the stag; and when the
hunting party came up and found their sport was over they were enraged,
and tried to incense the prince against the butcher. But Henry answered
quietly: "What if the butcher's dog killed the stag? Could the butcher
help it?" The rest replied that if the king had been so served "he would
have sworn so as no man could have endured it." "_Away_," rejoined the
prince; "_all the pleasure in the world is not worth an oath_."[73]

[Illustration: HENRY FREDERICK, PRINCE OF WALES.]

The prince was keenly interested in all foreign countries, and kept
himself well informed upon their politics and customs by the large
correspondence he now carried on with distinguished persons both at home
and abroad. When he was just thirteen his curiosity caused no little
amusement at the French Court. Prince Henry had long wished for an
opportunity of learning something about the fortifications of Calais.
And when the Prince de Joinville, who had been on a visit to England,
returned to Paris, Henry sent an engineer of his own in the French
prince's train, who made a careful examination of Calais and of the
Rix-bank. This came to the ears of the French ambassador, who wrote in
hot haste to the Court at Fontainebleau and to the Governor of Calais.
But Henri Quatre was only entertained at the boyish inquisitiveness of
his young cousin, and sent back word that he did not consider the
occurrence betokened any dangerous designs upon the kingdom of France.

A far more important report was sent in to the prince in the same year
by his gunner, Mr. Robert Tindal. This gunner was employed by the
Virginia Company established in 1606, to make a voyage to America. He
set out on December 19, 1606, with Captain Christopher Newport, in a
fleet of three ships, and arrived at Chesapeake Bay about the beginning
of May, 1607. A letter which he wrote to the prince on his arrival is
in the Harleian collection of MSS., together with his journal of the
voyage and a map of the James River. In his letter, dated Jamestown in
Virginia, the twenty-second of June, 1607, he says:

that this river was discovered by his fellow-adventurers,
and that no Christian had ever been there before; and that
they were safely arrived and settled in that country, which
they found to be in itself most fruitful, and of which they
had taken _a real and public possession in the name and to
the use of_ the King his Highness's father.[74]

It se