Here, then, begin in Virginia other blood strains than the English. And in the
Mary and Margaret comes with Master Thomas Forest his wife, Mistress Forest,
and her maid, by name Anne Burras. Apart from those lost ones of Raleigh's
colony at Roanoke, these are the first Englishwomen in Virginia. There may be
guessed what welcome they got, how much was made of them.
Christopher Newport had from that impatient London Council somewhat strange
orders. He was not to return without a lump of gold, or a certain discovery
of waters pouring into the South Sea, or some notion gained of the fate of
the lost colony of Roanoke. He had been given a barge which could be taken
to pieces and so borne around those Falls of the Far West, then put
together, and the voyage to the Pacific resumed. Moreover, he had for
Powhatan, whom the minds at home figured as a sort of Asiatic Despot, a
gilt crown and a fine ewer and basin, a bedstead, and a gorgeous robe.
The easiest task, that of delivering Powhatan's present and placing an idle
crown upon that Indian's head who, among his own people, was already
sufficiently supreme, might be and was performed. And Newport with a large
party went again to the Falls of the Far West and miles deep into the
country beyond. Here they found Indians outside the Powhatan Confederacy,
but no South Sea, nor mines of gold and silver, nor any news of the lost
colony of Roanoke. In December Newport left Virginia in the Mary and
Margaret, and with him sailed Ratcliffe.
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