bisher in three successive voyages (1576-1578) vainly sought gold in Labrador. Francis Drake, on his famous buccaneering tour around the world, explored the Pacific coast of the United States as far north as Cape Blanco (1579), unsuccessfully searching for a short cut by water through the continent.

Gilbert saw that Newfoundland must thereafter be considered as the nucleus of English settlement in America; and in 1579 Sir Humphrey, himself a soldier and a member of Parliament, accompanied by his step-brother, Sir Walter Raleigh, went out to lead the way. Storms and other disasters drove them back, and it was 1583 before another squadron could be equipped. Raleigh remained in England; but Gilbert landed at St. John's, where he found that four hundred vessels of various nationalities, mainly Spanish and Portuguese, were annually engaged in the fisheries. He took possession of the island for the queen, examined the neighboring mainland, and freighted his ships with glistening rock, ignorantly declared by an unskilful expert accompanying the expedition to contain silver. Upon the return voyage the vessel carrying Gilbert was lost, the companion ship, with its worthless cargo, reaching Falmouth safely.

15. English Attempts to colonize (1584-1606).[Pg 38]

Under Raleigh's auspices two vessels set out in 1584, commanded by Philip Amadas and Arthur Barlowe. They landed at the island of Roanoke, the southernmost of the reefs enclosing Albemarle Sound, in North Carolina; but although charmed with the country, which they declared to be "the most plentiful, sweet, fruitful, and wholesome of all the world," and well treated by the Indians,—"people most gentle, loving, and faithful,"—the