The Sea: Its Stirring Story of Adventure, Peril, & Heroism. Volume 2Whymper, Frederick
History
The Sea: Its Stirring Story of Adventure, Peril, & Heroism. Volume 2
Whymper, Frederick
Adventure and adventurers; Arctic regions; Ocean; Voyages around the world
About one hundred men formed the first little colony landed in Virginia
from the expedition of Greenville in 1585. Raleigh, at his own expense,
sent a shipload of supplies for them next year, but before it arrived the
settlers, and the very Indians of whom such flattering accounts had been
given, had quarrelled, and so many of the former had fallen as to imperil
the existence of the colony; the survivors thought themselves fortunate
when Drake unexpectedly arrived off the coast, and took them away. When
Greenville reached the settlement, a couple of weeks after, they had left
no tidings of themselves, and, wishing to hold possession of the country,
he landed fifteen men, well furnished with all necessaries for two years’
use, on the island of Roanoake. This voyage paid its expenses by prizes
taken from the Spaniards, and by the plunder of the Azores on the way
home, where they spoiled “some of the towns of all such things as were
worth carriage.”
Raleigh, next season, fitted out a third expedition of three vessels, with
one hundred and fifty colonists, under the charge of John White, who was
to be Governor, with twelve chosen persons as assistants: their town was
to be named after himself. After narrowly escaping shipwreck, they arrived
off Roanoake, and White, taking the pinnace, went in search of the fifteen
men left in the preceding year, but “found none of them, nor any sign that
they had been there, saving only the bones of one of them, whom the
savages had slain long before.” Next day they proceeded to the western
side of the island, where they found the houses which had been erected
still standing, but the fort had been razed. They “were overgrown with
melons of divers sorts,” and deer were feeding on the melons. While they
were employed repairing these, and erecting others, one George Howe
wandered some two miles away, when a party of half-naked Indians, who were
engaged in catching crabs in the water, espied him. “They shot at him,
gave him sixteen wounds with their arrows, and after they had slain him
with their wooden swords, they beat his head in pieces, and fled over the
water to the main.” Captain Amadas had taken an Indian named Manteo to
England with him, and this man, now with White, was sent to the island of
Croatoan, where his tribe dwelt, to assure them of the friendship of the
English, and an understanding was established. It was ascertained that the
men left the preceding year had been treacherously attacked by hostile
natives, and that two had been killed, and their storehouse burned; the
remainder had successfully fought through the Indians to the water’s edge,
and had escaped in their boat, whither they knew not. Their fate was never
learned. Manteo’s friends entreated that a badge should be given them, as
some of them had been attacked and wounded the previous year by mistake.
Something similar occurred shortly afterwards, when the English, burning
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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