the ears of their countrymen.  White, with his three ships, returned, and the colonization of Virginia was for a time at an end.  Even Raleigh’s indomitable spirit gave way, and he seems henceforth to have abandoned all hope of a plantation.  Yet he did not, till after fifteen years of disappointment and failure, give up the search for his lost settlers.  Before he died the great work of his life had been accomplished, but by other hands.  In spite of the intrigues of the Spanish court and the scoffs of playwrights, Virginia had been settled and had become a flourishing colony.  A ship had sailed into London laden with Virginia goods, and an Indian princess,[4] the wife of an Englishman, had been received at court, and had for a season furnished wonder and amusement to the fashionable world.

    [1] From Doyle’s “English Colonies in America.”  By permission of
    the publishers, Henry Holt & Co.

[2] Sir Humphrey Gilbert, a half-brother of Raleigh, is here referred to.  In 1578 he had obtained royal permission to found a colony in America, but his expedition, after starting, turned back, a failure.  In 1588 he again set out, landing at St. John’s, Newfoundland, where he established the first English colony in North America.  On returning home his ship was lost in a storm off the Azores.

    [3] See in the next chapter an account of Lane’s return with Drake.

[4] Pocahontas, married to John Rolfe, went to England with Rolfe and there died about a year later.  She left a son who returned to Virginia, where he left descendants, among whom was the famous John Randolph of Roanoke.  John Smith’s account of the saving of his life by Pocahontas is printed in Volume I of “The Best of the World’s Classics.”

II

THE RETURN OF THE COLONISTS WITH SIR FRANCIS DRAKE

(1586)

BY RALPH LANE[1]

This fell out the first of June, 1586, and the eight of the same came advertisement to me from captaine Stafford, lying at my lord Admirals Island, that he had discovered a great fleet of three and twentie sailes:  but whether they were friends or foes, he could not yet discerne.  He advised me to stand upon as good guard as I could.

The ninth of the sayd moneth he himselfe came unto me, having that night before, and that same day travelled by land twenty miles:  and I must truely report of him from the first to the last; hee was the gentleman that never spared labour or perill either by land or water, faire weather or foule, to performe any service committed unto him.

He brought me a letter from the Generall Sir Francis Drake, with a most bountifull and honourable offer for the supply of our necessities to the performance of the action wee were entred into; and that not only of victuals, munition, and clothing, but also of barks, pinnesses, and boats; they also by him to be victualled, manned and furnished to my contentation.