As this is the first charter to a colony, granted by the Crown of England, the articles in it merit particular attention, as they unfold the ideas of that age, with respect to the nature of such settlements. Elizabeth authorises him to discover and take pos→ session of all remote and barbarous lands, unoccupied by any christian prince or people. She vests in him, his heirs and assigns for ever, the full right of property in the soil of those countries whereof he shall take possession. She permits such of her subjects, as were willing to accompany Gilbert in his voyage, to go and settle in the countries which he shall plant. She empowers him, his heirs and assigns, to dispose of whatever portion of those lands he shall judge meet to persons settled there, in fee-simple, according to the laws of England. She ordains, that all the lands granted to Gilbert shall hold of the Crown of England by homage, on payment of the fifth part of the gold or silver ore found there. She confers upon him, his heirs, and assigns, the complete jurisdictions and royalties, as well marine as other, within the said lands and seas thereunto adjoining; and as their common safety and interest would render good government necessary in their new settlements, she gave Gilbert, his heirs and assigns, full power to convict, punish, pardon, govern, and rule, by their good discretion and policy, as well in causes capital or criminal as civil, both marine and other, all persons who shall from time to time settle within the said countries, according to such statutes, laws, and ordinances as shall be by him, his heirs and assigns, devised and established for their better government. She declared, that all who settled there should have and enjoy all the privileges of free denizens and natives of England, any law, custom, or usage to the contrary notwithstanding. And finally, she prohibited all persons from attempting to settle within two hundred leagues of any place which Sir Humphrey Gilbert, or his associates, shall have occupied, during the space of six years.

With these extraordinary powers, suited to the high notions of authority and prérogative prevalent in England during the sixteenth century, but very repugnant to more recent ideas with respect to the rights of freemen, who voluntarily unite to form a colony, Gilbert began to collect associates, and to prepare for embarkation. His own character, and the zealous efforts of his half-brother, Sir Walter Raleigh, who, even in his early youth,

displayed those splendid talents, and that undaunted spirit, which create admiration and confidence, soon procured him a sufficient number of followers. But his success was not suited either to the sanguine hopes of his countrymen, or to the expence of his preparations. Two expeditions, both of which he conducted in person, ended disastrously. In the last, he himself perished, without having effected his intended settlement on the continent of America, or performing any thing more worthy of notice, than the empty formality of taking possession of the island of Newfoundland, in the name of his sovereign. The dissensions among his officers; the licentious and ungovernable spirit of his crew: his total ignorance of the countries which he purposed to occupy; his misfortune in approaching the continent too far towards the north, where the inhospitable coast of Cape Breton did not invite them to settle; the shipwreck of his largest vessel; and above all, the scanty provision which the funds of a private man could make of what was requisite for establishing a new colony, were the true causes to which the failure of the enterprise must be imputed, not to any deficiency of abilities or resolution in its leader.

But the miscarriage of a scheme, in which Gilbert had wasted his fortune, did not discourage Raleigh. He adopted all his brother's ideas; and applying to the Queen, in whose favor he stood high at that time, he procured a patent, with jurisdiction and prerogatives as ample as had been granted unto Gilbert. Sir Walter Raleigh, no less eager to execute than to undertake the scheme, instantly dispatched two small vessels, under the command of Amadas and Barlow, two officers' of trust, to visit the countries which he intended to settle, and to acquire some previous knowledge of their coasts, their soil, and productions. In order to avoid Gilbert's error, in holding too far north, they took their course by the Canaries and the West India islands, approached the North American Continent by the Gulf of Florida. Unfortunately their chief researches were made in that part of the country now known by the name of North Carolina, the province in America most destitute of commodious harbours. They touched first at an island, which they call Wokocon (probably Ocakoke), situated on the inlet into Pamplicoe Sound, and then at Raonoke, near the mouth of Albemarle Sound. In both, they had some intercourse with the natives, whom they

found to be savages, with all the characteristic qualities of uncivilized life, bravery, aversion to labor, hospitality, a propensity to admire, and a willingness to exchange their rude productions for English commodities, especially for iron, or any of the useful metals of which they were destitute. After spending a few weeks in this traffic, and in visiting some parts of the adjacent continent, Amadas and Barlow returned to England with two of the natives, and gave such splendid descriptions of the beauty of the country, the fertility of the soil, and the mildness of the climate, that Elizabeth, delighted with the idea of occupying a territory, superior, so far, to the barren regions towards the north hitherto visited by her subjects, bestowed on it the name of Virginia; as a memorial that this happy discovery had been made under a virgin Queen.

Their report encouraged Raleigh to hasten his preparations for taking possession of such an inviting property. He fitted out a squadron of seven small ships, under the command of Sir Richard Greenville, a man of honorable birth, and of courage so undaunted as to be conspicuous even in that gallant age. But the spirit of that predatory war which the English carried on against Spain, mingled with this scheme of settlement; and on this account, as well as from unacquaintance with a more direct and shorter course to North America, Greenville sailed by the West India islands. He spent some time in cruising among these, and in taking prizes; so that it was towards the close of June before he arrived on the coast of North America. He touched at both the islands where Amadas and Barlow had landed, and made some excursions into different parts of the continent round Pamplicoe and Albemarle Sounds. But as, unfortunately, he did not advance far enough towards the North, to discover the noble Bay of Chesapeak, he established the colony which he left on the island of Raonoke, an incommodious station, without any safe harbour, and almost uninhabited.

This colony consisted only of one hundred and eighty persons, under the command of Captain Lane, assisted by some men of note, the most distinguished of whom was Hariot, an eminent mathematician. Their chief employment, during a residence of nine months, was to obtain a more extensive knowledge of the country; and their researches were carried on with greater spirit, and reached farther than could have been expect

ed from a colony so feeble, and in a station so disadvantageous. But from the same impatience of indigent adventurers to acquire sudden wealth, which gave a wrong direction to the industry of the Spaniards in their settlements, the greater part of the English seem to have considered nothing as worthy of attention but mines of gold and silver. These they sought for, wherever they came; these they enquired after with unwearied eagerness. The savages soon discovered the favorite objects which allured them, and artfully amused them with so many tales concerning pearl fisheries, and rich mines of various metals, that Lane and his companions wasted their time and activity in the chimerical pursuit of these, instead of laboring to raise provisions for their own subsistence. On discovering the deceit of the Indians, they were so much exasperated, that from expostulations and reproaches, they proceeded to open hostility. The supplies of provisions which they had been accustomed to receive from the natives were of course withdrawn. Through their own negligence, no other precaution had been taken for their support. Raleigh, having engaged in a scheme too expensive for his narrow funds, had not been able to send them that recruit of stores with which Greenville had promised to furnish them early in the spring. The colony, reduced then to the utmost distress, and on the point of perishing with famine, was preparing to disperse into different districts of the country in quest of food, when Sir Francis Drake appeared with his fleet, returning from a successful expedition against the Spaniards in the West Indies. A scheme which he formed, of furnishing Lane and his associates with such supplies as might enable them to remain with comfort in their station, was disappointed by a sudden storm, in which a small vessel that he destined for their service was dashed to pieces; and as he could not supply them with another, at their joint request, as they were worn out with fatigue and famine, he carried them home to England

Such was the inauspicious beginning of the English settlements in the New World; and after exciting high expectations, this first attempt produced no effect but that of affording a more complete knowledge of the country; as it enabled Hariot, a man of science and observation, to describe its soil, climate, productions, and the manners of its inhabitants, with a degree of ac curacy which merits no inconsiderable praise, when compared

with the childish and marvellous tales published by several of the early visitants of the New World. There is another consequence of this abortive colony important enough to entitle it to a place in history. Lane and his associates, by their constant intercourse with the Indians, had acquired a relish for their favorite enjoyment of smoking tobacco; to the use of which, the credulity of that people not only ascribed a thousand imaginary virtues, but their superstition considered the plant itself as a gracious gift of the gods, for the solace of human kind, and the most acceptable offering which man can present to heaven. They brought with them a specimen of this new commodity to England, and taught their countrymen the method of using it; which Raleigh, and some young men of fashion, fondly adopted. From imitation of them, from love of novelty, and from the favorable opinion of its salutary qualities entertained by several physicians, the practice spread among the English. The Spaniards and Portuguese had, previous to this, introduced it in other parts of Europe. This habit of taking tobacco gradually extended from the extremities of the north to those of the south, and in one form or other seems to be equally grateful to the inhabitants of every climate; and by a singular caprice of the hu.nan species, no less inexplicable than unexampled, (so bewitching is the acquired taste for a weed of no manifest utility, and at first not only unpleasant, but nauseous,) that it has become almost as universal as the demands of those appetites originally implanted in our nature. Smoking was the first mode of taking tobacco in England; and we learn from the comic writers towards the close of the sixteenth century and the beginning of the seventeenth, that this was deemed one of the accomplishments of a man of fashion and spirit.

A few days after Drake departed from Roanoke, a small bark, dispatched by Raleigh with a supply of stores for the colony, landed at the place where the English had settled; but on finding it deserted by their countrymen, they returned to England. The bark was hardly gone, when Sir Richard Greenville appeared with three ships. After searching in vain for the colony which he had planted, without being able to learn what had befallen it, he left fifteen of his crew to keep possession of the island. This handful of men was soon overpowered and cut in pieces by the savages.