The London company were profoundly dissatisfied with the results of the
Virginia colony. The South Sea was not discovered, no gold had turned
up, there were no valuable products from the new land, and the promoters
received no profits on their ventures. With their expectations, it
is not to be wondered at that they were still further annoyed by the
quarreling amongst the colonists themselves, and wished to begin over
again.
A new charter, dated May 23, 1609, with enlarged powers, was got from
King James. Hundreds of corporators were named, and even thousands were
included in the various London trades and guilds that were joined in the
enterprise. Among the names we find that of Captain John Smith. But
he was out of the Council, nor was he given then or ever afterward any
place or employment in Virginia, or in the management of its affairs.
The grant included all the American coast two hundred miles north and
two hundred miles south of Point Comfort, and all the territory from the
coast up into the land throughout from sea to sea, west and northwest.
A leading object of the project still being (as we have seen it was with
Smith's precious crew at Jamestown) the conversion and reduction of the
natives to the true religion, no one was permitted in the colony who had
not taken the oath of supremacy.
Under this charter the Council gave a commission to Sir Thomas
West, Lord Delaware, Captain-General of Virginia; Sir Thomas Gates,
Lieutenant-General; Sir George Somers, Admiral; Captain Newport,
Vice-Admiral; Sir Thomas Dale, High Marshal; Sir Frederick Wainman,
General of the Horse, and many other officers for life.
With so many wealthy corporators money flowed into the treasury, and a
great expedition was readily fitted out. Towards the end of May, 1609,
there sailed from England nine ships and five hundred people, under the
command of Sir Thomas Gates, Sir George Somers, and Captain Newport.
Each of these commanders had a commission, and the one who arrived first
was to call in the old commission; as they could not agree, they all
sailed in one ship, the Sea Venture.
This brave expedition was involved in a contest with a hurricane; one
vessel was sunk, and the Sea Venture, with the three commanders, one
hundred and fifty men, the new commissioners, bills of lading, all sorts
of instructions, and much provision, was wrecked on the Bermudas. With
this company was William Strachey, of whom we shall hear more hereafter.
Seven vessels reached Jamestown, and brought, among other annoyances,
Smith's old enemy, Captain Ratcliffe, alias Sicklemore, in command of a
ship. Among the company were also Captains Martin, Archer, Wood, Webbe,
Moore, King, Davis, and several gentlemen of good means, and a crowd
of the riff-raff of London. Some of these Captains whom Smith had
sent home, now returned with new pretensions, and had on the voyage
prejudiced the company against him. When the fleet was first espied, the
President thought it was Spaniards, and prepared to defend himself, the
Indians promptly coming to his assistance.
This hurricane tossed about another expedition still more famous, that
of Henry Hudson, who had sailed from England on his third voyage toward
Nova Zembla March 25th, and in July and August was beating down the
Atlantic coast. On the 18th of August he entered the Capes of Virginia,
and sailed a little way up the Bay. He knew he was at the mouth of the
James River, “where our Englishmen are,” as he says. The next day a gale
from the northeast made him fear being driven aground in the shallows,
and he put to sea. The storm continued for several days. On the 21st “a
sea broke over the fore-course and split it;” and that night something
more ominous occurred: “that night [the chronicle records] our cat ran
crying from one side of the ship to the other, looking overboard, which
made us to wonder, but we saw nothing.” On the 26th they were again off
the bank of Virginia, and in the very bay and in sight of the islands
they had seen on the 18th. It appeared to Hudson “a great bay with
rivers,” but too shallow to explore without a small boat. After
lingering till the 29th, without any suggestion of ascending the James,
he sailed northward and made the lucky stroke of river exploration which
immortalized him.
It seems strange that he did not search for the English colony, but the
adventurers of that day were independent actors, and did not care to
share with each other the glories of discovery.
The first of the scattered fleet of Gates and Somers came in on the
11th, and the rest straggled along during the three or four days
following. It was a narrow chance that Hudson missed them all, and one
may imagine that the fate of the Virginia colony and of the New York
settlement would have been different if the explorer of the Hudson had
gone up the James.
No sooner had the newcomers landed than trouble began. They would have
deposed Smith on report of the new commission, but they could show no
warrant. Smith professed himself willing to retire to England, but,
seeing the new commission did not arrive, held on to his authority, and
began to enforce it to save the whole colony from anarchy. He depicts
the situation in a paragraph: “To a thousand mischiefs these lewd
Captains led this lewd company, wherein were many unruly gallants,
packed thither by their friends to escape ill destinies, and those would
dispose and determine of the government, sometimes to one, the next day
to another; today the old commission must rule, tomorrow the new, the
next day neither; in fine, they would rule all or ruin all; yet in
charity we must endure them thus to destroy us, or by correcting their
follies, have brought the world's censure upon us to be guilty of their
blouds. Happie had we beene had they never arrived, and we forever
abandoned, as we were left to our fortunes; for on earth for their
number was never more confusion or misery than their factions
occasioned.” In this company came a boy, named Henry Spelman, whose
subsequent career possesses considerable interest.
The President proceeded with his usual vigor: he “laid by the heels” the
chief mischief-makers till he should get leisure to punish them; sent
Mr. West with one hundred and twenty good men to the Falls to make a
settlement; and despatched Martin with near as many and their proportion
of provisions to Nansemond, on the river of that name emptying into the
James, obliquely opposite Point Comfort.
Lieutenant Percy was sick and had leave to depart for England when he
chose. The President's year being about expired, in accordance with
the charter, he resigned, and Captain Martin was elected President. But
knowing his inability, he, after holding it three hours, resigned it to
Smith, and went down to Nansemond. The tribe used him kindly, but he was
so frightened with their noisy demonstration of mirth that he surprised
and captured the poor naked King with his houses, and began fortifying
his position, showing so much fear that the savages were emboldened to
attack him, kill some of his men, release their King, and carry off a
thousand bushels of corn which had been purchased, Martin not offering
to intercept them. The frightened Captain sent to Smith for aid, who
despatched to him thirty good shot. Martin, too chicken-hearted to use
them, came back with them to Jamestown, leaving his company to their
fortunes. In this adventure the President commends the courage of one
George Forrest, who, with seventeen arrows sticking into him and one
shot through him, lived six or seven days.
Meantime Smith, going up to the Falls to look after Captain West, met
that hero on his way to Jamestown. He turned him back, and found that he
had planted his colony on an unfavorable flat, subject not only to the
overflowing of the river, but to more intolerable inconveniences. To
place him more advantageously the President sent to Powhatan, offering
to buy the place called Powhatan, promising to defend him against the
Monacans, to pay him in copper, and make a general alliance of trade and
friendship.
But “those furies,” as Smith calls West and his associates, refused
to move to Powhatan or to accept these conditions. They contemned his
authority, expecting all the time the new commission, and, regarding
all the Monacans' country as full of gold, determined that no one should
interfere with them in the possession of it. Smith, however, was not
intimidated from landing and attempting to quell their mutiny. In his
“General Historie” it is written “I doe more than wonder to think
how onely with five men he either durst or would adventure as he did
(knowing how greedy they were of his bloud) to come amongst them.” He
landed and ordered the arrest of the chief disturbers, but the crowd
hustled him off. He seized one of their boats and escaped to the ship
which contained the provision. Fortunately the sailors were friendly and
saved his life, and a considerable number of the better sort, seeing the
malice of Ratcliffe and Archer, took Smith's part.
Out of the occurrences at this new settlement grew many of the charges
which were preferred against Smith. According to the “General Historie”
the company of Ratcliffe and Archer was a disorderly rabble, constantly
tormenting the Indians, stealing their corn, robbing their gardens,
beating them, and breaking into their houses and taking them prisoners.
The Indians daily complained to the President that these “protectors”
he had given them were worse enemies than the Monacans, and desired
his pardon if they defended themselves, since he could not punish their
tormentors. They even proposed to fight for him against them. Smith says
that after spending nine days in trying to restrain them, and showing
them how they deceived themselves with “great guilded hopes of the South
Sea Mines,” he abandoned them to their folly and set sail for Jamestown.
No sooner was he under way than the savages attacked the fort, slew
many of the whites who were outside, rescued their friends who were
prisoners, and thoroughly terrified the garrison. Smith's ship happening
to go aground half a league below, they sent off to him, and were glad
to submit on any terms to his mercy. He “put by the heels” six or seven
of the chief offenders, and transferred the colony to Powhatan, where
were a fort capable of defense against all the savages in Virginia, dry
houses for lodging, and two hundred acres of ground ready to be planted.
This place, so strong and delightful in situation, they called Non-such.
The savages appeared and exchanged captives, and all became friends
again.
At this moment, unfortunately, Captain West returned. All the victuals
and munitions having been put ashore, the old factious projects were
revived. The soft-hearted West was made to believe that the rebellion
had been solely on his account. Smith, seeing them bent on their own
way, took the row-boat for Jamestown. The colony abandoned the pleasant
Non-such and returned to the open air at West's Fort. On his way down,
Smith met with the accident that suddenly terminated his career in
Virginia.
While he was sleeping in his boat his powder-bag was accidentally fired;
the explosion tore the flesh from his body and thighs, nine or ten
inches square, in the most frightful manner. To quench the tormenting
fire, frying him in his clothes, he leaped into the deep river, where,
ere they could recover him, he was nearly drowned. In this pitiable
condition, without either surgeon or surgery, he was to go nearly a
hundred miles.
It is now time for the appearance upon the scene of the boy Henry
Spelman, with his brief narration, which touches this period of Smith's
life. Henry Spelman was the third son of the distinguished antiquarian,
Sir Henry Spelman, of Coughan, Norfolk, who was married in 1581. It is
reasonably conjectured that he could not have been over twenty-one
when in May, 1609, he joined the company going to Virginia. Henry was
evidently a scapegrace, whose friends were willing to be rid of him.
Such being his character, it is more than probable that he was
shipped bound as an apprentice, and of course with the conditions of
apprenticeship in like expeditions of that period--to be sold or bound
out at the end of the voyage to pay for his passage. He remained for
several years in Virginia, living most of the time among the Indians,
and a sort of indifferent go between of the savages and the settlers.
According to his own story it was on October 20, 1609, that he was taken
up the river to Powhatan by Captain Smith, and it was in April, 1613,
that he was rescued from his easy-setting captivity on the Potomac by
Captain Argall. During his sojourn in Virginia, or more probably shortly
after his return to England, he wrote a brief and bungling narration of
his experiences in the colony, and a description of Indian life. The
MS. was not printed in his time, but mislaid or forgotten. By a strange
series of chances it turned up in our day, and was identified and
prepared for the press in 1861. Before the proof was read, the type
was accidentally broken up and the MS. again mislaid. Lost sight of for
several years, it was recovered and a small number of copies of it were
printed at London in 1872, edited by Mr. James F. Hunnewell.
Spelman's narration would be very important if we could trust it. He
appeared to have set down what he saw, and his story has a certain
simplicity that gains for it some credit. But he was a reckless boy,
unaccustomed to weigh evidence, and quite likely to write as facts the
rumors that he heard. He took very readily to the ways of Indian
life. Some years after, Spelman returned to Virginia with the title
of Captain, and in 1617 we find this reference to him in the “General
Historie”: “Here, as at many other times, we are beholden to Capt.
Henry Spilman, an interpreter, a gentleman that lived long time in this
country, and sometimes a prisoner among the Salvages, and done much good
service though but badly rewarded.” Smith would probably not have left
this on record had he been aware of the contents of the MS. that Spelman
had left for after-times.
Spelman begins his Relation, from which I shall quote substantially,
without following the spelling or noting all the interlineations, with
the reason for his emigration, which was, “being in displeasure of my
friends, and desirous to see other countries.” After a brief account of
the voyage and the joyful arrival at Jamestown, the Relation continues:
“Having here unloaded our goods and bestowed some senight or fortnight
in viewing the country, I was carried by Capt. Smith, our President, to
the Falls, to the little Powhatan, where, unknown to me, he sold me to
him for a town called Powhatan; and, leaving me with him, the little
Powhatan, he made known to Capt. West how he had bought a town for them
to dwell in. Whereupon Capt. West, growing angry because he had bestowed
cost to begin a town in another place, Capt. Smith desiring that
Capt. West would come and settle himself there, but Capt. West, having
bestowed cost to begin a town in another place, misliked it, and
unkindness thereupon arising between them, Capt. Smith at that time
replied little, but afterward combined with Powhatan to kill Capt. West,
which plot took but small effect, for in the meantime Capt. Smith was
apprehended and sent aboard for England.”
That this roving boy was “thrown in” as a makeweight in the trade for
the town is not impossible; but that Smith combined with Powhatan to
kill Captain West is doubtless West's perversion of the offer of the
Indians to fight on Smith's side against him.
According to Spelman's Relation, he stayed only seven or eight days
with the little Powhatan, when he got leave to go to Jamestown, being
desirous to see the English and to fetch the small articles that
belonged to him. The Indian King agreed to wait for him at that place,
but he stayed too long, and on his return the little Powhatan had
departed, and Spelman went back to Jamestown. Shortly after, the great
Powhatan sent Thomas Savage with a present of venison to President
Percy. Savage was loath to return alone, and Spelman was appointed to
go with him, which he did willingly, as victuals were scarce in camp. He
carried some copper and a hatchet, which he presented to Powhatan, and
that Emperor treated him and his comrade very kindly, seating them at
his own mess-table. After some three weeks of this life, Powhatan sent
this guileless youth down to decoy the English into his hands, promising
to freight a ship with corn if they would visit him. Spelman took the
message and brought back the English reply, whereupon Powhatan laid the
plot which resulted in the killing of Captain Ratcliffe and thirty-eight
men, only two of his company escaping to Jamestown. Spelman gives
two versions of this incident. During the massacre Spelman says that
Powhatan sent him and Savage to a town some sixteen miles away. Smith's
“General Historie” says that on this occasion “Pocahuntas saved a boy
named Henry Spilman that lived many years afterward, by her means,
among the Patawomekes.” Spelman says not a word about Pocahuntas. On
the contrary, he describes the visit of the King of the Patawomekes
to Powhatan; says that the King took a fancy to him; that he and Dutch
Samuel, fearing for their lives, escaped from Powhatan's town; were
pursued; that Samuel was killed, and that Spelman, after dodging about
in the forest, found his way to the Potomac, where he lived with this
good King Patomecke at a place called Pasptanzie for more than a year.
Here he seems to have passed his time agreeably, for although he had
occasional fights with the squaws of Patomecke, the King was always his
friend, and so much was he attached to the boy that he would not give
him up to Captain Argall without some copper in exchange.
When Smith returned wounded to Jamestown, he was physically in no
condition to face the situation. With no medical attendance, his
death was not improbable. He had no strength to enforce discipline
nor organize expeditions for supplies; besides, he was acting under a
commission whose virtue had expired, and the mutinous spirits rebelled
against his authority. Ratcliffe, Archer, and the others who were
awaiting trial conspired against him, and Smith says he would have been
murdered in his bed if the murderer's heart had not failed him when he
went to fire his pistol at the defenseless sick man. However, Smith was
forced to yield to circumstances. No sooner had he given out that he
would depart for England than they persuaded Mr. Percy to stay and act
as President, and all eyes were turned in expectation of favor upon the
new commanders. Smith being thus divested of authority, the most of the
colony turned against him; many preferred charges, and began to collect
testimony. “The ships were detained three weeks to get up proofs of his
ill-conduct”--“time and charges,” says Smith, dryly, “that might much
better have been spent.”
It must have enraged the doughty Captain, lying thus helpless, to see
his enemies triumph, the most factious of the disturbers in the colony
in charge of affairs, and become his accusers. Even at this distance we
can read the account with little patience, and should have none at all
if the account were not edited by Smith himself. His revenge was in his
good fortune in setting his own story afloat in the current of history.
The first narrative of these events, published by Smith in his Oxford
tract of 1612, was considerably remodeled and changed in his “General
Historie” of 1624. As we have said before, he had a progressive memory,
and his opponents ought to be thankful that the pungent Captain did not
live to work the story over a third time.
It is no doubt true, however, that but for the accident to our hero, he
would have continued to rule till the arrival of Gates and Somers with
the new commissions; as he himself says, “but had that unhappy blast not
happened, he would quickly have qualified the heat of those humors and
factions, had the ships but once left them and us to our fortunes; and
have made that provision from among the salvages, as we neither feared
Spaniard, Salvage, nor famine: nor would have left Virginia nor our
lawful authority, but at as dear a price as we had bought it, and paid
for it.”
He doubtless would have fought it out against all comers; and who
shall say that he does not merit the glowing eulogy on himself which he
inserts in his General History? “What shall I say but this, we left him,
that in all his proceedings made justice his first guide, and experience
his second, ever hating baseness, sloth, pride, and indignity, more than
any dangers; that upon no danger would send them where he would not lead
them himself; that would never see us want what he either had or could
by any means get us; that would rather want than borrow; or starve than
not pay; that loved action more than words, and hated falsehood and
covetousness worse than death; whose adventures were our lives, and
whose loss our deaths.”
A handsomer thing never was said of another man than Smith could say of
himself, but he believed it, as also did many of his comrades, we must
suppose. He suffered detraction enough, but he suffered also abundant
eulogy both in verse and prose. Among his eulogists, of course, is not
the factious Captain Ratcliffe. In the English Colonial State papers,
edited by Mr. Noel Sainsbury, is a note, dated Jamestown, October 4,
1609, from Captain “John Radclyffe comenly called,” to the Earl of
Salisbury, which contains this remark upon Smith's departure after the
arrival of the last supply: “They heard that all the Council were dead
but Capt. [John] Smith, President, who reigned sole Governor, and is now
sent home to answer some misdemeanor.”
Captain Archer also regards this matter in a different light from that
in which Smith represents it. In a letter from Jamestown, written in
August, he says:
“In as much as the President [Smith], to strengthen his authority,
accorded with the variances and gave not any due respect to many worthy
gentlemen that were in our ships, wherefore they generally, with my
consent, chose Master West, my Lord De La Ware's brother, their Governor
or President de bene esse, in the absence of Sir Thomas Gates, or if
he be miscarried by sea, then to continue till we heard news from our
counsell in England. This choice of him they made not to disturb the old
President during his term, but as his authority expired, then to take
upon him the sole government, with such assistants of the captains or
discreet persons as the colony afforded.
“Perhaps you shall have it blamed as a mutinie by such as retaine old
malice, but Master West, Master Piercie, and all the respected gentlemen
of worth in Virginia, can and will testify otherwise upon their oaths.
For the King's patent we ratified, but refused to be governed by the
President--that is, after his time was expired and only subjected
ourselves to Master West, whom we labor to have next President.”
It is clear from this statement that the attempt was made to supersede
Smith even before his time expired, and without any authority (since the
new commissions were still with Gates and Somers in Bermuda), for
the reason that Smith did not pay proper respect to the newly arrived
“gentlemen.” Smith was no doubt dictatorial and offensive, and from his
point of view he was the only man who understood Virginia, and knew how
successfully to conduct the affairs of the colony. If this assumption
were true it would be none the less disagreeable to the new-comers.
At the time of Smith's deposition the colony was in prosperous
condition. The “General Historie” says that he left them “with three
ships, seven boats, commodities ready to trade, the harvest newly
gathered, ten weeks' provision in store, four hundred ninety and
odd persons, twenty-four pieces of ordnance, three hundred muskets,
snaphances and fire-locks, shot, powder, and match sufficient, curats,
pikes, swords, and morrios, more than men; the Salvages, their language
and habitations well known to a hundred well-trained and expert
soldiers; nets for fishing; tools of all kinds to work; apparel to
supply our wants; six mules and a horse; five or six hundred swine; as
many hens and chickens; some goats; some sheep; what was brought or bred
there remained.” Jamestown was also strongly palisaded and contained
some fifty or sixty houses; besides there were five or six other forts
and plantations, “not so sumptuous as our succerers expected, they were
better than they provided any for us.”
These expectations might well be disappointed if they were founded upon
the pictures of forts and fortifications in Virginia and in the Somers
Islands, which appeared in De Bry and in the “General Historie,” where
they appear as massive stone structures with all the finish and elegance
of the European military science of the day.
Notwithstanding these ample provisions for the colony, Smith had small
expectation that it would thrive without him. “They regarding nothing,”
he says, “but from hand to mouth, did consume what we had, took care for
nothing but to perfect some colorable complaint against Captain Smith.”
Nor was the composition of the colony such as to beget high hopes of it.
There was but one carpenter, and three others that desired to learn, two
blacksmiths, ten sailors; those called laborers were for the most part
footmen, brought over to wait upon the adventurers, who did not know
what a day's work was--all the real laborers were the Dutchmen and Poles
and some dozen others. “For all the rest were poor gentlemen, tradesmen,
serving men, libertines, and such like, ten times more fit to spoil a
commonwealth than either begin one or help to maintain one. For when
neither the fear of God, nor the law, nor shame, nor displeasure of
their friends could rule them here, there is small hope ever to bring
one in twenty of them to be good there.” Some of them proved more
industrious than was expected; “but ten good workmen would have done
more substantial work in a day than ten of them in a week.”
The disreputable character of the majority of these colonists is
abundantly proved by other contemporary testimony. In the letter of the
Governor and Council of Virginia to the London Company, dated Jamestown,
July 7, 1610, signed by Lord De La Ware, Thomas Gates, George Percy,
Ferd. Wenman, and William Strachey, and probably composed by Strachey,
after speaking of the bountiful capacity of the country, the writer
exclaims: “Only let me truly acknowledge there are not one hundred or
two of deboisht hands, dropt forth by year after year, with penury and
leysure, ill provided for before they come, and worse governed when they
are here, men of such distempered bodies and infected minds, whom no
examples daily before their eyes, either of goodness or punishment,
can deterr from their habituall impieties, or terrifie from a shameful
death, that must be the carpenters and workmen in this so glorious a
building.”
The chapter in the “General Historie” relating to Smith's last days in
Virginia was transferred from the narrative in the appendix to Smith's
“Map of Virginia,” Oxford, 1612, but much changed in the transfer. In
the “General Historie” Smith says very little about the nature of the
charges against him. In the original narrative signed by Richard Pots
and edited by Smith, there are more details of the charges. One omitted
passage is this: “Now all those Smith had either whipped or punished,
or in any way disgraced, had free power and liberty to say or sweare
anything, and from a whole armful of their examinations this was
concluded.”
Another omitted passage relates to the charge, to which reference is
made in the “General Historie,” that Smith proposed to marry Pocahontas:
“Some propheticall spirit calculated he had the salvages in such
subjection, he would have made himself a king by marrying Pocahuntas,
Powhatan's daughter. It is true she was the very nonpareil of his
kingdom, and at most not past thirteen or fourteen years of age. Very
oft she came to our fort with what she could get for Capt. Smith, that
ever loved and used all the country well, but her especially he ever
much respected, and she so well requited it, that when her father
intended to have surprised him, she by stealth in the dark night came
through the wild woods and told him of it. But her marriage could in
no way have entitled him by any right to the kingdom, nor was it ever
suspected he had such a thought, or more regarded her or any of them
than in honest reason and discretion he might. If he would he might have
married her, or have done what he listed. For there were none that could
have hindered his determination.”
It is fair, in passing, to remark that the above allusion to the night
visit of Pocahontas to Smith in this tract of 1612 helps to confirm
the story, which does not appear in the previous narration of Smith's
encounter with Powhatan at Werowocomoco in the same tract, but is
celebrated in the “General Historie.” It is also hinted plainly enough
that Smith might have taken the girl to wife, Indian fashion.