Kim Sloan, a British Museum curator, said: "He was the original estate agent."More than 100 men, women and children went out to begin a new life in America but life proved tough and they eventually gave up and returned home.A second party followed with White as governor. Among the party which landed at Roanoke in the 1580s under Sir Richard Grenville and Ralph Lane was John White, a figure about whom little is known other than he was an accomplished painter.He painted the Native Indians at work and play, including details of their crops and fishing, and returned to the Elizabethan Court to circulate the drawings as an advertisement for the new colony. The works, which are more than 400 years old, are so vulnerable to light damage they have not been displayed in their entirety since 1964. The show, entitled A New World: England's First View of America, will introduce new British audiences to a story which is a famous part of American folklore - the tale of the first efforts to found an English colony in North America before the more successful attempts at Jamestown and Plymouth in Virginia.In the late 16th century, Sir Walter Raleigh, the great adventurer, was granted a patent by Elizabeth I to colonise America and advance parties were despatched in his name - although without Raleigh himself. Seventy-five watercolours depicting a ground-breaking colony in North Carolina are to be brought out of the British Museum stores for the first time in a generation for a new exhibition next year. "The quality of the artwork is unmistakable, though."The works, to be sold in individual lots, will be auctioned on 2 October.. They are rare glimpses of the New World captured by one of the first Englishmen to encounter the American Native Indians. The bawdiness of the collector's purchases may explain the decision not to display the body of work but to store it in the vault.Certainly the pieces demonstrate the full McGill range of innuendo.

In one, an excited spinster tells the hotel reception: "For Heaven's sake, send help! There's a man trying to get into my room and the door's locked!"In another, a voluptuous woman is discussing the contents of her washing line with her neighbour. "Your night-dress is looking rather the worse for wear, isn't it?" says the neighbour. "Well, dear, it's seen some ups and downs in its time, you know."McGill eventually gave up his job with the Thames Ironworks, Shipbuilding and Engineering Company in 1908 His early business was with the Pictorial Postcard Company He later worked for an entrepreneur called Joseph Ascher. Though about 200 million of his cards were sold, he never earned more than three guineas per design.In July 1954, at the age of 80, McGill was brought before the Lincoln Quarter Sessions to face charges under the Obscene Publications Act.It seems astonishing today, but he was fined £50, with £25 costs.

It was a devastating blow to the seaside card industry, and several smaller companies went bankrupt."Some of this collection would never be published now," said Nigel Smith, of Tennants auctioneers, of Harrogate, North Yorkshire, which is dealing with the collection of 82 pieces. It is anyone's guess, therefore, what McGill would have made of the valuation placed on one of the largest collection of his legendary works, which has come up for sale after 40 years confined to a bank vault in York. At a time of renewed interest in McGill, nurtured by an exhibition of his work in London five months ago by the film director and McGill enthusiast Michael Winner, the body of original artworks, each of them signed by McGill, is expected to fetch £50,000.Few individuals appear to have considered McGill's work collectable during his life, though the prominent (and unnamed) pillar of York society, whose family is now selling the collection, seems to have been an exception. Though millions of people bought them and tittered over the double entendres, he received no royalties and left only £735 in his will when he died, aged 87, in 1962. The first 15 arrived months later and today they make up almost 2 per cent of the Army..