And no man is to return from Virginia without leave from the Council, and none is to write home any discouraging letter.

The instructions end, "Lastly and chiefly, the way to prosper and to achieve good success is to make yourselves all of one mind for the good of your country and your own, and to serve and fear God, the Giver of all Goodness, for every plantation which our Heavenly Father hath not planted shall be rooted out." Nor did they lack verses to go by, as their enterprise itself did not lack poetry.

Michael Drayton wrote for them:-- Britons, you stay too long, Quickly aboard bestow you, And with a merry gale, Swell your stretched sail, With vows as strong As the winds that blow you.
Your course securely steer, West and by South forth keep; Rocks, lee shores nor shoals, Where Eolus scowls, You need not fear, So absolute the deep.
And cheerfully at sea Success you still entice, To get the pearl and gold, And ours to hold VIRGINIA, Earth's only paradise!...
And in regions far Such heroes bring ye forth As those from whom we came; And plant our name Under that star Not known unto our north.
See the parting upon Thames's side, Englishmen going, English kindred, friends, and neighbors calling farewell, waving hat and scarf, standing bare-headed in the gray winter weather! To Virginia--they are going to Virginia! The sails are made upon the Susan Constant, the Goodspeed, and the Discovery.

The last wherry carries aboard the last adventurer.

The anchors are weighed.