University of Virginia Library

CHAPTER I.

If, in the present age, a child of science could
discover and unfold to our view a world connected
with that in which we live, yet heretofore invisible,
teeming with the treasures of nature, unimpaired
in original freshness and beauty, and peopled by
beings to whom all art seemed unknown, we would
hail this discovery as approaching the miraculous,

and its author as destined to immortality on
earth.

Hence we may conceive something of the astonishment
that pervaded the mind of Europe[1] when
it was first announced that a navigator had crossed
the mysterious expanse of water which had so long
bounded her hopes and excited her fears, and had
returned to tell of a world that she had never known
before.

He who really accomplished this great object,
may be reckoned among the men to whom our race
should rejoice to render all that gratitude could
suggest, or that generosity could give; and if Columbus
in life was loaded with chains, and in death
has been deprived of the privilege which the heart
of a father seeks when he would give his name to
his child, it has been because man is neither perfect
in judgment, nor untainted in virtue.

It may be possible to attach too much importance
to the discovery either of a great truth in science,
or of an exhaustless source of physical wealth upon
our earth, but it would be difficult to express a
measure of merit greater than that which is due to
the navigator of Genoa. He who would compute
his worth must belong not to any age that has succeeded
him, nor to the time in which we live, nor
to any era that may soon appear.

He must live near the point at which we have
reason to believe that this world will close its final
scene; and as he looks back to the beginning of the
sixteenth century, and sees what America has done

in affecting the destinies of man, in developing the
human mind, in pointing out the road to national
happiness, and in leading on the hosts which are at
last to be united under one Divine Director, he may
catch some faint view of the glories which should
encircle the name of Columbus.

If it be feared that love to his native land may
exercise an influence upon an American so strong
as to cause him to view his country's progress with
too sanguine hope, and her discoverer with undue
enthusiasm, we would be tempted to refer to the
words of an English historian, proverbial for his
distrust of democracy, for his love to the monarchical
institutions of his country, but whose prophetic
eye had been accustomed so long to regard the rise
of empires and the fall of kings, that he had learned
to look down the vista of the future and behold the
fates of nations. He has spoken of America, and
pointed to her shores as the hope of the world, even
of that nation to which his heart was most firmly
bound,—and the warmest patriot in the "great
Republic" could hardly desire for his country renown
more substantial, or influence more extended,
than that which this impartial mind has declared
to await her.[2]

From the immense field of American history

which the genius of Columbus has developed,
a portion has been selected for the subject of the
following pages that would seem, at first sight, to
bear but a small value when compared with all the
interests of the powerful republic of which Virginia
is a part; but it will not be difficult to show
that her history merits a separate consideration,
and that from an early period of her existence as a
colony, she has exerted an influence upon the fate
of America that may well draw to her progress the
notice of all who hope to find in the past, lessons
for future generations.[3]

In tracing the events which first led Europeans
to her shores, it will not be the duty of the historian
to speak of every voyage that was undertaken,
or of every discovery made, during the century
succeeding the first voyage of Columbus to
the western world. These successive discoveries
opened an immense tract of coast and of island extending
from the frozen sea of the north to the more
temperate ocean in the region of Cape Horn, and
many of them had little influence in determining
the fate of North America.[4] But it will be a task
appropriate to our subject to award to him who
deserves it the merit of having opened the seal
which none before him had dared to touch, and led
the way along which others of more humble name
were to pass in founding a nation's greatness.

Since this discovery has been made, many have
been found willing to deny to the noble Genoese
his right to its exclusive honour. Nations and
men unknown to fame have been industriously
marshalled in array against him, and pretensions
have been advanced in favour of those who, could
they themselves have spoken, would have declared
their unworthiness of the glory which he has won
with so enormous hazard.[5] But perhaps nothing
could more fully vindicate the title of Columbus
than the failure of all attempts to prove that America
had been reached by adventurers from Europe
before his day; and those whose misspent industry
has been employed in drawing from the mouldering
records of the past evidences in favour of the
navigators of Iceland or of Wales, might with justice
be rewarded with the lands explored by their
favoured heroes of the ocean.[6]

(1002.) The narrative upon which rests the claim
of Norway and Iceland to the discovery of Newfoundland
and Nova Scotia, five centuries before the
great voyage of Columbus, is traditional in its form,

and so far inconsistent in its statements that it
would be difficult to declare to what land it accompanies
its actors. The ingenuity of learned minds
has been employed in reconciling its facts, and in
accommodating its descriptions to the soil, the
productions, the climate, and the people of northern
America;[7] but it would be more prudent to suppose
that Vinland and Greenland were one and the same,
than to believe that the rude voyagers of the
eleventh century, without chart or compass, and
exposed to the storms of northern regions, passed
in safety the terrific seas which separate the western
islands of the old world from the eastern outposts
of the great American continent.

(1170.) But if the claim of the Northmen be more
than doubtful, the pretensions that have been advanced
in favour of Wales are not better supported.

Madoc, son of Owen Guyneth, Prince of North
Wales, may have existed, may have quarrelled
with his brethren concerning the division of their
rugged patrimony, may have wandered away to
sea and sailed west, "leaving the coast of Ireland
so far north that he came to a land unknown,
where he saw many strange things;"[8] but it would
require a mind steeped in credulity to believe that
he landed on the shores of the western world.[9]
Though the tradition which speaks of him be of

unquestionable antiquity, yet it affords no sufficient
basis for belief that he visited America,[10] and nothing
but national prepossession and jealousy of
Spain could have induced the authentic Hakluyt
to lend his favour to this fable.[11] Those who by
their burrowing propensities, have discovered
among the Indians of North Carolina a dialect of
the Welsh,[12] will not find much difficulty in receiving
Madoc as the forerunner of Columbus, and to
their guardianship the fame of the Welsh navigator
may be safely committed.

But even should it be acknowledged that the
hardy seamen of the North, or the adventurer of
Wales, did in fact reach the coasts of the new
world, this will not in any manner detract from the
merit of the Genoese navigator. The voyages of
Biron and of Madoc were the result rather of accident
than of design; they were followed by no permanent
settlement, and their very memory would
have been lost but for the industry of modern times.
We have no reason to believe that Columbus had
any knowledge either of their attempts, or of their
alleged success,[13] nor do we find in his notes preserved
by his son any reference to these prior adventures.
His soul was not kindled into flame by
the breath of any mortal. His views were his
own—conceived in solitude, matured by incessant
study and profound thought—and when once they

had taken full effect upon his mind, they prevailed
to the exclusion of all inferior purposes. "He
never spoke in doubt or hesitation, but with as
much certainty as if his eyes had beheld the promised
land."[14] His hopes were not the result of
excited fancy, nor of that dreamy enthusiasm
which peoples the air and fills all space with fairy
beings, but were founded upon the intense labour
of a powerful and philosophic intellect. He firmly
believed that by sailing continuously westward
from Europe, the adventurers must finally attain
either to the extreme eastern projections of Asia,
or to the shores of a fourth and hitherto unknown
continent.[15]

He based this belief upon three grounds:—First,
upon the nature of things: for the spherical form
of the earth was now generally received; and
though the laws of specific and of general gravity
were but the conjectures of the learned few,[16] yet a
mind trained to habits of thought easily adopted
the belief that some counterbalancing weight of
land had been placed by the all-wise Architect in
opposition to the immense continents known to
antiquity. Secondly, upon the authority of learned

writers. Marco Polo had travelled into Asia; and,
half a century after, Sir John Mandeville had followed;
and both, in returning, had published accounts
of their discoveries, in which, with much of
truth, they had combined more of extravagant fiction.[17] From these and others Columbus gathered
nutriment for his faith in a western passage to the
Indies. Thirdly, upon the reports of navigators.
Some, who had stretched farthest into the expanse
west of Europe, had encountered timber artificially
carved, and canes of enormous size floating upon
the sea; even a canoe had been driven to them by
easterly winds; and at one time the bodies of two
men resembling neither the inhabitants of Europe
nor of Africa were cast upon the coasts of the Azore
Islands.[18]

But it is evident that the first of these grounds
produced on the mind of Columbus the deepest impression,
and that the others were only resorted
to as confirming his favourite theory. His genius
had already imparted to the land of the West all
the freshness of reality; and at a time when the
vulgar mass would have listened with doubt—perhaps
with horror—to his proposal, and when even
the enlightened were confining their views to the
East and the shores of Africa, he was willing to
launch his bark upon the Atlantic, and to steer
westward until either his cherished hopes were

realized, or his body had found a tomb in the
bosom of that ocean to which he had entrusted his
fortunes. It is in this aspect that Columbus appears
among the greatest of the great. He was
not misled by enthusiasm, or driven on by accident:
he was not the fortunate victim of winds and
waves, whose fury he would willingly have avoided.
His judgment was mature; his conduct was deliberate;
he had estimated the hazard, and was ready
to meet it. He was willing to encounter the scorn
of the ignorant, the perfidy of the interested, the
doubts of the learned, the delays of royalty,—all
these he welcomed if they might conduct him to
the threshold of an enterprise of danger beyond all
that had gone before,—of inevitable ruin should he
fail—but of unfading glory should success place a
crown upon his brow.

He who would speak coldly of Columbus, and
who, without thought, would ascribe to another the
merit which is claimed for him alone, would do
well to reflect upon the facts attending his discovery.
It is not merely because he crossed the Atlantic,
and landed upon one of the Bahama Islands,
that we would receive him as our benefactor. This
might, by singular and fortunate accident, have
been accomplished by one before his day, who would
have merited little at the hands of posterity. But
it is the profound, the reflecting, the firm, yet
chastened and trusting spirit, that deserves our admiration—the
mind that conceived, formed, executed
the plan of his life.

Excited by hope, yet laden with care, he turned

his ships to the setting of the sun, and perhaps
might have gathered from the departing light presages
of darkness for his own high aspirations. He
passed three thousand miles of water that had
never before been disturbed by a keel; he knew
not, with certainty, whither he tended; the very
winds which blew with gentle force and wafted on
the adventurers over a placid sea, seemed invested
with a mysterious control; their breath might be
the treacherous fanning of a power from which they
could never escape, and which was finally to bear
them to certain destruction.[19] The superstitious
minds over which the master soul presided threatened
constant rebellion, and added to the solemn
terrors of nature the fierce impulses of human passions.

But the difficulties have been encountered and
overcome, the dangers have fled before courage and
genius; and the day on which Columbus cast himself
upon his knees on the beach of San Salvador,
and then rising drew his sword and displayed the
royal ensign of the Castilian monarchs,[20] has imparted
to his name a lustre which will brighten
with its rays the history of all succeeding generations.

If any thing could add to the interest of a discovery
so wonderful, achieved by a character so magnanimous,
it might be found in the thought, that
for this great success, Columbus, and all who have
lived after him, are wholly indebted to the generous

energy of a woman; and if that part of our
country upon whose history we are about to enter
bears a name given by a queen, and endeared by
many associations of feminine grace, America herself
will never forget the ties which bind her to the
fame of the noble, the virtuous, the self-sacrificing
Isabella of Castile.[21]

After the return of the great Genoese from his
first voyage across the Atlantic, all astonishment at
subsequent discoveries must be greatly diminished,
if not entirely removed. There were indeed stormy
seas, bleak and frozen coasts, treacherous rocks and
quicksands yet to be encountered, but the mysteries
of the ocean had been revealed—the veil was
removed—and future voyagers might securely open
their sails to the breeze which bore them to the
western continent.

To Spain undoubtedly belongs the honour of
having equipped and sent forth the hero who was
destined to give to religion and civilization a new
world for their favoured home; but another country
must claim the merit of having planted in America
the germ of that greatness which she derives from
her prosperity and her free institutions. Had Bartholomew
Columbus reached the court of Henry
the Seventh of England in due season, even the
avaricious caution of that monarch might have

been moved by his arguments, and under English
auspices the great navigator might have set forth
upon his voyage.[22] But it was otherwise disposed;
and to the influence thus fairly gained by Spanish
and papal power may be ascribed much of the oppression,
the inactivity, and the vice, which have
checked the growth of colonies in the fairest part
of the western world.

But though England thus lost the privilege of
being first in the enterprise which had been so
happily commenced, she was not blind to the advantages
that were to flow from the opening of this
new field to European effort. She had not then
indeed attained to that skill in navigation which
has since distinguished her, and which has secured
for her fleets the dominion of the seas, but her
people were beginning to develope those unconquerable
energies which have ever impelled the
Anglo-Saxon race.[23] In maritime attainments she
was still inferior to the navigators of Italy, of
Spain, or of Portugal; but in well-directed activity,
and in resources from which to draw means for the
equipment of voyagers, the wisdom of her monarch
had rendered her their superior.

Europe had not recovered from the years of
pleasing astonishment into which she was thrown
by the return of Columbus, before Henry made
diligent preparation to send forth a fleet upon a
voyage of discovery to the new world thus opened
to his view.

But no Englishman was willing to lead in an
adventure certainly hazardous, and requiring boldness
and naval skill of the highest order.

Giovanni Gaboto, a Venetian merchant, whose
name, when anglicized, may be known under the
familiar form of John Cabot, was the man to whom
England committed her dawning interests for the
new world. He was a merchant of Bristol; and,
in union with other enterprising spirits of that city,
he fitted out four small barks, which, with one ship[24]
furnished by the king, composed the frail fleet that
prepared to buffet the waves of the northern ocean.
On the 5th of March, 1496, Henry granted to John
Cabot, and to his sons Lewis, Sebastian, and Sanctius,
a patent;[25] and as this, "the most ancient American
state paper of England,"[26] will furnish to us
an idea of the contracted views of colonization then
entertained, it will be expedient to refer to its terms.
Henry grants to the Cabot family power "to sail in
all parts of east, west, and north, under the royal
banners and ensigns; to discover countries of the
heathen unknown to Christians; to set up the king's
banners; to occupy and possess as his subjects such
places as they could subdue; giving them the rule
and jurisdiction of the same, to be holden on condition
of paying to the king as often as they should
arrive at Bristol, (at which place only they were

permitted to arrive,) in wares and merchandise,
one-fifth part of all their gains; with exemption
from all customs and duties on such merchandise
as should be brought from their discoveries.[27]

Under this grant, it is clear that the Venetian
and his family would acquire a complete title to all
the lands they discovered, as well as full power to
exercise over them such form of government as to
them might seem best; while the unhappy colonists
who might be induced to settle on their domain
would be bereft of all political rights, and
consigned to the tender mercies of the Cabot dynasty
and their duly appointed agents. This grant,
so liberal to the leading adventurers, and so crushing
to those upon whom alone a colony must depend,
was only on condition of the due payment to
the royal merchant of his reserved part of the
gains!

The time was not yet come when men had
learned their social rights, and when human beings
resented the attempt of a crowned head to transfer
or to settle them like beasts of the field. Many
years were to pass away before England could
learn the true policy for colonizing; but it was fortunate
that the gallant men to whom royalty committed
its patents had more liberal souls than their
sovereigns, and were always willing to share with
their colonists the burdens and the pleasures of
their arduous enterprises.

(1497, May.) Clothed with these powers, John
Cabot and his heroic son Sebastian[28] launched boldly
forth upon the western waters. Columbus had
adopted the opinion that the islands he had discovered
were contiguous to the coast of Asia, and the
name of Indies might already be familiarly bestowed
on the groups which belonged to America.
Visions of gold and gems upon the soil of Cathay
were already floating in the brain of the elder Cabot;
and, steering a northwest course, he hoped to
reach the promised haven of exhaustless wealth.
On the 24th June the cheering sight of land was
obtained in a high latitude, and the Italian navigator
welcomed it with a name expressive of gratified
hope. He called it Prima Vista; but the sailors
of his fleet soon bestowed a title, which, if less
pleasing to the ear, has been of more enduring
existence.[29] No gems or gold were found to sate
their eager appetites; but subsequent years have
developed the true value of the treasure they had
discovered, and the banks of Newfoundland will
continue to be a source of wealth and prosperity to
man when the artificial thirst for gold has been forgotten.[30]

Continuing their voyage from Prima Vista and
St. John, with no prize more valuable than three
natives, they next encountered the great continent
itself; and the world seems to have acknowledged

that to an expedition sent forth under English patronage,
Europe owes the discovery of the main
land of the West.[31]

Still seduced by the golden phantom, Cabot had
steered north from Newfoundland, and he made
the American coast in the latitude of fifty-six degrees.

The cold and forbidding cliffs of Labrador could
furnish neither invitations for colonizing, nor wealth
for avarice, nor hopes of a northern passage to the
much-sought Indies; and Cabot was easily induced
to turn his course to the more temperate seas of the
south. He coasted along America, probably to the
latitude of Virginia, and possibly even to that of
Florida,[32] but returned to England without having
attempted either conquest or settlement.

The success of this voyage rekindled the zeal of
Henry, who had not yet become so far involved in
the interests of Spain as to be willing to yield deference
to the enormous claims of papal folly.
Subsequently, indeed, the marriage of his son with
Catharine of Arragon[33] made him anxious to preserve
peaceful relations with his Catholic majesty,
even by sacrificing in appearance his well-founded
claims to America. The Pope had granted to the
Spanish monarchs absolute right to all the countries
discovered or discoverable west of a meridian
line drawn from pole to pole one hundred leagues

to the westward of the Azores,[34] and the period had
not yet arrived when even the faithful subjects of
his Holiness had learned to yield to him spiritual
obedience so absolute as to bring their lips to his
feet, and yet, when necessary, to bind his temporal
hands.[35]

On the 3d February, 1498, Henry granted to
John Cabot another patent, somewhat less ample
than the first, and under its sanction another fleet
of discovery was prepared. The direction of this
enterprise was given to Sebastian Cabot, who was
born at Bristol,[36] and whose memory England
should cherish with a love little inferior to that
which she bestows upon the best of her native sons.
Full of adventurous courage, yet calm in danger,
deeply skilled in his favourite art, and devoted with
enthusiasm to a life of discovery, his eighty years
on earth were passed in almost ceaseless efforts for
the advance of scientific knowledge, and he deserves
more from his race than a grave unknown
even to the most diligent antiquary.[37]

In the voyage now commenced, Sebastian followed
the course formerly pursued by his father,
and stretched away first to the north, still intent
upon finding a northwestern passage. On the
11th of June he had attained the very high latitude

of sixty-seven and a half degrees, and yet the favourable
season so acted with its genial heat upon
the sea, that his passage was unobstructed by ice.[38]
But his crew, finding little to gratify in these barren
regions, and not partaking of his zeal, mutinied and
compelled him to return to the south, where former
voyages had induced them to believe, might
be found a clime of unexampled charms, and a
country filled with all that nature could lavish
upon her lovers. He sailed along the coast of
what was afterwards Virginia, and seems to have
been tempted even to the flowery land upon which
a name so appropriate was subsequently bestowed;[39]
but he was compelled to return to England by
threatened famine in his ships.[40]

It would be a violation of the unity of plan desired
in history, longer to dwell upon the successive
voyages undertaken by Europeans for the discovery
and settlement of the new world. It will
not be expedient to accompany the navigators of
France[41] in their hardy attempts to draw wealth or
fame from the frozen coasts of North America, nor
to follow the Spaniard, Ferdinand De Soto, in his
long-continued excursion through a country now

covered by some of the most flourishing states in
our Union,[42] nor to trace the events which resulted
in the settlement of St. Augustine in 1565, nearly
half a century before the landing of Englishmen
upon the shores of the Chesapeake.[43] The voyages
of the Cabots have been the more fully described,
because they give to England a title by discovery
to the fairest portion of North America, and the
zeal she afterwards manifested in settling it completed
the equity of her claim. Had Spain or even
France sent colonies to Virginia, her history would
have been far less grateful to a mind intent upon
the good of man than it has proved—there might,
perchance, have been stirring incident, ardent patriotism,
and even successful revolution; but there
would not have been that clearness of political
view, and that stern adherence to principle, the
seeds of which are deeply implanted in English
character. And if North America shall finally
exercise an influence for unmeasured good upon
the destinies of mankind, the world will owe this
to the guidings of that Providence which sent the
superstitious Spaniard to the climes of gold and
silver, and reserved during more than a century,
the soil of the north for the labour of English industry.

It has been a subject of surprise, perhaps of regret
to many, that England should so long have
delayed to plant colonies in that inviting country
which had been opened to her view by her fearless

voyagers. Eighty-nine years passed away between
the success of the elder Cabot and the first
feeble attempt to engraft upon the young tree of
the virgin land a scion from the vigorous oak of
Britain. But it may not be unprofitable to reflect,
that during this intervening period the history of
the mother country presents little else than a scene
of profligacy and oppression in the conspicuous
reigning monarchs, and of submissive stupor in the
people, which promised no good thing for the only
spirit desirable for colonization.

Henry VIII. was a tyrant by nature and by culture,
and added to the imposing traits of a despot the
less respectable vices of an unscrupulous libertinism.
His religion consisted in a bigotry which exceeded
even that of Rome, and which condemned alike
Papists and Protestants to the stake or the gibbet.[44]
His opposition to popery had no better basis than
his relentless resolve to divorce a queen worthy of
the best love that man could give; and the liturgy
that he inflicted upon what he might truly have
called "his church," was an embodiment of his
own cruel inconsistencies. Under such a monarch,
it is not wonderful that little was effected for colonies
either by public spirit in government or by
private adventure. Henry might rejoice in the
welfare of a country which ministered food for his
intense selfishness, and the people might be willing
for a time to bear a yoke entailed upon them by
the wars of an age of blood; but few could be
found disposed to expatriate themselves and encounter

the toils of the sea and the wilderness, with
the certain prospect of devoting all their strength
to fill the coffers of the grasping Tudor. Perhaps
these considerations will do more to explain
the indifference of England to colonization
during his dominion, than his fierce struggles with
the Pope, his general interference in European
politics,[45] or his domestic cares in providing successive
wives to share his throne and sink beneath
his cruelty.

During the short reign of the amiable Edward,
a prince who seems to have drawn from his mother
all that was distinctive in his moral character,
England was free from papal control, and might
have ridiculed with impunity the preposterous
grant which divided the new world between two
favoured nations.[46] But a regency is a season not
often benignant in its influence upon the foreign
interests of a people, unless it be long continued,
and be sustained by hands more skilful than those
which directed the youthful king. In this reign
no steady effort was made farther to develope the
resources of the new world.

And when bigotry, in a female form, ascended
the English throne in the person of Mary, the most
sanguine heart could not have hoped for successful
enterprise. Her time was wholly occupied in
forcing popery again upon her unwilling people, in
burning faithful subjects of her crown, and in soothing

the morose pride of her husband, Philip of Spain.
It is melancholy to reflect upon the character of a
woman so repulsive, that we can ascribe to her no
praise, save that of loving one whom all others
united in regarding with fear and execration.[47]

Her love to the church of Rome and to the monarch
of Spain, would cause her to pay unlimited
respect to the papal grant of Alexander VI.; and
her persecuted subjects would have sought in vain
from her an humble home in America, in which to
enjoy their hated religion.

But if the spirit of maritime adventure slumbered
during these reigns and a part of that which succeeded,
and if America was left without colonies,
we who now enjoy her happy institutions have probably
little reason to regret the delay. Colonists
educated under governments grossly despotic, could
not have failed to bear some impress of their origin;
and long years of suffering might have been necessary
to cast off the moulded forms of inveterate custom.
Before the work of settling America had been
firmly entered upon, the human mind was beginning
to acquire that elastic power which was its
happy possession in the best days of republican
antiquity; and we may yet notice, in the progress
of this narrative, the influence exerted on Virginia
by the principles which were gaining strength
at the time when her colonization, in truth, was
effected.

Elizabeth is the sovereign to whom her country
is indebted for the first systematic effort to colonize

America. The character of this great Queen would
insure a vigorous prosecution of any attempt made
under her auspices to extend the influence of her
far-famed dominion. Inheriting from her father an
inflexible strength of purpose, without the fitful
inconsistency which often prostrated his efforts,
she entered with her whole heart into any measure
which captivated her imagination. Possessed of a
mind firm and well balanced, yet susceptible of the
most varied impressions, she selected the best means
to effect the ends her judgment indicated as desirable,
and seldom failed by her vigour to render
them effectual. Her mind had been carefully cultivated
in youth, and it sought for knowledge with
an ardour amounting almost to enthusiasm. An
inquisitive spirit incessantly prompted her to find
new sources of improvement for her people; and
her fostering care had gathered around her the most
learned and brilliant men of her age.[48] Imperious
alike in her public offices and in her own private
family, her parliament trembled at the sound of her
voice,[49] and her domestics shrank from her presence
with awe and distrust;[50] but this very habit of command
made her the bulwark of her country in danger,
and urged forward with resistless force each
scheme that received her favour. Even her vanity,
which taught her to claim for her person the beauty
which nature had wholly denied to her,[51] was not
without its influence in enlisting her feelings for
the success of every plan to which she gave being.

Under this princess England put forth her gigantic
powers, and Christendom was made to feel her
influence. Russia was visited by her fleets; and
the autocrat who governed amid her cities and her
forests was willing to open a communion with the
isle that could send forth such adventurers.[52]

(June 11.) Elizabeth looked with favour on Sir
Humphrey Gilbert, (perhaps from love to his kinsman
Raleigh,) and granted to him a patent as ample
in its liberality to him as he could desire, and as
little favourable to the interests of colonists as the
enemies of England could wish.[53] But this unhappy
navigator fell a victim to his zeal for discovery and
marine adventure. In 1583 he took solemn possession
of Newfoundland in the name of his mistress;
but, in returning, a violent storm separated the frail
barks under his charge. The pious admiral was
in the Squirrel, a small vessel to which a point of
true professional pride had driven him.[54] When the
wind had somewhat abated, the Hind was near him.
Sir Humphrey was seen with a book in his hand,
carelessly reading amid the storm; and the last
words heard from his lips were—"We are as near

heaven by sea as by land;"—a sentiment as devout
as it is true, but one which will not remove our regret
that so valuable a life should have been entrusted
to so frail a bark. In the darkness which
followed, the light of the vessel suddenly disappeared
amid the angry waters, and the noble-hearted
Gilbert was seen no more.

But there survived him in England a spirit
worthy of greater success than ever attended the
enterprises of Sir Humphrey. Walter Raleigh[55]
was his half-brother on the maternal side, and had
sailed with him in a prior voyage of discovery.
This celebrated man has filled a space in the eye
of the world to which nothing but splendid talents
and singular energy could have entitled him. At
an age when the boy is still in the doubtful career
of youth, and far removed from the maturity of
manhood, he left his native land, and drew his
sword in behalf of the Protestant queen of Navarre.[56]
Chivalrous courage and a love of adventure were
his distinguishing traits; and if his enthusiastic
spirit sometimes betrayed him into folly, his warm
affections endeared him to all who best knew his
heart. To man he was often haughty and forbidding,
but to woman he was willing to submit with
uncomplaining deference. A character so marked
could not long escape the notice of Elizabeth, and
Raleigh soon received unequivocal tokens of her

favour. If we may trust to authority otherwise
undoubted, an incident strictly in accordance with
the romance of his nature introduced him to the
Queen; and the splendid cloak of plush and velvet
which he cast upon the ground before her, and
which saved the feet of Elizabeth from the miry
contact that threatened them, did not fail to secure
to its gallant possessor a path to the antechambers
of royalty.[57] The classic novelist of Scotland has
introduced this event as one of the links which
bound the fortunes of the knight to the throne of
his mistress;[58] and the happiness of Raleigh sank
for ever with the declining sun of the last and
greatest of the Tudors.

(March 25.) Elizabeth granted to Sir Walter a
patent as ample in every respect as that before given
to his kinsman Gilbert.[59] She gives him power for
himself, "his heirs and assigns for ever, to discover,
find, search out, and view all such remote, heathen,
and barbarous lands, countries, or territories, as were
not actually possessed by any Christian prince or
people," and to colonize them from England. The
principles of the feudal system were called in to
perfect this grant; and the Queen, as the great
proprietor in feudal sovereignty of all her present

and future dominions, made Raleigh and his heirs
her tenants in fee simple of his discoveries, reserving
to herself the duty of homage and the fifth part of
all gold and silver which should at any time be
found. The patent also gives to its holders full
license to "encounter, expel, repel, and resist" all
persons who should be guilty of the unpardonable
insolence of inhabiting these countries, or any place
within two hundred leagues of their settlements in
six years then to ensue, unless these countries should
have been previously planted by the subjects of some
Christian prince in amity with her majesty,—and
to capture, "by any means," all vessels or persons
trafficking or found without license within their
limits. Amid so much of narrow policy and extravagant
claim, it is at least pleasing to find recognised
that merciful principle of international law,
which exempts from hostility the unhappy victims
of shipwreck cast upon the shores of the settlers;
but in Elizabeth's patent even this exception is
confined to "persons in amity with her."

The holders of the patent are farther authorized
"to correct, punish, pardon, govern, and rule, as
well in causes capital or criminal, as civil," all the
inhabitants of these colonies. It is strange that any
men should have been found willing to entrust
themselves to a dominion so absolute and liable to so
ruinous abuse; but the colonist confided rather to the
honour, the humanity, the common sympathies of
his adventurous leaders, than to rights derived from
a patent which tacitly denied to him the lowest privileges
of self-legislation.

After granting this instrument to her favourite,
the Queen provided him with the means of rendering
it efficacious. Her own coffers were not invaded,
but the hoards of the luxurious in her realm
were indirectly visited to procure the needed money.
(Dec. 18.) She gave to Raleigh a monopoly
for the sale of sweet wines throughout the kingdom,[60]
by which he was enabled to realize immense
profits; and however fatal was the general policy
of vesting in single interests the exclusive right to
any branch of trade, yet the world has small reason
to regret a tax upon wealthy indulgence, which was
applied to the labour of pioneers in the western
wilderness.

Sir Walter himself never visited North America,
although many have believed that he did.[61] His
spirit of adventure might have impelled him to undertake
an enterprise so congenial to his taste; but

England and her European neighbours now offered
all that his heart could wish, of exciting incident,
and of prospect for renown. He was content to
interest in his scheme of colonization his two rich
relatives, "Sir Richard Grenville the valiant, Mr.
William Sanderson, a great friend to all such noble
and worthy actions, and divers other gentlemen and
merchants."[62] Two barks were equipped and fully
provided with every thing necessary to success.
They were well supplied with men, and were entrusted
to the command of captains Philip Amidas
and Arthur Barlow, to whom was committed the
responsible task of planting English enterprise
upon the soil of the West.

They sailed from England on the 29th April,
high in hope, and full of that novel interest felt by
men who are hazarding their lives in a cause and
clime hitherto untried. Unskilled yet in the higher
mysteries of navigation, and fearful of departing
from the course formerly pursued by traversers of
the Atlantic, they steered first to the Canaries, and
thence to the West Indies, where the summer heats
caused sickness among them.[63] At length, after
this needless delay, they approached the great continent,
now first to be visited by Englishmen whose
professed design it was to find among its magnificent
forests a home for themselves and their children.
(July 2.) As they drew near to the shores

they had so long waited for, although the eye was
yet unable to discern the distant landscape of luxuriant
verdure, yet another organ of sense told them
with unwonted accuracy of the charms which nature
had lavished upon America. A fragrance as
of a thousand different flowers, varying in their
odour yet uniting in their pleasing address to the
senses, filled the air, and was wafted across the
water to the approaching barks.[64] It seemed as
though the land they sought were already apprised
of their coming, and were wooing them to her embrace
by the delicious breath of her yet unviolated
children.

Determined to avoid the error of former navigators,
who had, with few exceptions, sought first
the stormy seas and inhospitable coasts of a high
northern latitude, Raleigh had encouraged his
subordinates to seek the temperate south; and it
was partly their desire to make the continent far
below the cliffs of Labrador, that had induced them
to sail by the Canaries and West Indian Islands.
The land they were now drawing upon was the
coast of Florida; but, turning their bows northward,
they sailed yet one hundred and twenty
miles before they discovered a harbour which
seemed to invite them to enter. At length, on the
13th July, they landed on an island which they
soon acknowledged under its Indian name of Wococon;
and, with grateful hearts, they returned

thanks to the Divine Protector who had guided
them in safety across the treacherous ocean.[65]

The isle upon which they entered, was the
southernmost of the two which form the mouth
now known as Ocracock Inlet.[66] In the winter
season, the whole eastern line of these islands is to
be approached with extreme caution, even by the
most skilful navigators. Terrific storms rage
around their borders, and the projecting headland
of Hatteras stands out like a fearful demon, to inspire
dread in the bosoms of weather-beaten voyagers.[67] (July.) But the adventurers now approached
them at a season when the sea is calm,
and when the verdure of these circling islands
would offer to the eye and the mind hopes of tranquillity
and of plenty. They were in a special
manner struck with the appearance of the country.
The beach was sandy,[68] and extended far into the
land, but a dense cover of small trees and clambering
vines shaded the interior, and furnished
many pleasing retreats from the rays of the summer
sun. The quantity of grapes was so enormous,
that every shrub was filled with them: the
rising ground and the valley were alike laden with
their abundance. Even the waves of the ocean,
as they rolled in upon the sandy beach, bore back
immense numbers of this teeming fruit, and scattered

them in profusion along the coasts of the
contiguous islands.[69]

Many of the trees were odorous, and imparted
to the air that healthful freshness peculiar to the
fragrance of nature. The cedar, the sassafras, the
cypress, the pine, were all abundant; and in the
woods were found the hare and the deer, almost
tame from the absence of civilized destroyers. The
fabled island of Calypso could scarcely have exceeded
the charms of this spot as it appeared to
the adventurers, and the genius of Fenelon might,
without injustice, have given to the goddess a residence
in summer upon the coasts of North Carolina.[70]

No human being was seen by the voyagers until
the third day, when a canoe, carrying three men,
came by the shore. One of them landed, and,
though probably filled with surprise, he evinced
neither distrust nor fear. He received with apparent
gratitude the gifts of his new friends, and, on
leaving them, hastened with his companions to a
favourable spot, whence they soon returned with
the canoe laden with fish. Dividing these into
two parts, he intimated, by intelligible signs, that
he intended one portion for each vessel.[71]

This savage hospitality was followed up on the
succeeding day. Several canoes arrived, bringing
many of the natives, and, among them, Granganameo,
the brother of Wingina, the king. The Indian
monarch himself was kept from his guests by
a severe wound, received not long before in a conflict
with a neighbouring tribe. His brother lavished
upon the voyagers all the simple kindness
that his heart could suggest. He left his boats at
a distance, and, approaching with his people, invited
an interview. Spreading a mat upon the
ground, he seated himself, and made signs to the
English that he was "one with them."

A friendly interchange of courtesies took place.
The child of nature seemed strangely pleased with
a pewter dish, which he hung round his neck, and
with a copper kettle, for which he gave fifty skins,
"worth fiftie crowns."[72] He brought his wife and
children to his new friends; they were small in
stature, but handsome, and graced with native
modesty. When the trafficking was in progress,
none of the savages ventured to advance until
Granganameo and the other great men were satisfied.
They were his servants, and were governed,
while in presence of their monarch, by a rule more
absolute than that exercised by the kings of civilized
climes, though his dominion virtually ceased
when they passed beyond his sight.

The gentle manners of these people induced
Captain Barlow,[73] and seven others, to comply with

their request, and visit Granganameo on the Isle of
Roanoke. They sailed up the river Occam (now
known as Pamlico Sound) about twenty miles,
and arrived in the evening at the north end of the
isle, where they found nine houses, built of cedar,
for the families around the chief. Granganameo
was absent, but he was well represented; and in
the very opening of their enterprise the settlers of
Virginia were to receive from the gentle nature of
woman a support which afterwards preserved them
from destruction. The wife of the chief ran,
brought them into her dwelling, caused their
clothes to be dried, and their feet to be bathed in
warm water; and provided all that her humble
store could afford of venison, fish, fruits, and hominy
for their comfort.[74]

When her people came around with their bows
and arrows—the usual implements for hunting,—
the English, in unworthy distrust, seized their
arms, but this noble Indian woman drove her followers
from the lodge, and obliged them to break
their arrows, in proof of their harmless designs.
Though her whole conduct gave evidence of openhearted
and determined good faith, yet the adventurers
thought it most discreet to pass the night in
their boat, which was launched and laid at anchor
for this purpose. The wife of the Indian chief
was grieved by their conduct, yet she relaxed not
her efforts for their comfort. Five mats were sent
to cover them from the heavy dews of the season,
and a guard of men and women remained during

the whole night on the banks of the river.[75] The
learned and philanthropic Belknap might well propose
the question, "Could there be a more engaging
specimen of hospitality?" Yet can we
not blame the caution of the English, for on their
safety depended the voyage; and they had not now
first to learn that man in a state of nature is prone
to violence and treachery.

These Indians were represented by the voyagers
on their return as gentle and confiding beings, full
of innocent sweetness of disposition, living without
labour, and enjoying a golden age in their western
home; yet, by a singular inconsistency, the
same narratives tell us of their feuds with other
tribes, their fierce wars (often urged to extermination),
and of those perfidious traits which so uniformly
enter into the character of the savage.[76] It
is not irrational to suppose that the enthusiasm engendered
by the discovery of a clime so full of natural
charms, affected the view of the adventurers
as to every thing connected with this land; and
suffering and cruelty, both in the settlers and in
the natives, slowly dispelled the pleasing vision.

Beyond the island of Roanoke they made no attempt
to extend their voyage; and they collected
no intelligence that could be useful or interesting,
except a confused statement from the Indians that,

twenty or thirty years before, a ship had been
wrecked upon their coast.[77] What this ill-fated
messenger was we do not know. It may have been
one of the many barks shattered by the winds and
waves in the dangerous passage of the Atlantic, and
gradually driven by tide and current to the shores
of Carolina.

Having thus happily accomplished some of the
objects they had sought, the voyagers set sail on
their return to England, taking with them two natives,
Manteo and Wanchese, who voluntarily accompanied
them to the "great country" beyond the
sea. They arrived about the middle of September,
and immediately sought the Queen, and laid before
her an account of their voyage, and of its results.
There was much of truth as a basis for their wondrous
descriptions; but the sober observer will not
fail to mark in this narrative the impress of imaginations
heated by the novelty of their performance
and the encouraging hopes of their royal mistress.[78]
They spake of the land they had visited as an
earthly paradise;—its seas were tranquil and gemmed
with green islands, on which the eye delighted
to rest,—its trees were lofty, and many of them
would rival the odoriferous products of tropical
soil,—its fruits were so lavishly supplied by nature,
that art needed to do little more than gather them in

summer and autumn, for the wants of winter,—its
people were children of another age, when virtue
triumphed, and vice was yet unknown. The court
and the Queen were alike enlisted, and looked to
this discovery as one of the brightest spots in her
lustrous reign.

For a land so distinguished in natural charms,
and to which England designed to devote the expanding
energies of her people, a name was to be
found worthy of future love. The Queen selected
"Virginia," and none can deplore the graceful
choice. She remembered her own unmarried state;
and connecting, it may be, with this the virgin purity
which yet seemed to linger amid these favoured
regions,[79] she bestowed a name which has since interwoven
itself with the most sensitive cords of a
million of hearts. Had Elizabeth carried to her
grave a reputation as unsullied for chastity[80] as it
is unassailable for intellectual force, her memory
might now be regarded with the most sacred affection
by the sons and daughters of her favoured
colony.

Raleigh had now obtained the honour of knighthood
and a seat in Parliament; and, deriving from
his lucrative monopoly means for farther effort, he

made diligent preparation for despatching another
fleet to Virginia. The second expedition consisted
of seven vessels, large and small; and that gallant
spirit, Sir Richard Grenville himself, was at its
head.[81] The war with Spain was now in progress,
and the richly laden vessels from South America
and the West Indies offered tempting prizes to
English bravery. Sir Richard sailed from Plymouth
the 9th of April, passed the Canaries and
West Indies, captured two Spanish ships, ran imminent
hazard of being wrecked on the dangerous
headland now known as Cape Fear, and reached
Wococon on the 26th of June. Manteo was brought
back to his native land, and proved an invaluable
guide and interpreter to his newly-made friends.

But their amicable relations with the natives were
now to receive a rude shock, from which they never
recovered. At Aquascogoc, an Indian stole from
the adventurers a silver cup; and, on being detected,
he did not return it as speedily as was desired.
(July 16.) For this enormous offence, the
English burned the town, and barbarously destroyed
the growing corn. The affrighted inhabitants
fled to the woods, and thus a poisoned arrow
was planted in their bosoms, which rankled unto
the end.[82] A silver cup, in the eyes of European
avarice, was a loss which could only be atoned by
ruin and devastation; and had the unhappy savage
stolen the only child of the boldest settler, a more

furious vengeance could not have followed! To
such conduct does America owe the undying hatred
of the aboriginal tenants of her land, and the burden
of infamy that she must bear when weighed
in the scales of immaculate justice.

A serious attempt was now made to found a colony.
One hundred and eight men were left on
the island of Roanoke, comprising in their number
some of the boldest hearts, and many of the best-cultivated
minds that had left the mother country.
Among them was Thomas Heriot, whom Raleigh
had sent out with a full knowledge of his scientific
acquirements, his love of investigation, and his
moral worth.

Sir Richard Grenville returned to England,
where he arrived in September, bringing with him
a rich Spanish prize.

The settlers, thus left to their own resources,
seem to have done little in the all-important task of
clearing the country and planting corn for future
necessities. Ralph Lane had been appointed governor,
a man uniting military knowledge with experience
in the sea. He undertook several voyages
of exploration, penetrated north as far as Elizabeth
River and a town on Chesapeake Bay,[83] and south
to Secotan, eighty leagues from Roanoke. But his
most famous expedition was up Albemarle Sound
and the Chowan River, of his adventures in which
he has himself given us a description, in a letter
preserved by Captain Smith. The king of the
Chowanocks was known by the title of Menatonon.

He was lame in one of his lower limbs, but his
spirit seems to have been one of uncommon activity
and shrewdness. He told the credulous English
of a country, four days' journey beyond them,
where they might hope for abundant riches. This
country lay on the sea; and its king, from the waters
around his island retreat, drew magnificent
pearls in such numbers that they were commonly
used in his garments and household conveniences.[84]
Instantly the fancies of the eager listeners were
fired with the hope of attaining this wealth; and
notwithstanding the scarcity of food, and the danger
of an assault by "two or three thousand" savages,
they continued to toil up the river. They
laboured on until they had nothing for sustenance,
except two dogs of the mastiff species, and the sassafras
leaves which grew in great abundance
around them. Upon this inviting fare they were
fain to nourish their bodies, while their souls were
fed upon the hope of finally entering this region of
pearls; but at length, in a state near to starvation,
they returned to Roanoke, having made no discovery
even so valuable as a copper spring[85] high up
the Chowan River, concerning which the Indians
had excited their hopes.

Thomas Heriot employed his time in researches

more rational than those which sought for pearls
amid the wilderness of America. He intermingled
freely with the Indian tribes, studied their habits,
their manners, their language, and origin. He
sought to teach them a theology more exalted than
the fancies of their singular superstition, and to expand
their minds by a display of the instruments
of European science. He acquired a vast fund of
information as to the state of the original country,
its people and its products,—and to his labours we
may yet be indebted in the progress of this narrative.[86]

But we have reason to believe that a great part
of the colonists contributed nothing to the success
of the scheme, and did much to render it fruitless.

The natives, who had received the first adventurers
with unsuspecting hospitality, were now
estranged by the certain prospect of seeing their
provisions taken away and their homes wrested
from them by civilized pretenders. Wingina, the
king of the country, had never been cordial, and
he now became their implacable foe. Nothing but
a superstitious reverence of the Bible—the firearms,
and the medicinal remedies of the colonists,
restrained his early enmity; but at length, upon
the death of his father, Ensenore, who had been
the steady friend of the whites, he prepared for
vengeance. In accordance with a custom common
among the Indians, he had changed his name to
Pemissapan, and now drew around him followers

to aid in his scheme of death. Twenty or more
were to surround the hut of Lane, drive him forth
with fire, and slay him while thus defenceless.
The leader destroyed, the rest of the colonists
were to be gradually exhausted by starving, until
they should fall an easy prey to the savages. But
this well-concerted plan was betrayed to the English—a
rencontre occurred, and several Indians
were slain. The settlers considered themselves
justifiable in meeting the treachery of the foe by a
stratagem, which drew Pemissapan and eight of
his principal men within their reach, and they
were all shot down in the skirmish.[87]

(1586.) But this success did not assuage the
hunger of the famished colonists. They were reduced
to extremity, when a seasonable relief appeared
on their coasts. (June 8.) While despair
was taking possession of their bosoms, the white
sails of a distant fleet were seen, and Sir Francis
Drake, with twenty-three ships, was soon in their
waters. He had been cruising in search of the
Spaniards in the West Indies, and had been directed
by the Queen to visit the Virginia Colony.
His quick perception instantly discerned the wants
of the settlers, and he provided for them a ship
well stored with provisions, and furnished with
boats to serve in emergency. But a violent storm
drove his fleet to sea, and reduced to wreck the
vessel intended to sustain the settlers. Their resolution
gave way; it seemed as though Divine
and human powers were united against them, and,

in utter despondency, they entreated Drake to receive
them in his fleet, and carry them to England.
He yielded to their wishes. They embarked the
18th June, and, on the 27th July, they landed
once more on the shores of their mother-land.

Thus, after a residence of nearly twelve months
in Virginia, the first colonists deserted the country
which had been offered as containing all that the
heart of man could desire. Little was gained by
their abortive attempt beyond an increased knowledge
of the new world, and another lesson in the
great book of depraved human nature.

It would be pleasing to the lover of Virginia to
be able to record the final good fortune of Walter
Raleigh, but nothing resulted from his patent, except
successive disaster and an appalling consummation.
The determined knight had sent a ship[88]
to seek the colony; and this arrived after the disheartened
settlers had sailed with Sir Francis
Drake, and thus, finding the island deserted, it returned
to England. Two weeks afterwards, Sir
Richard Grenville arrived with two ships well appointed;
but no flourishing settlement greeted his
eager eyes. Unwilling to abandon the semblance
of hope, he left fifteen[89] men on the island, well

provided with all things essential to their comfort,
and then spread his sails for England.

(1587.) In the succeeding year, Raleigh prepared
for another attempt. Convinced that the
bay of Chesapeake, which had been discovered by
Lane, afforded greater advantages for a colony, he
directed his adventures to seek its shores, and
gave them a charter of incorporation for the city
of Raleigh[90] —a name that North Carolina has
since, with merited gratitude, bestowed upon her
most favoured town. John White assumed command
of this expedition, and they were soon in the
waters of Virginia. (July 22.) The cape, to which
maritime terrors have given an expressive name,
threatened them with shipwreck, but at length
they arrived in safety at Hatteras, and immediately
despatched a party to Roanoke to seek the settlers
left by Sir Richard Grenville. A melancholy silence
pervaded the spot—the huts were yet standing,
but rank weeds and vines had overspread
them and striven to reclaim to the wilderness the
abortive efforts of human labour. Not one man
could be found, but the bones of one unhappy victim
told in gloomy eloquence of conflict and of
death.[91] From the reluctant statements of the natives,
they gathered the belief that these men had
either all perished under the attacks of overwhelming
numbers, or had gradually wasted away under
the approaches of disease and famine.

A discovery so mournful held out no cheering

prospects to the new adventurers; yet they determined
to renew the attempt upon the islands adjoining
Hatteras. About one hundred and fifteen
persons were landed and prepared for their novel
life. The Indians were no longer pacific; the spirit
of Wingina had diffused itself through every bosom,
and the unfortunate mistake, which caused the
death of a friendly savage,[92] contributed much to
the general hostility. But amid so much that was
unpropitious, two events occurred to shed a faint
light upon their days. (Aug. 13.) Manteo, the
faithful friend of the early visiters was baptized
with the simple though solemn rites of the Christian
faith, and upon him was bestowed the sounding
title of Lord of Dessamonpeake;[93] and a few
days after, the first child of European parentage
was born upon the soil of America. Eleanor,
daughter of Governor White, had married Ananias
Dare, and, on the 18th of August, she gave birth
to a female, upon whom was immediately bestowed
the sweet name of Virginia.[94] It is sad to reflect,
that the gentle infant of an English mother, and
the first whose eyes were opened upon the new
world, should have been destined to a life of privation
and to a death of early oblivion.

But the colonists needed many things from the
mother-land, and determined to send the governor
to procure them. He was unwilling to leave them
under circumstances so strongly appealing to his

paternal heart, but yielded to the general wish,
and sailed on the 27th August. But many causes
now opposed his success in the mother-country.
Spain was threatening a descent with her formidable
Armada, and England was alive with preparation
to meet the shock. Raleigh and Grenville
entered with enthusiasm into the interests of their
country, and were no longer in a state to furnish
aid for a distant colony. Not until April 22d, 1588,
could they prepare two small barks for a voyage
to Virginia, and these, drawn away by their eager
thirst for Spanish prizes laden with Mexican gold,
wandered from their route, and were driven back
by superior enemies to their original ports.[95]

Yielding to his disappointment and mortification
at these repeated disasters, and exhausted in
money by his enormous outlays, Raleigh no longer
hoped for success from his own exertions. Forty
thousand pounds had been expended and no return
had been made. On the 7th March, 1589, he
assigned his patent to Thomas Smith, Richard
Hakluyt, and others, who had the means and the
experience of merchants, or rather he extended to
them the rights enjoyed under his patent and exercised
by him in giving the charter for the "City
of Raleigh."[96] With this assignment, he gave one
hundred pounds for the propagation of Christian
principles among the savages of Virginia.[97] But

the energetic soul of Raleigh no longer ruled, and
doubtful zeal impelled the assignees. Not until
March, 1590, could Governor White obtain three
ships for his purposes; and though their names
might have incited him, by the motives both of
earthly hope and of religious trust,[98] yet he preferred
an avaricious cruise among the West India
Isles, to a speed which might, peradventure, have
preserved the life of his daughter. He arrived at
Hatteras the 15th August, and sought the settlers
left there three years before. The curling smoke
of grass and trees in flame gave them encouragement,
but they sought in vain their long-neglected
friends. On the bark of a tree was found the word,
"Croatan," legibly inscribed, and White hoped,
from the absence of the cross, which he himself
had suggested as a sign of distress, that the settlers
were still in being; but as they proceeded to Croatan,
a furious storm arose, and drove them from the
coast, and their dismayed spirits could find no relief
except in a return to England. No lingering
trace has ever marked the fate of this unhappy
colony. The generous Raleigh in vain sent five
successive messengers to seek and save.[99] They
were gone, and whither no tongue was left to tell.
Modern ingenuity may be indulged in the forlorn
suggestion that they were amalgamated among
their savage neighbours, but sober thought will
rather fear that they perished under the mingled
weight of famine, of disappointed hope, and of Indian
barbarity. And if, in closing this mournful
page in the history of Virginia, a feeling heart
could consent to have its sadness yet farther increased,
it might, with generous sympathy, turn
to the fate of the leaders, who had so nobly striven
for the success of the colonists. In an age of great
men, Sir Richard Grenville was the bravest of the
brave. In 1591, he commanded the Revenge, in
the squadron of Lord Thomas Howard, when they
were suddenly surprised at the Azores, by an overwhelming
Spanish fleet, sent out to convoy their
merchantmen. Lord Howard and all of his squadron,
except the Revenge, got to sea and made good
their retreat, but the heroic Grenville was left to
cope single-handed with fifty-seven armed ships of
Spain. History does not record a scene of more
desperate heroism than was now displayed. From
three o'clock in the afternoon until daybreak, he
combated with numbers who poured upon him
from every point. Fifteen times the Spaniards
gained the deck of the Revenge, and as often were
they driven back by English valour. At length,
when his deck was slippery with the blood of his
bravest men,—himself bleeding from many wounds,
—his powder nearly exhausted, and his ship a perfect
wreck, the unconquerable Grenville proposed
to his crew at once to sink their bark and leave no
trophy to their enemy. But, though many applauded,
this rash proposal was overruled; the
Revenge struck her colours, and, two days after,
Grenville died of his wounds aboard the admiral's
ship. In his own words, he had a "joyful and
quiet mind" in death, and his enemies could not
refuse their admiration to a heroism so exalted and
triumphant even in defeat.[100]

But the fate of Grenville was full of brightness
when compared with that of Walter Raleigh. The
great events of his life and his death are too well
known to need a formal statement; but it is to be
feared that few have entered into the inner temple
of his soul, and read there his true history. Had
David Hume been willing to sacrifice his obtrusive
love of the Stuarts to a generous desire to do justice
to an enthusiastic character, he might have found
in Raleigh something more than a false and dreaming
visionary;[101] and the cruel delay which held the
axe suspended for fifteen years over the victim,
only that it might finally fall in execution of accumulated
injustice, added to the already darkened
escutcheon of James a blot which will never be
washed away.

Thus the generous efforts of English hearts had
been vain. Money had been freely poured out, but
had brought no recompense. Savage jealousies had
been roused, and savage enmity had commenced
its work; devoted colonists had sunk in death on
the soil of America; and when Elizabeth descended
to her grave, not one English inhabitant could be
found amid the inviting plains of the new world.[102]