We have a word to say with regard to this vessel. Writers on New England have generally stated that the departing colonists took this craft with them. This, however, is very different from the statements made above, that she was "fit to cross the ocean," that she made a "safe voyage to England," _etc._ A part of the company were not over anxious to revisit their native land. They had saved their necks once by emigrating, and were not in haste to put them again into the halter. With this "pretty pynnace" they could catch codfish, and cure them along shore; barter them for other commodities with some of the hundreds of vessels from Europe employed in the fisheries on the coast; harass the Indians; and lead generally a wild and free life, such as was congenial to their character and dispositions. The vessels, doubtless, left Sabino at the same time. When the main body of the colonists departed, it was necessary that all should leave; for they had so incurred the enmity of the Indians by their barbarities, that any left behind would have been murdered. Strachey's account is entirely consistent with this. He says "they all ymbarqued in this new arrived ship [the 'Mary and John'] and in the new pynnace, the Virginia, and sett saile for England. And this was the end of that northerne colony uppon the river Sachadehoc." Brief Relation, 1622, says, "they built a pretty barke of their owne, which served them a good purpose, as easing them in their returning." Certainly; but we do not read that the "new pynnace" arrived in England, and was there an object of admiration, as a specimen of naval architecture.
The improbability that this "pynnace" was sea-worthy, and made a voyage across the Atlantic, will appear from the following considerations;--
1. There was not time between the 15th of December and Spring to build a sea-worthy vessel. There were but forty-five persons left in the colony, and this number was reduced before Spring by disease and squabbles with the Indians. There were probably not ten carpenters in the company. The Winter, we are told, was unseasonable and intensely severe. Strachey says, that, "after Capt. Davies's departure they fully finished the fort, trencht and fortified it with 12 pieces of ordnance, and built 50 howses, besides a church and a storehouse,"--sufficient work, we might suppose, to employ forty-five Old Bailey convicts till Spring, without building a sea-going vessel. If Strachey does not tell the truth in this matter, we know nothing at all about this vessel.