VIRGINIA (1583-1587).
[Sidenote: _Gilbert and Ralegh._]
Ralegh was not freer from the faults of his class than the rest. Beyond
the rest, he showed public spirit in his expenditure. By arguments, by
his influence, by his example, he fanned the rising flame of national
enterprise. From the first he devoted a large part of his sudden
opulence to the promotion of the maritime prosperity of the nation.
Among his earliest subjects of outlay was the construction in 1583 of
the Ark Ralegh. It was, according to a probable account, of two hundred
tons burden, and cost L2000. Mr. Payne Collier gives its burden as eight
hundred tons, and its worth as L5000. None understood better than Ralegh
the ship-building art. Ten years of prison, it will be hereafter
noticed, did not deaden his instinct. Humphrey Gilbert was again
preparing for a voyage to 'the Unknown Goal.' Two-thirds of the six
years of his patent for discoveries had run out. He was anxious to
utilize the residue. Ralegh would gladly have accepted his invitation to
accompany him as vice-admiral. The Queen had tried to hold back Gilbert
'of her especial care, as a man noted of no good hap by sea.' By earnest
representations that he had no other means of maintaining his family, he
prevailed upon her, through Walsingham, to give him leave. In a letter
from Ralegh, she sent him a token, an anchor guided by a lady, with her
wish of as great good-hap and safety to his ship, as if herself were
there in person. She prayed him to be careful of himself, 'as of that
which she tendereth,' and to leave his portrait with Ralegh for her.
Ralegh she peremptorily forbade to go. He had to content himself with
lending his ship. It had not been more than two days out from Plymouth
when a contagious sickness attacked the crew. It returned on June 13,
1583. Gilbert did not know the cause. He only saw the ship run away in
fair and clear weather, having a large wind. So home he wrote denouncing
the men as knaves. How he took possession of Newfoundland, and how, on
his return, he died, with his memorable last words, are matters
belonging to his history, though incidentally that crosses Ralegh's. But
his companionship, example, and affection had contributed to form his
brother, whom his courage fired, and his fate did not daunt.
[Sidenote: _Ralegh's Patent._]
Ralegh immediately sought and obtained a royal licence corresponding to
that bestowed on Gilbert. March 25, 1584, is an eventful date in the
annals of colonization. On that day was sealed a patent for him to hold
by homage remote heathen and barbarous lands, not actually possessed by
any Christian prince, nor inhabited by Christian people, which he might
discover within the next six years. A fifth of the gold and silver
acquired was reserved to the Crown. His eyes were bent on the region
stretching to the north of the Gulf of Florida, and of any settled
Spanish territory. In 1562 a French Protestant settlement had been
attempted in Florida. Laudonniere reinforced it a couple of years later.
But the jealousy of Spain was aroused. Pedro Melendez de Avila pounced
down in 1565. He captured the forts. Eight or nine hundred Huguenots he
hanged on the neighbouring trees as heretics, not as Frenchmen.
Dominique de Gorgues, of Gascony, avenged their fate by hanging their
Spanish supplanters in 1567, not as Spaniards, but as assassins. There
the experiment at colonization ended. Neither Spain nor France had
repeated the attempt. The whole land was vacant of white men.
[Sidenote: _The Discovery._]
Ralegh's fancy was inspired with visions, destined to be more than
realized ultimately, of an English counterpart in the north to the
Spanish empire in the south. He had already begun to equip a couple of
vessels. He despatched them to America on April 27, 1584, under Captains
Philip Amadas and Arthur Barlow. They took the roundabout route by the
Canaries and West Indies. In July they were saluted with a most fragrant
gale from the land they were seeking. Sailing into the mouth of a river
they saw vines laden with grapes, climbing up tall cedars. On July 13
they proclaimed the Queen's sovereignty, afterwards delivering the
country over to the use of Ralegh. It was the isle of Wokoken, in
Ocracoke Inlet, off the North Carolina coast. In the neighbourhood were
a hundred other islands. One of the largest was named Roanoke. They were
visited by Granganimeo, father or brother to King Wingina, who lay ill
of wounds received in war. The visit was returned by them. They bought
of Granganimeo twenty skins, worth as many nobles, for a tin dish which
he coveted as a gorget. His wife offered a great box of pearls for
armour and a sword. After some stay with the friendly and timid people,
they returned to England about the middle of September. They brought to
Ralegh chamois and other skins, a bracelet of pearls as big as peas, and
two Indians, Manteo and Wanchese.
[Sidenote: _Colonization._]
Elizabeth herself devised for the virgin land discovered in the reign of
a virgin queen the appellation of Virginia. Possibly the name was
favoured by some resemblance to a native phrase Wynganda coia. This
means, writes Ralegh, in the _History of the World_, 'You wear good
clothes,' which the settlers supposed to be the reply to their question
of the name of the country. The similarity of the king's name may have
assisted the choice. Spenser entitles Elizabeth, in the dedication of
his great poem, 'Queen of England, France, and Ireland, and of
Virginia.' Ralegh had a seal of his arms cut, with the legend, 'Walteri
Ralegh, militis, Domini et Gubernatoris Virginiae propria insignia,
1584, amore et virtute.' He hastened to realize his lordship, which was
still somewhat in the air. He obtained a fair amount of support, though
his brother, Carew Ralegh, could not prevail upon the Exeter merchants
to become partners. They were not moved by his catalogue of the
merchantable commodities which had been found. They stigmatized the
undertaking as 'a pretended voyage,' which certainly it was not. On
April 9, 1585, 'at the pleasant prime,' says Holinshed, a fleet of seven
sail set forth from Plymouth, under Ralegh's cousin, Sir Richard
Grenville, as general of the expedition. Mr. Ralph Lane was Governor of
the colony, and Captain Philip Amadas was his Deputy. Lane had an Irish
commission. Elizabeth ordered that a substitute should be found for him,
that he might go to Virginia for Ralegh. Ralegh drew up rules, which
have been lost, for the political government. Thomas Cavendish, a future
circumnavigator of the globe, and Thomas Hariot, or Harriot, were among
the colonists. Hariot, who describes himself as 'servant to Sir Walter
Ralegh,' was commissioned to survey and report. He published a
remarkable description of the territory in 1588. Manteo and Wanchese
returned to America with the expedition. On the way out, by Hispaniola
and Florida, Grenville took two Spanish frigates. He reached Wokoken in
June, and visited the mainland. He was not happy in the conduct of the
expedition, being reported by Lane, writing to Walsingham on September
8, 1585, to have exhibited intolerable pride and ambition towards the
entire company. Already, on August 25, not a day too soon, he had sailed
for England. He had, he reported at his return to Walsingham, peopled
the new country, and stored it with cattle, fruits, and plants. He left
Governor Lane and 107 colonists. On the homeward voyage a third Spanish
ship was captured. Stukely, a kinsman both of Grenville and of Ralegh,
was with Grenville on board the Tiger. For some unintelligible reason he
thought himself entitled to L10,000 of the booty. According to his
estimate, as reported by his mendacious son, Sir Lewis, the whole was
worth L50,000. Much of the treasure consisted of a cabinet of pearls.
Sir Lewis Stukely alleged that Ralegh charged Elizabeth with taking all
to herself 'without so much as even giving him one pearl.' The Queen was
as fond of large pearls as he.
[Sidenote: _Failure._]
Grenville had promised he would bring supplies by the next Easter at
latest. Lane and his companions occupied themselves meanwhile with
surveys of the goodliest soil under the cope of heaven, as they
described it. They had planted corn, and perceived signs of pearl
fisheries and mines. Hariot, observing the native use of tobacco, had
tried and liked it. The nutritious qualities of the tubers of the potato
had been discovered. Unfortunately the planters quarrelled with the
natives, whom they found, though gentle in manner, cunning and
murderous. Their friend, Granganimeo, died, and they slew King Wingina
and his chiefs without warning, for alleged plots. At this crisis Sir
Francis Drake arrived with a fleet of twenty-five sail, fresh from the
sack of St. Domingo and Cartagena. He gave Lane a bark of seventy tons,
pinnaces, and provisions, and lent him two of his captains. But a storm
sank the bark. The colonists, losing courage, insisted on being taken
home. On June 19, 1586, they set sail, on the eve of the arrival of a
ship laden with provisions, which Ralegh had sent. A fortnight later
came Grenville with three ships, also well stored. He could do nothing
but leave fifteen men with supplies on Roanoke and return. Not even now
was Ralegh disheartened. In the spring of 1587 he fitted out a fourth
expedition. He had meant to conduct it himself. The Queen would not let
him go. It comprised 150 householders. Some were married, and brought
their wives with them. Agricultural implements were taken. Captain John
White was in command. He and eleven others of the company were
incorporated as the Governor and Assistants of the City of Ralegh in
Virginia. Ralegh had fixed upon Chesapeake Bay as the site of the
settlement. Roanoke was preferred. White could detect no trace of
Grenville's fifteen men, and Lane's fort had been razed to the ground.
Vainly the new colonists endeavoured to conciliate or awe the natives by
baptizing and investing Manteo with the Barony of Roanoke. Jealousies
arose between them and the tribes. They aggravated their difficulties by
murdering in error a number of friendly Indians. Misfortunes of various
kinds beset them. Supplies failed, and Governor White came home for
more. At his departure the colony included eighty-nine men, seventeen
women, and two children. Among them were White's daughter, Eleanor Dare,
and her child. The time was inopportune. An embargo had been laid on all
shipping, in expectation of the Spanish invasion. By Ralegh's influence
it was raised in favour of a couple of merchantmen, equipped for a West
Indian voyage, on condition that they transported men and necessaries to
Virginia. They broke the compact. Though they embarked White, they took
no colonists. They chased Spanish ships, fought with men-of-war from
Rochelle, and came back to England shattered.
[Sidenote: _Ralegh's persistency._]
Ralegh had other calls upon his resources. For the present he could do
no more for Virginia. He reckoned he had spent L40,000 on the
plantation. As Hakluyt wrote, 'it demanded a prince's purse to have the
action thoroughly fulfilled without lingering.' Elizabeth was not
willing to play the part of godmother in the fairy-tale sense. For a
substitute, the founder, being in difficulties, had recourse to the very
modern expedient of a company. In March, 1589, as Chief Governor, he
assigned a right to trade in Virginia, not his patent, to Thomas Smith,
John White, Richard Hakluyt, and others. He reserved a fifth of all the
gold and silver extracted. The Adventurers were not very active. Ralegh
still felt himself responsible for the colony, if it could be described
as one. Such expeditions as sailed he mainly promoted. Southey's
accusation that he 'abandoned the poor colonists' is ludicrously unjust.
If, as has without due cause been imputed to Bacon, the charge in the
essay on Plantations of the sinfulness of 'forsaking or destituting a
plantation once in forwardness' refer to Ralegh, Bacon would be as
calumnious. In 1590 White prosecuted the search for his daughter and
grandchild, and the rest of the vanished planters. Ralegh despatched
other expeditions for the same object, and with as little success. One,
under Samuel Mace, with that purpose sailed in 1602 or 1603. By the time
Mace returned, the Chief Governor was attainted, and his proprietorship
of Virginia had escheated to the Crown.
[Sidenote: _Reward of an idea._]
Ralegh never relinquished hope in his nursling. 'I shall yet live,' he
wrote just before his fall, 'to see it an English nation.' In 1606 a new
and strong colony was sent out, and his confidence was justified. From
an old account of the career of his nephew, Captain Ralph Gilbert, a son
of Sir Humphrey, it would seem he still considered in 1607 that his
connexion with the country continued. In that year Ralph Gilbert is said
to have voyaged to Virginia on his behalf. Though his direct exertions
were confined to the region of the James and Potomac, his jurisdiction
in the north was recognized. The term Virginia covered a very wide area.
It included, not only the present Virginias, but the Carolinas and more
besides. New England itself originally was supposed to be comprised.
Captain Gosnold, Captain Bartholomew Gilbert, and others, when they
planned the occupation of Martha's Vineyard in 1602, described it as
'the north part of Virginia,' and sought and obtained Ralegh's
permission and encouragement. Posterity has rewarded his faith and
perseverance. He never set foot anywhere in the country called generally
Virginia. His expeditions by deputy were themselves confined to the part
which is now North Carolina. All his experiments at the colonization of
that were failures. His L40,000, his colonists, and the polity he framed
for them, had disappeared before any white settlement took root. But he
will always be esteemed the true parent of North American colonization.
An idea like his has life in it, though the plant may not spring up at
once. When it rises above the surface the sower can claim it. Had the
particular region of the New World not eventually become a permanent
English settlement, he would still have earned the merit of authorship
of the English colonizing movement. As Humboldt has said, without him,
and without Cabot, North America might never have grown into a home of
the English tongue.
[Sidenote: _Potatoes and Tobacco._]
Ralegh's Virginian scheme cost much money, and brought in little. It
gave him fame, which he craved still more, and kept the town talking.
His distant seigniory excited the English imagination. He was believed
to have endowed his Sovereign with a new realm. He had the glory of
having enriched his country with new fruits, plants, and flowers. The
nature of the man was that he could touch nothing but immediately it
appropriated itself to him. He is fabled to have been the first to
import mahogany into England from Guiana. He set orange trees in the
garden of his wife's uncle, Sir Francis Carew, at Beddington; and he has
been credited with their first introduction. The Spaniards first brought
potatoes into Europe. Hariot and Lane first discovered them in North
Carolina. He grew them at Youghal, and they became his. Hariot
discoursed learnedly on the virtues of tobacco, and Drake conveyed the
leaf to England. Ralegh smoked, and none but he has the repute of the
fashion. He gave the taste vogue, teaching the courtiers to smoke their
pipes with silver bowls, and supplying them with the leaf. Sir John
Stanhope excuses himself in 1601 from sending George Carew in Ireland
any 'tabacca, because Mr. Secretary and Sir Walter have stored you of
late.' Till he mounted the scaffold, having first 'taken tobacco,' the
kingdom resounded with legends, doubtful enough, of his devotion to this
his familiar genius. It was told how his old manservant deluged him at
Sherborne with spiced ale to put out the combustion inside him; how he
won wagers of the Queen that he could weigh vapours; how he smoked as
Essex died. Society stared to see him take a pipe at Sir Robert
Poyntz's. His gilt leather tobacco case was a prize for a Yorkshire
museum. For words, ways, and doings, he was the observed of all
observers. He was active in twenty different directions at once. He was
always before the eyes of the world. His name was on every lip.
[Sidenote: _Pioneer and Privateer._]
Among his constant motives of action was a fiery indignation at the
spectacle of the Spanish monopoly of the New World. No sentiment could
stir more of English sympathy. The people heartily shared his
determination to rival Spain, and to pillage Spain. He had the Viking
spirit, and he burnt with a freebooter's passion for the sea. But he had
an intuition also of the national capacity for colonization, in which
the purest patriot must have concurred. He was resolved to direct the
maritime enthusiasm of his countrymen and their age to that definite
end. He succeeded, though destined to the lot rather of Moses than of
Joshua. His outlay on Virginia did not bound his expenditure in these
ways. Adrian his half-brother, and his habitual associate, had resumed
Sir Humphrey Gilbert's old project for the discovery of a North-West
Passage to India and China. A patent was granted him in 1583. He
established a 'Fellowship' to work it. Ralegh joined. Captain John Davys
was appointed commander, and two barks were equipped. Davys discovered
Davis's Straits. Mount Ralegh, shining like gold, he christened after
one of his most celebrated patrons. Hakluyt in 1587 stated that Ralegh
had thrice contributed with the forwardest to Davys's North-West
voyages. From a mixture of patriotism, maritime adventurousness, and the
love of gain, he employed his various opportunities to engage in
privateering as a regular business. Privy Council minutes for 1585
mention captures by him, through his officers, of Spanish ships, with
600 Spaniards, at the Newfoundland fisheries. He sent forth in June,
1586, his ships Serpent and Mary Spark, under Captains Jacob Whiddon and
John Evesham, to fight the Spaniards at the Azores. In a battle of
thirty-two hours, against twenty-four Spanish ships, they failed to
capture two great caracks which they coveted. They brought home three
less valuable, but remunerative, prizes. Don Pedro Sarmiento de Genaboa,
Governor of the Straits of Magellan, and other captives were worth heavy
ransoms. Ralegh repeats in the History, 'a pretty jest' told him
'merrily' by the worthy Don Pedro, on whom he clearly did not allow
thraldom to weigh heavily, how the draftsman of the chart of the Straits
invented an island in them at his wife's instance, that she might have
something specially her own in the chart. In the same year, 1586, he
contributed a pinnace to a plundering expedition of the Earl of
Cumberland's to the South Sea. Though he was not allowed to be often at
sea in person, he vindicated by his eager promotion of maritime
adventures a full right to be entered, as we find him in January, 1586,
in an official list of 'sea captains.'
[Sidenote: _Charges of Piracy._]
[Sidenote: _His Defence._]
As Vice-Admiral of the South-West, he possessed advantages beyond most
for private raids upon Spanish commerce. When he was not on the spot,
his faithful and affectionate deputy in Devonshire, Sir John Gilbert,
was at hand to look after his ships' stores. Doubtless outrages were
committed under shelter of his Court favour. He joined the evil
experiences of the sailor with those of the soldier and courtier in his
dying regrets. Occasionally the Privy Council had to expostulate
energetically. In 1589 a ship of his took two barks of Cherbourg. He and
his officers were charged to minister no cause of grief to any of the
French king's subjects. In the same year, Albert Reynerson was lodging
complaints against Ralegh's captain of the Roebuck. Another of his
captains, John Floyer, in 1592, was accused of having captured a ship of
Bayonne with a load of cod, beside a waistcoat of carnation colour,
curiously embroidered. Filippo Corsini sued him in that year for a ship
his people had seized. In 1600 the Republic of Venice was aggrieved at
the capture of a Venetian merchantman by Sir John Gilbert, junior,
eldest son of Sir Humphrey, in command of one of Ralegh's vessels. At
other times Venice claimed the surrender of Venetian goods in Spanish
bottoms, though Ralegh stoutly argued against the claim. Sometimes the
Government could not but interfere when neutrals had been pillaged. It
was always reluctant to discourage the buccaneering trade, which it knew
to be very lucrative. For instance, Ralegh and eleven other adventurers
in 1591 equipped, at a cost of L8000, privateers which brought home
prizes worth L31,150. The profit to the partnership was L14,952, which
must be multiplied five times to express the present value. In high
places no repugnance to the pursuit was felt. The Queen not rarely
adventured, and looked for the lion's share of the spoil. Robert Cecil,
after he had succeeded to his father's ascendency, was willing to
speculate, if his association might be kept secret: 'For though, I thank
God, I have no other meaning than becometh an honest man in any of my
actions, yet that which were another man's _Pater noster_, would be
accounted in me a charm.' Ralegh's views and character obliged him to no
bashful dissimulation of the practice. To him privateering seemed
strictly legal, and unequivocally laudable. He boasted in 1586 that he
had consumed the best part of his fortune in abating the tyrannous
prosperity of Spain. He acted as much in defence and retaliation as for
offence. He stated in the House of Commons in 1592 that the West Country
had, since the Parliament began, been plundered of the worth of
L440,000. In 1603 he wrote that a few Dunkirk privateers under Spanish
protection had 'taken from the West Country merchants within two years
above three thousand vessels, beside all they had gotten from the rest
of the ports of England.' He himself, as the State Papers testify, had
often to lament losses of ships through Spanish and French privateers.
Public opinion entirely justified the vigour with which he conducted his
retaliation. If he were unpopular among his countrymen, or any section
of them, the fact is not to be explained by the employment of his riches
and influence in onslaughts upon foreign commerce. As he has written in
his History, Englishmen never objected to the most fearful odds, when
'royals of plate and pistolets' were in view. They might have been
expected to be grateful to a leading promoter of lucratively perilous
enterprises; and in the West they were.