University of Virginia Library

Preface.

THE history of the first English settlement in the
United States, and of its failure, is well known.
But the text of the actual narrative from which
all the writers upon the subject have, either directly
or at second-hand, derived their facts, is not familiar
to any save professed students. It is rare in any form, and the
present reproduction will serve a useful purpose in making known to
thousands who would otherwise never have a chance of learning it,
the story as told by a prominent man among the original colonists.

When it entered into the ingenious and adventurous head of
Sir Walter Ralegh to seek for lands in the New World lying
sufficiently northward of the Spanish possessions to render a
settlement feasible and legitimate, sufficiently southward of
Cabot's British explorations on the Labrador coast to be useful
and profitable, Queen Elizabeth granted him a patent, in virtue
of which he sent out two barques on a preliminary expedition in
1584, in which possession was formally taken of the island of
Wokokan, off the coast of Florida. The second and more
substantial expedition to the same regions was made in 1585.
Sir Richard Grenville, acting as General in the name of Ralegh,
started from Plymouth on April 9th in that year, in the command
of seven ships, manned with soldiers, sailors, and a number of
adventurous Englishmen who were to make their homes in
Virginia—a name bestowed on the country north of Florida in

honour of the Virgin Queen of England. Their course was not
directly to the shore they aimed at; it bore them first to Puerto
Rico, and then to Hispaniola, in which Spanish settlements the
English ships succeeded in obtaining stores, although their
welcome from King Philip's officers and colonists was naturally
not too cordial. Thence making their way northwards, they
reached the island of Roanoke and founded a settlement.
Grenville and his officers remained for a couple of months to
see things satisfactorily arranged; he appointed Ralph Lane
governor of the new colony, and left with him a hundred and
seven men whose names are recorded by Hakluyt as the first
settlers in Virginia. Thomas Hariot was one of these; and to
him we owe the narrative which is now reprinted. Another was
John White, the draughtsman whose designs illustrating the
manners and ways of the natives, and the Fauna and Flora of the
new land, were carried to Europe a year later and, by Richard
Hakluyt's interposition, entrusted for engraving to the hands of
the famous artist Theodore de Bry, of Frankfort. Hakluyt's list
does not give the name of John White exactly as we know it—it
appears in manuscript on the original leaves of the drawings (now
preserved in the British Museum) as "John White" and "John
With." There are, however, two names amongst those detailed
by Hakluyt either of which may be taken to represent the man—
"John Wright" and "John Twyt." There is a "John White"
mentioned several times by Hakluyt, but he was apparently a
seaman of higher rank than any of those settlers who remained
with Lane. He made several voyages and held nautical command
in 1587 and 1590—that of 1590 being his fifth expedition.
Whoever the draughtsman was, his pictures shew that he was an
artist of considerable merit, and the original drawings in the
British Museum prove that De Bry was not, as he is frequently
supposed to have been, an inventive illustrator of the books in
his compilation, but a faithful engraver of authentic designs.

The non-arrival of supplies from England began to daunt the
colonists, while the relations between them and the Indians grew
so embarrassing that, under the existing conditions, the colony
was doomed to failure, and its abandonment for the time was

resolved upon. Sir Francis Drake visited Roanoke on June 10th,
1856, and Lane asked him to convey them back to England. He
agreed to do so, and desired the settlers to make ready for sailing
in August with Abraham Kendall and Griffith Herne, whom he
appointed to the command of two vessels for that purpose; but he
soon changed his mind. With characteristic rapidity of decision,
Drake distributed the hundred and four men among his various
ships and set out with them on June 19th. They reached
Portsmouth on July 27th, and so ended the first English attempt
to colonize the New World. The attempt was, however, renewed
the following year successfully, as will be found recorded in divers
histories.

Hariot wrote his book for the information of Ralegh, and
was perhaps himself not the real transmitter of the story to the
press. It was printed in London in 1588 without any illustrations.
That first edition is now so rare that only four copies are known
to be extant. If one turned up for sale at the present time, or at
any time within the next twenty years, it would probably bring a
price of not less than two thousand five hundred dollars. The
second edition (which is here reproduced) is more valuable
because it was illustrated by De Bry, who in the meanwhile
had visited London and obtained the privilege of engraving John
White's beautiful designs. The statement, on the title-page of the
plates, that Hakluyt had translated the letterpress accompanying
those designs from Latin into English, may simply mean that he
had De Bry's work in manuscript before him; or it may be taken
to show that the Latin edition of De Bry's first part was already
in type. It matters little either way. The descriptions annexed
to the plates were perhaps taken down by De Bry in Latin from
John White's oral explanations, and were therefore the only
original which Hakluyt could follow. The illustrations are of
distinct anthropological importance and exactness, and convey a
clearer notion of the ways and manners of the Red Indians at the
time of the English plantation than any narrative could express.
De Bry's edition was first printed in English as soon as the
engravings were ready; and then translated into Latin and
German in order to serve as the first fasciculus of his great

Collection of Voyages. The English volume, printed at Frankfort,
is excessively rare, although not so rare as the little quarto
printed at London two years before. A copy, if it were sold
to-day, would probably bring a thousand dollars at the least.

A few slight obvious misprints are corrected in this re-impression.

AMORE ET VIRTVTE.