A MAP OF VIRGINIA, 1585.
From the map in Hariot’s “Relation.”
XXI
RALEIGH’S LOST COLONY
Upon the return of his first colonists Raleigh at once bent his superb energies to the formation of his second or New Colony. The failure of the first colonists instead of dismaying inspirited him to larger effort. Lane’s report and Hariot’s account of the excellencies of the country moved him to plan his New Colony on a broader scale. He would now plant in “Virginia” a prosperous English agricultural state. The new colonists should include families, men, women, and children, and a regular government should be established at the outset. In accord with Lane’s theory, Roanoke Island should be passed by and the New Colony be seated on Chesapeake Bay.
To these ends Raleigh sagaciously determined to admit a number of investors to share in the privileges of his patent, and under date of January seventh, 1587, he executed an instrument granting a charter to thirty-two persons for the new settlement. These were divided into two classes. Nineteen, comprising one class, were gentlemen or merchants of London who were to venture their money in the enterprise; thirteen, constituting the other class, were to venture their persons. The latter were to be known by the corporate name of “The Governour and Assistants of the Citie of Ralegh in Virginia,” and were described as “late of London gentlemen.” The former were styled “merchants of London and adventurers.” They were to be “free of the corporation, company, and society ... in the citie of Ralegh intended to be erected and builded,” and were to adventure “divers and sundry sums of money, merchandises and shipping, munition, victual, and other commodities” into “Virginia.” In consideration of their investment they were granted free trade in the new settlement and in any other settlement that Raleigh might make by future discovery in America; and were exempted from all duties on their commerce, rents, or subsidies. An appropriation was made to them of one hundred pounds, to be ventured in any way they should see fit, the profits to be applied in “Virginia” in “planting the Christian religion and advancing the same,” and for “the common utility and profit of the inhabitants thereof.” In this indenture Raleigh as the grantor was styled “Chief governour of Assamocomoc, alias Wingandacoa alias Virginia.” In the list of the nineteen investing “merchants” appears the name of Richard Hakluyt. At the head of the thirteen to be planters of the “citie of Ralegh” was John White, the artist and man-of-affairs of the “Old Colony,” as governor; and among these was his son-in-law Ananias Dare, who became the father of Virginia Dare.
The company brought together to plant this colony numbered one hundred and fifty persons, of whom seventeen were women and nine were “boys and children.” They embarked on three ships in charge of Simon Ferdinando, and sailed from Portsmouth harbour on April the twenty-sixth, 1587.
The narrative of the outward voyage Hakluyt first published under the title, “The fourth voyage made to Virginia with three ships in the yere 1587. Wherein was transported the second Colonie.” The narrator early displayed a feeling of resentment against Ferdinando, which grew in warmth as the account proceeded; and this feeling seems to have been fully justified by the captain’s conduct. He was a Spaniard by birth, and it has been conjectured that he was acting in the interest of Spain. Another explanation of his strange course is found in his differences with White on the voyage. He unquestionably lied on more than one occasion; ruthlessly abandoned one of the ships of the fleet at sea and “grieved” at her reappearance with her passengers at the end of the voyage; nearly wrecked his ship off Cape Fear; and when Roanoke Island was reached refused to carry the colonists further, regardless of Raleigh’s positive directions to deliver them at Chesapeake Bay, stopping at Roanoke only long enough to take on, if found, the fifteen men left there by Grenville. He is said to have been twice before on the coast of Carolina as a pilot. He was with Captains Amadas and Barlow on their reconnoitering expedition, and his second voyage may have been with Grenville’s relief fleet. His name appeared among the twelve assistants to Governor White.
The narrative begins with the crispness of a diary.
"Our fleete being in number three saile, viz., the Admirall [the "Lion">[ a ship of one hundred and twentie Tunnes, a Flie boate, and a Pinnesse, departed the sixe and twentieth of April from Portesmouth, and the same day came to an ancher at the Cowes in the Isle of Wight, where wee stayed eight dayes.
"The fift of May at nine of the clocke at night we came to Plimmouth, where we remained the space of two dayes.