DCB/DBC Mobile beta
+

As part of the funding agreement between the Dictionary of Canadian Biography and the Canadian Museum of History, we invite readers to take part in a short survey.

I’ll take the survey now.

Remind me later.

Don’t show me this message again.

I have already taken the questionnaire

DCB/DBC News

New Biographies

Minor Corrections

Biography of the Day

ROBINSON, ELIZA ARDEN – Volume XIII (1901-1910)

d. in Victoria 19 March 1906

Confederation

Responsible Government

Sir John A. Macdonald

From the Red River Settlement to Manitoba (1812–70)

Sir Wilfrid Laurier

Sir George-Étienne Cartier

Sports

The Fenians

Women in the DCB/DBC

The Charlottetown and Quebec Conferences of 1864

Introductory Essays of the DCB/DBC

The Acadians

For Educators

The War of 1812 

Canada’s Wartime Prime Ministers

The First World War

MAY, HENRY, English mariner and early visitor to Cape Breton Island; fl. 1591–94.

May was purser of the Edward Bonaventure, commanded by Sir James Lancaster, on the first English voyage to the East Indies, under George Raymond, general of the expedition, in the Penelope, and in company with Samuel Foxcroft in the Merchant Royal. The ships left Plymouth 10 April 1591.

The voyage was fraught with illness, mutiny, and disaster, but the Edward Bonaventure, after rounding the Cape of Good Hope 31 March 1593, reached the small West Indian island of Mona in June, where Lancaster was aided by a French vessel. May, who spoke French, set out for Europe from Laguna in Hispaniola, 30 November, in a French ship, the captain of which was named La Barbotière, and which was wrecked, 17 December, on the Bermudas. May helped the crew to build an 18-ton bark in which they sailed from the Bermudas, 11 May 1594, reaching land near Cape Breton on 20 May. Here, in the mouth of a river, they took in wood, water, and ballast, and encountered Indians, “clothed all in furs, with the furred side unto their skins,” who “brought with them furres of sundry sorts to sell, besides great store of wild ducks.” The French traded small beads for ducks and May wrote, “This should seeme to be a very good countrey.”

On the Grand Banks they met various ships, not one of which would “take in a man of us,” until a Falmouth bark agreed to accept the whole crew on board. “With her,” says May, “we tooke a French ship wherein I left capitan de la Barbotier, my deere friend, and all his company.” May reached Falmouth in August 1594.

Thomas Dunbabin

Hakluyt, Principal navigations (1903–5), X, 194–203 (especially 202–3). Purchas, Pilgrimes (1905–7), II, 288, states that May was purser of the Edward Bonaventure.

General Bibliography

Cite This Article

Thomas Dunbabin, “MAY, HENRY,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 1, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–, accessed March 19, 2024, http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/may_henry_1E.html.

The citation above shows the format for footnotes and endnotes according to the Chicago manual of style (16th edition). Information to be used in other citation formats:


Permalink:   http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/may_henry_1E.html
Author of Article:   Thomas Dunbabin
Title of Article:   MAY, HENRY
Publication Name:   Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 1
Publisher:   University of Toronto/Université Laval
Year of publication:   1966
Year of revision:   1979
Access Date:   March 19, 2024