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_ On the 10th of September, by the election of the Council and the
request of the company, Captain Smith received the letters-patent,
and became President. He stopped the building of Ratcliffe's
"palace," repaired the church and the storehouse, got ready the
buildings for the supply expected from England, reduced the fort to a
"five square form," set and trained the watch and exercised the
company every Saturday on a plain called Smithfield, to the amazement
of the on-looking Indians.
Captain Newport arrived with a new supply of seventy persons. Among
them were Captain Francis West, brother to Lord Delaware, Captain
Peter Winne, and Captain Peter Waldo, appointed on the Council, eight
Dutchmen and Poles, and Mistress Forest and Anne Burrows her maid,
the first white women in the colony.
Smith did not relish the arrival of Captain Newport nor the
instructions under which he returned. He came back commanded to
discover the country of Monacan (above the Falls) and to perform the
ceremony of coronation on the Emperor Powhatan.
How Newport got this private commission when he had returned to
England without a lump of gold, nor any certainty of the South Sea,
or one of the lost company sent out by Raleigh; and why he brought a
"fine peeced barge" which must be carried over unknown mountains
before it reached the South Sea, he could not understand. "As for
the coronation of Powhatan and his presents of basin and ewer, bed,
bedding, clothes, and such costly novelties, they had been much
better well spared than so ill spent, for we had his favor and better
for a plain piece of copper, till this stately kind of soliciting
made him so much overvalue himself that he respected us as much as
nothing at all." Smith evidently understood the situation much
better than the promoters in England; and we can quite excuse him in
his rage over the foolishness and greed of most of his companions.
There was little nonsense about Smith in action, though he need not
turn his hand on any man of that age as a boaster.
To send out Poles and Dutchmen to make pitch, tar, and glass would
have been well enough if the colony had been firmly established and
supplied with necessaries; and they might have sent two hundred
colonists instead of seventy, if they had ordered them to go to work
collecting provisions of the Indians for the winter, instead of
attempting this strange discovery of the South Sea, and wasting their
time on a more strange coronation. "Now was there no way," asks
Smith, "to make us miserable," but by direction from England to
perform this discovery and coronation, "to take that time, spend what
victuals we had, tire and starve our men, having no means to carry
victuals, ammunition, the hurt or the sick, but on their own backs?"
Smith seems to have protested against all this nonsense, but though
he was governor, the Council overruled him. Captain Newport decided
to take one hundred and twenty men, fearing to go with a less number
and journey to Werowocomoco to crown Powhatan. In order to save time
Smith offered to take a message to Powhatan, and induce him to come
to Jamestown and receive the honor and the presents. Accompanied by
only four men he crossed by land to Werowocomoco, passed the
Pamaunkee (York) River in a canoe, and sent for Powhatan, who was
thirty miles off. Meantime Pocahontas, who by his own account was a
mere child, and her women entertained Smith in the following manner:
"In a fayre plaine they made a fire, before which, sitting upon a
mat, suddenly amongst the woods was heard such a hydeous noise and
shreeking that the English betook themselves to their armes, and
seized upon two or three old men, by them supposing Powhatan with all
his power was come to surprise them. But presently Pocahontas came,
willing him to kill her if any hurt were intended, and the beholders,
which were men, women and children, satisfied the Captaine that there
was no such matter. Then presently they were presented with this
anticke: Thirty young women came naked out of the woods, only covered
behind and before with a few greene leaves, their bodies all painted,
some of one color, some of another, but all differing; their leader
had a fayre payre of Bucks hornes on her head, and an Otters skinne
at her girdle, and another at her arme, a quiver of arrows at her
backe, a bow and arrows in her hand; the next had in her hand a
sword, another a club, another a pot-sticke: all horned alike; the
rest every one with their several devises. These fiends with most
hellish shouts and cries, rushing from among the trees, cast
themselves in a ring about the fire, singing and dancing with most
excellent ill-varietie, oft falling into their infernal passions, and
solemnly again to sing and dance; having spent nearly an hour in this
Mascarado, as they entered, in like manner they departed.
"Having reaccommodated themselves, they solemnly invited him to their
lodgings, where he was no sooner within the house, but all these
Nymphs more tormented him than ever, with crowding, pressing, and
hanging about him, most tediously crying, 'Love you not me? Love you
not me?' This salutation ended, the feast was set, consisting of all
the Salvage dainties they could devise: some attending, others
singing and dancing about them: which mirth being ended, with fire
brands instead of torches they conducted him to his lodging."
The next day Powhatan arrived. Smith delivered up the Indian
Namontuck, who had just returned from a voyage to England--whither it
was suspected the Emperor wished him to go to spy out the weakness of
the English tribe--and repeated Father Newport's request that
Powhatan would come to Jamestown to receive the presents and join in
an expedition against his enemies, the Monacans.
Powhatan's reply was worthy of his imperial highness, and has been
copied ever since in the speeches of the lords of the soil to the
pale faces: "If your king has sent me present, I also am a king, and
this is my land: eight days I will stay to receive them. Your father
is to come to me, not I to him, nor yet to your fort, neither will I
bite at such a bait; as for the Monacans, I can revenge my own
injuries."
This was the lofty potentate whom Smith, by his way of management,
could have tickled out of his senses with a glass bead, and who would
infinitely have preferred a big shining copper kettle to the
misplaced honor intended to be thrust upon him, but the offer of
which puffed him up beyond the reach of negotiation. Smith returned
with his message. Newport despatched the presents round by water a
hundred miles, and the Captains, with fifty soldiers, went over land
to Werowocomoco, where occurred the ridiculous ceremony of the
coronation, which Smith describes with much humor. "The next day,"
he says, "was appointed for the coronation. Then the presents were
brought him, his bason and ewer, bed and furniture set up, his
scarlet cloke and apparel, with much adoe put on him, being persuaded
by Namontuck they would not hurt him. But a foule trouble there was
to make him kneel to receive his Crown; he not knowing the majesty
nor wearing of a Crown, nor bending of the knee, endured so many
persuasions, examples and instructions as tyred them all. At last by
bearing hard on his shoulders, he a little stooped, and three having
the crown in their hands put it on his head, when by the warning of a
pistoll the boats were prepared with such a volley of shot that the
king start up in a horrible feare, till he saw all was well. Then
remembering himself to congratulate their kindness he gave his old
shoes and his mantell to Captain Newport!"
The Monacan expedition the King discouraged, and refused to furnish
for it either guides or men. Besides his old shoes, the crowned
monarch charitably gave Newport a little heap of corn, only seven or
eight bushels, and with this little result the absurd expedition
returned to Jamestown.
Shortly after Captain Newport with a chosen company of one hundred
and twenty men (leaving eighty with President Smith in the fort) and
accompanied by Captain Waldo, Lieutenant Percy, Captain Winne, Mr.
West, and Mr. Scrivener, who was eager for adventure, set off for the
discovery of Monacan. The expedition, as Smith predicted, was
fruitless: the Indians deceived them and refused to trade, and the
company got back to Jamestown, half of them sick, all grumbling, and
worn out with toil, famine, and discontent.
Smith at once set the whole colony to work, some to make glass, tar,
pitch, and soap-ashes, and others he conducted five miles down the
river to learn to fell trees and make clapboards. In this company
were a couple of gallants, lately come over, Gabriel Beadle and John
Russell, proper gentlemen, but unused to hardships, whom Smith has
immortalized by his novel cure of their profanity. They took gayly
to the rough life, and entered into the attack on the forest so
pleasantly that in a week they were masters of chopping: "making it
their delight to hear the trees thunder as they fell, but the axes so
often blistered their tender fingers that many times every third blow
had a loud othe to drown the echo; for remedie of which sinne the
President devised how to have every man's othes numbered, and at
night for every othe to have a Canne of water powred downe his
sleeve, with which every offender was so washed (himself and all),
that a man would scarce hear an othe in a weake." In the clearing of
our country since, this excellent plan has fallen into desuetude, for
want of any pious Captain Smith in the logging camps.
These gentlemen, says Smith, did not spend their time in wood-logging
like hirelings, but entered into it with such spirit that thirty of
them would accomplish more than a hundred of the sort that had to be
driven to work; yet, he sagaciously adds, "twenty good workmen had
been better than them all."
Returning to the fort, Smith, as usual, found the time consumed and
no provisions got, and Newport's ship lying idle at a great charge.
With Percy he set out on an expedition for corn to the Chickahominy,
which the insolent Indians, knowing their want, would not supply.
Perceiving that it was Powhatan's policy to starve them (as if it was
the business of the Indians to support all the European vagabonds and
adventurers who came to dispossess them of their country), Smith gave
out that he came not so much for corn as to revenge his imprisonment
and the death of his men murdered by the Indians, and proceeded to
make war. This high-handed treatment made the savages sue for peace,
and furnish, although they complained of want themselves, owing to a
bad harvest, a hundred bushels of corn.
This supply contented the company, who feared nothing so much as
starving, and yet, says Smith, so envied him that they would rather
hazard starving than have him get reputation by his vigorous conduct.
There is no contemporary account of that period except this which
Smith indited. He says that Newport and Ratcliffe conspired not only
to depose him but to keep him out of the fort; since being President
they could not control his movements, but that their horns were much
too short to effect it.
At this time in the "old Taverne," as Smith calls the fort, everybody
who had money or goods made all he could by trade; soldiers, sailors,
and savages were agreed to barter, and there was more care to
maintain their damnable and private trade than to provide the things
necessary for the colony. In a few weeks the whites had bartered
away nearly all the axes, chisels, hoes, and picks, and what powder,
shot, and pikeheads they could steal, in exchange for furs, baskets,
young beasts and such like commodities. Though the supply of furs
was scanty in Virginia, one master confessed he had got in one voyage
by this private trade what he sold in England for thirty pounds.
"These are the Saint-seeming Worthies of Virginia," indignantly
exclaims the President, "that have, notwithstanding all this, meate,
drinke, and wages." But now they began to get weary of the country,
their trade being prevented. "The loss, scorn, and misery was the
poor officers, gentlemen and careless governors, who were bought and
sold." The adventurers were cheated, and all their actions
overthrown by false information and unwise directions.
Master Scrivener was sent with the barges and pinnace to
Werowocomoco, where by the aid of Namontuck he procured a little
corn, though the savages were more ready to fight than to trade. At
length Newport's ship was loaded with clapboards, pitch, tar, glass,
frankincense (?) and soapashes, and despatched to England. About two
hundred men were left in the colony. With Newport, Smith sent his
famous letter to the Treasurer and Council in England. It is so good
a specimen of Smith's ability with the pen, reveals so well his
sagacity and knowledge of what a colony needed, and exposes so
clearly the ill-management of the London promoters, and the condition
of the colony, that we copy it entire. It appears by this letter
that Smith's "Map of Virginia," and his description of the country
and its people, which were not published till 1612, were sent by this
opportunity. Captain Newport sailed for England late in the autumn
of 1608. The letter reads:
RIGHT HONORABLE, ETC.:
I received your letter wherein you write that our minds are so set
upon faction, and idle conceits in dividing the country without your
consents, and that we feed you but with ifs and ands, hopes and some
few proofes; as if we would keepe the mystery of the businesse to
ourselves: and that we must expressly follow your instructions sent
by Captain Newport: the charge of whose voyage amounts to neare two
thousand pounds, the which if we cannot defray by the ships returne
we are likely to remain as banished men. To these particulars I
humbly intreat your pardons if I offend you with my rude answer.
For our factions, unless you would have me run away and leave the
country, I cannot prevent them; because I do make many stay that
would else fly away whither. For the Idle letter sent to my Lord of
Salisbury, by the President and his confederates, for dividing the
country, &c., what it was I know not, for you saw no hand of mine to
it; nor ever dream't I of any such matter. That we feed you with
hopes, &c. Though I be no scholar, I am past a schoolboy; and I
desire but to know what either you and these here doe know, but that
I have learned to tell you by the continuall hazard of my life. I
have not concealed from you anything I know; but I feare some cause
you to believe much more than is true.
Expressly to follow your directions by Captain Newport, though they
be performed, I was directly against it; but according to our
commission, I was content to be overouled by the major part of the
Councill, I feare to the hazard of us all; which now is generally
confessed when it is too late. Onely Captaine Winne and Captaine
Walclo I have sworne of the Councill, and crowned Powhattan according
to your instructions.
For the charge of the voyage of two or three thousand pounds we have
not received the value of one hundred pounds, and for the quartered
boat to be borne by the souldiers over the falls. Newport had 120 of
the best men he could chuse. If he had burnt her to ashes, one might
have carried her in a bag, but as she is, five hundred cannot to a
navigable place above the falls. And for him at that time to find in
the South Sea a mine of gold; or any of them sent by Sir Walter
Raleigh; at our consultation I told them was as likely as the rest.
But during this great discovery of thirtie miles (which might as well
have been done by one man, and much more, for the value of a pound of
copper at a seasonable tyme), they had the pinnace and all the boats
with them but one that remained with me to serve the fort. In their
absence I followed the new begun works of Pitch and Tarre, Glasse,
Sope-ashes, Clapboord, whereof some small quantities we have sent
you. But if you rightly consider what an infinite toyle it is in
Russia and Swethland, where the woods are proper for naught els, and
though there be the helpe both of man and beast in those ancient
commonwealths, which many an hundred years have used it, yet
thousands of those poor people can scarce get necessaries to live,
but from hand to mouth, and though your factors there can buy as much
in a week as will fraught you a ship, or as much as you please, you
must not expect from us any such matter, which are but as many of
ignorant, miserable soules, that are scarce able to get wherewith to
live, and defend ourselves against the inconstant Salvages: finding
but here and there a tree fit for the purpose, and want all things
else the Russians have. For the Coronation of Powhattan, by whose
advice you sent him such presents, I know not; but this give me leave
to tell you, I feare they will be the confusion of us all ere we
heare from you again. At your ships arrivall, the Salvages harvest
was newly gathered, and we going to buy it, our owne not being halve
sufficient for so great a number. As for the two ships loading of
corne Newport promised to provide us from Powhattan, he brought us
but fourteen bushels; and from the Monacans nothing, but the most of
the men sicke and neare famished. From your ship we had not
provision in victuals worth twenty pound, and we are more than two
hundred to live upon this, the one halfe sicke, the other little
better. For the saylers (I confesse), they daily make good cheare,
but our dyet is a little meale and water, and not sufficient of that.
Though there be fish in the Sea, fowles in the ayre, and beasts in
the woods, their bounds are so large, they so wilde, and we so weake
and ignorant, we cannot much trouble them. Captaine Newport we much
suspect to be the Author of these inventions. Now that you should
know, I have made you as great a discovery as he, for less charge
than he spendeth you every meale; I had sent you this mappe of the
Countries and Nations that inhabit them, as you may see at large.
Also two barrels of stones, and such as I take to be good. Iron ore
at the least; so divided, as by their notes you may see in what
places I found them. The souldiers say many of your officers
maintaine their families out of that you sent us, and that Newport
hath an hundred pounds a year for carrying newes. For every master
you have yet sent can find the way as well as he, so that an hundred
pounds might be spared, which is more than we have all, that helps to
pay him wages. Cap. Ratliffe is now called Sicklemore, a poore
counterfeited Imposture. I have sent you him home least the Company
should cut his throat. What he is, now every one can tell you: if he
and Archer returne againe, they are sufficient to keep us always in
factions. When you send againe I entreat you rather send but thirty
carpenters, husbandmen, gardiners, fishermen, blacksmiths, masons,
and diggers up of trees roots, well provided, then a thousand of such
as we have; for except wee be able both to lodge them, and feed them,
the most will consume with want of necessaries before they can be
made good for anything. Thus if you please to consider this account,
and the unnecessary wages to Captaine Newport, or his ships so long
lingering and staying here (for notwithstanding his boasting to leave
us victuals for 12 months, though we had 89 by this discovery lame
and sicke, and but a pinte of corne a day for a man, we were
constrained to give him three hogsheads of that to victuall him
homeward), or yet to send into Germany or Poleland for glassemen and
the rest, till we be able to sustaine ourselves, and releeve them
when they come. It were better to give five hundred pound a ton for
those grosse Commodities in Denmarke, then send for them hither, till
more necessary things be provided. For in over-toyling our weake and
unskilfull bodies, to satisfy this desire of present profit, we can
scarce ever recover ourselves from one supply to another. And I
humbly intreat you hereafter, let us have what we should receive, and
not stand to the Saylers courtesie to leave us what they please, els
you may charge us what you will, but we not you with anything. These
are the causes that have kept us in Virginia from laying such a
foundation that ere this might have given much better content and
satisfaction, but as yet you must not look for any profitable
returning. So I humbly rest.
After the departure of Newport, Smith, with his accustomed
resolution, set to work to gather supplies for the winter. Corn had
to be extorted from the Indians by force. In one expedition to
Nansemond, when the Indians refused to trade, Smith fired upon them,
and then landed and burned one of their houses; whereupon they
submitted and loaded his three boats with corn. The ground was
covered with ice and snow, and the nights were bitterly cold. The
device for sleeping warm in the open air was to sweep the snow away
from the ground and build a fire; the fire was then raked off from
the heated earth and a mat spread, upon which the whites lay warm,
sheltered by a mat hung up on the windward side, until the ground got
cold, when they builded a fire on another place. Many a cold winter
night did the explorers endure this hardship, yet grew fat and lusty
under it.
About this time was solemnized the marriage of John Laydon and Anne
Burrows, the first in Virginia. Anne was the maid of Mistress
Forrest, who had just come out to grow up with the country, and John
was a laborer who came with the first colony in 1607. This was
actually the "First Family of Virginia," about which so much has been
eloquently said.
Provisions were still wanting. Mr. Scrivener and Mr. Percy returned
from an expedition with nothing. Smith proposed to surprise
Powhatan, and seize his store of corn, but he says he was hindered in
this project by Captain Winne and Mr. Scrivener (who had heretofore
been considered one of Smith's friends), whom he now suspected of
plotting his ruin in England.
Powhatan on his part sent word to Smith to visit him, to send him men
to build a house, give him a grindstone, fifty swords, some big guns,
a cock and a hen, much copper and beads, in return for which he
would load his ship with corn. Without any confidence in the crafty
savage, Smith humored him by sending several workmen, including four
Dutchmen, to build him a house. Meantime with two barges and the
pinnace and forty-six men, including Lieutenant Percy, Captain Wirt,
and Captain William Phittiplace, on the 29th of December he set out
on a journey to the Pamaunky, or York, River.
The first night was spent at "Warraskogack," the king of which
warned Smith that while Powhatan would receive him kindly he was only
seeking an opportunity to cut their throats and seize their arms.
Christmas was kept with extreme winds, rain, frost and snow among the
savages at Kecoughton, where before roaring fires they made merry
with plenty of oysters, fish, flesh, wild fowls and good bread. The
President and two others went gunning for birds, and brought down one
hundred and forty-eight fowls with three shots.
Ascending the river, on the 12th of January they reached
Werowocomoco. The river was frozen half a mile from the shore, and
when the barge could not come to land by reason of the ice and muddy
shallows, they effected a landing by wading. Powhatan at their
request sent them venison, turkeys, and bread; the next day he
feasted them, and then inquired when they were going, ignoring his
invitation to them to come. Hereupon followed a long game of fence
between Powhatan and Captain Smith, each trying to overreach the
other, and each indulging profusely in lies and pledges. Each
professed the utmost love for the other.
Smith upbraided him with neglect of his promise to supply them with
corn, and told him, in reply to his demand for weapons, that he had
no arms to spare. Powhatan asked him, if he came on a peaceful
errand, to lay aside his weapons, for he had heard that the English
came not so much for trade as to invade his people and possess his
country, and the people did not dare to bring in their corn while the
English were around.
Powhatan seemed indifferent about the building. The Dutchmen who had
come to build Powhatan a house liked the Indian plenty better than
the risk of starvation with the colony, revealed to Powhatan the
poverty of the whites, and plotted to betray them, of which plot
Smith was not certain till six months later. Powhatan discoursed
eloquently on the advantage of peace over war: "I have seen the death
of all my people thrice," he said, "and not any one living of those
three generations but myself; I know the difference of peace and war
better than any in my country. But I am now old and ere long must
die." He wanted to leave his brothers and sisters in peace. He
heard that Smith came to destroy his country. He asked him what good
it would do to destroy them that provided his food, to drive them
into the woods where they must feed on roots and acorns; "and be so
hunted by you that I can neither rest, eat nor sleep, but my tired
men must watch, and if a twig but break every one crieth, there
cometh Captain Smith!" They might live in peace, and trade, if Smith
would only lay aside his arms. Smith, in return, boasted of his
power to get provisions, and said that he had only been restrained
from violence by his love for Powhatan; that the Indians came armed
to Jamestown, and it was the habit of the whites to wear their arms.
Powhatan then contrasted the liberality of Newport, and told Smith
that while he had used him more kindly than any other chief, he had
received from him (Smith) the least kindness of any.
Believing that the palaver was only to get an opportunity to cut his
throat, Smith got the savages to break the ice in order to bring up
the barge and load it with corn, and gave orders for his soldiers to
land and surprise Powhatan; meantime, to allay his suspicions,
telling him the lie that next day he would lay aside his arms and
trust Powhatan's promises. But Powhatan was not to be caught with
such chaff. Leaving two or three women to talk with the Captain he
secretly fled away with his women, children, and luggage. When Smith
perceived this treachery he fired into the "naked devils" who were in
sight. The next day Powhatan sent to excuse his flight, and
presented him a bracelet and chain of pearl and vowed eternal
friendship.
With matchlocks lighted, Smith forced the Indians to load the boats;
but as they were aground, and could not be got off till high water,
he was compelled to spend the night on shore. Powhatan and the
treacherous Dutchmen are represented as plotting to kill Smith that
night. Provisions were to be brought him with professions of
friendship, and Smith was to be attacked while at supper. The
Indians, with all the merry sports they could devise, spent the time
till night, and then returned to Powhatan.
The plot was frustrated in the providence of God by a strange means.
"For Pocahuntas his dearest jewele and daughter in that dark night
came through the irksome woods, and told our Captaine good cheer
should be sent us by and by; but Powhatan and all the power he could
make would after come and kill us all, if they that brought it could
not kill us with our own weapons when we were at supper. Therefore
if we would live she wished us presently to be gone. Such things as
she delighted in he would have given her; but with the tears rolling
down her cheeks she said she durst not to be seen to have any; for if
Powhatan should know it, she were but dead, and so she ran away by
herself as she came."
[This instance of female devotion is exactly paralleled in
D'Albertis's "New Guinea." Abia, a pretty Biota girl of seventeen,
made her way to his solitary habitation at the peril of her life, to
inform him that the men of Rapa would shortly bring him insects and
other presents, in order to get near him without suspicion, and then
kill him. He tried to reward the brave girl by hanging a gold chain
about her neck, but she refused it, saying it would betray her. He
could only reward her with a fervent kiss, upon which she fled.
Smith omits that part of the incident.]
In less than an hour ten burly fellows arrived with great platters of
victuals, and begged Smith to put out the matches (the smoke of which
made them sick) and sit down and eat. Smith, on his guard, compelled
them to taste each dish, and then sent them back to Powhatan. All
night the whites watched, but though the savages lurked about, no
attack was made. Leaving the four Dutchmen to build Powhatan's
house, and an Englishman to shoot game for him, Smith next evening
departed for Pamaunky.
No sooner had he gone than two of the Dutchmen made their way
overland to Jamestown, and, pretending Smith had sent them, procured
arms, tools, and clothing. They induced also half a dozen sailors,
"expert thieves," to accompany them to live with Powhatan; and
altogether they stole, besides powder and shot, fifty swords, eight
pieces, eight pistols, and three hundred hatchets. Edward Boynton
and Richard Savage, who had been left with Powhatan, seeing the
treachery, endeavored to escape, but were apprehended by the Indians.
At Pamaunky there was the same sort of palaver with Opechancanough,
the king, to whom Smith the year before had expounded the mysteries
of history, geography, and astronomy. After much fencing in talk,
Smith, with fifteen companions, went up to the King's house, where
presently he found himself betrayed and surrounded by seven hundred
armed savages, seeking his life. His company being dismayed, Smith
restored their courage by a speech, and then, boldly charging the
King with intent to murder him, he challenged him to a single combat
on an island in the river, each to use his own arms, but Smith to be
as naked as the King. The King still professed friendship, and laid
a great present at the door, about which the Indians lay in ambush to
kill Smith. But this hero, according to his own account, took prompt
measures. He marched out to the King where he stood guarded by fifty
of his chiefs, seized him by his long hair in the midst of his men,
and pointing a pistol at his breast led, him trembling and near dead
with fear amongst all his people. The King gave up his arms, and the
savages, astonished that any man dare treat their king thus, threw
down their bows. Smith, still holding the King by the hair, made
them a bold address, offering peace or war. They chose peace.
In the picture of this remarkable scene in the "General Historie,"
the savage is represented as gigantic in stature, big enough to crush
the little Smith in an instant if he had but chosen. Having given
the savages the choice to load his ship with corn or to load it
himself with their dead carcasses, the Indians so thronged in with
their commodities that Smith was tired of receiving them, and leaving
his comrades to trade, he lay down to rest. When he was asleep the
Indians, armed some with clubs, and some with old English swords,
entered into the house. Smith awoke in time, seized his arms, and
others coming to his rescue, they cleared the house.
While enduring these perils, sad news was brought from Jamestown.
Mr. Scrivener, who had letters from England (writes Smith) urging him
to make himself Caesar or nothing, declined in his affection for
Smith, and began to exercise extra authority. Against the advice of
the others, he needs must make a journey to the Isle of Hogs, taking
with him in the boat Captain Waldo, Anthony Gosnoll (or Gosnold,
believed to be a relative of Captain Bartholomew Gosnold), and eight
others. The boat was overwhelmed in a storm, and sunk, no one knows
how or where. The savages were the first to discover the bodies of
the lost. News of this disaster was brought to Captain Smith (who
did not disturb the rest by making it known) by Richard Wiffin, who
encountered great dangers on the way. Lodging overnight at
Powhatan's, he saw great preparations for war, and found himself in
peril. Pocahontas hid him for a time, and by her means, and
extraordinary bribes, in three days' travel he reached Smith.
Powhatan, according to Smith, threatened death to his followers if
they did not kill Smith. At one time swarms of natives, unarmed,
came bringing great supplies of provisions; this was to put Smith off
his guard, surround him with hundreds of savages, and slay him by an
ambush. But he also laid in ambush and got the better of the crafty
foe with a superior craft. They sent him poisoned food, which made
his company sick, but was fatal to no one. Smith apologizes for
temporizing with the Indians at this time, by explaining that his
purpose was to surprise Powhatan and his store of provisions. But
when they stealthily stole up to the seat of that crafty chief, they
found that those "damned Dutchmen" had caused Powhatan to abandon his
new house at Werowocomoco, and to carry away all his corn and
provisions.
The reward of this wearisome winter campaign was two hundred weight
of deer-suet and four hundred and seventy-nine bushels of corn for
the general store. They had not to show such murdering and
destroying as the Spaniards in their "relations," nor heaps and mines
of gold and silver; the land of Virginia was barbarous and ill-
planted, and without precious jewels, but no Spanish relation could
show, with such scant means, so much country explored, so many
natives reduced to obedience, with so little bloodshed. _
Read next: CHAPTER XII - TRIALS OF THE SETTLEMENT
Read previous: CHAPTER X - DISCOVERY OF THE CHESAPEAKE
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