With marvellous energy, enterprise, and skill Raleigh collected and
fitted out in an incredibly short time a fleet of seven ships well
stocked and well manned to transport his ' first colonie ' into the
wilds of America. It was under the command of his valiant cousin,
Admiral Sir Richard Grenville, and sailed from Plymouth on the 19th of
May 1585. Never before did a finer fleet leave the shores of England,
and never since was one more honestly or hopefully dispatched. There
were the ' Tyger' and the ' Roe Buck' of 140 tons each, the ' Lyon' of
100 tons, the 'Elizabeth' of 50 tons, the ' Dorothea," a small bark, and
two pinnaces, hardly big enough to bear distinct names, yet small enough
to cross dangerous bars and enter unknown bays and rivers. In this
splendid outfit were nearly two hundred souls, among whom were Master
Ralfe Lane as governor of the colony. Thomas Candish or Cavendish
afterwards the circumnavigator, Captain Philip Amadas of the Council,
John White the painter as delineator and draughtsman, Master Thomas
Hariot the mathematician as historiographer, surveyor and scientific
discoverer or explorer, and many others whose names are preserved in
Hakluyt.

The fleet had a prosperous voyage by the then usual route of the West
Indies and fell in with the main of Florida on the 20th of June, made
and named Cape Fear on the 23d, and a first landing the next day, and on
the 26th came to Wococa where Amadas and Barlow had been the year
before. They disembarked and at first mistook the country for Paradise.
July was spent in surveying and exploring the country, making the
acquaintance of the natives, chiefly by means of two Indians that had
been taken to England and brought back able to speak English. On the 5th
of August Master John Arundel, captain of one of the vessels, was sent
back to England, and on the 25th of August Admiral Grenville, after a
sojourn of two months in Virginia, took his leave and returned, arriving