13

PRINCIPAL NAVIGATIONS

WHEN THE BEDRAGGLED Roanoke colonists arrived back in England at the end of July 1586, after just one year in Ralegh’s Virginia, they found England in a state of high tension as a result of the undeclared war with Spain. Sir Francis Drake’s tormenting of Spanish colonies had provoked outrage across the Iberian Peninsula. “Monstrous robbery” is the way Mendoza—who was now stationed in Paris, having been expelled from London for plotting to overthrow Elizabeth—characterized Drake’s actions.¹

But El Draque was not the only marauding English sea captain harassing the Spanish. Elizabeth issued hundreds of letters of marque, or reprisal, permitting profit-hungry merchants to use their privately owned ships to capture Spanish vessels and seize their goods, ostensibly in recompense for losses of goods or shipping that they themselves had suffered at the hands of the Spanish or Portuguese. These privateers—or “voluntaries” as they were called at the time—often exceeded their commission and essentially waged an incessant, warlike campaign of harassment up and down the Spanish coast and across the Atlantic.²

Soon after Elizabeth let loose this de facto navy, Philip retaliated by declaring a prohibition on any voyage to the West Indies that did not originate from the Spanish port of Seville. The ban was virtually unenforceable, and the privateering activity grew so rampant that Mendoza could scarcely keep track of it all. In November, he wrote an extensive report to Philip explaining how difficult it was to gather intelligence about what was going on in England. He had tried to “tempt” or bribe “merchants of all nations” to supply him with information, but they were too afraid. Nor could any of his spies sneak into English ports because the “arrival of a man, or even of a fly” who was not known in the neighborhood would be noticed. As Mendoza melodramatically put it, any foreigner who set foot on English soil “drags the hangman’s rope after him.”³

For Walter Ralegh, the intensifying conflict had become all-consuming, and he was now one of the busiest men in England, scarcely able to take the time to fully assess the consequences of his failed colony. In the year that Ralph Lane and his fellow settlers had been away, Ralegh had taken on three hugely powerful positions: lord lieutenant of Cornwall, vice-admiral of the West, and lord warden of the Stannaries—the Cornish tin mines.⁴ The first two positions put Ralegh in charge of heading up the defense of the counties in the southwest. In effect, he was Elizabeth’s personal envoy in those regions, responsible for mobilizing soldiers and sailors in the event of an invasion. Cornwall was a place of particular vulnerability for England. It was virtually a land apart, where the Celtic language was still spoken, and where its misty moorlands and hundreds of smugglers’ coves could provide sanctuary for an invading Spanish force. But Ralegh’s offices did not just hand him new responsibilities; they also handed him new opportunities to increase his personal wealth. As vice-admiral and lord lieutenant, he could extract profits from the privateering exploits of England’s sailors. As head of the Stannaries, he could extract a slice of one of the country’s most valuable industries.

While fulfilling these responsibilities, Ralegh seized the chance to do something that his beloved half-brother, Humphrey Gilbert, had tried and failed to do: establish a colony in Ireland. A few months before the Roanoke colonists returned, John Perrot, the Lord Deputy of Ireland, wrote to William Cecil and the rest of the Privy Council warning of the “great preparation… by the Spanish King against this realm.” In his opinion, Spain’s invading force was “likely to be bent against Munster”—and particularly its towns and cities, “which in truth are very weak.”⁵

To prevent Munster falling into Spanish hands, the Privy Council, with Cecil and Walsingham taking the lead, drew up plans for attracting prospective colonists, especially from “the younger houses of English gentlemen” who might profit from the opportunity to create dynastic estates in Munster.⁶ As in Gilbert’s day, the Privy Council’s rationale was that an Ireland populated by loyal Englishmen would be less likely to join forces with Spain than would the hostile native population, who might be eager to “shake off the English government.”⁷ In June 1586, as the Roanoke colonists were preparing to abandon Virginia, Ralegh was granted letters patent giving him and his associates the title to lands in the counties of Cork and Wexford. Under the terms of the grant, no investor was to be given more than one land unit, or seignory, of 12,000 acres. But Ralegh was always the exception. By February 1587, he laid claim to 42,000 acres.⁸

With these activities commanding so much of his attention, Ralegh’s commitment to Roanoke might well have faltered. It did not help that some of the returning settlers made accusations about mismanagement, overselling, and unmet expectations. Some of the gentleman travelers railed that the colonial lifestyle, under Ralph Lane’s strict military rule, was far harder than they had been led to expect. Others, who had hoped to create homes on their vast American estates, claimed they instead had been financially ruined by the experience. Thomas Harvey, for example, who had gone along as the cape merchant—the official authorized to buy and sell goods within a settlement—was left “poor and unable to pay” his obligations in England. He had invested “the greatest part of his own wealth,” and borrowed additional funds, to buy commodities for trade. In a polite understatement, he said the voyage had not fallen out “so prosperous as was expected.”⁹

This disaffection risked undermining Ralegh’s position at court, where there was no shortage of people who would celebrate his misfortune. But his trusted allies assured him that Virginia remained a land of opportunity and advised him to ignore the complaints. Thomas Harriot, for one, expressed disdain for the gentlemen’s accusations. As he later wrote, some of the settlers were nothing more than gold seekers, who “had little or no care of any other thing but to pamper their bellies.” They had led sheltered, comfortable lives, having enjoyed “a nice bringing up only in cities or towns” and had “never… seen the world before.” In America, they found neither cities nor “fair houses,” nor any of “their old accustomed dainty food, nor any soft beds of down or feathers.”¹⁰

For his part, Ralph Lane acknowledged there had been difficulties, but he argued that these were largely to do with the chosen location: Roanoke was a small island, affording little room to expand the colony, while the lack of a deep-water harbor limited access by larger ships. He was convinced that the area to the north, now Chesapeake Bay, would offer a better location for a settlement and port. He also believed that copper and even gold might be found inland and that the Pacific Ocean might not be far away.¹¹

Given the negatives, Ralegh might well have considered walking away from the Virginia project, but the greatest advocate of overseas enterprise reminded him why he shouldn’t. In February 1587, Richard Hakluyt’s latest publication appeared at the book stalls in St. Paul’s Churchyard. It was a reissue of Peter Martyr’s classic work Decades of the New World, which Richard Eden had translated thirty years earlier as the Mysterie prepared to launch its second voyage to Muscovy.

In a powerful dedicatory letter, Hakluyt made an impassioned plea for Ralegh to continue the glorious enterprise: “Reveal to us the courts of China and the unknown straits which still lie hid,” Hakluyt urged. “Throw back the portals which have been closed since the world’s beginning at the dawn of time. There yet remain for you new lands, ample realms, unknown peoples.” Hakluyt insisted that these lands were just waiting “to be discovered and subdued, quickly and easily.” This was something that Ralegh could achieve, especially given the support he enjoyed from Elizabeth, whom Hakluyt described as the “Empress—as even the Spaniard himself admits—of the Ocean.”

Not afraid to speak his mind, Hakluyt reminded Ralegh that he had made a commitment to keep going—no matter what. Indeed, Ralegh had sworn, in letters to Hakluyt, “that no terrors, no personal losses or misfortunes could or would ever tear” him from “the sweet embraces” of Virginia, “that fairest of nymphs.” Such grand poesy was out of character for Hakluyt, and it reveals not only his great passion for the enterprise but also his great fear that the American initiative might be abandoned.

As for the naysayers, Hakluyt, echoing Harriot, encouraged Ralegh to dismiss them and the disgruntled ex-planters: “Let them go where they deserve, foolish drones, mindful only of their bellies and gullets.”¹²

HAKLUYT’S APPEAL DID not fall on deaf ears. In fact, by the time his book was published, Ralegh had already entered into an agreement to form a new corporation to open up the New World: the Governor and Assistants of the Cittie of Raleigh in Virginia. But if this demonstrated that Ralegh did not lack for commitment, his choice of governor showed a peculiar lack of judgment.

Ralegh picked John White, the watercolorist from the first Roanoke settlement, as leader of the second colony. A little older than Ralegh, White had no experience as a soldier, sailor, or leader. Perhaps Ralegh’s choice shows just how distracted he was. Perhaps it was his only practical option: with England on a war footing and with the rewards of privateering so great, there may have been few people willing to accept the dubious burden of leading a colony into an uncertain future. Perhaps, also, the testimony of disgruntled colonists had convinced prospective adventurers to stay at home. It is certainly noteworthy that the new colonists did not include any young men from illustrious families.

The whole enterprise was quite different from those that had been planned before. The 150 people who signed up to join Ralegh’s venture were mostly artisans, small landowners, lesser merchants—the middling sort. Among them, for the first time, were seventeen women and nine children. The City of Raleigh was to be a real community, not a fortress colony. But like the gentlemen on the first voyage, these people were going to Virginia with hopes of making their fortune. Each colonist was to be granted five hundred acres of land, no matter how much money he or she invested in the venture. This would constitute a sizable estate in England—even if it was dwarfed by the millions of acres Humphrey Gilbert had promised his associates. Also, White’s twelve “assistants” in the new corporation were offered an additional incentive: a coat of arms. To be an armigerous person or family—one entitled to bear heraldic arms—was a sign of distinction and status. By going to the New World, these people would be moving up in society.

The fleet set sail from Portsmouth toward the end of April 1587, with three vessels: a ship called the Lion, as well as a pinnace and a “flie boate”—a smaller, shallow-draft boat.¹³ Also on board were two Indians, one of whom was Manteo, who had returned with Drake the previous year. For nearly two weeks, they beat against the wind, trying to clear the Lizard—the southern-drooping peninsula of Cornwall—and endured a difficult journey across the Atlantic. The weather was bad, and as conditions worsened, so did relations between White and his chief pilot, Simão Fernandes, the Azorean navigator who had first participated in Humphrey Gilbert’s abortive voyage eight years earlier. By late July, the fleet, having scattered during the crossing, regrouped on the coast, south of Roanoke. White then made ready to sail to the island, hoping to pick up Grenville’s fifteen men and continue to the “Bay of Chesapeake,” which Ralph Lane had identified as the preferred location for a colony. But Fernandes objected to the plan and refused to take the colonists any farther than Roanoke. It was a mutinous defiance. Yet, astonishingly, White backed down, meekly accepting his subordinate’s objections.

At the Roanoke site, they found abandoned houses but no settlers, “nor any sign that they had been there, saving only we found the bones of one of those fifteen, which the Savages had slain long before.”¹⁴ The English soon learned, from Indians who lived on the island of Croatoan, that Grenville’s men had been attacked by Indians and skirmished with them; most escaped in a boat and were never seen again.

After a month on Roanoke, Fernandes prepared to return to England. But he was delayed for nearly a week after a dispute erupted over which of the colonists should return with him to arrange for the next resupply. Most of the colonists wanted White to go back. They believed that he would be able to wield the greatest influence with Ralegh. But White wanted to stay on. As governor, he felt responsible for the colonists, and was concerned that he would suffer “great discredit” if he returned prematurely. Nor did he wish to part from his new granddaughter, Virginia Dare. The daughter of Elenora White and Ananias Dare, she was the first English baby to be born on North American soil. Also, White worried about the safety of his “stuff and goods” while he was gone. Eventually, however, the colonists convinced him that he, and he alone, could best represent their interests in England. To reassure him, they gave their bond that they would look after his possessions and that should anything be damaged, they would make it good.

White finally succumbed to “their extreme intreating” and, at the end of August, set sail. After a brutal Atlantic crossing, he reached England in early November. He soon met with Ralegh, and his appeals, we must assume, propelled Ralegh to supply a stopgap resupply mission—a single pinnace to sail immediately. It was to be followed by a larger expedition, once again overseen by Grenville.¹⁵

UNFORTUNATELY FOR WHITE and the colonists, England’s relationship with Spain was deteriorating rapidly, even as preparations for the pinnace were put in place. And once again, Francis Drake was at the center of the dispute. Earlier in the year, Elizabeth, in an act she would later regret, had signed the death warrant for Mary, Queen of Scots, who had been linked to yet another assassination plot. After Mary’s execution, Drake was dispatched to deliver a preemptive strike against Spain, knowing that Philip was preparing to invade England. As Hakluyt put it, “Her Majesty being informed of a mighty preparation by sea begun in Spain for the invasion of England, by good advice of her grave and prudent Counsel thought it expedient to prevent the same.”¹⁶

En route, Drake learned from a passing vessel that “there was a great store of warlike provision” being readied in Cádiz, a port on the southern coast of Spain, not far from the Strait of Gibraltar. Drake proceeded, with “all speed possible,” and over the course of two nights he destroyed a hundred ships, including a “new ship of an extraordinary hugeness in burthen above 1,200 tons,” which belonged to the high admiral of Spain.¹⁷

Drake memorably called his raid the “singeing of the King of Spain’s beard.” It demanded swift retaliation, and Philip ordered his admiral, Álvaro de Bazán, first marquis of Santa Cruz de Mudela—known as Santa Cruz—to assemble the great Armada’s ships in Lisbon and make sail for England. But this was no easy task: Drake had destroyed so many ships, and so many others were scattered in various ports, that Santa Cruz could not quickly get the fleet together. Toward the end of 1587, Philip repeated his orders, to no effect. The Armada was still not ready. As preparations dragged on, the Spanish lost all hope of surprise. It had become the “worst-kept secret in Europe.”¹⁸

Facing the prospect of imminent invasion, Elizabeth placed a stay of shipping in English ports. This prevented Ralegh from sending even a pinnace with resupplies for the Roanoke colonists. But in early April 1588, five months after White’s return, Sir Richard Grenville finally got permission to deploy, as he saw fit, any ships that would not be involved in England’s defense. In late April, White finally sailed from England with two small vessels carrying supplies and prospective settlers, seven men and four women.

If they left with great hope, this soon faded when they discovered that the captain appointed by Grenville was far more interested in fortune-hunting than in ferrying the colonists across the ocean to America. Once again, White, showing his weakness as a leader, was unable to assert his authority on board. As their ships got into scrapes, some of the mariners were killed or wounded. White, as he revealed, was “wounded twice in the head, once with a sword, and another time with a pike, and hurt also in the side of the buttock with a shot.”¹⁹ The damaged vessels limped back to England, arriving home after just four weeks at sea.

THEN, AT LAST, came the event that Elizabeth and England had feared for years: the invasion of the Armada. For the best part of ten years, Philip had been planning a great naval force. Now, from his seat in El Escorial, his magnificent palace forty-five miles northwest of Madrid, that was built with the profits of his American empire, he finally sent instructions for the invasion of England. In May, the mighty fleet of 130 ships, 18,000 soldiers, and 7,000 sailors departed Lisbon and made its way to the Bay of Biscay.²⁰

England was prepared—as prepared as she could be. Her navy was a motley assemblage of thirty-four royal ships and 160 other vessels, including privateers owned by merchants and courtiers looking to capture Spanish prizes while doing their duty for queen and country. Among the leaders of the fleet were some of the pioneers of England’s overseas expansion. The flagship, the Ark Royal, was commissioned by Ralegh and given as a gift to Elizabeth. The Revenge was captained by Drake. The Triumph, the biggest ship in the English fleet, was commanded by Martin Frobisher.

Battle was joined on July 20, and for the next nine days, the English ships harried and hustled the Spanish fleet. Eventually, the Armada reached Calais, where it moored, awaiting the arrival of a massive Spanish invasion force stationed in the Low Countries. But overnight, the English sent fire ships to disperse the fleet. Amid the chaos caused by these hellburners, the Spanish ships broke their moorings and scattered across the Channel. On July 29, at Gravelines, a little port east of Calais, the Spanish turned to fight the English but were beaten. Across England, church bells rang out, celebrating the achievement of defeating the Armada.

After the battle of Gravelines, Philip’s ships fled north, chased by the English, who pursued them all the way to the Firth of Forth, the wide estuary that leads to Edinburgh, Scotland’s capital. The Spanish intended to sail round the Shetland Islands, where Frobisher had long ago rested on his way to Meta Incognita, and south along the west coast of Ireland in order to avoid Elizabeth’s rampant naval forces. But as they reached the Atlantic, they were scattered by fierce storms, which England’s propagandists remembered as a “Protestant wind,” sure proof that God was on the side of Good Queen Bess, as Elizabeth had come to be known.

Over the next three months, the Spanish fleet was destroyed and many of the sailors lucky enough to scramble ashore on the Irish coast were brutally murdered by local people. The Irish may have been fellow Catholics, but they did not want to be stopped from going after the rewards within the wrecked ships. The Spanish had been dispatched to conquer England and had brought with them precious ornaments of gold and silver to show off Spain’s imperial glory. One of these was a salamander, or “winged lizard,” that had been fashioned from gold mined in Mexico and set with rubies from India—a testimony to Spain’s far-flung empire. The jewel traveled aboard the Girona, a seven-hundred-ton galleass carrying thirteen hundred men, including an array of Spanish nobles. When the fleeing ship hit the rocks not far from the Giant’s Causeway off the coast of northern Ireland in violent storms, the salamander sank to the bottom of the sea.²¹

What was a tragedy for Spain was a triumph for England and provided Elizabeth with an opportunity to proclaim her imperial status. As the Spanish ships were wrecked or struggled home, her loyal vice-admiral, Sir Francis Drake, who had performed a crucial part in the victory, commissioned a portrait that presented the queen as an empress with global reach. Sitting resplendent on her golden throne, she rests her right hand on a globe, with her fingers spanning the east and west coasts of America. Above the globe is an imperial crown. Behind her, two windows capture memorable scenes from the sea battle. This painting—now known as the “Armada” portrait—left no one in any doubt about the message Drake wished to convey. The queen, having vanquished the most powerful emperor on earth, was herself an empress, an imperial ruler with territories in the New World.²² At last, John Dee’s vision, it seemed, was coming true.

In addition to the painting, Drake ordered a commemorative medal to be struck, commissioning Michael Mercator, grandson of the great cosmographer, for the job.²³ On the front, the silver medallion depicts the Old World: Europe, Africa and Asia, China, and dreamed-of Cathay. On the opposite side is the New World, with all the key places in Elizabeth’s embryonic empire: the Elizabeth Islands lie to the south; Nova Albion is etched in bold lettering across northern America; and Virginia, the newest colony, also appears. As if to gloat, the words “N. Hispania,” marking Spain’s much larger territory, are engraved in a tiny font. Drake’s circumnavigational route is traced by a fine dotted line. With this medal, ordinary Elizabethans could hold the world in their hands, just as Elizabeth herself did.

THE ARMADA ARTWORKS—the portrait of Elizabeth and the silver medal—were silent heralds of a new, self-confident, more assertive country contemplating its imperial future. But it was Richard Hakluyt, the preacher and American proselytizer, who gave voice to this new mood in his masterwork, The principal navigations, voyages, traffiques and discoveries of the English Nation, made by Sea or over-land, to the remote and farthest quarters of the Earth, at any time within the compass of the 1500 yeeres. It begins with the travels of ancient Britons to the Holy Land and continues right through to the “last most renowned English Navigation round about the whole Globe of the Earth,” namely the second English-led circumnavigation made by Thomas Cavendish, completed in September 1588.

The first edition of the Principal Navigations was entered into the Stationers’ Register on September 1, 1589, under warrant from Sir Francis Walsingham, who was the guiding spirit behind the project. There was no mistaking that this was an endeavor of national importance, the magnum opus that Hakluyt had been working toward since his time in Paris, after the publication of Divers Voyages. There, he had constantly heard and read stories about “other nations miraculously extolled for their discoveries and notable enterprises by sea.” But he heard nothing other than derision for England and its “sluggish security” and condemnation of its “continual neglect” of overseas expansion. When Hakluyt realized that no one was going to step forward to speak up for the “industrious labors, and painful travels” of his countrymen—who had, by that time, ventured throughout the world and circumnavigated it—he resolved to take on the task of celebrating their accomplishments.²⁴

Hakluyt did not wish to produce one of those “weary volumes” in which the material is simply “ramassed” (summarized from others) or “hurled together.” So, from the late 1570s onward, he was constantly in search of original, primary material: making visits, picking up scraps of information, and engaging in conversations that pertained to his great subject. He wanted the protagonists to speak for themselves, and he endeavored to transcribe his interviews with them “word for word.”²⁵ Hakluyt collaborated with Thomas Harriot to interview a Spanish soldier captured by Drake at St. Augustine. He corresponded with Walter Ralegh and Richard Grenville and interviewed Martin Frobisher. He rode from London to Norfolk to interview Thomas Butts, a well-to-do young man who had been grievously emaciated during a voyage in the 1530s.²⁶ Also, as part of his research, he collected or inspected countless materials from travelers, including ships’ logs, firsthand accounts, personal diaries and letters, official reports, maps and rutters (mariner’s handbooks), drawings, treatises, ordinances, catalogs, and poems.²⁷

It was a labor of love, “a burden,” as Hakluyt called it, because “these voyages lay so dispersed, scattered, and hidden in several hucksters’ hands.” He wondered how he had managed “to endure the delays, curiosity, and backwardness” of the people from whom he collected the original documents.²⁸ But he was justly proud of the result. Until the publication of Principal Navigations, only sixteen accounts of English voyages had been printed. Hakluyt offered readers sixty-four accounts.²⁹ Perhaps the most sensational story in Principal Navigations was the one that was almost omitted. Its inclusion testifies to Hakluyt’s determination to provide the most up-to-date account. In the course of his research, he had pieced together the story of Drake’s circumnavigation from the recollections of members of the crew. Walsingham did not want him to publish the story, however, because parts of it were still considered secret, particularly the claim to Nova Albion. To make sure nothing leaked out, Walsingham had the whole book vetted by Dr. John James, the Keeper of the State Papers Office, who served as censor and who was scrupulous in removing sensitive material.³⁰ It was only after the first printing of Principal Navigations that Walsingham relented and allowed the inclusion of the Drake narrative. Hakluyt trimmed the story of “the famous voyage” to 10,000 words and had it hastily inserted into unsold copies. The pages were unnumbered.³¹

When it came to packaging all this information, Hakluyt was as innovative as he had been while collecting it. Principal Navigations is adorned with some advanced bibliographic features, including a table of contents, shoulder notes and marginal notes that provide useful signposts to the contents of each page, and an index. For the gentleman reader—and prospective investor—this became the bible and the encyclopedia of travel literature.

We do not know how many copies of Principal Navigations were printed, distributed, or sold. But it was a transformative publication. This, remember, was a time when there were no daily newspapers and no public libraries. Information was distributed through broadsheets, pamphlets, and sermons delivered from the pulpit. English itself was still a language in development, evolving from a tongue long considered marginal and inferior to Latin and Greek. It was not until the following year—sometime in 1590—that William Shakespeare’s first play, Henry VI Part II, probably had its first performance.³²

Hakluyt’s collection of stories gave England a new way to think about itself—no longer as a sluggish and neglectful nation but as a bold seafaring people whose brave navigators, sent out by forward-thinking merchants and courtiers, were able to voyage across the oceans and venture to new lands. “In this most famous and peerless government of her most excellent Majesty,” Hakluyt wrote in the dedicatory epistle to Walsingham, “her subjects through the special assistance, and blessing of God, in searching the most opposite corners and quarters of the world, and to speak plainly, in compassing the vast globe of the earth more than once, have excelled all the nations and people of the earth.”³³

RICHARD HAKLUYT’S PRINCIPAL Navigations was not just a paean to a newly confident England, it was also a pragmatic marketing publication for promoting the next voyage across the Atlantic. And for the first time, Hakluyt was an investor, putting his money where his mouth was. Around the time of publication, he joined a syndicate that had been formed to organize yet another expedition to establish contact with the Roanoke Colony, a group led by Thomas Smythe, the thirty-one-year-old grandson of Sir Andrew Judde and the second son of Customer Smythe.

This group agreed to invest in Ralegh’s faltering Roanoke project “for the inhabiting and planting of our people in Virginia.”³⁴ Under the terms of the agreement, Ralegh was to remain lord governor, but the syndicate was to form an alliance with the existing colonists, led by John White. It was an intriguing group that included William Sanderson, Ralegh’s business manager; John Gerard, an expert in plants and plant-based medicines who served as superintendent of the garden at William Cecil’s London residence; and Thomas Hood, a Cambridge mathematician who may well have been recruited to perform the role played by Harriot (who was no longer available, having moved to Ralegh’s estates in Ireland).³⁵

The syndicate seems never to have launched a voyage to Roanoke, perhaps because, in February 1590, the Privy Council once again issued an order forbidding merchant ships from leaving English ports. But John White was not to be deterred. He learned that a cloth merchant, John Watts, wanted to sponsor a privateering expedition to the Caribbean. White urged Ralegh to approach Elizabeth and persuade her to grant Watts a special dispensation to transport him and a new contingent of settlers to Roanoke.

This was arranged, but things did not turn out as White had hoped. When he prepared to board one of the ships with his group of colonists, Watts—or, more likely, one of his captains—refused to transport any settlers or supplies. White was obliged to board alone with “not so much as a boy to attend upon me.”³⁶ The fleet finally departed in March, but as White must have feared, it did not speed across toward the American coast. Instead, the ships engaged in a series of privateering escapades.

It was not until mid-August that White finally reached Virginia. He had promised his daughter that he would return as quickly as possible. In the end, it had taken him three years to get back to Roanoke. As he looked across the island, he spotted a column of smoke rising “near the place where I left our Colony in the year 1587.” This gave him “good hope” that the settlers were alive and looking forward to seeing him.³⁷

White stepped ashore and walked to the site of the Roanoke encampment. There, he discovered, “curiously carved” into a tree trunk, the “fair Roman letters CRO.” It was, wrote White, “a secret token” that he knew the settlers would use “to signify the place” where they might be found. This discovery further heartened him, because it indicated that he might find the colonists on the neighboring island of Croatoan, “the place where Manteo was born.”

Also, it was clear to White that the move had been voluntary. The colonists had agreed to carve “a Cross ,” if their removal had been in distress. White found no such mark. He was further encouraged when he found the complete word “CROATOAN” carved into one of the posts of the fort. Although the houses had been “taken down” and abandoned, there were no signs of battle or struggle, no bones or graves, no indicators that the settlers had suffered a cruel end. But White was less delighted when he came across several chests containing his belongings, “spoiled and broken.” His books were “torn from the covers” and his armor “almost eaten through with rust.” Just as he had feared, his “goods and stuff” had been ruined.³⁸

White resolved to go on to Croatoan, but after a series of mishaps and the onset of bad weather, he decided to make for one of the islands in the West Indies, winter over, and then return to Virginia. That plan did not work either, and White was obliged to return to England, where he arrived in October, after a dispiriting six-month expedition. After so much hopeful planning, his valiant effort to reunite with his family in Roanoke had failed.

It was to be White’s last voyage to Virginia. He would never return to Roanoke. He would never see his granddaughter again. Some years later, when he was living on Ralegh’s estate in Ireland, he sent Hakluyt a mournful account of his final Roanoke voyage.³⁹ He wrote that he had no choice but to “leave off” his endeavor—but wished to God that his wealth had been “answerable” to his will.⁴⁰

Like so many other Englishmen, White had invested everything and lost it all in his American dream.