mark of an Indian
settlement just visible. Worthy William Strachey, Gent., what would be
his surprise to look over a map of Virginia Britannia,-that "ample tract
of land" with "sufficient space and ground enough to satisfie the most
covetous,"--in the year 1850; and to mark the teeming and busy
population, the steamboats that navigate the "five faire and delightfull
navigable rivers" within the Chesapeake Bay, the railroads that intersect
the whole country and the vast human tide still pouring westward?
"This shall be written for the generation to come," is his motto; and
interesting it is to the reader to follow him in his narrative of the
toils and privations of the good company to which he was secretary, and
in his full and minute account of the produce of the country, and its
strange inhabitants. Who William Strachey was, Mr. Major, notwithstanding
all his diligence, has not been able to ascertain. In his dedication to
Lord Bacon, he describes himself as having been "one of the Graies-Inne
Societe," and his narrative affords ample proof of his being a man of
learning and worth: but of his family, the date of his birth or of his
death, we have no record.

The earlier attempts to colonize North America were numerous, but all
unfavorable. "Divers voyages" were made thither from the year 1578 to the
close of the reign of Elizabeth, but without success; nor were the first
adventurers in the reign of her successor more fortunate.

"At the time of the death of Queen Elizabeth, one hundred and eleven
years subsequent to the great discovery of the Western World by Columbus,
the Spaniards, on whose behalf his discovery had been made, were the sole
permanent settlers in this wide and wealthy continent. In 1606, the
French began to make settlements in Canada and Acadie, now Nova Scotia,
but it was not till 1607 that the enterprise, which was finally destined
to lay the foundation of British occupancy of American soil, was
undertaken. Twenty-three years had expired since the patent has been
granted to Sir Walter Raleigh to discover and take possession, with
little less than royal privileges, of remote heathen and barbarous lands,
hitherto not actually possessed by any Christian prince; and yet not an
acre of American soil had hitherto become the property of the
English..... It was shortly after this period, viz., A deg. 1605-6, that
Richard Hakluyt, the '_presidium et dulce decus_' of our Society, to
whom, as Robertson justly r