[Sidenote: The three zones in American history.]

It is a curious fact that, although the actual course taken by the

colonization of North America was very different from what was

contemplated in this charter, nevertheless the division of our

territory into the three zones just mentioned has happened to coincide

with a real and very important division that exists to-day. Of our

original thirteen states, those of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode

Island, and Connecticut were founded in the northern zone, and within

it their people have spread through central New York into the Far

West. In the middle zone, with the exception of a few northerly towns

upon the Hudson, were made the beginnings of New York, New Jersey,

Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland. In the southern zone were planted

Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia. Between the three groups the

differences in local government have had much significance in the

history of the American people. In the northern zone the township

system of local government has prevailed, and in the southern zone the

county system, while in the middle zone the mixed township-and-county

system has exhibited various phases, here and there reaching a very

high stage of development.[31]

[Sidenote: Government of the two colonies.]

To return to King James's charter, the government which it provided

for his two American colonies was such as he believed would prove of

the two simple and efficient. A Royal Council of Virginia, consisting

of thirteen persons, was created in London, and its members were to be

appointed by the king. It was to exercise a general supervision over

the two colonies, but the direct management of affairs in each colony

was to be entrusted to local resident councils. Each local council

was to consist of thirteen persons, of whom one was to be president,

with a casting vote. The council in London was to give the wheels of

government a start by appointing the first members of the two colonial

councils and designating that member of each who should serve as

president for the first year. After that the vehicle was to run of

itself; the colonial council was to elect its president each year, and

could depose him in case of misconduct; it could also fill its own

vacancies, arising from the resignation, deposition, departure, or

death of any of its members. Power was given to the colonial council

to coin money for trade between the colonies and with the natives,

to invite and carry over settlers, to drive out intruders, to punish

malefactors, and to levy and collect duties upon divers imported

goods. All lands within the two colonies were to be held in free and

common socage, like the demesnes of the manor of East Greenwich, in

the county of Kent and the settlers and their children forever were

to enjoy all the liberties, franchises, and immunities enjoyed by

Englishmen in England,--a clause which was practically nullified by the

failure to provide for popular elections or any expression whatever

of public opinion. The authority of the colonial councils was supreme

within the colonies, but their acts were liable to a veto from the

Crown.

This first English attempt at making an outline of government for an

English colony can never fail to be of interest. It was an experimental

treatment of a wholly new and unfamiliar problem, and, as we shall

hereafter see, it was soon proved to be a very crude experiment,

needing much modification. For the present we are concerned with the

names and characters of the persons to whom this ever-memorable charter

was granted.

[Sidenote: Persons chiefly interested in the First Colony; the London

Company.]

The persons interested in the First Colony, in that southern zone which

had been the scene of Raleigh's original attempts, were represented

by some eminent citizens of London and its neighbourhood, so that

they came afterward to be commonly known as the London Company. The

names mentioned in the charter are four: the Rev. Richard Hakluyt, who

had lately been made a prebendary of Westminster; Sir Thomas Gates,

Sir George Somers, and Captain Edward Maria Wingfield. Gates was a

Devonshire soldier who had been knighted in 1596 for brave conduct

in the battle of Cadiz, and had afterward served in the Netherlands.

Somers was a native of Dorsetshire, and had received knighthood for

eminent services as commander in several naval expeditions against

the Spaniards. Captain Edward Maria Wingfield, of Stoneley Priory, in

Huntingdonshire, was of a very ancient and honourable Catholic family;

Queen Mary Tudor and Cardinal Pole had been sponsors for his father,

which accounts for the feminine middle name; he had served in the

Netherlands and in Ireland; among his near relatives, or connections

by marriage, were Shakespeare's Earl of Southampton, the lords Carew

and Hervey, and John Winthrop, of Groton, afterwards governor of

Massachusetts. But the name which, after Hakluyt's, has been perhaps

most closely identified with the London Company is that of Sir Thomas

Smith, the eminent London citizen who was its first treasurer. From

the time of his student days at Oxford Smith felt a strong interest in

"western planting," and we have already met with his name on the list

of those to whom Raleigh in 1589 assigned his trading interests in

Virginia. He was knighted in 1596 for gallantry at Cadiz, was alderman

and sheriff of London, and first governor of the East India Company

in 1600. He was at various times a member of Parliament, served as

ambassador to Russia, and was especially forward in promoting Arctic

discovery. He was one of those who sent Henry Hudson in 1610 upon his

last fatal voyage, and it was under his auspices that William Baffin

was sailing in 1616 when he discovered that remote strait leading to

the Polar Sea which has ever since been known as Smith's Sound. Few men

of that time contributed more largely in time and money to the London

Company than Sir Thomas Smith.

[Sidenote: Persons chiefly interested in the Second Colony; the

Plymouth Company.]

The persons interested in the Second Colony, in that northern zone to

which attention had recently been directed by the voyages of Gosnold,

Pring, and Weymouth, were represented by certain gentlemen connected

with the western counties, especially by Ferdinando Gorges, governor

of the garrison at Plymouth in Devonshire, who was afterwards to be

Lord Proprietor of the Province of Maine, and to play a part of some

importance in the early history of New England. This company came to be

known as the Plymouth Company. The four names mentioned in the charter

are Raleigh Gilbert, William Parker, Thomas Hanham, and George Popham.

The name of the first of these gentlemen tells its own story; he was a

younger son of Sir Humphrey Gilbert and named for his uncle. William

Parker was son and heir of Lord Morley, and commonly known by his

courtesy title as Lord Monteagle. It was he who received the anonymous

letter which led to the detection of the Gunpowder Plot, in which his

wife's brother was concerned. George Popham was a nephew,[32] and

Thomas Hanham was a grandson, of Sir John Popham, Chief Justice of the

King's Bench. They were a Somersetshire family. In securing the charter

incorporating the London and Plymouth companies nobody was more active

or influential than the chief justice, whom we have seen singled out

for mention by the Spanish ambassador.

[Sidenote: Other eminent persons interested in the scheme.]

Among other persons especially interested in the colonization of

Virginia, one should mention George Abbot, Master of University

College, Oxford, one of the translators of the common version of the

Bible, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury; and Sir Julius Cæsar,

member of Parliament for Westminster and Chancellor of the Exchequer,

son of Julius Cæsar Adelmare, Queen Elizabeth's Italian physician; his

strong interest in maritime discovery and western planting may have

been due to the fact that, after the death of his father and while he

was still a child, his mother married the celebrated geographer, Dr.

Michael Lok. We should not forget Sir Maurice Berkeley, two of whose

sons we shall meet hereafter, one of them, Sir William Berkeley, the

most conspicuous figure among the royal governors of Virginia, the

other, Lord Berkeley of Stratton, one of the proprietors of Carolina.

An important subscriber to the company was Sir Anthony Ashley,

grandfather of the famous Earl of Shaftesbury, who was also one of the

Carolina proprietors; another was William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke,

nephew of Sir Philip Sidney and devoted friend of Shakespeare; another

was Sir Henry Cary, father of the pure and high-minded statesman,

Lucius, Viscount Falkland. Of more importance for Virginian history

than any of the foregoing was Sir Edwin Sandys, son of Edwin Sandys,

Archbishop of York. Sir Edwin was a pupil of the great Richard Hooker,

and learned from him principles of toleration little understood in that

age. After his travels on the continent he published in 1605 a treatise

entitled "Europæ Speculum, a relation of the state of religion in ...

these Western Parts of the World;" its liberal opinions gave so much

offence that about four months after its publication it was burned in

St. Paul's Churchyard by order of the Court of High Commission. At that

very time Sandys was one of the most admired and respected members of

the House of Commons, and it was on his motion that the House first

began keeping a regular journal of its transactions. He was associated

with Sir Francis Bacon in drawing up the remonstrance against King

James's behaviour toward Parliament. In later years he was an active

friend of the Mayflower Pilgrims and gave them valuable aid in setting

out upon their enterprise. But his chief title to historic fame

consists in the fact that it was under his auspices and largely through

his exertions that free representative government was first established

in America. How this came about will be shown in a future chapter. For

the present we may note that at least half a dozen of his immediate

family were subscribers to the London Company; one of his brothers had

for godfather Sir Thomas Lucy, of Charlecote Hall, the Puritan knight

who figures as Justice Shallow in the "Merry Wives of Windsor;" there

were at least two intermarriages between this Sandys family and that of

Lawrence Washington, of Sulgrave, ancestor of George Washington. It is

pleasant to trace the various connections, near and remote, whether in

blood-relationship or in community of interests and purposes, between

the different personages of a great era that has passed away; for the

more we come to discern in its concrete details the intricate web of

associations running in all directions among the men and events of the

vanished age, the more vividly is that age reproduced in our minds, the

closer does it come to the present, the more keenly does it enlist our

sympathies. As we contemplate the goodly array here brought forward

of personages concerned in the first planting of an English nation in

America, the inquiry as to what sort of men they were, for intelligence

and character, is one that can be answered with satisfaction.

[Sidenote: Expedition of the Plymouth Company; failure of the Popham

Colony.]

In accordance with the provisions of the charter, both London and

Plymouth companies made haste to organize expeditions for planting

their colonies in the New World. The London Company was the first

to be ready, but before we follow its adventures a word about the

Plymouth Company seems called for. On the last day of May, 1607, two

ships--the Gift of God, commanded by George Popham, and the Mary and

John, commanded by Raleigh Gilbert--set sail from Plymouth with a

hundred settlers In August, after some exploration of the coast, they

selected a site by the mouth of the Kennebec River, and built there a

rude fort with twelve guns, a storehouse and church, and a few cabins.

They searched diligently but in vain for traces of gold or silver;

the winter brought with it much hardship, their storehouse was burned

down, and Captain Popham died. In the spring a ship which arrived with

supplies from England brought the news of two deaths, that of Chief

Justice Popham, and that of Gilbert's elder brother, to whose estates

he was heir. The enterprise was forthwith abandoned and all returned

to England with most discouraging reports. The further career of the

Plymouth Company does not at present concern us. It never achieved any

notable success. When the colonization of New England was at length

accomplished it was in a manner that was little dreamed of by the king

who granted or the men who obtained the charter of 1606.

[Sidenote: Expedition of the London Company.]

The expedition fitted out by the London Company was in readiness a

little before Christmas 1606, and was placed under command of Captain

Christopher Newport, the stout sailor who had brought in the great

Spanish carrack for Raleigh. He was one of the most skilful and highly

esteemed officers in the English navy. Of the three ships that were to

go to Virginia his was the Susan Constant. The Godspeed was commanded

by Bartholomew Gosnold, and the Discovery by John Ratcliffe. Besides

their crews, the three ships carried 105 colonists. By some queer

freak of policy the names of the persons appointed to the colonial

council were carried in a sealed box, not to be opened until the

little squadron should arrive at its destination. An important paper

of instructions was drawn up for the use of the officers on landing.

Hakluyt was commonly called upon to prepare such documents, and the

style of this one sounds like him. The suggestions are those of a man

who understood the business.[33]

[Sidenote: Instructions to the colonists.]

"When it shall please God to send you on the coast of Virginia, you

shall do your best endeavour to find out a safe port in the entrance of

some navigable river, making choice of such a one as runneth farthest

into the land.... When you have made choice of the river on which you

mean to settle, be not hasty in landing your victuals and munitions,

but first let Captain Newport discover how far that river may be found

navigable, that you make election of the strongest, most wholesome and

fertile place, for if you make many removes, besides the loss of time,

you shall greatly spoil your victuals and your casks.

[Sidenote: Where to choose a site for a town.]

"But if you choose your place so far up as a bark of 50 tons will

float, then you may lay all your provisions ashore with ease, and the

better receive the trade of all the countries about you in the land;

and such a place you may perchance find a hundred miles from the

river's mouth, and the further up the better, for if you sit down near

the entrance, except it be in some island that is strong by nature, an

enemy that may approach you on even ground may easily pull you out;

_and_ [_i. e._ but] if he be driven to seek you a hundred miles _the_

[_i. e._ in] land in boats, you shall from both sides of the river

where it is narrowest, so beat them with your muskets as they shall

never be able to prevail against you."

That the enemy in the writer's mind was the Spaniard is clearly shown

by the next paragraph, which refers expressly to the massacre of the

Huguenot colony in Florida and the vengeance taken by Dominique de

Gourgues.

[Sidenote: Precautions against a surprise.]

"And to the end that you be not surprised as the French were in Florida

by Melindus [_i. e._ Menendez] and the Spaniard in the same place by

the French, you shall do well to make this double provision: first

erect a little store at the mouth of the river that may lodge some ten

men, with whom you shall leave a light boat, that when any fleet shall

be in sight they may come with speed to give you warning. Secondly, you

must in no case suffer any of the native people to inhabit between you

and the sea-coast, for you cannot carry yourselves so towards them but

they will grow discontented with your habitation, and be ready to guide

and assist any nation that shall come to invade you; and if you neglect

this you neglect your safety.

[Sidenote: You must try to find the Pacific Ocean.]

"You must observe if you can whether the river on which you plant doth

spring out of mountains or out of lakes. If it be out of any lake the

passage to the other sea [_i. e._ the Pacific Ocean] will be the more

easy; and [it] is like enough that out of the same lake you shall find

some [rivers] spring which run the contrary way toward the East India

Sea, for the great and famous rivers of Volga, Tanais, and Dwina have

three heads near joined, and yet the one falleth into the Caspian Sea,

the other into the Euxine Sea, and the third into the Polonian Sea.

[Sidenote: Do not offend the natives, or put much trust in them.]

"... You must have great care not to offend the naturals, if you can

eschew it, and employ some few of your company to trade with them for

corn and all other lasting victuals ..., and this you must do before

that they perceive you mean to plant among them.... Your discoverers

that pass over land with hired guides must look well to them that they

slip not from them, and for more assurance let them take a compass with

them, and write down how far they go upon every point of the compass,

for that country having no way or path, if that your guides run from

you in the great woods or desert, you shall hardly ever find a passage

back. And how weary soever your soldiers be, let them never trust the

country people with the carriage of their weapons, for if they run from

you with your shot which they only fear, they will easily kill _them_

[_i. e._ you] all with their arrows. And whensoever any of yours shoots

before them, be sure that they be chosen out of your best marksmen, for

if they see your learners miss what they aim at, they will think the

weapon not so terrible, and thereby will be bold to assault you.

[Sidenote: Conceal from them your weaknesses.]

"Above all things, do not advertise the killing of any of your men [so]

that the country people may know it. If they perceive that they are but

common men, and that with the loss of many of theirs they may diminish

any part of yours, they will make many adventures upon you.... You

shall do well also not to let them see or know of your sick men, if you

have any....

[Sidenote: Beware of woodland converts.]

"You must take especial care that you choose a seat for habitation that

shall not be overburthened with woods near your town, for all the men

you have shall not be able to cleanse twenty acres a year, besides that

it may serve for a covert for your enemies round about.

[Sidenote: Avoid malaria.]

"Neither must you plant in a low or moist place, because it will prove

unhealthful. You shall judge of the good air by the people, for some

part of that coast where the lands are low have their people blear

eyed, and with swollen bellies and legs, but if the naturals be strong

and clean made it is a true sign of a wholesome soil.

[Sidenote: Guard against desertion.]

"You must take order to draw up the pinnace that is left with you under

the fort, and take her sails and anchors ashore, all but a small kedge

to ride by, lest some ill-disposed persons slip away with her."

The document contains many other excellent suggestions and directions,

two or three of which will suffice for the purposes of our narrative.

[Sidenote: Build your town carefully.]

"Seeing order is at the same price with confusion it shall be advisably

done to set your houses even and by a line, that your streets may have

a good breadth and be carried square about your market-place, and every

street's end opening into it, that from thence with a few field-pieces

you may command every street throughout....

[Sidenote: Do not send home any discouraging news.]

"You shall do well to send a perfect relation by Captain Newport of all

that is done, what height you are seated, how far into the land, what

commodities you find, what soil, woods and their several kinds, and so

of all other things else, to advertise particularly; and to suffer no

man to return but by passport from the President and Council, nor to

write [in] any letter of anything that may discourage others.

"Lastly and chiefly, the way to prosper and 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."

[Sidenote: What Spain thought of it.]

The allusion to the Florida tragedy, in this charming paper, was by

no means ill considered. For in March, 1607, the King of Spain wrote

from Madrid to Zuñiga in London as follows: "You will report to me

what the English are doing in the matter of Virginia; and if the plan

progresses which they contemplated, of sending men there and ships;

and thereupon it will be taken into consideration here what steps had

best be taken to prevent it."[34] A few days after this letter Philip

III. held a meeting with his council to discuss measures which boded no

good to Captain Newport's little company. We do not know just what was

said and done, but we hardly need to be told that the temper of Spain

was notably changed in the forty-two years since Menendez's deed of

blood. How to ruin the Virginia enterprise without coming to blows with

England was now the humbler problem for Spain to solve, and it was not

an easy one.

[Sidenote: A poet laureate's farewell blessing.]

Meanwhile Newport's little fleet was half way on its voyage. It started

down the Thames from Blackwall on the 19th of December, but by reason

of "unprosperous winds" it was obliged to keep its moorings "all in the

Downs," as in the ballad of "Black-eyed Susan," until New Year's Day,

1607, when it finally got under way. A farewell blessing was wafted to

them in Michael Drayton's quaint stanzas:[35]--

"You brave heroic minds,

Worthy your country's name,

That honour still pursue,

Go and subdue,

Whilst loitering hinds

Lurk here at home with shame.

"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,

When Æolus 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!

"Where nature hath in store

Fowl, venison, and fish;

And the fruitfull'st soil

Without your toil,

Three harvests more.

All greater than you wish.

"And the ambitious vine

Crowns with his purple mass

The cedar reaching high

To kiss the sky,

The cypress, pine,

And useful sassafras.

"To whose, the Golden Age

Still nature's laws doth give;

No other cares that tend,

But them to defend

From winter's age,

That long there doth not live.

"When as the luscious smell

Of that delicious land,

Above the seas that flows

The clear wind throws

Your hearts to swell,

Approaching the dear strand.

"In kenning of the shore

(Thanks to God first given)

O you, the happiest men

Be frolic then;

Let cannons roar,

Frighting the wide heaven.

"And in regions farre,

Such heroes bring ye forth

As those from whom we came;

And plant our name

Under that star

Not known unto our north.

"And as there plenty grows

Of laurel everywhere,

Apollo's sacred tree,

You it may see,

A poet's brows

To crown, that may sing there.

"Thy voyages attend,

Industrious Hakluyt,

Whose reading shall inflame

Men to seek fame,

And much commend

To after times thy wit."

With rich omen sailed from merry England the men who were to make the

beginnings of the United States of America. What they found and how

they fared in the paradise of Virginia shall be the theme of our next

chapter.

FOOTNOTES:

[20] Doyle, _Virginia_, etc. p. 106.

[21] Hakluyt's _Discourse of Western Planting_ (in _Maine Hist. Soc.

Coll._), Cambridge, 1877, p. x.

[22] The case is put vigorously by Sir Thomas More in 1516: "Your

sheep, that were wont to be so meek and tame, are now become so great

devourers and so wild that they eat up and swallow down the very men

themselves. They consume, destroy, and devour whole fields, houses,

and cities; for look in what part of the realm doth grow the finest,

and therefore dearest wool, there noblemen and gentlemen, yea, and

certain abbots, holy men, God wot! not contenting themselves with

the yearly revenues and profits that were wont to grow to their

forefathers and predecessors of their lands, nor being content that

they live in rest and pleasure--nothing profiting, yea, much annoying

the weal publick--leave no ground for tillage; they enclose all into

pastures, they throw down houses, they pluck down towns, and leave

nothing standing but only the church to be made a sheep-house. And,

as though you lost no small quantity of ground by forests, chases,

lands, and parks, those good holy men turn all dwelling places and all

glebe lands into desolation and wilderness, enclosing many thousands

acres of ground together within one pale or hedge," while those who

formerly lived on the land, "poor, silly, wretched souls, men, women,

husbands, wives, fatherless children, widows, and woeful mothers with

young babes, were starving and homeless. And where many labourers

had existed by field labour, only a single shepherd or herdsman was

occupied."--_Utopia_, book i.

[23] Doyle, _Virginia_, etc. p. 103.

[24] In many cases the monasteries by injudicious relief had increased

the number of paupers and beggars. The subject of this paragraph is

admirably expounded in Ashley's _Introduction to English Economic

History_, ii. 190-376.

[25] See my _Discovery of America_, i. 409.

[26] Payne, _European Colonies_, p. 55.

[27] Circumstances not wholly creditable to him; see Stebbing's

_Ralegh_, pp. 89-94.

[28] Stith's _Virginia_, Sabin's reprint, New York, 1865, p. 30.

[29] _The Ancient British Drama_, London, 1810, vol. ii.

[30] Brown's _Genesis_, i. 46.

[31] See my _Civil Government in the United States_, chap. iv.

[32] He is commonly but incorrectly called the brother of the Chief

Justice.

[33] The original is in the MS. _Minutes of the London Company_, in the

Library of Congress, 2 vols. folio.

[34] Brown's _Genesis_, i. 91.

[35] Drayton's _Works_, London, 1620. Drayton was afterwards poet

laureate.

CHAPTER III.

THE LAND OF THE POWHATANS.

[Sidenote: Captain John Smith.]

WHILE Captain Christopher Newport, with the ships of the London

Company, is still in mid-ocean, and the seal of the king's casket

containing the names of Virginia's first rulers is still unbroken, we

may pause for a moment in our narrative, to bestow a few words upon the

early career of the personage that is next to come upon the scene,--a

man whose various and wild adventures have invested the homeliest of

English names with a romantic interest that can never die. The life

of Captain John Smith reads like a chapter from "The Cloister and the

Hearth." It abounds in incidents such as we call improbable in novels,

although precedents enough for every one of them may be found in real

life. The accumulation of romantic adventures in the career of a single

individual may sometimes lend an air of exaggeration to the story;

yet in the genius for getting into scrapes and coming out of them

sound and whole, the differences between people are quite as great as

the differences in stature and complexion. John Smith evidently had

a genius for adventures, and he lived at a time when one would often

meet with things such as nowadays seldom happen in civilized countries.

In these days of Pullman cars and organized police we are liable to

forget the kind of perils that used to dog men's footsteps through the

world. The romance of human life has by no means disappeared, but it

has somewhat changed its character since the Elizabethan age, and is

apt to consist of different kinds of incidents, so that the present

generation has witnessed a tendency to disbelieve many stories of the

older time. In the case of John Smith, for whose early life we have

little else but his autobiography to go by, much incredulity has been

expressed.[36] To set him down as an arrant braggadocio would seem

to some critics essential to their reputation for sound sense. Such

a judgment, however, may simply show that the critic has failed to

realize all the conditions of the case. Queer things could happen in

the Tudor times. Lord Campbell tells us that Sir John Popham, when he

was a law-student in the Middle Temple, used after nightfall to go out

with his pistols and take purses on Hounslow Heath, partly to show that

he was a young man of spirit, partly to recruit his meagre finances,

impaired by riotous living.[37] This amateur highwayman lived to become

Chief Justice of England. The age in which such things could be done

was that in which John Smith grew to manhood.

[Sidenote: His early life.]

[Sidenote: A cruise in the Mediterranean.]

A Latin entry in the parish register at Willoughby in Lincolnshire

shows that he received infant baptism in the church there on the 9th

of January, 1580. After the death of his parents, an irrepressible

craving for adventure led him at an early age to France, where he

served as a soldier for a while and afterward spent three years in

the Netherlands fighting against the Spaniards. In the year 1600 he

returned to Willoughby, "where within a short time, being glutted with

too much company wherein he took small delight, he retired himself into

a little woody pasture a good way from any town, environed with many

hundred acres of woods. Here by a fair brook he built a pavilion of

boughs where only in his clothes he lay. His study was Machiavelli's

Art of War and Marcus Aurelius; his exercise a good horse, with lance

and ring; his food was thought to be more of venison than anything

else."[38] However, he adds, these hermit-like pleasures could not

content him long. "He was desirous to see more of the world, and try

his fortune against the Turks; both lamenting and repenting to have

seen so many Christians slaughtering one another." In passing through

France he was robbed of all he had about him, but his life was saved by

a peasant who found him lying in the forest, half dead with hunger and

grief and nearly frozen. He made his way to Marseilles, and embarked

with a company of pilgrims for the Levant; but a violent storm arose,

which they said was all because of their having this heretic on board,

and so, like Jonah, the young adventurer was thrown into the sea.

He was a good swimmer, however, and "God brought him," he says, to

a little island with no inhabitants but a few kine and goats. Next

morning he was picked up by a Breton vessel which carried him as far as

Egypt and Cyprus. The commanding officer, Captain La Roche, who knew

some of Smith's friends in France, treated him with great kindness and

consideration. On their return voyage, at the entrance of the Adriatic

Sea, a Venetian argosy fired upon them, and a hot fight ensued, until

the Venetian struck her colours. The Bretons robbed her of an immense

treasure in silks and velvets, besides Turkish gold and silver coin, as

much as they could carry without overloading their own ship, and then

let her go on her way. When the spoil was divided, Smith was allowed to

share with the rest, and thus received £225 in coin besides a box of

stuffs worth nearly as much more. After Captain La Roche, of whom he

speaks with warm affection, had set him ashore in Piedmont, he made a

comfortable journey through Italy as far as Naples, and seems to have

learned much and enjoyed himself in "sight seeing," quite like a modern

traveller. At Rome he saw Pope Clement VIII. with several cardinals

creeping on hands and knees up the Holy Staircase. He called on Father

Parsons, the famous English Jesuit; he "satisfied himself with the

rarities of Rome;" he visited in like manner Florence and Bologna, and

gradually made his way to Venice, and so on to Gratz in Styria, where

he entered the service of the Emperor Rudolph II., and was presently

put in command of a company of 250 cavalry with the rank of captain. On

one occasion he made himself useful by devising a system of signals,

and on another occasion by inventing a kind of rude missiles which he

called "fiery dragons," which sorely annoyed the Turks by setting fire

to their camp.

[Sidenote: The three Turks' heads.]

During the years 1601 and 1602 Smith saw much rough campaigning.

The troop to which his company belonged passed into the service of

Sigismund[39] Bathori, Prince of Transylvania; and now comes the

most notable incident in Smith's narrative. The Transylvanians were

besieging Regal, one of their towns which the Turks had occupied, and

the siege made but little progress, so that the barbarians from the top

of the wall hurled down sarcasms upon their assailants and complained

of growing fat for lack of exercise. One day a Turkish captain sent

a challenge, declaring that "in order to delight the ladies, who did

long to see some court-like pastime, he did defy any captain that had

the command of a company, who durst combat with him for his head."

The challenge was accepted by the Christian army, it was decided to

select the champion by lot, and the lot fell upon Smith. A truce was

proclaimed for the single combat, the besieging army was drawn up

in battle array, the town walls were crowded with veiled dames and

turbaned warriors, the combatants on their horses politely exchanged

salutes, and then rushed at each other with levelled lances. At the

first thrust Smith killed the Turk, and dismounting unfastened his

helmet, cut off his head, and carried it to the commanding general,

Moses Tzekely, who accepted it graciously. The Turks were so chagrined

that one of their captains sent a personal challenge to Smith, and

next day the scene was repeated. This time both lances were shivered

and recourse was had to pistols, the Turk received a ball which threw

him to the ground, and then Smith beheaded him. Some time afterward

our victorious champion sent a message into the town "that the ladies

might know he was not so much enamoured of their servants' heads, but

if any Turk of their rank would come to the place of combat to redeem

them, he should have his also upon the like conditions, if he could win

it." The defiance was accepted. This time the Turk, having the choice

of weapons, chose battle-axes and pressed Smith so hard that his axe

flew from his hand, whereat loud cheers arose from the rampart; but

with a quick movement of his horse he dodged his enemy's next blow, and

drawing his sword gave him a fearful thrust in the side which settled

the affair; in another moment Smith had his head. At a later time,

after Prince Sigismund had heard of these exploits, he granted to Smith

a coat-of-arms with three Turks' heads in a shield.

[Sidenote: The entry in the Heralds' College.]

This story forcibly reminds us that the Middle Ages, which had

completely passed away from France and Italy, the Netherlands and

England, still survived at the beginning of the seventeenth century

in the eastern parts of Europe. In the Middle Ages such "court-like

pastime," in the intervals of relaxation from more serious warfare,

was not unfashionable. Still, though the incidents are by no means

incredible, the story has enough of the look of an old soldier's yarn

to excuse a moment's doubt of it. Surely here if anywhere Smith may

seem to be drawing the long bow. But at the Heralds' College in London,

in the official register of grants of arms, there is an entry in Latin

which does not sustain such a doubt. It is the record of a coat-of-arms

granted by Sigismund Bathori, Prince of Transylvania, "to John Smith,

captain of 250 soldiers, etc. ... in memory of three Turks' heads

which with his sword before the town of Regal he did overcome, kill,

and cut off, in the province of Transylvania."[40] The document on

record, which contains this mention of the grant, is a letter of safe

conduct dated December 9, 1603, signed by Sigismund at Leipsic and

given by him to Smith. The entry is duly approved, and the genuineness

of Sigismund's seal and signature certified, by Sir William Segar,

Garter King at Arms. Some critics have suggested that Smith may have

imposed upon Segar with a bogus document, and since the entry at the

Heralds' College was made in 1625, it is urged that such a long delay

in registering invests the whole affair with suspicion.

[Sidenote: Farnese's manuscript history.]

The document, however, cannot be thus summarily set aside. In the year

1625 Rev. Samuel Purchas published the second volume of his delightful

_Pilgrimes_,[41] and in the course of it he devotes several pages to

Captain Smith's adventures in the east of Europe, including the story

of the three Turks as above given. Purchas's authority for the story

was "a Booke intituled The Warres of Transylvania, Wallachi, and

Moldavia," written in Italian by Francesco Farnese, secretary to Prince

Sigismund. This history seems never to have been published in its

original form, and the manuscript is now apparently lost,[42] but there

can be no doubt that Purchas had it, or a copy of it, in his hands

about 1623. Smith's own book entitled "True Travels" was not published

until 1629, so that our original authority for this passage at arms

is not Smith himself, but one of Prince Sigismund's secretaries, who

first told the story of the English captain's exploit in a book written

for Italian readers. To the flippant criticism which treats Smith as a

vapouring braggart, this simple fact is a staggering blow between the

eyes. Let me add that in his way of telling his tale there is no trace

of boastfulness.[43] For freedom from egotistic self-consciousness

Smith's writings remind me strongly of such books as the Memoirs of

General Grant. Inaccuracies that are manifest errors of memory now and

then occur, prejudices and errors of judgment here and there confront

us, but the stamp of honesty I find on every page.

[Sidenote: Smith is sold as a slave,]

At the bloody battle of Rothenthurm, November 18, 1602, Smith was taken

prisoner and sold into slavery. At Constantinople the lady Charatza

Tragabigzanda, into the service of whose family he passed, was able to

talk with him in Italian and treated him with kindness. One can read

between the lines that she may perhaps have cherished a tender feeling

for the young Englishman, or that he may have thought so. It would not

have been strange. Smith's portrait, as engraved and published during

his lifetime, is that of an attractive and noble-looking man. His

brief narrative does not make it clear how he regarded the lady, or

what relations they sustained to each other, but she left an abiding

impression upon his memory. When in 1614 he explored the coast of New

England he gave the name Tragabigzanda to the cape which Prince Charles

afterwards named Cape Anne, and the three little neighbouring islands

he called the Turks' Heads.

[Sidenote: and cruelly treated.]

[Sidenote: His escape,]

[Sidenote: and return to England.]

The narrative is far from satisfying us as to the reasons why Smith

was sent away from Constantinople. To the east of the Sea of Azov,

and bordering on the Cossack country, was a territory which Gerard

Mercator calls Nalbrits, and Timour, the Pasha of Nalbrits, was brother

to the lady Tragabigzanda. Thither she sent him, with a request that he

should be well treated; but the rude Pasha paid no heed to his sister's

message, and our young hero was treated as badly as the other slaves,

of whom this tyrant had many. "Among these slavish fortunes," says

Smith, "there was no great choice; for the best was so bad, a dog could

hardly have lived to endure [it]." He was dressed in the skin of a wild

beast, had an iron collar fastened around his neck, and was cuffed and

kicked about until he grew desperate. One day, as he was threshing

wheat in a lonely grange more than a league distant from Timour's

castle, the Pasha came in and reviled and struck him, whereupon Smith

suddenly knocked him down with his threshing-stick and beat his brains

out. Then he stripped the body and hid it under the straw, dressed up

in the dead man's clothes and mounted his horse, tied a sack of grain

to his saddle-bow, and galloped off into the Scythian desert. The one

tormenting fear was of meeting some roving party of Turks who might

recognize the mark on his iron collar and either send him back to his

late master's place or enslave him on their own account. But in sixteen

days of misery he saw nobody; then he arrived at a Russian fortress

on the Don and got rid of his badge of slavery. He was helped on his

way from one Russian town to another, and everywhere treated most

kindly. Through the Polish country he went, finding by the wayside much

mirth and entertainment, and then through Hungary and Bohemia, until

at length he reached Leipsic, where he found Prince Sigismund. It was

then, in December, 1603, that he obtained the letter of safe conduct

already mentioned. In the course of the next year Smith travelled in

Germany, France, Spain, and Morocco, and after some further adventures

made his way back to England in the nick of time for taking part in the

enterprise projected by the London Company. Meeting with Newport and

Gosnold, and other captains who had visited the shores of America, it

was natural that his strong geographical curiosity should combine with

his love of adventure to urge him to share in the enterprise.

[Sidenote: The smoke of controversy.]

The brevity of Smith's narrations now and then leaves the story

obscure. Like many another charming old writer, he did not always

consult the convenience of the historians of a later age. So much only

is clear, that during the voyage across the Atlantic the seeds of

quarrel were sown which bore fruit in much bitterness and wrangling

after the colonists had landed. Indeed, after nearly three centuries

some smoke of the conflict still hovers about the field. To this day

John Smith is one of the personages about whom writers of history are

apt to lose their tempers. In recent days there have been many attempts

to belittle him, but the turmoil that has been made is itself a tribute

to the potency and incisiveness of his character. Weak men do not call

forth such belligerency. Amid all the conflicting statements, too,

there comes out quite distinctly the contemporary recognition of his

dignity and purity. Never was warrior known, says one old writer, "from

debts, wine, dice, and oaths so free;"[44] a staunch Puritan in morals,

though not in doctrine.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: A tedious voyage.]

[Sidenote: Arrival in Chesapeake Bay.]

[Sidenote: Founding of Jamestown; Wingfield chosen president.]

Captain Newport's voyage was a long one, for he followed the

traditional route, first running down to the Canary Islands and then

following Columbus's route, wafted by the trade-wind straight across

to the West Indies. It seems strange that he should have done so,

for the modern method of great-circle sailing,--first practised on a

great scale by Americus Vespucius, in 1502, in his superb voyage of

4,000 miles in 33 days, from the ice-clad island of South Georgia to

Sierra Leone,[45]--this more scientific method had lately been adopted

by Captain Gosnold, who in 1602 crossed directly from the English

Channel to Cape Cod. As Gosnold was now second in command in this

expedition to Virginia, it would seem as if the shorter route might

once more have been tried to advantage. So many weeks upon the ocean

sadly diminished the stock of provisions. In the course of the voyage

some trouble arose between Smith and Wingfield, and while they were

stopping at Dominica, on the 24th of March, an accusation of plotting

mutiny was brought against the former, so that he was kept in irons

until the ships reached Virginia. After leaving the West Indies they

encountered bad weather and lost their reckoning, but the 26th of

April brought them to the cape which was forthwith named Henry, after

the Prince of Wales, as the opposite cape was afterwards named for

his younger brother, Prince Charles. A few of the company ventured on

shore, where they were at once attacked by Indians and two were badly

wounded with arrows. That evening the sealed box was opened, and it

was found that Bartholomew Gosnold, Edward Wingfield, John Smith, John

Ratcliffe, John Martin, and George Kendall were appointed members of

the Council,--six in all, of whom the president was to have two votes.

As the ships proceeded into Hampton Roads after so much stress of

weather, they named the promontory at the entrance Point Comfort.[46]

The name of the broad river which the voyagers now entered speaks for

itself. They scrutinized the banks until they found a spot which seemed

suited for a settlement, and there they landed on the 13th of May. It

was such a place as the worthy Hakluyt (or whoever wrote their letter

of instructions) had emphatically warned them against, low and damp,

and liable to prove malarious.[47] At high tide the rising waters half

covered the little peninsula, but in this there was an element of

military security, for the narrow neck was easy to guard, and perhaps

it may have been such considerations that prevailed. Smith says

there was a dispute between Wingfield and Gosnold over the selection

of this site. As soon as the company had landed here the members of

the Council, all save Smith, were sworn into office, and then they

chose Wingfield for their president for the first year. On the next

day the men went to work at building their fort, a wooden structure

of triangular shape, with a demi-lune at each angle, mounting cannon.

They called it Fort James, but soon the settlement came to be known as

Jamestown.[48] For a church they nailed a board between two trees to

serve as a reading desk, and stretched a canvas awning over it, and

there the Rev. Robert Hunt, a high-minded and courageous divine, first

clergyman of English America, read the Episcopal service and preached a

sermon twice on every Sunday.

[Sidenote: The Powhatan tribe, confederacy, and head war-chief.]

Smith's enemies were a majority in the Council and would not admit him

as a member, but he was no longer held as a prisoner. Newport's next

business was to explore the river, and Smith with four other gentlemen,

four skilled mariners, and fourteen common sailors, went along with

him, while the Jamestown fort was building. They sailed up about as

far as the site of Richmond, frequently meeting parties of Indians

on the banks or passing Indian villages. Newport was uniformly kind

and sagacious in his dealings with the red men, and they seemed quite

friendly. These were Algonquins, of the tribe called Powhatans, and

the natives who had assaulted the English at Cape Henry belonged to

a hostile tribe, so that that incident furnished a bond of sympathy

between the Powhatans and the white men. After a few days they reached

the village called Powhatan (_i.e._ "Falling Waters"), which Thomas

Studley, the colonial storekeeper, describes as consisting of about a

dozen houses "pleasantly seated on a hill." Old drawings indicate that

they were large clan houses, with framework of beams and covering of

bark, similar in general shape though not in all details to the long

houses of the Iroquois. The Powhatans seem to have been the leading

or senior tribe in a loose confederacy. Their principal village was

called Werowocomoco, situated on the north side of the York River,

about fifteen miles northeast from Jamestown as the crow flies. The

place is now called Putin Bay, a name which is merely a corruption of

Powhatan. At Werowocomoco dwelt the head war-chief of the tribe, by

name Wahunsunakok, but much more generally known by his title as The

Powhatan, just as the head of an Irish or Scotch clan is styled The

O'Neill or The MacGregor. Newport and Smith, hearing that The Powhatan

was a chief to whom other chiefs were in a measure subordinate, spoke

of him as the emperor and the subordinate chiefs as kings, a grotesque

terminology which was natural enough at that day but which in the

interest of historical accuracy it is high time for modern writers to

drop.[49]

When Newport and Smith returned to Jamestown, they found that it had

been attacked by a force of 200 Indians. Wingfield had beaten them off,

but one Englishman was killed and eleven were wounded. In the course of

the next two weeks these enemies were very annoying; they would crouch

in the tall grass about the fort and pick off a man with their barbed

stone-tipped arrows. Hakluyt had warned the settlers against building

near the edge of a wood;[50] it seems strange that bitter experience

was needed to teach them that danger might lurk in long grass.

Presently some of their new acquaintances from the Powhatan tribe came

to the fort and told Newport that the assailants were from a hostile

tribe against which they would willingly form an alliance; and they

furthermore advised him to cut his grass, which seems to prove that

they were sincere in what they said.

[Sidenote: Newport sails for England June 22, 1607.]

[Sidenote: Suffering of the colonists.]

[Sidenote: Percy's account.]

Smith now demanded a trial on the charges which had led to his

imprisonment. In spite of objections from Wingfield a jury was

granted, and Smith was acquitted of all the charges; so that on the

10th of June he was allowed to take his seat in the Council. On the

15th the fort was finished, and on the 22d Captain Newport sailed for

England with a cargo of sassafras and fine wood for wainscoting. He

took the direct route homeward, for need was now visibly pressing.

He promised to be back in Virginia within twenty weeks, but all the

food he could leave in the fort was reckoned to be scarcely enough

for fifteen weeks, so that the company were put upon short rations.

According to Studley, 105 persons were left at Jamestown, of whom

besides the 6 councillors, the clergyman and the surgeon, there were

mentioned by name 29 gentlemen, 6 carpenters, 1 mason, 2 bricklayers,

1 blacksmith, 1 sailor, 1 drummer, 1 tailor, 1 barber, 12 labourers,

and 4 boys, with 38 whom he neither names or classifies but simply

mentions as "divers others." The food left in store for this company

was not appetizing. After the ship had gone, says Richard Potts,

"there remained neither tavern, beer-house, nor place of relief but

the common kettle; ... and that was half a pint of wheat and as much

barley, boiled with water, for a man a day; and this, having fried some

26 weeks in the ship's hold, contained as many worms as grains....

"Our [only] drink was water.... Had we been as free from all sins as

gluttony and drunkenness, we might have been canonized for saints."[51]

Chickens were raised, but not enough for so many mouths, and as there

were no cattle or sheep a nourishing diet of meat and milk was out

of the question. Nor do we find much mention of game, though there

were some who warded off the pangs of starvation by catching crabs

and sturgeon in the river. With such inadequate diet, with unfamiliar

kinds of labour, and with the frightful heat of an American summer, the

condition of the settlers soon came to be pitiable. Disease soon added

to their sufferings. Fevers lurked in the air of Jamestown. Before the

end of September more than fifty of the company were in their graves.

The situation is graphically described by one of the survivors, the

Hon. George Percy, brother of the Earl of Northumberland: "There were

neuer Englishmen left in a forreigne Countrey in such miserie as wee

were in this new discouered Virginia. Wee watched euery three nights,

lying on the bare ... ground, what weather soeuer came; [and] warded

all the next day; which brought our men to bee most feeble wretches.

Our food was but a small Can of Barlie sodden in water to fiue men

a day. Our drink cold water taken out of the River; which was at a

floud verie salt: at a low tide full of slime and filth; which was the

destruction of many of our men. Thus we lived for the space of fiue

months in this miserable distresse, not hauing fiue able men to man our

Bulwarkes upon any occasion. If it had not pleased God to haue put a

terrour in the Sauages hearts, we had all perished by those vild and

cruell Pagans, being in that weake estate as we were; our men night

and day groaning in every corner of the Fort most pittiful to heare.

If there were any conscience in men, it would make their harts to

bleed to heare the pitifull murmurings and outcries of our sick men

without reliefe, euery night and day for the space of sixe weekes:

some departing out of the World, many times three or foure in a night;

in the morning their bodies being trailed out of their Cabines like

Dogges, to be buried. In this sort did I see the mortalitie of diuers

of our people,"[52]

[Sidenote: Quarrels.]

[Sidenote: Wingfield deposed; Ratcliffe chosen president, Sept., 1607.]

In such a state of things our colonists would have been more than human

had they shown very amiable tempers. From the early wanderings of the

Spaniards in Darien down to the recent marches of Stanley in Africa,

men struggling with the wilderness have fiercely quarrelled. The fever

at Jamestown carried off Captain Gosnold in August, and after his death

the feud between Smith's friends and Wingfield's flamed up with fresh

virulence. Both gentlemen have left printed statements, and in our time

the quarrel is between historians as to which to believe. Perhaps it is

Smith's detractors who are just at this moment the more impetuous and

implacable, appealing as they do to the churlish feeling that delights

in seeing long-established reputations assailed. Such writers will tell

you as positively as if there could be no doubt about it, that Smith

was engaged in a plot with two other members of the Council to depose

Wingfield from his presidency and establish a "triumvirate" over that

tiny woodland company. Others will assert, with equal confidence, that

Wingfield was a tyrant whose ruthless rule became insupportable. A

perusal of his "Discourse of Virginia," written in 1608 in defence of

his conduct, should make it clear, I think, that he was an honourable

gentleman, but ill fitted for the trying situation in which he found

himself. To control the rations of so many hungry men was no pleasant

or easy matter. It was charged against Wingfield that he kept back

sundry dainties, and especially some wine and spirits for himself

and a few favoured friends; but his quite plausible defence is that

he reserved two gallons of sack for the communion table and a few

bottles of brandy for extreme emergencies, but the other members of

the Council, whose flasks were all empty, "did long for to sup up that

little remnant!"[53] At length a suspicion arose that he intended to

take one of the small vessels that remained in the river and abandon

the colony. Early in September the Council deposed him and elected

John Ratcliffe in his place. A few days later Wingfield was condemned

to pay heavy damages to Smith for defaming his character. "Then Master

Recorder," says poor Wingfield, "did very learnedly comfort me that

if I had wrong I might bring my writ of error in London; whereat I

smiled.... I tould Master President I ... prayed they would be more

sparing of law vntill wee had more witt or wealthe."[54]

[Sidenote: Execution of a member of the Council.]

An awful dignity hedged about the sacred person of the president of

that little colony of fifty men. One day President Ratcliffe beat James

Reed, the blacksmith, who so far forgot himself as to strike back, and

for that heinous offence was condemned to be hanged; but when already

upon the fatal ladder, and, so to speak _in extremis_, like Reynard

the Fox, the resourceful blacksmith made his peace with the law by

revealing a horrid scheme of mutiny conceived by George Kendall, a

member of the Council. Of the details of the affair nothing is known

save that Kendall was found guilty, and instead of a plebeian hanging

there was an aristocratic shooting. In telling the story Wingfield

observes that if such goings-on were to be heard of in England, "I fear

it would drive many well-affected myndes from this honourable action of

Virginia."

[Sidenote: Smith is captured by Opekankano,]

Wingfield's pamphlet freely admits that Smith's activity in trading

with the Indians for corn was of great service to the suffering colony.

With the coming of autumn so many wild fowl were shot that the diet was

much improved. On the 10th of December Smith started on an exploring

expedition up the Chickahominy River. Having gone as far as his shallop

would take him, he left seven men to guard it while he went on in a

canoe with only two white men and two Indian guides. This little party

had arrived at White Oak Swamp, or somewhere in that neighbourhood,

when they were suddenly attacked by 200 Indians led by Opekankano, a

brother of The Powhatan. Smith's two comrades were killed, and he was

captured after a sturdy resistance, but not until he had slain two

Indians with his pistol. It was quite like the quick-witted man to take

out his ivory pocket compass, and to entertain the childish minds of

the barbarians with its quivering needle which they could plainly see

through the glass, but, strange to say, could not feel when they tried

to touch it. Very like him it was to improve the occasion with a brief

discourse on star craft, eked out no doubt with abundant gesticulation,

which may have led his hearers to regard him as a wizard. There seems

to have been a difference of opinion among them. They tied Smith to a

tree, and the fate of Saint Sebastian seemed in store for him, when

Opekankano held up the compass; then the captive was untied, and they

marched away through the forest, taking him with them.

[Sidenote: who takes him to Werowocomoco, Jan., 1608.]

It is not at all clear why the red men should have made this attack.

Hitherto the Powhatans had seemed friendly to the white men and

desirous of an alliance with them. There is a vague traditional

impression that Opekankano was one of a party opposed to such a policy;

so that his attitude might remind us of the attitude of Montezuma's

brother Cuitlahuatzin toward the army of Cortes approaching Mexico.

Such a view is not improbable. Wingfield, moreover, tells us that two

or three years before the arrival of the English at Jamestown some

white men had ascended a river to the northward, probably the Pamunkey

or the Rappahannock, and had forcibly kidnapped some Indians. If there

is truth in this, the kidnappers may have belonged to the ill-fated

expedition of Bartholomew Gilbert. Wingfield says that Opekankano

carried Smith about the country to several villages to see if anybody

could identify him with the leader of that kidnapping party. Smith's

narrative confirms this statement, and adds that it was agreed that the

captain in question was a much taller man than he. His story is full of

observations on the country. Opekankano's village consisted of four or

five communal houses, each about a hundred feet in length, and from the

sandy hill in which it stood some scores of such houses could be seen

scattered about the plain. At length Smith was brought to Werowocomoco

and into the presence of The Powhatan, who received him in just such a

long wigwam. The elderly chieftain sat before the fireplace, on a kind

of bench, and was covered with a robe of raccoon skins, all with the

tails on and hanging like ornamental tassels. Beside him sat his young

squaws, a row of women with their faces and bare shoulders painted

bright red and chains of white shell beads about their necks stood

around by the walls, and in front of them stood the grim warriors.

[Sidenote: The rescue by Pocahontas.]

This was on the 5th of January, 1608, and on the 8th Smith returned to

Jamestown, escorted by four Indians. What had happened to him in the

interval? In his own writings we have two different accounts. In his

tract published under the title, "A True Relation,"--which was merely a

letter written by him in or about June, 1608, to a "worshipful friend"

in London and there published, apparently without his knowledge,

in August,--Smith simply says that The Powhatan treated him very

courteously and sent him back to Jamestown. But in the "General History

of Virginia," a far more elaborate and circumstantial narrative,

published in London in 1624, written partly by Smith himself and partly

by others of the colony, we get a much fuller story. We are told that

after he had been introduced to The Powhatan's long wigwam, as above

described, the Indians debated together and presently two big stones

were placed before the chief, and Smith was dragged thither and his

head laid upon them; but even while warriors were standing, with clubs

in hand, to beat his brains out, the chief's young daughter Pocahontas

rushed up and embraced him and laid her head upon his to shield him,

whereupon her father spared his life.

[Sidenote: Recent attempt to discredit the story.]

For two centuries and a half the later and fuller version of this story

was universally accepted while the earlier and briefer was ignored.

Every schoolboy was taught the story of Pocahontas and John Smith,

and for most people I dare say that incident is the only one in the

captain's eventful career that is remembered. But in recent times

the discrepancy between the earlier and later accounts has attracted

attention, and the conclusion has been hastily reached that in the

more romantic version Smith is simply a liar. It is first assumed that

if the Pocahontas incident had really occurred, we should be sure to

find it in Smith's own narrative written within a year after its

occurrence; and then it is assumed that in later years, when Pocahontas

visited London and was lionized as a princess, Smith invented the

story in order to magnify his own importance by thus linking his

name with hers. By such specious logic is the braggadocio theory of

Smith's career supported, and underneath the whole of it lies the

tacit assumption that the Pocahontas incident is an extraordinary one,

something that in an Indian community or anywhere would not have been

likely to happen.

As this view of the case has been set forth by writers of high repute

for scholarship, it has been generally accepted upon their authority;

in many quarters it has become the fashionable view. Yet its utter

flimsiness can be exhibited, I think, in very few words.

[Sidenote: Percy's pamphlet, 1625.]

The first occasion on which Smith mentions his rescue by Pocahontas was

the occasion of her arrival in London, in 1616, as the wife of John

Rolfe. In an eloquent letter to King James's queen, Anne of Denmark,

he bespeaks the royal favour for the strange visitor from Virginia

and extols her good qualities and the kindness she had shown to the

colony. In the course of the letter he says "she hazarded the beating

out of her own brains to save mine." There were then several persons

in London, besides Pocahontas herself, who could have challenged this

statement if it had been false, but we do not find that anybody did

so.[55] In 1624, when Smith published his "General History," with its

minutely circumstantial account of the affair, why do we not find, even

on the part of his enemies, any intimation of the falsity of the story?

Within a year George Percy wrote a pamphlet[56] for the express purpose

of picking the "General History" to pieces and discrediting it in the

eyes of the public; he was one of the original company at Jamestown.

If Smith had not told his comrades of the Pocahontas incident as soon

as he had escaped from The Powhatan's clutches, if he had kept silent

on the subject for years, Percy could not have failed to know the fact

and would certainly have used it as a weapon. There were others who

could have done the same, and their silence furnishes a very strong

presumption of the truth of the story.

[Sidenote: The printed text of the "True Relation" is incomplete.]

Why then did Smith refrain from mentioning it in the letter to a friend

in England, written in 1608, while the incidents of his captivity

were fresh in his mind? Well, we do not know that he did refrain from

mentioning it, for we do know that the letter, as published in August,

1608, had been tampered with. Smith was in Virginia, and the editor in

London expressly states in his Preface that he has omitted a portion

of the manuscript: "somewhat more was by him written, which being

(as I thought) fit to be private, I would not adventure to make it

public." Nothing could be more explicit. Observe that thus the case

of Smith's detractors falls at once to the ground. Their rejection of

the Pocahontas story is based upon its absence from the printed text

of the "True Relation," but inasmuch as that printed text is avowedly

incomplete no such inference is for a moment admissible. For the

omitted portion is as likely as not to have been the passage describing

Smith's imminent peril and rescue.

[Sidenote: Reason for omitting the Pocahontas incident.]

On this supposition, what could have been the editor's motive in

suppressing the passage? We need not go far afield for an answer

if we bear in mind the instructions with which the first colonists

started,--"to suffer no man ... to write [in] any letter of anything

that may discourage others."[57] This very necessary and important

injunction may have restrained Smith himself from mentioning his deadly

peril; if he did mention it, we can well understand why the person who

published the letter should have thought it best to keep the matter

private. After a few years had elapsed and the success of the colony

was assured, there was no longer any reason for such reticence. My own

opinion is that Smith, not intending the letter for publication, told

the whole story, and that the suppression was the editor's work. It

will be remembered that in the fight in which he was captured, Smith

slew two Indians. In the circumstantial account given in the "General

History" we are told that while Opekankano was taking him up and

down the country, a near relative of one of these victims attempted

to murder Smith but was prevented by the Indians who were guarding

him. The "True Relation" preserves this incident, while it omits all

reference to the two occasions when Smith's life was officially and

deliberately imperilled, the tying to the tree and the scene in The

Powhatan's wigwam. One can easily see why the editor's nerves should

not have been disturbed by the first incident, so like what might

happen in England, while the more strange and outlandish exhibitions of

the Indian's treatment of captives seemed best to be dropped from the

narrative.

[Sidenote: There is no incongruity between the two narratives, except

the omission.]

But, we are told, the difficulty is not merely one of omission. In the

"True Relation" Smith not only omits all reference to Pocahontas, but

he says that he was kindly and courteously treated by his captors, and

this statement is thought to be incompatible with their having decided

to beat his brains out. Such an objection shows ignorance of Indian

manners. In our own time it has been a common thing for Apaches and

Comanches to offer their choicest morsels of food, with their politest

bows and smiles, to the doomed captive whose living flesh will in a

few moments be hissing under their firebrands. The irony of such a

situation is inexpressibly dear to the ferocious hearts of these men

of the Stone Age, and American history abounds in examples of it. In

his fuller account, indeed, Smith describes himself as kindly treated

on his way to the scene of execution[58] and after his rescue. Drop

out what happened in the interval and you get the account given in the

"True Relation."

[Sidenote: The account in the "General History" is the more probable.]

Now that omission creates a gap in the "True Relation" such as to

fatally damage its credibility. We are told that Smith, after killing a

couple of Indians, is taken captive and carried to the head war-chief's

wigwam, and is then forsooth allowed to go scot free with no notice

taken of the blood debt that he owes to the tribe! To any one who has

studied Indians such a story is well-nigh incredible. As a prisoner of

war Smith's life was already forfeited.[59] It is safe to say that no

Indian would think of releasing him without some equivalent; such an

act might incur the wrath of invisible powers. There were various ways

of putting captives to death; torture by slow fire was the favourite

mode, but crushing in the skull with tomahawks was quite common, so

that when Smith mentions it as decided upon in his case he is evidently

telling the plain truth, and we begin to see that the detailed account

in the "General History" is more consistent and probable than the

abridged account in the "True Relation."

[Sidenote: The rescue was in strict accordance with Indian usage.]

[Sidenote: Adoption of Smith.]

The consistency and probability of the story are made complete by

the rescue at the hands of Pocahontas. That incident is precisely in

accordance with Indian usage, but it is not likely that Smith knew

enough about such usage to have invented it, and his artless way of

telling the story is that of a man who is describing what he does not

understand. From the Indian point of view there was nothing romantic

or extraordinary in such a rescue; it was simply a not uncommon matter

of business. The romance with which white readers have always invested

it is the outcome of a misconception no less complete than that which

led the fair dames of London to make obeisance to the tawny Pocahontas

as to a princess of imperial lineage. Time and again it used to happen

that when a prisoner was about to be slaughtered, some one of the

dusky assemblage, moved by pity or admiration or some unexplained

freak, would interpose in behalf of the victim; and as a rule such

interposition was heeded. Many a poor wretch, already tied to the

fatal tree and benumbed with unspeakable terror, while the firebrands

were heating for his torment, has been rescued from the jaws of death,

and adopted as brother or lover by some laughing young squaw, or as

a son by some grave wrinkled warrior. In such cases the new-comer

was allowed entire freedom and treated like one of the tribe. As the

blood debt was cancelled by the prisoner's violent death, it was also

cancelled by securing his services to the tribe; and any member, old

or young, had a right to demand the latter method as a substitute for

the former. Pocahontas, therefore, did not "hazard the beating out of

her own brains," though the rescued stranger, looking with civilized

eyes, would naturally see it in that light. Her brains were perfectly

safe. This thirteen-year-old squaw liked the handsome prisoner, claimed

him, and got him, according to custom. Mark now what happened next. Two

days afterward The Powhatan, "having disguised himselfe in the most

fearfullest manner he could, caused Captain Smith to be brought forth

to a great house in the woods, and there vpon a mat by the fire be left

alone. Not long after frome behind a mat that divided the house [_i.

e._ a curtain] was made the most dolefullest noyse he ever heard."[60]

Then the old chieftain, looking more like the devil than a man, came

to Smith and told him that now they were friends and he might go back

to Jamestown; then if he would send to The Powhatan a couple of cannon

and a grindstone, he should have in exchange a piece of land in the

neighbourhood, and that chief would evermore esteem him as his own

son. Smith's narrative does not indicate that he understood this to

be anything more than a friendly figure of speech, but it seems clear

that it was a case of ceremonious adoption. As the natural result of

the young girl's intercession the white chieftain was adopted into the

tribe. A long incantation, with dismal howls and grunts, propitiated

the tutelar deities, and then the old chief, addressing Smith as a

son, proposed an exchange of gifts. The next time that Smith visited

Werowocomoco, The Powhatan proclaimed him a "werowance" or chief of the

tribe, and ordered "that all his subjects should so esteem us, and no

man account us strangers ... but Powhatans, and that the corn, women,

and country should be to us as to his own people."[61]

[Sidenote: Importance of the story of Pocahontas.]

I have dwelt at some length upon the question of Smith's veracity

for three good reasons. First, in the interests of sound historical

criticism, it is desirable to show how skepticism, which is commonly

supposed to indicate superior sagacity, is quite as likely to result

from imperfect understanding. Secondly, justice should be done to the

memory of one of the noblest and most lovable characters in American

history. Thirdly, the rescue of Smith by Pocahontas was an event of

real historic importance. Without it the subsequent relations of the

Indian girl with the English colony become incomprehensible. But for

her friendly services on more than one occasion, the tiny settlement

would probably have perished. Her visits to Jamestown and the regular

supply of provisions by the Indians began at this time.[62]

[Sidenote: Arrival of the First Supply, Jan. 8, 1608.]

[Sidenote: Ratcliffe deposed; Smith chosen president, Sept., 1608;

arrival of the Second Supply.]

On the very day that Smith returned to Jamestown the long expected ship

of Captain Newport arrived with what was known as the First Supply of

men and provisions. Part came now, the rest a few weeks later. Only

38 men had survived the hardships at Jamestown; to these the First

Supply added 120, bringing the number up to 158. For so many people,

besides the food they brought with them more corn was needed. So Smith

took his "Father Newport," as he called him, over to Werowocomoco,

where they tickled "Father Powhatan's" fancy with blue glass beads and

drove some tremendous bargains. As spring came on, Newport sailed for

England again, taking with him the deposed Wingfield. The summer of

1608 was spent by Smith in two voyages of exploration up Chesapeake Bay

and into the Potomac, Patapsco, and Susquehanna rivers. He met with

warriors of the formidable Iroquois tribe of Susquehannocks, and found

them carrying a few French hatchets which had evidently come from

Canada. During his absence things went badly at Jamestown and Ratcliffe

was deposed. On Smith's return in September he was at once chosen

president. Only 28 men had been lost this year, so that the colony

numbered 130, when Newport again arrived in September, with the Second

Supply of 70 persons, bringing the total up to 200. In this company

there were two women, a Mrs. Forrest and her maid, Anne Burroughs, who

was soon married to John Laydon, the first recorded English wedding on

American soil.

[Sidenote: Captain Newport's instructions.]

[Sidenote: Coronation of The Powhatan.]

Newport's instructions show that the members of the London Company,

sitting at their cosy English firesides, were getting impatient and

meant to have something done. He was told that he must find either

the way to the South Sea, or a lump of gold, or one of White's lost

colonists, or else he need not come back and show his face in England!

One seems taken back to the Arabian Nights, where such peremptory

behests go along with enchanted carpets and magic rings and heroic

steeds with pegs in the neck. No such talismans were to be found in Old

Virginia. When Newport read his instructions, Smith bluntly declared

that the London Company were fools, which seems to have shocked the

decorous mariner. The next order was grotesque enough to have emanated

from the teeming brain of James I. after a mickle noggin of his

native Glenlivat. Their new ally, the mighty Emperor Powhatan, must

be crowned! Newport and Smith did it, and much mirth it must have

afforded them. The chief refused to come to Jamestown, so Mahomet had

to go to the mountain. Up in the long wigwam at Werowocomoco the two

Englishmen divested the old fellow of his raccoon-skin[63] garment and

put on him a scarlet robe which greatly pleased him. Then they tried

to force him down upon his knees--which he did not like at all--while

they put the crown on his head. When the operation was safely ended,

the forest-monarch grunted acquiescence and handed to Newport his old

raccoon-skin cloak as a present for his royal brother in England.

[Sidenote: How the Indian girls danced at Werowocomoco.]

An Indian masquerading scene at one of these visits to Werowocomoco is

thus described by one of the English party: "In a fayre playne field

they made a fire, before which [we] sitting upon a mat, suddainly

amongst the woods was heard ... a hydeous noise and shrieking....

Then presently [we] were presented with this anticke; thirtie young

women came [nearly] naked out of the woods, ... their bodies all

painted, some white, some red, some black, some particolour, but all

differing; their leader had a fayre payre of buck's horns on her

head, and an otter's skin at her girdle, and another at her arm, a

quiver of arrowes at her back, a bow and arrowes in her hand; the next

had in her hand a sword, another a club, ... all horned alike....

These fiends with most hellish shouts and cries, rushing from among

the trees, cast themselves in a ring about the fire, singing and

dauncing with most excellent ill varietie; ... having spent neare an

houre in this mascarado, as they entred in like manner they departed.

Having reaccommodated themselves, they solemnly invited [us] to their

lodgings, where [we] were no sooner within the house but all these

nymphes more tormented us than ever, with crowding, pressing, and

hanging about [us], most tediously crying, _Love you not me?_ This

salutation ended, the feast was set, consisting of fruit in baskets,

fish and flesh in wooden platters; beans and peas there wanted not, nor

any salvage dainty their invention could devise: some attending, others

singing and dancing about [us]; which mirth and banquet being ended,

with firebrands [for] torches they conducted [us] to [our] lodging."

[Sidenote: Accuracy of Smith's descriptions.]

[Sidenote: Todkill's complaint.]

The wood-nymphs who thus entertained their guests are in one account

mentioned simply as "Powhatan's women," in another they are spoken

of as "Pocahontas and her women;" which seems to give us a realistic

sketch of the little maid with her stag-horn headdress and skin all

stained with puccoon leading her companions in their grotesque capers.

Truly, it was into a strange world and among a strange people that our

colonists had come. Their quaint descriptions of manners and customs

utterly new and unintelligible to them, though familiar enough to

modern students of barbaric life, have always the ring of truth.

Nowhere in the later experiences of white men with Indians do we find

quite so powerful a charm as in the early years of the seventeenth

century. No other such narratives are quite so delightful as those

of Champlain and his friends in Canada, and those of Smith and his

comrades in Virginia. There is a freshness about this first contact

with the wilderness and its uncouth life that makes every incident

vivid. There is a fascination too, not unmixed with sadness, in

watching the early dreams of El Dorado fade away as the stern reality

of a New World to be conquered comes to make itself known and felt.

Naturally the old delusions persisted at home in England long after

the colonists had been taught by costly experiences to discard them,

and we smile at the well-meant blundering of the ruling powers in

London in their efforts to hasten the success of their enterprise.

In vain did the faithful Newport seek to perform the mandates of the

London Company. No nuggets of gold were to be found, nor traces of

poor Eleanor Dare and her friends, and The Powhatan told the simple

truth when he declared that there were difficult mountains westward

and it would be useless to search for a salt sea behind them. Newport

tried, nevertheless, but came back exhausted long before he had

reached the Blue Ridge; for what foe is so pertinacious as a strange

and savage continent? In pithy terms does Anas Todkill, one of the

first colonists, express himself about these wild projects: "Now was

there no way to make us miserable but to neglect that time to make

our provision whilst it was to be had; the which was done to perfourme

this strange discovery, but more strange coronation. To lose that time,

spend that victuall we had, tire and starue our men, having no means to

carry victuall, munition, the hurt or sicke, but their own backes: how

or by whom they were invented I know not." How eloquent in grief and

indignation are these rugged phrases! A modern writer, an accomplished

Oxford scholar, expresses the opinion that the coronation of The

Powhatan, although "an idle piece of formality," "had at least the

merit of winning and retaining the loyalty of the savage."[64] Master

Todkill thought differently: "as for the coronation of Powhatan and

his presents of bason, ewer, bed, clothes, and such costly nouelties;

they had bin much better well spared than so ill spent; for we had

his favour much better onlie for a poore peece of copper, till this

stately kinde of soliciting made him so much overvalue himselfe, that

he respected vs as much as nothing at all."[65]

[Sidenote: Smith's map of Virginia.]

When Newport sailed for England, he took with him Ratcliffe, the

deposed president, a man of doubtful character of whom it was

said that he had reasons for using an alias, his real name being

Sickelmore. Deposed presidents were liable to serve as tale-bearers and

mischief-makers. Wingfield had gone home on the previous voyage, and

Newport had brought back to Virginia complaints from the Company about

the way in which things had been managed. Now Smith sent to London by

Newport his new map of Virginia embodying the results of his recent

voyages of exploration, a map of remarkable accuracy and witness to an

amount of original labour that is marvellous to think of. That map is a

living refutation of John Smith's detractors; none but a man of heroic

mould could have done the geographical work involved in making it.

With the map Smith sent what he naïvely calls his "Rude Answer" to the

London Company, a paper bristling with common-sense and not timid when

it comes to calling a spade a spade. With some topics suggested by this

"Rude Answer" we shall concern ourselves in the next chapter.

FOOTNOTES:

[36] Some skepticism was manifested by one of Smith's contemporaries,

Thomas Fuller, who says, in his _Worthies of England_, "It soundeth

much to the diminution of his deeds that he alone is the herald to

publish and proclaim them." The good Fuller was mistaken, however. Some

of Smith's most striking deeds, as we shall see, were first proclaimed

by others.

[37] Campbell's _Lives of the Chief Justices_, i. 210.

[38] This sketch of Smith's early life is based upon his _True

Travels_, etc., in his _Works_, edited by Edward Arber, Birmingham,

1884, pp. 821-880.

[39] For a good sketch of Sigismund and his relations to the Empire and

to the Turks, see Schlosser's _Weltgeschichte_, vol. xiii. pp. 325-344.

[40] Smith's _Works_, ed. Arber, pp. xxii., 842.

[41] Purchas, _His Pilgrimes_, ii. 1363.

[42] So many long missing historical documents have turned up of late

years that it is never safe to assert that one is "lost." That great

scholar, Don Pascual de Gayangos, seems to have seen a printed Spanish

translation of Farnese's book, but I do not know where it is.

[43] It would be just like Smith, I think, not to make much account of

his exploit. Hence he neglected to make any record of his grant of arms

until the appearance of Purchas's book in 1625, and resulting talks

among friends, probably impressed upon him the desirableness of making

such a record.

[44] Thomas Carlton's verses, in Smith's _Works_, ed. Arber, p. 692.

[45] See my _Discovery of America_, ii. 105.

[46] It seems likely that the point at the upper end of the Roads

received its name of Newport News from the gallant captain. On several

old maps I have found it spelled Newport Ness, which is equivalent to

Point Newport.

[47] See above, p. 75.

[48] It was not far from this spot that Ayllon had made his

unsuccessful attempt to found a Spanish colony in 1526. See my

_Discovery of America_, ii. 490.

[49] The Englishmen were bewildered by barbaric usages utterly foreign

to their experience. Kinship among these Indians, as so generally

among barbarians and savages, was reckoned through females only, and

when the English visitors were told that The Powhatan's office would

descend to his maternal brothers, even though he had sons living, the

information was evidently correct, but they found it hard to understand

or believe. So when one of the chiefs on the James River insisted upon

giving back some powder and balls which one of his men had stolen, it

was regarded as a proof of strict honesty and friendliness, whereas the

more probable explanation is that a prudent Indian, at that early time,

would consider it bad medicine to handle the thunder-and-lightning

stuff or keep it about one. See my _Beginnings of New England_, p. 85.

[50] See above, p. 75.

[51] Smith's _Works_, ed. Arber, p. 95.

[52] Smith's _Works_, p. lxxii.

[53] Neil's _Virginia Company_, p. 19.

[54] Smith's _Works_, p. lxxxiv.

[55] It is true, this letter of 1616 was first made public in the

"General History" in 1624 (see Smith's _Works_, p. 530); so that

Smith's detractors may urge that the letter is trumped up and was never

sent to Queen Anne. If so, the question recurs, Why did not some enemy

or hostile critic of Smith in 1624 call attention to so flagrant a

fraud?

[56] Brown's _Genesis_, ii. 964; Neill's _Virginia Vetusta_, pp. v-x.

[57] See above, p. 76.

[58] Even in The Powhatan's wigwam, it was only after "having feasted

him [Smith] after their best barbarous manner they could," that the

Indians brought the stones and prepared to kill him. Smith's _Works_,

p. 400.

[59] It is true that in 1608 the Powhatans were still unfamiliar with

white men and inclined to dread them as more or less supernatural;

but they had thoroughly learned that fair skins and long beards were

no safeguard against disease and death. If they did not know that the

Jamestown colony had dwindled to eight-and-thirty men, they knew that

their own warriors had slain all Smith's party and taken him captive.

[60] Smith's _Works_, p. 400.

[61] Id. p. 26. Of course the cases of rescue and adoption were

endlessly various in circumstances; see the case of Couture, in

Parkman's _Jesuits_, p. 223; on another occasion "Brigeac was tortured

to death with the customary atrocities. Cuillérier, who was present,

... expected the same fate, but an old squaw happily adopted him, and

thus saved his life." Parkman's _Old Régime in Canada_, revised ed.

p. 108. For adoption in general see Morgan, _Ancient Society_, p.

80; _League of the Iroquois_, p. 342; Colden's _History of the Five

Nations_, London, 1755, i. 9.

[62] Of the really critical attacks upon the story of Pocahontas, the

most important are those of Charles Deane, in his _Notes on Wingfield's

Discourse of Virginia_, Boston, 1859, and Henry Adams, in the _North

American Review_, vol. civ. Their arguments have been ably answered by

W. W. Henry, in _Proceedings of Virginia Historical Society_, 1882,

and Charles Poindexter, in his _Captain John Smith and his Critics_,

Richmond, 1893. There are two writers of valuable books who seldom

allude to Smith without sneers and words of abuse,--Alexander Brown,

of Virginia, and Edward Duffield Neill, of Minnesota; they seem to

resent, as a personal grievance, the fact that the gallant captain

ever existed. On the other hand, no one loves him better than the

learned editor of his books, who has studied them with microscopic

thoroughness, Edward Arber. My own defence of Smith, when set forth in

a lecture at University College, London, 1879, was warmly approved by

my friend, the late Henry Stevens.

[63] The word "raccoon" is a thorn in poor Smith's flesh, and his

attempts to represent the sound of it from guttural Indian mouths are

droll: "There is a beast they call _Aroughcun_, much like a badger,

but useth to live on trees as squirrels do."--"He sent me presents

of bread and _Raugroughcuns_."--" Covered with a great covering of

_Rahoughcums_."--"A robe made of _Rarowcun_ skins," etc., etc.

[64] Doyle's _Virginia_, p. 124.

[65] Smith's _Works_, p. 122.

CHAPTER IV.

THE STARVING TIME.

[Sidenote: The name of Christopher.]

[Sidenote: Value of the Indian alliance.]

THE men of bygone days were quite as fond as ourselves of playing

with names, and the name of Christopher, or "Christ-bearer," was a

favourite subject for such pastime. The old Syrian saint and martyr

was said to have forded a river carrying Christ on his back in the

form of a child; and so when in the year 1500 Columbus's famous pilot,

Juan de La Cosa, made his map of the new discoveries, and came to a

place where he did not know how to draw his coast-line, he filled

the space with a picture of the new Christopher wading in mid-ocean

and bringing over Christ to the heathen. At the court of James I. it

was fashionable to make similar mild jests upon the name of Captain

Christopher Newport, whose ships were carrying year by year the gospel

to the tawny natives of Virginia. Very little of the good tidings,

however, had the poor heathen of Pamunkey and Werowocomoco as yet

received. So much ado had the English colonists to keep their own souls

from quitting their bodies that they had little leisure to bestow

upon the spiritual welfare of the Indians. By the accident of Smith's

capture and the intercession of Pocahontas, they had effected a kind of

alliance with the most powerful tribe in that part of the country, and

this alliance had proved extremely valuable throughout the year 1608;

without it the little colony might have perished before the arrival

of the Second Supply. Nevertheless the friendship of the red men was

a very uncertain and precarious factor in the situation. The accounts

of the Englishmen show confused ideas as to the relations between

the tribes and chieftains of the region; and as for the Indians,

their acquaintanceship with white men was so recent that there was no

telling what unforeseen circumstance might at any time determine their

actions. The utmost sagacity was needed to retain the slight influence

already acquired over them, while to alienate them might easily prove

fatal. The colony was far from able to support itself, and as things

were going there seemed little hope of improvement. The difficulties

involved in the founding of colonies were not well understood, and the

attempts to cope with them were unintelligent.

[Sidenote: Gentlemen as pioneers.]

In the lists of these earliest parties of settlers one cannot fail to

notice the preponderance of those who are styled gentlemen, an epithet

which in those days was not lavishly and indiscriminately but charily

and precisely applied. As a rule the persons designated as gentlemen

were not accustomed to manual labour. To meet the requirements of these

aristocratic members of the community, we find in one of the lists the

name of a dealer in perfumes. A few score of farmers, with abundance

of live-stock, would have been far more to the purpose. Yet let us do

justice to the gentlemen. One of the first company of settlers, the

sturdy soldier Anas Todkill, thus testifies to their good spirit and

efficiency: "Thirty of us [President Smith] conducted 5 myles from the

fort, to learn to ... cut down trees and make clapboard.... Amongst

the rest he had chosen Gabriel Beadell and John Russell, the only

two gallants of this last supply [he means October, 1608] and both

proper gentlemen. Strange were these pleasures to their conditions;

yet lodging, eating and drinking, working or playing, they [were] but

doing as the President did himselfe. All these things were carried on

so pleasantly as within a week they became masters; making it their

delight to heare the trees thunder as they fell; but the axes so oft

blistered their tender fingers that many times every third blow had

a loud othe to drowne the eccho; for remedie of which sinne, the

President devised how to have every man's othes numbred, and at night

for every othe to have a cann of water powred downe his sleeue, with

which every offender was so washed (himselfe and all) that a man should

scarce hear an othe in a weeke.

For he who scorns and makes but jests of cursings and his othe,

He doth contemne, not man but God; nor God, nor man, but both.

By this let no man thinke that the President and these gentlemen spent

their time as common woodhackers at felling of trees, or such other

like labours; or that they were pressed to it as hirelings or common

slaues; for what they did, after they were but once a little invred,

it seemed and some conceited it only as a pleasure and recreation: ...

30 or 40 of such voluntary gentlemen would doe more in a day than 100

of the rest that must be prest to it by compulsion." Nevertheless, adds

this ingenuous writer, "twentie good workmen had been better than them

all."[66]

[Sidenote: All is not gold that glitters.]

[Sidenote: Glass and soap.]

[Sidenote: Disappointment of the Company.]

[Sidenote: Tale-bearers and complaints.]

[Sidenote: Smith's "Rude Answer."]