True, the grant was worthless unless Charles was restored to the throne of England, which event seemed improbable at the moment. However, he had paid off his obligations as best he could. The courtiers may have appreciated his gesture but some of them placed no value on their part of the patent.
Meanwhile, back in Virginia the colonists went on as usual for news was slow in crossing the ocean. The pioneers of the Northern Neck had their own problems--fevers and bloody flux, Indians, wolves, witches, and taxes to be paid to the Colonial Government at Jamestown. It would be a long time before they would know that their land had been given away lock, stock and barrel, for Charles had given his followers not only the land and the rivers, but all rights pertaining to them, even to the "wild beasts and fowle," the fish and the "wrecks of the Sea."
And should the grant ever become valid, future generations in the Northern Neck would have landlords over them and pay rent for the land that their forefathers had believed to be their own.
A man stood on the deck of the _Virginia Merchant_, a leaky English vessel bound for Jamestown. He had once been a fine gentleman, clothed in satin and velvet and gold lace. His beard had been trimmed to a peak, with small upturned mustaches, and his shoulder length hair had been curled and perfumed. "Love-locks" his curls were called.
Now the velvet was stained and the lace tarnished and his silver buckles looked more like pewter. The plumes on his hat dangled against his salt-matted hair. The ship was loaded with men just like him. In England they were called Cavaliers because they had been loyal followers of the King. A writer of that time described these Cavaliers as "of the best material in England"--the nobility, the clergy, the landed gentry and officers in the King's army.
Tradition says that there were three hundred and thirty Cavaliers on board the _Virginia Merchant_. This number included the wives and children, and probably the ship's company.
The voyage had been a nightmare. Rats lived in the dark cabins with the people, and when the cabin doors were opened a stench rushed out. Some lay ill from the ship's diet of "pease-porridge" and salt beef. Worms wriggled in the cheese and hard bread that was called ship's biscuits. And there was not even enough of this food to last the trip.