s nature,
and inform them of the true God and the way to Salvation, and that
his Majesty will even spare Powhatan himself. But, he says, it is
the intention to make "the common people likewise to understand, how
that his Majesty has been acquainted that the men, women, and
children of the first plantation of Roanoke were by practice of
Powhatan (he himself persuaded thereunto by his priests) miserably
slaughtered, without any offense given him either by the first
planted (who twenty and odd years had peaceably lived intermixed with
those savages, and were out of his territory) or by those who are now
come to inhabit some parts of his distant lands," etc.

Strachey of course means the second plantation and not the first,
which, according to the weight of authority, consisted of only
fifteen men and no women.

In George Percy's Discourse concerning Captain Newport's exploration
of the River James in 1607 (printed in Purchas's "Pilgrims") is
this sentence: "At Port Cotage, in our voyage up the river, we saw a
savage boy, about the age of ten years, which had a head of hair of a
perfect yellow, and reasonably white skin, which is a miracle amongst
all savages." Mr. Neill, in his "History of the Virginia Company,"
says that this boy "was no doubt the offspring of the colonists left
at Roanoke by White, of whom four men, two boys, and one young maid
had been preserved from slaughter by an Indian Chief." Under the
circumstances, "no doubt" is a very strong expression for a historian
to use.

This belief in the sometime survival of the Roanoke colonists, and
their amalgamation with the Indians, lingered long in colonial
gossip. Lawson, in his History, published in London in 1718,
mentions a tradition among the Hatteras Indians, "that several of
their ancestors were white people and could talk from a book; the
truth of which is confirmed by gray eyes being among these Indians
and no others."

But the myth of Virginia Dare stands no chance beside that of
Pocahontas.

V

FIRST PLANTING OF THE COLONY

The way was now prepared for the advent of Captain John Smith in
Virginia. It is true that we cannot give him his own title of its
discoverer, but the plantation had been practically abandoned, all
the colonies had ended in disaster, all the governors and captains
had lacked the gift of perseverance or had been early drawn into
other adventures, wholly disposed, in the language of Captain John
White, "to seek after pur