With so many wealthy corporators money flowed into the treasury, and a great expedition was readily fitted out.  Towards the end of May, 1609, there sailed from England nine ships and five hundred people, under the command of Sir Thomas Gates, Sir George Somers, and Captain Newport.  Each of these commanders had a commission, and the one who arrived first was to call in the old commission; as they could not agree, they all sailed in one ship, the Sea Venture.

This brave expedition was involved in a contest with a hurricane; one vessel was sunk, and the Sea Venture, with the three commanders, one hundred and fifty men, the new commissioners, bills of lading, all sorts of instructions, and much provision, was wrecked on the Bermudas.  With this company was William Strachey, of whom we shall hear more hereafter.  Seven vessels reached Jamestown, and brought, among other annoyances, Smith’s old enemy, Captain Ratcliffe, alias Sicklemore, in command of a ship.  Among the company were also Captains Martin, Archer, Wood, Webbe, Moore, King, Davis, and several gentlemen of good means, and a crowd of the riff-raff of London.  Some of these Captains whom Smith had sent home, now returned with new pretensions, and had on the voyage prejudiced the company against him.  When the fleet was first espied, the President thought it was Spaniards, and prepared to defend himself, the Indians promptly coming to his assistance.

This hurricane tossed about another expedition still more famous, that of Henry Hudson, who had sailed from England on his third voyage toward Nova Zembla March 25th, and in July and August was beating down the Atlantic coast.  On the 18th of August he entered the Capes of Virginia, and sailed a little way up the Bay.  He knew he was at the mouth of the James River, “where our Englishmen are,” as he says.  The next day a gale from the northeast made him fear being driven aground in the shallows, and he put to sea.  The storm continued for several days.  On the 21st “a sea broke over the fore-course and split it;” and that night something more ominous occurred:  “that night [the chronicle records] our cat ran crying from one side of the ship to the other, looking overboard, which made us to wonder, but we saw nothing.”  On the 26th they were again off the bank of Virginia, and in the very bay and in sight of the islands they had seen on the 18th.  It appeared to Hudson “a great bay with rivers,” but too shallow to explore without a small boat.  After lingering till the 29th, without any suggestion of ascending the James, he sailed northward and made the lucky stroke of river exploration which immortalized him.

It seems strange that he did not search for the English colony, but the adventurers of that day were independent actors, and did not care to share with each other the glories of discovery.

The first of the scattered fleet of Gates and Somers came in on the 11th, and the rest straggled along during the three or four days following.  It was a narrow chance that Hudson missed them all, and one may imagine that the fate of the Virginia colony and of the New York settlement would have been different if the explorer of the Hudson had gone up the James.