Sara Agnes Rice Pryor
The Birth of the Nation, Jamestown, 1607
Published by Good Press, 2021
EAN 4057664576576
Table of Contents
CHAPTER XXIII LEGENDS OF THE OLD STONE HOUSE
CHAPTER II
With Sir Walter Raleigh the history of the English colonies in America begins. He was a prime favourite with Queen Elizabeth, and she knew how to exalt and abase, to create and destroy. To Raleigh she gave viceregal powers over any and all of England's prospective colonies, with no limit to his control over territories, of which he could bestow grants according to his pleasure. He sent out an exploring expedition to the islands near North Carolina. The adventurers returned with glowing accounts of the country. The season was summer—seas were tranquil, skies clear; no storms ever gathered on those peaceful shores; all was repose. The gentle inhabitants were in harmony with the scene; flowers and fruit abounded, grapes were clustered close to the coast and cooled by the spray of a quiet sea; there was no winter, no cold. A hundred islands clustered along the shores, inhabited by "people the most gentle, loving, and faithful, void of all guile and treason, and such as lived after the manner of the golden age." No wonder a new expedition of one hundred and eight colonists was soon organized. Seven vessels were equipped, and sailed under the happiest auspices. But, alas! the "gentle people" living after the manner of the golden age proved thievish and deceitful; disasters, many and varied, followed; the adventurers forsook the "paradise of the world," and the enterprise came to naught.
Queen Elizabeth.
From an engraving after the painting by Zucchero.
History has preserved no stranger, more mysterious story than the next experiment of Sir Walter Raleigh. To insure the permanence of his second colony, he decided to send families, women and children, to the fruitful Islands of Roanoke, to make a permanent home, and found "the City of Raleigh." A fleet of transport ships carried eighty-nine men, seventeen women, and eleven little children, with every appliance for comfort, and ample provision of implements of husbandry. The colony arrived in August, after a five months' voyage, and were dismayed to find the island strewn with human bones. They had "expected sundry decent dwelling-houses"; they found the ruins of the houses and forts their predecessors had erected. The men who had been left behind by the first governor had been murdered by the loving, gentle, and faithful people.
There was nothing to do but make the best of it. But the charm was broken. The colonists were alarmed and disheartened. The Indians were not friends—that became evident at once. Realizing their danger, weakness, and utter dependence upon England, the heartsick immigrants looked with dismay upon the departure of the ships, and they implored their Governor to return and represent their true condition to Elizabeth, "the Godmother of Virginia," and to the powerful Raleigh, her servant.
On the 18th of August, according to the ancient author's report, "Ellinor, the Governour's daughter, and wife to Ananias Dare, was delivered of a daughter in Roanoke, which being the first Christian there borne, was called 'Virginia.'" The Governor was loth to leave his colony, his daughter, and grandchild, but they "thought none would so truly procure theire supplyes as he, which though he did what he could to excuse it, yet their importunitie would not cease till he undertooke it; and had it under all their hands how unwilling he was but that necessity and reason did doubly constraine him."
Of course, the Governor promised to hasten his return. The story is a strange one—of feeble effort, cupidity, indifference.
The Governor did not reach England until November. Raleigh at once fitted out two small vessels which sailed the following April, but the crew,[3] "being more intent on a gainful voyage than the relief of a colony, ran in chase of prizes, were themselves overcome and rifled." In this maimed, ransacked, and ragged condition, they returned to England, and, the writer adds, "their patron was greatly displeased." After this, for a whole year no relief was sent. Raleigh had now spent forty thousand pounds on his colonies with no return, and he turned them over to Sir Thomas Smith. When White sailed again with three ships, history was repeated. He "buccaneered among the Spaniards, until three years elapsed before he actually arrived at Roanoke."
Nothing was to be seen of the settlers there! The Governor seems to have taken things with admirable coolness! His own account is an amazing bit of narrative, when we remember the one hundred and fifteen men, women, and little children, his own Ellinor, and Virginia Dare! He tells first of his troublesome voyage. The sea was rough and his "provisions were much wet"; the boat when they attempted to land tossed up and down, and some of his