I am the cyber spirit of Sir Ralph Lane. When I was on earth, I was known to be a "hot tempered man", but I was a good soldier.
I was born in Northamptonshire in 1560. After I grew up, I began working in my Queen's service. I was very proud to serve Queen Elizabeth I. I served in Ireland from 1583 until 1585.
I became a favorite of Queen Elizabeth. She knew I was a good soldier, a good fort maker, and a good leader of men.
On April 9,1585, I sailed from Plymouth, England with Sir Richard Grenville to build a fort in the New World. We arrived at Roanoke Island near the end of June, 1585. When one of our ships hit the bottom of the water, the supplies on the ship were lost. We sailed our small boats to the island and began searching for a place to build a fort. We visited the natives and while we there a silver cup of Grenville got lost. Grenville thought the natives had taken the cup. When the natives didn't return the cup, Grenville ordered our men to burn the Indian's village and their plants. The natives were not very happy.
We were running out of supplies because we were soldiers not settlers. We didn't plant crops or fish. Some of the natives shared their food with us. I had my men work hard to build a fort because we needed housing for the winter. There were a lot of trees to cut. We had all the wood we needed. At the end of August, Grenville decided to go back to England to get us more supplies. I became Governor Ralph Lane. Grenville left me with 107 men on the island and returned to England. He promised to return with more supplies. I really needed more men because we had so much work to get done.
The natives who were good to us started to run out of food so they stopped giving us what we needed. They were also mad at us because some of their people were catching our diseases. They had never had these kind of diseases before we came.
Near the end of April, 1586, some natives shot arrows at us as we were exploring the area looking for a better place to live. This made me mad. We returned back to the fort. At this time, Grenville should have returned with supplies for us but we did not see his ships. I thought the natives were going to kill us so I had my men attack them. We attacked on June 1, 1586. Chief Wingina was killed. About this time, we saw Sir Francis Drake's ships. Drake offered to take us back to England and I decided we should go.
I returned to England and lived a good life. I also published "Haklluyt's
Voyages" in 1589 and was the author of the "Virginia Settlement".
I died in 1603.
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