Background
Christopher Newport was born in 1561 in Limehouse, London, England.
Christopher Newport was born in 1561 in Limehouse, London, England.
Newport began his sea-faring career during the reign of Queen Elizabeth. He served with Drake's Cadiz expedition of 1587 and in 1592 commanded a successful privateering expedition of the West Indies, taking nineteen Spanish vessels and plundering three small towns in Hispaniola and one on the mainland of Honduras. Upon his return, he assisted Sir John Burgh off the Azores in the capture of the "great carrack, " the Madre de Dios, and brought the prize into Dartmouth.
He doubtless made other voyages to America in subsequent years (early in 1603 an unfounded rumor spread that he had taken an entire plate fleet), and in September 1605 he presented King James I with "two young Crocodiles and a wild Bore" brought alive from the West Indies.
The next year he entered the service of the newly chartered Virginia Company and was given charge of its early voyages. The first expedition, consisting of three vessels (the Susan Constant, the Godspeed, and the Discovery) and about 120 settlers, left London Decemebr 20, 1606, went by way of the southern route and the West Indies, and entered Chesapeake Bay April 26, 1607. The site of Jamestown was selected May 13. Between May 21 and 27, Newport, in accordance with his instructions, ascended the James as far as the falls, near the present Richmond. On June 22, after a fruitless endeavor to persuade the members of the council to maintain harmony during his absence, he sailed for England, leaving provisions expected to last thirteen and a half weeks, and promising to return in twenty. Arriving at Plymouth on July 29, he raised high the hopes of the Council for Virginia by his announcement of gold, remained sanguine even after the goldsmiths had reported, and continued the vain quest on subsequent voyages. On October 8 he was off with the "first supply" of two ships and 120 emigrants, of whom about a hundred survived the voyage. He arrived at Jamestown six weeks behind his schedule, on January 2, 1608, to find only some forty alive of the 104 he had left, the president of the council, E. M. Wingfield, imprisoned, and Captain John Smith about to be hanged. Newport effected the liberation of Smith and Wingfield and restored a measure of harmony, but renewed exertions were paralyzed by the fire which destroyed the settlement on January 7. Toward the close of February Newport and Smith visited Powhatan at Werowocomoco on the York River and returned well supplied with corn.
On April 9 Newport returned to England, carrying back Wingfield and the troublesome Archer. On his third voyage (August 1608 - January 1609) he brought out one ship and some seventy settlers, including the first skilled craftsmen the Company had attempted to send the colony. He brought gifts and a crown for Powhatan, and performed the somewhat ridiculous ceremony of his coronation at Werowocomoco. Later he conducted an expedition several days' march beyond the falls of the James, and may have reached the mouth of the Rivanna. Before his fourth voyage the Company was reorganized. In 1609 Newport, with the title of vice-admiral, brought out Sir Thomas Gates and Sir George Somers. Attempting the northern route, he was wrecked with them on the Bermudas (September 28), and reached Virginia in May 1610, using pinnaces built on the island. On July 15, he embarked on the return voyage with Gates. The next year, in March, he brought out Sir Thomas Dale with three vessels and about three hundred colonists. On their arrival in Virginia in May Sir Thomas pulled Newport's beard and threatened to hang him, apparently for having indorsed Sir Thomas Smyth's too optimistic account of the state of the colony. Newport returned to England in mid-December 1611, taking home Gates's daughters, and shortly afterward left the service of the Virginia Company for that of the East India Company. Howes's statement is credible, that he took this step "seeing the necessary yeerely supplies for this plantation not to proceed as was requisite for so honourable an action". He made three voyages to the East Indies. On the first, he carried back Sir Robert Sherley, the Persianized Englishman and Shah's ambassador, and established a new record for speed. On the second, Newport, second in command to Keeling, carried out Sir Thomas Roe on his famous embassy to the Mogul emperor of Hindustan. The third (November 1616) was his last. He died at Bantam in the last days of August 1617.
Newport is generally well spoken of by his contemporaries, with the exception of Smith, who speaks well of no one but himself. He seems to have taken a very genuine concern in the Virginia enterprise, and to have served it to the best of his considerable abilities. His position as intermediary between colonists and Company in the early days was not an easy one.
Newport was married three times: on October 19, 1584, Katharine Procter; on January 29, 1590, Ellen Ade; and on October 1, 1595, Elizabeth Glanfield, who survived him. He left two daughters and two sons, one of whom, John, lived to acquire land in Virginia in return for his father's investment of £400.
