with provisions, or of a passage home; governor Lane and the principal persons with him, having considered what was expedient, requested the general, under their hands, that they might have a passage to England. The rest of their company were now sent for; the whole colony was taken on board; and the fleet, sailing from the coast of Virginia on the eighteenth of June, arrived on the twenty-eighth of July at the English harbour of Portsmouth 1. The Virginian colonists had been in great danger from the machinations of the Indians, who at first intended to starve them by abandoning them, and leaving the island unsown. The submission of Okisko, king of Weopomeok (in March,) by which he and his people became tributaries to the queen of England, had great influence in defeating that design; for Pemisapan, who projected it, was, on that occasion, persuaded by his aged father Ensenore, an Indian king, to plant a large quantity of ground on the island and main land. Ensenore dying on the twentieth of April, Pemisapan, who succeeded him in the government, next formed a conspiracy for the ge neral massacre of the colonists. This however was frustrated by the vigilance of the English governor, who contrived a counterplot; in execution of which Pemisapan was slain on the first of June, ten days only before the arrival of Sir Francis Drake. The fears of the colonists appear now to have subsided. But the hope of finding a rich mine in the interior part of the country, which they had already made one attempt to discover, seems to have greatly influenced their wishes to continue longer in Virginia 2. Little did they know the true sour, ces of wealth. Little did they imagine, that a despicable plant would, at a future period, enrich the inhabitants of this 1 Hakluyt, iii. 263, 264, 528, 534-548, 781. Purchas, i. 755, 757. Beverly, 9. Stith, 47. Prince, Chron. Introd. 103. Univ. Hist. xxxix, 127. Brit. Emp. Introd. i. 21. Of the discoveries of this colony, during its year's residence in Virginia, we might perhaps have had accurate ac counts, but for the loss of its papers. The narrator in Hakluyt [iii. 264.] says, when Drake sent his vessels to Roanoke, to fetch away a few persons, who were left there with the baggage, "the weather was so boisterous, and the pinnesses so often on ground, that the most of all we had, with all our cards, books, and writings were by the Sailors cast overboord.” 2 Hakluyt, iii. 255-263. The mine is said to be "notorious" among the Indians, and to lie up the river of Maratoc. The narrator in Hakluyt calls it "a marvellous and most strange minerall;" and adds, "there wanted no great good will from the most to the least amongst us, to have perfitted this discoverie of the Mine: for that the discoverie of a good Mine by the goodnesse of God, or a passage to the South Sea, or some way to it, and nothing else can bring this Countrey in request to be inhabited by our nation." very territory, which they were ready to pronounce unfit to be inhabited, unless it were found to contain latent treasures of the precious metals. Had the Virginian adventurers remained but a little time longer at their plantation, they would have received supplies from home; for immediately after their departure, a ship, sent by Sir Walter Ralegh to their relief, arrived at Hatteras, and made diligent search for them ; but, not finding them, returned to England. Within fourteen or fifteen days after this ship had left the coast, Sir Richard Grenville arrived at Virginia with three ships with provisions; but searched in vain for the colony, that he had planted. Unwilling to lose possession of the country, so long holden by Englishmen, he left fifteen of his crew to keep possession of the island of Roanoke, and returned to England 1. Tobacco was now carried into England by Mr. Lane; and Sir Walter Ralegh, a man of gaiety and fashion, adopting the Indian usage of smoking it, and by his interest and example introducing it at court, the pipe soon became fashionable. 1587. 1 Hakluyt, iii. 265. Purchas, i. 755. Smith, Virg. 13. Beverly, 11. Belknap, Biog. i. 216, 217. Robertson, book ix. 46. Sir R. Grenville was mortally wounded five years afterward (1591) in an engagement with a Spanish fleet, and died on board the admiral's ship, where he was a prisoner, “highly admired by the very enemy for his extraordinary courage and resolution." Stith, 29. 2 Mr. Thomas Hariot, a man of science and observation, who was with Lane in Virginia, after describing the tobacco plant, says, "the Indians use to take the fume or smoke thereof by sucking it through pipes made of clay. We ourselves, during the time we were there, used to sucke it after their manner, as also since our return." Camden [Eliz. 324.] says, that these colonists were the first that he knows of, who brought tobacco into England; and adds: “Certainly from that time forward it began to grow into great request, and to be sold at an high rate." Oldys [Life Ral. p. 31.] says, the colonists under Lane carried over tobacco “doubtless according to the instructions they had received of their proprietor; for the introduction among us of that commodity is generally ascribed to Ralegh himself." I do not call this the Introduction of tobacco into England; because in Stow's Chronicle, [p. 1038.] it is asserted, that Sir John Hawkins carried it thither first in the year 1575. But it was then considered as a mere drug, and that Chronicle tells us, "all men wondered what it meant." The description of the use of tobacco in Florida in Hawkins' voyage of 1565 [Hakluyt, i. 541.] confirms the acccount of its introduction into England that year: “"The Floridans when they travele have a kinde of herbe dryed, which with a cane, and an earthern cup in the end, with fire, and the dried herbs put together, do sucke thorow the cane the smoke thereof, which smoke satisfieth their hunger." After this particular notice of tobacco in Florida, Hawkins probably carried a specimen of it to England, as a curiosity. This singular plant appears to have been used by the natives 1587. Sir Walter Ralegh, intent on planting the territory within his patent, equipped three vessels, and sent another company of one hundred and fifty adventurers to Virginia. He incorporated them by the name of, the Borough of Ralegh in Vir ginia; and constituted John White governor, in whom, with a council of twelve persons, the legislative power was "ested s and they were directed to plant at the Bay of Chesepeak, and to erect a fort there. Arriving at Hatteras on the twenty-second of July, the governor with forty of his best men went on board the pinnace, intending to pass up to Roanoke, in the hope of finding the Englishmen, whom Sir Richard Grenville had left there the year before; and, after a conference with them concerning the state of the country and of the Indians, to return to the fleet, and proceed along the coast to the Bay of Chesepeak, according to the orders of Ralegh. But, no sooner had the pinnace left the ship, than a gentleman, instructed by Fernando, the principal naval commander, who was destined to return soon to England, called to the sailors on board the pinnace, and charged them not to bring back any of the planters, excepting the governor and two or three others, whom he approved, but to leave them in the island; for the summer, he observed, was far spent, and therefore he would land all the planters is no other place. The sailors on board the pinnace, as well as those on board the ship, having tives in all parts of America. In the account of Cartier's voyage in 1535, we find it used in Canada. "There groweth a certaine kind of herbe, whereof in Sommer they make great provision for all the yeere, making great account of it, and onely men use of it, and first they cause it to be dried in the sunne, then weare it about their neckes wrapped in a little beastes skinne made like a little bagge, with a hollow peece of stone or wood like a pipe: then when they please they make pouder of it, and then put it in one of the ends of the said cornet or pipe, and laying a cole of fire upon it, at the other ende sucke so long, that they fill their bodies full of smoke, till that it commeth out of their mouth and nostrils, even as out of the tonnell of a chimney." Hakluyt, iii. 224. It was used copiously in Mexico, where the natives took it, not only in smoke at the mouth, but also in snuff at the nose. "In order to smoke it, they put the leaves with the gum of liquid amber, and other hot and odorous herbs, into a little pipe of wood or reed, or some other more valuable substance. They received the smoke by sucking the pipe and shutting the nostrils with their fingers, so that it might pass by the breath the more easily towards the lungs." was such a luxury, that the lords of Mexico were accustomed to compose themselves to sleep with it. Clavigero, i. 439. [See p. 48, note 2, of these Annals.] Clavigero says, "Tobacco is a name taken from the Haitine language." H4 It been been persuaded by the master to this measure, the governor, judging it best not to contend with them, proceeded to Roanoke. At sunset he landed with his men at that place in the island, where the fifteen men were left; but discovered no signs of them, excepting the bones of one man, who had been slain by the savages. The next day the governor and several of his company weut to the north end of the island, where governor Lane had erected his fort, and his men had bnilt several decent dwelling houses, the preceding year; hoping to find here some signs, if not the certain knowledge of the fif teen men. But, on coming to the place, and finding the fort rased, and all the houses, though standing unhurt, over-grown with weeds and vines, and deers feeding within them; they returned, in despair of ever seeing their looked for countrymen alive. Orders were given the same day for the repair of the houses, and for the erection of new cottages. All the colony, consisting of one hundred and seventeen persons, soon after landed, and commenced a second plantation. On the thirteenth of August, Manteo, a friendly Indian, who had been to England, was baptized in Roanoke, according to a previous order of Sir Walter Ralegh; and, in reward of his faithful service to the English, was called lord of Roanoke, and of Desamonguepeuk. On the eighteenth Mrs. Dare, a daughter of the governor, and wife of Ananias Dare (one of the Assistants), was delivered of a daughter in Roanoke, who was baptized the next Lord's day by the name of Virginia; because she was the first English child born in the country. On the twenty-seventh of August, at the urgent solicitation of the whole colony, the governor sailed for England to procure supplies; but of his countrymen, whom he left behind, nothing was ever afterward known 2. Thus terminated the exer 1 About a week afterward some of the English people going to Croatan were told by the Indians, that the 15 Englishmen, left by Grenville, were suprised by 30 Indians, who, having treacherously slain one of them, compelled the rest to repair to the house, containing their provisions and weapons, which the Indians instantly set on fire; that the English, leaving the house, skirmished with them above an hour; that in this skirmish, another of their number was shot into the mouth with an arrow, and died; that they retired fighting to the water side, where lay their boat, with which they fled toward Hatteras; that they landed on a little island on the right hand of the entrance into the harbour of Hatteras, where they remained awhile, and afterward departed, whither they knew not. Hakluyt, iii. 283, 284. 2 Hakluyt, iii. 280-287, where there is an entire account of this voyage, with the names of all the 117 settlers; of whom 91 were men, 17 women, and 9 children. The two natives (Manteo and Towaye), who went exertions of Ralegh, for colonizing Virginia, which proved unsuccessful, says Chalmers, "because the enterprize had been undertaken without sufficient information, because the project was new, and the means employed were not equal to the end." John Davis, having sailed the last year to Labrador 2, now made a third and very important voyage. Sailing from Dartmouth with three vessels 3, one only of which was destined for discovery, the other two for fishing, he proceeded again to that northern region; and on the thirtieth of June was in seventy-two degrees and twelve minutes north latitude, where the sun was five degrees above the horizon at midnight, and the needle varied twenty-eight degrees toward the west. The whole of that coast he called London Coast. Sailing sixty leagues up Cumberland Straits, he discovered a cluster of is lands, which he called Cumberland Islands. Having, on his passage back from the northern seas, discovered and named Lumley's Inlet he returned in September to England 4. The Spanish fleet, and the untimely death of secretary Walsingham, hindered the prosecution of these discoveries 5. went to England with Amadas and Barlow in 1584, returned with this, colony to Virginia. See Smith, Virg. 13, 14, Beverly, 13, 15. Stith, 47-50. Purchas, i. 755. Prince, Chron. Introd. 103. Belknap, Biog. i. 39. Stow, Chron. 1018. Brit. Emp. iii. 38. Harris, Voy. i. 815. Haz. i. 40, 41. 1 Political Annals, i. 515. 2 This voyage, like the other, was for the discovery of a Northwest passage; but Davis proceeded no farther than to 66 deg. 20 min. north lat. For an account of this second voyage, see Hakluyt, iii. 108-111. Harris, Voy, 580-582. Forster, Voy. 302-308. Purchas, i. 741. Univ. Hist. xli. 86, 101. Camden, Eliz. 324, 325. Belknap, Biog. i. 38. Forster considered this second voyage of Davis highly important; but "the great fault of it is, that in consequence of his not having named the countries he saw, it is very unintelligible." 3 "Two Barkes and a Clincher." Hakluyt. 4 Hakluyt, iii. 111.-118. Forster, Voy. 308-810. Purchas, i. 742. Univ. Hist. xli. 101. Brit. Emp. i. 2. Forster says, that Davis went farther to the north than any of his predecessors; and that, if the ice had not prevented him, he would certainly then have made the discovery which was afterward happily effected in 1616, by Baffin. 5 Purchas, i. 742, where "Master Secretary Walsingham" is styled "The epitome and summarie of human worthinesse." |