Reviewing the story of the ship and captain who brought the Second Colony, there are three positions that one could take.
First, the ship is unknown and the captain is Scott. This position cannot be defended in my estimate. It is at a variance with the internal wording of the documents. The colonial records do not show any master (captain) named Scott. There is, instead, a ship named Scott. This suggests strongly that the clerk was confused and called the wrong thing the "Scott".
Second, if you take the Scott to be the name of the ship, then this suggests that the master was Andrew Tarbett. From the records, we know two things about him. His morals were low, and he was given to breaking the law. In this regard, he fits the actions which the Second Colony ascribed to him, namely, taking them to Virginia, when he said he would take them to Pennsylvania. And, within the previous year of the trip to Virginia, Tarbett talked to Spotswood. We know from a study of Spotswood's actions that he was very anxious to get lots of Germans to populate the western lands that he and his partners wanted to take up. So Tarbett was aware of the opportunity. So he had the knowledge, the lack of morals, and a ship of the correct name.
The third position is that one can plead ignorance and say that the answers are unknown. For years, I was in this camp. When I found the evidence cited in the first two positions above, I switched to believing that the ship was the Scott and the captain was Andrew Tarbett.
This all shows that just because people keep repeating a statement, it does not make the statement true.
As another point, how many times have you heard that the Second Colony came in 1717? Let's look at the possibility that this might not be true. Until 1752, in the English-speaking world, the year did not end until March 25. Today, for the ease of comparison, we would say that the days between January 1 and March 24 were in the new year, not in the old year. If the Second Colony arrived in the period from January 1 to March 24, they could say that they arrived in the year 1717, using the English calendar then in use. But today we would say 1718 to make a better comparison to today's dates.
What we apparently know is that the Second Colony left Germany late in the month of July. It took time to get to Rotterdam, then to London, time to find a ship there, and then there was an indefinite wait while Tarbett was in Debtor's Prison. Finally, when the voyage did start, it probably took about ten weeks. Counting all of the bits and pieces, it was probably past December 31 before they landed. But they and everyone else in Virginia would say they came in 1717 if it was not yet past March 24. If someone says they came in 1718 on the new style calendar, they are probably correct.
(12 Aug 00)
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.