RALEIGH’S LOST COLONY

The Boy's Hakluyt: English Voyages of Adventure and Discovery by Richard Hakluyt is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here. RALEIGH’S LOST COLONY

RALEIGH’S LOST COLONY

Upon the return of his first colonists Raleigh at once bent his superb energies to the formation of his second or New Colony. The failure of the first colonists instead of dismaying inspirited him to larger effort. Lane’s report and Hariot’s account of the excellencies of the country moved him to plan his New Colony on a broader scale. He would now plant in “Virginia” a prosperous English agricultural state. The new colonists should include families, men, women, and children, and a regular government should be established at the outset. In accord with Lane’s theory, Roanoke Island should be passed by and the New Colony be seated on Chesapeake Bay.

To these ends Raleigh sagaciously determined to admit a number of investors to share in the privileges of his patent, and under date of January seventh, 1587, he executed an instrument granting a charter to thirty-two persons for the new settlement. These were divided into two classes. Nineteen, comprising one class, were gentlemen or merchants of London who were to venture their money in the enterprise; thirteen, constituting the other class, were to venture their persons. The latter were to be known by the corporate name of “The Governour and Assistants of the Citie of Ralegh in Virginia,” and were described as “late of London gentlemen.” The former were styled “merchants of London and adventurers.” They were to be “free of the corporation, company, and society ... in the citie of Ralegh intended to be erected and builded,” and were to adventure “divers and sundry sums of money, merchandises and shipping, munition, victual, and other commodities” into “Virginia.” In consideration of their investment they were granted free trade in the new settlement and in any other settlement that Raleigh might make by future discovery in America; and were exempted from all duties on their commerce, rents, or subsidies. An appropriation was made to them of one hundred pounds, to be ventured in any way they should see fit, the profits to be applied in “Virginia” in “planting the Christian religion and advancing the same,” and for “the common utility and profit of the inhabitants thereof.” In this indenture Raleigh as the grantor was styled “Chief governour of Assamocomoc, alias Wingandacoa alias Virginia.” In the list of the nineteen investing “merchants” appears the name of Richard Hakluyt. At the head of the thirteen to be planters of the “citie of Ralegh” was John White, the artist and man-of-affairs of the “Old Colony,” as governor; and among these was his son-in-law Ananias Dare, who became the father of Virginia Dare.

The company brought together to plant this colony numbered one hundred and fifty persons, of whom seventeen were women and nine were “boys and children.” They embarked on three ships in charge of Simon Ferdinando, and sailed from Portsmouth harbour on April the twenty-sixth, 1587.

The narrative of the outward voyage Hakluyt first published under the title, “The fourth voyage made to Virginia with three ships in the yere 1587. Wherein was transported the second Colonie.” The narrator early displayed a feeling of resentment against Ferdinando, which grew in warmth as the account proceeded; and this feeling seems to have been fully justified by the captain’s conduct. He was a Spaniard by birth, and it has been conjectured that he was acting in the interest of Spain. Another explanation of his strange course is found in his differences with White on the voyage. He unquestionably lied on more than one occasion; ruthlessly abandoned one of the ships of the fleet at sea and “grieved” at her reappearance with her passengers at the end of the voyage; nearly wrecked his ship off Cape Fear; and when Roanoke Island was reached refused to carry the colonists further, regardless of Raleigh’s positive directions to deliver them at Chesapeake Bay, stopping at Roanoke only long enough to take on, if found, the fifteen men left there by Grenville. He is said to have been twice before on the coast of Carolina as a pilot. He was with Captains Amadas and Barlow on their reconnoitering expedition, and his second voyage may have been with Grenville’s relief fleet. His name appeared among the twelve assistants to Governor White.

The narrative begins with the crispness of a diary.

"Our fleete being in number three saile, viz., the Admirall [the "Lion"] a ship of one hundred and twentie Tunnes, a Flie boate, and a Pinnesse, departed the sixe and twentieth of April from Portesmouth, and the same day came to an ancher at the Cowes in the Isle of Wight, where wee stayed eight dayes.

"The fift of May at nine of the clocke at night we came to Plimmouth, where we remained the space of two dayes.

"The 8 we weyed anker at Plimmouth and departed thence for Virginia.

"The 19 [June] we fell with Dominica, and the same evening we sayled betweene it and Guadalupe:

"The 21 the Fly-boat also fell with Dominica.

“The 22 we came to an anker at an Island called Santa Cruz, where all the planters were set on land, staying there till the 25 of the same moneth.”

At their first landing here a number of the company, men and women, ate freely of a “small fruit like green apples,” which they found in abundance, and soon were “fearfully troubled” with a burning in their mouths, and swelling of their tongues “so bigge that some of them could not speake.” The first night five great tortoise were caught, “some of them of such bignes that sixteene of our strongest men were tired with carying of one of them but from the seaside to our cabbins.” They sought a fit watering place, but found only a “standing ponde,” the water of which was so “evill” that many of the company fell sick from drinking it; while those who washed their faces with it in the morning before the sun had drawn off the corruption, suffered a burning sensation, and their faces became so swollen that their eyes were closed and they could not see in “five or sixe dayes, or longer.”

The next stopping place was “Cottea,” which was reached two days after leaving Santa Cruz, the pinnace arriving there before the admiral. Here they lay at anchor for a day and a night. Next they came to anchor at St. John’s, in “Musketos Bay.”

At this place three days were spent taking in fresh water, and “unprofitable,” since during their stay more “beere” was consumed than the “quantitie of the water came unto.” When they weighed anchor and were off again, two Irishmen of the company—"Darbie Glaven and Denice Carrell"—were left behind.

No more stops were permitted by Captain Ferdinando till they were off the coast of Florida. On the evening after the departure from Mosquito Bay they fell in with “Rosse Bay,” where Ferdinando had promised they should take in salt. White appointed “thirty shot, tenne pikes, and ten targets” to man the pinnace to go to the shore for this purpose, and they were about to start out when Ferdinando demurred. He was not sure, he now said, that this was really the place where the salt was to be obtained. Besides, if the pinnace should go she could not come back without peril till the next night. Meanwhile should a storm arise the admiral would be in danger of being cast away. While thus arguing, as the narrator avers, he had craftily got the ship into shoal water, and suddenly “dissembling great danger” he cried to the helmsman, “Bear up hard! Bear up hard!” So she went off, and they were “disappointed of salt by his meanes.” The next day, sailing along the west end of St. John, White desired to go ashore at “St. Germans Bay,” to gather young plants of oranges, lemons, plantans, and pines to set out in “Virginia.” These grew in plenty near the shore, as was well known to the governor and some of the other planters who had been with the first colony. But “our Simon” denied it, and refused to stop. He however promised to come to anchor at Hispaniola. There he would go ashore with the governor and other of the chief men, to see if he could speak with “his friend Alanson,”—the Spanish governor of Hispaniola,—by whom he hoped to be furnished with cattle, and all such things as they could have taken at St. John. The next day, the third of July, they came to Hispaniola. All that day they bore with the coast, and the next, and till noon of the following, but no preparation was made to land. When they had passed the place where “friend Alanson” dwelt, the governor demanded of the captain whether he intended to keep his promise. Whereupon Ferdinando coolly declared that it was to no purpose to touch at Hispaniola, for he had been told by Sir Walter Raleigh, who had it from the French ambassador, that the king of Spain had sent for Alanson to come to Spain: and Ferdinando really thought him dead.

So the next day they sailed out of sight of Hispaniola, and “haled off for Virginia.” Coming to the “Island Caycos” Ferdinando told of two good salt ponds here. Accordingly a landing was made, and the better part of a day spent in roaming about this isle: some of the company seeking the salt ponds which they did not find; others fowling; others hunting swans, “whereof we caught many.” The next land sighted was the Carolina coast. On July sixteenth they fell with the “main of Virginia.” Ferdinando took it to be the island of Croatoan, and came to anchor. But after riding here for two or three days he found out his mistake. Then setting sail again he bore farther along the coast. The following night “had not Captaine Stafford bene more carefull in looking out than our Simon Ferdinando, we had bene all cast away upon the beach called the Cape of Feare, for we were come within two cables length of it: such was the carelesnes and ignorance of our Master.”

On the twenty-second of July the ships were safe arrived at Hastorask.

Immediately upon their arrival Governor White with forty of his best men went aboard the pinnace to pass up to Roanoke Island forthwith and seek the fifteen men left by Grenville. When they had been met, as he confidently expected they would be, and after a conference with them as to the state of affairs, he was to return, and the fleet were without further delay to sail up the coast to the Chesapeake Bay country. But as soon as the pinnace with his party had put off from the admiral Ferdinando caused one of his chief men to call out to her sailors not to bring the party back from Roanoke Island, but to leave them there, all except the governor, “and two or three such as he approved”: for the summer was far spent, and therefore Ferdinando would “land the planters in no other place.” Since it appeared that all the sailors both in the pinnace and on board the admiral were in agreement with Ferdinando’s decision, it “booted not the governour to contend with them.” Accordingly he proceeded to Roanoke and made preparations there for the temporary accommodation at least of his colonists.

The island was reached at sunset and White and his companions landed at the point where he understood that Grenville’s fifteen men had established themselves. Not one was found. But the discovery of the bones of one of them led the searchers to fear that all had perished at the hands of the Indians. The next morning White with several of his party walked up to the Old Colony’s plantation at the north end of the island, hoping there to find some trace of the missing men. The place was deserted. The fort had been razed, and its site was overgrown with vines. The “decent dwelling houses” of the colony yet stood, but they were open to the weather, and, like the site of the fort, overgrown with vines, and within them deer were feeding. With this melancholic spectacle the governor’s party returned “without hope of ever seeing any of the fifteene men living.”

Then the governor gave orders for the repairing of the houses on the deserted plantation and for the erection of new cottages; and when this work was well under way the colonists were all brought up here. On the twenty-fifth the fly-boat appeared in the road off Roanoke with all her passengers safe, to the joy of their fellow planters and the grief of Ferdinando. For when he had “purposely left them in the Bay of Portugal, and stole away from them in the night,” he had hoped that the master of the ship, Edward Spicer, “for that he had never bene in Virginia would hardly finde the place, or els being left in so dangerous a place as that was, by meanes of so many men of warre as at that time were abroad, they would surely be taken or slain.” Such is the record, but let us cherish the hope that the chronicler misinterpreted Ferdinando’s strange act, and that he was not guilty of so diabolical a scheme.

On the twenty-eighth, when the new colonists were probably settling themselves at Roanoke, one of the assistants, George Howe, was set upon and slain by a little band of Indians who had come over to the island either to spy upon the new comers, or to hunt deer, or both. He was alone at the time, and some distance from the plantation, wading in the water catching crabs with a forked stick. He was only half dressed and had no weapon, his gun perhaps having been left on the shore. The savages stealthily approached him from a hiding place among tall reeds, where deer were often found asleep, and killed by the Indian hunters. They sprang at his back and gave him sixteen wounds with their arrows, finally beating him to death with their wooden swords. The deed done, they “fled over the water to the main.” These savages belonged to the remnant of the dead Wingina’s—or Pemisapan’s—people, who were now dwelling on the mainland at Dasamonguepeuk.

The quest for traces of the fifteen men was continued while the work of setting up the plantation was going forward. On the last day of July Master Stafford and twenty men started off with Manteo for the island of Croatoan, where Manteo’s kindred dwelt, and where the Indians had been friendly with the Old Colony, hoping from them to get some definite news of the lost men. At the same time the new comers would renew “old friendships” and endeavour to ascertain the present attitude of the other tribes of the country, besides Pemisapan’s broken band, toward the English. Upon their landing at Croatoan the natives appeared on their guard, but when Manteo showed himself and called to them in their own language, they threw down their bows and arrows and made hospitable demonstrations. When told that the Englishmen were come to renew the “old love” with assurances of their desire to live with them only as “brethren and friends” they were greatly pleased, and invited the visitors “to walke up to their Towne”: which they did, and there were feasted. Then at a conference that followed, the fate of the fifteen men was revealed. They had been attacked by a band from Pemisapan’s former confederates and driven from Roanoke Island, and all had disappeared, most of them killed, the others probably drowned. As the Croatoans told it the story thus ran.

Eleven of the fifteen were at Roanoke when the attack was made: the remaining four were off in a creek gathering oysters. The attacking band, composed of thirty savages, crept to the island and hid themselves behind trees, which were thick near the houses where the Englishmen were living carelessly. Two of the band first approached the houses as if alone, and apparently unarmed, and with friendly signs called for two of the Englishmen to come out without their arms and speak with them. The Englishmen unsuspiciously acquiesced. When the four met and one of the Indians was embracing one of the Englishmen, the other Indian drew his wooden sword from beneath his mantle, and slew this Englishman. His companion fled toward the houses while the remainder of the band sprang from their hiding places and pursued him with a flight of arrows. The little body of Englishmen crowded into the house where all their weapons and their provisions were, and prepared for a stubborn defence. Presently, however, the savages set the house afire, and they were driven into the open with what weapons they could catch up. A skirmish followed and continued for above an hour, in which the Indians had the advantage through their nimbleness in dodging behind trees. At length the surviving Englishmen backed fighting to the waterside where their boat lay. Taking to the boat they fled toward Hastorask, on the way picking up the four who had been absent on the oyster trip. All landed on a small island near Hatteras. Here they were able to remain only for a little while. Their departure from this place was the last heard of them. It was supposed that in making their escape they were drowned.

As to the disposition of the natives in the other towns nothing decisive was obtained. It was therefore agreed at this conference that the Croatoans should undertake to convey a message to those that had before come into Pemisapan’s confederation, and bring back to Roanoke either their chief “governours” or their answer to the English governor within seven days. Those towns were to be told that if they would accept the friendship of the new colonists all past unfriendly dealings on both sides, the Indian and the English, would be forgiven and forgotten. All their business being despatched, Master Stafford and his party departed the same day and returned to Roanoke to await the outcome of these negotiations.

When the seven days had passed and no tidings had come from the men of Croatoan on their mission of peace, the governor now determined to avenge the killing of George Howe and the driving off of Grenville’s men by moving upon the remnant of Pemisapan’s men at Dasamonguepeuk. So with Captain Stafford, and a force of twenty-four men, one of them Manteo as guide, he set out on this expedition at midnight of the eighth of August. The party crossed to the mainland and landed early the next morning, while it was yet dark, near the enemy’s dwelling place. Silently passing through a stretch of woods they came to a point where they had the Indians’ houses between them and the water. Then—"having espied their fire and some sitting about it, we presently set on them: the miserable soules herewith amazed, fled into a place of thicke reedes, growing fast by, where our men perceiving them, shot one of them through the bodie with a bullet; and therewith we entred the reedes, among which we hoped to acquite their evill doing towards us": when it was discovered that a sad mistake had been made. For “those Savages were our friends, and were come from Croatoan to gather the corne & fruit of that place, because they understood our enemies were fled immediately after they had slain George Howe, and for haste had left all their corne, Tobacco, and Pompions standing in such sort, that al had bene devoured of the birds, and Deere, if it had not bene gathered in time: but they had like to have payd deerely for it: for it was so darke, that they being naked, and their men and women apparelled all so like others, wee knew not but that they were all men: and if that one of them, a Wiroance’s [chief man’s] wife, had not had a child at her backe, shee had been slain in stead of a man; and as hap was another Savage knew master Stafford, and ran to him, calling him by his name, whereby he was saved.” The Englishmen did what they could in reparation of their blunder. They gathered all the corn and other crops found ripe, leaving the rest unspoiled, and took the chief man’s wife and child and others of the savages back to Roanoke with them. Although Manteo was grieved at this mishap to his own people, he imputed their harm to their own 364folly, saying to them that if their Wiroances had kept their promise and come to the governor and reported at the time appointed they had not suffered such mischance.

A few days after the return from this expedition,—on the thirteenth of August,—the unique ceremony of christening the savage Manteo and investing him with the title of “Lord of Roanoke” was performed before the assembled colonists. This was done by order of Raleigh before the colonists left England, and was in reward of his faithful service. On the eighteenth was recorded the birth of a daughter “to Elenor, daughter to the Governour, and wife to Ananias Dare, one of the Assistants,” and on the Sunday following, the christening of the infant: “and because this child was the first Christian borne in Virginia, she was named Virginia.” Afterward—the date is not given—a child was born to the wife of Dyonis Harvie: the second white child born in the colony.

By about the third week in August the ships had unladen the goods and victuals of the planters and begun to take in wood and fresh water, and the workmen had started newly to calk and trim them for the return voyage to England; while the planters were preparing their home letters and “tokens” to go back on them. They were ready to depart on the twenty-first, when a violent tempest broke from the northeast. The “Lion,” then riding out of the harbour, was forced to cut her cables and put to sea. The planters feared that she had been cast away, the more so because at the time that the storm struck her the most and the best of her sailors were ashore. She, however, lay outside beating off and on for six days, and with clearing weather, on the morning of the twenty-seventh, she reappeared without the bar, and was riding beside the fly-boat, both again ready for the departure.

In the meantime some controversies had arisen between the governor and the assistants over the selection of two of their number to return with the ships as factors for the company to their associates in London. For none desired to go. After much persuading by the governor, Christopher Cooper agreed to be one of the two. But the next day, through the persuasions of “divers of his familiar friends,” he changed his mind, and withdrew his acceptance. Thereupon the whole company with “one voice” requested the governor himself to go. He, it was argued, could better and sooner than any other obtain the supplies and necessaries for the comfort and development of the colony. But he refused. He could not so soon return he declared, leaving behind so many whom he “partly had procured through his perswasions to leave their native countrey” and embark in this venture, without discredit. At his return in England some enemies of himself and of the enterprise “would not spare to slander falsely both him and the action, by saying hee went to Virginia but politikely, and to no other end but to leade so many into a countrey in which hee never meant to stay himselfe, and there to leave them behind him.” Besides, it had been agreed that the colony should presently remove fifty miles farther up into the main. If this should be done, and he being absent, his own stuff and goods might be spoiled, or pilfered in transportation, so that at his coming back he would be forced to provide himself of all such things again; and he had already had some proof of the insecurity of his property when once absent from the colony for only three days. Now stronger pressure was brought by his associates, and they agreed to give him their bond, “under all their handes and seales” for the safe preservation of all his things at his return to Virginia, so that if any were lost or spoiled such would be made good to him or his assigns. Under this pressure and with the execution of the bond, he reluctantly reversed his decision, and made ready to go.

Since Captain Ferdinando was now impatient to be off, the governor had only half a day’s time to prepare for sailing. He left Roanoke on the morning of the twenty-seventh and at midnight boarded the fly-boat. The next morning both ships weighed anchor.

Before he left the plantation White had agreed with the assistants that should the colony move from Roanoke before his return they should carve on a tree trunk or other conspicuous post, the name of the place to which they had gone.

Of his parting from his associates, or from his daughter Eleanor and his little grandchild, nothing is said in the record. Nor of the wistful farewells as the ships sailed off for the home that the more than a hundred colonists left behind were never again to see. Here their story abruptly ends. How they lived after the ships had sailed away, and how they perished, or what was their fate, none can tell. With the departure of Governor White history closes the chapter.

The return voyage was one of hardship and adventure. At the very start, at the weighing of their anchors, twelve of the fly-boat’s men were thrown from the capstan and hurt, and for a time only five of her complement of fifteen men were able to do the ship’s work. Nevertheless she kept company with the “Lion” for about twenty days. Then seeing that Ferdinando did not mean to make any haste for home, but was determined to loiter along the way in the hope of taking Spanish prizes, she left the admiral and struck out on her own hook for England. Repeated storms were encountered on the passage; through “foure dayes together” her master could see “neither sunne nor starre”; her fresh water gave out; several of her sailors sickened and two died. At length on the sixteenth of October she made the Irish coast and came to Smerwick. A few days after her arrival the boatswain, the steward, and the boatswain’s mate died. Subsequently White took passage on another ship, sailing from Dingen for England, and landed at Cornwall on the fifth of November. The fly-boat came up three days later to Hampton. Here it was learned that the “Lion” had arrived three weeks before, at Portsmouth. Ferdinando had experienced hard luck. He and his company “were not onely come home without any purchase [seizure] but also in such weaknesse by sicknesse and death of the chiefest men, that they were scarce able to bring their ship into harbour, but were forced to let fall their anker without which they could not wey againe, but might all have perished there if a small barke by great hap had not come to them to help them.”

White at his return found the whole kingdom in a turmoil over the threatened invasion by the “Invincible Armada” of Spain,—that “mightie” navy, “as never the like before that time had sailed the Ocean sea,” comprising nearly one hundred and forty grand ships and thirty thousand fighting men, among them many grandees and gentlemen volunteers,—Philip of Spain’s now open and bold stroke for the conquest of England, and her “reduction to his Catholic religion,” in revenge for the “disgrace, contempt, and dishonour” which he had “endured of the English nation.” Raleigh, Grenville, and Lane, the latter knighted after his return from America, were all members of the council of war that Elizabeth had hurriedly called together; while other friends of American colonization were engrossed in affairs of state. Scant attention, therefore, to the needs of the distant handful of colonists could be expected at this time of peril at home. Yet Raleigh was quick to act, and generously, in their behalf. In the thick of his activities for England’s defence, he found leisure to fit out, again at his own charges, a small fleet to be despatched at the earliest moment with supplies and probably a few new colonists. Grenville was to take charge as commander of this expedition, and White, of course, was to return with him. But before the ships were ready to sail all of them were impressed by the government, and Sir Richard was required to attend Sir Walter in Cornwall and train troops there. Not long after another attempt was made. White, with Raleigh’s aid, succeeded in obtaining two barks, and with these he sailed on the twenty-second of April, 1588, bound for Virginia. But their men were more anxious to fight the Spaniards than to hasten to the colony. In an encounter at sea with Spanish ships they were worsted and were obliged to limp back ingloriously to England. So this intended voyage was abandoned.

Nothing more was done or well could be done under the condition of affairs for nearly two years. In July and August, 1588, the “Invincible Armada” was defeated and dispersed. While with Howard, the lord high admiral, Drake, Hawkins, and Frobisher bore off the larger glory for this signal achievement, Raleigh shared in all the dangers of the protracted sea fight. But with the return of comparative tranquility he found himself too much reduced in means to prosecute his colonial projects to the extent of his desires. He had expended in his various ventures upward of forty thousand pounds for which he had received no return. Still he continued undaunted to do what he could to accomplish his ends. With his assistance in March, 1590, an opportunity opening, White made another effort to get to the colony, and this time succeeded in reaching “Virginia.”

The opportunity was furnished by an enterprise of John Watts, a London merchant. Watts had a fleet of three ships at Plymouth in readiness to sail ostensibly for a trading voyage to the West Indies, when they were held up by a general order of government prohibiting any vessel from leaving England. White hearing of this sought Sir Walter and proposed that he should use his influence to obtain a license for these ships to proceed on their intended voyage, upon the condition that they should transport White and a few other passengers with their belongings, together with a quantity of provisions, and land them at Virginia. Thereby, White urged, the “people of Virginia [if it were God’s pleasure] might speedily be comforted and relieved without further charges unto him.” Raleigh readily obtained the desired license, the ships’ owner to be bound to him or his assigns in three thousand pounds, to carry out the agreement. But, as White afterward wrote to Richard Hakluyt, the bond was not taken according to the terms. No passengers were permitted to embark or any goods to be shipped, except White alone with his chest. He was not even allowed “so much as a boy” for his personal service. This “crosse and unkind dealing” much “discontented” him; but the fleet being all ready to sail when he went aboard there was no time to make complaint to Raleigh. It was apparent that the “governours, masters, and sailors” of the enterprise, “regarding very smally the good of their countreymen in Virginia, determined nothing less [no more] than to touch at those places, but wholly disposed themselves to seek after purchase and spoiles.”

The story of this quest, White’s last one, is White’s own “true discourse” written for Hakluyt, and presented with this title: “The fift voyage of M. John White into the West Indies and parts of America called Virginia, in the yeere 1590.”

At the start from Plymouth the fleet comprised the “Hopewell,” the “John Evangelist,” the “Little John,” and two small shallops. They sailed on the twentieth of March, and so much time was lost on the outward voyage, largely in chasing and taking prizes, that the Carolina coast was not reached till the beginning of August. Along the way they were joined by Captain Edward Spicer, with a pinnace, whom they had left in England.

They came first upon this coast in a storm, and on the third of August were off low sandy islands west of Wocokon. But the weather was so foul that they were forced to put to sea again, and there remain for six days, till the storm had abated. Then they came up to these islands and a landing was made on one of them, where they took in fresh water and caught a great quantity of fish. On the morning of the twelfth they sailed for the island of Croatoan, and at night came to anchor at its northeast end. On the fifteenth they were at Hastorask. On their first coming to anchor here they saw a “great smoke” rising from Roanoke Island, which put them, especially White, in “good hope” that the colony were there, still expecting his return from England. Bright and early next morning the impatient and expectant governor set out for Roanoke:

"Our 2 boates went ashore & Captaine Cooke & Cap. Spicer & their company with me, with intent to passe to the place at Roanoak where our countreymen were left.

"At our putting from the ship we commanded our Master gunner to make readie 2 Minions and a Falkon well loden, and to shoot them off with reasonable space betweene every shot, to the ende that their reportes might bee heard to the place where wee hoped to finde some of our people. This was accordingly performed, & our twoe boats put off unto the shore: in the admirals boat we sounded all the way and found from our shippe untill we came within a mile of the shore, nine, eight, and seven fadome: but before we were halfe way betweene our ships and the shore we saw another great smoke to the Southwest of Kindrikers mountes [assumed to be sand hills near the present Nags Head, the highest on this coast]: we therefore thought good to go to that second smoke first: but it was much further from the harbour where we landed than we supposed it to be, so that we were very sore tired before wee came to the smoke.

“But that which grieved us more was that when we came to the smoke we found no man nor signe that any had bene there lately, nor yet any fresh water in all this way to drinke. Being thus wearied with this journey we returned to the harbour where we left our boates, who in our absence had brought their cask a shore for fresh water: so we deferred our going to Roanoak untill the next morning, and caused some of those saylers to digge in those sandie hills for fresh water whereof we found very sufficient. That night wee returned aboord with our boates and our whole company in safety.”

A fresh start was made on the following day as agreed, but under less favourable conditions, and a tragic happening almost at the outset much distressed this expedition:

“The next morning being the 17 of August our boates and company were prepared againe to goe up to Roanoak, but Captaine Spicer had then sent his boat a shore for fresh water by meanes whereof it was ten of the clocke aforenoone before we put from our ships which were then come to an anker within two miles of the shore. The Admirals boat [in which was White] was halfe wey toward the shore when Captaine Spicer put off from his ship. The Admirals boat first passed the breach, but not without some danger of sinking, for we had a sea brake into our boat which filled us halfe full of water, but by the will of God and carefull styrage of Captaine Cooke we came safe ashore, saving only that our furniture, victuals, match and powder were much wet and spoyled. For at this time the winde blew at Northeast and direct into the harbour so great a gale, that the Sea brake extremely on the barre, and the tide went very forcibly at the entrance. By the time that our Admirals boate was hailed ashore, and most of the things taken out to dry, Captaine Spicer came to the entrance of the breach with his mast standing up, and was halfe passed over, but by the rash and indiscreet styrage of Ralph Skinner his Masters mate, a very dangerous sea brake into their boate and overset them quite: the men kept the boat, some in it, and some hanging on it, but the next sea set the boat on ground, where it beat so that some of them were forced to let goe their hold, hoping to wade ashore; but the Sea still beat them downe, so that they could neither stand nor swimme, and the boat twise or thrise was turned the keel upward, whereon Captaine Spicer and Skinner hung untill they sunke & were seene no more. But foure that could swimme a little kept themselves in deeper water and were saved by Captaine Cookes meanes, who so soon as he saw them oversetting stripped himselfe, and foure other that could swimme very well, & with all haste possible rowed unto them & saved foure. They were 11 in all, & 7 of the chiefest men were drowned.”

This mishap so disturbed the sailors in White’s boat that they were “all of one mind not to goe any further to seeke the planters.” But through the persuasions and commands of White and Captain Cooke they recovered courage, and set to work refitting both boats. Then the remaining company, nineteen in all, put off once more. Before Roanoke Island was reached night had fallen, and in the darkness they overshot the place of plantation by a quarter of a mile. Toward the north end of the island they saw the light of a great fire through the woods, and in its direction they presently rowed. When they had come directly over against it they let fall their grapnel near the shore and sounded a trumpet call. This bringing no response they gave some familiar English tunes, then sang some English songs, and “called to them friendly.” Still there came no answer, and the hope that the colonists were here died out within them. At daybreak they landed, and coming to the fire they found grass and rotten trees burning, but no human beings about the place. Then they tramped through the woods to that part of the island over against Dasamonguepeuk, and thence returned by the water side round about the north point till they had reached the place where White had left the colony:

"In all this way we saw in the sand the print of the Salvages feet of 2 or 3 sorts troaden ye night, and as we entred up the sandy banke, upon a tree, in the very brow thereof were curiously carved these faire Roman letters

CRO

which letters presently we knew to signifie the place where I should find the planters seated according to a secret token agreed upon betweene them & me at my last departure from them, which was, that in any ways they should not faile to carve on the trees or posts of the dores [of their houses] the name of the place where they should be seated: for at my coming away they were prepared to remove from Roanoak 50 miles into the main. Therefore at my departure from them in An 1587 I willed them, that if they should happen to be distressed in any of those places, that then they should carve over the letters or name a Crosse in this forme ☩, but we found no such signe of distresse.

"And having well considered of this, we passed toward the place where they were left in sundry houses, but we found the houses taken downe, and the place very strongly enclosed with a high palisado of great trees, with cortynes and flankers very Fort-like, and one of the chiefe trees or postes on the right side of the entrance had the barke taken off, and 5 foote from the ground in fayre Capitall letters were graven

CROATOAN

without any crosse or signe of distresse: this done we entred into the palisado, where we found many barres of Iron, too pigges of Lead, foure yron fowlers, Iron sacker-shotte, and such like heavie things, throwen here and there, almost overgrowen with grasse and weedes.

"From thence wee went along by the water side towards the pointe or Creeke to see if we could find any of their botes or Pinnisse, but we could perceive no signe of them, nor any of the last Falkons and small Ordinance which were left with them at my departure from them. At our returne from the Creeke, some of our Saylers meeting us, tolde us that they had found where divers chests had bene hidden and long sithence [since] digged up againe and broken up, and much of the goods in them spoyled and scattered about, but nothing left, of such things as the Savages knew any use of, undefaced.

THE LOST COLONY.

“Presently Captaine Cooke and I went to the place, which was in the ende of an olde trench, made two yeeres past by Captaine Amadas: wheere wee found five Chests, that had bene carefully hidden of the Planters, and of the same chests three were my owne, and about the place many of my things spoyled and broken, and my bookes torne from the covers, the frames of some of my pictures and Mappes rotten and spoyled with rayne, and my armour almost eaten through with rust; this could bee no other than the deede of the Savages our enemies at Dasamonguepeuk, who had watched the departure of our men to Croatoan [the island, not the main land so named, at Dasamonguepeuk, as on early maps]: and assoone as they were departed, digged up every place where they suspected anything to be buried: but although it much grieved me to see such spoyle of my goods, yet on the other side I greatly joyed that I had safely found a certaine token of their safe being at Croatoan, which is the place where Manteo was borne, and the Savages of the Iland our friends.”

With these findings, the day being near spent, the party returned to their boats and made off for the ships as fast as possible for a stormy night threatened. They reached the ships in the evening and got aboard with “much danger and labour,” for the storm had now fallen with high wind and a heavy sea.

The next morning the ships were made ready immediately to sail for the island of Croatoan, the wind being good for that place, all hands fully expecting to come upon the colony there. But in hoisting the admiral’s anchor the cable broke, and the anchor was lost: whereupon the ship was driven so fast shoreward that she was forced to let fall another anchor, and this “came so fast home” that she barely escaped running ashore by “Kendricks mounts.” She fortunately got clear again but not without some injury. She now had but one cable, and but one anchor left of her equipment of four. Meanwhile the weather was becoming “fouler and fouler.” Under these conditions, and in view of their diminishing stock of victuals, together with the loss of a cask of fresh water that they had been obliged to leave on shore, it was decided that the visit of Croatoan must be given up for this time, and that, instead, the ships must at once make for Saint John or some other island to the southward for fresh water and new supplies. It was further proposed that the ships should winter in the West Indies, with the hope of making “two riche voyages of one”: and Captain Cooke of the admiral, at White’s earnest plea, agreed that they should then return to “Virginia” and again seek the colony at Croatoan.

But to this proposal the captain of one of the ships objected on the ground that his vessel was too weak and leaky to attempt to continue so long a voyage. Accordingly that night they parted company, this consort heading direct for England, and the admiral setting her course for Trinidad. So the Carolina coast was forsaken, and no return was made. After various adventures the admiral ultimately reached home with White heartbroken at his failure to reach his people, to whom he believed he had been so near.

The “evils and unfortunate events” attending this expedition, “as well to their owne losse as to the hindrance of the planters of Virginia,” he wrote Richard Hakluyt, “had not chanced if the order set downe by Sir Walter Ralegh had bene observed, or if my dayly & continuall petitions for the performance of the same might have taken any place.” And “thus,” he sorrowfully concludes, “you may plainely perceive the successe of my fift & last voiage to Virginia, which was no lesse unfortunately ended than frowardly begun, and as lucklesse to many as sinister to my self. But I would to God it had bene as prosperous to all, as noysome to the planters, & as joyfull to me as discomfortable to them. Yet seeing it is not my first crossed voyage, I remaine contented. And wanting my wishes, I leave off from prosecuting that whereunto I would to God my wealth were answerable to my will.” With this letter, written “from my house at Newtowne in Kylmore the 4 of February 1593,” White took leave of the matter, committing “the planters in Virginia to the merciful help of the Almighty.” He could do no more. From this time he seems to have remained in retirement in Ireland till the close of his life.

Of the fate of the Lost Colony conjectures of historians have been various. That they did actually replant themselves on the then existing “island of Croatoan,” presumed to have been some part of the banks lying between Capes Lookout and Hatteras, and in the present county of Carteret, is accepted as fairly proved by White’s finding of the inscription on the “chiefe tree” of the palisado at Roanoke. No further clue to the mystery of their passing is to be found, unless it be in this statement made a century and a quarter afterward by an early historian of Carolina (Lawson, 1714): “The Hatteras Indians who lived in Roanoke Island, or much frequented it, tell us that several of their ancestors were white people who could talk in a book as we do.”

Perhaps a remnant that survived massacre, misery, or homesickness were, as this statement implies, and the later Carolina historian, Hawkes, assumed, gradually incorporated with these friendly Indians and faded from civilization into the savage life.

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This book is part of the public domain. Richard Hakluyt (2018). The Boy's Hakluyt: English Voyages of Adventure and Discovery. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022 https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/57917/pg57917-images.html

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