part 1, ch.5 (volume 1)_.

"The Croatans of to-day claim descent from the lost colony. Their habits, disposition and mental characteristics show traces both of savage and civilized ancestors. Their language is the English of 300 years ago, and their names are in many cases the same as those borne by the original colonists. No other theory of their origin has been advanced."

_S. B. Weeks, The Lost Colony of Roanoke (American History Association Papers, volume 5, part 4)_.

"This last expedition [of White, searching for his lost colony] was not despatched by Raleigh, but by his successors in the American patent. And our history is now to take leave of that illustrious man, with whose schemes and enterprises it ceases to have any further connexion. The ardour of his mind was not exhausted, but diverted by a multiplicity of new and not less arduous undertakings. ... Desirous, at the same time, that a project which he had carried so far should not be entirely abandoned, and hoping that the spirit of commerce would preserve an intercourse with Virginia that might terminate in a colonial establishment, he consented to assign his patent to Sir Thomas Smith, and a company of merchants in London, who undertook to establish and maintain a traffic between England and Virginia. ... It appeared very soon that Raleigh had transferred his patent to bands very different from his own. ... Satisfied with a paltry traffic carried on by a few small vessels, they made no attempt to take possession of the country: and at the period of Elizabeth's death, not a single Englishman was settled in America."

_J. Grahame, History of the Rise and Progress of the United States of North America till 1688, chapter 1._

ALSO IN _W. Stith, History of Va., book 1._

_F. L. Hawks, History of N. C., volume 1, Nos. 7-8._

AMERICA: A. D. 1602-1605. The Voyages of Gosnold, Pring, and Weymouth. The First Englishmen In New England.

Bartholomew Gosnold was a West-of-England mariner who had served in the expeditions of Sir Walter Raleigh to the Virginia coast. Under his command, in the spring of 1602, "with the consent of Sir Walter Raleigh, and at the cost, among others, of Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, the accomplished patron of Shakespeare, a small vessel, called the Concord, was equipped for exploration in 'the north part of Virginia,' with a view to the establishment of a colony. At this time, in the last year of the Tudor dynasty, and nineteen years after the fatal termination of Gilbert's enterprise, there was no European Inhabitant of North America, except those of Spanish birth in Florida, and some twenty or thirty French, the miserable relics of two frustrated attempts to settle what they called New France. Gosnold sailed from Falmouth with a company of thirty-two persons, of whom eight were seamen, and twenty were to become planters. Taking a straight course across the Atlantic, instead of the indirect course by the Canaries and the West Indies which had been hitherto pursued in voyages to Virginia, at the end of seven weeks he saw land in Massachusetts Bay, probably near what is now Salem Harbor. Here a boat came off, of Basque build, manned by eight natives, of whom two or three were dressed in European clothes, indicating the presence of earlier foreign voyagers in these waters. Next he stood to the southward, and his crew took great quantities of codfish by a head land, called by him for that reason Cape Cod, the name which it retains. Gosnold, Brereton, and three others, went on shore, the first Englishmen who are known to have set foot upon the soil of Massachusetts. ... Sounding his way cautiously along, first in a southerly, and then in a westerly direction, and probably passing to the south of Nantucket, Gosnold next landed on a small island, now called No Man's Land. {72} To this he gave the name of Martha's Vineyard, since transferred to the larger island further north. ... South of Buzzard's Bay, and separated on the south by the Vineyard Sound from Martha's Vineyard, is scattered the group denoted on modern maps as the Elizabeth Islands. The southwesternmost of these, now known by the Indian name of Cuttyhunk, was denominated by Gosnold Elizabeth Island. ... Here Gosnold found a pond two miles in circumference, separated from the sea on one side by a beach thirty yards wide, and enclosing 'a rocky islet, containing near an acre of ground, full of wood and rubbish.' This islet was fixed upon for a settlement. In three weeks, while a part of the company were absent on a trading expedition to the mainland, the rest dug and stoned a cellar, prepared timber and built a house, which they fortified with palisades, and thatched with sedge. Proceeding to make an inventory of their provisions, they found that, after supplying the vessel, which was to take twelve men on the return voyage, there would be a sufficiency for only six weeks for the twenty men who would remain. A dispute arose upon the question whether the party to be left behind would receive a share in the proceeds of the cargo of cedar, sassafras, furs, and other commodities which had been collected. A small party, going out in quest of shell-fish, was attacked by some Indians. With men having already, it is likely, little stomach for such cheerless work, these circumstances easily led to the decision to abandon for the present the scheme of a settlement, and in the following month the adventurers sailed for England, and, after a voyage of five weeks, arrived at Exmouth. ... The expedition of Gosnold was pregnant with consequences, though their development was slow. The accounts of the hitherto unknown country, which were circulated by his company on their return, excited an earnest interest." The next year (April, 1603), Martin Pring or Prynne was sent out, by several merchants of Bristol, with two small vessels. seeking cargoes of sassafras, which had acquired a high value on account of supposed medicinal virtues. Pring coasted from Maine to Martha's Vineyard, secured his desired cargoes, and gave a good account of the country. Two years later (March, 1605), Lord Soathampton and Lord Wardour sent a vessel commanded by George Weymouth to reconnoitre the same coast with an eye to settlements. Weymouth ascended either the Kennebec or the Penobscot river some 50 or 60 miles and kidnapped five natives. "Except for this, and for some addition to the knowledge of the local geography, the voyage was fruitless."

_J. G. Palfrey, History of New England,