11/25/07 VERSION: BEDSOLE HISTORY FROM 1673 ... - NCGenWeb

ship to look, with the joyful thought that this total nightmare was about to end. Little
did they know their nightmare was only just beginning.The ship approached land
cautiously, the captain not being certain of the exact layout of the body of land the
Lookout had spotted. Searching for the mouth of the Pamlico River and a fort with
more than a hundred earlier settlers already there, was not easy, with no
navigational methods, except intuition and memory. He ordered the crew to lower
sails and drop anchor, to allow an exploratory party on a dinghy to paddle closer in
to the shallower water and get a look at the land. Suddenly, from around a finger of
land, sailing towards the English ship, was a Spanish Man-O-War ship, bristling with
deck cannons. Upon seeing the English ship, the Spanish commander, ordered his
crew to lower sails, come to a halt and drop anchor, perhaps 2,000 feet away, and
then dispatched two row boats to the English ship for boarding and investigation.
However, the English captain indicated his ship was english, in free waters, and not
subject to any authority of the Spanish king, and ordered his crew to fire on the
Spanish ship with two of the deck cannons. The two shots missed.
The fire was answered almost instantly, with a volley from the Spanish ship, with one
of the shells striking the main mast of the English ship, causing it to drop to the deck,
killing three of the settlers and injuring 3 others, who had gathered to watch the
confrontation. Working desperately to bring its cannons to bear amid all the
tied-down household goods on deck, the English ship returned fire, but this time with
five deck cannons. Two of its shells struck the Spanish ship almost amidship and
severely damaged the vessel. With that, the Spanish captain waved the white flag,
indicating surrender, but the English captain, not wanting to incur the problem of
having to control the Spanish crew while trying to deliver the settlers to land, ordered
a hasty departure from the area, picking up his exploratory boat and crewmen before
doing so.
Continuing his slow search, for the mouth of the River, the ship finaly approached
the entrance and continued sailing up the river. They eventually approached a
wooden fort, triangular in shape, measuring four hundred feet by four hundred feet
by four hundred feet, constructed of logs set into the ground with sharpened tops
pointing skyward and within which there were sixteen small, one-room log cabins
with dirt floors.
At each of the 3 points on the forts triangular walls were guard and lookout towers
for protection against marauding Indians who attacked them from time to time.
Within the fort, there were perhaps seventy-five surviving settlers and outside its
walls, the remainder, wildly cheering, shouting and waving a welcome to the ship
and its newcomers, in the mistaken belief that the ship carried food, medicine and
supplies for the forts current occupants. The captain ordered his crew to lower the
sails and drop anchor, in six fathoms, thirty-six feet, of water, about 300 feet from
shore.
The captain ordered the rowboat lowered and again three crewmen were sent