Now there was more of mischief to this than the crime of stealing, or
of indolence. The savages came to understand they could drive hard
bargains, and so increased the price of their corn that Captain Smith
set it down in his report to the London Company, that the same amount of
copper, or of beads, which had, one year before, paid for five bushels
of wheat, would, within a week after Captain Newport came in search of
the lost colony, pay for no more than one peck.
Nor was this the entire sum of the wrong done by our gentlemen who stole
rather than worked with their hands. The savages, grown bold now that
they had firearms and knew how to use them, no longer had the same fear
of white people as when Captain Smith, single handed, was able to hold
two hundred in check, and strove to kill us of Jamestown whenever they
found opportunity.
On four different times did they plot to murder my master, believing
that when he had been done to death, it would be more easy for them
to kill off all in our town; but on each occasion, so keen was his
watchfulness, he outwitted them all.
The putting of a crown on Powhatan's head, and bowing before him as if
he had been a real king, also did much mischief. It caused that brown
savage to believe we feared him, which was much the same as inviting him
to be less of a friend, until on a certain day he boldly declared that
one basket of his corn was worth more than all our copper and beads,
because he could eat his corn, while our trinkets gave a hungry man no
satisfaction.
And thus, by the wicked and unwise acts of our own people, did we
prepare the way for another time of famine and sickness.