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Page 10
Coasting along for about a hundred and twenty miles the voyagers
reached an inlet and with some difficulty entered. They solemnly took
possession of the land in the Queen's name, and then delivered it over
to Raleigh according to his patent. They soon discovered that the land
upon which they had touched was an island about twenty miles long and
not above six broad, named, as they afterward learned, Roanoke.
Beyond, separating them from the mainland, lay an enclosed sea,
studded with more than a hundred fertile and well-wooded islets....
Barlow and Amidas returned to England in the middle of September. With
them they brought two of the savages, named Wanchese and Manteo. A
probable tradition tells us that the Queen herself named the country
Virginia, and that Raleigh's knighthood was the reward and
acknowledgement of his success. On the strength of this report Raleigh
at once made preparations for a settlement. A fleet of seven ships was
provided for the conveyance of a hundred and eight settlers. The fleet
was under the command of Sir Richard Grenville, who was to establish
the settlement and leave it under the charge of Ralph Lane....
On the 20th of June the fleet reached the coast of Florida, and three
days later narrowly escaped being cast away off Cape Fear. In a few
days more they anchored at Wococon, an island near Roanoke. In
entering the harbor the largest ship, the _Tiger_, struck a sand-bar,
and was nearly lost, either through the clumsiness or treachery of the
pilot, Simon Fernando, a Portuguese. On the 11th of July Grenville,
with forty others, including Lane, Amidas, and the chief men of the
expedition, crossed over to the mainland. Taking northerly direction,
they explored the coast as far as Secotan, an Indian town some sixty
miles mouth of Roanoke, where they were hospitably received by the
savages. It is melancholy, after the bright picture of the intercourse
between the natives and the English drawn by Barlow, to have to record
hostilities, in which by far the greater share of blame lay with our
countrymen. On the voyage back to Roanoke a silver cup was stolen from
the English at one of the Indian villages. In revenge the English put
the inhabitants to flight, burnt the village and destroyed the crops.
On the 3d of August one ship sailed home, and on the 25th Grenville
left the colony, followed, as it would seem, during the course of the
next month by the rest of the fleet[3]....
The site of the settlement was at the northeast corner of the island
of Roanoke, whence the settlers could command the strait. There, even
now, choked by vines and underwood, and here and there broken by the
crumbling remains of an earthen bastion, may be traced the outlines of
the ditch which enclosed the camp, some forty yards square, the home
of the first English settlers in the New World....
If the failure of his colony was likely to deter Raleigh from further
efforts, this was more than outweighed by the good report of the
country given both by Lane and Heriot. Accordingly, in the very next
year, Raleigh put out another and a larger expedition under the
leadership of John White. The constitution of White's expedition would
seem to show that it was designed to be more a colony, properly
speaking, than Lane's settlement at Roanoke. A government was formed
by Raleigh, consisting of White and twelve others, incorporated as the
governor and assistants of the city of Raleigh. Of the hundred and
fifty settlers seventeen were women, of whom seven seem to have been
unmarried. The emigrants evidently did not go as mere explorers or
adventurers; they were to be the seed of a commonwealth....
On the 2d of July the fleet reached Haterask, the port at which
Grenville had landed on his last voyage. There White took fifty men
ashore to search for the fifteen whom Grenville had left there. They
found nothing but the bones of one man, slain, as they afterward
learned, by the Indians. The rest had disappeared, and it was not till
some time afterward that their countrymen learned any tidings of their
fate. Ignorant, no doubt, of the altered feelings of the natives,
Grenvile's men had lived carelessly, and kept no watch. Pemissapan's
warriors had seized the opportunity to revenge the death of their
chief, and had sent a party of thirty men against the English
settlement. Two of the chief men were sent forward to demand a parley
with two of the English. The latter fell into the trap, and sent out
two of their number. One of these was instantly seized and killed,
whereupon the other fled. The thirty Indians then rushed out and fired
the house, in which the English settlers took refuge. The English,
thus dislodged, forced their way out, losing one man in the skirmish,
and at last, after being sorely prest by the arrows of their enemies,
and by their skill in fighting behind covert, they reached the boat
and escaped to Haterask. After this neither Indians nor English ever
heard of them again....
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