Captain Arthur Barlowe (1550-1620) left England in 1584 under instructions from Sir Walter Raleigh to find lands in North America to claim for Queen Elizabeth I. After stopping for supplies in the West Indies, he and Philip Amadas sailed up the Florida coast to North Carolina. Barlowe was very impressed with both the land and the people, which led to the settlement of Roanoke Island and later Virginia. The account below is from a letter he wrote to Raleigh.