Shortly after Drake and the colonists had sailed, a supply ship sent out
by Sir Walter Raleigh arrived at Hatoraske and after searching in vain
for the colonists returned to England. About a fortnight after Raleigh's
ship had left, Grenville arrived with three ships and likewise searched
in vain for the colonists. Grenville found the places of colonial
settlement desolate, but being "unwilling to loose the possession of the
country which Englishmen had so long held," he left 15 men on Roanoke
Island, fully provisioned for 2 years, to hold the country for the Queen
while he returned to England.
_The Lost Colony of 1587_
In the year 1587, Sir Walter Raleigh organized another colonial
expedition consisting of 150 persons. Its truer colonizing character was
evidenced by the significant facts that, unlike the expedition of 1585,
this one included women and children, and the men were called
"planters." Its government was also less military, since the direction
of the enterprise in Virginia was to be in the hands of a syndicate of
sub-patentees--a governor and 12 assistants whom Raleigh incorporated as
the "Governor and Assistants of the Citie of Ralegh in Virginia."
The new arrangement indicated that colonization was becoming less of a
one-man venture and more of a corporate or business enterprise,
anticipating in a certain degree the later English companies that were
to found successful colonies in Virginia and New England. Exactly what
inducements Raleigh offered to the planters are not known. His terms
were probably liberal, however, because Hariot, writing in February
1587, paid tribute to Raleigh's generosity, saying that the least that
he had granted had been 500 acres of land to each man willing to go to
America. Those contributing money or supplies, as well as their person,
probably stood to receive more. From the list of names that has come
down to us, it would appear that at least 10 of the planters took their
wives with them. Ambrose Viccars and Arnold Archard brought not only
their wives but one child each, Ambrose Viccars and Thomas Archard.
Altogether there were at least 17 women and 9 children in the group that
arrived safely in Virginia.
In still another respect, this second colonial expedition seemed to
anticipate the later Jamestown settlement. Raleigh had directed, in
writing, that the fort and colony be established in the Chesapeake Bay
area where a better port could be had and where conditions for
settlement were considered to be more favorable.
[Illustration: _The Indian Village of Pomeiooc, engraved by De Bry
from a drawing by John White._]
[Illustration: _The Virginia Dare marker at Fort Raleigh_]
The fleet, consisting of three ships, sailed from Plymouth for Virginia
on May 8. Continuity with the previous expeditions was afforded in the
persons of the Governor, John White, who was to make in all five trips
to Virginia, Simon Ferdinando, Captain Stafford, Darby Glande, the
Irishman, and perhaps others. The route, as in 1585, lay via "Moskito
Bay" in Puerto Rico. Here Darby Glande was left behind, or escaped, and
lived to testify regarding the first Roanoke Island colony before the
Spanish authorities at St. Augustine some years later. The expedition
sailed along the coast of Haiti, even passing by "Isabella" where
Grenville had traded with the Spaniards for cattle and other necessities
in 1585, but this time there was no trading, possibly because of the
precarious relations between England and Spain, now on the eve of open
war. Whatever the reason for this failure to take in supplies in Haiti,
it constituted a certain handicap for the colony of 1587.