I take it to be the very same that in Latin is called smiris, for striking therewith upon touch-wood that of purpose he had, by means of a mineral stone used therein, sparkles proceeded and forthwith kindled with making of flame.  The ninth, we continued working on our storehouse, for as yet remained in us a desired resolution of making stay.  The tenth, Captain Gosnold fell down with the ship to the little islet of cedars, called Hill’s Hap, to take in cedar wood, leaving me and nine more in the fort, only with three meals meat, upon promise to return the next day....

The thirteenth, began some of our company that before vowed to stay, to make revolt:  whereupon the planters diminishing, all was given over.  The fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth, we spent in getting sassafras and fire-wood of cedar, leaving house and little fort, by ten men in nineteen days sufficient made to harbor twenty persons at least with their necessary provisions.

The seventeenth, we set sail, doubling the rocks of Elizabeth’s island, and passing by Dover Cliff, came to anchor at Martha’s Vineyard, being five leagues distant from our fort, where we went ashore, and had young cranes, herneshowes, and geese, which now were grown to pretty bigness.

The eighteenth, we set sail and bore for England, cutting off our shallop, that was well able to land five and twenty men or more, a boat very necessary for the like occasions.  The winds do range most commonly upon this coast in the summer time, westerly.  In our homeward course we observed the foresaid floating weeds to continue till we came within two hundred leagues of Europe.  The three-and-twentieth of July we came to anchor before Exmouth.[5]

[1] Gosnold sailed from Falmouth, England, in 1602, Raleigh being interested in the expedition.  He reached the New England coast in May of the same year, and discovered Cape Cod, to which, because of the abundance of codfish in neighboring waters he gave the name it bears.  He afterward discovered Martha’s Vineyard, and on the neighboring island of Cuttyhunk founded a settlement called Elizabeth, the first ever made in New England by Englishmen.  This settlement lasted only a few weeks, the settlers returning to England.

[2] The entire group of islands, of which Cuttyhunk is one, are now known as the Elizabeth Islands.  The township which these islands comprize bears Gosnold’s name.  Gosnold became active afterward in promoting the expedition which In 1607 resulted in the settlement of Jamestown.  The report of the expedition to Cape Cod, from which this account is taken, is known as “The Relation of Captain Gosnold’s Voyage.”  It was “delivered by Gabriel Archer, a gentleman in the said voyage.”  Archer’s account is printed in “Old South Leaflets.”

    [3] Vineyard Sound.

    [4] Now Cuttyhunk, the westermost of the chain of islands called
    the Elizabeth Islands, which separate Buzzard’s Bay from Vineyard
    Sound.