cover image Sea Venture: The Ship That Rescued Jamestown and Established the English Presence in the New World

Sea Venture: The Ship That Rescued Jamestown and Established the English Presence in the New World

Kieran Doherty, . . St. Martin's, $24.95 (276pp) ISBN 978-0-312-35453-4

In 1609, the two-year-old English settlement in Jamestown was struggling to survive, having been decimated by hostile Native Americans, disease, political mismanagement and lack of food. Early in the summer, a fleet of nine ships and over 600 hopeful settlers left England to bring supplies and new life to the beleaguered colony. The flagship, Sea Venture , never made it to Jamestown: swept off course by a hurricane, it landed in Bermuda. Doherty, an author of biographies for young adults, vividly recreates the journey of the Sea Venture , the survival of its passengers and the eventual rebuilding of two new ships (Patience and Deliverance ) from the Sea Venture 's timbers. A year and a half after leaving England, the Sea Venture 's passengers landed at the Virginia settlement only to find it on the verge of extinction. The ship's leaders refashioned the charter of the settlement, strove to establish new relationships with the Native Americans and restored the colony's agricultural fortunes, assuring the English a foothold in the New World. The most famous account of this shipwreck is Shakespeare's The Tempest , but Doherty's fast-paced and colorful blow-by-blow account is a swashbuckling tale of adventure in the age of exploration. 8 pages of b&w photos. (May)