Choosing a convenient ground in safety to lodge in for the night, making a strong corps of guard, and putting out good sentinels, I determined the next morning before the rising of the sun to be going back again, if possibly we might recover the mouth of the river, into the broad sound, which at my first motion I found my whole company ready to assent unto: for they were now come to their dog's porridge, that they had bespoken for themselves if that befell them which did, and I before did mistrust we should hardly escape.

The end was, we came the next day by night to the river's mouth within four or five miles of the same, having rowed in one day down the current, much as in four days we had done against the same : we lodged upon an island, where we had nothing in the world to eat but pottage of sassafras leaves, the like whereof for a meat was never used before as I think. The broad sound we had to pass the next day all fresh and fasting: that day the wind blew so strongly and the billow so great, that there was no possibility of passage without sinking of our boats. This was upon Easter eve, which was fasted very truly. Upon Easter day in the morning the wind coming very calm, we entered the sound, and by four of the clock we were at Chipanum, whence all the savages that we had left there were left, but their wares did yield us some fish, as God was pleased not utterly to suffer us to be lost : for some of our company of the light horsemen were far spent. The next morning we arrived at our home Roanoak.

This fell out the first of June 1586, and the eight of the same came advertisement to me from captain Stafford, lying at my lord Admiral's Island, that he had discovered a great fleet of three and twenty sails : but whether they were friends or foes, he could not yet discern. He advised me to stand upon as good. guard as I could.

The ninth of the said month he himself came unto me, having that night before, and that same day traveled by land twenty miles : and I must truly report of him from the first to the last; he was the gentleman that never spared labor or peril either by land or water, fair weather or foul, to perform any service committed unto him.

He brought me a letter from the General Sir Francis Drake, with a most bountiful and honorable offer for the supply of our necessities to the performance of the action we were entered into ; and that not only of victuals, munition, and clothing, but also of barks, pinnaces, and boats ; they also by him to be victualed, manned and furnished to my contentation.

The tenth day he arrived in the road of our bad harbor: and coming there to an anchor, the eleventh day I came to him, whom I found in deeds most honorably to perform that which in writing and message he had most courteously offered, he having aforehand propounded the matter to all the captains of his fleet, and got their liking and consent thereto.

With such thanks unto him and his captains for his care both of us and of our action, not as the matter deserved, but as I could both for my company and myself, I (being aforehand prepared what I would desire) craved at his hands that it would please him to take with him into England a number of weak and unfit men for any good action, which I would deliver to him; and in place of them to supply me of his company with oar-men, artificers, and others.

That he would leave us so much shipping and victual, as about August then next following would carry me and all my company into England, when we had discovered somewhat, that for lack of needful provision in time left with us as yet remained undone.

That it would please him withal to leave some sufficient Masters not only to carry us into England, when time should be, but also to search the coast for some better harbor, if there were any, and especially to help us to some small boats and oar-men.

While these things were in hand, the provision aforesaid being brought, and in bringing aboard, my said masters being also gone aboard, my said barks having accepted of their charge, and my own officers, with others in like sort of my company with them (all which was dispatched by the said general the 12 of the said month) the 13 of the same there arose such an unwonted storm, and continued four days.

This storm having continued from the 13 to the 16 of the month, and thus my bark put away as aforesaid, the general coming ashore made a new proffer unto me; which was a ship of 170 tons, called the bark Bonner, with a sufficient master and guide to tarry with me the time appointed, and victualed sufficiently to carry me and my company into England, with all provisions as before : but he told me that he would not for anything undertake to have her brought into our harbor, and therefore he was to leave her in the road, and to leave the care of the rest unto myself, and advised me to consider with my company of our case, and to deliver presently unto him in writing what I would require him to do for us; which being within his power, he did assure me as well for his captains as for himself, should be most willingly performed.

Hereupon calling such captains and gentlemen of my company as then were at hand, who were all as privy as myself to the general's offer ; their whole request was to me, that considering the case that we stood in, the weakness of our company, the small number of the same, the carrying away of our first appointed bark, with those two special masters, with our principal provisions in the same, by the very hand of God as it seemed, stretched out to take us from thence; considering also, that his second offer, though most honorable of his part, yet of ours not to be taken, insomuch as there was no possibility for her with any safety to be brought into the harbor: seeing furthermore, our hope for supply with Sir Richard Grenville, so undoubtedly promised us before Easter, not yet come, neither then likely to come this year, considering the doings in England for Flanders, and also for America, that therefore I would resolve myself with my company to go into England in that fleet, and accordingly to make request to the general in all our names, that he would be pleased to give us present passage with him. . . .

From whence the general in the name of the Almighty, weighing his anchors (having bestowed us among his fleet) for the relief of whom he had in that storm sustained more peril of wreck than in all his former most honorable actions against the Spaniards, with praises unto God for all, set sail the nineteenth of June 1596, and arrived in Portsmouth the seven and twentieth of July the same year.