"Come on!" When we reached the river bank before the fort, it was to find confusion worse confounded.

The gates of the palisade were open, and through them streamed Councilors, Burgesses, and officers, while the bank itself was thronged with the generality.

Ancient planters, Smith's men, Dale's men, tenants and servants, women and children, including the little eyases we imported the year before, negroes, Paspaheghs, French vignerons, Dutch sawmill men, Italian glassworkers,--all seethed to and fro, all talked at once, and all looked down the river.

Out of the babel of voices these words came to us over and over: "The Spaniard!" "The Inquisition!" "The galleys!" They were the words oftenest heard at that time, when strange sails hove in sight.
But where was the Spaniard?
On the river, hugging the shore, were many small craft, barges, shallops, sloops, and pinnaces, and beyond them the masts of the Truelove, the Due Return, and the Tiger, then in port; on these three, of which the largest, the Due Return, was of but eighty tons burthen, the mariners were running about and the masters bawling orders.

But there was no other ship, no bark, galleon, or man-of-war, with three tiers of grinning ordnance, and the hated yellow flag flaunting above.
I sprang from my horse, and, leaving it and Mistress Percy in Sparrow's charge, hastened up to the fort.