The Sea Venture: The Struggle

However, against all expectations, the Sea Venture had weathered the storm—barely. Among the survivors, William Strachey described the experience most vividly in a very long letter (twenty-two folio pages when finally printed), written in Virginia to an unnamed lady in England. For three days and four nights, Strachey remembered, all hands—crew and passengers, noblemen and commoners—pumped, bailed, cast trunks and barrels overboard, and threw down much of the ship’s rigging, while sailors, lighting their way with candles, stuffed the leaking hull with whatever came to hand, even beef from the ship’s larder(Skura 22). Many distraught souls, resigned to a watery death, bid their friends farewell(Vaughan 11) or took refuge in drink. But “it pleased

During the previous century, ships of many nations had crashed on its reefs, and a few survivors had lived to describe the “Isle of Devils,”(Vaughan 13) but the most tangible signs of those accidental visits were the wild hogs whose ancestors swam ashore from shipwrecked vessels. Yet Bermuda, as the Sea Venture‘s passengers quickly realized, seemed to be an island where paradise strategically located for transatlantic commerce or piracy and free for the taking. Instead of the reputed devils and malicious spirits, the English encountered docile and abundant birds, fish, tortoises, and the immigrant hogs; fruits and berries were present(Vaughan 13). The climate was salubrious, the environment healthy. Yet, English had, unexpectedly, discovered a land of wonders -- where bigger wonders than what their destinations had were. During the next nine months, Admiral Somers supervised the construction of two seaworthy vessels from Bermuda cedar and the Sea Venture‘s salvageable timbers and tackle. The English, unintendedly, explore the rich nature of Bermuda islands. The findings in Bermuda islands were definitely was a blessing in disguise for English. Although all the losses of lives and breakings of ships that it brought, it is “the tempest” that gives the English the discoveries. In this regard, “the tempest” becomes significant. It is both the cause of the shipwreck, and the root of the new discoveries that the British get to bring home. Therefore, the readers get a dilemma of whether they have to be grateful for the storm, or should they feel sorry about it. That said, “the tempest”, seems to be suggesting a controversy of the voyages taken during the Age of Explorations, by representing it, which gave the citizens a dilemma of being satisfied with the takeaways from the voyages, or feeling sorry for the loss of lives in the dangerous