Captain Newport's Instructions

He was ordered, if you please, not to return to England without bringing back a lump of gold, exploring the passageway to the South Sea, or finding some of Sir Walter Raleigh's lost colony, of which I will tell you later.

But whether he did the one or the other, he had been commanded to crown as a king, Powhatan, and had brought with him mock jewels and red robes for such a purpose.

To find a lump of gold, after he had brought to England a shipload of yellow sand!

To crown Powhatan king, when, to our sorrow, he was already showing himself far more of a king than was pleasing or well for our town of James!

Forgetting I was but a lad, and had no right to put blame on the shoulders of my leaders and betters, or even to address Master Hunt as if I were a man grown, I cried out against the foolishness of those people in London for whom we were striving to build up a city, saying very much that had better been left unsaid, until the good preacher cried with a laugh:

"We can forgive them almost anything, Dicky Mutton, since they have made our Captain Smith the head of the government in this land of Virginia."

And now I will tell you, as Master Hunt told me, the story of this lost colony of Roanoke, which the London Company had commanded Captain Newport to find.

You must know that English people had lived in this land of Virginia before we came here in 1606, and while it does not concern us of Jamestown, except as we are interested in knowing the fate of our countrymen, it should be set down, lest we so far forget as to say that those of us who have built this village are the first settlers in the land.