White, Captain John, was one of the settlers who went with Captain Ralph Lane and his colonists to Roanoke in 1586. He was an artist, and made maps of the country and drawings of the Indian life. Many of his paintings are now in the Sloane collection and in the Grenville Library in the British Museum. He was one of those to whom Raleigh assigned his patent in January, 1587, and went in charge of a second colony to Roanoke in May that year. In November he went to England for supplies, but his return to Roanoke was delayed on account of the invasion of England by the Spanish Armada. At length after three years he returned to Roanoke, but found no trace of the colony which he had left behind. Some of his maps and drawings were engraved in 1590 by De Bry in Hariot's report of the New found land of Virginia. He was living in 1594, when he wrote a letter to Raleigh. One of the lost colonists was his own daughter, wife of Ananias Dare, to whom was born a daughter, Virginia, August 18, 1587, the first child of English parents to be born in America.
Mace, Samuel, a mariner in the employment of Sir Walter Raleigh, was sent by him three times to Virginia to search for the "Lost Colony of Roanoke;" the third voyage was in 1602; he departed from Weymouth in March, and reaching the American coast forty leagues south of Cape Hatteras, spent a month searching the coast and trading with the Indians; he returned with a cargo of sassafras and roots of different kinds, but brought no news of the "Lost Colony."
James I. of England and VI. of Scotland, only child of Mary Queen of Scots, daughter of James V., by her cousin Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley. was born in the Castle of Edinburgh, June 19, 1566. He married Anne of Denmark, November 24, 1589, and was proclaimed King of England on the death of Queen Elizabeth, March 24, 1603. His reign lasted till March 27, 1625, when he died. In estimating his career, while we must condemn his subserviency to favorites like Somerset and Buckingham, and his exorbitant ideas of his prerogative, we must praise his actions in other respects. He loved peace, and was fond of books and literary men. He had patriotic views on extending the trade and power of the nation by favoring merchants, discoveries and colonization. He enlarged the privileges of the East India, the Muscovy, the Turkey and the Merchant Adventurers Companies, and granted three charters to the Virginia Company, successively increasing its powers. While he has been condemned for having the company dissolved, it cannot be said that he acted without some good reasons. The company had fallen into factions, and the terrible mortality in Virginia gave the appearance of careless administration. Of course Sandys and Southampton were not responsible for this, but subsequent events justified King James' action. As a matter of fact the colony had outgrown the care of a distant corporation. Jamestown, James river and James City county in Virginia still remind us of his name and reign.
Cecil, Sir Robert, Earl of Salisbury, born June 1, 1563, son of William Cecil, Lord Burleigh, whom he succeeded as secretary of state on his death in 1598. In that office he was in fact prime minister during the next five years of his life. He was sole secretary of state to James I. from 1603 to his death in 1612. He was one of the earliest and constant friends of the Virginia enterprise, and subscribed £333 6s. 8d. to its stock.
