Silvester Jourdaine

Died unmarried in the parish of St. Sepulchre, beyond Newgate, London, in the spring of 1650, his estate being administered on 28th May of that year by his brother John Jourdain the younger.

biography

JOURDAIN or JOURDAN, SILVESTER (d. 1650), voyager, was son of William Jourdain of Lyme Regis, Dorsetshire, and cousin of John Joudain [q. v.] In 1603, according to a record in the 'Port Book of Poole,' Silvester Jordain of Lyme shipped some goods from that town (Hunter, Chorus Vatum, v. 196). In 1609 he accompanied his townsman, Sir George Summers, Sir Thomas Gates [q. v.], and Captain Newport, deputy governors of Virginia, on their voyage to America. They were wrecked on 28 July at Bermuda, then uninhabited, and took possession of it for the crown of England. On his return Jourdain wrote ˜A Discovery of the Barmudas, otherwise called the Ile of Divels, 4to, London, 1610 (reprinted, without acknowledgment, in 1613 in a Plaine Description of the Barmudas, edited by W. C., and dedicated to Sir Thomas Smith). Other reprints are to be found in Hakluyt's Collection of Voyages,™ 1809 and 1812, and in the Aungervyle Society's reprints, 1884. Shakespeare was well acquainted with Jourdain's Discovery, and doubtless drew from it some hints for his Tempest.™ Ariel talks of fetching dew from the still-vexed Bermoothes ( i. 2). Fletcher in Women Pleased (i. 2) and Webster in Duchess of Malfi (iii. 2) follow Jourdain in representing Bermudas as the home of devils and witches. Jourdain died unmarried in the parish of St. Sepulchre beyond Newgate, London, in the spring of 1650, his estate being administered on 28 May of that year by his brother John Jourdain the younger (Administration Act Book, P. C. C., 1650, f. 83 b).