"an unlucky star." Return to the "Lost Colony" Finally, in March 1590, with the immediate threat of a Spanish invasion by now abated, Raleigh was able to equip White's rescue expedition. Two ships, the Hopewell and the Moonlight set sail for Roanoke. The return journey was prolonged by extensive privateering and several sea battles, and White's eventual landing at the Outer Banks was further imperiled by poor weather. The landing was hazardous and was beset by bad conditions and adverse currents. During the landing on Roanoke, of the mariners who accompanied White, "seven of the chiefest were drowned." Governor White finally reached Roanoke Island on 18 August 1590, his granddaughter's third birthday, but he found his colony had been long deserted. The buildings had collapsed and "the houses [were] taken downe." The few clues about the colonists' whereabouts included the letters "CRO" carved into a tree, and the word "CROATOAN" carved on a post of the fort. Croatoan was the name of a nearby island (likely modern-day Hatteras Island) and of a local tribe of Native Americans. Roanoke Island was originally not a planned location for the colony and the idea of moving elsewhere had been discussed. Before the Governor's departure, he and the colonists had agreed that a message would be carved into a tree if they had moved and would include an image of a Maltese Cross if the decision was made by force. White found no such cross and was hopeful that his family were still alive. True to their word, the colonists had looked after White's belongings, which had been carefully buried and hidden. However, local Indians had looted the hiding place, and White found "about the place many of my things spoyled and broken, and my books torne from the covers, the frames of some of my pictures and mappes rotten and spoyled with rayne, and my armour almost eaten through with rust." Due to the weather, which "grew to be fouler and fouler," White had to abandon the search of adjacent islands for the colonists. The ship's captain had already lost three anchors and could not afford the loss of another. White returned to Plymouth, England, on 24 October 1590. The loss of the colony was a personal tragedy for White, from which he never fully recovered. He would never return to the New World, and in a letter to Richard Hakluyt he wrote