SIR WALTER RALEGH: THE SETTLEMENTS AT ROANOKE AND VOYAGES TO GUIANA.
BY WILLIAM WIRT HENRY,
Third Vice-President of the Virginia Historical Society.
HISTORY has recorded the lives of few men more renowned than Walter Ralegh,—the soldier, the sailor, the statesman, the courtier, the poet, the historian, and the philosopher. The age in which he lived, the versatility of his genius, his conspicuous services, and “the deep damnation of his taking off,” all conspired to exalt his memory among men, and to render it immortal. Success often crowned his efforts in the service of his country, and the impress of his genius is clearly traced upon her history; but his greatest service to England and to the world was his pioneer effort to colonize America, in which he experienced the most mortifying defeat. Baffled in his endeavor to plant the English race upon this continent, he yet called into existence a spirit of enterprise which first gave Virginia, and then North America, to that race, and which led Great Britain, from this beginning, to dot the map of the world with her colonies, and through them to become the greatest power of the earth.
Walter Ralegh[211] was born, in 1552, in the parish of Budleigh, in Devonshire. His father was Walter Ralegh, of Fardel, and his mother was Catherine, daughter of Sir Philip Champernown, of Modbury, and widow of Otho Gilbert, of Compton, in Devonshire. On his mother’s side he was brother to Sir John, Sir Humphrey, and Sir Adrian Gilbert,—all eminent men. He studied at Oxford with great success, but he left his books in 1569 to volunteer with his cousin, Henry Champernown, in aid of the French Protestants in their desperate struggle for religious liberty under the Prince of Condé and Admiral Coligny. He reached France in time to be present at the battle of Moncontour, and remained six years, during which time the massacre of St. Bartholomew occurred. Afterward he served in the Netherlands with Sir John Norris under William of Orange in his struggle with the Spaniards.
In these wars he became not only an accomplished soldier, but a determined foe to Roman Catholicism and to the Spanish people. His contest with Spain, thus early begun, ended only with his life. It was indeed a war to the death on both sides. Elizabeth, his great sovereign, with all the courage of a hero in the bosom of a woman, sustained him in the conflict, and had the supreme satisfaction of seeing him administer a death-blow to Spanish power at Cadiz; while her pusillanimous successor rendered himself forever infamous by putting such a conqueror to death at the mandate of the Spanish King.
The claim of Spain to the New World, based upon its discovery by Columbus, fortified by a grant from Pope Alexander VI. and further strengthened by continued exploration and by settlements, was disputed, at least as regards the northern continent, by England on the strength of the Cabot voyages, of which an account has been given in the opening chapter of this volume. The English claimed that they were entitled to North America by the right of Cabot’s discovery of its mainland preceding that of Columbus, who had not then touched the mainland at the south. No serious effort was made, however, to follow up this claim by a settlement till 1578, when Elizabeth granted to Sir Humphrey Gilbert a charter looking to a permanent occupation of the country. Sir Humphrey sailed in November, 1578, with seven ships and three hundred and fifty men. One of the fleet, the “Falcon,” was commanded by Ralegh, who had already learned to be a sailor as well as a soldier. His presence with the expedition was not alone due to his attachment to his distinguished brother. He had already discovered that the power of Spain was due to the wealth she derived from her American possessions, and he earnestly desired to secure for England the same source of power. His attention had been attracted to the coast of Florida by Coligny, whose colony of Huguenots there had been brutally murdered by the Spaniards under Menendez in 1565.