The English Attempt ColonizationBancroft, Hist. of the U.S., vol.1, p.60
ROBERT THORNE and Eliot, of Bristol, visited Newfoundland probably in 1502; in that year savages in their wild attire were exhibited to the king; but as yet the only intercourse between England and the New World was with its fisheries. In the conception of Europe the new continent was very slowly disengaged from the easternmost lands of Asia, and its colonization was not earnestly attempted till its separate existence was ascertained.
Bancroft, Hist. of the U.S., vol.1, p.60
Besides, Henry VII, as a Catholic, could not wholly disregard the bull of the pope, which gave to Spain a paramount title to the North American world; and as a prince he sought a counterpoise to France in an intimate Spanish alliance, which he hoped to confirm by the successive marriage of one of his sons after the other to Catharine of Aragon, youngest daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella.
Bancroft, Hist. of the U.S., vol.1, p.60
Henry VIII, on his accession, surrendered to his father-in-law the services of Sebastian Cabot. To avoid interference with Spain, Thorne, who had long resided in Seville, proposed voyages to the east by way of the north; believing that there would be found an open sea near the pole, over which, during the arctic continuous day, Englishmen might reach the Indies.
Bancroft, Hist. of the U.S., vol.1, p.60
In 1527 an expedition, favored by the king and Wolsey, sailed from Plymouth for the discovery of the north-west passage. But the larger ship was lost in July among icebergs, in a great storm; in August, accounts of the disaster were forwarded to the king and to the cardinal from the haven of St. John, in Newfoundland.
Bancroft, Hist. of the U.S., vol.1, p.61
By the repudiation of Catharine of Aragon, Henry VIII sundered his political connection with Spain, and opened the New World to English rivalry. He was resolute in his attempts to suppress piracy; and the navigation of his subjects flourished under his protection. The banner of St. George was often displayed in the harbors of Northern Africa and in the Levant; and now that commerce, emancipated from the limits of the inner seas, went boldly forth upon the oceans, the position of England summoned her to derive advantage from the change.
Bancroft, Hist. of the U.S., vol.1, p.61
An account exists of an expedition to the north-west in 1536, conducted by Hore of London, and “assisted by the good countenance of Henry VIII.” But the two ships, the Trinity and the Minion, were worn out by a passage of more than two months before they reached a harbor in Newfoundland. There the disheartened adventurers wasted away from famine and misery. In the extremity of their distress a French ship arrived, “well furnished with vittails:” of this they obtained possession by a stroke of “policie,” and set sail for England. The French, following in the English ship, complained of the exchange, upon which the king, out of his own private purse, “made them full and royal recompense.” In 1541 the fisheries of “Newland” were favored by an act of parliament; the first which refers to America.
Bancroft, Hist. of the U.S., vol.1, p.61
The accession of Edward, in 1547, and the consequent ascendency of Protestantism, marks the era when England began to foreshadow her maritime superiority. In the first year of his reign the council advanced a hundred pounds for Cabot, “a pilot, to come out of Hispain to serve and inhabit in England.” In the next year the fisheries of Newfoundland, which had suffered from exactions by the officers of the admiralty, obtained the protection of a special act, “to the intent that merchants and fishermen might use the trade of fishing freely without such charges.”
Bancroft, Hist. of the U.S., vol.1, p.61 - p.62
In 1549 Sebastian Cabot was once more in England, brought over at the cost of the exchequer; and, “for good service done and to be done,” was pensioned as grand pilot; nor would he return to Seville, though his return was officially demanded by the emperor. In March, 1551, a special reward was bestowed by the king on “the great seaman.” He seemed to set no special value on his discovery of North America; to find a shorter route to the Indies had been the dream of his youth, and it still haunted him. He had vainly tried the north-west and the south-west; he now advised to attempt a passage by the north-east, and was made president of the company of merchants who undertook the search for it.
Bancroft, Hist. of the U.S., vol.1, p.62
In May, 1553, the fleet of three ships, under the command of Sir Hugh Willoughby, following the instructions of Cabot, undertook to reach China by doubling the northern promontory of Norway. The admiral, separated from his companions in a storm, was driven by the cold in September to seek shelter in a Lapland harbor. When search was made for him in the following spring, his whole company had perished from cold; Willoughby himself, whose papers showed that he had survived till January, was found dead in his cabin. Richard Chancellor, in one of the other ships, reached the harbor of Archangel. This was “the discovery of Russia,” and the commencement of commerce by sea with that empire. A Spanish writer calls the result “a discovery of new Indies.”
Bancroft, Hist. of the U.S., vol.1, p.62
Soon after the accession of Mary to the English throne, the Emperor Charles V again made an earnest request that Cabot might be sent back to his service; but the veteran refused to leave England, where, in 1556, a new company was formed for discovery, of which he was a partner and the president. He lived to an extreme old age, but the day of his death is uncertain. The discoverer of North America was one of the most remarkable men of his age. Time has spared all too few memorials of his career.
Bancroft, Hist. of the U.S., vol.1, p.62 - p.63
Even the intolerance of Queen Mary could not check the passion for adventure. The sea was becoming the element on which English valor was best displayed; English sailors neither feared the heats and fevers of the tropics, nor northern cold. The trade to Russia, now that the port of Archangel had been discovered, proved very lucrative; and a regular and as yet an innocent commerce was carried on with Africa. The marriage of Mary with the heir to the throne of Spain, and the enthusiasm awakened by the brilliant reception of Philip in London, excited Richard Eden to gather into a volume the history of the most memorable maritime expeditions. Religious restraints, the thirst for rapid wealth, the desire of strange adventure, had driven the boldest spirits of Spain to the New World; their deeds had been commemorated by the copious and accurate details of their own historians; and the English, through the alliance of their sovereign made familiar with the Spanish language and literature, learned to emulate Spanish success beyond the ocean.
Bancroft, Hist. of the U.S., vol.1, p.63
Elizabeth, succeeding Mary in 1558, seconded the enterprise of her subjects. They were the more proud and intractable for the short effort to make England an appendage to Spain; and the triumph of Protestantism nursed the spirit of nationality. England, now the antagonist of Philip, prepared to extend her commerce to every clime. The queen strengthened her navy, filled her arsenals, and encouraged the building of ships in England; she animated the adventurers to Russia and to Africa by her special protection; and after 1574 at least from thirty to fifty English ships came annually to the bays and banks of Newfoundland.
Bancroft, Hist. of the U.S., vol.1, p.63
The press teemed with books of travels, maps, and descriptions of the earth; and Sir Humphrey Gilbert, reposing from the toils of war, engaged in the science of cosmography. A well-written argument in favor of the possibility of a northwestern passage was the fruit of his industry.
Bancroft, Hist. of the U.S., vol.1, p.63 - p.64
The same views were entertained by one of the boldest men who ever ventured upon the ocean. For fifteen years Martin Frobisher, an Englishman, well versed in various navigation, had revolved the design of accomplishing the discovery of the north-western passage, esteeming it “the only thing of the world that was yet left undone, by which a notable minde might be made famous and fortunate.” Too poor himself to provide a ship, it was in vain that he conferred with friends; in vain he offered his services to merchants. After years of desire, Dudley, earl of Warwick, liberally promoted his design. Two small barks of twenty-five and of twenty tons’, with a pinnace of ten tons’ burden, composed the fleet, which was to enter gulfs that none before him had visited. As, in June, 1576, they dropped down the Thames, Queen Elizabeth waved her hand in token of favor. During a storm on the voyage the pinnace was swallowed up by the sea; the mariners in the Michael turned their prow homeward; but Frobisher, in a vessel not much surpassing in tonnage the barge of a man-of-war, made his way, fearless and unattended, to the shores of Labrador. Among a group of American islands, in the latitude of sixty-three degrees and eight minutes, he entered what seemed to be a strait that might lead to the Indies. Great praise is due to him for penetrating far beyond all former mariners into the bays and among the islands of this Meta Incognita, this unknown goal of discovery. Yet for his main purpose his voyage was a failure.
Bancroft, Hist. of the U.S., vol.1, p.64
A stone which he had brought from the frozen regions was pronounced by the refiners of London to contain gold. The news excited the wakeful avarice of the city; there were not wanting those who endeavored to purchase of Elizabeth a lease of the new lands where it had been found. A fleet was immediately fitted out to procure more of the gold rather than to make further search for the passage into the Pacific; and the queen now sent a large ship of her own to join the expedition which was to conduct to infinite opulence. More men than could be employed volunteered their services. Near the end of May, 1577, the mariners, having received the communion, embarked for the arctic El Dorado, “and with a merrie wind” soon arrived at the Orkneys. As they reached the north-eastern coast of America, icebergs encompassed them on every side. With the light of an almost perpetual summer’s day the worst perils were avoided. The fleet did not advance so far as Frobisher alone had done. But large heaps of earth were found, which, even to the incredulous, seemed plainly to contain the coveted wealth; besides, spiders abounded, and “spiders were” affirmed to be “true signs of great store of gold.” In freighting the ships with the supposed ore and golden sands, the admiral himself toiled like a painful laborer. How strange, in human affairs, is the mixture of sublime courage and ludicrous infatuation! What bolder maritime enterprise than, in that day, a voyage to lands lying north of Hudson Straits! What folly more egregious than to have gone there for a lading of useless earth!
Bancroft, Hist. of the U.S., vol.1, p.64 - p.65
The report of the returning ships led to the first attempt of the English to gain a foothold in America. It was believed that the rich mines of the polar regions would countervail the charges of a costly adventure, and, for the security of the newly discovered lands, soldiers and discreet men were selected to become their inhabitants. A magnificent fleet of fifteen sail was assembled, in part at the expense of Elizabeth, and confided to the command of Frobisher. Sons of the English gentry embarked as volunteers; one hundred persons were chosen to form the colony, which was to secure to England a country too inhospitable to produce a tree or a shrub, yet where gold lay glistening in heaps upon the surface. Twelve vessels were to return immediately with cargoes of the ore; three were ordered to remain and aid the settlement. The north-west passage was become of less consideration; Asia itself could not vie with the riches of this hyperborean archipelago.
Bancroft, Hist. of the U.S., vol.1, p.65
The fleet, as in midsummer, 1578, it approached the American coast, was bewildered among icebergs. One vessel was crushed and sunk, though the men on board were saved. In a thick fog the ships lost their course, and came into the straits which have since been called Hudson’s, and which lie south of the imagined fields of gold. The admiral believed himself able to sail through to the Pacific; but his duty as a mercantile agent controlled his desire of glory as a navigator. He struggled to regain the harbor where his vessels were to be laden, and, after “getting in at one gap and out at another,” escaping only by miracle from hidden rocks and unknown currents, ice, and a lee shore, he at last succeeded. The zeal of the volunteer colonists had moderated, and the disheartened sailors were ready to mutiny. The plan of a settlement was abandoned, and nothing more was done than to freight the home-bound ships with a store of mineral earth. The historians of the voyage are silent about the disposition which was made of the cargo of the fleet. The belief in regions of gold among the Esquimaux was dissipated; but there remained a firm conviction that a passage to the Pacific Ocean might yet be threaded among the icebergs and northern islands of America.
Bancroft, Hist. of the U.S., vol.1, p.65 - p.66
While Frobisher was thus attempting to obtain wealth and fame on the north-east coast of America, the western limits of the territory of the United States became known. Embarking, in 1577, on a three years’ voyage in quest of fortune, Francis Drake acquired immense treasures as a freebooter in the Spanish harbors on the Pacific; and, having laden his ship with spoils, the illustrious corsair gained for himself an honest fame by circumnavigating the globe. But, before following in the path which the ship of Magellan had thus far alone dared to pursue, Drake determined to explore the north-western coast of America, in the hope of discovering the strait which connects the oceans. With this view he crossed the equator, sailed beyond the peninsula of California, and followed the continent to the latitude of forty-three degrees. Here, in June, 1579, the cold seemed intolerable to men who had just left the tropics. Despairing of success, he retired to a harbor in a milder clime within the limits of Mexico, and, having refitted his ship and named the country New Albion, he sailed for England, through the seas of Asia. But it has already been related that the Spaniards preceded him by thirty-six years.
Bancroft, Hist. of the U.S., vol.1, p.66
The adventures of Drake were but a career of splendid piracy against a nation with which his sovereign and his country professed to be at peace. The humble labor of the English fishermen who frequented the Grand Bank prepared the way for settlements of their countrymen in the New World. Already four hundred vessels came annually from the harbors of Portugal and Spain, of France and England, to the shores of Newfoundland. The English “were commonly lords in the harbors,” and exacted payment for protection.
Bancroft, Hist. of the U.S., vol.1, p.66 - p.67
While the queen and her adventurers were dazzled by dreams of finding gold in the frozen regions of the north, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, with a sounder judgment and better knowledge, watched the progress of the fisheries, and formed healthy plans for colonization. He had been a soldier and a member of parliament; had written judiciously on navigation; and, though censured for his ignorance of the principles of liberty, was esteemed for the sincerity of his piety. Free alike from fickleness and fear, danger never turned him aside from the pursuit of honor or the service of his sovereign; for he knew that death is inevitable, and the fame of virtue immortal. It was not difficult for him, in June, 1578, to obtain a patent, formed according to commercial theories of that day, and to be of perpetual efficacy, if a plantation should be established within six years. To the people who might belong to his colony the rights of Englishmen were promised; to Gilbert, the possession for himself or his assigns of the soil which he might discover, and the sole jurisdiction, both civil and criminal, of the territory within two hundred leagues of his settlement, with supreme executive and legislative authority.
Bancroft, Hist. of the U.S., vol.1, p.67
Under this patent Gilbert collected a company of volunteer adventurers, contributing largely from his own fortune to the preparation. His most faithful friend was his stepbrother, Walter Raleigh. This is he who a few years before had abruptly left the university of Oxford to fight for the Huguenots against the Catholics, and, with the prince of Navarre, afterward Henry IV, to learn the art of war under the veteran Coligny at the time when the Protestant party in France was glowing with indignation at the massacre of their colony of Calvinists in Florida.
Bancroft, Hist. of the U.S., vol.1, p.67
The first movement of Gilbert proved a failure. Jarrings and divisions had ensued before the voyage was begun; many abandoned what they had inconsiderately undertaken. In 1579 the general and a few of his assured friends, among them Walter Raleigh, put to sea: one of his ships was lost; and misfortune compelled the remainder to return.
Bancroft, Hist. of the U.S., vol.1, p.67 - p.68
But the pupil of Coligny delighted in hazardous adventure. To prosecute discoveries in the New World, lay the foundation of states, and acquire immense domains, appeared to Raleigh as easy designs, which would not interfere with the pursuit of favor in England. Before the limit of the charter had expired, Gilbert, assisted by his brother, equipped a new squadron. In 1583 the fleet embarked under happy omens; the commander, on the eve of his departure, received from Elizabeth a golden anchor guided by a lady. A man of letters from Hungary, and “a mineral-man” from Saxony, the land of miners, accompanied the expedition; and some part of the United States would have been colonized but for a succession of overwhelming disasters. Two days after leaving Plymouth, the largest ship in the fleet, which had been furnished by Raleigh, who himself remained in England, deserted, under a pretence of infectious disease, and returned into harbor. Gilbert, incensed, but not intimidated, sailed for Newfoundland; and, on the fifth of August, entering St. John’s, he summoned the Spaniards and Portuguese and other strangers to witness the ceremonies by which he took possession of the country for his sovereign. A pillar, on which the arms of England were infixed, was raised as a monument; and lands were granted to the fishermen in fee, on condition of the payment of a quit-rent. It was generally agreed that “the mountains made a show of mineral substance;” the “mineral-man” protested on his life that silver ore abounded. He was charged to keep the discovery a profound secret; and the precious ore was carried on board the larger ship with such mystery that the dull Portuguese and Spaniards suspected nothing of the matter.
Bancroft, Hist. of the U.S., vol.1, p.68
It was not easy for Gilbert to preserve order in the little fleet. Many of the sailors, infected with the vices which in that age degraded their profession, were no better than pirates, and were perpetually bent upon pillaging whatever ships fell in their way. At length, having abandoned one of their barks, the English, in three vessels only, sailed on further discoveries, intending to visit the coast of the United States. But they had not proceeded toward the south beyond the latitude of Wiscasset, when, on the twenty-seventh of August, the largest ship, from the carelessness of the crew, struck and was wrecked. Nearly a hundred men perished; the “mineral-man” and the ore were all lost; nor was it possible to rescue Parmenius, the Hungarian, who should have been the historian of the expedition.
Bancroft, Hist. of the U.S., vol.1, p.68 - p.69
It now seemed necessary to hasten to England. Gilbert had sailed in the Squirrel, a bark of ten tons only, and therefore convenient for entering harbors and approaching the coast. On the homeward voyage he would not forsake his little company, with whom he had encountered so many storms and perils. A desperate resolution! The weather was extremely rough; the oldest mariner had never seen “more outrageous seas.” The little frigate, not more than twice as large as the long-boat of a merchantman, “too small a bark to pass through the ocean sea at that season of the year,” was nearly wrecked. That same night, about twelve o’clock, its lights suddenly disappeared; and neither the vessel, nor any of its crew, was ever again seen. Before the end of September the Hind reached Falmouth in safety.
Bancroft, Hist. of the U.S., vol.1, p.69
Raleigh, not disheartened by the sad fate of his stepbrother, revolved a settlement in the milder clime from which the Protestants of France had been expelled. He readily obtained from Elizabeth, in March, 1584, a patent as ample as that which had been conferred on Gilbert. It was drawn according to the principles of feudal law, and with strict regard to the Christian faith as professed in the church of England. Raleigh was constituted a lord proprietary, with almost unlimited powers, holding his territories by homage and an inconsiderable rent, and possessing jurisdiction over an extensive region, of which he had power to make grants according to his pleasure.
Bancroft, Hist. of the U.S., vol.1, p.69
Expectations rose high, since the inviting regions of the south were now to be colonized. In April two vessels, well laden with men and provisions, under the command of Philip Amidas and Arthur Barlow, buoyant with hope, set sail for the New World. They pursued the circuitous route by the Canaries and the islands of the West Indies; after a short stay in those islands they sailed for the north, and were soon opposite the shores of Carolina. As in July they drew near land, the fragrance was “as if they had been in the midst of some delicate garden, abounding with all kinds of odoriferous flowers.” Ranging the coast for one hundred and twenty miles, they entered the first convenient harbor, and, after thanks to God for their safe arrival, they took possession of the country for the queen of England.
Bancroft, Hist. of the U.S., vol.1, p.69 - p.70
The spot on which this ceremony was performed was in the island of Wocoken, the southernmost of the islands forming Ocracoke inlet. The air was agitated by none but the gentlest breezes, and the English commanders were in raptures with the beauty of the ocean, gemmed with islands, and seen in the magnificence of repose. The vegetation of that southern latitude struck the beholders with admiration; the trees had not their paragons; luxuriant climbers gracefully festooned the loftiest cedars; wild grapes abounded; and natural arbors formed an impervious shade. The forests were filled with birds; and, at the discharge of an arquebuse, whole flocks would arise, uttering a cry as if an army of men had shouted together.
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The tawny inhabitants of the land, which they called Secotan, appeared in harmony with the loveliness of the scene. The desire of traffic overcame their timidity, and the English received a friendly welcome. On the island of Roanoke they were entertained, by the wife of Granganimeo, father of Wingina the king, with the refinements of Arcadian hospitality. “The people were most gentle, loving, and faithful, void of all guile and treason, and such as lived after the manner of the golden age.” They had no cares but to guard against the moderate cold of a short winter, and to gather such food as the earth almost spontaneously produced. And yet it was added, with singular inconsistency, that their wars were cruel and bloody; and the English were solicited to engage in them under promise of lucrative booty.
Bancroft, Hist. of the U.S., vol.1, p.70
The adventurers were satisfied with observing the general aspect of the New World; Pamlico and Albemarle sounds and Roanoke island were explored, and some information gathered by inquiries from the Indians; the commanders had not the courage or the activity to undertake an extensive survey of the country. Having made but a short stay in America, they arrived in September in the west of England, accompanied by Manteo and Wanchese, two natives of the wilderness; and the returning voyagers gave such glowing descriptions of their discoveries as might be expected from men who had done no more than sail over the smooth waters of a summer’s sea, among “the hundred islands” of North Carolina. Elizabeth esteemed her reign signalized by the discovery of the enchanting regions, and, as a memorial of her state of life, named them Virginia.
Bancroft, Hist. of the U.S., vol.1, p.70 - p.71
Nor was it long before Raleigh, elected to represent in parliament the county of Devon, obtained a bill confirming his patent of discovery; and while he received the honor of knighthood, as the reward of his valor, he acquired a lucrative monopoly of wines, which enabled him to continue his schemes. The prospect of becoming the proprietary of a delightful territory, with a numerous tenantry, who should yield him not only a revenue, but allegiance, inflamed his ambition; and, as the English nation listened with credulity to the descriptions of Amidas and Barlow, it was not difficult to gather a numerous company of emigrants. While a new patent was issued to John Davis for the discovery of the north-western passage, and his well-known voyages, sustained in part by the contributions of Raleigh himself, were increasing the acquaintance of Europe with the Arctic Sea, the plan of colonizing Virginia was earnestly pursued.
Bancroft, Hist. of the U.S., vol.1, p.71
The new expedition was composed of seven vessels, and carried one hundred and eight colonists to the shores of Carolina. Ralph Lane, a man so much esteemed as a soldier that he was afterward knighted by Queen Elizabeth, was willing to act for Raleigh as governor of the colony. Sir Richard Grenville, the most able and celebrated of Raleigh’s associates, distinguished for bravery among the gallant spirits of a gallant age, assumed the command of the fleet. In April, 1585, it sailed from Plymouth, accompanied by several men of merit, whom the world remembers: by Cavendish, who soon after circumnavigated the globe; Hariot, the inventor of the system of notation in modern algebra, the historian of the expedition; and White, an ingenious painter, whose sketches of the natives, their habits and modes of life, were taken with beauty and exactness.
Bancroft, Hist. of the U.S., vol.1, p.71
To sail by the Canaries and the West Indies, to conduct a gainful commerce with the Spanish ports by intimidation; to capture Spanish vessels-these were but the expected preliminaries of a voyage to Virginia. In June the fleet fell in with the main land of Florida; it was in great danger of being wrecked on the cape, which was then first called the cape of Fear; and two days after it came to anchor at Wocoken. The largest ship, as it entered the harbor, struck, but was not lost. It was through Ocracoke inlet that the fleet made its way to Roanoke.
Bancroft, Hist. of the U.S., vol.1, p.71 - p.72
Manteo, who returned with the fleet from a visit to England, was sent to the mainland to announce their arrival. Grenville, accompanied by Lane, Hariot, Cavendish, and others, in an excursion of eight days, explored the coast as far as Secotan, and, as they relate, were well entertained of the Savages. At one of the Indian towns a silver cup had been stolen; its restoration was delayed; with hasty cruelty, Grenville ordered the village to be burnt and the standing corn destroyed. Not long after this act of inconsiderate revenge, the ships, having landed the colony, sailed for England; a rich Spanish prize, made by Grenville on the way home, secured him a courteous welcome as he re-entered Plymouth.
Bancroft, Hist. of the U.S., vol.1, p.72
The employments of Lane and his colonists, after the departure of Sir Richard Grenville, could be none other than to explore the country, which he thus describes: “It is the goodliest soil under the cope of heaven; the most pleasing territory of the world; the continent is of a huge and unknown greatness, and very well peopled and towned, though savagely. The climate is so wholesome that we have not one sick since we touched the land. If Virginia had but horses and kine, and were inhabited with English, no realm in Christendom were comparable to it.”
Bancroft, Hist. of the U.S., vol.1, p.72 - p.73
The keenest observer was Hariot. He carefully examined the productions of the country, those which would furnish commodities for commerce, and those which were in esteem among the natives. He observed the culture of tobacco, accustomed himself to its use, and believed in its healing virtues. The culture and the extraordinary productiveness of maize especially attracted his admiration; and the tuberous roots of the potato, when boiled, were found to be very good food. The natural inhabitants are described as too feeble to inspire terror; clothed in mantles and aprons of deerskins; having no weapons but wooden swords and bows of witchhazel with arrows of reeds; no armor but targets of bark and sticks wickered together with thread. Their largest towns contained but thirty dwellings. The walls of the houses were made of bark, fastened to stakes; and sometimes consisted of poles fixed upright, one by another, and at the top bent over and fastened. But the great peculiarity of the Indians consisted in the want of political connection. A single town often constituted a government; a collection of ten or twenty wigwams might be an independent state. The greatest chief in the country could not muster more than seven or eight hundred fighting men. The dialect of each government seemed a language by itself. The country which Hariot explored was on the boundary of the Algonkin race, where the Lenni-Lenape tribes melted into the widely differing nations of the south. Their wars rarely led them to the open battle-field; they were accustomed rather to sudden surprises at daybreak or by moonlight, to ambushes and the subtle devices of cunning falsehood. Destitute of the arts, they yet displayed “excellency of wit” in all which they attempted. To the credulity of fetichism they joined an undeveloped conception of the unity of the Divine Power, continued existence after death, and retributive justice. The mathematical instruments, the burning-glass, guns, clocks, and the use of letters, seemed the works of gods rather than of men; and the English were reverenced as the pupils and favorites of Heaven. In every town which Hariot entered he displayed and explained the Bible; the Indians revered the volume rather than its doctrines; with a fond superstition, they embraced the book, kissed it, and held it to their breasts and heads, as an amulet. As the colonists enjoyed uniform health and had no women with them, there were some among the Indians who imagined that the English were not born of woman, and therefore not mortal; that they were men of an old generation, risen to immortality. The terrors of fire-arms the natives could neither comprehend nor resist; every sickness which now prevailed among them was attributed to wounds from invisible bullets, discharged by unseen agents with whom the air was supposed to be peopled. They prophesied that “more of the English generation would come, to kill them and take their places.”
Bancroft, Hist. of the U.S., vol.1, p.73 - p.74
The natives desired to be delivered from guests by whom they feared to be supplanted. A wily savage allured them by tales that the river Roanoke gushed from a rock near the Pacific; that its banks were inhabited by a nation skilled in refining the rich ore in which the country abounded; that the walls of their city glittered with pearls. In March, Lane attempted to ascend the rapid Roanoke; and his followers would not return till their provisions were exhausted, and they had eaten the dogs which bore them company.
Bancroft, Hist. of the U.S., vol.1, p.74
The Indians had hoped to destroy the English by dividing them; the prompt return of Lane prevented open hostilities; but in the two following months he became persuaded that a grand alliance was forming to destroy the strangers by a general massacre. Desiring an audience of Wingina, the most dreaded of the native chiefs, Lane and his attendants were, on the first day of June, readily admitted to his presence. Immediately, and without any sign of hostile intentions by the Indians, the watchword was given; and the Christians, falling upon the king and his principal followers, put them to death.
Bancroft, Hist. of the U.S., vol.1, p.74
The discoveries of Lane on the south extended only to Secotan, in the present county of Craven, between the Pamlico and the Neuse; to the north they reached the river Elizabeth, which joins the Chesapeake bay at Hampton Roads; in the interior, the Chowan had been examined beyond the junction of the Meherrin and the Nottoway; the excursion up the Roanoke did not advance beyond the present village of Williamstown. The hope of finding better harbors at the north was confirmed; and the bay of Chesapeake, so long before discovered by the Spanish, was first made known to the English. But, though the climate was found salubrious, in the island of Roanoke the men began to despond; they had waited long for supplies from England; they were sighing for their native land; when early in June it was rumored that the sea was white with the sails of three-and-twenty ships, and within three days Sir Francis Drake anchored his fleet outside of Roanoke inlet, in “the wild road of their bad harbor.”
Bancroft, Hist. of the U.S., vol.1, p.74
Homeward bound from the West Indies, he had come to visit the domain of his friend; and readily supplied the wants of Lane, giving him a bark of seventy tons, pinnaces and small boats, and all needed provisions. Above all, he induced two experienced sea-captains to remain and employ themselves in more extended discoveries. Everything was furnished to complete the surveys along the coast and the rivers, and in the last resort, if suffering became extreme, to convey the emigrants to England.
Bancroft, Hist. of the U.S., vol.1, p.75
At this time an unwonted storm suddenly arose, and the fleet had no security but in standing away from the shore. When the tempest was over, nothing could be found of the boats and the bark which had been set apart for the colony; and Drake yielded to the unanimous desire of Lane and his men to embark with him for England. Thus ended the first actual settlement of the English in America. The exiles of a year had grown familiar with the favorite amusement of the lethargic Indians; and they introduced into England the use of tobacco.
Bancroft, Hist. of the U.S., vol.1, p.75
A few days after their departure a vessel arrived, laden with all stores needed by the infant settlement. It had been despatched by Raleigh; but, finding “the paradise of the world” deserted, it could only return to England. Another fortnight had hardly elapsed when Sir Richard Grenville appeared off the coast with three well-furnished ships, and made search for the departed colony. Unwilling that the English should lose possession of the country, he left fifteen men on the island of Roanoke.
Bancroft, Hist. of the U.S., vol.1, p.75
The decisive testimony of Hariot to the excellence of the country rendered it easy to collect recruits for America. Raleigh, undismayed by losses, determined to plant an agricultural state; to send emigrants with wives and families, who should make their homes in the New World; and, that life and property might be secured, in January, 1587, he granted a charter for the settlement, and a municipal government for “the city of Raleigh.” John White was appointed its governor; and to him, with eleven assistants, the administration of the colony was intrusted. Transport ships were prepared at the expense of the proprietary; “Queen Elizabeth, the godmother of Virginia,” declined contributing “to its education.” Embarking in April, in July they arrived on the coast of North Carolina; they were saved from the dangers of Cape Fear; and, passing Cape Hatteras, they hastened to the isle of Roanoke, to search for the handful of men whom Grenville had left there as a garrison. They found the tenements deserted and overgrown with weeds; human bones lay scattered on the field where wild deer were reposing. The fort was in ruins. No vestige of surviving life appeared.
Bancroft, Hist. of the U.S., vol.1, p.76
The instructions of Raleigh had designated the place for the new settlement on the bay of the Chesapeake. But Fernando, the naval officer, eager to renew a profitable traffic in the West Indies, refused his assistance in exploring the coast, and White was compelled to remain on Roanoke. The fort of Governor Lane, “with sundry decent dwelling-houses,” had been built at the northern extremity of the island; it was there that in July the foundations of the city of Raleigh were laid. The island is now almost uninhabited; commerce has selected securer harbors; the intrepid pilot and the hardy “wrecker” are the only occupants of the spot, where the inquisitive stranger after more than two centuries could still discern the ruins of the fort, round which the cottages of the new settlement were erected.
Bancroft, Hist. of the U.S., vol.1, p.76
Disasters thickened. A tribe of Savages displayed implacable jealousy, and murdered one of the assistants. The mother and the kindred of Manteo welcomed the English to the island of Croatan, and mutual good-will was continued; but even this alliance was not unclouded. A detachment of the English, discovering a company of the natives whom they esteemed their enemies, fell upon them by night as they were sitting by their fires, and havoc was begun before it was perceived that these were friendly Indians.
Bancroft, Hist. of the U.S., vol.1, p.76
The vanities of life were not forgotten; “by the commandment of Sir Walter Raleigh,” Manteo, the faithful Indian chief, after receiving Christian baptism, was invested with the rank of baron, as the Lord of Roanoke.
Bancroft, Hist. of the U.S., vol.1, p.76
With the returning ship White embarked for England, under the excuse of interceding for re-enforcements and supplies. Yet, on the eighteenth of August, nine days previous to his departure, his daughter, Eleanor Dare, the wife of one of the assistants, gave birth to a female child, the first offspring of English parents on the soil of the United States. The infant was named from the place of its birth. The colony, now composed of eighty-nine men, seventeen women, and two children, whose names are all preserved, might reasonably hope for the speedy return of the governor, as he left with them his daughter and his grandchild, VIRGINIA DARE.
Bancroft, Hist. of the U.S., vol.1, p.76 - p.77
The further history of this plantation is involved in gloomy uncertainty. The inhabitants of “the city of Raleigh,” the emigrants from England and the first-born of America, awaited death in the land of their adoption.
Bancroft, Hist. of the U.S., vol.1, p.77
For, when White reached England, he found its attention absorbed by the threats of an invasion from Spain; and Grenville, Raleigh, and Lane, not less than Frobisher, Drake, and Hawkins, were engaged in measures of resistance. Yet Raleigh, whose patriotism did not diminish his generosity, found means, in April, 1588, to despatch White with supplies in two vessels. But the company, desiring a gainful voyage rather than a safe one, ran in chase of prizes, till one of them fell in with men-of-war from Rochelle, and, after a bloody fight, was boarded and rifled. Both ships were compelled to return to England. The delay was fatal: the English kingdom and the Protestant reformation were in danger; nor could the poor colonists of Roanoke be again remembered till after the discomfiture of the Invincible Armada.
Bancroft, Hist. of the U.S., vol.1, p.77
Even then Sir Walter Raleigh, who had already incurred a fruitless expense of forty thousand pounds, found his impaired fortune insufficient for further attempts at colonizing Virginia. He therefore used the privilege of his patent to endow a company of merchants and adventurers with large concessions. Among the men who thus obtained an assignment of the proprietary’s rights in Virginia is found the name of Richard Hakluyt; it connects the first efforts of England in North Carolina with the final colonization of Virginia. The colonists at Roanoke had emigrated with a charter; the instrument of March, 1589, was not an assignment of Raleigh’s patent, but the extension of a grant, already held under its sanction, by increasing the number to whom the rights of that charter belonged.
Bancroft, Hist. of the U.S., vol.1, p.77 - p.78
More than another year elapsed before White could return to search for his colony and his daughter; and then the island of Roanoke was a desert. An inscription on the bark of a tree pointed to Croatan; but the season of the year and the dangers from storms were pleaded as an excuse for an immediate return. The conjecture has been hazarded that the deserted colony, neglected by their own countrymen, were hospitably adopted into the tribe of Hatteras Indians. Raleigh long cherished the hope of discovering some vestiges of their existence, and sent at his own charge, and, it is said, at five several times, to search for his liege-men. But imagination received no help in its attempts to trace the fate of the colony of Roanoke.
Bancroft, Hist. of the U.S., vol.1, p.78
The name of Raleigh stands highest among the statesmen of England who advanced the colonization of the United States. Courage, self-possession, and fertility of invention, ensured him glory in his profession of arms; and his services in the conquest of Cadiz and the capture of Fayal established his fame as a gallant and successful commander.
Bancroft, Hist. of the U.S., vol.1, p.78
No soldier in retirement ever expressed the charms of tranquil leisure more beautifully than Raleigh, whose “sweet verse” Spenser described as “sprinkled with nectar,” and rivalling the melodies of “the summer’s nightingale.” When an unjust verdict left him to languish for years in prison, with the sentence of death suspended over his head, he, who had been a warrior, a courtier, and a seaman, in an elaborate “History of the World,” “told the Greek and Roman story more fully and exactly than any earlier English writer, and with an eloquence which has given his work a classical reputation in our language.” In his civil career he was jealous of the honor, the prosperity, and the advancement of his country. In parliament he defended the freedom of domestic industry. When, through unequal legislation, taxation was a burden upon industry rather than wealth, he argued for a change; himself possessed of a lucrative monopoly, he gave his voice for the repeal of all monopolies; he used his influence with his sovereign to mitigate the severity of the judgments against the non-conformists, and as a legislator he resisted the sweeping enactment of persecuting laws.
Bancroft, Hist. of the U.S., vol.1, p.78 - p.79
In the career of discovery, his perseverance was never baffled by losses. He joined in the risks of Gilbert’s expedition; contributed to that of Davis in the north-west; and explored in person “the insular regions and broken world” of Guiana. His lavish efforts in colonizing the soil of our republic, his sagacity which enjoined a settlement within the Chesapeake bay, the publications of Hariot and Hakluyt which he countenanced, diffused over England a knowledge of America, as well as an interest in its destinies, and sowed the seeds, of which the fruits began to ripen during his lifetime.
Bancroft, Hist. of the U.S., vol.1, p.79
Raleigh had suffered in health before his last undertaking. He returned broken-hearted by the defeat of his hopes, the decay of his strength, and the death of his eldest son. What shall be said of King James, who would open to an aged paralytic no hope of liberty but through the discovery of mines in Guiana? What shall be said of a monarch who could, under a sentence which had slumbered for fifteen years, order the execution of the decrepit man, whose genius and valor shone through the ravages of physical decay, and whose heart still beat with an undying love for his country?
Bancroft, Hist. of the U.S., vol.1, p.79
The family of the chief author of early colonization in the United States was reduced to beggary by the government of England, and he himself was beheaded. After a lapse of nearly two centuries, the state of North Carolina, in 1792, revived in its capital “THE CITY OF RALEIGH,” in grateful commemoration of his name and fame.
Bancroft, Hist. of the U.S., vol.1, p.79
Imagination already saw beyond the Atlantic a people whose mother idiom should be the language of England. “Who knows,” exclaimed Daniel, the poet-laureate of that kingdom-”Who in time knows whither we may vent
Bancroft, Hist. of the U.S., vol.1, p.79
The treasures of our tongue? To what strange shores
This gain of our best glory shall be sent
T’ enrich unknowing nations with our stores?
What worlds, in th’ yet unformed Occident,
May ‘come refined with th’ accents that are ours.”
Bancroft, Hist. of the U.S., vol.1, p.79 - p.80
In 1602, Bartholomew Gosnold, a discreet and intrepid navigator, who remained till death devoted to the English colonization of Virginia, undertook the direct voyage from the British channel to America. From the Azores, to which he was borne by contrary winds, he ran a westerly course across the Atlantic, but the weakness of his ship, the unskilfulness of his crew, and his caution, from ignorance of the ocean and the nearest land, causing him to carry but a low sail, it was only after seven weeks that he came in sight of Cape Elizabeth in Maine. Following the coast to the south-west, he skirted “an outpoint of wooded land;” and, about noon of the fourteenth of May, he anchored “near Savage rock,” to the east of York harbor. There he met a Biscay shallop; and there he was visited by natives. Not finding his “purposed place,” he stood to the south, and on the morning of the fifteenth discovered the promontory which he named Cape Cod. He and four of his men went on shore; Cape Cod was the first spot in that region ever trod by Englishmen. Doubling the cape, and passing Nantucket, they touched at No Man’s Land, passed round the promontory of Gay Head, naming it Dover Cliff, and entered Buzzard’s bay, a stately sound which they called Gosnold’s Hope. The westernmost of the islands was named Elizabeth, from the queen, a name which has been transferred to the group. Here they beheld the rank vegetation of a virgin soil: noble forests; wild fruits and flowers bursting from the earth; the eglantine, the thorn, and the honeysuckle; the wild pea, the tansy, and young sassafras; strawberries, raspberries, grape-vines-all in profusion. Within a pond upon the island lies a rocky islet; on this the adventurers built their storehouse and their fort; and the foundations of a colony were laid. The island, the pond, the islet, remain; the shrubs are luxuriant as of old; but the forests are gone, and the ruins of the fort can no longer be discerned.
Bancroft, Hist. of the U.S., vol.1, p.80
A traffic with the natives on the main enabled Gosnold to lade the Concord with sassafras root, then esteemed in pharmacy as a sovereign panacea. The band, which, was to have nestled on the Elizabeth islands, despairing of supplies of food, and fearing the Indians, determined not to remain. In June the party bore for England, leaving not so much as one European family between Florida and Labrador. The return voyage lasted but five weeks; and the expedition was completed in less than four months, during which entire health, had prevailed.
Bancroft, Hist. of the U.S., vol.1, p.80 - p.81
Gosnold and his companions spread the most favorable reports of the regions which they had visited. Could it be that the passage was so safe, the climate so pleasant, the country so inviting? The merchants of Bristol, with the ready assent of Raleigh, and at the instance of Richard Hakluyt,-the enlightened friend and able documentary historian of these commercial enterprises, a man whose fame should be vindicated and asserted in the land which he helped to colonize,-determined to pursue the career of investigation. The Speedwell, a ship of fifty tons and thirty men, the Discoverer, a bark of twenty-six tons and thirteen men, under the command of Martin Pring, set sail for America on the tenth of April, 1603, a few days after the death of the queen. The ship was well provided with trinkets and merchandise, suited to a traffic with the red men, and reached the American shore among the islands of Penobscot bay. Coasting toward the west, Pring made a discovery of many of the harbors of Maine; of the Saco, the Kennebunk, and the York rivers; and the channel of the Piscataqua was examined for three or four leagues. Finding no sassafras, he steered to the south, doubled Cape Ann, and went on shore in Massachusetts; but, being still unsuccessful, he again pursued a southerly track, till he anchored in Old Town harbor, on Martha’s Vineyard. Here obtaining a freight, he returned to England, after an absence of about six months, which had been free from disaster or danger.
Bancroft, Hist. of the U.S., vol.1, p.81
The testimony of Pring having confirmed the report of Gosnold, an expedition, promoted by the earl of Southampton and his brother-in-law, Lord Arundel of Wardour, was confided to George Waymouth, a careful and vigilant commander, who, in attempting a north-west passage, had already explored the coast of Labrador.
Bancroft, Hist. of the U.S., vol.1, p.81 - p.82
Weighing anchor on Easter Sunday, 1605, on the fourteenth of May he came near the whitish, sandy promontory of Cape Cod. To escape the continual shoals in which he found himself embayed, he stood out to sea, then turned to the north, and on the seventeenth anchored to the north of Monhegan island, in sight of hills to the north-north-east on the main. On Whit Sunday he found his way among the St. George’s islands into an excellent harbor, which was accessible by four passages, defended from all winds, and had good mooring upon a clay ooze, and even upon the rocks by the cliff side. The climate was agreeable; the sea yielded fish of many kinds profusely; the tall and great trees on the islands were much observed; and the gum of the silver fir was thought to be as fragrant as frankincense; the land was of such pleasantness that many of the company wished themselves settled there; trade was carried on with the natives for sables, and skins of deer and otter and beaver. Having in the last of May discovered in his pinnace the broad, deep current of the St. George’s, on the eleventh of June, Waymouth, with a gentle wind, passed up with the ship into that river for about eighteen miles, which were reckoned at six-and-twenty, and “all consented in joy” to admire its width of a half mile or a mile; its verdant borders; its gallant and spacious coves; the strength of its tide, which may have risen nine or ten feet, and was set down at eighteen or twenty. On the thirteenth he ascended in a row-boat ten miles farther, and was more and more pleased with the beauty of the fertile ground on each hand. No token was found that ever any Christian had been there before; and at the point where the river trends westward into the main he set up a memorial cross, as he had already done on the rocky shore of the St. George’s islands. Well satisfied with his discoveries, on Sunday, the sixteenth of June, he sailed for England, taking with him five of the natives whom he had decoyed, to be instructed in English and to serve as guides to some future expedition. At his coming into the harbor of Plymouth he yielded up three of the natives to Sir Ferdinando Gorges, the governor of that town, whose curiosity was thus directed to the shores of Maine. The returning voyagers celebrated its banks, which promised most profitable fishing; its rude people, who were willing to barter costly furs for trifles; the temperate and healthful air of the country whose “pleasant fertility bewrayed itself to be the garden of Nature.” But it was not these which tempted Gorges. He had noticed that all navigations of the English along the more southerly American coast had failed from the want of good roads and havens; these were the special marks at which he levelled; and, hearing of a region safe of approach and abounding in harbors large enough to shelter the ships of all Christendom, he aspired to the noble office of filling it with prosperous English plantations.
Bancroft, Hist. of the U.S., vol.1, p.82 - p.83
Gorges had wealth, rank, and influence. He readily persuaded Sir John Popham, lord chief justice of England, to share his intentions. The chief justice was no novice in schemes of colonization, having “labored greatly in the last project touching the plantation of Munster” in Ireland; and they agreed together to send out each a ship to begin a plantation in the region which Waymouth had explored. Chalons, the captain employed by Gorges, in violation of his instructions, taking the southern passage, was carried by the tradewinds even to Porto Rico; and, as he turned to the north, he was captured by the Spanish fleet from Havana. The tall and well-furnished ship provided by Popham sailed from the river of Severn, under the command of Martin Pring. The able mariner, now on his second voyage to the west, disappointed of meeting Chalons, busied himself in the more perfect discovery of all the rivers and harbors along our northeastern coast; and, on his return, he made the most favorable report of the country which he had explored.
Bancroft, Hist. of the U.S., vol.1, p.83
The daring and ability of these pioneers upon the ocean, who led the way to the colonization of the United States, deserve the highest admiration. The character of the prevalent winds and currents was unknown. The possibility of making a direct passage was but gradually discovered. The imagined dangers were infinite, the real dangers from tempests and shipwreck, famine and mutinies, heat and cold, diseases known and unknown, were incalculable. The ships at first employed were generally of less than one hundred tons’ burden; two of those of Columbus were without a deck; Frobisher sailed in a vessel of but twenty-five tons. Columbus was cast away twice, and once remained for eight months on an island, without any communication with the civilized world; Roberval, Parmenius, Gilbert-and how many others!-went down at sea; and such was the state of the art of navigation that intrepidity and skill were unavailing against the elements without the favor of Heaven.
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