John Brereton - The Voyage and Exploration of New England

The Voyage and Exploration of New England

Brereton joined Captain Bartholomew Gosnold, Bartholomew Gilbert, Gabriel Archer, and others to make the first English attempt to settle in the land since called New England. Twenty-four gentlemen and eight sailors left Falmouth in a small Dartmouth bark, the Concord, on 26 March 1602, twelve of the gentlemen intending to settle, while twelve others were to return home with the produce of the land and of their trading with the natives.

Instead of making the circuitous route by the Canary Islands, Gosnold steered, as the winds permitted, due west, only southing towards the Azores, and was the first to accomplish a direct course to America, saving the better part of a thousand leagues. By 15 May the voyagers made the headland which they named Cape Cod. Here Gosnold, Brereton, and two others went ashore on the white sands, the first spot in New England ever trodden by English feet. Doubling the Cape and passing Nantucket, they touched at Martha's Vineyard, and passing round Dover Cliff entered Buzzard's Bay, which they called Gosnold's Hope, reached the island of Cuttyhunk, which they named Elizabeth's Island.

Here they determined to settle; in nineteen days they built a fort and storehouse in an islet in the centre of a lake of three miles compass, and began to trade with the natives in furs, skins, and the sassafras plant. They sowed wheat, barley, and peas, and in fourteen days the young plants had sprung nine inches and more. The country was fruitful in the extreme. It was decided, however, that so small a company would be useless for colonisation; their provisions, after division, would have lasted only six weeks. The whole company therefore sailed for England, making a very short voyage of five weeks, and landed at Exmouth on 23 July. Their freight realised a great profit, the sassafras alone selling for £336 a ton.