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captains had lengthy experience in exploration, privateering, fishing in Newfoundland, and establishing companies like the East India Company or the Muscovy Company, and were well acquainted with the needs for a long voyage. The provisions for the voyage and the colony were loaded, the fleet was properly armed against attack, and equipment was ready in case of emergencies, which were always expected at sea. It was a dangerous trip under the best of circumstances, not lightly undertaken, but the crew would use their experience and wits to adapt to any difficulties. The only thing they needed now were their passengers.
    In mid-May hundreds of Englishmen and women traveled to the town of Woolwich’s docks on the Thames, ten miles downriver from London. Most walked individually or in small groups. Some family members made the trek in the spring weather to see their loved ones off. Others paid to be ferried along with their belongings by a London wherry. Wealthier gentlemen made the bumpy ride in their carriages, accompanied by servants who handled the baggage. They arrived in Woolwich and boarded the ships with a mixture of unspoken dreams and trepidation.
    Among their number was only one Anglican minister, the Oxford-trained Reverend Richard Buck. He believed in England’s mission to settle the New World and planned to minister to the souls of his congregants in Jamestown as well as the Indians of Virginia.Yet not everyone on board believed in the tenets of the Anglican Church. Stephen Hopkins and others were religious dissenters who were sympathetic to the growing Puritan movement, which was equated with sedition against king and church.
    Another passenger was William Strachey, a poet on the fringes of London’s literary and theater circles. His friends included John Donne and Ben Jonson, but he produced little significant literature of his own. Dreaming of literary greatness, the aspiring poet had consumed most of his inheritance and loans. He had recently served as a secretary to the English ambassador in Turkey, but that ended badly, and he was in debt. He stowed his writing materials for the journey, hoping to compose a travel narrative of the exotic New World that would become popular reading throughout Europe.
    Two other persons who boarded embodied the exotic in the New World. Namontack, Powhatan’s emissary to the English, was returning from his second trip to London. He wore English clothes, as his chaperones dressed him in the garb of civilization, but he stirred the imagination of Londoners as an American native nonetheless. Machumps, another Powhatan, joined Namontack for the voyage, returning to their people with wondrous tales from the world’s largest city.
    On May 15, seven of the ships slipped their moorings at Woolwich and rode the ebb tide toward the coast. Their English colors flew proudly in the breeze. Investor Stephen Powle came to see the fleet off and watched it sail out of sight. He listened with the passengers of the ships and other well-wishers to the prayers of Reverend Buck. “God bless them and guide them to his glory and our good,” he prayed. 232
    The Englishmen and women who were voyaging with the fleet and those that remained at home truly felt blessed by heaven. Theywere embarking on a mission to fulfill their national destiny and rightfully take their place under heaven as a great empire. They believed they were divinely favored because of their piety and entrepreneurial spirit, that fortune would favor those who served God devoutly and boldly risked everything in pursuit of their righteous cause. But the Atlantic was full of great dangers that might be interpreted as divine anger should they encounter them. Indeed, in the coming months, they would perhaps see just how much the Almighty was displeased with their national mission to colonize Virginia.

Epilogue
    D uring the course of the seventeenth century, Virginia continued to grow and thrive. The Jamestown colony instituted free