Now begins the story of Raleigh’s persistent effort at the colonisation of Virginia.

A fresh patent was issued to Sir Walter, who had just been knighted, in March 1584—just two years after his first entry into Elizabeth’s court. The first step was taken immediately—an exploring expedition, which found its way to the island of Roanoak on the coast of what is now Carolina, opened friendly intercourse with the natives, took formal possession, and returned to report.

Raleigh was largely interested in the series of Arctic voyages undertaken by John Davis during the three ensuing years: exploration and discovery pure and simple had an attraction for him only less powerful than colonisation; but it was to this that he devoted his keenest energies, and on this that he poured out the wealth he was acquiring. In the spring of 1585 his fleet sailed for Virginia, as the new settlement was called, under the command of his kinsman, Richard Grenville. Raleigh himself the Queen, of course, could not spare. The open breach with Spain and the open alliance with Orange were now approaching rapidly, and Grenville’s voyage seems to have been, in his own eyes, directed more against Spaniards than with a single eye to the colony. In due course, however, Roanoak was reached, and the settlement established with Ralph Lane as governor; and Grenville came home. Unluckily, the original friendly relations with the natives were upset; the quarrel led the colonists into “making an example” of an Indian village; and the Indians resolved to retaliate. Till their opportunity should come, they merely made things as difficult as they could for the Englishman. A relief-expedition had been promised for the following Easter. It did not appear; but Drake did, with the fleet which had just been employed in sacking Cartagena. The settlers resolved to throw up their attempt, and returned to England with Drake. A few days after they had sailed, the delayed relief party under Grenville arrived to find the settlement abandoned. Fifteen volunteers were now left behind, to keep the place in occupation; but when a new band of settlers with a new governor arrived in the following spring (1587), they found that the little garrison had been massacred. The party set about establishing a settlement once more; but under the existing conditions they induced John White, the governor, to return himself to England to bring fresh supplies and reinforcements.

This was the year in which the Armada ought to have sailed against England; but Drake’s successful raid on the harbour of Cadiz deferred the invasion for a year. In the meantime, however, it was a matter of extreme difficulty to get permission for any ship to leave an English port. The demands of the coming duel were paramount. A couple of relief vessels with White were hardly allowed to sail; and these returned without reaching the colony. Again, the next year there was an expedition, but it found Roanoak deserted, and learned that the settlers had taken up fresh quarters. But neither did it discover them, nor did any one of the search expeditions which Raleigh subsequently despatched one after another.

He had spent £40,000—the equivalent of something like five times that sum at the present day. For a dozen years his ships sailed—sometimes with fresh settlers, sometimes with stores only; to meet only with disappointment—often with nothing but reports that the bones of the last party left behind were bleaching in some undiscovered spot. Half of the pioneers themselves were ready to turn back, abandoning the adventure, as soon as they realised that their business was not going to be picking up gold and silver. Men of Grenville’s type enjoyed themselves thoroughly when they were boarding Spanish galleons against immense odds, or engaged in any other form of dare-devilry; a different type was required to settle down to a stubborn fight with Nature, and found rural or commercial communities. The necessary type was forthcoming in course of time, but it had not yet realised the field that was open to it. As yet there were none to experiment, save adventurers who wanted something quite other than North America had to give. At last Raleigh felt that for a time, but only for a time, he was beaten; that to obtain support he must have prospects to suggest, at least, of gold mines and silver mines; and his next great venture was in another region where the golden city of Manoa was fabled to be hidden. But he never lost faith in his own ideal, or recanted his prophecy that the northern Continent would yet be possessed and peopled by men of his own race, that he would live to see Virginia an English nation. His own experiment failed; yet he lived to see the beginnings of fulfilment under other auspices, when again a colony of Virginia received a charter in 1606—this time to establish and maintain herself as the mother of the American people.

IV
AFTER THE ARMADA

The spirit of aggression engendered by the Armada was too strong for Burghley and his mistress to oppose directly. Their object was to give it such an outlet as would satisfy popular sentiment without ruining Spain; and popular sentiment, as they saw, would find satisfaction in a mere extension of the old raiding warfare upon Spanish commerce. The danger, in their eyes, was that the control of operations might fall into the hands of men who not only desired to annihilate Spain but knew how to do it. Drake and Raleigh recognised in Spain the one Power which stood in the way of a complete English dominion of the seas, with everything that would mean: that dominion was already almost won, and could be made good. But if Drake were discredited, Raleigh would be unable to give their policy effect. This was duly brought about by the manipulation from headquarters of the Lisbon expedition, which caused it to fail of accomplishing its immediate object. Thereafter the policy was indeed anti-Spanish, but on the lines advocated by Hawkins and Essex (who may now be said to have taken the place occupied by Leicester till his death in 1588), not by Raleigh and Drake.

The distinction between Raleigh’s political conceptions and those of his contemporaries marks the transition of which he was conscious and they were not. Their eyes were fixed upon Europe. Burghley’s calculations were always directed to the preservation of a balance of power on the Continent; he was afraid of France, and knew the commercial value of the Burgundian alliance. The New World did not appeal to him at all—a rivalry there would hardly have seemed to him desirable. The ordinary Englishman, on the other hand, felt that Spain had proved herself the enemy of his country and his creed, and in the moment of victory his views were roughly summed up in two phrases—vae victis; and, the spoils for the victors. He had no very definite ideas as to the further results, though he might have the triumph of “the Religion” over Popery in his mind. If he thought of the New World, it was not as a land where he might make himself a new home, but as a Tom Tiddler’s ground for bold adventurers. Raleigh saw the vision of the boundless empire occupied by the men of his own race. There are indications that if Walsingham had lived Raleigh would have stood less alone; but Walsingham died, poor and in disfavour, in 1590.

Roughly speaking, then, for some years after the Armada the war party at large predominated; maintaining the system of persistent warfare on Spanish commerce, varied at intervals with more effective blows such as the attack on the Bretagne forts held by the Spaniards (in league with the Guises), and the great Cadiz expedition. In these moves Raleigh’s voice and hand were heard and felt; but they were isolated moves, not followed up—largely owing to the clever management of the Cecils, in whom the Queen really placed her reliance. The war party itself was ruled in effect by the young Earl of Essex, whose personality was particularly obnoxious to the Cecils, while his policy was comparatively acceptable to them. Essex, being desperately jealous of Raleigh’s general favour with the Queen, Sir Walter was generally on friendly terms with the Cecils; whereas anything but a very temporary show of amity between the two Court rivals was entirely out of the question. And whenever Essex had access to the Queen he had the better of the contest. These controlling conditions make Raleigh’s career at this time intelligible.