'They say he bore a pleasant shew,But sure his heart was sadFor who can pleasant be, and rest,That lives in feare and dread.And having life suspected, dothIf still suspected lead.'
“Two days after, Powhatan having disguised himselfe in the most fearfullest manner he could, caused Capt. Smith to be brought forth to a great house in the woods and there upon a mat by the fire to be left alone. Not long after from behinde a mat that divided the house, was made the most dolefullest noyse he ever heard: then Powhatan more like a devill than a man with some two hundred more as blacke as himseffe, came unto him and told him now they were friends, and presently he should goe to James town, to send him two great gunnes, and a gryndstone, for which he would give him the country of Capahowojick, and for ever esteeme him as his sonn Nantaquoud. So to James towne with 12 guides Powhatan sent him. That night they quartered in the woods, he still expecting (as he had done all this long time of his imprisonment) every houre to be put to one death or other; for all their feasting. But almightie God (by his divine providence) had mollified the hearts of those sterne Barbarians with compassion. The next morning betimes they came to the Fort, where Smith having used the salvages with what kindnesse he could, he shewed Rawhunt, Powhatan's trusty servant, two demiculverings and a millstone to carry Powhatan; they found them somewhat too heavie; but when they did see him discharge them, being loaded with stones, among the boughs of a great tree loaded with Isickles, the yce and branches came so tumbling downe, that the poore Salvages ran away halfe dead with feare. But at last we regained some conference with them and gave them such toys: and sent to Powhatan, his women, and children such presents, and gave them in generall full content. Now in James Towne 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 musketshot, Smith forced now the third time to stay or sinke. Some no better then they should be had plotted with the President, the next day to have put him to death by the Leviticall law, for the lives of Robinson and Emry, pretending the fault was his that had led them to their ends; but he quickly tooke such order with such Lawyers, that he layed them by the heeles till he sent some of them prisoners for England. Now ever once in four or five dayes, Pocahontas with her attendants, brought him so much provision, that saved many of their lives, that els for all this had starved with hunger.
'Thus from numbe death our good God sent reliefe,The sweete asswager of all other griefe.'
“His relation of the plenty he had scene, especially at Werawocomoco, and of the state and bountie of Powhatan (which till that time was unknowne), so revived their dead spirits (especially the love of Pocahontas) as all men's feare was abandoned.”
We should like to think original, in the above, the fine passage, in which Smith, by means of a simple compass dial, demonstrated the roundness of the earth, and skies, the sphere of the sun, moon, and stars, and how the sun did chase the night round about the world continually; the greatness of the land and sea, the diversity of nations, variety of complexions, and how we were to them antipodes, so that the Indians stood amazed with admiration.
Captain Smith up to his middle in a Chickahominy swamp, discoursing on these high themes to a Pamunkey Indian, of whose language Smith was wholly ignorant, and who did not understand a word of English, is much more heroic, considering the adverse circumstances, and appeals more to the imagination, than the long-haired Iopas singing the song of Atlas, at the banquet given to AEneas, where Trojans and Tyrians drained the flowing bumpers while Dido drank long draughts of love. Did Smith, when he was in the neighborhood of Carthage pick up some such literal translations of the song of Atlas' as this:
“He sang the wandering moon, and the labors of the Sun; From whence the race of men and flocks; whence rain and lightning; Of Arcturus, the rainy Hyades, and the twin Triones; Why the winter suns hasten so much to touch themselves in the ocean, And what delay retards the slow nights.”
The scene of the rescue only occupies seven lines and the reader feels that, after all, Smith has not done full justice to it. We cannot, therefore, better conclude this romantic episode than by quoting the description of it given with an elaboration of language that must be, pleasing to the shade of Smith, by John Burke in his History of Virginia:
“Two large stones were brought in, and placed at the feet of the emperor; and on them was laid the head of the prisoner; next a large club was brought in, with which Powhatan, for whom, out of respect, was reserved this honor, prepared to crush the head of his captive. The assembly looked on with sensations of awe, probably not unmixed with pity for the fate of an enemy whose bravery had commanded their admiration, and in whose misfortunes their hatred was possibly forgotten.
“The fatal club was uplifted: the breasts of the company already by anticipation felt the dreadful crash, which was to bereave the wretched victim of life: when the young and beautiful Pocahontas, the beloved daughter of the emperor, with a shriek of terror and agony threw herself on the body of Smith; Her hair was loose, and her eyes streaming with tears, while her whole manner bespoke the deep distress and agony of her bosom. She cast a beseeching look at her furious and astonished father, deprecating his wrath, and imploring his pity and the life of his prisoner, with all the eloquence of mute but impassioned sorrow.
“The remainder of this scene is honorable to Powhatan. It will remain a lasting monument, that tho' different principles of action, and the influence of custom, have given to the manners and opinions of this people an appearance neither amiable nor virtuous, they still retain the noblest property of human character, the touch of pity and the feeling of humanity.
“The club of the emperor was still uplifted; but pity had touched his bosom, and his eye was every moment losing its fierceness; he looked around to collect his fortitude, or perhaps to find an excuse for his weakness in the faces of his attendants. But every eye was suffused with the sweetly contagious softness. The generous savage no longer hesitated. The compassion of the rude state is neither ostentatious nor dilating: nor does it insult its object by the exaction of impossible conditions. Powhatan lifted his grateful and delighted daughter, and the captive, scarcely yet assured of safety, from the earth....”
“The character of this interesting woman, as it stands in the concurrent accounts of all our historians, is not, it is with confidence affirmed, surpassed by any in the whole range of history; and for those qualities more especially which do honor to our nature—an humane and feeling heart, an ardor and unshaken constancy in her attachments—she stands almost without a rival.
“At the first appearance of the Europeans her young heart was impressed with admiration of the persons and manners of the strangers; but it is not during their prosperity that she displays her attachment. She is not influenced by awe of their greatness, or fear of their resentment, in the assistance she affords them. It was during their severest distresses, when their most celebrated chief was a captive in their hands, and was dragged through the country as a spectacle for the sport and derision of their people, that she places herself between him and destruction.
“The spectacle of Pocahontas in an attitude of entreaty, with her hair loose, and her eyes streaming with tears, supplicating with her enraged father for the life of Captain Smith when he was about to crush the head of his prostrate victim with a club, is a situation equal to the genius of Raphael. And when the royal savage directs his ferocious glance for a moment from his victim to reprove his weeping daughter, when softened by her distress his eye loses its fierceness, and he gives his captive to her tears, the painter will discover a new occasion for exercising his talents.”
The painters have availed themselves of this opportunity. In one picture Smith is represented stiffly extended on the greensward (of the woods), his head resting on a stone, appropriately clothed in a dresscoat, knee-breeches, and silk stockings; while Powhatan and the other savages stand ready for murder, in full-dress parade costume; and Pocahontas, a full-grown woman, with long, disheveled hair, in the sentimental dress and attitude of a Letitia E. Landon of the period, is about to cast herself upon the imperiled and well-dressed Captain.
Must we, then, give up the legend altogether, on account of the exaggerations that have grown up about it, our suspicion of the creative memory of Smith, and the lack of all contemporary allusion to it? It is a pity to destroy any pleasing story of the past, and especially to discharge our hard struggle for a foothold on this continent of the few elements of romance. If we can find no evidence of its truth that stands the test of fair criticism, we may at least believe that it had some slight basis on which to rest. It is not at all improbable that Pocahontas, who was at that time a precocious maid of perhaps twelve or thirteen years of age (although Smith mentions her as a child of ten years old when she came to the camp after his release), was touched with compassion for the captive, and did influence her father to treat him kindly.
As we are not endeavoring to write the early history of Virginia, but only to trace Smith's share in it, we proceed with his exploits after the arrival of the first supply, consisting of near a hundred men, in two ships, one commanded by Captain Newport and the other by Captain Francis Nelson. The latter, when in sight of Cape Henry, was driven by a storm back to the West Indies, and did not arrive at James River with his vessel, the Phoenix, till after the departure of Newport for England with his load of “golddust,” and Master Wingfield and Captain Arthur.
In his “True Relation,” Smith gives some account of his exploration of the Pamunkey River, which he sometimes calls the “Youghtamand,” upon which, where the water is salt, is the town of Werowocomoco. It can serve no purpose in elucidating the character of our hero to attempt to identify all the places he visited.
It was at Werowocomoco that Smith observed certain conjurations of the medicine men, which he supposed had reference to his fate. From ten o'clock in the morning till six at night, seven of the savages, with rattles in their hands, sang and danced about the fire, laying down grains of corn in circles, and with vehement actions, casting cakes of deer suet, deer, and tobacco into the fire, howling without ceasing. One of them was “disfigured with a great skin, his head hung around with little skins of weasels and other vermin, with a crownlet of feathers on his head, painted as ugly as the devil.” So fat they fed him that he much doubted they intended to sacrifice him to the Quiyoughquosicke, which is a superior power they worship: a more uglier thing cannot be described. These savages buried their dead with great sorrow and weeping, and they acknowledge no resurrection. Tobacco they offer to the water to secure a good passage in foul weather. The descent of the crown is to the first heirs of the king's sisters, “for the kings have as many women as they will, the subjects two, and most but one.”
After Smith's return, as we have read, he was saved from a plot to take his life by the timely arrival of Captain Newport. Somewhere about this time the great fire occurred. Smith was now one of the Council; Martin and Matthew Scrivener, just named, were also councilors. Ratcliffe was still President. The savages, owing to their acquaintance with and confidence in Captain Smith, sent in abundance of provision. Powhatan sent once or twice a week “deer, bread, raugroughcuns (probably not to be confounded with the rahaughcuns [raccoons] spoken of before, but probably 'rawcomens,' mentioned in the Description of Virginia), half for Smith, and half for his father, Captain Newport.” Smith had, in his intercourse with the natives, extolled the greatness of Newport, so that they conceived him to be the chief and all the rest his children, and regarded him as an oracle, if not a god.
Powhatan and the rest had, therefore, a great desire to see this mighty person. Smith says that the President and Council greatly envied his reputation with the Indians, and wrought upon them to believe, by giving in trade four times as much as the price set by Smith, that their authority exceeded his as much as their bounty.
We must give Smith the credit of being usually intent upon the building up of the colony, and establishing permanent and livable relations with the Indians, while many of his companions in authority seemed to regard the adventure as a temporary occurrence, out of which they would make what personal profit they could. The new-comers on a vessel always demoralized the trade with the Indians, by paying extravagant prices. Smith's relations with Captain Newport were peculiar. While he magnified him to the Indians as the great power, he does not conceal his own opinion of his ostentation and want of shrewdness. Smith's attitude was that of a priest who puts up for the worship of the vulgar an idol, which he knows is only a clay image stuffed with straw.
In the great joy of the colony at the arrival of the first supply, leave was given to sailors to trade with the Indians, and the new-comers soon so raised prices that it needed a pound of copper to buy a quantity of provisions that before had been obtained for an ounce. Newport sent great presents to Powhatan, and, in response to the wish of the “Emperor,” prepared to visit him. “A great coyle there was to set him forward,” says Smith. Mr. Scrivener and Captain Smith, and a guard of thirty or forty, accompanied him. On this expedition they found the mouth of the Pamaunck (now York) River. Arriving at Werowocomoco, Newport, fearing treachery, sent Smith with twenty men to land and make a preliminary visit. When they came ashore they found a network of creeks which were crossed by very shaky bridges, constructed of crotched sticks and poles, which had so much the appearance of traps that Smith would not cross them until many of the Indians had preceded him, while he kept others with him as hostages. Three hundred savages conducted him to Powhatan, who received him in great state. Before his house were ranged forty or fifty great platters of fine bread. Entering his house, “with loude tunes they made all signs of great joy.” In the first account Powhatan is represented as surrounded by his principal women and chief men, “as upon a throne at the upper end of the house, with such majesty as I cannot express, nor yet have often seen, either in Pagan or Christian.” In the later account he is “sitting upon his bed of mats, his pillow of leather embroidered (after their rude manner with pearls and white beads), his attire a fair robe of skins as large as an Irish mantel; at his head and feet a handsome young woman; on each side of his house sat twenty of his concubines, their heads and shoulders painted red, with a great chain of white beads about each of their necks. Before those sat his chiefest men in like order in his arbor-like house.” This is the scene that figures in the old copper-plate engravings. The Emperor welcomed Smith with a kind countenance, caused him to sit beside him, and with pretty discourse they renewed their old acquaintance. Smith presented him with a suit of red cloth, a white greyhound, and a hat. The Queen of Apamatuc, a comely young savage, brought him water, a turkeycock, and bread to eat. Powhatan professed great content with Smith, but desired to see his father, Captain Newport. He inquired also with a merry countenance after the piece of ordnance that Smith had promised to send him, and Smith, with equal jocularity, replied that he had offered the men four demi-culverins, which they found too heavy to carry. This night they quartered with Powhatan, and were liberally feasted, and entertained with singing, dancing, and orations.
The next day Captain Newport came ashore. The two monarchs exchanged presents. Newport gave Powhatan a white boy thirteen years old, named Thomas Savage. This boy remained with the Indians and served the colony many years as an interpreter. Powhatan gave Newport in return a bag of beans and an Indian named Namontack for his servant. Three or four days they remained, feasting, dancing, and trading with the Indians.
In trade the wily savage was more than a match for Newport. He affected great dignity; it was unworthy such great werowances to dicker; it was not agreeable to his greatness in a peddling manner to trade for trifles; let the great Newport lay down his commodities all together, and Powhatan would take what he wished, and recompense him with a proper return. Smith, who knew the Indians and their ostentation, told Newport that the intention was to cheat him, but his interference was resented. The result justified Smith's suspicion. Newport received but four bushels of corn when he should have had twenty hogsheads. Smith then tried his hand at a trade. With a few blue beads, which he represented as of a rare substance, the color of the skies, and worn by the greatest kings in the world, he so inflamed the desire of Powhatan that he was half mad to possess such strange jewels, and gave for them 200 to 300 bushels of corn, “and yet,” says Smith, “parted good friends.”
At this time Powhatan, knowing that they desired to invade or explore Monacan, the country above the Falls, proposed an expedition, with men and boats, and “this faire tale had almost made Captain Newport undertake by this means to discover the South Sea,” a project which the adventurers had always in mind. On this expedition they sojourned also with the King of Pamaunke.
Captain Newport returned to England on the 10th of April. Mr. Scrivener and Captain Smith were now in fact the sustainers of the colony. They made short expeditions of exploration. Powhatan and other chiefs still professed friendship and sent presents, but the Indians grew more and more offensive, lurking about and stealing all they could lay hands on. Several of them were caught and confined in the fort, and, guarded, were conducted to the morning and evening prayers. By threats and slight torture, the captives were made to confess the hostile intentions of Powhatan and the other chiefs, which was to steal their weapons and then overpower the colony. Rigorous measures were needed to keep the Indians in check, but the command from England not to offend the savages was so strict that Smith dared not chastise them as they deserved. The history of the colony all this spring of 1608 is one of labor and discontent, of constant annoyance from the Indians, and expectations of attacks. On the 20th of April, while they were hewing trees and setting corn, an alarm was given which sent them all to their arms. Fright was turned into joy by the sight of the Phoenix, with Captain Nelson and his company, who had been for three months detained in the West Indies, and given up for lost.
Being thus re-enforced, Smith and Scrivener desired to explore the country above the Falls, and got ready an expedition. But this, Martin, who was only intent upon loading the return ship with “his phantastical gold,” opposed, and Nelson did not think he had authority to allow it, unless they would bind themselves to pay the hire of the ships. The project was therefore abandoned. The Indians continued their depredations. Messages daily passed between the fort and the Indians, and treachery was always expected. About this time the boy Thomas Savage was returned, with his chest and clothing.
The colony had now several of the Indians detained in the fort. At this point in the “True Relation” occurs the first mention of Pocahontas. Smith says: “Powhatan, understanding we detained certain Salvages, sent his daughter, a child of tenne years old, which not only for feature, countenance, and proportion much exceeded any of his people, but for wit and spirit, the only nonpareil of his country.” She was accompanied by his trusty messenger Rawhunt, a crafty and deformed savage, who assured Smith how much Powhatan loved and respected him and, that he should not doubt his kindness, had sent his child, whom he most esteemed, to see him, and a deer, and bread besides for a present; “desiring us that the boy might come again, which he loved exceedingly, his little daughter he had taught this lesson also: not taking notice at all of the Indians that had been prisoners three days, till that morning that she saw their fathers and friends come quietly and in good terms to entreat their liberty.”
Opechancanough (the King of “Pamauk”) also sent asking the release of two that were his friends; and others, apparently with confidence in the whites, came begging for the release of the prisoners. “In the afternoon they being gone, we guarded them [the prisoners] as before to the church, and after prayer gave them to Pocahuntas, the King's daughter, in regard to her father's kindness in sending her: after having well fed them, as all the time of their imprisonment, we gave them their bows, arrows, or what else they had, and with much content sent them packing; Pocahuntas, also, we requited with such trifles as contented her, to tell that we had used the Paspaheyans very kindly in so releasing them.”
This account would show that Pocahontas was a child of uncommon dignity and self-control for her age. In his letter to Queen Anne, written in 1616, he speaks of her as aged twelve or thirteen at the time of his captivity, several months before this visit to the fort.
The colonists still had reasons to fear ambuscades from the savages lurking about in the woods. One day a Paspahean came with a glittering mineral stone, and said he could show them great abundance of it. Smith went to look for this mine, but was led about hither and thither in the woods till he lost his patience and was convinced that the Indian was fooling him, when he gave him twenty lashes with a rope, handed him his bows and arrows, told him to shoot if he dared, and let him go. Smith had a prompt way with the Indians. He always traded “squarely” with them, kept his promises, and never hesitated to attack or punish them when they deserved it. They feared and respected him.
The colony was now in fair condition, in good health, and contented; and it was believed, though the belief was not well founded, that they would have lasting peace with the Indians. Captain Nelson's ship, the Phoenix, was freighted with cedar wood, and was despatched for England June 8, 1608. Captain Martin, “always sickly and unserviceable, and desirous to enjoy the credit of his supposed art of finding the gold mine,” took passage. Captain Nelson probably carried Smith's “True Relation.”
On the same, day that Nelson sailed for England, Smith set out to explore the Chesapeake, accompanying the Phoenix as far as Cape Henry, in a barge of about three tons. With him went Dr. Walter Russell, six gentlemen, and seven soldiers. The narrative of the voyage is signed by Dr. Russell, Thomas Momford, gentleman, and Anas Todkill, soldier. Master Scrivener remained at the fort, where his presence was needed to keep in check the prodigal waste of the stores upon his parasites by President Ratcliffe.
The expedition crossed the bay at “Smith's Isles,” named after the Captain, touched at Cape Charles, and coasted along the eastern shore. Two stout savages hailed them from Cape Charles, and directed them to Accomack, whose king proved to be the most comely and civil savage they had yet encountered.
He told them of a strange accident that had happened. The parents of two children who had died were moved by some phantasy to revisit their dead carcasses, “whose benumbed bodies reflected to the eyes of the beholders such delightful countenances as though they had regained their vital spirits.” This miracle drew a great part of the King's people to behold them, nearly all of whom died shortly afterward. These people spoke the language of Powhatan. Smith explored the bays, isles, and islets, searching for harbors and places of habitation. He was a born explorer and geographer, as his remarkable map of Virginia sufficiently testifies. The company was much tossed about in the rough waves of the bay, and had great difficulty in procuring drinking-water. They entered the Wighcocomoco, on the east side, where the natives first threatened and then received them with songs, dancing, and mirth. A point on the mainland where they found a pond of fresh water they named “Poynt Ployer in honer of the most honorable house of Monsay, in Britaine, that in an extreme extremitie once relieved our Captain.” This reference to the Earl of Ployer, who was kind to Smith in his youth, is only an instance of the care with which he edited these narratives of his own exploits, which were nominally written by his companions.
The explorers were now assailed with violent storms, and at last took refuge for two days on some uninhabited islands, which by reason of the ill weather and the hurly-burly of thunder, lightning, wind, and rain, they called “Limbo.” Repairing their torn sails with their shirts, they sailed for the mainland on the east, and ran into a river called Cuskarawook (perhaps the present Annomessie), where the inhabitants received them with showers of arrows, ascending the trees and shooting at them. The next day a crowd came dancing to the shore, making friendly signs, but Smith, suspecting villainy, discharged his muskets into them. Landing toward evening, the explorers found many baskets and much blood, but no savages. The following day, savages to the number, the account wildly says, of two or three thousand, came to visit them, and were very friendly. These tribes Smith calls the Sarapinagh, Nause, Arseek, and Nantaquak, and says they are the best merchants of that coast. They told him of a great nation, called the Massawomeks, of whom he set out in search, passing by the Limbo, and coasting the west side of Chesapeake Bay. The people on the east side he describes as of small stature.
They anchored at night at a place called Richard's Cliffs, north of the Pawtuxet, and from thence went on till they reached the first river navigable for ships, which they named the Bolus, and which by its position on Smith's map may be the Severn or the Patapsco.
The men now, having been kept at the oars ten days, tossed about by storms, and with nothing to eat but bread rotten from the wet, supposed that the Captain would turn about and go home. But he reminded them how the company of Ralph Lane, in like circumstances, importuned him to proceed with the discovery of Moratico, alleging that they had yet a dog that boiled with sassafrks leaves would richly feed them. He could not think of returning yet, for they were scarce able to say where they had been, nor had yet heard of what they were sent to seek. He exhorted them to abandon their childish fear of being lost in these unknown, large waters, but he assured them that return he would not, till he had seen the Massawomeks and found the Patowomek.
On the 16th of June they discovered the River Patowomek (Potomac), seven miles broad at the mouth, up which they sailed thirty miles before they encountered any inhabitants. Four savages at length appeared and conducted them up a creek where were three or four thousand in ambush, “so strangely painted, grimed, and disguised, shouting, yelling, and crying as so many spirits from hell could not have showed more terrible.” But the discharge of the firearms and the echo in the forest so appeased their fury that they threw down their bows, exchanged hostages, and kindly used the strangers. The Indians told him that Powhatan had commanded them to betray them, and the serious charge is added that Powhatan, “so directed from the discontents at Jamestown because our Captain did cause them to stay in their country against their wills.” This reveals the suspicion and thoroughly bad feeling existing among the colonists.
The expedition went up the river to a village called Patowomek, and thence rowed up a little River Quiyough (Acquia Creek?) in search of a mountain of antimony, which they found. The savages put this antimony up in little bags and sold it all over the country to paint their bodies and faces, which made them look like Blackamoors dusted over with silver. Some bags of this they carried away, and also collected a good amount of furs of otters, bears, martens, and minks. Fish were abundant, “lying so thick with their heads above water, as for want of nets (our barge driving among them) we attempted to catch them with a frying-pan; but we found it a bad instrument to catch fish with; neither better fish, more plenty, nor more variety for small fish, had any of us ever seen in any place, so swimming in the water, but they are not to be caught with frying-pans.”
In all his encounters and quarrels with the treacherous savages Smith lost not a man; it was his habit when he encountered a body of them to demand their bows, arrows, swords, and furs, and a child or two as hostages.
Having finished his discovery he returned. Passing the mouth of the Rappahannock, by some called the Tappahannock, where in shoal water were many fish lurking in the weeds, Smith had his first experience of the Stingray. It chanced that the Captain took one of these fish from his sword, “not knowing her condition, being much the fashion of a Thornbeck, but a long tayle like a riding rodde whereon the middest is a most poysonne sting of two or three inches long, bearded like a saw on each side, which she struck into the wrist of his arme neare an inch and a half.” The arm and shoulder swelled so much, and the torment was so great, that “we all with much sorrow concluded his funerale, and prepared his grave in an island by, as himself directed.” But it “pleased God by a precious oyle Dr. Russell applied to it that his tormenting paine was so assuged that he ate of that fish to his supper.”
Setting sail for Jamestown, and arriving at Kecoughtan, the sight of the furs and other plunder, and of Captain Smith wounded, led the Indians to think that he had been at war with the Massawomeks; which opinion Smith encouraged. They reached Jamestown July 21st, in fine spirits, to find the colony in a mutinous condition, the last arrivals all sick, and the others on the point of revenging themselves on the silly President, who had brought them all to misery by his riotous consumption of the stores, and by forcing them to work on an unnecessary pleasure-house for himself in the woods. They were somewhat appeased by the good news of the discovery, and in the belief that their bay stretched into the South Sea; and submitted on condition that Ratclifte should be deposed and Captain Smith take upon himself the government, “as by course it did belong.” He consented, but substituted Mr. Scrivener, his dear friend, in the presidency, distributed the provisions, appointed honest men to assist Mr. Scrivener, and set out on the 24th, with twelve men, to finish his discovery.
He passed by the Patowomek River and hasted to the River Bolus, which he had before visited. In the bay they fell in with seven or eight canoes full of the renowned Massawomeks, with whom they had a fight, but at length these savages became friendly and gave them bows, arrows, and skins. They were at war with the Tockwoghes. Proceeding up the River Tockwogh, the latter Indians received them with friendship, because they had the weapons which they supposed had been captured in a fight with the Massawomeks. These Indians had hatchets, knives, pieces of iron and brass, they reported came from the Susquesahanocks, a mighty people, the enemies of the Massawomeks, living at the head of the bay. As Smith in his barge could not ascend to them, he sent an interpreter to request a visit from them. In three or four days sixty of these giant-like people came down with presents of venison, tobacco-pipes three feet in length, baskets, targets, and bows and arrows. Some further notice is necessary of this first appearance of the Susquehannocks, who became afterwards so well known, by reason of their great stature and their friendliness. Portraits of these noble savages appeared in De Bry's voyages, which were used in Smith's map, and also by Strachey. These beautiful copperplate engravings spread through Europe most exaggerated ideas of the American savages.
“Our order,” says Smith, “was daily to have prayers, with a psalm, at which solemnity the poor savages wondered.” When it was over the Susquesahanocks, in a fervent manner, held up their hands to the sun, and then embracing the Captain, adored him in like manner. With a furious manner and “a hellish voyce” they began an oration of their loves, covered him with their painted bear-skins, hung a chain of white beads about his neck, and hailed his creation as their governor and protector, promising aid and victuals if he would stay and help them fight the Massawomeks. Much they told him of the Atquanachuks, who live on the Ocean Sea, the Massawomeks and other people living on a great water beyond the mountain (which Smith understood to be some great lake or the river of Canada), and that they received their hatchets and other commodities from the French. They moumed greatly at Smith's departure. Of Powhatan they knew nothing but the name.
Strachey, who probably enlarges from Smith his account of the same people, whom he calls Sasquesahanougs, says they were well-proportioned giants, but of an honest and simple disposition. Their language well beseemed their proportions, “sounding from them as it were a great voice in a vault or cave, as an ecco.” The picture of one of these chiefs is given in De Bry, and described by Strachey,” the calf of whose leg was three-quarters of a yard about, and all the rest of his limbs so answerable to the same proportions that he seemed the goodliest man they ever saw.”
It would not entertain the reader to follow Smith in all the small adventures of the exploration, during which he says he went about 3,000 miles (three thousand miles in three or four weeks in a rowboat is nothing in Smith's memory), “with such watery diet in these great waters and barbarous countries.” Much hardship he endured, alternately skirmishing and feasting with the Indians; many were the tribes he struck an alliance with, and many valuable details he added to the geographical knowledge of the region. In all this exploration Smith showed himself skillful as he was vigorous and adventurous.
He returned to James River September 7th. Many had died, some were sick, Ratcliffe, the late President, was a prisoner for mutiny, Master Scrivener had diligently gathered the harvest, but much of the provisions had been spoiled by rain. Thus the summer was consumed, and nothing had been accomplished except Smith's discovery.
On the 10th of September, by the election of the Council and the request of the company, Captain Smith received the letters-patent, and became President. He stopped the building of Ratcliffe's “palace,” repaired the church and the storehouse, got ready the buildings for the supply expected from England, reduced the fort to a “five square form,” set and trained the watch and exercised the company every Saturday on a plain called Smithfield, to the amazement of the on-looking Indians.
Captain Newport arrived with a new supply of seventy persons. Among them were Captain Francis West, brother to Lord Delaware, Captain Peter Winne, and Captain Peter Waldo, appointed on the Council, eight Dutchmen and Poles, and Mistress Forest and Anne Burrows her maid, the first white women in the colony.
Smith did not relish the arrival of Captain Newport nor the instructions under which he returned. He came back commanded to discover the country of Monacan (above the Falls) and to perform the ceremony of coronation on the Emperor Powhatan.
How Newport got this private commission when he had returned to England without a lump of gold, nor any certainty of the South Sea, or one of the lost company sent out by Raleigh; and why he brought a “fine peeced barge” which must be carried over unknown mountains before it reached the South Sea, he could not understand. “As for the coronation of Powhatan and his presents of basin and ewer, bed, bedding, clothes, and such costly novelties, they had been much better well spared than so ill spent, for we had his favor and better for a plain piece of copper, till this stately kind of soliciting made him so much overvalue himself that he respected us as much as nothing at all.” Smith evidently understood the situation much better than the promoters in England; and we can quite excuse him in his rage over the foolishness and greed of most of his companions. There was little nonsense about Smith in action, though he need not turn his hand on any man of that age as a boaster.
To send out Poles and Dutchmen to make pitch, tar, and glass would have been well enough if the colony had been firmly established and supplied with necessaries; and they might have sent two hundred colonists instead of seventy, if they had ordered them to go to work collecting provisions of the Indians for the winter, instead of attempting this strange discovery of the South Sea, and wasting their time on a more strange coronation. “Now was there no way,” asks Smith, “to make us miserable,” but by direction from England to perform this discovery and coronation, “to take that time, spend what victuals we had, tire and starve our men, having no means to carry victuals, ammunition, the hurt or the sick, but on their own backs?”
Smith seems to have protested against all this nonsense, but though he was governor, the Council overruled him. Captain Newport decided to take one hundred and twenty men, fearing to go with a less number and journey to Werowocomoco to crown Powhatan. In order to save time Smith offered to take a message to Powhatan, and induce him to come to Jamestown and receive the honor and the presents. Accompanied by only four men he crossed by land to Werowocomoco, passed the Pamaunkee (York) River in a canoe, and sent for Powhatan, who was thirty miles off. Meantime Pocahontas, who by his own account was a mere child, and her women entertained Smith in the following manner:
“In a fayre plaine they made a fire, before which, sitting upon a mat, suddenly amongst the woods was heard such a hydeous noise and shreeking that the English betook themselves to their armes, and seized upon two or three old men, by them supposing Powhatan with all his power was come to surprise them. But presently Pocahontas came, willing him to kill her if any hurt were intended, and the beholders, which were men, women and children, satisfied the Captaine that there was no such matter. Then presently they were presented with this anticke: Thirty young women came naked out of the woods, only covered behind and before with a few greene leaves, their bodies all painted, some of one color, some of another, but all differing; their leader had a fayre payre of Bucks hornes on her head, and an Otters skinne at her girdle, and another at her arme, a quiver of arrows at her backe, a bow and arrows in her hand; the next had in her hand a sword, another a club, another a pot-sticke: all horned alike; the rest every one with their several devises. These fiends with most hellish shouts and cries, rushing from among the trees, cast themselves in a ring about the fire, singing and dancing with most excellent ill-varietie, oft falling into their infernal passions, and solemnly again to sing and dance; having spent nearly an hour in this Mascarado, as they entered, in like manner they departed.
“Having reaccommodated themselves, they solemnly invited him to their lodgings, where he was no sooner within the house, but all these Nymphs more tormented him than ever, with crowding, pressing, and hanging about him, most tediously crying, 'Love you not me? Love you not me?' This salutation ended, the feast was set, consisting of all the Salvage dainties they could devise: some attending, others singing and dancing about them: which mirth being ended, with fire brands instead of torches they conducted him to his lodging.”
The next day Powhatan arrived. Smith delivered up the Indian Namontuck, who had just returned from a voyage to England—whither it was suspected the Emperor wished him to go to spy out the weakness of the English tribe—and repeated Father Newport's request that Powhatan would come to Jamestown to receive the presents and join in an expedition against his enemies, the Monacans.
Powhatan's reply was worthy of his imperial highness, and has been copied ever since in the speeches of the lords of the soil to the pale faces: “If your king has sent me present, I also am a king, and this is my land: eight days I will stay to receive them. Your father is to come to me, not I to him, nor yet to your fort, neither will I bite at such a bait; as for the Monacans, I can revenge my own injuries.”
This was the lofty potentate whom Smith, by his way of management, could have tickled out of his senses with a glass bead, and who would infinitely have preferred a big shining copper kettle to the misplaced honor intended to be thrust upon him, but the offer of which puffed him up beyond the reach of negotiation. Smith returned with his message. Newport despatched the presents round by water a hundred miles, and the Captains, with fifty soldiers, went over land to Werowocomoco, where occurred the ridiculous ceremony of the coronation, which Smith describes with much humor. “The next day,” he says, “was appointed for the coronation. Then the presents were brought him, his bason and ewer, bed and furniture set up, his scarlet cloke and apparel, with much adoe put on him, being persuaded by Namontuck they would not hurt him. But a foule trouble there was to make him kneel to receive his Crown; he not knowing the majesty nor wearing of a Crown, nor bending of the knee, endured so many persuasions, examples and instructions as tyred them all. At last by bearing hard on his shoulders, he a little stooped, and three having the crown in their hands put it on his head, when by the warning of a pistoll the boats were prepared with such a volley of shot that the king start up in a horrible feare, till he saw all was well. Then remembering himself to congratulate their kindness he gave his old shoes and his mantell to Captain Newport!”
The Monacan expedition the King discouraged, and refused to furnish for it either guides or men. Besides his old shoes, the crowned monarch charitably gave Newport a little heap of corn, only seven or eight bushels, and with this little result the absurd expedition returned to Jamestown.
Shortly after Captain Newport with a chosen company of one hundred and twenty men (leaving eighty with President Smith in the fort) and accompanied by Captain Waldo, Lieutenant Percy, Captain Winne, Mr. West, and Mr. Scrivener, who was eager for adventure, set off for the discovery of Monacan. The expedition, as Smith predicted, was fruitless: the Indians deceived them and refused to trade, and the company got back to Jamestown, half of them sick, all grumbling, and worn out with toil, famine, and discontent.
Smith at once set the whole colony to work, some to make glass, tar, pitch, and soap-ashes, and others he conducted five miles down the river to learn to fell trees and make clapboards. In this company were a couple of gallants, lately come over, Gabriel Beadle and John Russell, proper gentlemen, but unused to hardships, whom Smith has immortalized by his novel cure of their profanity. They took gayly to the rough life, and entered into the attack on the forest so pleasantly that in a week they were masters of chopping: “making it their delight to hear the trees thunder as they fell, but the axes so often blistered their tender fingers that many times every third blow had a loud othe to drown the echo; for remedie of which sinne the President devised how to have every man's othes numbered, and at night for every othe to have a Canne of water powred downe his sleeve, with which every offender was so washed (himself and all), that a man would scarce hear an othe in a weake.” In the clearing of our country since, this excellent plan has fallen into desuetude, for want of any pious Captain Smith in the logging camps.
These gentlemen, says Smith, did not spend their time in wood-logging like hirelings, but entered into it with such spirit that thirty of them would accomplish more than a hundred of the sort that had to be driven to work; yet, he sagaciously adds, “twenty good workmen had been better than them all.”
Returning to the fort, Smith, as usual, found the time consumed and no provisions got, and Newport's ship lying idle at a great charge. With Percy he set out on an expedition for corn to the Chickahominy, which the insolent Indians, knowing their want, would not supply. Perceiving that it was Powhatan's policy to starve them (as if it was the business of the Indians to support all the European vagabonds and adventurers who came to dispossess them of their country), Smith gave out that he came not so much for corn as to revenge his imprisonment and the death of his men murdered by the Indians, and proceeded to make war. This high-handed treatment made the savages sue for peace, and furnish, although they complained of want themselves, owing to a bad harvest, a hundred bushels of corn.
This supply contented the company, who feared nothing so much as starving, and yet, says Smith, so envied him that they would rather hazard starving than have him get reputation by his vigorous conduct. There is no contemporary account of that period except this which Smith indited. He says that Newport and Ratcliffe conspired not only to depose him but to keep him out of the fort; since being President they could not control his movements, but that their horns were much too short to effect it.
At this time in the “old Taverne,” as Smith calls the fort, everybody who had money or goods made all he could by trade; soldiers, sailors, and savages were agreed to barter, and there was more care to maintain their damnable and private trade than to provide the things necessary for the colony. In a few weeks the whites had bartered away nearly all the axes, chisels, hoes, and picks, and what powder, shot, and pikeheads they could steal, in exchange for furs, baskets, young beasts and such like commodities. Though the supply of furs was scanty in Virginia, one master confessed he had got in one voyage by this private trade what he sold in England for thirty pounds. “These are the Saint-seeming Worthies of Virginia,” indignantly exclaims the President, “that have, notwithstanding all this, meate, drinke, and wages.” But now they began to get weary of the country, their trade being prevented. “The loss, scorn, and misery was the poor officers, gentlemen and careless governors, who were bought and sold.” The adventurers were cheated, and all their actions overthrown by false information and unwise directions.
Master Scrivener was sent with the barges and pinnace to Werowocomoco, where by the aid of Namontuck he procured a little corn, though the savages were more ready to fight than to trade. At length Newport's ship was loaded with clapboards, pitch, tar, glass, frankincense (?) and soapashes, and despatched to England. About two hundred men were left in the colony. With Newport, Smith sent his famous letter to the Treasurer and Council in England. It is so good a specimen of Smith's ability with the pen, reveals so well his sagacity and knowledge of what a colony needed, and exposes so clearly the ill-management of the London promoters, and the condition of the colony, that we copy it entire. It appears by this letter that Smith's “Map of Virginia,” and his description of the country and its people, which were not published till 1612, were sent by this opportunity. Captain Newport sailed for England late in the autumn of 1608. The letter reads:
RIGHT HONORABLE, ETC.:
I received your letter wherein you write that our minds are so set upon faction, and idle conceits in dividing the country without your consents, and that we feed you but with ifs and ands, hopes and some few proofes; as if we would keepe the mystery of the businesse to ourselves: and that we must expressly follow your instructions sent by Captain Newport: the charge of whose voyage amounts to neare two thousand pounds, the which if we cannot defray by the ships returne we are likely to remain as banished men. To these particulars I humbly intreat your pardons if I offend you with my rude answer.
For our factions, unless you would have me run away and leave the country, I cannot prevent them; because I do make many stay that would else fly away whither. For the Idle letter sent to my Lord of Salisbury, by the President and his confederates, for dividing the country, &c., what it was I know not, for you saw no hand of mine to it; nor ever dream't I of any such matter. That we feed you with hopes, &c. Though I be no scholar, I am past a schoolboy; and I desire but to know what either you and these here doe know, but that I have learned to tell you by the continuall hazard of my life. I have not concealed from you anything I know; but I feare some cause you to believe much more than is true.
Expressly to follow your directions by Captain Newport, though they be performed, I was directly against it; but according to our commission, I was content to be overouled by the major part of the Councill, I feare to the hazard of us all; which now is generally confessed when it is too late. Onely Captaine Winne and Captaine Walclo I have sworne of the Councill, and crowned Powhattan according to your instructions.
For the charge of the voyage of two or three thousand pounds we have not received the value of one hundred pounds, and for the quartered boat to be borne by the souldiers over the falls. Newport had 120 of the best men he could chuse. If he had burnt her to ashes, one might have carried her in a bag, but as she is, five hundred cannot to a navigable place above the falls. And for him at that time to find in the South Sea a mine of gold; or any of them sent by Sir Walter Raleigh; at our consultation I told them was as likely as the rest. But during this great discovery of thirtie miles (which might as well have been done by one man, and much more, for the value of a pound of copper at a seasonable tyme), they had the pinnace and all the boats with them but one that remained with me to serve the fort. In their absence I followed the new begun works of Pitch and Tarre, Glasse, Sope-ashes, Clapboord, whereof some small quantities we have sent you. But if you rightly consider what an infinite toyle it is in Russia and Swethland, where the woods are proper for naught els, and though there be the helpe both of man and beast in those ancient commonwealths, which many an hundred years have used it, yet thousands of those poor people can scarce get necessaries to live, but from hand to mouth, and though your factors there can buy as much in a week as will fraught you a ship, or as much as you please, you must not expect from us any such matter, which are but as many of ignorant, miserable soules, that are scarce able to get wherewith to live, and defend ourselves against the inconstant Salvages: finding but here and there a tree fit for the purpose, and want all things else the Russians have. For the Coronation of Powhattan, by whose advice you sent him such presents, I know not; but this give me leave to tell you, I feare they will be the confusion of us all ere we heare from you again. At your ships arrivall, the Salvages harvest was newly gathered, and we going to buy it, our owne not being halve sufficient for so great a number. As for the two ships loading of corne Newport promised to provide us from Powhattan, he brought us but fourteen bushels; and from the Monacans nothing, but the most of the men sicke and neare famished. From your ship we had not provision in victuals worth twenty pound, and we are more than two hundred to live upon this, the one halfe sicke, the other little better. For the saylers (I confesse), they daily make good cheare, but our dyet is a little meale and water, and not sufficient of that. Though there be fish in the Sea, fowles in the ayre, and beasts in the woods, their bounds are so large, they so wilde, and we so weake and ignorant, we cannot much trouble them. Captaine Newport we much suspect to be the Author of these inventions. Now that you should know, I have made you as great a discovery as he, for less charge than he spendeth you every meale; I had sent you this mappe of the Countries and Nations that inhabit them, as you may see at large. Also two barrels of stones, and such as I take to be good. Iron ore at the least; so divided, as by their notes you may see in what places I found them. The souldiers say many of your officers maintaine their families out of that you sent us, and that Newport hath an hundred pounds a year for carrying newes. For every master you have yet sent can find the way as well as he, so that an hundred pounds might be spared, which is more than we have all, that helps to pay him wages. Cap. Ratliffe is now called Sicklemore, a poore counterfeited Imposture. I have sent you him home least the Company should cut his throat. What he is, now every one can tell you: if he and Archer returne againe, they are sufficient to keep us always in factions. When you send againe I entreat you rather send but thirty carpenters, husbandmen, gardiners, fishermen, blacksmiths, masons, and diggers up of trees roots, well provided, then a thousand of such as we have; for except wee be able both to lodge them, and feed them, the most will consume with want of necessaries before they can be made good for anything. Thus if you please to consider this account, and the unnecessary wages to Captaine Newport, or his ships so long lingering and staying here (for notwithstanding his boasting to leave us victuals for 12 months, though we had 89 by this discovery lame and sicke, and but a pinte of corne a day for a man, we were constrained to give him three hogsheads of that to victuall him homeward), or yet to send into Germany or Poleland for glassemen and the rest, till we be able to sustaine ourselves, and releeve them when they come. It were better to give five hundred pound a ton for those grosse Commodities in Denmarke, then send for them hither, till more necessary things be provided. For in over-toyling our weake and unskilfull bodies, to satisfy this desire of present profit, we can scarce ever recover ourselves from one supply to another. And I humbly intreat you hereafter, let us have what we should receive, and not stand to the Saylers courtesie to leave us what they please, els you may charge us what you will, but we not you with anything. These are the causes that have kept us in Virginia from laying such a foundation that ere this might have given much better content and satisfaction, but as yet you must not look for any profitable returning. So I humbly rest.
After the departure of Newport, Smith, with his accustomed resolution, set to work to gather supplies for the winter. Corn had to be extorted from the Indians by force. In one expedition to Nansemond, when the Indians refused to trade, Smith fired upon them, and then landed and burned one of their houses; whereupon they submitted and loaded his three boats with corn. The ground was covered with ice and snow, and the nights were bitterly cold. The device for sleeping warm in the open air was to sweep the snow away from the ground and build a fire; the fire was then raked off from the heated earth and a mat spread, upon which the whites lay warm, sheltered by a mat hung up on the windward side, until the ground got cold, when they builded a fire on another place. Many a cold winter night did the explorers endure this hardship, yet grew fat and lusty under it.
About this time was solemnized the marriage of John Laydon and Anne Burrows, the first in Virginia. Anne was the maid of Mistress Forrest, who had just come out to grow up with the country, and John was a laborer who came with the first colony in 1607. This was actually the “First Family of Virginia,” about which so much has been eloquently said.
Provisions were still wanting. Mr. Scrivener and Mr. Percy returned from an expedition with nothing. Smith proposed to surprise Powhatan, and seize his store of corn, but he says he was hindered in this project by Captain Winne and Mr. Scrivener (who had heretofore been considered one of Smith's friends), whom he now suspected of plotting his ruin in England.
Powhatan on his part sent word to Smith to visit him, to send him men to build a house, give him a grindstone, fifty swords, some big guns, a cock and a hen, much copper and beads, in return for which he would load his ship with corn. Without any confidence in the crafty savage, Smith humored him by sending several workmen, including four Dutchmen, to build him a house. Meantime with two barges and the pinnace and forty-six men, including Lieutenant Percy, Captain Wirt, and Captain William Phittiplace, on the 29th of December he set out on a journey to the Pamaunky, or York, River.
The first night was spent at “Warraskogack,” the king of which warned Smith that while Powhatan would receive him kindly he was only seeking an opportunity to cut their throats and seize their arms. Christmas was kept with extreme winds, rain, frost and snow among the savages at Kecoughton, where before roaring fires they made merry with plenty of oysters, fish, flesh, wild fowls and good bread. The President and two others went gunning for birds, and brought down one hundred and forty-eight fowls with three shots.
Ascending the river, on the 12th of January they reached Werowocomoco. The river was frozen half a mile from the shore, and when the barge could not come to land by reason of the ice and muddy shallows, they effected a landing by wading. Powhatan at their request sent them venison, turkeys, and bread; the next day he feasted them, and then inquired when they were going, ignoring his invitation to them to come. Hereupon followed a long game of fence between Powhatan and Captain Smith, each trying to overreach the other, and each indulging profusely in lies and pledges. Each professed the utmost love for the other.
Smith upbraided him with neglect of his promise to supply them with corn, and told him, in reply to his demand for weapons, that he had no arms to spare. Powhatan asked him, if he came on a peaceful errand, to lay aside his weapons, for he had heard that the English came not so much for trade as to invade his people and possess his country, and the people did not dare to bring in their corn while the English were around.
Powhatan seemed indifferent about the building. The Dutchmen who had come to build Powhatan a house liked the Indian plenty better than the risk of starvation with the colony, revealed to Powhatan the poverty of the whites, and plotted to betray them, of which plot Smith was not certain till six months later. Powhatan discoursed eloquently on the advantage of peace over war: “I have seen the death of all my people thrice,” he said, “and not any one living of those three generations but myself; I know the difference of peace and war better than any in my country. But I am now old and ere long must die.” He wanted to leave his brothers and sisters in peace. He heard that Smith came to destroy his country. He asked him what good it would do to destroy them that provided his food, to drive them into the woods where they must feed on roots and acorns; “and be so hunted by you that I can neither rest, eat nor sleep, but my tired men must watch, and if a twig but break every one crieth, there cometh Captain Smith!” They might live in peace, and trade, if Smith would only lay aside his arms. Smith, in return, boasted of his power to get provisions, and said that he had only been restrained from violence by his love for Powhatan; that the Indians came armed to Jamestown, and it was the habit of the whites to wear their arms. Powhatan then contrasted the liberality of Newport, and told Smith that while he had used him more kindly than any other chief, he had received from him (Smith) the least kindness of any.
Believing that the palaver was only to get an opportunity to cut his throat, Smith got the savages to break the ice in order to bring up the barge and load it with corn, and gave orders for his soldiers to land and surprise Powhatan; meantime, to allay his suspicions, telling him the lie that next day he would lay aside his arms and trust Powhatan's promises. But Powhatan was not to be caught with such chaff. Leaving two or three women to talk with the Captain he secretly fled away with his women, children, and luggage. When Smith perceived this treachery he fired into the “naked devils” who were in sight. The next day Powhatan sent to excuse his flight, and presented him a bracelet and chain of pearl and vowed eternal friendship.
With matchlocks lighted, Smith forced the Indians to load the boats; but as they were aground, and could not be got off till high water, he was compelled to spend the night on shore. Powhatan and the treacherous Dutchmen are represented as plotting to kill Smith that night. Provisions were to be brought him with professions of friendship, and Smith was to be attacked while at supper. The Indians, with all the merry sports they could devise, spent the time till night, and then returned to Powhatan.
The plot was frustrated in the providence of God by a strange means. “For Pocahuntas his dearest jewele and daughter in that dark night came through the irksome woods, and told our Captaine good cheer should be sent us by and by; but Powhatan and all the power he could make would after come and kill us all, if they that brought it could not kill us with our own weapons when we were at supper. Therefore if we would live she wished us presently to be gone. Such things as she delighted in he would have given her; but with the tears rolling down her cheeks she said she durst not to be seen to have any; for if Powhatan should know it, she were but dead, and so she ran away by herself as she came.”
[This instance of female devotion is exactly paralleled in D'Albertis's “New Guinea.” Abia, a pretty Biota girl of seventeen, made her way to his solitary habitation at the peril of her life, to inform him that the men of Rapa would shortly bring him insects and other presents, in order to get near him without suspicion, and then kill him. He tried to reward the brave girl by hanging a gold chain about her neck, but she refused it, saying it would betray her. He could only reward her with a fervent kiss, upon which she fled. Smith omits that part of the incident.]
In less than an hour ten burly fellows arrived with great platters of victuals, and begged Smith to put out the matches (the smoke of which made them sick) and sit down and eat. Smith, on his guard, compelled them to taste each dish, and then sent them back to Powhatan. All night the whites watched, but though the savages lurked about, no attack was made. Leaving the four Dutchmen to build Powhatan's house, and an Englishman to shoot game for him, Smith next evening departed for Pamaunky.
No sooner had he gone than two of the Dutchmen made their way overland to Jamestown, and, pretending Smith had sent them, procured arms, tools, and clothing. They induced also half a dozen sailors, “expert thieves,” to accompany them to live with Powhatan; and altogether they stole, besides powder and shot, fifty swords, eight pieces, eight pistols, and three hundred hatchets. Edward Boynton and Richard Savage, who had been left with Powhatan, seeing the treachery, endeavored to escape, but were apprehended by the Indians.
At Pamaunky there was the same sort of palaver with Opechancanough, the king, to whom Smith the year before had expounded the mysteries of history, geography, and astronomy. After much fencing in talk, Smith, with fifteen companions, went up to the King's house, where presently he found himself betrayed and surrounded by seven hundred armed savages, seeking his life. His company being dismayed, Smith restored their courage by a speech, and then, boldly charging the King with intent to murder him, he challenged him to a single combat on an island in the river, each to use his own arms, but Smith to be as naked as the King. The King still professed friendship, and laid a great present at the door, about which the Indians lay in ambush to kill Smith. But this hero, according to his own account, took prompt measures. He marched out to the King where he stood guarded by fifty of his chiefs, seized him by his long hair in the midst of his men, and pointing a pistol at his breast led, him trembling and near dead with fear amongst all his people. The King gave up his arms, and the savages, astonished that any man dare treat their king thus, threw down their bows. Smith, still holding the King by the hair, made them a bold address, offering peace or war. They chose peace.
In the picture of this remarkable scene in the “General Historie,” the savage is represented as gigantic in stature, big enough to crush the little Smith in an instant if he had but chosen. Having given the savages the choice to load his ship with corn or to load it himself with their dead carcasses, the Indians so thronged in with their commodities that Smith was tired of receiving them, and leaving his comrades to trade, he lay down to rest. When he was asleep the Indians, armed some with clubs, and some with old English swords, entered into the house. Smith awoke in time, seized his arms, and others coming to his rescue, they cleared the house.
While enduring these perils, sad news was brought from Jamestown. Mr. Scrivener, who had letters from England (writes Smith) urging him to make himself Caesar or nothing, declined in his affection for Smith, and began to exercise extra authority. Against the advice of the others, he needs must make a journey to the Isle of Hogs, taking with him in the boat Captain Waldo, Anthony Gosnoll (or Gosnold, believed to be a relative of Captain Bartholomew Gosnold), and eight others. The boat was overwhelmed in a storm, and sunk, no one knows how or where. The savages were the first to discover the bodies of the lost. News of this disaster was brought to Captain Smith (who did not disturb the rest by making it known) by Richard Wiffin, who encountered great dangers on the way. Lodging overnight at Powhatan's, he saw great preparations for war, and found himself in peril. Pocahontas hid him for a time, and by her means, and extraordinary bribes, in three days' travel he reached Smith.
Powhatan, according to Smith, threatened death to his followers if they did not kill Smith. At one time swarms of natives, unarmed, came bringing great supplies of provisions; this was to put Smith off his guard, surround him with hundreds of savages, and slay him by an ambush. But he also laid in ambush and got the better of the crafty foe with a superior craft. They sent him poisoned food, which made his company sick, but was fatal to no one. Smith apologizes for temporizing with the Indians at this time, by explaining that his purpose was to surprise Powhatan and his store of provisions. But when they stealthily stole up to the seat of that crafty chief, they found that those “damned Dutchmen” had caused Powhatan to abandon his new house at Werowocomoco, and to carry away all his corn and provisions.
The reward of this wearisome winter campaign was two hundred weight of deer-suet and four hundred and seventy-nine bushels of corn for the general store. They had not to show such murdering and destroying as the Spaniards in their “relations,” nor heaps and mines of gold and silver; the land of Virginia was barbarous and ill-planted, and without precious jewels, but no Spanish relation could show, with such scant means, so much country explored, so many natives reduced to obedience, with so little bloodshed.