during the brief remainder of his life, he wore conspicuously upon his breast. There were five sail in all, and two hundred and sixty men, including artisans and refiners for the precious metals which it was expected to find. They had on board, says one of the captains, "Musike in great variety; not omitting the least toyes, as Morris-dancers, hobby-horse, and the like conceits, to delight the savage people, whom we intended to win by all faire means possible." The first destination of the fleet was Newfoundland. On the 11th of June, 1583, Raleigh, in his own vessel, set sail; but after a few days was compelled to return by the breaking out of a contagious fever, which attacked nearly the whole ship's company. Sir Humphrey, with the remainder of the squadron, proceeded to Newfoundland, of which he took formal possession, by digging up a turf, in the queen's name. He discovered a silver mine, and freighted one of his vessels with the ore, but she was lost on the return passage. After planting a small colony there, the fleet set sail to the eastward, and was soon involved in terrible storms and tempests. Sir Humphrey had chosen to sail in a little vessel called the Squirrel, a mere cockle-shell in size, the smallest in the squadron. In vain did the officers of the Hinde, the largest, entreat him, in this dangerous weather, to shift his flag aboard their ship. He came on board, for a convivial meeting, but returned to his slender craft, saying, "I will not desert my little company, with whom I have passed so many storms and perils." The weather grew heavier and heavier; the oldest sailors declaring that they had never seen such seas-"breaking very high," says a spectator, "and pyramid-wise"-the very worst sea that is known. Lights were burned at night, and the little Squirrel, for a long time, was seen gallantly contending with the waves, which almost ingulfed her. Once she came. so near that they of the Hinde could see Sir Humphrey sitting by the mainmast, with a book in his hand, reading. He looked up, and cried cheerily, "We are as near heaven by water as by land!" But the seas broke over her more heavily; all at once the lights were extinguished; and in the morning, nothing was seen of the good Sir Humphrey or his little ship. She had doubtless been whelmed by the toppling down of some huge pyramid of water. Such was the melancholy but honorable end of one of the worthiest and most persevering patrons of English enterprise. He perished in the pursuance of his own exalted maxim: "That he is not worthy to live at all, who, for fear or danger of death, shunneth his country's service, or his own honor; for death is inevitable and fame immortal." Undismayed by the loss of his brother, and the misfortunes of the expedition, Raleigh immediately prepared for a fresh enterprise; and, by his court-interest, obtained letters-patent from the queen, empowering him to discover and colonize "such remote, heathen, and barbarous lands as are not actually possessed by any Christian, nor inhabited by any Christian people." No particular part of the world was specified in this somewhat extensive grant. Accordingly, in 1584, he fitted out two vessels at his own charge, under the command of Amidas and Barlow, experienced captains, and dispatched them to the coast of North America. They were two months in getting there by the cir cuitous passage of the Canaries and the West Indies—which, strange to say, for many years was supposed to be the only practicable route. They reached the coast of Carolina, penetrated Ocracoke inlet, and took formal possession in the name of their sovereign. No settlement was at this time attempted, but they brought a favorable report of the soil and climate; and Raleigh, by the royal command, bestowed on his new acquisition the name of "Virginia," in honor of the "Maiden Queen." This term, since restricted to a single state, was for a long time applied by the English to nearly all the eastern provinces. An hundred and eight men, under Sir Ralph Lane, were sent out, the next year, to form a colony. They settled on the island of Roanoke, but, after a year's stay, returned, dis appointed in their hopes, to England.* Sir Richard Grenville, in 1586, left fifty men there; but they perished miserably, and their remains were afterwards discovered, a wretched spectacle, among the ruins of their habitations. Again and again did the indefatigable Raleigh dispatch expeditions to colonize the distant region, which, with a prophetic eye, he saw destined to such future greatness. All proved disastrous, and, after having sent out four fleets, and expended forty thousand pounds of his estate on the enterprise, he was compelled to relinquish it, and to assign most of his rights to certain merchants of London. In 1587 a single child, named, in honor of the country, Virginia, had been born there; but great numbers of the unfortunate settlers perished from want, disease, and the attacks of the savages. This colony, it would seem, was entirely destroyed. The attempt, so repeatedly disastrous, was finally relinquished, and "all hopes of Virginia thus abandoned," says a later adventurer, "it lay dead and obscured from 1590 till this year 1602." At that time, Bartholomew Gosnold made his voyage across the Atlantic, and, after an absence of four months, returned with a cargo of sassafras. Other commercial expeditions, moderately successful, ensued, and in 1604 the scheme of Virginian colonization was revived. But before entering on a relation of this, the first successful attempt to plant an English colony on the shores of the New World, it is proper to give some account of that renowned pioneer, whose name is so inseparably connected with the early history of America. His life, detailed mainly by his own pen, with modest quaintness, presents a series of exploits and adventures, perhaps the most marvellous recorded in biography. * "At Aquascogoc," says Sir Ralph, "the Indians stole a Siluer Cup, wherefore we burnt the Towne and spoyled their corne," &c. A fair sample of the usual conduct of all European settlers. CHAPTER II. CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH-HIS YOUTHFUL SPIRIT OF ADVENTURE-SERVES IN HOLLAND-TURNS HERMIT-HIS ADVENTURES IN FRANCE-DIS- TO EGYPT-SEA-FIGHT-TRAVELS IN ITALY, ETC.-FIGHTS CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH, the most famous of Anglo-American adventurers, was born of an ancient and honorable family, at Willoughby, in Lincolnshire, in the year 1579. From his boyhood, he was of a daring and enterprising spirit. At the age of thirteen, to use the language of his narrative, (which, like Cæsar's, runs modestly in the third person,) "his mind being set on brave adventures, he sould his Satchell, bookes, and all he had, intending secretly to get to Sea, but that his fathers death stayed him." His guardians bound him apprentice to one Sendall, of Lynn, "the greatest merchant of all those parts; but because hee would not presently send him to Sea, he never sawe his master in eight yeers afterwards." Quitting the counting-house, he went to France with his young patron, the son of Lord Willoughby, and thence passed into the Low Countries, then distracted by the wars with the Spaniards. Here he entered the service of an English adventurer, Capt. Joseph Duxbury, and served with him for three or four years-under Prince Maurice, it is probable, in his gallant and successful struggle for the independence of the Netherlands. Thence he sailed for Scotland, and, after shipwreck and dangerous illness at the Holy Isle, arrived at his destination. Disappointed in his hopes of preferment at the Scottish court, he returned to Willoughby, "where," to use his own words, "within a short time, being glutted with too much company, wherein he took small delight, he retired himselfe into a little woodie pasture, a goode way from any towne, in vironed with many hundred Acres of other woodes; Here, by a faire Brooke, he built a Pavillion of boughes, where only in |