h and commanded by Sir Richard
Grenville, the company numbering one hundred householders. After
landing at Roanoke, Grenville returned to England for supplies,
leaving the colony in charge of Lane. Lane has left an important
account of the experiences and sufferings of the colonists during
the absence of Grenville, whose return was delayed. Drake,
meanwhile coming up from St. Augustine, which he had just
destroyed, put in at Roanoke in 1586, and the whole company
returned to England with him. Grenville afterward arrived in
Roanoke, finding no one there. He then returned to England, leaving
on the island fifteen men. In the following year Raleigh sent out
to Roanoke John White. When White arrived he found that these men
had all been massacred by the Indians. Other expeditions were sent
out later, but none was able to establish any colony at Roanoke.
Lane's account is printed In "Old South Leaflets."

III

THE BIRTH OF VIRGINIA DARE[1]

(1587)

BY JOHN WHITE

The two and twentieth day of July we came safely to Cape Hatteras,
where our ship and pinnace anchored. The Governor went aboard the
pinnace accompanied by forty of his best men, intending to pass up to
Roanoke. He hoped to find those fifteen Englishmen whom Sir Richard
Grenville had left there the year before. With these he meant to have
a conference concerning the state of the country and the savages,
intending then to return to the fleet and pass along the coast to the
Bay of Chesapeake. Here we intended to make our settlement and fort
according to the charge given us among other directions in writing
under the hand of Sir Walter Raleigh. We passed to Roanoke and the
same night at sunset went ashore on the island, in the place where our
fifteen men were left. But we found none of them, nor any sign that
they had been there, saving only that we found the bones of one of
them, whom the savages had slain long before.

The Governor with several of his company walked the next day to the
north end of the island, where Master Ralph Lane, with his men the
year before, had built his fort with sundry dwelling houses. We hoped
to find some signs here, or some certain knowledge of our fifteen men.

When we came thither we found the fort razed, but all the houses
standing unhurt, saving that the lower rooms of them, and of the fort
also, were overgrown with melons of different sorts, and deer were in
roo