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Page 11
A more hopeful omen might be drawn from the birth of a child five days
later, the first born to English parents in the New World. Her father,
Ananias Dare, was one of the twelve assistants, and her mother,
Eleanor, was the daughter of John White. Each event, the birth of
Virginia Dare, the baptism and ennobling of Manteo, was trivial in
itself, yet when brought together, the contrast gives a solemn
meaning. It seemed as if within five days the settlement of Roanoke
had seen an old world pass away, a new world born.
In August White wished to send home two of the assistants to represent
the state of the colony, but, for some reason, none of them were
willing to go. The wish of the colony generally seemed to be that
White himself should undertake the mission. After some demur, chiefly
on the ground that his own private interests required his presence in
the settlement, White assented, and on the 27th of August he
sailed....
Soon after White's return Raleigh fitted out a fleet under the command
of Grenville. Before that fleet could sail Raleigh and Grenville were
called off to a task even more pressing than the relief of the
Virginia plantation. Yet, notwithstanding the prospect of a Spanish
invasion, White persuaded Raleigh to send out two small vessels, with
which White himself sailed from Bideford on the 25th of April, 1588.
The sailors, however, fell into the snare so often fatal to the
explorers of that age. In the words of a later writer, whose vigorous
language seemed to have been borrowed from some contemporary
chronicler, the captains, "being more intent on a gainful voyage than
the relief of the colony, ran in chase of prizes; till at last one of
them, meeting two ships of war, was, after a bloody fight, overcome,
boarded and rifled. In this maimed, ransacked, and ragged condition
she returned to England in a month's time; and in about three weeks
after the other also returned, having perhaps tasted of the same fare,
at least without performing her intended voyage, to the distress, and,
as it proved, the utter destruction of the colony of Virginia, and to
the great displeasure of their patron at home."
Raleigh had now spent forty thousand pounds on the colonization of
Virginia, with absolutely no return. In March, 1589, he made an
assignment, granting to Sir Thomas Smith, White and others the
privilege of trading in Virginia, while he proved at the same time
that he had not lost his interest in the undertaking by a gift of a
hundred pounds for the conversion of the natives. The unhappy
colonists gained nothing by the change. For a whole year no relief was
sent. When, at length, White sailed with three ships, he or his
followers imitated the folly of their predecessors, and preferred
buccaneering among the Spaniards in the West Indies to conveying
immediate relief to the colonists. On their arrival nothing was to be
seen of the settlers. After some search the name Croaton was seen
carved on a post, according to an arrangement made with White before
his departure, by which the settlers were thus to indicate the course
they had taken. Remnants of their goods were found, but no trace of
the settlers themselves. Years afterward, when Virginia had been at
length settled by Englishmen, a faint tradition found its way among
them of a band of white captives, who, after being for years kept by
the Indians in laborious slavery, were at length massacred. Such were
the only tidings of Raleigh's colonists that ever reached the ears of
their countrymen. White, with his three ships, returned, and the
colonization of Virginia was for a time at an end. Even Raleigh's
indomitable spirit gave way, and he seems henceforth to have abandoned
all hope of a plantation. Yet he did not, till after fifteen years of
disappointment and failure, give up the search for his lost settlers.
Before he died the great work of his life had been accomplished, but
by other hands. In spite of the intrigues of the Spanish court and the
scoffs of playwrights, Virginia had been settled and had become a
flourishing colony. A ship had sailed into London laden with Virginia
goods, and an Indian princess,[4] the wife of an Englishman, had been
received at court, and had for a season furnished wonder and amusement
to the fashionable world.
[1] From Doyle's "English Colonies in America." By permission of
the publishers, Henry Holt & Co.
[2] Sir Humphrey Gilbert, a half-brother of Raleigh, is here
referred to. In 1578 he had obtained royal permission to found a
colony in America, but his expedition, after starting, turned back,
a failure. In 1588 he again set out, landing at St. John's,
Newfoundland, where he established the first English colony in
North America. On returning home his ship was lost in a storm off
the Azores.
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