came to Virginia was dolor enough. On
Jamestown strand they beheld sixty skeletons "who had eaten all the
quick things that weare there, and some of them had eaten snakes and
adders." Somers, Gates, and Newport, on entering the town, found it
"rather as the ruins of some auntient fortification than that any people
living might now inhabit it."

A pitiable outcome, this, of all the hopes of fair "harbours and
habitations," of golden dreams, and farflung dominion. All those whom
Raleigh had sent to Roanoke were lost or had perished. Those who had
named and had first dwelled in Jamestown were in number about a hundred.
To these had been added, during the first year or so, perhaps two
hundred more. And the ships that had parted from the Sea Adventure had
brought in three hundred. First and last, not far from seven hundred
English folk had come to live in Virginia. And these skeletons eating
snakes and adders were all that remained of that company; all those
others had died miserably and their hopes were ashes with them.

What might Sir Thomas Gates, the Governor, do? "That which added most to
his sorowe, and not a little startled him, was the impossibilitie.. how
to amend one whitt of this. His forces were not of habilitie to revenge
upon the Indian, nor his owne supply (now brought from the Bermudas)
sufficient to relieve his people." So he called a Council and listened
in turn to Sir George Somers, to Christopher Newport, and to "the
gentlemen and Counsaile of the former Government." The end and upshot
was that none could see other course than to abandon the country.
England-in-America had tried and failed, and had tried again and failed.
God, or the course of Nature, or the current of History was against her.
Perhaps in time stronger forces and other attempts might yet issue from
England. But now the hour had come to say farewell!

Upon the bosom of the river swung two pinnaces, the Discovery and the
Virginia, left by the departing ships months before, and the Deliverance
and the Patience, the Bermuda pinnaces. Thus the English abandoned the
little town that was but three years old. Aboard the four small ships
they went, and down the broad river, between the flowery shores, they
sailed away. Doubtless under the trees on either hand were Indians
watching this retreat of the invaders of their forests. The plan of the
departing colonists was to turn north, when they had reached the sea,
and make for Newfoundland, where th