angement made with White before
his departure, by which the settlers were thus to indicate the course
they had taken. Remnants of their goods were found, but no trace of
the settlers themselves. Years afterward, when Virginia had been at
length settled by Englishmen, a faint tradition found its way among
them of a band of white captives, who, after being for years kept by
the Indians in laborious slavery, were at length massacred. Such were
the only tidings of Raleigh's colonists that ever reached the ears of
their countrymen. White, with his three ships, returned, and the
colonization of Virginia was for a time at an end. Even Raleigh's
indomitable spirit gave way, and he seems henceforth to have abandoned
all hope of a plantation. Yet he did not, till after fifteen years of
disappointment and failure, give up the search for his lost settlers.
Before he died the great work of his life had been accomplished, but
by other hands. In spite of the intrigues of the Spanish court and the
scoffs of playwrights, Virginia had been settled and had become a
flourishing colony. A ship had sailed into London laden with Virginia
goods, and an Indian princess,[4] the wife of an Englishman, had been
received at court, and had for a season furnished wonder and amusement
to the fashionable world.

[1] From Doyle's "English Colonies in America." By permission of
the publishers, Henry Holt & Co.

[2] Sir Humphrey Gilbert, a half-brother of Raleigh, is here
referred to. In 1578 he had obtained royal permission to found a
colony in America, but his expedition, after starting, turned back,
a failure. In 1588 he again set out, landing at St. John's,
Newfoundland, where he established the first English colony in
North America. On returning home his ship was lost in a storm off
the Azores.

[3] See in the next chapter an account of Lane's return with Drake.

[4] Pocahontas, married to John Rolfe, went to England with Rolfe
and there died about a year later. She left a son who returned to
Virginia, where he left descendants, among whom was the famous John
Randolph of Roanoke. John Smith's account of the saving of his life
by Pocahontas is printed in Volume I of "The Best of the World's
Classics."

II

THE RETURN OF THE COLONISTS WITH SIR FRANCIS DRAKE

(1586)

BY RALPH LANE[1]

This fell out the first of June, 1586, and the eight of the same came
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