"In the yeere of our Lord 1587, Sir Walter Raleigh, intending to
persevere in the planting of his countrey of Virginia, prepared a
newe colonie of one hundred and fiftie men to be sent thither,
under the charge of John White, whom hee appointed Governour, and
also appointed unto him twelve assistants, unto whom he gave a
charter, and incorporated them by the name of the Governour and
Assistants of the Citie of Raleigh in Virginia."--_Hak._ Vol. iii.
p. 280.
This colony, owing to contentions with the natives and other causes, did
not thrive; and in August of the same year White was, much against his
wish, induced to return to England for assistance. He failed in his
first attempt to go back with aid. In 1593 he gives, at Hakluyt's
request, an account of a voyage he made thither in 1590, but which quite
failed in its object. The men with whom he embarked showed a greater
disposition towards buccaneering, than to assist him in his search for
the unfortunate colonists. He found traces of their having gone to the
Island of Croatan; but his associates would not prosecute the search,
and poor White, with a sad heart, was obliged to leave them, if they
even then survived, to their fate. From that day to this no intelligence
has ever been got as to what became of them. This voyage was made, if
not under Raleigh's auspices, at all events with his assistance. It has
been supposed by some that this voyage of White in 1590 was the _last_
attempt made by Raleigh to succour his colonists--he has even been
reproached with it. This, however, was not the case. At p. 1653. vol.
iv. of Purchas, a very brief account is given of a ship having been
purchased by Raleigh and sent out under the command of--
"Samuell Mace (a sufficient marriner who had been twice before at
Virginia), to fynd out those people which he had sent last thither
by Captain White in 1587."
The ill success of the previous attempts to communicate with the colony
seems to have been ascribed to the practice which prevailed in that day
of engaging seamen for the voyage with a share in the profits; this
Raleigh attempted to remedy by hiring "all the cumpanye for wages by the
month." I quote from Strachey's _Virginia_, printed by the Hakluyt
Society from an original MS., whose statement bears undoubted marks of
being the original from which Purchas took his account, and somewhat
abridged it. In spite of Raleigh's precautions as to the hiring, the
people behaved ill, and--
"They returned, and brought no comfort or new accesse of hope
concerning the lives and safety of the unfortunate English people,
for which only they were sett forth, and the charg of this
employment was undertaken."
Here ends the history of Sir Walter Raleigh's connexion with Virginian
discovery and colonisation. A new company was at the moment in
contemplation, and it even despatched its first pioneer vessel in the
same month of 1602 as Raleigh did. Raleigh may have had, to a certain
extent, a selfish object in view. His patent of 1584 was conditional, as
regarded its continuance, on his planting a colony within six years; and
had he been able to have discovered any remains, however small, of the
colony of '87, he could have prevented interlopers. The nature of his
position also in England in March, 1602, may perhaps afford a clue to
his designs. At that moment his royal mistress lay on the bed of
sickness, dying by inches. The clouds were beginning to gather around
Raleigh's head. His star, which had been in the ascendant for more than
twenty years, was getting nigh its setting. Raleigh, a man of wisdom and
foresight, as well as conduct and action, knew all this. He knew what he
had to expect, and what he afterwards in fact experienced, from the new
king, to whom all eyes were turned. Is it not most likely that he looked
to Virginia as his haven of refuge, where, if he could maintain his
patent rights, he might have set his enemies at defiance? Had this
dream, if he entertained it, been realised, the twelve years'
imprisonment and the bloody scaffold on which his head fell, might have
been averted. This, however, was not to be;--the search, as already
mentioned, was fruitless, and the new company went on; and, finally,
under a fresh charter from James I., Virginia was again colonised in
1606, since which time its history and existence have been
uninterrupted. On Raleigh's return from his last expedition to Guiana in
1618, only a few months before his murder, he touched at Newfoundland,
being, as I verily believe, the only occasion on which he set his foot
in North America.
It may cause your readers to smile, and perhaps be a surprise to some of
them, when I conclude this long paper, written on the subject of
Raleigh's connexion with Virginia, by asserting that he never had any
connexion, direct or indirect, with it! All the colonies with which he
had to do were planted in North Carolina and the islands thereto
belonging. To have laid any stress upon this, or to have mentioned it
earlier than now, would have amounted to nothing but a play upon names.
The country called Virginia in Queen Elizabeth's reign, embraced not
only the state now so called, but also Maryland and the Carolinas.
Virginia Proper was in reality first planted by the company of 1606, who
fixed their settlement on the Chesapeake.