Читать книгу England in America, 1580-1652 - Lyon Gardiner Tyler - Страница 11

Table of Contents

(1583–1602)

Preparations for Gilbert's second and fateful expedition now went forward, and public interest was much aroused by the return of Drake, in 1580, laden with the spoils of America. Gilbert invited Raleigh to accompany him as vice-admiral, but the queen would not let him accept.1 Indeed, she seemed to have a presentiment that all would not go well, and when the arrangements for the voyage were nearing completion she caused her secretary of state, Walsingham, to let Gilbert also know that, "of her special care" for him, she wished his stay at home "as a man noted of no good hap by sea."2 But the queen's remark only proved her desire for Gilbert's safety; and she soon after sent him word that she wished him as "great goodhap and safety to his ship as if herself were there in person," and requested his picture as a keepsake.3 The fleet of Sir Humphrey Gilbert, consisting of five ships bearing two hundred and sixty men, sailed from Plymouth June 11, 1583, and the "mishaps" which the queen feared soon overtook them. After scarcely two days of voyage the ship sent by Raleigh, the best in the fleet, deserted. Two more ships got separated, and the crew of one of them, freed from Gilbert's control, turned pirates and plundered a French ship which fell in their way. Nevertheless, Gilbert pursued his course, and on August 3, 1583, he reached the harbor of St. John's in Newfoundland, where he found the two missing ships. Gilbert showed his commission to the fishing vessels, of which there were no fewer than thirty-six of all nations in port, and their officers readily recognized his authority. Two days later he took possession of the country in the name of Queen Elizabeth, and as an indication of the national sovereignty to all men he caused the arms of England engraved on lead to be fixed on a pillar of wood on the shore side.

Mishaps did not end with the landing in Newfoundland. The emigrants who sailed with Gilbert were better fitted for a crusade than a colony, and, disappointed at not at once finding mines of gold and silver, many deserted; and soon there were not enough sailors to man all the four ships. Accordingly, the Swallow was sent back to England with the sick; and with the remainder of the fleet, well supplied at St. John's with fish and other necessaries, Gilbert (August 20) sailed south as far as forty-four degrees north latitude. Off Sable Island a storm assailed them, and the largest of the vessels, called the Delight, carrying most of the provisions, was driven on a rock and went to pieces.

Overwhelmed by this terrible misfortune, the colonists returned to Newfoundland, where, yielding to his crew, Gilbert discontinued his explorations, and on August 31 changed the course of the two ships remaining, the Squirrel and Golden Hind, directly for England. The story of the voyage back is most pathetic. From the first the sea was boisterous; but to entreaties that he should abandon the Squirrel, a little affair of ten tons, and seek his own safety in the Hind, a ship of much larger size, Gilbert replied, "No, I will not forsake my little company going homeward, with whom I have passed so many storms and perils." Even then, amid so much danger, his spirit rose supreme, and he actually planned for the spring following two expeditions, one to the south and one to the north; and when some one asked him how he expected to meet the expenses in so short a time, he replied, "Leave that to me, and I will ask a penny of no man."

A terrible storm arose, but Gilbert retained the heroic courage and Christian faith which had ever distinguished him. As often as the Hind, tossed upon the waves, approached within hailing distance of the Squirrel, the gallant admiral, "himself sitting with a book in his hand" on the deck, would call out words of cheer and consolation—"We are as near heaven by sea as by land." When night came on (September 10) only the lights in the riggings of the Squirrel told that the noble Gilbert still survived. At midnight the lights went out suddenly, and from the watchers on the Hind the cry arose, "The admiral is cast away." And only the Golden Hind returned to England.4

The mantle of Gilbert fell upon the shoulders of his half-brother Sir Walter Raleigh, whose energy and versatility made him, perhaps, the foremost Englishman of his age. When the Hind returned from her ill-fated voyage Raleigh was thirty-one years of age and possessed a person at once attractive and commanding. He was tall and well proportioned, had thick, curly locks, beard, and mustaches, full, red lips, bluish gray eyes, high forehead, and a face described as "long and bold."

By service in France, the Netherlands, and Ireland he had shown himself a soldier of the same fearless stamp as his half-brother Sir Humphrey Gilbert; and he was already looked upon as a seaman of splendid powers for organization. Poet and scholar, he was the patron of Edmund Spenser, the famous author of the Faerie Queene; of Richard Hakluyt, the naval historian; of Le Moyne and John White, the painters; and of Thomas Hariot, the great mathematician.

Expert in the art of gallantry, Raleigh won his way to the queen's heart by deftly placing between her feet and a muddy place his new plush coat. He dared the extremity of his political fortunes by writing on a pane of glass which the queen must see, "Fain would I climb, but fear I to fall." And she replied with an encouraging—"If thy heart fail thee, climb not at all." The queen's favor developed into magnificent gifts of riches and honor, and Raleigh received various monopolies, many forfeited estates, and appointments as lord warden of the stannaries, lieutenant of the county of Cornwall, vice-admiral of Cornwall and Devon, and captain of the queen's guard.

The manner in which Raleigh went about the work of colonization showed remarkable forethought and system. In order to enlist the active cooperation of the court and gentry, he induced Richard Hakluyt to write for him, in 1584, his Discourse on Western Planting, which he circulated in manuscript.5 He not only received from the queen in 1584 a patent similar to Gilbert's,6 but by obtaining a confirmation from Parliament in 1585 he acquired a national sanction which Gilbert's did not possess.7

In imitation of Gilbert he sent out first an exploring expedition commanded by Arthur Barlow and Philip Amidas; but, warned by his brother's experience, he directed them to go southward. They left the west of England April 27, 1584, and arrived upon the coast of North Carolina July 4, where they passed into Ocracoke Inlet south of Cape Hatteras. There, landing on an island called Wokokon—part of the broken outer coast—Barlow and Amidas took possession in the right of the queen and Sir Walter Raleigh.8

Several weeks were spent in exploring Pamlico Sound, which they found dotted with many small islands, the largest of which, sixteen miles long, called by the Indians Roanoke Island, was fifty miles north of Wokokon. About the middle of September, 1584, they returned to England and reported as the name of the new country "Wincondacoa," which the Indians at Wokokon had cried when they saw the white men, meaning "What pretty clothes you wear!" The queen, however, was proud of the new discovery, and suggested that it should be called, in honor of herself, "Virginia."

Pleased at the report of his captains, Sir Walter displayed great energy in making ready a fleet of seven ships, which sailed from Plymouth April 9, 1585. They carried nearly two hundred settlers, and the three foremost men on board were Sir Richard Grenville, the commander of the fleet; Thomas Cavendish, the future circumnavigator of the globe; and Captain Ralph Lane, the designated governor of the new colony. The fleet went the usual way by the West Indies, and June 20 "fell in with the maine of Florida," and June 26 cast anchor at Wokokon.

After a month the fleet moved out again to sea, and passing by Cape Hatteras entered a channel now called New Inlet. August 17, the colony was landed on Roanoke Island, and eight days later Grenville weighed anchor for England. On the way back Grenville met a Spanish ship "richly loaden," and captured her, "boording her with a boate made with boards of chests, which fell asunder, and sunke at the ships side, as soone as euer he and his men were out of it." October 18, 1585, he arrived with his prize at Plymouth, in England, where he was received with great honor and rejoicing.9

The American loves to connect the beginnings of his country with a hero like Grenville. He was one of the English admirals who helped to defeat the Spanish Armada, and nothing in naval warfare is more memorable than his death. In an expedition led by Lord Charles Howard in 1591 against the Spanish plate-fleet, Grenville was vice-admiral, and he opposed his ship single-handed against five great Spanish galleons, supported at intervals by ten others, and he fought them during nearly fifteen hours. Then Grenville's vessel was so battered that it resembled rather a skeleton than a ship, and of the crew few were to be seen but the dead and dying. Grenville himself was captured mortally wounded, and died uttering these words, "Here die I, Richard Grenville, with a joyful and quiet mind, for that I have ended my life, as a true soldier ought to do, fighting for his country, queen, religion, and honor."10

Of the settlers at Roanoke during the winter after their landing nothing is recorded, but the prospect in the spring was gloomy. Lane made extensive explorations for gold-mines and for the South Sea, and found neither. The natives laid a plot to massacre the settlers, but Lane's soldierly precaution saved the colonists. Grenville was expected to return with supplies by Easter, but Easter passed and there was no news. In order to get subsistence, Lane divided his men into three parties, of which one remained at Roanoke Island and the other two were sent respectively to Hatteras and to Croatoan, an island just north of Wokokon.

Not long after Sir Francis Drake, returning from sacking San Domingo, Cartagena, and St. Augustine, appeared in sight with a superb fleet of twenty-three sail. He succored the imperilled colonists with supplies, and offered to take them back to England. Lane and the chief men, disheartened at the prospects, abandoned the island, and July 28, 1586, the colonists arrived at Plymouth in Drake's ships, having lost but four men during the whole year of their stay.11

A day or two after the departure of the colonists a ship sent by Raleigh arrived, and about fourteen or fifteen days later came three ships under Sir Richard Grenville, Raleigh's admiral. Grenville spent some time beating up and down Pamlico Sound, hunting for the colony, and finally returned to England, leaving fifteen men behind at Roanoke to retain possession.12 This was the second settlement.

The colonists who returned in Drake's ships brought back to Raleigh two vegetable products which he speedily popularized. One was the potato,13 which Raleigh planted on his estate in Ireland, and the other was tobacco, called by the natives "uppowoc," which he taught the courtiers to smoke.

Most of the settlers who went with Lane were mere gold-hunters, but there were two who would have been valuable to any society—the mathematician Thomas Hariot, who surveyed the country and wrote an account of the settlement; and John White, who made more than seventy beautiful water-colors representing the dress of the Indians and their manner of living. When the engraver De Bry came to England in 1587 he made the acquaintance of Hakluyt, who introduced him to John White, and the result was that De Bry was induced to turn Hariot's account of Virginia into the first part of his celebrated Peregrinations, illustrating it from the surveys of Hariot and the paintings of John White.14

If Raleigh was disappointed with his first attempt at colonization he was encouraged by the good report of Virginia given by Lane and Hariot, and in less than another year he had a third fleet ready to sail. He meant to make this expedition more of a colony than Lane's settlement at Roanoke, and selected as governor the painter John White, who could appreciate the natural productions of the country. And among the one hundred and fifty settlers who sailed from Plymouth May 8, 1587, were some twenty-five women and children.

The instructions of Raleigh required them to proceed to Chesapeake Bay, of which the Indians had given Lane an account on his previous voyage, only stopping at Roanoke for the fifteen men that Grenville had left there; but when they reached Roanoke Simon Ferdinando, the pilot, refused to carry them any farther, and White established his colony at the old seating-place. None of Grenville's men could be found, and it was afterwards learned that they had been suddenly attacked by the Indians, who killed one man and so frightened the rest as to cause them to take to sea in a row-boat, which was never heard of again.

Through Manteo, a friendly Indian, White tried to re-establish amicable relations with the natives, and for his faithful services Manteo was christened and proclaimed "Lord of Roanoke and Dasamon-guepeuk"; but the Indians, with the exception of the tribe of Croatoan, to which Manteo belonged, declined to make friends. August 18, five days after the christening of Manteo, Eleanor Dare, daughter to the governor and wife of Ananias Dare, one of White's council, was delivered of a daughter, and this child, Virginia, was the first Christian born in the new realm.15

When his granddaughter was only ten days old Governor White went to England for supplies. He reached Hampton November 8, 1587.16 He found affairs in a turmoil. England was threatened with the great Armada, and Raleigh, Grenville, Lane, and all the other friends of Virginia were exerting their energies for the protection of their homes and firesides.17 Indeed, the rivalry of England and Spain had reached its crisis; for at this time all the hopes of Protestant Christendom were centred in England, and within her borders the Protestant refugees from all countries found a place of safety and repose. In 1585 the Dutch, still carrying on their struggle with Spain, had offered Queen Elizabeth the sovereignty of the Netherlands, and, though she declined it, she sent an army to their assistance. The French Huguenots also looked to her for support and protection. Spain, on the other hand, as the representative of all Catholic Europe, had never appeared so formidable. By the conquest of Portugal in 1580 her king had acquired control over the East Indies, which were hardly less valuable than the colonies of Spain; and with the money derived from both the Spanish and Portuguese possessions Philip supported his armies in Italy and the Netherlands, and was the mainstay of the pope at Rome, the Guises in France, and the secret plotters in Scotland and Ireland of rebellion against the authority of Elizabeth.

This wide distribution of power was, however, an inherent weakness which created demands enough to exhaust the treasury even of Philip, and he instinctively recognized in England a danger which must be promptly removed. England must be subdued, and Philip, determining on an invasion, collected a powerful army at Bruges, in Flanders, and an immense fleet in the Tagus, in Spain. For the attack he selected a time when Amsterdam, the great mart of the Netherlands, had fallen before his general the duke of Palma; when the king of France had become a prisoner of the Guises; and when the frenzied hatred of the Catholic world was directed against Elizabeth for the execution of Mary, queen of Scots.

How to meet and repel this immense danger caused many consultations on the part of Elizabeth and her statesmen, and at first they inclined to make the defence by land only. But Raleigh, like Themistocles at Athens under similar conditions, urgently advised dependence on a well-equipped fleet, and after some hesitation his advice was followed. Then every effort was strained to bring into service every ship that could be found or constructed in time within the limits of England, so that in May, 1588, when Philip's huge Armada set sail from the Tagus, a numerous English fleet was ready to dispute its onward passage. A great battle was fought soon after in the English Channel, and there Lord Charles Howard of Effingham, and Raleigh and Drake and Hawkins joined with Grenville and Cavendish and Frobisher and Lane, and all the other glorious heroes of England, in the mighty overthrow of the Spanish enemy.18

Under the inspiration of this tremendous victory the Atlantic Ocean during the next three years swarmed with English cruisers, and more than eight hundred Spanish ships fell victims to their attacks. So great was the destruction that the coast of Virginia abounded in the wreckage.19 But the way to a successful settlement in America was not entirely opened until eight years later, when the English fleet, under Howard, Raleigh, and Essex, completed the destruction of the Spanish power by another great naval victory won in the harbor of Cadiz.

Amid all this excitement and danger Raleigh did not forget his colony in Virginia. Twice he sent relief expeditions; but the first was stopped because in the struggle with Spain all the ships were demanded for government service; and the second was so badly damaged by the Spanish cruisers that it could not continue its voyage. Raleigh had spent £40,000 in his several efforts to colonize Virginia, and the burden became too heavy for him to carry alone. As Hakluyt said, "It required a prince's purse to have the action thoroughly followed out." He therefore consented, in 1589, to assign a right to trade in Virginia to Sir Thomas Smith, John White, Richard Hakluyt, and others, reserving a fifth of all the gold and silver extracted, and they raised means for White's last voyage to Virginia.20

It was not until March, 1591, that Governor White was able to put to sea again. He reached Roanoke Island August 17, and, landing, visited the point where he had placed the settlement. As he climbed the sandy bank he noticed, carved upon a tree in Roman letters, "CRO," without a cross, and White called to mind that three years before, when he left for England, it had been agreed that if the settlers ever found it necessary to remove from the island they were to leave behind them some such inscription, and to add a cross if they left in danger or distress. A little farther on stood the fort, and there White read on one of the trees an inscription in large capital letters, "Croatoan." This left no doubt that the colony had moved to the island of that name south of Cape Hatteras and near Ocracoke Inlet. He wished the ships to sail in that direction, but a storm arose, and the captains, dreading the dangerous shoals of Pamlico Sound, put to sea and returned to England without ever visiting Croatoan.21 White never came back to America, and his separation from the colony is heightened in tragic effect by the loss of his daughter and granddaughter.

What became of the settlers at Roanoke has been a frequent subject of speculation. When Jamestown was established, in 1607, the search for them was renewed, but nothing definite could be learned. There is, indeed, a story told by Strachey that the unfortunate colonists, finally abandoning all hope, intermixed with the Indians at Croatoan, and after living with them till about the time of the arrival at Jamestown were, at the instigation of Powhatan, cruelly massacred. Only seven of them—four men, two boys, and a young maid—were preserved by a friendly chief, and from these, as later legends have declared, descended a tribe of Indians found in the vicinity of Roanoke Island in the beginning of the eighteenth century and known as the Hatteras Indians.22

Sir Walter Raleigh will always be esteemed the true parent of North American colonization, for though the idea did not originate with him he popularized it beyond any other man. Just as he made smoking fashionable at the court of Elizabeth, so the colonization of Virginia—that is, of the region from Canada to Florida—was made fashionable through his example. His enterprise caused the advantages of America's soil and climate to be appreciated in England, and he was the first to fix upon Chesapeake Bay as the proper place of settlement.

When James I succeeded Elizabeth on the throne Raleigh lost his influence at court, and nearly all the last years of his life were spent a prisoner in the Tower of London, where he wrote his History of the World. In 1616 he was temporarily released by the king on condition of his finding a gold-mine in Guiana. When he returned empty-handed he was, on the complaint of the Spanish ambassador, arrested, sentenced to death, and executed on an old verdict of the jury, now recognized to have been based on charges trumped up by political enemies.23

Raleigh never relinquished hope in America. In 1595 he made a voyage to Guiana, and in 1602 sent out Samuel Mace to Virginia—the third of Mace's voyages thither. In 1603, just before his confinement in the Tower, he wrote to Sir Robert Cecil regarding the rights which he had in that country, and used these memorable words, "I shall yet live to see it an English nation."24

1 (return) [ Edwards, Life of Raleigh, I., 81, II., 10.]

2 (return) [ Cal. of State Pap., Col., 1574–1674, p. 17.]

3 (return) [ Edwards, Life of Raleigh, I., 82.]

4 (return) [ Hakluyt, Voyages, III., 184–208.]

5 (return) [ Stevens, Thomas Hariot, 43–48.]

6 (return) [ For the patent, see Hakluyt, Voyages, III., 297–301.]

7 (return) [ Brown, Genesis of the United States, I., 13.]

8 (return) [ Hakluyt, Voyages, III., 301.]

9 (return) [ Hakluyt, Voyages, III., 302–310.]

10 (return) [ Edwards, Life of Raleigh, I., 144–145.]

11 (return) [ Hakluyt, Voyages, III., 322, IV., 10.]

12 (return) [ Hakluyt, Voyages, III., 323, 340.]

13 (return) [ Edwards, Life of Raleigh, I., 106.]

14 (return) [ Stevens, Thomas Hariot, 55–62.]

15 (return) [ Hakluyt, Voyages, III., 340–345.]

16 (return) [ Ibid., 346, 347.]

17 (return) [ Brown, Genesis of the United States, I., 19.]

18 (return) [ Edwards, Life of Raleigh, I., 111.]

19 (return) [ Brown, Genesis of the United States, I., 20.]

20 (return) [ Stebbins, Life of Raleigh, 47.]

21 (return) [ Hakluyt, Voyages, III., 350–357.]

22 (return) [ Strachey, Travaile into Virginia, 26, 85.]

23 (return) [ Edwards, Life of Raleigh, I., 706, 721.]

24 (return) [ Ibid., 91.]