From this place he sent on the little caravel called El Borreo, or the Post, to discover if there were any passage westwards among these supposed islands.

The shallowness of the sea and the numerous currents, which at each change of the tide dashed against and injured the lesser vessels, much retarded the Admiral's progress, and to avoid the perils of the shallows he always sent one of the lighter caravels ahead; this vessel being of short draught took repeated soundings and the other larger ones followed.

A Portuguese pilot, who had often made the voyage to Guinea, had the temerity to assert, that any kind of ship could make this redoubted voyage, as safely as the royal caravels, and was sent for to court by the king, who gave him a public reprimand for his ignorance and presumption.

It was in the year 1607 that the quaint, high-sterned caravels, representing the forlorn hope of England, crossed the ocean to found a colony on Roanoke Island.