SIR HUMPHREY GILBERT'S FATE. 319 



Meantime, on board the remaining vessels, there was much suffering 1 , and Sir 

 Humphrey was obliged to yield to the general desire, and sail for England, having " compassion 

 upon his poor men, in whom he saw no lack of good will, but of means fit to perfoi-m 

 the action they came for." He promised his subordinate officers to set them forth " royally 

 the next spring/' if God should spare them. But it was not so to be. 



Sir Humphrey Gilbert was entreated, when one day he had come on board the Hinde, 

 to remain there, instead of risking himself "in the frigate, which was overcharged with 

 nettage, and small artillery/' to which he answered, " I will not forsake my little 

 company going homewards, with whom I have passed so many storms and perils." A 

 short time afterwards, while experiencing " foul weather and terrible seas, breaking short and 

 high, pyramidwise, men which all their life had occupied the sea never saw it more out- 

 rageous/'' the frigate was nearly engulfed, but recovered. Gilbert, sitting abaft with 

 a book in his hand, cried out to the crew of the Hinde in the following noble words, so 

 often since recorded in poetry and prose : " Courage, my lads ! We are as near to heaven by 

 sea as by land ! " That same night the lights of the little vessel were suddenly missed, 

 and Gilbert and his gallant men were engulfed in the depths for ever. Of such men we 

 may appropriately say with the poet Campbell 



" The deck it was their field of fame, 

 And Ocean was their grave." 



The Hinde reached Falmouth in safety, though sadly shattered and torn. 



But the spirit of enterprise then prevailing was not to be easily quashed, and only 

 a few months after the failure of poor Gilbert's enterprise, we find Sir Walter Raleigh 

 in the field. He obtained letters of patent similar to those before mentioned, and was 

 aided by several persons of wealth, particularly Sir Richard Greenville and Mr. William 

 Saunderson. Two barks, under Captains Amadas and Barlow, were sent to a part of 

 the American continent north of the Gulf of Florida, and after skirting the coast for one 

 hundred and twenty miles, a suitable haven was found, the land round which was immediately 

 taken for the queen with the usual formalities. After sundry minor explorations they 

 returned to England, where they gave a glowing account of the country. It was 

 " so full of grapes that the very beating and surge of the sea overflowed them." The 

 vegetation was so rich and abundant that one of the captains thought that "in all the 

 world the like abundance is not to be found," while the woods were full of deer and smaller 

 game. The cedars were "the highest and reddest in the world," while among smaller 

 trees was that bearing "the rind of black cinnamon." The inhabitants were kind and 

 gentle, and void of treason, " handsome and goodly people in their behaviour, as mannerly 

 and civil as any of Europe." It is true that " they had a mortal malice against a certain 

 neighbouring nation ; that their wars were very cruel and bloody, and that by reason 

 thereof, and of civil dissensions which had happened of late years amongst them, the 

 people were marvellously wasted, and in some places the country left desolate." These 

 little discrepancies were passed over, and Elizabeth was so well pleased with the accounts 

 brought home, that she named the country Virginia ; not merely because it was discovered in 

 the reign of a virgin queen, but " because it did still seem to retain the virgin purity and plenty 



