Richard Newall’s voyage to Newfoundland in 1623: New insights into Sir William Alexander’s attempts to establish a Scottish colony in Nova Scotia

On 28 April 1623, the ship Luke of London departed Plymouth, Devon bound for Newfoundland. The ship had earlier set out from the Thames but was delayed in Plymouth for about fifteen days. She was under the command of William Wills, mariner of Ratcliff, Middlesex, who was tasked with transporting Scottish planters to Nova Scotia and then lading the ship with a quantity of Newfoundland fish as per the direction of several London merchants. Since the former task would interfere with the job of collecting the fish in Newfoundland, Wills employed his friend and cousin Richard Newall as his deputy on the voyage with responsibility for arranging the lading.

Sometime before the departure from England, Richard had acquired a record book in which he made the following entry: ‘A book of Accounts kept by me Richard Newall for several men and Businesses began in June 1623’. Richard’s journal includes nine letters written during the Newfoundland voyage of 1623, several notes relating to the mandate of the voyage and various accounting records related to the voyage. This journal is preserved in the Bodleian Library, Oxford University, Malone Collection and is described in their catalogue as: ‘A folio volume, 140 leaves, in contemporary vellum. Containing copies of letters and accounts, 1623–5, of Richard Newall, London merchant, trading with Newfoundland’. Within this folio the material related to Richard’s voyages is interspersed with other material from a different source indicating that the blank pages in Richard’s record book were reused by a later owner. As the Bodleian catalogue indicates, the journal includes entries from 1623 to 1625; however, only the entries from 1623 directly relate to Newfoundland.

The first two letters in Richard’s record book were dated 8 July 1623 and were written at St. John’s, Newfoundland. The first was addressed to ‘Wor [Worshipful] ¹ and my good friends Humphrey Slany [Slaney] and William Clobery [Cloberry], merchants of London’. From subsequent letters it is clear that these merchants had made Wills responsible for the lading of the ship with Newfoundland fish. Slaney and Cloberry were prominent London merchants involved in the Newfoundland fishery and numerous other ventures. Slaney was the more senior and Cloberry, who had started as Slaney’s apprentice and married his master’s daughter in 1621, was a partner to Slaney in a number of ventures. The first letter also indicates that John Plumblough of Dartmouth, likely John Plumleigh who was Mayor of Dartmouth in 1620, would arrange payment for part of the fish caught. Subsequent letters to Plumleigh recorded the fish purchased from various ships from Dartmouth and the amount he paid on the accounts of Mr Slaney and Cloberry. It is not clear from these letters whether Plumleigh was a partner in the venture or simply a conduit for seeing that money flowed from the London merchants to the masters of the Dartmouth ships that caught the fish. The second letter was addressed to Mr James Man and ‘the rest of the owners of the Luke’. He was likely the James Man or Mann, London merchant and shipowner who was part owner of the ship Lemon of London in 1627. ² The two letters cover similar material, but with slightly more emphasis on the fishery in the former and more on the ship in the latter. Based on the numerous letters of marque issued between 1625 and 1630 it is clear that ventures of this type frequently involved groups of merchants and shipowners, who shared the profits and risks of the voyage and thus reduced the potential for a major loss if the ship or cargo was lost.

Richard’s letters recap the events of the voyage to Newfoundland, the arrival in St. John’s on 5 June 1623, the state of Scottish colonists who had overwintered in St. John’s, the departure of Wills for Nova Scotia on 23 July 1623, and Richard’s subsequent activities related to collecting fish for lading the ship. It is clear from reading the letters that the events of this voyage, as they relate to the Scottish colonists, match exactly with those of the voyage of a ship chartered by Sir William Alexander in 1623 to establish a colony in Nova Scotia.

Sir William Alexander, a Scottish poet and courtier, was knighted by James I in 1609 and made Master of Request for Scotland in 1614. In 1621, with the encouragement of Sir Ferdinando Gorges and Captain John Mason, he petitioned the King to establish a Scottish Colony in the New World. In the same year, he received a royal charter, endorsed by the Scottish Privy Council, to a large tract of land situated between New England and Newfoundland and encompassing what are now the maritime provinces of Canada and parts of Maine and Quebec, which were to be known as New Scotland. ³ In 1622, Sir William sent out a ship with colonists; ⁴ however, due to her late departure and bad weather, the ship turned back to Newfoundland before reaching Nova Scotia and left the colonists in St. John’s for the winter. In 1623, Sir William sent out a new ship from London to pick up the colonists in St. John’s and take them to Nova Scotia. In his 1624 pamphlet, An encouragement to colonies, ⁵ which provides a chronology of this voyage, Sir William does not directly identify the name of the ship sent in 1623; however, there is a reference to a bay in Nova Scotia ‘which after the shippes name, they called Lukes Bay’. In a manuscript published in 1760, ⁶ we see this bay referred to as St. Luke’s Bay, and in 1873 the ship is referred to as the St. Luke and most subsequent publications use this name for the ship. ⁷

From the chronology of this voyage, laid out in An encouragement to colonies, we know that the ship was dispatched from London in late March, was delayed at Plymouth by ‘necessary occasions and last by contrary winds’ and did not depart that port until 28 April 1623, finally reaching St. John’s on 5 June 1623. In St. John’s, they found the colonists that had overwintered to be ‘not fit for a Plantation’ with two key members having died and others engaged to serve fishermen to support themselves. However, ten of the colonists agreed to accompany the ship on a reconnaissance mission to New Scotland and they departed from St. John’s on 23 June 1623. As indicated earlier, this chronology matches exactly the details of the voyage of the Luke of London as described by Richard in his first two letters. While Sir William’s pamphlet provided the chronology of the voyage there were no details provided on the ship, its crew or owners.

From Richard’s notebook we find that on arrival in St. John’s the Luke had a crew of twenty-eight men and boys plus passengers; these passengers were likely new colonists sent over by Sir William. There is also evidence that the ship was armed, since Richard records payment made to the gunner of the Luke. From Richard’s letters we also know that Mr William Wills was master of the Luke on this voyage and James Man of London was one of the owners of the ship. Later in the record, he indicates that the arrangement with the London merchants was for the transport of 269 tons of good merchantable Newfoundland dry fish. This load would indicate that the Luke was larger than most English merchant ships of the time, but typical of London ships in the Newfoundland sack (Spanish Wine) trade. ⁸ Unfortunately, there are no other records available for either a ship Luke of London or St. Luke of London for this timeframe, so it is impossible to determine which name was correct.

Richard’s letters also provide more details on the interactions between the ship’s master and the colonists in St. John’s prior to the departure for New Scotland. In Sir William’s pamphlet, he indicates that several colonists had died during the winter in St. John’s and that others had found employment with fishermen to support themselves. However, he continues with a more positive note indicating that:

… ten of the principall persons concluded to go alongst with the ship to New Scotland to discouer the Countrey and to make choice of a fit place for a Habitation against the next yeere considering very well that they could not doe so much good by staying there with so few a number as they might doe at their returne by reporting the truth to their friends of that which they had scene whereby a new Colonie might be encouraged to set forth well furnished and instructed according to that which might be learned by their experience.

In Richard’s notebook, the state of the colonists is described as follows:

… themselves not resolved to settle upon any part of Nova Scotia considering their small company with the unwillingness of the greatest part of their people: yea I may say of them all in lingering and protracting away the time and not resolving whether go or stay: with great instancy showing them what danger might redound to the loss of this time at last resoluted that from 8 or 10 persons sure as could handle their future to go and take a survey of the Ile Sablon [Sable Island] ⁹ if the weather might permit: otherwise to roam the coast of Nova Scotia to see what good hope they might there attain either for the future to settle when it please God they shall have better provisions and strength to undergo it: or have better knowledge thereby to certify them: in that whereas I think that they have small knowledge that with much trouble and vexation of Mr. Wills he departed the 23rd day of June.

From this description it is clear that the colonists were not eager to set out for Nova Scotia and the decision to do a reconnaissance voyage originated with Wills. Given Richard’s opinion of the state of the colonists it was likely a wise decision to abort the attempt to plant the colony in 1623. The colonists’ reluctance to establish the colony undoubtedly reflected their experiences in St. John’s during the previous winter, a fear that future resupply missions might not be forthcoming and possibly news of Indian attacks. ¹⁰

Unfortunately, Richard’s record book does not provide any details of the voyage to Nova Scotia. Sir William’s pamphlet provides these details which indicate that they sighted land off Cape Breton on 8 July 1623, then sailed south along the coast of Nova Scotia arriving at Port de Mutton (present day Port Mouton, Nova Scotia) on 15 July 1623 and went ashore in one harbour which ‘after the shippes name they called Lukes Bay’. ¹¹

There is one comment in Sir William’s description of the voyage to Nova Scotia that can be better understood in light of Richard’s letters. Just before departing Nova Scotia, Sir William states that they returned to St. John’s ‘in regard of the Voyage their ship was to make to the Straits with fishes’. Richard’s letters show that the London merchants had planned that the fish collected in Newfoundland was to be sold in Malaga, Spain. In light of this information, it is clear that they were referring to the Straits of Gibraltar. The ship departed the coast of Nova Scotia on 20 July 1623 and arrived back in St. John’s on 27 July 1623 and ‘from thence sailed alongst to the Bay of Conception where they left the ship and dispatched themselves home in several ships that belonged to the West part of England’. From Richard’s notebook we know that he was in Harbour Grace, Conception Bay, Newfoundland on 26 July 1623; so after arriving in St. John’s on 26 July Mr Wills likely determined that Richard was in Harbour Grace collecting fish so he sailed there to arrange for loading the ship.

The colonists did not return to England on the ship since it had been prearranged as part of the agreement with the London merchants for the Luke to sail to Malaga, where the fish was to be sold and likely a cargo of wine loaded for England. Harbour Grace being a major Newfoundland port for the West Country fleet it would have been relatively easy to arrange transport from there. Richard did not make any reference to the colonists in subsequent letters, including one he wrote to Mr Wills on 28 August 1623.

There are no references to Sir William Alexander in any of Richard’s letters. Arrangements for transporting the colonists were likely made between Sir William and the London merchants and/or the shipowners or a third party. William Cloberry, one of the London merchants, was associated with Sir William in later ventures in New England; however, there is no evidence that they had any dealings at this time. A good candidate for an intermediary would be Captain John Mason, a former governor of Newfoundland and friend of Sir William. Mason had been associated with the New Scotland venture from the start and continued to be involved with Sir William in subsequent ventures in New England. Included in Richard’s letters from Newfoundland is one written to a Captain Mason from Cupers Cove (modern Cupids) on 10 September 1623. From this letter and correspondence in other letters it is clear that Richard and Mr Wills had an arrangement with Mason to collect fish owed to Mason by a Humphrey Randoll (possibly Randall). Richard’s efforts to collect this fish are documented in several letters.

Overall, Richard’s letters provide new insights into the first attempt to establish a Scottish colony in North America, including new details on the ship, the colonists and the other players involved in the venture. Given these new leads it may be possible to find further information on this voyage in the records of the individuals involved.