Two weeks
afterward Sir Richard Grenville arrived with two ships well-appointed,
but no flourishing settlement greeted his eager eyes. Unwilling to
abandon the semblance of hope, he left fifteen men on the island, well
provided with all things essential to their comfort, and then spread his
sails for England (1587).
In the succeeding year Raleigh prepared for another attempt. Convinced
that the Bay of Chesapeake, which had been discovered by Lane, afforded
greater advantages for a colony, he directed his adventurers to seek its
shores, and gave them a character of corporation for the city of
Raleigh--a name that North Carolina has since, with merited gratitude,
bestowed upon her most favored town. John White assumed command of this
expedition, and they were soon in the waters of Virginia (July 22d). The
cape to which maritime terrors have given an expressive name threatened
them with shipwreck, but at length they arrived in safety at Hatteras,
and immediately despatched a party to Roanoke to seek the settlers left
by Sir Richard Grenville. A melancholy silence pervaded the spot--the
huts were yet standing, but rank weeds and vines had overspread them,
and striven to reclaim to the wilderness the abortive efforts of human
labor. Not one man could be found, but the bones of one unhappy victim
told in gloomy eloquence of conflict and of death.
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