"Raleigh, undismayed by losses, determined to plant an agricultural state; to send emigrants with their wives and families, who should make their homes in the New World; and, that life and property might be secured, in January, 1587, he granted a charter for the settlement, and a municipal government for the city of 'Raleigh.' John White was appointed its governor; and to him, with eleven assistants, the administration of the colony was intrusted. Transport ships were prepared at the expense of the proprietary; 'Queen Elizabeth, the godmother of Virginia,' declined contributing 'to its education.' Embarking in April, in July they arrived on the coast of North Carolina; they were saved from the dangers of Cape Fear; and, passing Cape Hatteras, they hastened to the isle of Roanoke, to search for the handful of men whom Grenville had left there as a garrison. They found the tenements deserted and overgrown with weeds; human bones lay scattered on the field where wild deer were reposing. The fort was in ruins. No vestige of surviving life appeared. The instructions of Raleigh had designated the place for the new settlement on the bay of Chesapeake. But Fernando, the naval officer, eager to renew a profitable traffic in the West Indies, refused his assistance in exploring the coast, and White was compelled to remain on Roanoke. ... It was there that in July the foundations of the city of Raleigh were laid. But the colony was doomed to disaster from the beginning, being quickly involved in warfare with the surrounding natives. "With the returning ship White embarked for England, under the excuse of interceding for re-enforcements and supplies. {71} Yet, on the 18th of August, nine days previous to his departure, his daughter Eleanor Dare, the wife of one of the assistants, gave birth to a female child, the first offspring of English parents on the soil of the United States. The infant was named from the place of its birth. The colony, now composed of 89 men, 17 women, and two children, whose names are all preserved, might reasonably hope for the speedy return of the governor, as he left with them his daughter and his grandchild, Virginia Dare. The farther history of this plantation is involved in gloomy uncertainty. The inhabitants of 'the city of Raleigh,' the emigrants from England and the first-born of America, awaited death in the land of their adoption. For, when White reached England, he found its attention absorbed by the threats of an invasion from Spain. ... Yet Raleigh, whose patriotism did not diminish his generosity, found means, in April 1588, to despatch White with supplies in two vessels. But the company, desiring a gainful voyage rather than a safe one, ran in chase of prizes, till one of them fell in with men of war from Rochelle, and, after a bloody fight, was boarded and rifled.