ly, in the very next
year, Raleigh put out another and a larger expedition under the
leadership of John White. The constitution of White's expedition would
seem to show that it was designed to be more a colony, properly
speaking, than Lane's settlement at Roanoke. A government was formed
by Raleigh, consisting of White and twelve others, incorporated as the
governor and assistants of the city of Raleigh. Of the hundred and
fifty settlers seventeen were women, of whom seven seem to have been
unmarried. The emigrants evidently did not go as mere explorers or
adventurers; they were to be the seed of a commonwealth....

On the 2d of July the fleet reached Haterask, the port at which
Grenville had landed on his last voyage. There White took fifty men
ashore to search for the fifteen whom Grenville had left there. They
found nothing but the bones of one man, slain, as they afterward
learned, by the Indians. The rest had disappeared, and it was not till
some time afterward that their countrymen learned any tidings of their
fate. Ignorant, no doubt, of the altered feelings of the natives,
Grenvile's men had lived carelessly, and kept no watch. Pemissapan's
warriors had seized the opportunity to revenge the death of their
chief, and had sent a party of thirty men against the English
settlement. Two of the chief men were sent forward to demand a parley
with two of the English. The latter fell into the trap, and sent out
two of their number. One of these was instantly seized and killed,
whereupon the other fled. The thirty Indians then rushed out and fired
the house, in which the English settlers took refuge. The English,
thus dislodged, forced their way out, losing one man in the skirmish,
and at last, after being sorely prest by the arrows of their enemies,
and by their skill in fighting behind covert, they reached the boat
and escaped to Haterask. After this neither Indians nor English ever
heard of them again....

A more hopeful omen might be drawn from the birth of a child five days
later, the first born to English parents in the New World. Her father,
Ananias Dare, was one of the twelve assistants, and her mother,
Eleanor, was the daughter of John White. Each event, the birth of
Virginia Dare, the baptism and ennobling of Manteo, was trivial in
itself, yet when brought together, the contrast gives a solemn
meaning. It seemed as if within five days the settlement of Roanoke
had seen an old world pass away, a new world born.