its use, and believed in the healing virtues which it was said to possess.

He also found that the potato,* another native of America, was good for food; and he was much impressed with the luxuriant growth and great productiveness of Indian maize, still another native of America, and now universally cultivated, and known by the name of corn.

ར.

DURING the stay of Lane, Monatenon, chief of the Chowanokes, awed by the presence of a race so superior as the English, and anxious to be rid of such neighbours, began to plot against them.

He cunningly observed the passions of the English; and finding that the great object of all their researches was gold, he framed ingenious stories, calculated to confirm them in their delusive hopes concerning the proximity of the southern seas, and the great abundance of the precious metals.

A tale, romantic and smacking of eastern fancy, was invented in relation to the Maratock, now Roanoke River; a stream which, it was alleged, arose far towards the setting sun, its fountain source gushing from a huge rock so near to the great ocean that the waters of the spring were often imbittered with the salt spray of the sea! The banks of the river, according to this account, were peopled with rich and princely races, skilled in the arts of procuring and refining the metals in which their country abounded, and living in walled cities which glittered "with barbaric pearl and gold."

Lane and his friends believed these incredible stories; and, taking with them a supply of provisions, attempted to ascend the difficult current of the Roanoke.

Imagine an exploring expedition, in open boats, rowing up the Roanoke, in search of the Pacific Ocean!

This river is formed by the junction of the Dan and Staunton, opposite to the town of Clarksville, in the county of Mecklenberg, Virginia; no veins of gold or silver are washed by its brief and overflowing current; and even now no cities adorn its banks. But that which is better than gold has been found in its wide alluvial earths; and where the eager gold-hunter once roamed in search of that idol whose presence makes desolate its native home, vast fields of luxuriant corn now wave in the summer

*The old writers mention the potato as coming originally from NorthCarolina: it was indigenous in North-Carolina, but it was first discovered in South America.

breeze, and education, refinement, and hospitality, ease, peace, and plenty shed their genial blessings among a rural and agricultural race of freemen.

The historian of this now rich and happy region is tempted to pause for a moment and moralize on the vanity of human wishes, the short-sightedness of man's ambition. A fertile soil was the last object of desire with the first explorers of Roanoke River; and yet how different would have been the state of things had the precious metals abounded along the margin of this stream!

The face of nature, now green and smiling with exuberant harvests, would have been scarred, and pitted, and blackened with chasms, and fissures, and decaying tenements; vice and wretchedness, avarice and desolation, pomp and beggary, would have dwelt in those borders where a universal abundance is joined with a charity and contentment as broad and general.

Lane and his men, sharing the infatuation of all the first pilgrims to these shores, persevered in their vain pursuit of gold; nor did they return until hunger compelled them to eat the last dog that bore them company. How far they ascended in this singular adventure cannot now be certainly known; it is probable, however, that this exploring expedition to the southern seas did not, after great fatigue and hardships, get higher than the present site of Williamston, in Martin county.

VI.

Not long after their return (April) they had reason to suspect that the Indians were concerting an act of cruel treachery; and Lane, to anticipate their designs with perhaps a necessary dissimulation, obtained an audience of Wingina, the leader of the conspiracy, (June,) and put him and his principal followers to death.

Such were the chief exploits of the first English governor of North-Carolina; a man by no means deficient in parts, and not unknown to fame, but much better calculated to head a military enterprise on the battle-fields of Europe, than to plant and nourish a colony in the woods and among the savages of the Western World.

Finding no gold, the novelty and excitements of their new homes soon lost their charm; and while they were sighing for the comforts and civilization of European cities, (June 8,) Sir Francis Drake, with a large fleet, made his appearance, and came to anchor outside of Roanoke Inlet. He had touched at this place on his way home from the West Indies; and realizing the wants of the colonists, furnished them with a bark of seventy tons, several pinnaces and boats, and an abundant supply of such provisions as they needed.

He also induced two experienced sea-captains to consent to remain and prosecute discoveries; but a great storm arose and destroyed the bark and boats which had been set aside for the use of the colony. The men were now completely disheartened; and Drake, yielding to their unanimous solicitations, permitted them and their governor to embark for England.

VII.

IN a few days afterwards, a ship arrived, laden with abundant stores for the use of the colony; but finding the settlement abandoned, it returned to England. Not many weeks after this, (1586,) Sir Richard Grenville, with well-furnished ships, appeared off the coast, and renewed the search for the departed colony; and unwilling that England should lose possession of the country, he left a garrison of fifteen men on Roanoke Island.

(1587.) Raleigh, with that fertility of resource and patient energy which distinguished him above all his contemporaries, was not disheartened by his losses; and, at his own expense, fitting out a fleet of transport ships, (April,) embarked upon it a number of agriculturists with their wives and implements of husbandry.

John White, to whom were joined eleven assistants, was appointed governor; and Lane having discovered the mouth of Chesapeake Bay, the new colony were instructed to settle in that region.

In July, they arrived off the coast of North-Carolina; and passing Cape Hatteras, hastened to the Island of Roanoke, to search for the garrison left by Grenville.

They found the houses deserted and overgrown with weeds and vines; human bones lay bleaching in the fields, and deer were reposing in the solitary houses, and feeding on the rank vegetation of the gardens. The fort was falling to ruins; no vestige of human life was visible, and the beautiful Island of Roanoke was again a quiet wilderness.

Fernando, a Spaniard, was pilot to this expedition; and proving treacherous, refused farther to explore the coast, and compelled White and his colony to remain on Roanoke Island.

The fort of Governor Lane and several houses had been constructed on the northern end of the island; and there was laid (July 23) the foundation of the "City of Raleigh," for which Sir Walter had provided a charter, government, and name.

VIII.

MANTEO proved a friend and faithful ally of the English; and his mother and kindred welcomed the emigrants to the island or peninsula of Croatan.

Manteo, by the direction of Raleigh, received Christian baptism, and was invested with the rank of a feudal baron, as the lord of Roanoke; "and this was the first peerage erected by the English in America, remaining a solitary dignity, till Locke and Shaftsbury suggested the establishment of a palatinate in Carolina, and Manteo shared his honours with the admired philosopher of his age."*

When the ship which carried White to Roanoke was about to return to England, his subjects insisted that the governor should return and use his exertions to obtain such supplies as the colonists needed, and also a reinforcement of settlers; and White felt himself constrained to yield a reluctant consent.

Before his departure, his daughter, Eleanor Dare, wife of one of his assistants, gave birth to a female child; and this, the first offspring of English parents on the soil of America, was christened, after the place of its birth, Virginia Dare.

The colony was now composed of eighty-nine men, seventeen women, and two children; but it seems to have been devoid of energy, or to have trusted too much to the efforts of its founder.

It looked entirely to England for supplies, and languished for the want of them; and its history is involved in doubt and obscurity. When White reached England, that country was absorbed by the threats of Spain; the famous Armada was about to sail on its disastrous adventure, and every patriot's arm was raised for defence. Still Raleigh, though much engaged in his country's cause, found means to despatch White with two ships and supplies; but the vessels running in chase of Spanish prizes, were pursued in return, and finally compelled to return to England.

IX.

SIR WALTER RALEIGH had now spent forty thousand pounds in his attempts to extend the empire of Britain; and having thus exhausted his own pecuniary resources, and still retaining a paternal regard for his colony, used his exertions to form a company of merchants and adventurers, to whom he granted liberal concessions from his patent. This company, however, was not endowed with the great heart and energetic soul of Raleigh ; and more than a year elapsed before White could return to search for his daughter and his colony. Roanoke Island was then (1589) a desert; and the only memento found by White was the inscription on the bark of a tree of the word Croatan.†

Was this intended to guide the new-comers to the residence of the colony? Had it become the guests of the hospitable and

*Bancroft.

Croatan is a peninsula, in Tyrrell county, and immediately west of Roanoke Island.

generous Manteo, and, through his influence, amalgamated with the Indians? Such a theory has been formed, and supported with arguments; and the chief fact on which it is based was the physical character of a certain tribe, in which the Indian and the English race seemed to have been blended.

Others suppose, and not without reason, that the colony perished; though it is possible that a majority only met this tragic fate, while a few escaped and formed permanent connections with the original owners of the soil.

The historian cannot lift the veil of mystery and gloom that shrouds the fate of this colony; but a lively imagination can indulge in conjectures and weave a thousand probable stories. Here is a fair field for the poet and novelist; and facts and fancies might be woven into ideal creations that would give a deeper and more enduring interest to history and render more sacred and classic the spot where the Anglo-Saxon, under the auspices of the great Sir Walter Raleigh, began his career in America.

Here was made, and as above related, the first attempt by the English to colonize America: here was the soil first pressed by the foot of an Englishwoman, and here was born the first offspring of that race which was destined to possess and to rule this mighty continent.

This attempt, too, was made by the man who, of all the people of his day, was most worthy to give lustre to an enterprise and to dignify disaster. An unrivalled wit, a dauntless and successful soldier, an historian, sage, and courtier, learned in all sciences, abounding in common sense, and a far-seeing statesman-moderate in success, equal, patient, and heroic under all fortunes, and bearing with calm and hopeful courage the unjust censures of an age which he adorned, and the cruel and infamous persecutions of a sovereign whose reign he would have made illustrious, and whose empire he extended-Sir Walter Raleigh, on this hemisphere at least, will ever be regarded as one of those rare and gifted spirits whose names should never perish from the earth.

X.

It is worthy of note that this first English colony was planted in what was called Virginia; a circumstance which has led to some confusion and not a few popular errors.

The name of Virginia was not originally given or applied to any state or province exclusively it was a general term used to designate the whole of the English possessions in America. The Pilgrim fathers emigrated to what they called Northern Virginia ; and all the first settlements by the English bore the same name.