On Sunday, June 21st, they took the communion lovingly together. That
evening Captain Newport gave a farewell supper on board his vessel. The
22d he sailed in the Susan Constant for England, carrying specimens of
the woods and minerals, and made the short passage of five weeks. Dudley
Carleton, in a letter to John Chamberlain dated Aug. 18, 1607, writes
“that Captain Newport has arrived without gold or silver, and that the
adventurers, cumbered by the presence of the natives, have fortified
themselves at a place called Jamestown.” The colony left numbered one
hundred and four.
The good harmony of the colony did not last. There were other reasons
why the settlement was unprosperous. The supply of wholesome provisions
was inadequate. The situation of the town near the Chickahominy swamps
was not conducive to health, and although Powhatan had sent to make
peace with them, and they also made a league of amity with the chiefs
Paspahegh and Tapahanagh, they evidently had little freedom of movement
beyond sight of their guns. Percy says they were very bare and scant of
victuals, and in wars and dangers with the savages.
Smith says in his “True Relation,” which was written on the spot, and is
much less embittered than his “General Historie,” that they were in
good health and content when Newport departed, but this did not long
continue, for President Wingfield and Captain Gosnold, with the most of
the Council, were so discontented with each other that nothing was done
with discretion, and no business transacted with wisdom. This he charges
upon the “hard-dealing of the President,” the rest of the Council being
diversely affected through his audacious command. “Captain Martin,
though honest, was weak and sick; Smith was in disgrace through the
malice of others; and God sent famine and sickness, so that the living
were scarce able to bury the dead. Our want of sufficient good food, and
continual watching, four or five each night, at three bulwarks, being
the chief cause; only of sturgeon we had great store, whereon we would
so greedily surfeit, as it cost many their lives; the sack, Aquavite,
and other preservations of our health being kept in the President's
hands, for his own diet and his few associates.”
In his “General Historie,” written many years later, Smith enlarges this
indictment with some touches of humor characteristic of him. He says:
“Being thus left to our fortunes, it fortuned that within ten days
scarce ten amongst us could either go, or well stand, such extreme
weakness and sicknes oppressed us. And thereat none need marvaile if
they consider the cause and reason, which was this: whilst the ships
stayed, our allowance was somewhat bettered, by a daily proportion of
Bisket, which the sailors would pilfer to sell, give, or exchange with
us for money, Saxefras, furres, or love. But when they departed, there
remained neither taverne, beere-house, nor place of reliefe, but the
common Kettell. Had we beene as free from all sinnes as gluttony, and
drunkennesse, we might have been canonized for Saints. But our President
would never have been admitted, for ingrissing to his private, Oatmeale,
Sacke, Oyle, Aquavitz, Beef, Egges, or what not, but the Kettell: that
indeed he allowed equally to be distributed, and that was half a pint
of wheat, and as much barley boyled with water for a man a day, and this
being fryed some twenty-six weeks in the ship's hold, contained as many
wormes as graines; so that we might truly call it rather so much bran
than corrne, our drinke was water, our lodgings Castles in the ayre;
with this lodging and dyet, our extreme toile in bearing and planting
Pallisadoes, so strained and bruised us, and our continual labour in the
extremitie of the heat had so weakened us, as were cause sufficient to
have made us miserable in our native countrey, or any other place in the
world.”
Affairs grew worse. The sufferings of this colony in the summer equaled
that of the Pilgrims at Plymouth in the winter and spring. Before
September forty-one were buried, says Wingfield; fifty, says Smith
in one statement, and forty-six in another; Percy gives a list of
twenty-four who died in August and September. Late in August Wingfield
said, “Sickness had not now left us seven able men in our town.” “As
yet,” writes Smith in September, “we had no houses to cover us, our
tents were rotten, and our cabins worse than nought.”
Percy gives a doleful picture of the wretchedness of the colony:
“Our men were destroyed with cruel sickness, as swellings, fluxes,
burning-fevers, and by wars, and some departed suddenly, but for the
most part they died of mere famine.... We watched every three nights,
lying on the cold bare ground what weather soever came, worked all the
next day, which brought our men to be most feeble wretches, our food was
but a small can of barley, sod in water to five men a day, our drink but
cold water taken out of the river, which was at the flood very salt, at
a low tide full of shrimp and filth, which was the destruction of many
of our men. Thus we lived for the space of five months in this miserable
distress, but having five able men to man our bulwarks upon any
occasion. If it had not pleased God to put a terror in the savage
hearts, we had all perished by those wild and cruel Pagans, being in
that weak state as we were: our men night and day groaning in every
corner of the fort, most pitiful to hear. If there were any conscience
in men, it would make their hearts to bleed to hear the pitiful
murmurings and outcries of our sick men, without relief, every night and
day, for the space of six weeks: some departing out of the world; many
times three or four in a night; in the morning their bodies trailed out
of their cabins, like dogs, to be buried. In this sort did I see the
mortality of divers of our people.”
A severe loss to the colony was the death on the 22d of August of
Captain Bartholomew Gosnold, one of the Council, a brave and adventurous
mariner, and, says Wingfield, a “worthy and religious gentleman.” He
was honorably buried, “having all the ordnance in the fort shot off with
many volleys of small shot.” If the Indians had known that those volleys
signified the mortality of their comrades, the colony would no
doubt have been cut off entirely. It is a melancholy picture, this
disheartened and half-famished band of men quarreling among themselves;
the occupation of the half-dozen able men was nursing the sick and
digging graves. We anticipate here by saying, on the authority of a
contemporary manuscript in the State Paper office, that when Captain
Newport arrived with the first supply in January, 1608, “he found the
colony consisting of no more than forty persons; of those, ten only able
men.”
After the death of Gosnold, Captain Kendall was deposed from the Council
and put in prison for sowing discord between the President and Council,
says Wingfield; for heinous matters which were proved against him,
says Percy; for “divers reasons,” says Smith, who sympathized with his
dislike of Wingfield. The colony was in very low estate at this time,
and was only saved from famine by the providential good-will of the
Indians, who brought them corn half ripe, and presently meat and fruit
in abundance.
On the 7th of September the chief Paspahegh gave a token of peace by
returning a white boy who had run away from camp, and other runaways
were returned by other chiefs, who reported that they had been well used
in their absence. By these returns Mr. Wingfield was convinced that the
Indians were not cannibals, as Smith believed.
On the 10th of September Mr. Wingfield was deposed from the presidency
and the Council, and Captain John Ratcliffe was elected President.
Concerning the deposition there has been much dispute; but the accounts
of it by Captain Smith and his friends, so long accepted as the truth,
must be modified by Mr. Wingfield's “Discourse of Virginia,” more
recently come to light, which is, in a sense, a defense of his conduct.
In his “True Relation” Captain Smith is content to say that “Captain
Wingfield, having ordered the affairs in such sort that he was hated
of them all, in which respect he was with one accord deposed from the
presidency.”
In the “General Historie” the charges against him, which we have already
quoted, are extended, and a new one is added, that is, a purpose of
deserting the colony in the pinnace: “the rest seeing the President's
projects to escape these miseries in our pinnace by flight (who all this
time had neither felt want nor sickness), so moved our dead spirits we
deposed him.”
In the scarcity of food and the deplorable sickness and death, it
was inevitable that extreme dissatisfaction should be felt with the
responsible head. Wingfield was accused of keeping the best of the
supplies to himself. The commonalty may have believed this. Smith
himself must have known that the supplies were limited, but have been
willing to take advantage of this charge to depose the President, who
was clearly in many ways incompetent for his trying position. It appears
by Mr. Wingfield's statement that the supply left with the colony was
very scant, a store that would only last thirteen weeks and a half,
and prudence in the distribution of it, in the uncertainty of Newport's
return, was a necessity. Whether Wingfield used the delicacies himself
is a question which cannot be settled. In his defense, in all we read
of him, except that written by Smith and his friends, he seems to be
a temperate and just man, little qualified to control the bold spirits
about him.
As early as July, “in his sickness time, the President did easily
fortell his own deposing from his command,” so much did he differ from
the Council in the management of the colony. Under date of September 7th
he says that the Council demanded a larger allowance for themselves and
for some of the sick, their favorites, which he declined to give without
their warrants as councilors. Captain Martin of the Council was till
then ignorant that only store for thirteen and a half weeks was in
the hands of the Cape Merchant, or treasurer, who was at that time Mr.
Thomas Studley. Upon a representation to the Council of the lowness of
the stores, and the length of time that must elapse before the harvest
of grain, they declined to enlarge the allowance, and even ordered that
every meal of fish or flesh should excuse the allowance of porridge. Mr.
Wingfield goes on to say: “Nor was the common store of oyle, vinegar,
sack, and aquavite all spent, saving two gallons of each: the sack
reserved for the Communion table, the rest for such extremities as
might fall upon us, which the President had only made known to Captain
Gosnold; of which course he liked well. The vessels wear, therefore,
boonged upp. When Mr. Gosnold was dead, the President did acquaint the
rest of the Council with the said remnant; but, Lord, how they then
longed for to supp up that little remnant: for they had now emptied all
their own bottles, and all other that they could smell out.”
Shortly after this the Council again importuned the President for some
better allowance for themselves and for the sick. He protested his
impartiality, showed them that if the portions were distributed
according to their request the colony would soon starve; he still
offered to deliver what they pleased on their warrants, but would not
himself take the responsibility of distributing all the stores, and when
he divined the reason of their impatience he besought them to bestow
the presidency among themselves, and he would be content to obey as
a private. Meantime the Indians were bringing in supplies of corn and
meat, the men were so improved in health that thirty were able to work,
and provision for three weeks' bread was laid up.
Nevertheless, says Mr. Wingfield, the Council had fully plotted to
depose him. Of the original seven there remained, besides Mr. Wingfield,
only three in the Council. Newport was in England, Gosnold was dead, and
Kendall deposed. Mr. Wingfield charged that the three--Ratcliffe,
Smith, and Martin--forsook the instructions of his Majesty, and set up
a Triumvirate. At any rate, Wingfield was forcibly deposed from the
Council on the 10th of September. If the object had been merely to
depose him, there was an easier way, for Wingfield was ready to resign.
But it appears, by subsequent proceedings, that they wished to
fasten upon him the charge of embezzlement, the responsibility of the
sufferings of the colony, and to mulct him in fines. He was arrested,
and confined on the pinnace. Mr. Ratcliffe was made President.
On the 11th of September Mr. Wingfield was brought before the Council
sitting as a court, and heard the charges against him. They were, as Mr.
Wingfield says, mostly frivolous trifles. According to his report they
were these:
First, Mister President [Radcliffe] said that I had denied him a penny
whitle, a chicken, a spoonful of beer, and served him with foul corn;
and with that pulled some grain out of a bag, showing it to the company.
Then starts up Mr. Smith and said that I had told him plainly how he
lied; and that I said, though we were equal here, yet if we were in
England, he [I] would think scorn his man should be my companion.
Mr. Martin followed with: “He reported that I do slack the service in
the colony, and do nothing but tend my pot, spit, and oven; but he hath
starved my son, and denied him a spoonful of beer. I have friends in
England shall be revenged on him, if ever he come in London.”
Voluminous charges were read against Mr. Wingfield by Mr. Archer,
who had been made by the Council, Recorder of Virginia, the author,
according to Wingfield, of three several mutinies, as “always hatching
of some mutiny in my time.”
Mr. Percy sent him word in his prison that witnesses were hired to
testify against him by bribes of cakes and by threats. If Mr. Percy,
who was a volunteer in this expedition, and a man of high character, did
send this information, it shows that he sympathized with him, and this
is an important piece of testimony to his good character.
Wingfield saw no way of escape from the malice of his accusers, whose
purpose he suspected was to fine him fivefold for all the supplies whose
disposition he could not account for in writing: but he was finally
allowed to appeal to the King for mercy, and recommitted to the pinnace.
In regard to the charge of embezzlement, Mr. Wingfield admitted that it
was impossible to render a full account: he had no bill of items from
the Cape Merchant when he received the stores, he had used the stores
for trade and gifts with the Indians; Captain Newport had done the same
in his expedition, without giving any memorandum. Yet he averred that he
never expended the value of these penny whittles [small pocket-knives]
to his private use.
There was a mutinous and riotous spirit on shore, and the Council
professed to think Wingfield's life was in danger. He says: “In all
these disorders was Mr. Archer a ringleader.” Meantime the Indians
continued to bring in supplies, and the Council traded up and down the
river for corn, and for this energy Mr. Wingfield gives credit to “Mr.
Smith especially,” “which relieved the colony well.” To the report that
was brought him that he was charged with starving the colony, he replies
with some natural heat and a little show of petulance, that may be taken
as an evidence of weakness, as well as of sincerity, and exhibiting the
undignified nature of all this squabbling:
“I did alwaises give every man his allowance faithfully, both of corne,
oyle, aquivite, etc., as was by the counsell proportioned: neyther was
it bettered after my tyme, untill, towards th' end of March, a bisket
was allowed to every working man for his breakfast, by means of the
provision brought us by Captn. Newport: as will appeare hereafter. It is
further said, I did much banquit and ryot. I never had but one squirrel
roasted; whereof I gave part to Mr. Ratcliffe then sick: yet was that
squirrel given me. I did never heate a flesh pott but when the comon
pott was so used likewise. Yet how often Mr. President's and the
Counsellors' spitts have night and daye bene endaungered to break their
backes-so, laden with swanns, geese, ducks, etc.! how many times their
flesh potts have swelled, many hungrie eies did behold, to their great
longing: and what great theeves and theeving thear hath been in the
comon stoare since my tyme, I doubt not but is already made knowne to
his Majesty's Councell for Virginia.”
Poor Wingfield was not left at ease in his confinement. On the 17th he
was brought ashore to answer the charge of Jehu [John?] Robinson that
he had with Robinson and others intended to run away with the pinnace to
Newfoundland; and the charge by Mr. Smith that he had accused Smith
of intending mutiny. To the first accuser the jury awarded one hundred
pounds, and to the other two hundred pounds damages, for slander.
“Seeing their law so speedy and cheap,” Mr. Wingfield thought he would
try to recover a copper kettle he had lent Mr. Crofts, worth half its
weight in gold. But Crofts swore that Wingfield had given it to him, and
he lost his kettle: “I told Mr. President I had not known the like law,
and prayed they would be more sparing of law till we had more witt
or wealthe.” Another day they obtained from Wingfield the key to his
coffers, and took all his accounts, note-books, and “owne proper goods,”
which he could never recover. Thus was I made good prize on all sides.
During one of Smith's absences on the river President Ratcliffe did beat
James Read, the blacksmith. Wingfield says the Council were continually
beating the men for their own pleasure. Read struck back.
For this he was condemned to be hanged; but “before he turned of the
lather,” he desired to speak privately with the President, and thereupon
accused Mr. Kendall--who had been released from the pinnace when
Wingfield was sent aboard--of mutiny. Read escaped. Kendall was
convicted of mutiny and shot to death. In arrest of judgment he objected
that the President had no authority to pronounce judgment because his
name was Sicklemore and not Ratcliffe. This was true, and Mr. Martin
pronounced the sentence. In his “True Relation,” Smith agrees with this
statement of the death of Kendall, and says that he was tried by a jury.
It illustrates the general looseness of the “General Historie,” written
and compiled many years afterwards, that this transaction there appears
as follows: “Wingfield and Kendall being in disgrace, seeing all things
at random in the absence of Smith, the company's dislike of their
President's weakness, and their small love to Martin's never-mending
sickness, strengthened themselves with the sailors and other
confederates to regain their power, control, and authority, or at
least such meanes aboard the pinnace (being fitted to sail as Smith had
appointed for trade) to alter her course and to goe for England. Smith
unexpectedly returning had the plot discovered to him, much trouble he
had to prevent it, till with store of sakre and musket-shot he forced
them to stay or sink in the river, which action cost the life of Captain
Kendall.”
In a following sentence he says: “The President [Ratcliffe] and Captain
Archer not long after intended also to have abandoned the country,
which project also was curbed and suppressed by Smith.” Smith was always
suppressing attempts at flight, according to his own story, unconfirmed
by any other writers. He had before accused President Wingfield of a
design to escape in the pinnace.
Communications were evidently exchanged with Mr. Wingfield on the
pinnace, and the President was evidently ill at ease about him. One day
he was summoned ashore, but declined to go, and requested an interview
with ten gentlemen. To those who came off to him he said that he had
determined to go to England to make known the weakness of the
colony, that he could not live under the laws and usurpations of the
Triumvirate; however, if the President and Mr. Archer would go, he
was willing to stay and take his fortune with the colony, or he would
contribute one hundred pounds towards taking the colony home. “They did
like none of my proffers, but made divers shott at uss in the pynnasse.”
Thereupon he went ashore and had a conference.
On the 10th of December Captain Smith departed on his famous expedition
up the Chickahominy, during which the alleged Pocahontas episode
occurred. Mr. Wingfield's condensed account of this journey and
captivity we shall refer to hereafter. In Smith's absence President
Ratcliffe, contrary to his oath, swore Mr. Archer one of the Council;
and Archer was no sooner settled in authority than he sought to take
Smith's life. The enmity of this man must be regarded as a long credit
mark to Smith. Archer had him indicted upon a chapter in Leviticus (they
all wore a garb of piety) for the death of two men who were killed by
the Indians on his expedition. “He had had his trials the same daie of
his retourne,” says Wingfield, “and I believe his hanging the same, or
the next daie, so speedy is our law there. But it pleased God to send
Captain Newport unto us the same evening, to our unspeakable comfort;
whose arrivall saved Mr. Smyth's leif and mine, because he took me out
of the pynnasse, and gave me leave to lyve in the towne. Also by his
comyng was prevented a parliament, which the newe counsailor, Mr.
Recorder, intended thear to summon.”
Captain Newport's arrival was indeed opportune. He was the only one of
the Council whose character and authority seem to have been generally
respected, the only one who could restore any sort of harmony and curb
the factious humors of the other leaders. Smith should have all credit
for his energy in procuring supplies, for his sagacity in dealing
with the Indians, for better sense than most of the other colonists
exhibited, and for more fidelity to the objects of the plantation than
most of them; but where ability to rule is claimed for him, at this
juncture we can but contrast the deference shown by all to Newport with
the want of it given to Smith. Newport's presence at once quelled all
the uneasy spirits.
Newport's arrival, says Wingfield, “saved Mr Smith's life and mine.”
Smith's account of the episode is substantially the same. In his “True
Relation” he says on his return to the fort “each man with truest signs
of joy they could express welcomed me, except Mr. Archer, and some two
or three of his, who was then in my absence sworn councilor, though not
with the consent of Captain Martin; great blame and imputation was laid
upon me by them for the loss of our two men which the Indians slew:
insomuch that they purposed to depose me, but in the midst of my
miseries, it pleased God to send Captain Newport, who arriving there the
same night, so tripled our joy, as for a while those plots against me
were deferred, though with much malice against me, which Captain Newport
in short time did plainly see.” In his “Map of Virginia,” the Oxford
tract of 1612, Smith does not allude to this; but in the “General
Historie” it had assumed a different aspect in his mind, for at the time
of writing that he was the irresistible hero, and remembered himself as
always nearly omnipotent in Virginia. Therefore, instead of expressions
of gratitude to Newport we read this: “Now in Jamestown they were all
in combustion, the strongest preparing once more to run away with the
pinnace; which with the hazard of his life, with Sakre, falcon and
musket shot, Smith forced now the third time to stay or sink. Some
no better than they should be, had plotted to put him to death by the
Levitical law, for the lives of Robinson and Emry, pretending that the
fault was his, that led them to their ends; but he quickly took such
order with such Lawyers, that he laid them by the heels till he sent
some of them prisoners to England.”
Clearly Captain Smith had no authority to send anybody prisoner to
England. When Newport returned, April 10th, Wingfield and Archer went
with him. Wingfield no doubt desired to return. Archer was so insolent,
seditious, and libelous that he only escaped the halter by the
interposition of Newport. The colony was willing to spare both these
men, and probably Newport it was who decided they should go. As one of
the Council, Smith would undoubtedly favor their going. He says in the
“General Historie”: “We not having any use of parliaments, plaises,
petitions, admirals, recorders, interpreters, chronologers, courts of
plea, or justices of peace, sent Master Wingfield and Captain Archer
home with him, that had engrossed all those titles, to seek some better
place of employment.” Mr. Wingfield never returned. Captain Archer
returned in 1609, with the expedition of Gates and Somers, as master of
one of the ships.
Newport had arrived with the first supply on the 8th of January, 1608.
The day before, according to Wingfield, a fire occurred which destroyed
nearly all the town, with the clothing and provisions. According to
Smith, who is probably correct in this, the fire did not occur till five
or six days after the arrival of the ship. The date is uncertain, and
some doubt is also thrown upon the date of the arrival of the ship.
It was on the day of Smith's return from captivity: and that captivity
lasted about four weeks if the return was January 8th, for he started on
the expedition December 10th. Smith subsequently speaks of his captivity
lasting six or seven weeks.
In his “General Historie” Smith says the fire happened after the return
of the expedition of Newport, Smith, and Scrivener to the Pamunkey:
“Good Master Hunt, our Preacher, lost all his library, and all he had
but the clothes on his back; yet none ever heard him repine at his
loss.” This excellent and devoted man is the only one of these first
pioneers of whom everybody speaks well, and he deserved all affection
and respect.
One of the first labors of Newport was to erect a suitable church.
Services had been held under many disadvantages, which Smith depicts in
his “Advertisements for Unexperienced Planters,” published in London in
1631:
“When I first went to Virginia, I well remember, we did hang an awning
(which is an old saile) to three or foure trees to shadow us from the
Sunne, our walls were rales of wood, our seats unhewed trees, till we
cut plankes, our Pulpit a bar of wood nailed to two neighboring trees,
in foule weather we shifted into an old rotten tent, for we had few
better, and this came by the way of adventure for me; this was our
Church, till we built a homely thing like a barne, set upon Cratchets,
covered with rafts, sedge and earth, so was also the walls: the best
of our houses of the like curiosity, but the most part farre much worse
workmanship, that could neither well defend wind nor raine, yet we had
daily Common Prayer morning and evening, every day two Sermons, and
every three moneths the holy Communion, till our Minister died, [Robert
Hunt] but our Prayers daily, with an Homily on Sundaies.”
It is due to Mr. Wingfield, who is about to disappear from Virginia,
that something more in his defense against the charges of Smith and the
others should be given. It is not possible now to say how the suspicion
of his religious soundness arose, but there seems to have been a notion
that he had papal tendencies. His grandfather, Sir Richard Wingfield,
was buried in Toledo, Spain. His father, Thomas Maria Wingfield, was
christened by Queen Mary and Cardinal Pole. These facts perhaps gave
rise to the suspicion. He answers them with some dignity and simplicity,
and with a little querulousness:
“It is noised that I combyned with the Spanniards to the distruccion of
the Collony; that I ame an atheist, because I carryed not a Bible with
me, and because I did forbid the preacher to preache; that I affected a
kingdome; that I did hide of the comon provision in the ground.
“I confesse I have alwayes admyred any noble vertue and prowesse, as
well in the Spanniards (as in other nations): but naturally I have
alwayes distrusted and disliked their neighborhoode. I sorted many
bookes in my house, to be sent up to me at my goeing to Virginia;
amongst them a Bible. They were sent up in a trunk to London, with
divers fruite, conserves, and preserves, which I did sett in Mr. Crofts
his house in Ratcliff. In my beeing at Virginia, I did understand my
trunk was thear broken up, much lost, my sweetmeates eaten at his table,
some of my bookes which I missed to be seene in his hands: and whether
amongst them my Bible was so ymbeasiled or mislayed by my servants, and
not sent me, I knowe not as yet.
“Two or three Sunday mornings, the Indians gave us allarums at our
towne. By that tymes they weare answered, the place about us well
discovered, and our devyne service ended, the daie was farr spent. The
preacher did aske me if it were my pleasure to have a sermon: hee said
hee was prepared for it. I made answere, that our men were weary and
hungry, and that he did see the time of the daie farr past (for at other
tymes bee never made such question, but, the service finished he began
his sermon); and that, if it pleased him, wee would spare him till some
other tyme. I never failed to take such noates by wrighting out of his
doctrine as my capacity could comprehend, unless some raynie day hindred
my endeavor. My mynde never swelled with such ympossible mountebank
humors as could make me affect any other kingdome than the kingdom of
heaven.
“As truly as God liveth, I gave an ould man, then the keeper of the
private store, 2 glasses with sallet oyle which I brought with me out of
England for my private stoare, and willed him to bury it in the ground,
for that I feared the great heate would spoile it. Whatsoever was more,
I did never consent unto or know of it, and as truly was it protested
unto me, that all the remaynder before mencioned of the oyle, wyne, &c.,
which the President receyved of me when I was deposed they themselves
poored into their owne bellyes.
“To the President's and Counsell's objections I saie that I doe knowe
curtesey and civility became a governor. No penny whittle was asked me,
but a knife, whereof I have none to spare The Indyans had long before
stoallen my knife. Of chickins I never did eat but one, and that in my
sicknes. Mr. Ratcliff had before that time tasted Of 4 or 5. I had by
my owne huswiferie bred above 37, and the most part of them my owne
poultrye; of all which, at my comyng awaie, I did not see three living.
I never denyed him (or any other) beare, when I had it. The corne was of
the same which we all lived upon.
“Mr. Smyth, in the time of our hungar, had spread a rumor in the
Collony, that I did feast myself and my servants out of the comon
stoare, with entent (as I gathered) to have stirred the discontented
company against me. I told him privately, in Mr. Gosnold's tent, that
indeede I had caused half a pint of pease to be sodden with a peese
of pork, of my own provision, for a poore old man, which in a sicknes
(whereof he died) he much desired; and said, that if out of his malice
he had given it out otherwise, that hee did tell a leye. It was proved
to his face, that he begged in Ireland like a rogue, without a lycence.
To such I would not my nam should be a companyon.”
The explanation about the Bible as a part of his baggage is a little
far-fetched, and it is evident that that book was not his daily
companion. Whether John Smith habitually carried one about with him we
are not informed. The whole passage quoted gives us a curious picture
of the mind and of the habits of the time. This allusion to John Smith's
begging is the only reference we can find to his having been in Ireland.
If he was there it must have been in that interim in his own narrative
between his return from Morocco and his going to Virginia. He was
likely enough to seek adventure there, as the hangers-on of the court in
Raleigh's day occasionally did, and perhaps nothing occurred during
his visit there that he cared to celebrate. If he went to Ireland he
probably got in straits there, for that was his usual luck.
Whatever is the truth about Mr. Wingfield's inefficiency and
embezzlement of corn meal, Communion sack, and penny whittles, his
enemies had no respect for each other or concord among themselves. It is
Wingfield's testimony that Ratcliffe said he would not have been
deposed if he had visited Ratcliffe during his sickness. Smith said
that Wingfield would not have been deposed except for Archer; that the
charges against him were frivolous. Yet, says Wingfield, “I do believe
him the first and only practiser in these practices,” and he attributed
Smith's hostility to the fact that “his name was mentioned in the
intended and confessed mutiny by Galthrop.” Noother reference is made to
this mutiny. Galthrop was one of those who died in the previous August.
One of the best re-enforcements of the first supply was Matthew
Scrivener, who was appointed one of the Council. He was a sensible man,
and he and Smith worked together in harmony for some time. They were
intent upon building up the colony. Everybody else in the camp was crazy
about the prospect of gold: there was, says Smith, “no talk, no hope, no
work, but dig gold, wash gold, refine gold, load gold, such a bruit of
gold that one mad fellow desired to be buried in the sands, lest they
should by their art make gold of his bones.” He charges that Newport
delayed his return to England on account of this gold fever, in order to
load his vessel (which remained fourteen weeks when it might have sailed
in fourteen days) with gold-dust. Captain Martin seconded Newport in
this; Smith protested against it; he thought Newport was no refiner, and
it did torment him “to see all necessary business neglected, to fraught
such a drunken ship with so much gilded durt.” This was the famous load
of gold that proved to be iron pyrites.
In speaking of the exploration of the James River as far as the Falls by
Newport, Smith, and Percy, we have followed the statements of Percy
and the writer of Newport's discovery that they saw the great Powhatan.
There is much doubt of this. Smith in his “True Relation” does not say
so; in his voyage up the Chickahominy he seems to have seen Powhatan for
the first time; and Wingfield speaks of Powhatan, on Smith's return
from that voyage, as one “of whom before we had no knowledge.” It is
conjectured that the one seen at Powhatan's seat near the Falls was a
son of the “Emperor.” It was partly the exaggeration of the times
to magnify discoveries, and partly English love of high titles, that
attributed such titles as princes, emperors, and kings to the half-naked
barbarians and petty chiefs of Virginia.
In all the accounts of the colony at this period, no mention is made
of women, and it is not probable that any went over with the first
colonists. The character of the men was not high. Many of them were
“gentlemen” adventurers, turbulent spirits, who would not work, who were
much better fitted for piratical maraudings than the labor of founding
a state. The historian must agree with the impression conveyed by Smith,
that it was poor material out of which to make a colony.