John Smith has not chosen to tell us anything of his life during theinterim--perhaps not more than a year and a half--between his returnfrom Morocco and his setting sail for Virginia. Nor do hiscontemporaries throw any light upon this period of his life.
One would like to know whether he went down to Willoughby and had areckoning with his guardians; whether he found any relations orfriends of his boyhood; whether any portion of his estate remained ofthat "competent means" which he says he inherited, but which does notseem to have been available in his career. From the time when he setout for France in his fifteenth year, with the exception of a shortsojourn in Willoughby seven or eight years after, he lived by hiswits and by the strong hand. His purse was now and then replenishedby a lucky windfall, which enabled him to extend his travels and seekmore adventures. This is the impression that his own story makesupon the reader in a narrative that is characterized by theboastfulness and exaggeration of the times, and not fuller of themarvelous than most others of that period.
The London to which Smith returned was the London of Shakespeare. Weshould be thankful for one glimpse of him in this interesting town.
Did he frequent the theatre? Did he perhaps see Shakespeare himselfat the Globe? Did he loaf in the coffee-houses, and spin the finethread of his adventures to the idlers and gallants who resorted tothem? If he dropped in at any theatre of an afternoon he was quitelikely to hear some allusion to Virginia, for the plays of the hourwere full of chaff, not always of the choicest, about the attractionsof the Virgin-land, whose gold was as plentiful as copper in England;where the prisoners were fettered in gold, and the dripping-pans weremade of it; and where--an unheard-of thing--you might become analderman without having been a scavenger.
Was Smith an indulger in that new medicine for all ills, tobacco?
Alas! we know nothing of his habits or his company. He was a man ofpiety according to his lights, and it is probable that he may havehad the then rising prejudice against theatres. After his returnfrom Virginia he and his exploits were the subject of many a stageplay and spectacle, but whether his vanity was more flattered by thismark of notoriety than his piety was offended we do not know. Thereis certainly no sort of evidence that he engaged in the commondissipation of the town, nor gave himself up to those pleasures whicha man rescued from the hardships of captivity in Tartaria might beexpected to seek. Mr. Stith says that it was the testimony of hisfellow soldiers and adventurers that "they never knew a soldier,before him, so free from those military vices of wine, tobacco,debts, dice, and oathes."But of one thing we may be certain: he was seeking adventureaccording to his nature, and eager for any heroic employment; and itgoes without saying that he entered into the great excitement of theday--adventure in America. Elizabeth was dead. James had just cometo the throne, and Raleigh, to whom Elizabeth had granted anextensive patent of Virginia, was in the Tower. The attempts to makeany permanent lodgment in the countries of Virginia had failed. Butat the date of Smith's advent Captain Bartholomew Gosnold hadreturned from a voyage undertaken in 1602 under the patronage of theEarl of Southampton, and announced that he had discovered a directpassage westward to the new continent, all the former voyagers havinggone by the way of the West Indies. The effect of this announcementin London, accompanied as it was with Gosnold's report of thefruitfulness of the coast of New England which he explored, wassomething like that made upon New York by the discovery of gold inCalifornia in 1849. The route by the West Indies, with its incidentsof disease and delay, was now replaced by the direct course opened byGosnold, and the London Exchange, which has always been quick toscent any profit in trade, shared the excitement of the distinguishedsoldiers and sailors who were ready to embrace any chance ofadventure that offered.
It is said that Captain Gosnold spent several years in vain, afterhis return, in soliciting his friends and acquaintances to join himin settling this fertile land he had explored; and that at length heprevailed upon Captain John Smith, Mr. Edward Maria Wingfield, theRev. Mr. Robert Hunt, and others, to join him. This is the firstappearance of the name of Captain John Smith in connection withVirginia. Probably his life in London had been as idle asunprofitable, and his purse needed replenishing. Here was a way opento the most honorable, exciting, and profitable employment. That itsmere profit would have attracted him we do not believe; but itsdanger, uncertainty, and chance of distinction would irresistiblyappeal to him. The distinct object of the projectors was toestablish a colony in Virginia. This proved too great an undertakingfor private persons. After many vain projects the scheme wascommended to several of the nobility, gentry, and merchants, who cameinto it heartily, and the memorable expedition of 1606 was organized.
The patent under which this colonization was undertaken was obtainedfrom King James by the solicitation of Richard Hakluyt and others.
Smith's name does not appear in it, nor does that of Gosnold nor ofCaptain Newport. Richard Hakluyt, then clerk prebendary ofWestminster, had from the first taken great interest in the project.
He was chaplain of the English colony in Paris when Sir Francis Drakewas fitting out his expedition to America, and was eager to furtherit. By his diligent study he became the best English geographer ofhis time; he was the historiographer of the East India Company, andthe best informed man in England concerning the races, climates, andproductions of all parts of the globe. It was at Hakluyt'ssuggestion that two vessels were sent out from Plymouth in 1603 toverify Gosnold's report of his new short route. A furtherverification of the feasibility of this route was made by CaptainGeorge Weymouth, who was sent out in 1605 by the Earl of Southampton.
The letters-patent of King James, dated April 10, 1606, licensed theplanting of two colonies in the territories of America commonlycalled Virginia. The corporators named in the first colony were SirThos. Gates, Sir George Somers, knights, and Richard Hakluyt andEdward Maria Wingfield, adventurers, of the city of London. Theywere permitted to settle anywhere in territory between the 34th and41st degrees of latitude.
The corporators named in the second colony were Thomas Hankam,Raleigh Gilbert, William Parker, and George Popham, representingBristol, Exeter, and Plymouth, and the west counties, who wereauthorized to make a settlement anywhere between the 38th and 4Sthdegrees of latitude.
The--letters commended and generously accepted this noble work ofcolonization, "which may, by the Providence of Almighty God,hereafter tend to the glory of his Divine Majesty, in propagating ofChristian religion to such people as yet live in darkness andmiserable ignorance of all true knowledge and worship of God, and mayin time bring the infidels and savages living in those parts to humancivility and to a settled and quiet government." The conversion ofthe Indians was as prominent an object in all these early adventures,English or Spanish, as the relief of the Christians has been in allthe Russian campaigns against the Turks in our day.
Before following the fortunes of this Virginia colony of 1606, towhich John Smith was attached, it is necessary to glance briefly atthe previous attempt to make settlements in this portion of America.
Although the English had a claim upon America, based upon thediscovery of Newfoundland and of the coast of the continent from the38th to the 68th north parallel by Sebastian Cabot in 1497, they tookno further advantage of it than to send out a few fishing vessels,until Sir Humphrey Gilbert, a noted and skillful seaman, took outletters-patent for discovery, bearing date the 11th of January, 1578.
Gilbert was the half-brother of Sir Walter Raleigh and thirteen yearshis senior. The brothers were associated in the enterprise of 1579,which had for its main object the possession of Newfoundland. It iscommonly said, and in this the biographical dictionaries follow oneanother, that Raleigh accompanied his brother on this voyage of 1579and went with him to Newfoundland. The fact is that Gilbert did notreach Newfoundland on that voyage, and it is open to doubt if Raleighstarted with him. In April, 1579, when Gilbert took active stepsunder the charter of 1578, diplomatic difficulties arose, growing outof Elizabeth's policy with the Spaniards, and when Gilbert's shipswere ready to sail he was stopped by an order from the council.
Little is known of this unsuccessful attempt of Gilbert's. He did,after many delays, put to sea, and one of his contemporaries, JohnHooker, the antiquarian, says that Raleigh was one of the assuredfriends that accompanied him. But he was shortly after driven back,probably from an encounter with the Spaniards, and returned with theloss of a tall ship.
Raleigh had no sooner made good his footing at the court of Elizabeththan he joined Sir Humphrey in a new adventure. But the Queenperemptorily retained Raleigh at court, to prevent his incurring therisks of any "dangerous sea-fights." To prevent Gilbert fromembarking on this new voyage seems to have been the device of thecouncil rather than the Queen, for she assured Gilbert of her goodwishes, and desired him, on his departure, to give his picture toRaleigh for her, and she contributed to the large sums raised to meetexpenses "an anchor guarded by a lady," which the sailor was to wearat his breast. Raleigh risked L 2,000 in the venture, and equipped aship which bore his name, but which had ill luck. An infectiousfever broke out among the crew, and the "Ark Raleigh" returned toPlymouth. Sir Humphrey wrote to his brother admiral, Sir GeorgePeckham, indignantly of this desertion, the reason for which he didnot know, and then proceeded on his voyage with his four remainingships. This was on the 11th of January, 1583. The expedition was sofar successful that Gilbert took formal possession of Newfoundlandfor the Queen. But a fatality attended his further explorations: thegallant admiral went down at sea in a storm off our coast, with hiscrew, heroic and full of Christian faith to the last, uttering, it isreported, this courageous consolation to his comrades at the lastmoment: "Be of good heart, my friends. We are as near to heaven bysea as by land."In September, 1583, a surviving ship brought news of the disaster toFalmouth. Raleigh was not discouraged. Within six months of thisloss he had on foot another enterprise. His brother's patent hadexpired. On the 25th of March, 1584, he obtained from Elizabeth anew charter with larger powers, incorporating himself, AdrianGilbert, brother of Sir Humphrey, and John Davys, under the title of"The College of the Fellowship for the Discovery of the NorthwestPassage." But Raleigh's object was colonization. Within a few daysafter his charter was issued he despatched two captains, PhilipAmadas and Arthur Barlow, who in July of that year took possession ofthe island of Roanoke.
The name of Sir Walter Raleigh is intimately associated with Carolinaand Virginia, and it is the popular impression that he personallyassisted in the discovery of the one and the settlement of the other.
But there is no more foundation for the belief that he ever visitedthe territory of Virginia, of which he was styled governor, than thathe accompanied Sir Humphrey Gilbert to Newfoundland. An allusion byWilliam Strachey, in his "Historie of Travaile into Virginia,"hastily read, may have misled some writers. He speaks of anexpedition southward, "to some parts of Chawonock and the Mangoangs,to search them there left by Sir Walter Raleigh." But his furthersketch of the various prior expeditions shows that he meant to speakof settlers left by Sir Ralph Lane and other agents of Raleigh incolonization. Sir Walter Raleigh never saw any portion of the coastof the United States.
In 1592 he planned an attack upon the Spanish possessions of Panama,but his plans were frustrated. His only personal expedition to theNew World was that to Guana in 1595.
The expedition of Captain Amadas and Captain Barlow is described byCaptain Smith in his compilation called the "General Historie," andby Mr. Strachey. They set sail April 27, 1584, from the Thames. Onthe 2d of July they fell with the coast of Florida in shoal water,"where they felt a most delicate sweet smell," but saw no land.
Presently land appeared, which they took to be the continent, andcoasted along to the northward a hundred and thirty miles beforefinding a harbor. Entering the first opening, they landed on whatproved to be the Island of Roanoke. The landing-place was sandy andlow, but so productive of grapes or vines overrunning everything,that the very surge of the sea sometimes overflowed them. Thetallest and reddest cedars in the world grew there, with pines,cypresses, and other trees, and in the woods plenty of deer, conies,and fowls in incredible abundance.
After a few days the natives came off in boats to visit them, properpeople and civil in their behavior, bringing with them the King'sbrother, Granganameo (Quangimino, says Strachey). The name of theKing was Winginia, and of the country Wingandacoa. The name of thisKing might have suggested that of Virginia as the title of the newpossession, but for the superior claim of the Virgin Queen.
Granganameo was a friendly savage who liked to trade. The firstthing he took a fancy was a pewter dish, and he made a hole throughit and hung it about his neck for a breastplate. The liberalChristians sold it to him for the low price of twenty deer-skins,worth twenty crowns, and they also let him have a copper kettle forfifty skins. They drove a lively traffic with the savages for muchof such "truck," and the chief came on board and ate and drankmerrily with the strangers. His wife and children, short of staturebut well-formed and bashful, also paid them a visit. She wore a longcoat of leather, with a piece of leather about her loins, around herforehead a band of white coral, and from her ears bracelets of pearlsof the bigness of great peas hung down to her middle. The otherwomen wore pendants of copper, as did the children, five or six in anear. The boats of these savages were hollowed trunks of trees.
Nothing could exceed the kindness and trustfulness the Indiansexhibited towards their visitors. They kept them supplied with gameand fruits, and when a party made an expedition inland to theresidence of Granganameo, his wife (her husband being absent) camerunning to the river to welcome them; took them to her house and setthem before a great fire; took off their clothes and washed them;removed the stockings of some and washed their feet in warm water;set plenty of victual, venison and fish and fruits, before them, andtook pains to see all things well ordered for their comfort. "Morelove they could not express to entertain us." It is noted that thesesavages drank wine while the grape lasted. The visitors returned allthis kindness with suspicion.
They insisted upon retiring to their boats at night instead oflodging in the house, and the good woman, much grieved at theirjealousy, sent down to them their half-cooked supper, pots and all,and mats to cover them from the rain in the night, and caused severalof her men and thirty women to sit all night on the shore overagainst them. "A more kind, loving people cannot be," say thevoyagers.
In September the expedition returned to England, taking specimens ofthe wealth of the country, and some of the pearls as big as peas, andtwo natives, Wanchese and Manteo. The "lord proprietary" obtainedthe Queen's permission to name the new lands "Virginia," in herhonor, and he had a new seal of his arms cut, with the legend,Propria insignia Walteri Ralegh, militis, Domini et GubernatorisVirginia.
The enticing reports brought back of the fertility of this land, andthe amiability of its pearl-decked inhabitants, determined Raleigh atonce to establish a colony there, in the hope of the ultimatesalvation of the "poor seduced infidell" who wore the pearls. Afleet of seven vessels, with one hundred householders, and manythings necessary to begin a new state, departed from Plymouth inApril, 1585. Sir Richard Grenville had command of the expedition,and Mr. Ralph Lane was made governor of the colony, with PhilipAmadas for his deputy. Among the distinguished men who accompaniedthem were Thomas Hariot, the mathematician, and Thomas Cavendish, thenaval discoverer. The expedition encountered as many fatalities asthose that befell Sir Humphrey Gilbert; and Sir Richard was destinedalso to an early and memorable death. But the new colony sufferedmore from its own imprudence and want of harmony than from naturalcauses.
In August, Grenville left Ralph Lane in charge of the colony andreturned to England, capturing a Spanish ship on the way. Thecolonists pushed discoveries in various directions, but soon foundthemselves involved in quarrels with the Indians, whose conduct wasless friendly than formerly, a change partly due to the greed of thewhites. In June, when Lane was in fear of a conspiracy which he haddiscovered against the life of the colony, and it was short ofsupplies, Sir Francis Drake appeared off Roanoke, returning homewardwith his fleet from the sacking of St. Domingo, Carthagena, and St.
Augustine. Lane, without waiting for succor from England, persuadedDrake to take him and all the colony back home. Meantime Raleigh,knowing that the colony would probably need aid, was preparing afleet of three well appointed ships to accompany Sir RichardGrenville, and an "advice ship," plentifully freighted, to send inadvance to give intelligence of his coming. Great was Grenville'schagrin, when he reached Hatorask, to find that the advice boat hadarrived, and finding no colony, had departed again for England.
However, he established fifteen men ("fifty," says the "GeneralHistorie") on the island, provisioned for two years, and thenreturned home.
[Sir Richard Grenville in 1591 was vice-admiral of a fleet, undercommand of Lord Thomas Howard, at the Azores, sent against a SpanishPlate-fleet. Six English vessels were suddenly opposed by a Spanishconvoy of 53 ships of war. Left behind his comrades, in embarkingfrom an island, opposed by five galleons, he maintained a terriblefight for fifteen hours, his vessel all cut to pieces, and his mennearly all slain. He died uttering aloud these words: "Here dies SirRichard Grenville, with a joyful and quiet mind, for that I haveended my life as a true soldier ought to do, fighting for hiscountry, queen, religion, and honor."]
Mr. Ralph Lane's colony was splendidly fitted out, much betterfurnished than the one that Newport, Wingfield, and Gosnold conductedto the River James in 1607; but it needed a man at the head of it.
If the governor had possessed Smith's pluck, he would have held ontill the arrival of Grenville.
Lane did not distinguish himself in the conduct of this governorship,but he nevertheless gained immortality. For he is credited withfirst bringing into England that valuable medicinal weeds calledtobacco, which Sir Walter Raleigh made fashionable, not in itscapacity to drive "rheums" out of the body, but as a soother, whenburned in the bowl of a pipe and drawn through the stem in smoke, ofthe melancholy spirit.
The honor of introducing tobacco at this date is so large that it hasbeen shared by three persons--Sir Francis Drake, who brought Mr. Lanehome; Mr. Lane, who carried the precious result of his sojourn inAmerica; and Sir Walter Raleigh, who commended it to the use of theladies of Queen Elizabeth's court.
But this was by no means its first appearance in Europe. It wasalready known in Spain, in France, and in Italy, and no doubt hadbegun to make its way in the Orient. In the early part of thecentury the Spaniards had discovered its virtues. It is stated byJohn Neander, in his "Tobaco Logia," published in Leyden in 1626,that Tobaco took its name from a province in Yucatan, conquered byFernando Cortez in 1519. The name Nicotiana he derives from D.
Johanne Nicotino Nemansensi, of the council of Francis II., who firstintroduced the plant into France. At the date of this volume (1626)tobacco was in general use all over Europe and in the East. Picturesare given of the Persian water pipes, and descriptions of the mode ofpreparing it for use. There are reports and traditions of a veryancient use of tobacco in Persia and in China, as well as in India,but we are convinced that the substance supposed to be tobacco, andto be referred to as such by many writers, and described as"intoxicating," was really India hemp, or some plant very differentfrom the tobacco of the New World. At any rate there is evidencethat in the Turkish Empire as late as 1616 tobacco was still somewhata novelty, and the smoking of it was regarded as vile, and a habitonly of the low. The late Hekekian Bey, foreign minister of oldMahomet Ali, possessed an ancient Turkish MS which related anoccurrence at Smyrna about the year 1610, namely, the punishment ofsome sailors for the use of tobacco, which showed that it was anovelty and accounted a low vice at that time. The testimony of thetrustworthy George Sandys, an English traveler into Turkey, Egypt,and Syria in 1610 (afterwards, 1621, treasurer of the colony inVirginia), is to the same effect as given in his "Relation,"published in London in 1621. In his minute description of the peopleand manners of Constantinople, after speaking of opium, which makesthe Turks "giddy-headed" and "turbulent dreamers," he says: "Butperhaps for the self-same cause they delight in Tobacco: which theytake through reedes that have joyned with them great heads of wood tocontaine it, I doubt not but lately taught them as brought them bythe English; and were it not sometimes lookt into (for Morat Bassa[Murad III.?] not long since commanded a pipe to be thrust throughthe nose of a Turke, and to be led in derision through the Citie), noquestion but it would prove a principal commodity. Nevertheless theywill take it in corners; and are so ignorant therein, that that whichin England is not saleable, doth passe here among them for mostexcellent."Mr. Stith ("History of Virginia," 1746) gives Raleigh credit for theintroduction of the pipe into good society, but he cautiously says,"We are not informed whether the queen made use of it herself: but itis certain she gave great countenance to it as a vegetable ofsingular strength and power, which might therefore prove of benefitto mankind, and advantage to the nation." Mr. Thomas Hariot, in hisobservations on the colony at Roanoke, says that the natives esteemedtheir tobacco, of which plenty was found, their "chief physicke."It should be noted, as against the claim of Lane, that Stowe in his"Annales" (1615) says: "Tobacco was first brought and made known inEngland by Sir John Hawkins, about the year 1565, but not used byEnglishmen in many years after, though at this time commonly used bymost men and many women." In a side-note to the edition of 1631 weread: "Sir Walter Raleigh was the first that brought tobacco in use,when all men wondered what it meant." It was first commended for itsmedicinal virtues. Harrison's "Chronologie," under date of 1573,says: "In these daies the taking in of the smoke of the Indian herbecalled 'Tabaco' by an instrument formed like a little ladell, wherebyit passeth from the mouth into the hed and stomach, is gretlie taken-up and used in England, against Rewmes and some other diseasesingendred in the longes and inward partes, and not without effect."But Barnaby Rich, in "The Honestie of this Age," 1614, disagrees withHarrison about its benefit: "They say it is good for a cold, for apose, for rewmes, for aches, for dropsies, and for all manner ofdiseases proceeding of moyst humours; but I cannot see but that thosethat do take it fastest are as much (or more) subject to all theseinfirmities (yea, and to the poxe itself) as those that have nothingat all to do with it." He learns that 7,000 shops in London live bythe trade of tobacco-selling, and calculates that there is paid forit L 399,375 a year, "all spent in smoake." Every base groom musthave his pipe with his pot of ale; it "is vendible in every taverne,inne, and ale-house; and as for apothecaries shops, grosers shops,chandlers shops, they are (almost) never without company that, frommorning till night, are still taking of tobacco." Numbers of housesand shops had no other trade to live by. The wrath of King James wasprobably never cooled against tobacco, but the expression of it wassomewhat tempered when he perceived what a source of revenue itbecame.
The savages of North America gave early evidence of the possession ofimaginative minds, of rare power of invention, and of an amiabledesire to make satisfactory replies to the inquiries of theirvisitors. They generally told their questioners what they wanted toknow, if they could ascertain what sort of information would pleasethem. If they had known the taste of the sixteenth century for themarvelous they could not have responded more fitly to suit it. Theyfilled Mr. Lane and Mr. Hariot full of tales of a wonderful coppermine on the River Maratock (Roanoke), where the metal was dipped outof the stream in great bowls. The colonists had great hopes of thisriver, which Mr: Hariot thought flowed out of the Gulf of Mexico, orvery near the South Sea. The Indians also conveyed to the mind ofthis sagacious observer the notion that they had a very respectablydeveloped religion; that they believed in one chief god who existedfrom all eternity, and who made many gods of less degree; that formankind a woman was first created, who by one of the gods broughtforth children; that they believed in the immortality of the soul,and that for good works a soul will be conveyed to bliss in thetabernacles of the gods, and for bad deeds to pokogusso, a great pitin the furthest part of the world, where the sun sets, and where theyburn continually. The Indians knew this because two men lately deadhad revived and come back to tell them of the other world. Thesestories, and many others of like kind, the Indians told ofthemselves, and they further pleased Mr. Hariot by kissing his Bibleand rubbing it all over their bodies, notwithstanding he told themthere was no virtue in the material book itself, only in itsdoctrines. We must do Mr. Hariot the justice to say, however, thathe had some little suspicion of the "subtiltie" of the weroances(chiefs) and the priests.
Raleigh was not easily discouraged; he was determined to plant hiscolony, and to send relief to the handful of men that Grenville hadleft on Roanoke Island. In May, 1587, he sent out three ships and ahundred and fifty householders, under command of Mr. John White, whowas appointed Governor of the colony, with twelve assistants as aCouncil, who were incorporated under the name of "The Governor andAssistants of the City of Ralegh in Virginia," with instructions tochange their settlement to Chesapeake Bay. The expedition foundthere no one of the colony (whether it was fifty or fifteen thewriters disagree), nothing but the bones of one man where theplantation had been; the houses were unhurt, but overgrown withweeds, and the fort was defaced. Captain Stafford, with twenty men,went to Croatan to seek the lost colonists. He heard that the fiftyhad been set upon by three hundred Indians, and, after a sharpskirmish and the loss of one man, had taken boats and gone to a smallisland near Hatorask, and afterwards had departed no one knewwhither.
Mr. White sent a band to take revenge upon the Indians who weresuspected of their murder through treachery, which was guided byMateo, the friendly Indian, who had returned with the expedition fromEngland. By a mistake they attacked a friendly tribe. In August ofthis year Mateo was Christianized, and baptized under the title ofLord of Roanoke and Dassomonpeake, as a reward for his fidelity. Thesame month Elinor, the daughter of the Govemor, the wife of AnaniasDare, gave birth to a daughter, the first white child born in thispart of the continent, who was named Virginia.
Before long a dispute arose between the Governor and his Council asto the proper person to return to England for supplies. Whitehimself was finally prevailed upon to go, and he departed, leavingabout a hundred settlers on one of the islands of Hatorask to form aplantation.
The Spanish invasion and the Armada distracted the attention ofEurope about this time, and the hope of plunder from Spanish vesselswas more attractive than the colonization of America. It was notuntil 1590 that Raleigh was able to despatch vessels to the relief ofthe Hatorask colony, and then it was too late. White did, indeed,start out from Biddeford in April, 1588, with two vessels, but thetemptation to chase prizes was too strong for him, and he went on acruise of his own, and left the colony to its destruction.
In March, 1589-90, Mr. White was again sent out, with three ships,from Plymouth, and reached the coast in August. Sailing by Croatanthey went to Hatorask, where they descried a smoke in the place theyhad left the colony in 1587. Going ashore next day, they found noman, nor sign that any had been there lately. Preparing to go toRoanoke next day, a boat was upset and Captain Spicer and six of thecrew were drowned. This accident so discouraged the sailors thatthey could hardly be persuaded to enter on the search for the colony.
At last two boats, with nineteen men, set out for Hatorask, andlanded at that part of Roanoke where the colony had been left. WhenWhite left the colony three years before, the men had talked of goingfifty miles into the mainland, and had agreed to leave some sign oftheir departure. The searchers found not a man of the colony; theirhouses were taken down, and a strong palisade had been built. Allabout were relics of goods that had been buried and dug up again andscattered, and on a post was carved the name "CROATAN." This signal,which was accompanied by no sign of distress, gave White hope that heshould find his comrades at Croatan. But one mischance or anotherhappening, his provisions being short, the expedition decided to rundown to the West Indies and "refresh" (chiefly with a little Spanishplunder), and return in the spring and seek their countrymen; butinstead they sailed for England and never went to Croatan. The menof the abandoned colonies were never again heard of. Years after, in1602, Raleigh bought a bark and sent it, under the charge of SamuelMace, a mariner who had been twice to Virginia, to go in search ofthe survivors of White's colony. Mace spent a month lounging aboutthe Hatorask coast and trading with the natives, but did not land onCroatan, or at any place where the lost colony might be expected tobe found; but having taken on board some sassafras, which at thattime brought a good price in England, and some other barks which weresupposed to be valuable, he basely shirked the errand on which he washired to go, and took himself and his spicy woods home.
The "Lost Colony" of White is one of the romances of the New World.
Governor White no doubt had the feelings of a parent, but he did notallow them to interfere with his more public duties to go in searchof Spanish prizes. If the lost colony had gone to Croatan, it wasprobable that Ananias Dare and his wife, the Governor's daughter, andthe little Virginia Dare, were with them. But White, as we haveseen, had such confidence in Providence that he left his dearrelatives to its care, and made no attempt to visit Croatan.
Stith says that Raleigh sent five several times to search for thelost, but the searchers returned with only idle reports and frivolousallegations. Tradition, however, has been busy with the fate ofthese deserted colonists. One of the unsupported conjectures is thatthe colonists amalgamated with the tribe of Hatteras Indians, andIndian tradition and the physical characteristics of the tribe aresaid to confirm this idea. But the sporadic birth of children withwhite skins (albinos) among black or copper-colored races that havehad no intercourse with white people, and the occurrence of lighthair and blue eyes among the native races of America and of NewGuinea, are facts so well attested that no theory of amalgamation canbe sustained by such rare physical manifestations. According toCaptain John Smith, who wrote of Captain Newport's explorations in1608, there were no tidings of the waifs, for, says Smith, Newportreturned "without a lump of gold, a certainty of the South Sea, orone of the lost company sent out by Sir Walter Raleigh."In his voyage of discovery up the Chickahominy, Smith seem; to haveinquired about this lost colony of King Paspahegh, for he says, "whathe knew of the dominions he spared not to acquaint me with, as ofcertaine men cloathed at a place called Ocanahonan, cloathcd likeme."[Among these Hatteras Indians Captain Amadas, in 1584, saw childrenwith chestnut-colored hair.]
We come somewhat nearer to this matter in the "Historie of Travaileinto Virginia Britannia," published from the manuscript by theHakluyt Society in 1849, in which it is intimated that seven of thesedeserted colonists were afterwards rescued. Strachey is a first-rateauthority for what he saw. He arrived in Virginia in 1610 andremained there two years, as secretary of the colony, and was a manof importance. His "Historie" was probably written between 1612 and1616. In the first portion of it, which is descriptive of theterritory of Virginia, is this important passage: "At Peccarecamekand Ochanahoen, by the relation of Machumps, the people have housesbuilt with stone walls, and one story above another, so taught themby those English who escaped the slaughter of Roanoke. At what timethis our colony, under the conduct of Captain Newport, landed withinthe Chesapeake Bay, where the people breed up tame turkies abouttheir houses, and take apes in the mountains, and where, at Ritanoe,the Weroance Eyanaco, preserved seven of the English alive--four men,two boys, and one young maid (who escaped [that is from Roanoke] andfled up the river of Chanoke), to beat his copper, of which he hathcertain mines at the said Ritanoe, as also at Pamawauk are said to bestore of salt stones."This, it will be observed, is on the testimony of Machumps. Thispleasing story is not mentioned in Captain Newport's "Discoveries"(May, 1607). Machumps, who was the brother of Winganuske, one of themany wives of Powhatan, had been in England. He was evidently alively Indian. Strachey had heard him repeat the "Indian grace," asort of incantation before meat, at the table of Sir Thomas Dale. Ifhe did not differ from his red brothers he had a powerfulimagination, and was ready to please the whites with any sort of amarvelous tale. Newport himself does not appear to have seen any ofthe "apes taken in the mountains." If this story is to be acceptedas true we have to think of Virginia Dare as growing up to be a womanof twenty years, perhaps as other white maidens have been, Indianizedand the wife of a native. But the story rests only upon a romancingIndian. It is possible that Strachey knew more of the matter than herelates, for in his history he speaks again of those betrayed people,"of whose end you shall hereafter read in this decade." But thepossessed information is lost, for it is not found in the remainderof this "decade" of his writing, which is imperfect. Anotherreference in Strachey is more obscure than the first. He is speakingof the merciful intention of King James towards the Virginia savages,and that he does not intend to root out the natives as the Spaniardsdid in Hispaniola, but by degrees to change their barbarous nature,and inform them of the true God and the way to Salvation, and thathis Majesty will even spare Powhatan himself. But, he says, it isthe intention to make "the common people likewise to understand, howthat his Majesty has been acquainted that the men, women, andchildren of the first plantation of Roanoke were by practice ofPowhatan (he himself persuaded thereunto by his priests) miserablyslaughtered, without any offense given him either by the firstplanted (who twenty and odd years had peaceably lived intermixed withthose savages, and were out of his territory) or by those who are nowcome to inhabit some parts of his distant lands," etc.
Strachey of course means the second plantation and not the first,which, according to the weight of authority, consisted of onlyfifteen men and no women.
In George Percy's Discourse concerning Captain Newport's explorationof the River James in 1607 (printed in Purchas's "Pilgrims ") isthis sentence: "At Port Cotage, in our voyage up the river, we saw asavage boy, about the age of ten years, which had a head of hair of aperfect yellow, and reasonably white skin, which is a miracle amongstall savages." Mr. Neill, in his "History of the Virginia Company,"says that this boy" was no doubt the offspring of the colonists leftat Roanoke by White, of whom four men, two boys, and one young maidhad been preserved from slaughter by an Indian Chief." Under thecircumstances, "no doubt" is a very strong expression for a historianto use.
This belief in the sometime survival of the Roanoke colonists, andtheir amalgamation with the Indians, lingered long in colonialgossip. Lawson, in his History, published in London in 1718,mentions a tradition among the Hatteras Indians, "that several oftheir ancestors were white people and could talk from a book; thetruth of which is confirmed by gray eyes being among these Indiansand no others."But the myth of Virginia Dare stands no chance beside that ofPocahontas.