Argall,
a swift and high-handed person, fished on dry land. He swept into his net
the Jesuits on Mount Desert, set half of them in an open boat to meet with
what ship they might, and brought the other half captive to Jamestown.
Later, he appeared before Port Royal, where he burned the cabins, slew the
cattle, and drove into the forest the settler Frenchmen. But Port Royal and
the land about it called Acadia, though much hurt, survived Argall's
fishing.*
* Argall, on his fishing trip, has been credited with attacking not only
the French in Acadia but the Dutch traders on Manhattan. But there are
grounds for doubt if he did the latter.
There was also on Virginia in these days the shadow of Spain. In 1611 the
English had found upon the beach near Point Comfort three Spaniards from a
Spanish caravel which, as the Englishmen had learned with alarm, "was
fitted with a shallop necessarie and propper to discover freshetts, rivers,
and creekes." They took the three prisoner and applied for instructions to
Dale, who held them to be spies and clapped them into prison at Point Comfort.
That Dale's suspicions were correct, is proved by a letter which the King
of Spain wrote in cipher to the Spanish Ambassador in London ordering him
to confer with the King as to the liberty of three prisoners whom
Englishmen in Virginia have captured. The three are "the Alcayde Don Diego
de Molino, Ensign Marco Antonio Perez, and Francisco Lembri an English
pilot, who by my orders went to reconnoitre those ports.
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