SETTLEMENT OF THE SOUTHERN STATES.

VIRGINIA.

TERRIBLE as was the fate of Gilbert and his associates, the ardor of Raleigh was not daunted, nor his energies depressed. High in favor with Elizabeth, he found no difficulty in procuring a patent similar to that which had been granted to his unfortunate brother. Prompt in the execution, as intrepid in the projection of his plans, he speedily equipped two small vessels, under Amadas and Barlow, to obtain further information of the coasts, the soil, and the inhabitants of the regions he designed to colonize. Approaching America by the Gulf of Florida, they touched first at the island of Ocakoke, which runs parallel to the greater part of North Carolina, and then at Roanoke, near the mouth of Albemarle sound. In both they had some intercourse with the natives, whom they found to be savages, with all the characteristic qualities of uncivilized life-bravery, aversion to labor, hospitality, a propensity to admire, and a willingness to exchange their rude productions for English commodities, especially for iron, or any of the useful metals of which they were destitute. After spending a few weeks in this traffic, and in visiting some parts of the adjacent continent, Amadas and Barlow returned to England, and gave a most fervid description of the country they had been sent to explore. Their own words, as contained in their report to Sir Walter Raleigh, will convey a better idea of the mode of narrative adopted, and the effect produced, than any language of ours. "The soile," say they, "is the most plentifull, sweete, fruitfull and wholesome of all the worlde; there are above fourteene severall sweete smelling timber trees, and the most part of their underwoods are bayes and such like; they have those okes that we have, but farre greater and better. After they had bene divers times aboord our shippes, myselfe, with seven more, went twentie mile into the river that runneth towarde the citie of Skicoak, which river they call Occam; and the evening following, we came to an island, which they call Raonoak, distant from the harbor by which we entered seven leagues; and at the north end thereof was a village of nine houses, built of cedar, and fortified round about with sharpe trees to keep out their enemies, and the entrance into it made like a turnpike, very artificially; when we came towardes it, standing neere unto the waters' side, the wife of Granganimo, the king's brother, came running out to meete us very cheerfully and friendly; her husband was not then in the village; some of her people shee commanded to drawe our boate on shore for the beating of the billoe, others she appointed to cary us on their backes to the dry ground and others to bring our oares into the house for feare of steal

ing. When we were come into the utter roome, having five roomes in her house, she caused us to sit downe by a greate fire, and after tooke off our clothes and washed them, and dried them againe; some of the women plucked off our stockings, and washed them, some washed our feete in warm water, and she herself tooke great paines to see all things ordered in the best manner she could, making great haste to dresse some meate for us to eate. After we had thus dryed ourselves, she brought us into the inner roome, where shee set on the boord standing along the house, some wheate like furmentie; sodden venison and roasted; fish, sodden, boyled and roasted; melons, rawe and sodden; rootes of divers kindes; and divers fruites. Their drinke is commonly water, but while the grape lasteth, they drinke wine, and for want of caskes to keepe it, all the yere after they drink water, but it is sodden with ginger in it, and black sinamon, and sometimes sassaphras, and divers other wholesome and medicinable hearbes and trees. We were entertained with all love and kindnesse, and with as much bountie, after their maner, as they could possibly devise. We found the people most gentle, loving, and faithfull, voide of all guile and treason, and such as live after the manner of the golden age. The people onley care howe to defend themselves from the cold in their short winter, and to feed themselves with such meat as the soile affordeth; their meat is very well sodden, and they make broth very sweete and savorie; their vessels are earthen pots, very large, white, and sweete; their dishes are wooden platters of sweete timber. Within the place where they feede was their lodging, and within that their idoli, which they worship, of whom they speake incredible things. While we were at meate, there came in at the gates two or three men with their bowes and arrowes from hunting, whom, when we espied, we beganne to looke one towardes another, and offered to reach our weapons; but as soone as shee espied our mistrust, shee was very much mooved, and caused some of her men to runne out, and take away their bowes and arrowes and breake them, and withall, beate the poore fellowes out of the gate againe. When we departed in the evening, and would not tarry all night, she was very sory, and gave us into our boate our supper half dressed, pottes and all, and brought us to our boate side, in which we lay all night, removing the same a prettie distance from the shoare; shee perceiving our jealousie, was much grieved, and sent divers men and thirtie women to sit all night on the banke-side by us, and sent us into our boates five mattes, to cover us from the raine, using very many wordes to intreate us to rest in their houses; but because we were fewe men, and if we had miscarried the voyage had bene in very great danger, we durst not adventure any thing, although there was no cause of doubt, for a more kinde and loving people there cannot be found in the worlde, as far as we have hitherto had triall."

Delighted with the prospect of possessing a territory so far superior to any hitherto visited by her subjects, Elizabeth was p eased to honor both the newly discovered country and herself, by bestowing upon it the title of Virginia.

Soon after the return of the two ships, Sir Walter Raleigh was elected a member of Parliament from Devonshire. He was also knighted by

the Queen; and his patent was confirmed by an act of Parliament. Seven ships were immediately prepared for a second expedition, and placed under the command of Ralph Lane and Sir Richard Granville. This little squadron reached the American coast on the 26th of July, 1585, and dropped their anchors outside of the bar, at Wococon. Lane and Granville, with fifty or sixty officers and men, immediately crossed the sound in boats, to explore the country.

Under the guidance of Mantee, an Indian who had sailed for England ith the first expedition, and now returned, they made several excursions upon the coast, and discovered some Indian villages. They next ventur ed about eighty leagues, as they supposed, to the southward. In this di rection, the utmost limits of their discoveries was an Indian place called Socotan, near the present site of Beaufort, where they were civilly entertained by Wingini, an Indian chieftain. Here the water became so full of flats and shoals, that the English pinnaces could go no further. As they had but one small boat, and this could carry but four oars and fifteen men, with provisions for a few days, they concluded to turn back. Some of the party proceeded to Wococon by the shortest course; but Granville, with the rest, returned to Aquascosack, a town on the waters of the Neuse. His object there was to demand a silver cup, which was stolen from him when he had first visited that town on his late circuit. He obtained the promise of its return, but the promise was not kept; and the Indians, apprehending danger, in consequence of his expected anger, fled to the woods. This drew upon them the indiscriminate vengeance of the English commander. The town of Aquascosack was burnt, and the standing corn and other crops utterly destroyed. This was a rash proceeding, to speak of it in the mildest terms; and it afterwards cost the English settlers very dear, by enraging the natives.

After this outrage, Granville sailed to the island of Roanoke, where he left behind him one hundred and eight persons, as the foundation of a colony. Mr. Lane was appointed Governor; and Armidas, one of the captains in the former voyage, was appointed Admiral. Thomas Heriot, a famous mathematician, and particular friend of Sir Walter Raleigh, also remained with the colony.

On the 18th of September, Granville arrived at Plymouth, bringing in with him a rich Spanish prize, which he had the good fortune to take on his passage. The chief employment of the colony at Roanoke, meanwhile, was to explore the country for the purpose of acquiring a knowledge of its geography and its productions. Governor Lane made various excursions along the coast during the fall and winter. He was accom panied by Mr. Wythe, a skilful English painter, sent out by Raleigh, to take sketches of the situation of the country, and the figures and fashions of the natives. To the north, Lane advanced as far as the territories of the Chesapeakes, an Indian nation seated on a small river, now called Elizabeth, which falls into the great bay of Chesapeake, below Norfolk. To the north-west, he went up Albemarle sound and the river Chowan, more than one hundred miles, to the settlements of a nation of Indians called the Chowanokes. These lived a little beyond the fork of the river, where one branch now takes the name of Nottoway, and the other of Meherrin.

But as Governor Lane undertook to effect his purposes among the natives by force always, instead of persuasion, he met with indifferent success. The Indians had by this time become a little jealous of the colonists; and the best friend of the latter, Granganimo, died in the spring of his year, 1586. Gold was the idol of the adventurers, and to the negect of every thing else they pursued this continually elusive phantom. Their provisions were exhausted, and they had taken no measures to renew them by agriculture. Reduced to the utmost distress, they were on the point of dispersing to various quarters in search of food, when Sir Francis Drake, who had been engaged in a successful expedition against the Spaniards in the West Indies, appeared unexpectedly to their relief, and carried the fatigued and famishing colonists to England.

One consequence of this abortive attempt to found a colony, is of sufficient importance to make it celebrated in history. Lane and his companions had acquired from the Indians the habit of smoking tobacco, and carrying a specimen of this new luxury to England, the use of it was soon adopted by Raleigh and other young men of fashion. Fashion, and a capricious notion of its salutary influence, soon diffused a general fondness for this disagreeable weed, till the demand for it has become universal.

Raleigh still remained attached to his scheme of colonizing, and in 1587 dispatched another body of adventurers, incorporated under the title of the Borough of Raleigh in Virginia. The bay of Chesapeake was designated as the spot for the erection of a fort, and the settlement of the company. On the 16th of July, after a passage of about seventy days, the expedition made the coast of Virginia, and arriving at Hatteras, the Governor with a select party visited the island of Roanoke, to ascertain what vestiges might be found of the party left there the preceding year. The bones of a man were the sole relics of the colony. Dwelling-houses and a fort had been erected by Lane in the northern quarter of the island; but the fort was razed, and deer were feeding quietly in the houses which had been overgrown with creepers and weeds. This sight filled the adventurers with the saddest apprehensions, and they could only speculate on the probable means by which their companions had come to their death. Orders were immediately given for the erection of new, and the repair of the old cottages, and a second plantation was immediately commenced by a colony of one hundred and seventeen persons.

Before the close of the month of August, the Governor, Mr. John White, in whom, with a council of twelve, the legislative power of the colony was vested, sailed for England to procure supplies. At this time the nation was engrossed by the expected invasion of the Spanish armada, but Raleigh still contrived to send out White with two more vessels, which were unfortunately attacked by the enemy, and so shattered as to be compelled to return. It was not till 1590, that another expedition succeeded in reaching Virginia, when they found a scene of similar tragic character with that which had been before displayed. No living trace of the colony was to be found. The palisades were still standing about their houses, and their unconsumed stores were found hidden in the earth; but no

EARLY HISTORY OF AMERICA.

voice told their story, and no certain though silent testimony was found of their fate. If they had been slain by savage incursion, every trace of blood and fire was carefully removed, and not a bleached bone was left to bear witness of the tragedy. They had perished beyond a doubt, but whether by the sea or land, by the war of the elements, or the still more cruel war of the human passions, was and remains a mystery. Thus terminated the noble efforts of the generous and accomplished Raleigh, to plant a colony in the western hemisphere. In four several expeditions he had expended forty thousand pounds, without any return; and he was without much difficulty induced to surrender the privileges of his patent to other hands. The mercantile company into whose possession this patent fell, carried on a slight traffic in a few small barks, but made no effort to make a settlement in the country. Thus, after more than a century after the discovery of North America by Cabot, not an individual English resident remained in the new world. Shipwreck and famine, savage warfare and domestic dissensions, had frustrated every effort to establish an English colony beyond the ocean, as if it were indeed the "dissocial" waste imagined by the ancients, whose waters it were impious to violate and impossible to pass.

The colonization of America awaited the energy of a new impulse, and the first permanent settlement in Virginia was made in 1606, by an expedition under the command of Christopher Newport. He entered the magnificent bay of Chesapeake, the spacious reservoir of innumerable waters, and gave the names of Henry and Charles to its southern and northern promontories. Every object which met the eyes of the adventurers as they sailed up the broad and shining bosom of the great Chesapeake, excited

their imaginations and their hopes. The banks of the bay, upon all sides, as far as sight could reach, were covered with the fresh green beauty of spring. There were large and majestic navigable rivers, and between then a variety of mountains, plains and valleys stretching far away in the distance. Bright rivulets came dashing down the hills, and fell into the bay. Innumerable birds sported and sang in the green woods upon