the fact that the land was habitable and cultivatable, Raleigh perceived
that in order to render it attractive also it was necessary that the
colonists should have their helpmeets with them. For the first time in
history, therefore, the feet of English women pressed our soil, and the
voices of children made music in the woodland solitudes. It had been
designed that the more commodious bay of the Chesapeake should be the
scene of this settlement; but the naval officer who should have
superintended the removal was hungering for a West Indian trading venture,
and declined to act. They perforce established themselves in the old spot,
therefore, where the buildings were yet standing on the northern end of
the little island, which, though deserted now, is for us historic ground.
The routine of life began; and before the ship sailed on her return trip
to England, the daughter of the governor and artist, John White, who was
married to one of his subordinates named Dare, had given birth to a
daughter, and called her Virginia. She was the first child of English
blood who could be claimed as American; she came into the world, from
which she was so soon to vanish, on the 18th of August, 1587. White
returned to England with the ship a week or two later. He was to return
again speedily with more colonists, and further supplies. But he never saw
his daughter and her infant after their farewell in the landlocked bay. He
reached England to find Raleigh and all the other strong men of England
occupied with plans to repel the invasion that threatened from Spain, and
which, in the shape of the Invincible Armada, was to be met and destroyed
in the English Channel, almost on the first anniversary of the birth of
Virginia Dare. Nothing could be done, at the moment, to relieve the people
at Roanoke; but in April of 1588, Raleigh found time, with the defense of
a kingdom on his hands, to equip two ships and send them in White's charge
to Virginia. All might have been well had White been content to attend
with a single eye to the business in hand; but the seas were full of
vessels which could be seized and stripped of their precious cargoes, and