in the Early Atlantic World

Newfoundland Lost: Sir Humphrey Gilbert’s Voyage in the Early Atlantic World

Sir Humphrey Gilbert’s 1583 voyage to North America was the first formal attempt to establish an English colony in the western Atlantic. While it failed, it marked the beginnings of the Elizabethanera project for an English Atlantic world—a quest for geopolitical power, commercial prosperity, and Protestant zeal to rival Catholic Spain.1 A well-educated aristocrat, Gilbert believed he could fulfill English colonial aspirations by founding a Protestant colony near the hypothetical Northwest Passage and the established cod fisheries of Newfoundland.2 Such a location could allow England to exploit a potentially lucrative trading route to Asian markets placed next to a highly nutritious and exchangeable food source valuable for sea voyages. These imperial aspirations were no match for the reality of the transatlantic crossing in the late sixteenth century. The inexperienced fleet was unprepared for Atlantic storms, supply shortages, and poor discipline, all of which proved fatal to the mission.

When Gilbert proposed that he could find a Northwest Passage to Cathay (modern-day northern China) and the East Indies, the English were more than eight decades behind Spain and Portugal in the imperial colonization of the Americas. Since the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494, Catholic powers had been bound to respect Alexander VI’s and Julius II’s papal bulls, which legitimized control over discovered territories in the western hemisphere to Spain and the eastern hemisphere to Portugal.3 Excommunicated in 1570,4 Protestant Queen Elizabeth refused to recognize the validity of such Catholic claims, opening an opportunity for Gilbert’s ambitions of claiming Protestant colonial possessions in the Atlantic as the Iberian Catholics had done. In 1576, ten years after he first proposed a voyage to explore an alternate passage to Asia to the queen, Gilbert published the pamphlet A Discourse of a Discoverie for a New Pasage to Cataia in which he offered evidence for the existence and

economic potential of a northwest passage.5 Gilbert had been working on the Discourse for a number of years. During that time, English explorer Martin Frobisher who was financed by London merchants also declared his determination to find a northwest passage.6 Gilbert’s pamphlet, published the same year that Frobisher sailed west and explored the northern coast of modern Labrador and Frobisher Bay, may have stimulated public interest in English Atlantic exploration and colonization.7 The exploitation of this hypothetical passage would be a first step towards greater English wealth and power while challenging Spain’s exclusive control over the Americas.8 Typical of Protestant advisors in Elizabeth’s court who called for “Protestant solidarity” during the Dutch Revolt against Spanish rule, an ongoing conflict since 1566, Gilbert argued England needed to act more determinedly in the world stage and not slack behind in evangelism as Spain aggressively imposed Catholicism on its possessions and threatened the Anglican Church.9

Once Gilbert had set his sights on Newfoundland as the chosen location to establish a Protestant English colony, the most immediate goal was to seize the supply of codfish in Newfoundland. From the fourteenth to the seventeenth centuries, Spanish, Basque, French, Breton, Portuguese, and English ships fished in transitory, seasonal settlements near the coast of Newfoundland.10 The long-lasting, transportable, and nutritious qualities of dried cod made it an ideal food source for shipping as navigation increased following wars and the rise of global trade.11 As England experienced an economic depression due to a loss of Iberian and French markets and the imposition of fishing fees in Iceland, English fishermen frequented Newfoundland more often.12 Newfoundland’s cosmopolitan and rich fishing grounds were not claimed exclusively by any European power. Here was England’s opportunity to establish its first colony in the western Atlantic. Gilbert thus proposed capturing French, Spanish, and Portuguese ships to give the English control over the supply of codfish, a resource valued for its economic importance in the Atlantic market and its nutritional value for ships crossing the North Atlantic.13 For Gilbert, access and control of the cod fishing grounds was an economic necessity; a consistent source of codfish ensured a reliable supply of financial and food resources from which to launch a Protestant English empire.

In order to justify England’s colonization of Newfoundland, the cartographer John Dee, the queen’s trusted advisor and a supporter of Gilbert, concocted legal claims of discovery over North America based on historical precedent. Drawing from scholarship that sees cartography as “discourses of knowledge and power,” Nate Probasco argues that Dee’s 1580 map illustrated empty space ripe for colonization specifically to persuade Queen Elizabeth of the value of Gilbert’s proposed expedition.14 Dee placed Indigenous peoples in the background; their sovereignties were nonexistent in his mind. Dee marked the reverse side of the map, “A briefe Remembrance of Sondrye foreyne Regions, discovered, inhabited, and partlie Conquered by the Subjects of this Brytish Monarchie. And so lawfull Tytle... for the dewe Clayme, and just recovery of the same disclosed.”15 Renaissance historian William Sherman notes some subjects that appeared on the map: Madoc of Welsh folklore, King Arthur, St. Brendan of Irish legend, John and Sebastian Cabot, the Boroughs, and Martin Frobisher.16 In other words, Dee’s map declared that parts of North America belonged to England long before England existed. Those who would accompany Gilbert on his colonizing expedition shared Dee’s opinions. Edward Hayes, a captain of a ship accompanying Gilbert on his 1583 voyage, proudly declared the French explorers of North America were

“usurpers,” since John and Sebastian Cabot, who served England in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, discovered and annexed the lands from Florida to Newfoundland before France.”17 For Dee, Gilbert, and some of Gilbert’s crew, the English mission to colonize Newfoundland was an expedition to reclaim England’s realms. The queen was persuaded by Gilbert’s justifications for colonization, and on June 1578 she granted him a patent to “discover” and claim two-hundred leagues of land where Christians were absent from any point in North America within the next six.18 The intent was to avoid conflict with the Catholic powers while founding a Protestant stronghold. Moreover, some in the crew had hopes of evangelizing the Indigenous population to the Protestant cause. Hayes was particularly zealous for their conversion, which he believed should be a sincere effort lest the crew incur God’s wrath.19 The fleet brought musical instruments, Morris dancers, a hobby horse, and clothing accessories to win them over.20 Gilbert was to implement Anglicanism and rule as a lord, paying one-fifth of the bullion to the Crown.21 His feudal rights over an immense piece of land would guarantee the first step towards a Protestant empire.

The spot commemorating Sir Humphrey Gilbert’s imperial ambitions in contemporary Canada, Sir Humphrey Gilbert plaque, St. John’s, Newfoundland, 2007, photograph, Wikimedia Commons. 45

As determined as Gilbert and his supporters were, establishing a colony in Newfoundland was a risky enterprise. Gilbert depended on propaganda to attract potential volunteers, who were often poorly chosen or unprepared for a transatlantic crossing. One did not simply sail into the North Atlantic. A royal navy with which to build or defend an empire did not exist yet. English privateers were capable seamen, and in 1577 Dee proposed to the queen that she create a royal navy that would draw English privateers to its service.22 Richard Hakluyt’s Divers Voyages, a 1582 compilation of travel accounts to North America, indicates the ways that propaganda promoted exploration to the English public.23 Hakluyt recounts the story of a Portuguese man who claimed that a captain from Terceira Island in search of the Northwest Passage found a “great entrance” without any ice at 58 degrees of latitude.24 This entrance appeared to continue southwards, likely towards a southern sea.25 Stories like these suggested that Gilbert’s expedition would be much easier than it was.

Gilbert’s 1583 expedition attracted were mostly middle-ranking workers seeking better opportunities than they had at home.26 The 260 men who signed on included shipwrights, masons, carpenters, smiths, miners, and refiners.27 Significantly, these men were settlers, not mariners. They were woefully unprepared for the journey that lay ahead of them. Unprofessional and even rebellious behavior in a fleet was a real risk, something with which Gilbert was well acquainted. In 1578, after receiving a charter to colonize unclaimed lands in North America, Gilbert had set sail, one presumes bound for North America. That expedition failed because of bad winds and division among the crew about the planned route.28 Five years later, Gilbert tried again with a new fleet and a new crew.

The integrity of the crew was first tested by the Atlantic weather. Gilbert’s five-vessel fleet set sail in June 11, 1583—one year before the expiration of his patent.29 Comprising the fleet were the Delight as Admiral and second-largest ship; the Raleigh, the largest; the Golden Hind, owned and captained by Hayes; the Swallow; and the Squirrel, the lightest frigate with Gilbert onboard.30 Aiming to sail at 43 or 44 degrees of latitude with southerly winds and avoiding sailing past 47 degrees, they were confident they could resupply in Newfoundland by August.31 However, June is the most unpredictable month for storms and also marks the start of Atlantic hurricane season.32 A storm hit the fleet on the night of its departure and pushed them to 48 degrees of latitude by June 13. After the storm, the Raleigh returned to England due to an unspecified disease. These events were discouraging for the fleet.33 Then the Golden Hind was also thrown off course from the intended latitude by a west-northwest wind and then a west-southwest one, taking them close to 41 degrees and then 51 degrees from June 15 to 28.34 Atlantic winds consistently altered the fleet’s direction. Furthermore, the fleet encountered fog, rain, and bad wind, losing sight of each other for more than a week.35 Although they had agreed on using light and gunshot signals for such occasions, they were unable to communicate.36 Without sight of the sun or stars, they could not have used astronomical, geometrical, and mathematical calculations for oceanic navigation to find a ship’s longitude and latitude, so they must have only relied on the estimation of location with speed—a practice known as dead reckoning—which was imprecise.37 Most ships made it safely. Hakluyt noted in Hayes’ account of the expedition that the fleet’s provisions were “fit” for the transatlantic journey before reaching Newfoundland, which took seven weeks.38 The fleet was able to reunite on August 3, but not without signs of disorder.39

Though three ships were well-provisioned, the Swallow’s supplies had dwindled, corrupting the crew’s goals from imperial consolidation to piracy. After Gilbert gathered English and foreign merchants for a ceremony in Saint John, he declared his right to tax ships and own the surrounding lands in the name of the queen.40 Despite this show of regal authority, some of his men acted like thugs. As Atlantic historian Bernard Bailyn argues, the world across the ocean during the early phases of European colonization in the Americas was characterized by ambiguous boundaries and violent anarchy.41 This behaviour was exhibited when the Swallow ran low on supplies and raided a “Newlander” ship off the coast, torturing its owner for his goods.42 Based on the expedition’s legal claims over Newfoundland, they should have treated the fisherman as an English subject, but scarcity remade the crew into pirates. Hayes also noted a conspiracy in the crew to seize the ships for themselves, while others stole ships from fishermen in the area. Some of the crew hid in the forest, hoping to catch a ship to return home.43 Though Hayes did not provide more details on the reasons why the men tried to run away, it is fair to conclude that the paucity of provisions caused by the long voyage in the North Atlantic had catalyzed a propensity for insubordination in an already ill-prepared crew. Such unforeseen circumstances altered their high-minded aspirations from those focused on empire to those focused on banditry.

Short of provisions and personnel from desertions and disease, the fleet continued to sail in unknown waters in search of supplies, resulting in the shipwreck of the Delight. In his study of Newfoundland shipwrecks, Rainer Baehre says they were often connected to highly speculative ventures to North America.44 One of these ventures was Gilbert’s fleet,

which was reduced to three ships when the Swallow was sent home with sick men. The remaining ships sought to gather beef and pork in the only place they could: Sable Island.45 As Marq De Villiers and Sheila Hirtle state in A Dune Adrift, Sable Island experiences fog, rain, hurricanes, and storms most of the year, making the sandy bank treacherously invisible due to its relatively low height and treeless surface.46 Furthermore, it effectively has its own anti-clockwise gyre, as the north-easterly Gulf Stream flows on its south side and the southwesterly Labrador Current on its north.47 During the night, the fleet was easily drawn to its treacherous waters. Richard Clarke, master of the Delight, claimed he was forced by Gilbert to follow a mistaken direction.48 By Thursday morning, August 29, 1583, a south-easterly gale, rain, and fog drove them to the shoals.49 The Delight sunk violently, losing all its provisions and a hundred men.50 The fleet was reduced to two ships and a greatly diminished crew as a result of the Raleigh’s and Swallow’s return to England, desertions, disease, and the shipwreck.51

After the demoralizing loss of the Delight, Gilbert’s imperial mission became a meaningless enterprise; merely two dreadfully undersupplied ships remained. Hayes described how the crew of the Golden Hind voiced their grievances to Gilbert as winter approached: “they made signes of their distresse, pointing to their mouthes, and to their clothes thinne and ragged.”52 Gilbert was exasperated too; he physically assaulted a boy for failing to fetch some notes from the shipwreck that recorded information about the location of a possible silver mine on the Newfoundland coast.53 This mine could have been his colony’s source of silver for the queen, but now it was lost, further turning his dream of empire into a nightmare. Though he tried to lift the crew’s spirits by promising a recompense of “10000 pounds” from the queen for their troubles, Hayes indicates that most of the crew distrusted him.54 On their return journey, they again encountered strong winds, tides, and storms, leading to the sinking of the Squirrel on September 9, 1538 and Gilbert’s drowning.55 Unceremoniously, only the Golden Hind arrived back to England. Exhausted and asking for money to go home, the crew resented wasting months without rewards while working in dangerous conditions with poor food.56 This rather pitiful ending only serves to illustrate how grand imperial visions could come to nothing in the face of the weather.

Gilbert’s dream of an English Protestant empire enriched by Atlantic cod and the Northwest passage was ruined by the Atlantic’s unruly weather, which diminished their supplies, breaking his crew’s discipline and ultimately its determination. Like the early phases of English colonization, the voyage began high-mindedly, focused on countering the hegemony of Catholic Spain. However, the North Atlantic gave the English a rude awakening: winds, storms, and tides caused dearth, piracy, desertion, disease, and shipwrecks. Late sixteenthcentury England remained unprepared to face the vast unknown westwards of English shores.

Brian Thomson

MAIH (History stream)

An artistic rendition of the Squirrel’s wreck on the Atlantic. Death of Sir Humphrey Gilbert, illustration, 1874, in J. Hamilton Fyfe, British Enterprise beyond the Seas; or, the Planting of our Colonies (London: T. Nelson and Sons, 1874), 23, Internet Archive.