was suffered to elapse before White returned to
search for the long-neglected colony. He had now been absent from it for
three years, and felt the solicitude not only of a governor, but also of
a parent. Upon his departure from Roanoke it had been concerted between
him and the settlers, that if they should abandon that island for
another seat, they should carve the name of the place to which they
should remove on some conspicuous object; and if they should go away in
distress, a cross should be carved above the name. Upon his arrival at
Roanoke, White found not one of the colonists; the houses had been
dismantled and a fort erected; goods had been buried in the earth, and
in part disinterred and scattered; on a post within the fort the word
CROATAN was carved, without a cross above it. The weather proving
stormy, some of White's company were lost by the capsizing of a boat;
the stock of provisions grew scanty; and no further search was then
made. Raleigh, indeed, sent out parties in quest of them at five
different times, the last in 1602, at his own charge; but not one of
them made any search for the unfortunate colonists. None of them were
ever found; and whether they perished by famine, or the Indian tomahawk,
was left a subject of sad conjecture. The site of the colony was
unfortunate, being difficult of access, and near the stormy Cape
Hatteras, whose very name is synonymous with peril and shipwreck. Thus,
after many nobly planned but unhappily executed expeditions, and
enormous expense of treasure and life, the first plantation of Virginia
became extinct.

In the year 1591 Sir Richard Grenville fell, in a bloody action with a
Spanish fleet near the Azores. Mortally wounded, he was removed on board
one of the enemy's ships, and in two days died. In the hour of his death
he said, in the Spanish language, to those around him: "Here I, Richard
Grenville, die with a joyous and quiet mind, for that I have ended my
life as a true soldier ought to do, fighting for his country, queen,
religion, and honor, my soul willingly departing from this body, leaving
behind the lasting fame of having behaved as every valiant soldier is in
his duty bound to do." His dying words may recall to mind the familiar
verses of Campbell's Lochiel:--

"And leaving in death no blot on my name,
Look proudly to heaven for a death-bed of fame."

Sir Richard Grenville was, next to his kinsman, Sir Walter Raleigh, the
principal person co