revent Gilbert from
embarking on this new voyage seems to have been the device of the
council rather than the Queen, for she assured Gilbert of her good
wishes, and desired him, on his departure, to give his picture to
Raleigh for her, and she contributed to the large sums raised to meet
expenses "an anchor guarded by a lady," which the sailor was to wear
at his breast. Raleigh risked L 2,000 in the venture, and equipped a
ship which bore his name, but which had ill luck. An infectious
fever broke out among the crew, and the "Ark Raleigh" returned to
Plymouth. Sir Humphrey wrote to his brother admiral, Sir George
Peckham, indignantly of this desertion, the reason for which he did
not know, and then proceeded on his voyage with his four remaining
ships. This was on the 11th of January, 1583. The expedition was so
far successful that Gilbert took formal possession of Newfoundland
for the Queen. But a fatality attended his further explorations: the
gallant admiral went down at sea in a storm off our coast, with his
crew, heroic and full of Christian faith to the last, uttering, it is
reported, this courageous consolation to his comrades at the last
moment: "Be of good heart, my friends. We are as near to heaven by
sea as by land."

In September, 1583, a surviving ship brought news of the disaster to
Falmouth. Raleigh was not discouraged. Within six months of this
loss he had on foot another enterprise. His brother's patent had
expired. On the 25th of March, 1584, he obtained from Elizabeth a
new charter with larger powers, incorporating himself, Adrian
Gilbert, brother of Sir Humphrey, and John Davys, under the title of
"The College of the Fellowship for the Discovery of the Northwest
Passage." But Raleigh's object was colonization. Within a few days
after his charter was issued he despatched two captains, Philip
Amadas and Arthur Barlow, who in July of that year took possession of
the island of Roanoke.

The name of Sir Walter Raleigh is intimately associated with Carolina
and Virginia, and it is the popular impression that he personally
assisted in the discovery of the one and the settlement of the other.
But there is no more foundation for the belief that he ever visited
the territory of Virginia, of which he was styled governor, than that
he accompanied Sir Humphrey Gilbert to Newfoundland. An allusion by
William Strachey, in his "Historie of Travaile into Virginia,"
hastily read, may have misled some writers. He sp