England in America, 1580-1652 | Page 9

on Roanoke Island, and eight days later Grenville weighed
anchor for England. On the way back Grenville met a Spanish ship
"richly loaden," and captured her, "boording her with a boate made

with boards of chests, which fell asunder, and sunke at the ships side,
as soone as euer he and his men were out of it." October 18, 1585, he
arrived with his prize at Plymouth, in England, where he was received
with great honor and rejoicing.[9]
The American loves to connect the beginnings of his country with a
hero like Grenville. He was one of the English admirals who helped to
defeat the Spanish Armada, and nothing in naval warfare is more
memorable than his death. In an expedition led by Lord Charles
Howard in 1591 against the Spanish plate-fleet, Grenville was
vice-admiral, and he opposed his ship single-handed against five great
Spanish galleons, supported at intervals by ten others, and he fought
them during nearly fifteen hours. Then Grenville's vessel was so
battered that it resembled rather a skeleton than a ship, and of the crew
few were to be seen but the dead and dying. Grenville himself was
captured mortally wounded, and died uttering these words, "Here die I,
Richard Grenville, with a joyful and quiet mind, for that I have ended
my life, as a true soldier ought to do, fighting for his country, queen,
religion, and honor."[10]
Of the settlers at Roanoke during the winter after their landing nothing
is recorded, but the prospect in the spring was gloomy. Lane made
extensive explorations for gold-mines and for the South Sea, and found
neither. The natives laid a plot to massacre the settlers, but Lane's
soldierly precaution saved the colonists. Grenville was expected to
return with supplies by Easter, but Easter passed and there was no news.
In order to get subsistence, Lane divided his men into three parties, of
which one remained at Roanoke Island and the other two were sent
respectively to Hatteras and to Croatoan, an island just north of
Wokokon.
Not long after Sir Francis Drake, returning from sacking San Domingo,
Cartagena, and St. Augustine, appeared in sight with a superb fleet of
twenty-three sail. He succored the imperilled colonists with supplies,
and offered to take them back to England. Lane and the chief men,
disheartened at the prospects, abandoned the island, and July 28, 1586,
the colonists arrived at Plymouth in Drake's ships, having lost but four

men during the whole year of their stay.[11]
A day or two after the departure of the colonists a ship sent by Raleigh
arrived, and about fourteen or fifteen days later came three ships under
Sir Richard Grenville, Raleigh's admiral. Grenville spent some time
beating up and down Pamlico Sound, hunting for the colony, and
finally returned to England, leaving fifteen men behind at Roanoke to
retain possession.[12] This was the second settlement.
The colonists who returned in Drake's ships brought back to Raleigh
two vegetable products which he speedily popularized. One was the
potato,[13] which Raleigh planted on his estate in Ireland, and the other
was tobacco, called by the natives "uppowoc," which he taught the
courtiers to smoke.
Most of the settlers who went with Lane were mere gold-hunters, but
there were two who would have been valuable to any society--the
mathematician Thomas Hariot, who surveyed the country and wrote an
account of the settlement; and John White, who made more than
seventy beautiful water-colors representing the dress of the Indians and
their manner of living. When the engraver De Bry came to England in
1587 he made the acquaintance of Hakluyt, who introduced him to
John White, and the result was that De Bry was induced to turn Hariot's
account of Virginia into the first part of his celebrated Peregrinations,
illustrating it from the surveys of Hariot and the paintings of John
White.[14]
If Raleigh was disappointed with his first attempt at colonization he
was encouraged by the good report of Virginia given by Lane and
Hariot, and in less than another year he had a third fleet ready to sail.
He meant to make this expedition more of a colony than Lane's
settlement at Roanoke, and selected as governor the painter John White,
who could appreciate the natural productions of the country. And
among the one hundred and fifty settlers who sailed from Plymouth
May 8, 1587, were some twenty-five women and children.
The instructions of Raleigh required them to proceed to Chesapeake
Bay, of which the Indians had given Lane an account on his previous

voyage, only stopping at Roanoke for the fifteen men that Grenville
had left there; but when they reached Roanoke Simon Ferdinando, the
pilot, refused to carry them any farther, and White established his
colony at the old seating-place. None of Grenville's men could be found,
and