And whereas we have above certified you of the country taken in
possession by us to her majesty's use, and so to yours by her majesty's
grant, we thought good for the better assurance thereof to record some
of the particular gentlemen and men of account who then were present, as
witnesses of the same, that thereby all occasion of cavil to the title
of the country, in her majesty's behalf, may be prevented, which
otherwise such as like not the action may use and pretend. Whose names
are, Master Philip Amidas, Master Arthur Barlow, captains; William
Greenville, John Wood, James Bromewich, Henry Greene, Benjamin Wood,
Simon Ferdinando, Nicholas Petman, John Hughes, of the company.
We brought home also two of the savages, being lusty men, whose names
were Wanchese and Manteo.
R. R. HOWISON
Arrived in England, Barlow and Amidas immediately sought the Queen, and
laid before her an account of their voyage and of its results. There was
much of truth as a basis for their wondrous descriptions; but the sober
observer will not fail to mark in this narrative the impress of
imaginations heated by the novelty of their performance and the
encouraging hope of their royal mistress. They spake of the land they
had visited as an earthly paradise; its seas were tranquil and gemmed
with green islands, on which the eye delighted to rest; its trees were
lofty, and many of them would rival the odoriferous products of tropical
soil; its fruits were so lavishly supplied by nature that art needed to
do little more than gather them in summer and autumn, for the wants of
the winter; its people were children of another age when virtue
triumphed, and vice was yet unknown.
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