Clarke, Iohn: ; Captain John Clarke, listed as one of the gentlemen of the company of Raleigh’s 1585 Roanoke Expedition under Richard Grenville, was the commander of the flyboat Roebuck on the voyage. Evidently Clarke put to sea in the Roebuck earlier than the rest of the expedition, acting as a privateer, specifically looking to capture ships that could be used for the expedition’s fleet. It is noted by several sources that Clarke captured a French vessels carrying a cargo of linen, an act which simultaneously resulted in profit for both Clarke and Raleigh as well as various legal and political tensions by numerous parties involved. The Roebuck was attached as a tender to the Tiger for the duration of the subsequent Roanoke voyage itself. Once in the New World, Clarke accompanied Grenville and Amadas on an expedition across Pamlico Sound. Working from these sources, little else is known of his exploits during or following the 1585 Roanoke Voyage.;
Works Cited: ; The Roanoke Voyages, 1584-1590: Volume I, ed. David Beers Quinn (London: Hakluyt Society, 1955), 121, 153, 158, 166, 179-80, 190, 210-12.; Andrews, Kenneth R. Elizabethan Privateering: English Privateering During the Spanish War 1585-1602 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1964): 96.;