GOD PRESERVE THE NATION!

* * * * *

ROANOKE ISLAND.

THE SITE OF THE FIRST ENGLISH COLONY IN AMERICA.

    ’I know that historians do borrow of poets, not only much of their
    ornament but somewhat of their substance.’—­Raleigh’s History of
    the World.

The name of Roanoke Island awakens in the mind of every lover of American history, sentiments of veneration and respect.  It carries us back to the days of England’s great Queen, to ruffs and rapiers, and calls up the memories of the gallant but unfortunate Raleigh, and of the brave knights, Grenville, Lane, and White, men who made their mark in history even in that golden era of chivalry and enterprise.

Let us go back through the vista of nearly three centuries, and trace the history of this spot where our language was first spoken and written on this continent.  When we recall the first occupation of this island by the English, and picture to ourselves the Indians in their normal state, with their dress, habitations, and implements, so picturesque and unique, as well as the gallant gentlemen in the costume of that picturesque age, it seems almost to border on romance.  But there is a dark side to the picture.  The sombre veil of uncertainty hangs over the fate of two entire colonies, which, if lifted, would consecrate this spot to the extremes of suffering and bloodshed.  It was, no doubt, better to have these scenes buried in oblivion, and for each succeeding historian to fill up this chapter with his own fancies, than to be able to give the minute details of long days and months of probable famine, pestilence, war, captivity, and torture, which have occurred here or in the immediate vicinity.  The certain knowledge of them would have awakened in their countrymen sentiments of retaliation and vengeance, and a fearful retribution would have been meted but to the natives, and have fallen upon the innocent as well as the guilty.

It was not until about the commencement of the sixteenth century that England could be considered one of the great maritime powers in Europe.  Although Henry the Seventh had authorized Cabot to prosecute a voyage of discovery as early as 1497, in which he discovered the continent, thus actually anticipating Columbus, who did not discover it till the succeeding year, no real attempts at colonization took place until a century afterward.  In 1578, Sir Humphrey Gilbert obtained a patent from Queen Elizabeth to colonize such parts of North-America as were not then occupied by any of her allies.  Soon after, he, assisted and accompanied by his step-brother, Sir Walter Raleigh, fitted out an expedition and sailed for America; but they were intercepted by a Spanish fleet, and returned unsuccessful.