History of the Colony and Ancient Dominion of Virginia

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1860 edition. Excerpt: ... HISTORY OF THE COLONY ASO ANCIENT DOMINION OF VIRGINIA. CHAPTER I. 140S-1001. Early Voyages of Discovery--Sir Humphrey Gilbert--Walter Raleigh--Expedition of Am&das and Barlow--They land on Wocokon Island--Return to England--The New Country named Virginia--Grenville's Expedition--Colony of Roanoke--Lane, Governor--The Colony abandoned--Tobacco--Grenville returns to Virginia--Leaves a small Colony at Roanoke--Sir Walter Raleigh sends out another Expedition--City of Raleigh chartered--White, Governor-- Roanoke found deserted--Virginia Dare, 6rst Child born in the Colony-- White returns for Supplies--The Armada--Raleigh assigns the Colony to a Company--White returns to Virginia--Finds the Colony extinct--Death of Sir Richard Grenville--Oosnold's Voyage to New England. The discoveries attributed by legendary story to Madoc, the Welsh prince, have afforded a theme for the creations of poetry; those of the Northmen of Iceland, better authenticated, still engage the dim researches of antiquarian curiosity. To Columbus belongs the glory of having made the first certain discovery of the New World, in the year 1492; but it was the good fortune of the Cabots to be the first who actually reached the main land. In 1497, John Cabot, a Venetian merchant, who had become a resident of Bristol in England, with his son Sebastian, a native of that city, having obtained a patent from Henry the Seventh, sailed under his flag and discovered the main continent of America, amid the inhospitable rigors of the wintry North. It was subsequent to this that Columbus, in his third voyage, set his foot on the main land of the South. In the following year, Sebastian Cabot again crossed the Atlantic, and coasted from the fifty-eighth degree of north latitude, along the...