at once made preparations for a settlement. A fleet of seven ships was
provided for the conveyance of a hundred and eight settlers. The fleet
was under the command of Sir Richard Grenville, who was to establish
the settlement and leave it under the charge of Ralph Lane....

On the 20th of June the fleet reached the coast of Florida, and three
days later narrowly escaped being cast away off Cape Fear. In a few
days more they anchored at Wococon, an island near Roanoke. In
entering the harbor the largest ship, the _Tiger_, struck a sand-bar,
and was nearly lost, either through the clumsiness or treachery of the
pilot, Simon Fernando, a Portuguese. On the 11th of July Grenville,
with forty others, including Lane, Amidas, and the chief men of the
expedition, crossed over to the mainland. Taking northerly direction,
they explored the coast as far as Secotan, an Indian town some sixty
miles mouth of Roanoke, where they were hospitably received by the
savages. It is melancholy, after the bright picture of the intercourse
between the natives and the English drawn by Barlow, to have to record
hostilities, in which by far the greater share of blame lay with our
countrymen. On the voyage back to Roanoke a silver cup was stolen from
the English at one of the Indian villages. In revenge the English put
the inhabitants to flight, burnt the village and destroyed the crops.
On the 3d of August one ship sailed home, and on the 25th Grenville
left the colony, followed, as it would seem, during the course of the
next month by the rest of the fleet[3]....

The site of the settlement was at the northeast corner of the island
of Roanoke, whence the settlers could command the strait. There, even
now, choked by vines and underwood, and here and there broken by the
crumbling remains of an earthen bastion, may be traced the outlines of
the ditch which enclosed the camp, some forty yards square, the home