Their desertion of the colony was quite too precipitate; for only a few days after their departure, a vessel arrived laden with stores. It had been sent by Raleigh; but finding the colony broken up, the ship returned home again. Within less than two weeks, Sir Richard Grenville, too, appeared off the coast with three ships well furnished, in search of the colony. Leaving fifty men[1] on the island of Roanoke, with two years' provisions, he also returned home. "The Paradise of the World" thus far had been little else than expense and disappointment.[2]
Raleigh, however, was not the man to yield to disappointment. The valuable descriptions which Hariot gave of the country and its productions, the soil, climate, etc., rendered it comparatively easy to collect a new colony for America; and it was determined to found if possible an enduring state. Emigrants with their wives and families were sent out to make their homes in the New World; municipal regulations were established; Mr. John White was appointed governor, and a charter of incorporation was granted for the "City of Raleigh." Leaving Portsmouth on the 26th of April, they anchored off the coast on the 22d of July. An immediate search was made for the men left the year before on the island of Roanoke; but in vain. The Indians had easily wreaked their vengeance upon them. Desolation and ruin brooded over the scene.
According to the instructions of Raleigh, Chesapeake Bay was marked out for the new settlement; but dissension speedily arising, White was unable to proceed farther, and the foundations of the proposed city were laid on the island of Roanoke. Manteo, with his kindred, joyfully welcomed the English; but the Indians in general were decidedly hostile. As little progress could be made under so many discouraging circumstances, the united voices of the colonists begged White to return with the ship to England to secure prompt and abundant supplies and reinforcements. Only a few days before sailing, the daughter of the Governor, Mrs. Eleanor Dare—August 8th—gave birth to a daughter, who was the first child born of English parentage on the soil of the United States. She was appropriately named Virginia Dare. Reluctantly leaving his family and the colony, which now numbered eighty-nine men, seventeen women, and eleven children, White returned home. He was never privileged to look upon them again.
- ↑ Mr. Bancroft says fifteen; but Smith, and others, fifty. The latter seems the more probable number.
- ↑ It is asserted by Camden, that tobacco was now for the first time brought into England by these settlers; and there can be little doubt that Lane had been directed to import it by Raleigh, who must have seen it used in France during his residence there. There is a well-known tradition, that Sir Walter first began to smoke it privately in his study, and that his servant coming in with his tankard of ale and nutmeg, as he was intent upon his book, seeing the smoke issuing from his mouth, threw all the liquor in his face by way of extinguishing the fire, and running down stairs, alarmed the family with piercing cries, that his master, before they could set up, would be burned to ashes. From its being deemed a fashionable acquirement, and from the favorable opinion of its salutary qualities entertained by several physicians, the practice of smoking spread rapidly among the English; and by a singular caprice of the human species, no less inexplicable than unexampled, it has happened that tobacco has come into almost universal use.
