To rescue the doomed colonists and restore order, the company chose a new leader, Thomas Gates. Nine ships left Plymouth in the summer of 1609---the largest fleet England had ever assembled---and sailed into the teeth of a storm so violent that "it beat all light from Heaven." The inspiration for Shakespeare's The Tempest, the hurricane separated the flagship from the fleet, driving it onto reefs off the coast of Bermuda - a lucky shipwreck (all hands survived) that proved to be the turning point in the colony's fortune.
©2008 Lorri Glover and Daniel Blake Smith; (P)2008 Tantor
The actual story of the storm and the shipwreck on Bermuda was fascinating. The beginning and end of the book seemed to lose me because of all the names, dates and facts and shifting between groups of people. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone interested in that time period in history. I am glad that I listened to it. The narrator was good but perhaps could be a bit more animated.
My English ancestors were founders in both the Massachusetts and Plymouth colonies (on which I have thus far focused my research & learning of colonial history). This was the first time I explored the foundation of the Virginia colonies. I was very pleased that this book went into the perspective of the contemporary English thinking of that age. I gained insight into the foundation of all American colonies that I had not gleaned from any other source heretofore.
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