CHAP. I.

About the same time was added to the colony 1587. the first child of English parentage, ever born in America. She was the daughter of Ananias Dare, and in token of the place of her birth, was named Virginia.

White dispatched

to England

for succour.

On viewing the country, and their own actual situation, the colonists found themselves destitute of many things, deemed essential to the preservation and comfortable subsistence of a new settlement, in a country covered with forests, and inhabited only by a few scattered tribes of savages. With one voice they deputed their governor, to solicit those specific aids which their situation particularly, and essentially required. On his arrival in England, he found the whole nation alarmed at the formidable preparations for their invasion, made by Philip II. of Spain, and Raleigh, Grenville, and the other patrons of the colony, particularly, and ardently, engaged in those measures of defence which the public danger called for, and rendered indispensable. Raleigh, however, mingled with his exertions to defend his native country, some attention to the situation of the colony he had planted. Early in 1588. the year he found leisure to fit out for its relief, at Biddeford, a small fleet, the command of which was given to sir Richard Grenville; but the apprehensions from the Spanish armament, proudly and confidently styled, by the monarch of that nation, the invincible armada, still in

creasing, the ships of force prepared by Raleigh CHAP. I. were detained in port, by order of the queen, for 1588. the defence of their own country; and sir Richard Grenville was specially, and personally, commanded not to depart out of Cornwall, where his services under sir Walter Raleigh, who was mustering and training the forces, as lieutenant of the county, were deemed necessary. On the 22d of April, White put to sea with two small barks; but these vessels being, unfortunately, more desirous of making prizes, than of relieving their distressed countrymen, were beaten by a superior force, and totally disabled from prosecuting their voyage.

assigns his

sir Thomas

company.

Soon after this, in March, the attention of 1589. Raleigh being directed to other more splendid Raleigh objects, he assigned his patent to sir Thomas patent to Smith, and a company of merchants in London. Smith and It was not until the year after this transfer, that any other effort was made for the relief of the colony. Three ships fitted out by the company, and having mr. White on board, sailed in March from Plymouth; but, having cruelly, 1590. and criminally, wasted their time in plundering the Spaniards in the West Indies, they did not reach Hatteras until the month of August. They fired a gun to give notice of their arrival, and sent some men on shore at the place where the colony had been left three years before; but no sign of their countrymen could be found. In attempting the next day to go to the Roan

CHAP. I. oke, one of the boats, in passing a bar, was 1590. half filled with water, another overset, and six

men were drowned. Two other boats, however, were sometime afterward fitted out with nineteen men, to search the island on which the colony had been left. At the departure of mr. White they had contemplated removing about fifty miles up into the main, and it had been agreed that, if they left their then position, they would carve the name of the place to which they should remove, on some tree, door, or post; with the addition of a cross over it, as a signal of distress, if they should be really distressed at the time of changing their situation. After considerable search, the word CROATAN was found carved in fair capital letters on one of the chief posts, but unaccompanied by the sign of distress which had been agreed on

Croatan was the name of an Indian town on the north side of cape Look-out, and for that place the fleet weighed anchor, the next day. Meeting with a storm, and several accidents, which discouraged them from proceeding on the voyage, they determined to give over further search for the present, and to return to the West Indies.

The company made no other attempt to find this lost colony; nor has the time, or the manner of their perishing, ever been discovered.

If any subsequent voyages were made by the English to North America, they were for

the mere purposes of traffic, and were entirely CHAP. I. unimportant in their consequences; until the 1602. year 1602, when one was undertaken by Bartholomew Gosnald, which contributed greatly to revive in the nation, the hitherto unsuccessful, and then dormant, spirit of colonizing in the new world.

He sailed from Falmouth in a small bark with thirty-two men; and, avoiding the usual, but circuitous course by the West Indies, steered as nearly west as the winds would permit, and reached the American continent on the 11th of May, in nearly forty-three degrees of north latitude. Here some Indians in a shallop with a mast and sails (supposed to have been obtained from Biscayan fishermen) came fearlesly on board them.

Finding no good harbour at this place, Gosnald put to sea again, and stood to the southward. The next morning he descried a promontory which he called cape Cod, and holding his course along the coast as it stretched to the south-west, he touched at two islands, the first of which he named Martha's vineyard, and the second, Elizabeth's island. Having passed some time at these places, examining the country, and trading with the natives, he returned to England.

This voyage which was completed in less than four months, was attended with important consequences. Gosnald had found a healthy

CHAP. I. climate, a rich soil, good harbours, and a route 1602. which greatly shortened the distance to the continent of North America. He had seen many of the fruits known and prized in Europe, blooming in the woods; and he had planted European grain, which he found to grow rapidly. Encouraged by the experiment, and delighted with the country he had visited, he quickly formed the resolution of transporting thither a colony, and of uniting with himself, in the execution of this design, others who might be enabled to support it. So unfortunate, however, had been former attempts of this sort, that men of wealth and rank, although the report of Gosnald made considerable impression on them, were slow in giving full faith to his representations, and in entering completely into his plans. One vessel was fitted out by the merchants of Bristol, and another by the earl of Southampton, and lord Arundel of Warder; in order to learn whether Gosnald's account of the country was to be considered as a just representation of its state, or as the exaggerated description of a person fond of magnifying his own discoveries. Both returned with a full confirmation of his veracity, and with the addition of so many new circumstances, in favour of the country, acquired by a more extensive view of it, as greatly increased the desire of planting it. The merchants of London too, fitted out a vessel which is supposed to have