eakers on a lee shore and struck upon a rock.
She went rapidly to pieces. Seventeen of the crew got into the longboat,
and, after seven days, fifteen of them reached port. But the captain,
Morris Browne, refused to leave the ship. "Mounting upon the highest
deck," says the ancient chronicler, "he attained imminent death, so
inevitable." The other vessels stood out to sea and saved themselves. As
winter was approaching and provisions getting low, Sir Humphrey deemed
it wise to steer for England. He had planted his flag on board the
Squirrel, a little cockle-shell of ten tons, and though earnestly
entreated to go on board the larger vessel, the Golden Hind, he refused
to abandon his brave comrades. A great storm overtook them near the
Azores. The Golden Hind kept as near the Squirrel as possible; and when
in the midst of the tempest the crew saw the gallant knight sitting
calmly on deck with a book before him, they heard him cry to his
companions, "Cheer up, lads, we are as near heaven at sea as on land!"
When the curtain of night shrouded the little bark, she and her gallant
crew disappeared beneath the dark billows of the Atlantic. Thus perished
Sir Humphrey Gilbert, scholar, soldier, colonizer, philosopher, one of
the noblest of those brave hearts that sought to extend the dominion of
England in the New World.

To Newfoundland this sad loss was irreparable. Had Sir Humphrey lived to
reach home, no doubt he and Sir Walter Raleigh would have renewed their
efforts at colonization, and, profiting by past errors, would have
settled in the island men of the right stamp. Sir Humphrey Gilbert's
failure was the result of a succession of uncontrollable disasters.
Fully appreciating the immense value of the fisheries of Newfoundland,
he seems to have been thoroughly impressed with the idea that the right
way of prosecuting those fisheries was to colonize the country, and
conduct them on the spot, whereby he would have established a resident
population, who would have combined fishing with the cultivation of the
soil. It was a departure from this policy, and a determination, at the
behest of selfish monopolists, to make the island a mere
fishing-station, that postponed for many weary years the prosperity of
the colony, blighting the national enterprise, and paralyzing the
energies of the people.

ASSASSINATION OF WILLIAM OF ORANGE

DIVISION OF THE NETHERLANDS