Robert Hayman - Colonial Career

Colonial Career

Hayman was appointed the Newfoundland colony's first and only governor in 1618 when Bristol's Society of Merchant Venturers received a charter from King James I of England to establish the settlement. Hayman's brother-in-law John Barker was the society's master. Hayman lived in the colony for fifteen months before returning to England and visited again over several summers until his tenure as governor ended in 1628. Much of his work was in England raising money for the settlement, publicizing it and encouraging more colonisation efforts. In 1628 he petitioned the king's favourite the Duke of Buckingham to forward a ‘Proposition of profitt and honor’ to the king which set out the need to encourage continued colonization of Newfoundland, and which specifically mentioned a plan to build a settlement to be called 'Carolinople' (i.e. "Charles's Town").

As Newfoundland's first poet in English, Hayman is remembered for his writings extolling the island, its climate and its early English pioneers. In his leisure hours as Governor in Harbour Grace he composed a work later published in England as Quodlibets. Quodlibets("What you will") was the first book in the English language written in what would become Canada. Some of it consisted of original short poems by Hayman, and some of translations, both of Latin poems by John Owen (epigrammatist) and of French prose by Rabelais. It was published in London in 1628, presumably as part of Hayman's attempts to raise interest in the colony.

Although Hayman apparently remained committed to Newfoundland he was also interested in other colonial ventures, including one to Guiana under the direction of Robert Harcourt. Having arranged his financial affairs he made his will late in the fall of 1628 and left in the Little Hopewell for the Amazon. By February 1629 (new style) he was in Guiana looking into using the river 'Wiapoco' (modern Oyapock) as a trading route.