, gave birth to a daughter, the first Christian
child born in the country, and hence named _Virginia_. Dissensions soon
arose among the settlers; and, although not in want of stores, some,
disappointed in not finding the new country a paradise of indolent
felicity, as they had fondly anticipated, demanded permission to return
home; others vehemently opposed; at length all joined in requesting
White to sail for England, and to return thence with supplies. To this
he reluctantly consented; and setting sail in August, 1587, from
Roanoke, where he left eighty-nine men, seventeen women, and eleven
children, he arrived in England on the fifth of November.

He found the kingdom wholly engrossed in taking measures of defence
against the threatened invasion of the Spanish Armada, and Raleigh,
Grenville, and Lane assisting Elizabeth in her council of war--a
conjuncture most unpropitious to the interests of the infant colony.
Raleigh, nevertheless, found time even in this portentous crisis of
public affairs to dispatch White with supplies in two vessels. But
these, running after prizes, encountered privateers, and, after a bloody
engagement, one of them was so disabled and plundered that White was
compelled to put back to England, while it was impossible to refit,
owing to the urgency of more important matters. But, even after the
destruction of the Armada, Sir Walter Raleigh found it impracticable to
prosecute any further his favorite design of establishing a colony in
Virginia; and in 1589 he formed a company of merchants and adventurers,
and assigned to it his proprietary rights. This corporation included
among its members Thomas Smith, a wealthy London merchant, afterwards
knighted; and Richard Hakluyt, dean of Westminster, the compiler of a
celebrated collection of voyages. He is said to have visited Virginia,
and Stith gives it as his opinion that he must have come over in one of
the last-mentioned abortive expeditions. Raleigh, at the time of making
this assignment, gave a hundred pounds for propagating Christianity
among the natives of Virginia. After experiencing a long series of
vexations, difficulties, and disappointments, he had expended forty
thousand pounds in fruitless efforts for planting a colony in Virginia.
At length, disengaged from this enterprise, he indulged his martial
genius, and bent all his energies against the colossal ambition of
Spain, who now aspired to overshadow the world.

More than another year