The colonists have their paper of instructions. They shall find out a safe
port in the entrance of a navigable river. They shall be prepared against
surprise and attack. They shall observe "whether the river on which you
plant doth spring out of mountains or out of lakes. If it be out of any
lake the passage to the other sea will be the more easy, and like enough .
. . you shall find some spring which runs the contrary way toward the East
India sea." They must avoid giving offense to the "naturals" -- must choose a
healthful place for their houses -- must guard their shipping. They are to set
down in black and white for the information of the Council at home all such
matters as directions and distances, the nature of soils and forests and
the various commodities that they may find. And no man is to return from
Virginia without leave from the Council, and none is to write home any
discouraging letter. The instructions end, "Lastly and chiefly, the way to
prosper and to achieve good success is to make yourselves all of one mind
for the good of your country and your own, and to serve and fear God, the
Giver of all Goodness, for every plantation which our Heavenly Father hath
not planted shall be rooted out."
Nor did they lack verses to go by, as their enterprise itself did not lack
poetry. Michael Drayton wrote for them:--
Britons, you stay too long,
Quickly aboard bestow you,
And with a merry gale,
Swell your stretched sail,
With vows as strong
As the winds that blow you.
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