sail." For some reason not well explained, the fleet made a circuit to the West Indies, and loitered for five weeks at the island of St. John's and at Hispaniola, reaching Virginia in the last days of June. Quarrels between the two commanders, Grenville and Lane, had already begun, and both seemed equally ready to provoke the enmity of the natives. In August, after exploring some sixty miles of the coast, Grenville returned to England, promising to come back the next spring with new colonists and stores. The settlement, thus left to the care of Lane, was established "at the north-east corner of the island of Roanoke, whence the settlers could command the strait. There, even now, choked by vines and underwood, and here and there broken by the crumbling remains of an earthen bastion, may be traced the outlines of the ditch which enclosed the camp, some forty yards square, the home of the first English settlers in the New World. Of the doings of the settlers during the winter nothing is recorded, but by the next spring their prospects looked gloomy. The Indians were no longer friends. ... The settlers, unable to make fishing weirs, and without seed corn, were entirely dependent on the Indians for their daily food. Under these circumstances, one would have supposed that Lane would have best employed himself in guarding the settlement and improving its condition. He, however, thought otherwise, and applied himself to the task of exploring the neighbouring territory." But a wide combination of hostile Indian tribes had been formed against the English, and their situation became from day to day more imperilled. At the beginning of June, 1586, Lane fought a bold battle with the savages and routed them; but no sign of Grenville appeared and the prospect looked hopeless. Just at this juncture, a great English fleet, sailing homewards from a piratical expedition to the Spanish Main, under the famous Captain Drake, came to anchor at Roanoke and offered succor to the disheartened colonists. With one voice they petitioned to be taken to England, and Drake received the whole party on board his ships. "The help of which the colonists had despaired was in reality close at hand. Scarcely had Drake's fleet left the coast when a ship well furnished by Raleigh with needful supplies, reached Virginia, and after searching for the departed settlers returned to England. About a fortnight later Grenville himself arrived with three ships. He spent some time in the country exploring, searching for the settlers, and at last, unwilling to lose possession of the country, landed fifteen men at Roanoke well supplied for two years, and then set sail for England, plundering the Azores, and doing much damage to the Spaniards." _J. A. Doyle, The English in America: Virginia, &c., chapter 4_.