The “evils and unfortunate events” attending this expedition, “as well to their owne losse as to the hindrance of the planters of Virginia,” he wrote Richard Hakluyt, “had not chanced if the order set downe by Sir Walter Ralegh had bene observed, or if my dayly & continuall petitions for the performance of the same might have taken any place.” And “thus,” he sorrowfully concludes, “you may plainely perceive the successe of my fift & last voiage to Virginia, which was no lesse unfortunately ended than frowardly begun, and as lucklesse to many as sinister to my self. But I would to God it had bene as prosperous to all, as noysome to the planters, & as joyfull to me as discomfortable to them. Yet seeing it is not my first crossed voyage, I remaine contented. And wanting my wishes, I leave off from prosecuting that whereunto I would to God my wealth were answerable to my will.” With this letter, written “from my house at Newtowne in Kylmore the 4 of February 1593,” White took leave of the matter, committing “the planters in Virginia to the merciful help of the Almighty.” He could do no more. From this time he seems to have remained in retirement in Ireland till the close of his life. Of the fate of the Lost Colony conjectures of historians have been various. That they did actually replant themselves on the then existing “island of Croatoan,” presumed to have been some part of the banks lying between Capes Lookout and Hatteras, and in the present county of Carteret, is accepted as fairly proved by White’s finding of the inscription on the “chiefe tree” of the palisado at Roanoke. No further clue to the mystery of their passing is to be found, unless it be in this statement made a century and a quarter afterward by an early historian of Carolina (Lawson, 1714): “The Hatteras Indians who lived in Roanoke Island, or much frequented it, tell us that several of their ancestors were white people who could talk in a book as we do.” Perhaps a remnant that survived massacre, misery, or homesickness were, as this statement implies, and the later Carolina historian, Hawkes, assumed, gradually incorporated with these friendly Indians and faded from civilization into the savage life. XXII JAMESTOWN