CITY OF RALEIGH FOUNDED. MANTEO. 119 III. 23 the naval officer, eager to renew a profitable traffic CHAP. in the West Indies, refused his assistance in exploring the coast, and White was compelled to remain on 1587. 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 the foundations of the city of Raleigh were laid. July The island of Roanoke is now almost uninhabited; commerce has selected securer harbors for its pursuits; the intrepid pilot and the hardy "wrecker," rendered adventurously daring by their familiarity with the dangers of the coast, and in their natures wild as the storms to which their skill bids defiance, unconscious of the associations by which they are surrounded, are the only tenants of the spot, where the inquisitive stranger may yet discern the ruins of the fort, round which the cottages of the new settlement were erected. But 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 a mutual friendship 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 the harmless men were sitting fearlessly by their fires; and the havoc was begun, before it was perceived that these were friendly Indians. July 28. The vanities of the world were not forgotten in Aug. Roanoke; and Manteo, the faithful Indian chief, 13. III. CHAP. "by the commandment of Sir Walter Raleigh," was christened on Roanoke, and invested with the title1 1587. of a feudal baron. It was the first peerage, erected 18. by the English in America; and remained a solitary dignity, till Locke and Shaftesbury suggested the establishment of palatinates in Carolina, and Manteo shared his honors with the greatest philospher of his age. As the time for the departure of the ship for England drew near, the emigrants became gloomy with apprehensions; they were conscious of their dependence on Europe; and they, with one voice, women as well as men, urged the governor to return and use his vigorous intercession for the prompt despatch of reinforcements and supplies. It was in vain that he pleaded a sense of honor, which called upon him to remain and share in person the perils of the colony, which he was appointed to govern. He was forced to yield to the general importunity. Yet previous to his departure, his daughter, Eleanor Dare, the wife of one of the assistants, gave Aug. birth to a female child, the first offspring of English parents on the soil of the United States. The child 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 Aug. governor, who, as he sailed for England, left with them, as hostages, his daughter and his grandchild, VIRGINIA DARE. 27. 1 Lord of Roanoke and Dasamonguepeuk. NO RELIEF FOR THE ROANOKE COLONY. 121 III. And yet even those ties were insufficient. The CHAP. colony received no seasonable relief; and the further history of this neglected plantation is involved in 1587. gloomy uncertainty. The inhabitants of "the city of Raleigh," the emigrants from England and the first-born of America, failed, like their predecessors, in establishing an enduring settlement; but, unlike their predecessors, they awaited death in the land of their adoption. If America had no English town, it soon had English graves.1 1 For when White reached England, he found its whole 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 planning measures of resistance. Yet Raleigh, whose patriotism did not diminish his generosity, found means to despatch White with supplies 1588. in two vessels. But the company, desiring a gainful 22. April voyage rather than a safe one, ran in chase of prizes; till at last, 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 immediately to England, to the ruin of the colony and the displeasure of its author. The delay was fatal; the independence of the English kingdom and the security of the protestant reformation were in danger; nor could the poor colonists of Roanoke be 1The original account of White, in Hakluyt, v. iii. p. 340–348. The story is repeated by Smith, Stith, Keith, Burk, Belknap, Williamson, Martin, Thomson, Tytler, and others. VOL. I. 2 16 2 Hakluyt, edition 1589, p. 771; quoted in Oldys, p. 98, 99; Caylus, v. i. p. 106, 107. Tytler, p. 75; Thomson, p. 40; Belknap's American Biography, v. i. p. 219 Stith's Virginia, p. 25. CHAP. again remembered, till after the discomfiture of the invincible Armada. III. 1588. Even when complete success against the Spanish fleet, had crowned the arms of England, Sir Walter Raleigh found himself unable to continue the attempts at colonizing Virginia; for he had already incurred a fruitless expense of forty thousand pounds. Yet he did not despair of ultimate success; he admired the invincible constancy, which would bury the remembrance of past dangers in the glory of annexing fertile provinces to his country; and as his fortune did not permit him to renew his exertions, he used the privilege of his patent to form a company of merchants and adventurers, who were endowed by his liberality with large concessions, and who, it was hoped, would replenish Virginia with settlers. Among the men, who thus obtained an assignment of the proprietary's rights in Virginia, is found the name of Richard Hakluyt; it is the connecting link between the first efforts of England in NorthCarolina and the final colonization of Virginia. The colonists at Roanoke had emigrated with a 1589. charter; the new instrument' was not an assign7. ment of Raleigh's patent; but extended a grant, Mar. already held under its sanction, by increasing the number to whom the rights of that charter belonged. Yet the enterprize of the adventurers languished, for it was no longer encouraged by the profuse liber1590. ality of Raleigh. More than another year elapsed, 1 Hazard, v. i. p. 42-45. THE ROANOKE COLONY IS LOST. 2 123 III. before White' could return to search for his colony CHAP. and his daughter; and then the island of Roanoke was a desert. An inscription on the bark of a tree 1590. pointed to Croatan; but the season of the year and the dangers from storms were pleaded as an excuse for an immediate return. Had the emigrants already perished? Or had they escaped with their lives to Croatan, and, through the friendship of Manteo, become familiar with the Indians? The conjecture has been hazarded, that the deserted colony, neglected by their own countrymen, were hospitably adopted into the tribe of Hatteras Indians, and became amalgamated with the sons of the forest. This was the tradition of the natives at a later day, and was thought to be confirmed by the physical character of the tribe, in which the English and the Indian race seemed to have been blended. Raleigh long cherished the hope of discovering some vestiges of their existence; and though he had abandoned the design of colonizing Virginia, he yet sent at his own charge, and, it is said, at five several times,3 to search for his liege-men. But it was all in vain; imagination received no help in its attempts to trace the fate of the colony of Roanoke. The name of Raleigh stands highest among the statesmen of England, who advanced the colonization of the United States; and his fame belongs to American history. No Englishman of his age possessed so various or so extraordinary qualities. Cour 1 White, in Hakluyt, v. iii. p. 348, 349, and 350-357. 2 Lawson's N. Carolina, p. 62. |