Anglo-American Relations Before 1580 65
So they turned back and sailed 100 leagues westward to a
place called “Caymond” on the coast of the “kennyballes or
Callybaldes.” There they stayed for about a month trading
with the natives for “cotten wolle, popynjayes, monckeys,
and dyvers other Straunge beastes of that côuntrey.” But
there were other traders in the area, French and Portuguese,
who resented the EngHsh intrusion. They came aboard the
Barbara with warnings, which were disregarded to the ex-
tent that the Englishmen set up a sort of warehouse on the
shore for their goods. So the French tried to cut the mooring
cable of the ship, and they were aided by the defection of
the twelve French members of the crew, who fled with some
of the English goods.
It was a bad day for the English altogether. Their boat-
swain, John Podd, and fifteen members of the crew, gave
chase, but the natives of the place intervened, attacking and
killing all but one of the Englishmen. He was Richard Ever-
ton, who was described thus in the Admiralty suit brought
subsequently at the instigation of the French and Spanish
ambassadors; “Hic file est qui vidit Podde occisum, in frusta
secatum, tostum, et comestum per silvestres.”11 Another bit
of evidence, perhaps (and there is plenty of it), that the
Indians of this coast preferred the flavor of all other Euro-
peans, but tire company of the French.
In the spring of 1576, Martin Frobisher sailed from Eng-
land in his first attempt on the North-West Passage (in the
event, it was Iiis only real attempt to find one). The party
entered what they took to be a strait (it subsequently
proved to be the gulf now known as Frobisher Bay) on
August 11, and on the 19th, had their first glimpse of “the
Countrey people.” “The Captaine and I,” wrote Christopher
Hall, “tooke our boate, with eight men in her, to rowe us a