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The
Daughter of Virginia Dare
Mary Virginia Wall
Mary Virginia Wall
My Mother, Virginia
and
My Grandmother, England
PRELUDE
The sunbeams were playing hide and seek with the ripples around the prows of three small vessels lying at anchor in the harbor of Portsmouth. Their decks were crowded with the colonists going to seek a home on the soil of Virginia. On the wharf all was bustle and confusion. The songs of the sailors loading the vessels with the goods of the voyagers mingled with the whip and snap of the sails as they were given to the breeze.
At last the creaking of the capstan as the anchors were hoisted on board sounded the warning note of departure. Leading the diminutive fleet was the good ship Admiral, having as her master Simon Ferdinando. Closely in her wake followed a pinnace and a flyboat, and from the masthead of all three fluttered the English flag. They were not to leave England, however, until they had stopped at two of her ports on their way out.
10
For eight days they tarried at the Isle of Wight, and two more in the harbor of Plymouth. As they sailed out of this quaint old harbor the balmy air of May wafted the fragrant farewell of the hawthorn blossoms even to the water’s edge.
“How hard it is to bid farewell to home and friends and turn my face to this unknown land,” said Eleanor Dare to herself as she stood on the deck of the Admiral. “There is a strange fear welling up in my heart as if some unknown shadow were falling upon us.
“But I must not even breathe su