glad to embark in the fleet of Sir Francis Drake, who chanced to touch at the place on his return from another expedition against the Spanish possessions, and who brought them home to England about the end of July, 1586.[1] Within a fortnight after they had sailed, Grenville arrived with three ships laden with all necessaries, which Raleigh had dispatched for their use, and, finding them gone, he left fifteen men in the place with provisions for two years. When the next year Raleigh sent out three more vessels, with a governor, Mr. John White, and twelve assistants, to whom he gave a charter, incorporating them by the name of the Governor and Assistants of the City of Raleigh in Virginia, no remains of these unhappy settlers were to be found, except their bones scattered on the beach: they had all been put to death by the savages. An attempt was made by White and his companions to repair the buildings which had been laid in ruins; but new hostilities with the natives, and dissensions among the settlers themselves, soon arose, and the governor eventually determined upon returning for further supplies to England, where he arrived in the beginning of November. At this moment the public mind in England was occupied with one object—the grand Spanish armament that was already afloat for the invasion of the kingdom; Raleigh himself was busy among the foremost in devising the necessary arrangements for the national defence; he found means, in the first instance, to send back White with supplies in two
- ↑ "These men," says Camden, "who were thus brought back, were the first that I know of that brought into England that Indian plant which they call tabacca and nicotia or tobacco, which they used against crudities, being taught it by the Indians. Certainly from that time forward it began to grow into great request, and to be sold at a high rate, whilst in a short time many men everywhere, some for wantonness, some for health sake, with insatiable desire and greediness, sucked in the stinking smoke thereof through an earthen pipe, which presently they blew out again at their nostrils; insomuch that tobacco-shops are now as ordinary in most towns as tap-houses and taverns."
