." Thus writes Father Biard, who with his companions in misfortune, fourteen in all, prisoners on board Argall's ship and the prize, were borne captive to Virginia.