The following account of the early days at Jamestown was compiled in
London by William Simmonds. It is based on the writings, freely adapted,
of several of the colonists who were his friends. As you can see,
Simmonds’ friends had no use for Edward Wingfield, the first president
of the colony. They were supporters of Captain John Smith, whose own
writings begin after this narrative.
Being thus left to our fortunes, within ten days, scarce ten amongst
us could either go or well stand, such extreme weakness and sickness
oppressed us. And thereat none need marvel, if they consider the cause
and reason, which was this: whilst the ships stayed, our allowance of
food was somewhat bettered by a daily portion of biscuit which the
sailors would pilfer [_steal_] to sell, give, or exchange with us, for
money, sassafras, [_or_] furs.... But when they departed, there
remained neither tavern, beer house, nor place of relief but the
common kettle.
Had we been as free from all sins as we were free from gluttony and
drunkenness, we might have been canonized for saints. But our
president would never have been admitted, for he kept for his private
use oatmeal, sack [_wine_], oil, aqua vitae [_brandy_], beef, eggs, or
what not. [_President Wingfield hotly denied this charge_.] The
[_contents of the common_] kettle indeed he allowed equally to be
distributed, and that was half a pint of wheat and as much barley
boiled with water for a man a day. This [_grain_] having fried some 26
weeks in the ship’s hold contained as many worms as grains, so that we
might truly call it rather so much bran than corn.
Our drink was water, our lodging, castles in the air. With this
lodging and diet our extreme toil in bearing and planting palisades
strained and bruised us. Our continual labor in the extremity of the
heat had so weakened us as were cause sufficient to have made us
miserable in our native country, or any other place in the world. From
May to September those that escaped dying lived upon sturgeon and sea
crabs. Fifty in this time we buried. [_The original colony numbered
104._]
Then seeing the President’s projects (who all this time had neither
felt want nor sickness) to escape these miseries by flight in our
pinnace [_small sailing boat_] so moved our dead spirits that we
deposed [_removed_] him and established [_John_] Ratcliffe in his
place.... But now was all our provision spent, the sturgeon gone, all
helps abandoned, each hour expecting the fury of the savages, when
God, the patron of all good endeavors, in that desperate extremity, so
changed the hearts of the savages that they brought such plenty of
their fruits and provision that no man wanted.
And now where some affirmed it was ill done of the Council to send
forth men so badly provided, this incontradictable reason will show
them plainly they are too ill-advised to nourish such ideas. First,
the fault of our going was our own. What could be thought fitting or
necessary we had; but what we should find, what we should want, where
we should be, we were all ignorant. And supposing to make our passage
in two months with victual [_food_] to live and the advantage of
spring to work, we were at sea five months where we spent both our
victual and lost the opportunity of the time and season to plant.
Such actions have ever since the world’s beginning been subject to
such accidents. Everything of worth is found full of difficulties, but
nothing [_is_] so difficult as to establish a commonwealth so far
remote from men and means and where men’s minds are so untoward
[_unlucky_] as neither [_to_] do well themselves nor to suffer others
[_to do well_]. But to proceed.
The new president, being little beloved, of weak judgment in dangers
and less industry in peace, committed the managing of all things
abroad to Captain Smith, who, by his own example, good words, and fair
promises set some to mow, others to bind thatch, some to build houses,
others to thatch them, himself always bearing the greatest task for
his own share. In short time he provided most of them lodgings,
neglecting any for himself.
This done, seeing the savages’ superfluity [_large numbers_] begin to
decrease, [_he_] with some of his workmen shipped himself in the
shallop [_small boat_] to search the country for trade.... He went
down the river to Kecoughtan [_an Indian village_] where at first they
scorned him as a starved man, yet he so dealt with them that the next
day they loaded his boat with corn. And in his return he discovered
and kindly traded with the Warascoyks....
And now the winter approaching, the rivers became so covered with
swans, geese, ducks, and cranes that we daily feasted with good bread,
Virginia peas, pumpkins, and persimmons, fish, fowl, and diverse sorts
of wild beasts, ... so that none of our Tuftaffaty [_silk-dressed_]
humorists desired to go for England.