Yielding to his disappointment and mortification at these repeated disasters, and exhausted in money by his enormous outlays, Raleigh no longer hoped for success from his own exertions. Forty thousand pounds had been expended and no return had been made. On March 7, 1589, he assigned his patent to Thomas Smith, Richard Hakluyt, and others, who had the means and the experience of merchants, or rather he extended to them the rights enjoyed under his patent and exercised by him in giving the charter for the "City of Raleigh." With this assignment he gave one hundred pounds for the propagation of Christian principles among the savages of Virginia.
But the energetic soul of Raleigh no longer ruled, and doubtful zeal impelled the assignees. Not until March, 1590, could Governor White obtain three ships for his purposes; and though their names might have incited him, by the motives both of earthly hope and religious trust, yet he preferred an avaricious cruise among the West India Isles to a speed which might, peradventure, have preserved the life of his daughter. He arrived at Hatteras August 15th, and sought the settlers left there three years before. The curling smoke of grass and trees in flame gave them encouragement, but they sought in vain their long-neglected friends. On the bark of a tree was found the word "Croatan," legibly inscribed, and White hoped, from the absence of the cross, which he himself had suggested as a sign of distress, that the settlers were still in being; but as they proceeded to Croatan a furious storm arose and drove them from the coast, and their dismayed spirits could find no relief except in a return to England.
No lingering trace has ever marked the fate of this unhappy colony. The generous Raleigh in vain sent five successive messengers to seek and save. They were gone, and whither no tongue was left to tell. Modern ingenuity may be indulged in the forlorn suggestion that they were amalgamated among their savage neighbors, but sober thought will rather fear that they perished under the mingled weight of famine, of disappointed hope, and of Indian barbarity.
[ DRAKE CAPTURES CARTAGENA
HE "SINGES THE KING OF SPAIN'S BEARD" AT CADIZ ]
A.D. 1586-1587
JULIAN CORBETT
Sir Francis Drake (born in Devonshire about 1540; died in 1596), greatest of the Elizabethan seamen, has been the subject of perhaps equal praise and blame at the hands of the world's historians. So famous were his exploits, and so scanty the actual knowledge of them in his own time, that "he was not dead before his life became a fairy-tale." But history has distinguished fact from legend in the life of this naval hero, whose undisputed achievements have kept his name conspicuous among his country's foremost sea-fighters.
He began his career in the coasting-trade, sailed with Sir John Hawkins in 1567, and three years later began privateering operations against the Spaniards in the New World, by way of making good the losses which they had inflicted upon him. These depredations on Spanish possessions were continued through many years, with occasional attacks upon the coast of Spain itself. "By Spanish historians," says an English writer, "these hostilities are represented as unprovoked in their origin, and as barbarous in their execution, and candor must allow that there is but too much justice in the complaint."
Whether justifiable or not, these aggressive acts of Drake had much to do with the desire for revenge upon England which led Philip II to prepare for a great invasion of that country. Drake, on his return, in 1580, from the first English circumnavigation of the globe, was knighted by Queen Elizabeth. She now gave him important commands, and from this period at least his career may be regarded in connection with the regular service of his sovereign.