In 1583, they equipped a new squadron, in which Raleigh did not embark.  This enterprise failed, and Sir Humphrey perished at sea.  Still Raleigh was not disheartened.  He had been a soldier in the religious war then raging in France, and associated with the Protestant admiral, Coligny, and many of his officers, whose ill-fated colony met so bloody a fate near the river St. John.  Doubtless, during his intercourse with these men, their experience in Florida often became the theme of discourse, and it may be that from it he imbibed that passion for discovery and colonization in America, which ended only with his life.  He doubtless learned of the voyage of Verranzo, who, in the employ of France, had, in 1524, coasted from Cape Fear to Rhode Island; but still our shores were hardly more than a myth, and the country north of the peninsula of Florida a terra incognita.  Early in 1584, Raleigh, then a gallant courtier, received a grant from Elizabeth to ’discover and find out such remote and heathen lands, not actually possessed or inhabited by any Christian King, or his subjects, and there to have, hold, fortify, and possess, in fee-simple to him and his associates and their heirs forever, with privileges of allegiance to the crown of all that might there reside; they and their descendants.’

This grant would apply to any portion of the globe not claimed or inhabited by the subjects of a Christian prince.  The grant bears date March 25th, in the twenty-sixth year of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, 1584.  Raleigh anticipated its passing the great seal, and probably had for some months been making preparations for a voyage of discovery under this patent.  So energetic was he, that two barks were prepared and dispatched from the west of England on the 27th of April.  They were under the commands of Captains Amidas and Barlow, with Simeon Fernando as pilot, who, it may be presumed from the name, was a Spaniard, and no doubt had been on this coast before.  They took the route by way of the Canaries and West-India Islands, and by the tenth of May had reached the former, and by the tenth of June the latter, where they staid twelve days.

Continuing their voyage, on the second of July they found shoal water, where they say[K]:  ’We smelled so sweet and strange a smell, as if we had been in the midst of a delicate garden, abounding with all kinds of odoriferous herbs and flowers, so we were assured that the land could not be far distant; and keeping good watch, and bearing but slack sail, the fourth of the same month we arrived upon the coast, which we supposed to be a continent, and firm land; and we sailed along the same a hundred and twenty miles, before we could find any entrance or river issuing into the sea.’

They entered the first inlet which appeared, ’but not without difficulty, and anchored on the left-hand side.’  Subsequent historians have written much to settle the long-disputed question, by what channel or inlet the earliest English navigators entered.  After a careful examination of the early and of later authorities, and with some practical acquaintance with the localities, I am of the opinion that they must have entered by what is now known as Hatteras Inlet.  ’The island twenty miles long and not over six miles broad,’ was that part of the banks or shore between this inlet and that now known as Ocracoke.