Investigations Into Roanoke
Twelve years passed before Raleigh decided to find out what happened to his colony. Led by Samuel Mace, this 1602 expedition differed from previous voyages in that Raleigh bought his own ship and guaranteed the sailors' wages so that they would not be distracted by privateering. However, Raleigh still hoped to make money from the trip, and Mace's ship landed in the Outer Banks to gather aromatic woods or plants such as sassafras that would generate a decent profit back in England. By the time they could turn their attention to the colonists, the weather had turned bad and they were forced to return without even making it to Roanoke Island. Having been arrested by King James I for treason, Raleigh was unable to send any further missions.
Meanwhile, the Spanish had different reasons for wanting to find the colony. Knowing of Raleigh's plans to use Roanoke as a base for privateering, they were hoping to destroy it. Moreover, they had been getting mostly inaccurate reports of activities there, and as such they imagined the colony to be far more successful than it really was.
In 1590, they found the remnants of the colony purely by accident, but assumed it was only an outlying base of the main settlement, which they believed was in the Chesapeake Bay area (John White's intended location). But just as the Anglo-Spanish War prevented White from returning in a timely manner, Spanish authorities in the New World could not muster enough support back home for such a venture.
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