Note Richard Rich — Chapter III
Reading edition
Page 40. Richard Rich was a soldier and adventurer who accompanied Captain Newport in the Sea Venture, and experienced all the dangers and hardships of that remarkable voyage. He finally got back to England in 1610, and on the first day of October, published this poem, his object being, as he says in a brief and broadly humorous preface, to "spread the truth" about the new colony, whose attractions had so impressed him that he was resolved to return thither with Captain Newport in the following year. He speaks of another book of his soon to be issued, also devoted to a description of the colony, but no copy of it has ever been discovered, nor is anything known concerning Rich's subsequent adventures. A copy of his "Newes from Virginia" was found in 1864 in Lord Charlemont's collection, and is now in the Huth Library.