CHAPTER XV

"The newly crowned potentate started with terror."

All things ready, a day was fixed for the coronation. The basin and ewer were presented, the bedstead set up (probably a great four-poster),and the scarlet cloak with much ado put upon the emperor, "being persuaded by Namontack they would do him no hurt." But kneel to receive the crown his Majesty would not. He positively refused to bend his knee. Finally, by leaning hard on his shoulders, he was made to stoop a little, and Newport hastily clapped the crown on his head, when at the signal of a pistol shot, the boats fired such a volley that the newly crowned potentate started with terror, and could with difficulty be reassured. Regaining his wonted serenity, he gravely presented his old shoes and his mantle of raccoon skins trimmed with raccoon tails to Captain Newport. After some complimental kindness on both sides, he also presented Newport with a heap of wheat ears, that might when winnowed yield seven or eight bushels; wherewith the coronation party returned to the fort. There the consensus of opinion may be briefly stated: "As for the Coronation of Pawhatan, and his presents, they had been better spared than so ill spent. This stately kind ofsoliciting made him so much overvalue himselfe that he respected us as nothing at all." It was an absurd piece of folly on the part of "the wisest fool in Christendom."

This was the only order of the company that Newport was able to carry out. He travelled far in the Monacan country, where the "Stoics of the woods" received him in an impassive, noncommittal manner. He hunted up and down for Raleigh's men, for gold, for the South Sea. He found none of these things, and so, having no greater treasures than pitch, tar, glass, and soap ashes wherewith to satisfy the Company for its outlay of two thousand pounds, he was fain to sail away, leaving behind none to regret him.

The colony had suffered much from the presence of the two ships. The sailors, as usual, consumed a large part of the supplies, and they also engaged in an illicit traffic with the Indians and men "of the baser sort" in the colony.

The latter traded "chisels, hatchets, pickaxes, and mattocks with the sailors for butter, cheese,beefe, porke, aqua vitæ, beere, bisket, and oatmeale." Out of three hundred hatchets, not twenty could be found when the ship sailed. And these implements, so much coveted by the Indians, had been traded again with them for "furres, baskets, muscaneekes [?] and young beasts." One mariner boasted that he had collected enough furs to sell for thirty pounds, having paid, probably, a hatchet for them. The young beasts were great curiosities in England. The Earl of Southampton in a letter to the Earl of Salisbury wrote in 1609:—

"My Lord,"Talkinge with the King by chance I tould him of the Virginia squirrills which they say will fly, whereof there are now divers brought into England, and hee presently and very earnestly asked mee if none of them was provided for him, sayinge that hee was sure you would gett him one of them. I would not have trobled you with this but that you know so well how he is affected by these toyes, and with a little enquiry of any of your folkes you may furnish yourself to present him att his comminge to Londonwhich will not bee before Wensday next: the Monday before Theobald's and the Saterday before that to Royston. Your lordships most assuredly,"to doo your service, "H. Southampton."

"My Lord,

"Talkinge with the King by chance I tould him of the Virginia squirrills which they say will fly, whereof there are now divers brought into England, and hee presently and very earnestly asked mee if none of them was provided for him, sayinge that hee was sure you would gett him one of them. I would not have trobled you with this but that you know so well how he is affected by these toyes, and with a little enquiry of any of your folkes you may furnish yourself to present him att his comminge to Londonwhich will not bee before Wensday next: the Monday before Theobald's and the Saterday before that to Royston. Your lordships most assuredly,

"to doo your service, "H. Southampton."

Captain Smith indulged himself in writing an imprudent, sharp letter to the "Right Honourables" in London. He entitled his epistle "A Rude Answer," in which he exhibited in caustic terms the preposterous folly of expecting a present profitable return from Virginia. As to gold, he had from the first discouraged all hope of it. The pieced barge for the South Sea? That, at least, was a feasible project. True, it could not be borne many hundreds of miles and over mountains on the backs of his men, but he could burn it and have the ashes carried over in a bag!

He then rallies the company for its prodigality in giving Newport a hundred pounds a year for carrying news, and informs them that he sends Ratcliffe home lest the colonists should cut his throat.

All this did but little good to our captain, as he had cause to realize afterward. "Had Newport suspected the character of the Rude answer," says Cooke, "it is probable he would have dropped it into the Atlantic. But he duly took it to England and the Right Honourables no doubt gasped at its truculence."

In December, 1608, there were two hundred men within the palisades at Jamestown; already, although the weather was delightful, "affrighted with famine." The little wooded peninsula, small and marshy as it was, might with proper foresight and industry have yielded corn and garden products, but as Captain Smith in his "Rude Answer" had stated: "The one-half of us are sicke, the other little better. Our diet is usually a little meale and water, and not sufficient of that. Though there be fish in the sea, fowles in the aire, and beasts in the woods, their bounds are so large, they so wilde, and we so weake and ignorant, we cannot trouble them. And we must long lodge and feed the men you send before they can be made good for anything. In over-toyling our weake unskilful bodies, we can scarce recover ourselves from one supply toanother. If you would send out carpenters, husbandmen and diggers-up of trees' roots, they would be worth more than a thousand of such as we have."

It was always the old "question of bread and cheese," which has settled adversely many a good cause. Smith, however, did his best with the effeminate gentlemen who had come in Newport's latest ship. He himself shrank from no toil, no exposure. Neither danger nor labour discouraged his manhood, and with his example before them—grappling as he did with the hardest tasks—his followers were deprived of all excuse for complaint or discontent. Two very choice "gallants"—Gabriel Beadle and John Russell, "both proper gentlemen," were among the thirty whom he invited to join him in the noble art of wood-craft—felling trees, splitting them with wedges, and shaping them with hatchets into clapboards for the additional shelter needed by themselves. Meantime they were to lie in the woods at night. TheMary & Margarethad broughtover six mares and a horse, so these new "gentlemen" would not be forced, as were their predecessors, to bear this timber on their backs out of the forest.

The novelty had its charm of pleasurable excitement.[48]"Strange were these pleasures to their conditions, yet lodging, eating, drinking, working or playing, they doing but as the President, all these things were carried so pleasantly as within a weeke they became Masters; making it their delight to heare the Trees thunder as they fell. But the Axes so oft blistered their tender fingers that commonly every third blow had a lowd Oath to drowne the Echo."

Captain Smith rarely indulged in the courtly luxury of profane swearing, and was not inclined to grant privileges to others he did not allow himself. He resolved to have none of it in his Majesty's colony. As for himself he did not need it. He could command vigorous English without it; and so he set about the reformationof the "Gallants and proper Gentlemen" lately come from the English court. He adopted, as a remedial agent, a novel punishment. "He had every man's Oathes numbered, and at night for every Oath a Kan of water was powered down his Sleeve, with which every Offender was so washed (himselfe and all) that a man should scarce heare an Oath in a Weeke." And so, we gather, the Captain was after all sometimes overtaken, as well as other people.

The narrator of this incident, Richard Pots, wishes us to make no mistake. "By this," he continues, "let no man thinke the President or these Gentlemen spent their times as common Wood-hackers at felling Trees or such like labours: or that they were pressed to anything as hirelings or common slaves; for what they did (beeing but once a little inured) it seemed they conceited it only a pleasure and a recreation. Yet thirty or forty of such Gentlemen would doe more in a day than one hundred of the rest that must be prest by compulsion."

This was doubtless due to their President's excellent humour and judgment. Had he played the martinet with his volunteers, he might have had their axes about his ears. Doubtless he was highly pleased with his "Gallants and proper Gentlemen," but he afterwards confessed that "twentie good wor men had been better than them all."

The haze of the Indian summer (when "the sun looks back with regret") was hanging over river and forest, and softening the outlines of the hills. Smoke from many fires in the woods mingled with the purple haze. These fires were under the kettles of the Dutchmen who were making potash by evaporating the lye obtained from leaching wood ashes. Alkalis were in great demand in England, hence the quantity of soap ashes with which the early ships were freighted. Soap itself was a forbidden article of domestic use. There was a severe penalty against throwing soap suds in the open street. The dreadful Oriental plague had appeared in London, and itwas thought then that "not only soap-boilers and vendors of soap, but all the washerwomen and all they whose business it was to use soap—nay they who only wore shirts washed with soap—presently died of the Plague."[49]

All hands were called from the forest and the kettles early in December to attend the first English marriage in Virginia. Of course pretty Ann Burras found many admirers in a colony of two hundred men, and equally, of course, she could accept but one. Her bridegroom, John Laydon, Carpenter, was twenty-seven. They were all young men. Captain Smith and George Percy were not yet thirty, and they were among the elders.

The ceremony was performed, doubtless, in the church, and by good Master Hunt, who was soon to be called to the reward of a noble Christian life. It is altogether probable that Pocahontas was present. "She came as freely to the fort as to her father's house, bringing corn and gameand whatever she could get for Captain Smith." She was known by all as the "Deare & Darling Pocahontas," and when a wedding was to the fore we may be sure she was apprised of it.

Little Ann Burras brought good fortune to her honest carpenter. More than once they were given land in Virginia, at one time as much as five hundred acres. She bore many children. There was a Catharine, an Alice, and a Margaret; but the first child was named "Virginia." The family lived long, and survived all the hard times—the starvation, the sickness, and the great massacre of 1622. How different was the fate of Ellinor Dare, and her hapless little Virginia!

One is tempted to linger in the sweet Indian summer time, and listen to the wedding bells and cheery talk of the woodsmen in the forest—for these were the last "good times" these hapless colonists were to know for many a long day. Just at the moment they were happily unconscious that war, pestilence, and famine stood hand in hand at their door.

Autumn lingers long on the banks of the lower James. There, near Jamestown, I have gathered roses on Christmas Day. One peculiarity of the climate is that summer can depart in an hour,—the sun hidden in darkness and the face of the earth thickly blanketed under snow. This had not yet happened, however, and the newcomers rejoiced in the belief that they had fallen upon a heavenly climate. Captain Smith, George Percy, and the survivors of the first winter knew better.

They were dependent upon the Indians for corn, as usual, but Powhatan had evinced no friendship since he perceived that the colony was regularly reënforced from abroad. Indeed, his attitude was distinctly hostile.

Captain Smith attempted to draw supplies from the Nansemond Indians, but was repulsed with the message that the emperor had not only forbidden them to surrender their corn, but ordered them not to allow the English to enter their river. Whereupon Smith put a torch to one of their houses, and signified that such should bethe fate of all unless the grain were forthcoming. The argument was answerable in but one way. They made haste to load his boats, and he set out on his return to the fort. That night the untimely snow came and covered them in their open barge, so they landed, dug a space in the deep snow, and built a fire. When the heat had sufficiently dried the spot, they threw off the fire, swept the ground, and covering it with a mat, "slept as if it had been a palace." "To keepe us from the winde we made a shade of another mat; and the winde turned, we turned our shade; and when the ground grew cold, we renewed the fire. Thus many a cold winter night have we laine in this miserable manner: yet those that most commonly went upon these occasions were always in health, lusty and fat."

Scarcely had the Captain brought his captured supplies in safety to Jamestown, than he was off upon another foraging expedition. Percy also set forth with Scrivener on a similar quest, but returned disheartened, having procurednothing. Powhatan's orders had been general.

But the President, "whom no perswasions could perswade to starve," was full of resource. There was no time to lose. All nature was now shrouded in a heavy mantle of snow, and there were few stores in the fort. The common kettle held only coarsely crushed corn, which was boiled into a thick porridge. There was absolutely nothing more, except dried sturgeon and of this a limited supply. The colonists huddled together behind their palisade, sorely "affrighted" at the thought of famine.

Their President called his Council together—George Percy, Captain Waldo, Scrivener, and Francis West, brother to Lord Delawarre. He had a plan, daring beyond precedent; but desperate men are capable of desperate measures. He proposed to take a number of armed men to Werowocomoco, and by stratagem or force capture Powhatan, hold him for ransom, and thus extort supplies. His scheme was thoroughlyapproved, and the Council set about the preparation of the pinnace and two barges.

Powhatan was also snow-bound, and he, too, had a plan. If he could slay Captain Smith, and secure some arms, the rest would be easy. But he must do everything by cunning. His arrows, in open combat, availed little against the Englishman's firearms. He now professed to covet sundry domestic comforts. He sent an invitation to Captain Smith with a request for men to build him a house,—the four-poster had inspired his ambition,—and to come himself and "bring him a Grindstone, fiftie Swords, some Peeces, a Cocke and a Henne, with Copper and Beads, and he would load Smith's ship with corne."

The Captain, although "not ignorant of his devices," fell neatly into the trap. He immediately despatched four of his eight Dutchmen overland to build the house, promising to come by water as soon as he could get his pinnace ready. But first he wished to reconnoitre a little and to that end visited on his way the friendly chief ofWeraskoyack.[50]The chief endeavoured to dissuade him from his journey, "advising him in this manner: Captaine Smith, you shall find Powhatan to use you kindly but trust him not; and be sure he have no opportunitie to seize on your armes for he hath sent for you only to cut your throats." This was not a popular view to take of the situation. Smith thanked him for his counsel, and departed, leaving his page, Samuel Collier, with the friendly savage to learn the Indian language. He then, mindful of the express orders from London, detached from his company a soldier, Michael Sicklemore, gave him guides and directions to search for the lost company of Sir Walter Raleigh, and also to "find Silke Grasse,"[51]and set forth on his voyage.

The route was a circuitous one, down the James, around Point Comfort, then some distance up the bay to the mouth of York River, and thence up the river to Werowocomoco, nearly oppositeto Jamestown. It was the 12th of January (they had set sail the 29th of December), when their barge broke the ice at ebb tide opposite Powhatan's settlement. "Master Russell (whom none could perswade to stay behind) being somewhat ill and exceeding heavie, so over-toyled himselfe as the rest had much adoe (ere hee got ashore) to regain his benummed spirits," so they rested in the first house they could find, and sent to Powhatan for provisions! The next day they had audience of the emperor, who surprised Smith by coolly enquiring when they proposed to leave the country, and why[52]had they come to visit him at the present time?—adding that if provision was the object he had little corn and his people less, nevertheless for forty swords he would sell forty bushels.

Smith answered by showing him the men there present who had brought him the invitation, whereat the king concluded the matter with merry laughter: asking, however, for "Gunnes andswordes, and valueing a basket of Corne more precious than a Basket of Copper, saying hee could eate his Corne but not his Copper."

After more sparring, the truth came out. "Captaine Smith," saith the king, "some doubt I have of your comming hither, that makes me not so kindly seeke to releeve you as I would; for many doe informe mee your comming is not for Trade, but to invade my people and possesse my Country; who dare not come to bring you corne seeing you thus armed with your men. To cleere us of this feare leave aboord your weapons for here they are needlesse, we being all friends and Powhatans."

The captain answered that he had many courses to have made provision, but had neglected everything to oblige his Majesty in the matter of the Cock and Henn, Beads, and copper; and also had neglected the building of his own house to send his carpenters for Powhatan's building. As to swords and guns, he respectfully reminded his Majesty that he long ago told him he had none to spare, etc., etc.

As our captain had no stenographer, we are amazed at the great length, minuteness of detail, and apparent accuracy of the long harangues that filled all that day and the next. His memory was good. His enemies have argued that his imagination was better. He undoubtedly laid himself open to this criticism, but although we may indulge ourselves in the hope that so great a man betrayed no foible, still we are all human; and which of us, having a good story to tell, can resist the temptation to embroider it a little? Does not Talleyrand say that he who can suppress abon motdeserves canonization? Is not a gorgeous bit of history worth more than a poor littlebon mot? The brave Captain has suffered much at the hands of his stern, truth-loving fellow-man. But if we must take somethingcum grano, must we reject all? "No one thinks Herodotus a liar because he relates in minute detail conversations which no man could have remembered." Smith lived in an age of bewilderment, and amid scenes of the wildest intoxication. No doubt he hadhis dreams, visions, and exaggerated fancies. It is hard, but if a historian sees men in buckram in a moment of hallucination, he may really meet and overthrow an army with banners, and a wicked world will remember those men in buckram!

Powhatan and our captain may have made all those long speeches, which were so creditable to the latter. At the conclusion of every one of the emperor's utterances, he demanded that the English should come to him unarmed. One of Smith's speeches—nay, all of them, I should like to repeat here, but one of them pleases me more than the rest. At the end of two days' travail the Captain sums up:—

"Powhatan, you must knowe as I have but one God, I honour but one King; and I live not here as your subject, but as your friend (!) to pleasure you with what I can. By the gifts you bestowe on me you gaine more than by trade; yet would you visit mee as I doe you, you should knowe it is not our customes to sell our courtesie as a vendible commoditie."

The story is too long to relate here. The struggle was between an angry, jealous savage and a very hungry Englishman. It ended in Smith's attempt to carry out his plan and capture Powhatan, in the flight of the latter, in two or three perilous positions in which Smith came near falling into traps set for him and losing his life,—and finally, in a scheme of Powhatan's to make friends again, load the pinnace with corn, and invite all the visiting party to a series of merry entertainments, feasting, and dancing. A great banquet was to follow this merriment. At this banquet every white man was to be massacred. It is a peculiarity of the Indian that when he means mischief he feeds his victim with one hand and brains him with the other.

"'Powhatan comes to kill you all.'"

"The eternal all-seeing God did prevent Powhatan, and by a strange meanes. For Pocahontas, his dearest jewell and daughter, in that darke night came through the irksome woods, and tolde our Captaine great cheare should be sent by and bye: but that Powhatan and all the powerhe could make, would after come and kill us all, if they that brought it could not kill us with oure owne weapons when we were at supper. Therefore, if we would live, shee wished us presently to be gone.

"In requital for this information, our President would have given her such things as she delighted in, but with teares running downe her cheekes, she said she durst not be seene to have any; for if Powhatan should know it she were but dead; and so she ranne away as she came."[53]

Touching as is this proof of the devotion of the Indian girl to Captain Smith, one cannot but pity the old emperor. He had just declared himself the sole survivor of three generations of his people—generations who were lords of the inherited lands of their fathers. The stranger from across the seas was slowly but surely increasing in strength and numbers. He could hope for nothing while the intruder fought behind those terrible things with eyes of lightning and a voiceof thunder. Possessing these, the Indian might be the peer of the white man, and drive the usurper from the country. Evil as were the designs of this savage, cruel as were his methods of revenge, his instincts were perfectly natural; instincts born of a consciousness of his own rights and desire to protect them which in civilized rulers have ever been reckoned noble.

We can but sympathize with this King Lear of the western world, betrayed in his old age by his "dearest jewell, his darling daughter." Well might he exclaim with the ancient Briton:—

"How sharper than a serpent's tooth it isTo have a thankless child!"

Of course it is not for us to blame Pocahontas for her humane treason. She, too, had her instincts. The man she adored was about to be murdered in her father's house. It is useless to affect that the devotion she constantly expressed was for the colony. She never set foot in Jamestown after Captain Smith left it! She never brought corn in that terrible time, the winter after hesailed away. It was for his sake, I am constrained to believe, that she hid Wyffin, and rescued Henry Spelman.

Smith's next attempt was to wrest his supplies from Opechancanough, and here he succeeded by seizing the chief by his scalp-lock, and with a pistol pressed to his bosom, held him thus until the corn was forthcoming.

So in the end his "plan" was not wholly unsuccessful, while that of the subtle savage seemed to fail utterly. He too was partially successful, however. He availed himself of the perfidy of Adam and Francis, two of the house-building Dutchmen, and sent them quickly overland to the fort, to say that the interview had ended happily, but that Captain Smith, having need of all the arms he could get, had sent for a supply from the fort. These two men, Adam and Francis, had confederates there, and savages waited outside to carry the arms away. A great number of swords, pikes, pieces, etc., were stolen and sent to Powhatan. Another consort, "Samuel," whohad remained with the emperor, had also acquired three hundred hatchets, fifty swords, and eight pikes. These Dutchmen persuaded Powhatan that he was not safe at Werowocomoco, and advised him to leave the building of his house and move to Orapakes, one of his interior seats. Before Captain Smith could reach home, a bearer of bad news sought him at Werowocomoco. Scrivener, Antony Gosnell, and eight others had been drowned near Hog Island. The messenger Wyffin perceived such "preparation for warre at Werowocomoco that he did assure himselfe [the President not being there] that some mischief was intended. Pocahontas hid him for a time, and sent them who pursued him the cleane contrary way to seeke him, and by her meanes and extraordinary bribes and much trouble in three days travell" at length he found the President with Opechancanough, "in the middest of turmoyles."

"And so," continues our historian (Wyffin, or Abbot, or Phettiplace, or Todkill, we know notwhich, for all sign it), "the President finding his intent frustrated and that there was nothing now to be had and an unfit time to revenge abuses, sent Master Michael Phettiplace to Jamestown, whither we sayled with all the speed we could; wee having in this journey kept 46 men six weeks, and for 40 lbs. of Iron and Beads, and 25 lbs. of Copper, we got neere 200 lbs. of deere suet [which was used as butter] and delivered to the Cape Merchant 479 Bushels of Corne." They arrived at Jamestown February 8, 1609.

While Captain Smith was engaged in the life-and-death struggle for food with the Indian Emperor, Newport was arriving in England and unloading, along with his clapboards and soap-ashes, a large budget of news adverse to the President of the Virginia colony. Wingfield, Archer, Martin, Nelson, Ratcliffe, and Newport were willing contributors.

The "Governors and Councillors established for the Plantation of Virginia" were apprised of sundry errors which it was necessary to rectify, besides "outrages and follies" committed by the President of the Council of Virginia. The managers of the enterprise, "perceivinge that the plantation went backwards rather than forwards," held special meetings at the Earl of Exeter's house and elsewhere in London, and after consultation with Hakluyt, Hariot, and others, "of allthe inconveniences in the three supplies (1606, 1607, 1608), and finding them to arise out of two rootes—the forme of government, and length and danger of the passage by the southerly course of the Indys, they determined to petition the King for a special charter,"[54]etc.

Accordingly a new charter was drawn up by Sir Edwin Sandys, then leader of the independent party in Parliament. The twenty-first article of this charter was, in view of future events, most significant. It inserted these words in italics: "and every of their children which shall happen to be born within any of their Limits ... shall have and enjoy all Liberties, Franchises and Immunities of free Denizens and natural subjects with any of our other Dominions, to all intents and purposes as if they had been abiding and born within this Realm of England or any other of our Dominions." To this chartered right—"the unalienable rights of freeborn Englishmen," our forefathers appealed when they protestedagainst the royal form of government in America.

The special charter was promptly granted by James the First, but it had to go through a long routine before it could be signed and sealed by the King.

By the new charter, the limits of the colony were extended two hundred miles north and two hundred miles south of the mouth of James River; the western boundary, the undiscovered ocean. The members of the London Council were to be chosen by the Company, not appointed by the King; Virginia was to be ruled by a Governor, Lieutenant-Governor, and Admiral, who were empowered, in case of necessity, to declare martial law. These officers were now appointed: Sir Thomas, Lord Delaware, was to be Governor and Captain-General; Sir Thomas Gates, Lieutenant-Governor; Sir George Somers, Admiral. These were men of rank and high character. It was supposed that Wingfield, Ratcliffe, and Smith had been too obscure for theirposition. A fleet of nine vessels and five hundred settlers, men, women, and children, were to be sent out to do the work which the little trio,Susan Constant,Discovery, andGoodspeed, had undertaken when they dropped down the Thames in 1606.

By the provisions of the new charter the Virginia colony became indeed more independent and republican, but under the new system the Governor was endued with arbitrary power and authorized to declare martial law; and the condition of the colonists was infinitely worse than before. This they found to their bitter cost a few years later, when the hapless sojourners at Jamestown fled from their homes and hid among friendly Indians to escape the brutality of one of their governors. The sudden repeal of the old charter evinced a cold ingratitude for the services of Captain Smith and his associates, who had endured the toil, privations, and dangers of the first settlement. These "true men" were not consulted. They were utterly ignored, or brandedas injurious to the interests of the plantation. They will always live in history, which honours their memory, as the real founders of this nation; while the motley multitude sent to supersede them perished and came to naught within a very few short months.[55]

Remembering the King's jealousy of his own honour and rights, one is naturally surprised at his prompt acquiescence in the new charter. Those around him knew him well. It was explained to his satisfaction that he was now relieved of embarrassment in his relations to the Spanish government; and that under the company's charter he could "owne it at his pleasure or disavowe it as might be best for his honour and service."

"If it take not success, it is done of ther owne heddes. It is but the attempt of private gentlemen: the State suffers noe losse, noe disreputation.

"If it takes success, they are your subjects, they doe it for your service, they will lay all atyour Majesty's feet, and interess your Majesty therein."[56]

This suited James exactly. He had much to interest him at home without being bothered about colonial matters. He could always divide his time "between his inkstand, his bottle, and his hunting." If he had a mind for politics, there was plenty across the Channel, in the negotiations between the Hollanders, Spain, France, and last andleasthimself. The Hague Treaty was signed this year (March 29, 1609), and James, although distinctly snubbed by the Powers, regarded himself a mediator and peacemaker. Besides, he had much ado to maintain himself,—this heaven-descended pauper King,—a ruler of whom his subjects complained that his hands were always in their pockets, and if they did not look out he would keep them there. Often he could neither pay his servants nor decently supply his own table.

Early in March, the Virginia Council in Londonaddressed a letter to the Mayor and Aldermen, beseeching them to take an active interest in Virginia, as "an action concerning God and the advancement of Religion, as well as the honour of the Kingdom." The Lord Mayor responded by sending copies of their letter to the several city companies, asking them to "make some adventure in so good and honourable an undertaking." The clergy of the Church of England now evinced the warmest interest in the movement. Sermons and tracts were written and sent broadcast throughout the country. Among the prominent bishops, deans, and reverends who earnestly pleaded for the conversion of the savages, we find our "Docteur of Divinitie," Rev. William Symondes.

The enthusiasm for Virginia caused by these efforts of the clergy, the change in the charter, and the news of the decay of the plantation are thus described by Strachey, in the elaborate style of the day:—

"Not a yeare of a romain-jubilee, noe, nor theEthnick Queene of Ephesus, can be said to have bene followed with more heate and zeale; the discourse and visitation of it took up all meetings, times, termes, all degrees, all purses, and such throngs and concourse of personal undertakers, as the aire seemed not to have more Lights than that holie cause imflamed Spirits to partake with it." Zuñiga was almost beside himself. He wrote to his King, entreating him in the most earnest manner to "give orders to have those insolent people in Virginia quickly annihilated."

On May 11 Edward Reed wrote from London to Mr. Coke of Wedgnocke: "The sickness increaseth. The Virginians go forward next week." The expedition of nine vessels, carrying men, provisions, and the plague, sailed from Plymouth toward the end of May, 1609.[57]Gates and Somers were each severally authorized, whichever might happen first to reach Jamestown, to supersede the existing administration until the arrival ofLord Delaware, who was not to embark for several months, and did not reach Virginia until more than a year after the fleet sailed. Newport, Gates, and Somers, finding it impossible to adjust the point of precedence among themselves, embarked together by way of compromise, in the same vessel, theSea Venture. In the same ship John Rolfe and his first wife sailed (the second was Pocahontas), also George Sandys, Strachey the historian, and the Rev. Mr. Bucke; also Namontack and Matchumps (Machumps?), two of Powhatan's Indians who were, it appears, in England in May, 1609.

The fleet, contrary to directions, followed the old circuitous route,viathe Canaries and West Indies, and, of course, as always, were "caught in the tail of a hurricane." Some of the vessels lost their masts, some their sails from the sea breaking over the ships. One small vessel was lost and never heard from again, and theSea Venture, with Governor, Lieutenant-Governor, Admiral, charter, and all, was separated from theother ships of the fleet. The other vessels, badly shattered by the storm, their stores spoiled with sea water, and many of their passengers dead or dying with the plague, arrived at Jamestown in August, 1609.

They brought back the early agitators, Martin, Archer, and Ratcliffe, together with "sundry other captains, divers gentlemen of good means and high birth, and about three hundred settlers; the greater part of them profligate youths, packed off from home to escape ill destinies, broken-down gentlemen, bankrupt tradesmen, and the like, decayed tapsters, and ostlers, trade-fallen; 'the cankers of a calm world and long peace.'"

Among the "youths"—we hope only a wild youth and not "profligate,"—was the Henry Spelman, son of Sir Henry Spelman, of literary fame, whom we remember as a fine fellow and good nurse. He came over in theUnity, and had a career of adventure second to none in the colony. He was rescued once from massacre by Pocahontas, was a valiant soldier and expert interpreter,and fell at last, in 1623, under the tomahawk of the Indian.

The story of theSea Ventureis a thrilling one. Who can read unmoved of Sir George Somers, the brave old Admiral, who scarce took leisure to eat or sleep day or night, but stood at the helm and kept his ship upright until she was jammed between the ledges of two rocks on one of the Bermudas! His crew had given themselves up as lost, and some having "comfortable waters" on board, drank themselves into oblivion after pumping vainly night and day. "Neither living or dying are we the better for being drunk," said the old Admiral.

They found themselves castaways on the "Isles of Devils," as the Bermudas had been named by the buccaneers who had visited them. This was the wreck which is said to have suggested Shakespeare's "Tempest." The author had evidently read Strachey's "True Repertory," and followed it in his descriptions of the "vexed Bermoothes": the cries of the mariners, the tremblingstar, flaming among the shrouds, which had appeared to the excited imagination of the weary and fasting Admiral at the helm. "On this strand at moonlight, the hag-born Caliban might roll and growl: Sycorax, the blue-eyed witch, might hover in the cloud wracks: and the voices of the winds whisper strange secrets."

The shipwrecked voyagers found an earthly paradise; and long afterward Andrew Marvel immortalized, in a lovely poem, the boat song of the exiles while they dreamed away the long months before they could reach the haven to which they were bound. May I, too, be allowed to dream awhile, pausing in my story of misery, cold, ingratitude, war, famine, and pestilence? Perhaps some of my readers may have forgotten the poem, and will forgive me for recalling part of it:—

"Where the remote Bermudas rideIn the ocean's bosom unespied,From a small boat that rowed alongThe listening winds received this song:"'What should we do but sing His praiseThat led us through the watery mazeUnto an isle so long unknownAnd yet far kinder than our own?Where He the huge sea-monsters wracksThat lift the deep upon their backs;He lands us on a grassy stageSafe from the storms and prelate's rage.He gave us this eternal springWhich here enamels everything.He hangs in shades the orange bright—Like golden lamps in a green night;And does, in the pomegranites closeJewels more rich than Ormus shewes.He makes the figs our mouths to meet,And throws the melons at our feet:And makes the hollow seas that roarProclaim the ambergrease on shore.He cast (of which we needs must boast)The Gospel's pearl upon our coast;And in these rocks, for us, did frameA temple where to sound His name.O let our voice His praise exaltTill it arrive at heaven's vault;Which then perhaps resounding mayEcho beyond the Mexique bay!'"Thus sang they in the English boatA holy and a cheerful note,And all the way, to guide their chimeWith falling oars they kept the time."

"Where the remote Bermudas rideIn the ocean's bosom unespied,From a small boat that rowed alongThe listening winds received this song:

"'What should we do but sing His praiseThat led us through the watery mazeUnto an isle so long unknownAnd yet far kinder than our own?Where He the huge sea-monsters wracksThat lift the deep upon their backs;He lands us on a grassy stageSafe from the storms and prelate's rage.He gave us this eternal springWhich here enamels everything.He hangs in shades the orange bright—Like golden lamps in a green night;And does, in the pomegranites closeJewels more rich than Ormus shewes.He makes the figs our mouths to meet,And throws the melons at our feet:And makes the hollow seas that roarProclaim the ambergrease on shore.He cast (of which we needs must boast)The Gospel's pearl upon our coast;And in these rocks, for us, did frameA temple where to sound His name.O let our voice His praise exaltTill it arrive at heaven's vault;Which then perhaps resounding mayEcho beyond the Mexique bay!'

"Thus sang they in the English boatA holy and a cheerful note,And all the way, to guide their chimeWith falling oars they kept the time."

The brave old Christian Admiral immediately set about the building of a cedar ship in which to return to his duty. From the wreck of theSea Venturehe brought a bell ashore, hung it on a tree, and rung it for morning and evening prayers and for Sunday services. There was one "merry English marriage" on the island and two births—a boy and a girl, to whom the names "Bermudas" and "Bermuda" were given. The latter was the daughter of John Rolfe. And here too was found the largest piece of ambergris in the then known world, weighing eighty pounds. Ambergris, so highly prized and so costly, was long "a beauty and a mystery" to its admirers. Was it the solidified foam of the sea or the tears of the mermaid? Science declares that the whale's intestines, irritated by starfish, evolves the gum.

They are an interesting party, these sea adventurerson the lovely island—these finders of treasure; but our stage is set on an island of a far different character, where the actors neither smile nor sing, nor build boats for escape, but are chained by inexorable fate to a hard lot. Our place in this story is with them.

And so we leave the grand old Admiral, settling his differences with the Lieutenant-Governor in the best way,—by dwelling apart from him on the island (each to build his own ship); and while they hew the fragrant cedar trees, and prepare for their return to Virginia, we will go thither and watch over the storm-rocked "Cradle of the Republic"—Jamestown.

Utterly unconscious of the mine about to be sprung under his feet, Captain Smith mustered all his forces for effective work in the planting season. He probably gave no thought to affairs in England; he had plenty of trouble with his enemies at home.

The traitor Dutchmen continued to live with Powhatan and to instruct his people in the use of powder, shot, swords, and tools, which they constantly obtained through their confederates in the fort. The rendezvous of the thieves was a building in the woods which had been erected as a house for the manufacture of glass, and seems now to have been abandoned. There the thieves "lay in Ambuscades," together with forty men sent by Powhatan under the guidance of "Francis," one of the Dutchmen, with instructions to waylay, capture, or kill Captain Smith and seizefirearms and tools. The latter heard of these visitors, and with twenty men set out to destroy them. But upon arriving at the glass house they found the conspirators fled. The Captain's men pursued them to drive them out of the peninsula, while he returned alone to Jamestown. To his surprise he met in the woods his old acquaintance Wochinchopunck, king of the Paspaheghs, who had piped a welcome at the coming of the English. The king now saluted with an arrow-shot, and Captain Smith, grappling with him, was drawn unto the water. There the Captain held the savage by the throat and was about to cut off his head (he was an expert in this!) when the savage begged so piteously for his life that Smith pitied him and hesitated. Just then two of the Polish potash-boilers ran up, and helped him draw the savage out of the water and conduct him to the fort and lock him up.

Francis was soon brought in by the other party. He had a plausible story to relate in broken English: he and his comrades were detained by Powhatanagainst their will, he had escaped at great hazard, and was on his way home. Hungry and weary he had paused in the wood to gather a few walnuts. He was not believed, but "went by the heeles" (was put in irons), the Paspaheghan king also fettered, and held until the return of all the Dutchmen who had run away to the enemy.

Wochinchopunck's relatives and friends came daily with presents entreating his release, and were sent to Powhatan with the captors' terms—the surrender of the Dutchmen. To this the old gentleman with the "sour look" returned churlish replies: what cared he for the Dutchmen? they might go and welcome; he had told them so again and again, but they refused to stir. What more could he do? Could he put them on the backs of his men and send them? His men were unable to carry those heavy Dutchmen on their backs fifty miles from Orapakes! It was quite clear the captive king had nothing to hope from his emperor. He settled the matter by keeping awake while his jailers slept and madegood his escape; whereupon George Percy and Captain Winne were sent out to recapture him. They burned the king's houses, and took two prisoners, Kemps and another. The savages became exceedingly insolent and aggressive, and the matter ended by Smith's wholesale assault upon their town, burning their houses, taking their boats and all their fishing-weirs, and planting the latter in the waters around Jamestown. This is one of the incidents of "cruel and inhuman treatment of the Naturells" which helped to swell the long lists which his enemies in London arrayed against him: ignoring the fact that he could protect the lives of the colonists only by swift and sharp retaliation for every Indian outrage or breach of faith.

The native eloquence of the Indian has often been noted. In his translated speech, as the interpreters render it, there was a marvellous dignity, and excellence of expression. As Smith was returning from the raid, a party of the Paspaheghs overtook him and threw down theirarms: and one, a stout young man called Ocanininge, thus addressed him, according to the interpreter:—

"Captain Smith my master (the King) is here present in this company thinking it Captain Winn and not you; and of him he intended to have been revenged, having never offended him. If he have offended you in escaping your imprisonment, the fishes swim, the fowls fly, and the very beasts strive to escape the snare and live; then blame not him being a man. He would entreat you remember your being a prisoner what pains he took to save your life. If since, he hath injured you, he was compelled to it, but however you have revenged it to our too great loss. We perceive and well know you intend to destroy us, that are here to entreat and desire your friendship, and to enjoy our houses and plant our fields, of whose fruit you shall participate; otherwise you will have the worst by our absence. For we can plant anywhere, though with more labour: and we know you cannot liveif you want our harvest, and that relief we bring you. If you promise us peace we will believe you; if you proceed in revenge we will abandon the country." Upon these terms the Captain promised them peace until they did some injury, upon condition they should bring in provision. So all departed good friends and so continued until he left the country. After he left, Wochinchopunck, again found hanging around Jamestown, was "thrust twice through the body with an arming sword."

Smith now addressed himself with all his might to the defences of the colony. Although he had inspired the Indians with a wholesome fear of offending him, he knew their servile obedience to Powhatan, and that monarch had forfeited all claim to his confidence and respect. Powhatan's one dominant desire was to obtain the arms of the colonists, and with these arms drive them from the country. A fortunate circumstance changed the attitude for the present, even of that implacable enemy. A pistol was stolen from the fort,and an Indian arrested, to be hanged unless the pistol was returned. The prisoner was committed to the "dungeon." The night was bitterly cold, and Captain Smith pitied the poor savage and sent him a good supper and charcoal for a fire. At midnight his brother brought back the pistol, but upon opening the door of the dungeon the prisoner was found, stifled by the fumes of the charcoal, badly burned and apparently dead. His brother's lamentations touched the Captain's heart and he promised to make him alive again. Accordingly, with aqua vitæ and vinegar, he was restored, his burns dressed, and he was sent home after being well rested and refreshed.

The whole country rang with the wonderful news that the Englishman could raise the dead, and henceforth there was, during his administration, no trouble from the Indians. They frequently brought presents to the colonists of game and fruits, and no doubt Pocahontas visited them as of yore. It is expressly stated that she came as freely to the fort as to her father's house.

Another party was soon sent into the interior to the country of the Mangoags, in search of Raleigh's lost colony, and returned with "no newes except that they were all dead." Sicklemore, who had been despatched to Chowanock, returned after a similar fruitless search. He found the Chowan River not large, the country overgrown with pines. As to the "pemminaw," the silk grass growing like hemp, there was but little, only a few tufts here and there. Queen Anne was not yet to have a gown of Virginia grass-linen. Elizabeth's robe had been woven from North Carolina grass, and was probably a present from Sir Walter Raleigh.

A marginal note in Purchas's "His Pilgrimes" distinctly states that Powhatan confessed he had been cognizant of the massacre of Raleigh's men: also that the Indian king had in his treasure-house articles that had belonged to them. Strachey, writing in 1610-1611, asserted that Powhatan himself was their murderer. Expeditions were sent out, for several years, in search of them. No clew was ever found to their fate.Indians are good keepers of secrets, as was proven by the great massacre of 1622.

In March, 1609, a few months only remained of Smith's residence in Virginia. Had he known them to be his last, he could not have worked with more energy and efficiency. He "dug a well of most excellent sweet water," he built block-houses in various places—one at Hog Island to protect his fast-growing herd there. He built the "fort for retreat neere a convenient river, easie to be defended, and hard to be assalted," around which in the next century clustered the "Legends of the Stone House." But scarcity of food constrained him to abandon the work of defence and address himself to the ever recurring struggle for bread. There were two hundred men behind the palisades, and only thirty who were willing to work. He issued a stern threat that every idler would be sent across the river to shift for himself. No empty porringer would be filled from the common kettle unless the owner were sick, or had earned his meal. He was besetwith disloyal, unmanly complainers, who were clamorous that the tools, arms, nay, the very houses should be bartered for corn. Newport had brought them a terrible, warlike colony of rats, "thousands on thousands," which destroyed all the contents of his casks of grain, and baffled the colonists' efforts to exterminate them. It was supposed that Newport introduced them into Virginia—they had come originally to England from the "poisonous East"—but in the early descriptions of the dress of a savage he is represented as clothing himself with skins, and then adorning his garment with the dead hand of an enemy or paw of a beast, while a dead rat hung from his ear, through which the tail was thrust. This rat was, however, evidently scarce—a rare gem—and not in common use for an ear-ring like a living green and yellow serpent. I think we shall have to thank Captain Newport for our rats, as we thank England for our colonists, and the Dutch for the negroes, who arrived in 1619.

The early spring before the ripening of fruitsand berries was always the scarce season. Captain Smith sent some of his people to feed on Lynnhaven Bay oysters: and others were billeted with the savages, who treated them kindly. Roots and acorns were gathered for food. Smith perceived the folly of keeping the colony crowded into the narrow limits of the Jamestown peninsula, and projected a settlement in Nansemond, a fort at Point Comfort, and yet another on the high ground near the present city of Richmond. But his ardour was soon to be chilled. With the summer came Captain Argall in his trading-ship, who brought the astounding intelligence that the present charter and government had been overthrown, everything reorganized, and President Smith removed.

The reasons for his disgrace were known to Argall. He had been accused of cruelty to the "Naturells," and of suffering the ships to return unfreighted. No allowance had been made for Indian outrages, for sickness, or for any of the difficulties of which I have written.

The seven vessels, shattered by storm and having lost the greater portion of their supplies, and many passengers by sickness, reached Jamestown in August, 1609. They brought back the old ringleaders:[58]"Ratcliffe the mutineer, Wingfield the imbecile, Newport the tale-bearer, Archer an agitator, Martin a cat's-paw." They had wrangled through the early days of 1607 and 1608, been opposed by the hard workers and fighters, and crushed. They had, in England, effected by intrigue what they had failed to effect by force. They had their revenge! Ratcliffe, whose epitaph Hamor wrote in a few pithy words, "He was not worth remembering but to his dishonour," had gained the willing ear of the disappointed London Company, and had laid the blame of the failure in Virginia wholly and solely upon John Smith. The "Rude Answer" of the honest fighting man had offended the Right Honourables, and so they rid themselves of him.

Now, upon landing, Ratcliffe claimed authority.Smith refused to allow it, until the charter and leaders, who were in theSea Venture, should arrive. Ratcliffe declared they were lost at sea. All Jamestown was in an uproar. Ratcliffe and his followers paraded the town denouncing Smith. His men "drank deep and uttered threats and curses," and their leader nursed the storm and inflamed them more and more against the tyrant. Chaos had come again.[59]Those "unruly gallants would dispose and determine of the government sometimes to one, sometimes to another: to-day the old commission must rule; to-morrow the new; the next day neither; in fine they would rule all or ruin all. Yet in charity," continues our early historian, "we must endure them thus sent to destroy us; or by correcting their follies bring the world's censure upon us to be guilty of their blood. Happy had we been had they never arrived, and we forever abandoned, and as we were left to our fortunes: for on earth, for their number, was never moreconfusion, or misery than their factions occasioned.

"The President seeing the desire of these Braves to rule; seeing how his authority was so unexpectedly changed, would willingly have left all and have returned for England. It would be too tedious, too strange and almost incredible should I particularly relate the infinite dangers, plots and practises he daily escaped amongst this factious crew: the chief whereof he quickly laid by the heels. Master Percy had his request granted to return to England, being very sick; Master West with an hundred and twenty of the best he could choose, he sent to the Falles; Martin with near as many to Nansemond." These were to establish new settlements according to a previous plan.

As the term of Smith's presidency was about to expire, he made Martin President, but the latter soon proved his cowardly incompetency, for, growing alarmed at the attitude of the Indians at Nansemond, he ran away and "left his company to their fortunes."

Captain West, returning to Jamestown, after seating his men at the Falls (near the present site of Richmond), the President concluded to look after matters there, and found the colony planted on low marshy ground subject to the river's inundation and other inconveniences.

He had taken with him the bright boy, Henry Spelman, whom (according to the latter) he now sold to Powhatan in part payment of the place then (and now) called Powhatan. The rest of the payment he proposed to make in a promise to aid Powhatan in his wars against the Monacans, and a "proportion of Copper," with sundry provision for future supplies. But, lo and behold, the colony at Powhatan rebelled against these terms and scornfully rejected the scheme! It is supposed they had already built their huts on the marshy ground and objected to the additional labour of moving them. Smith regarded them as mutineers, and with five men landed among them and arrested the ringleaders; but they overpowered him, and forced him toretire on board of a vessel lying in the river. He set sail for Jamestown, but his vessel ran aground; and to his surprise the mutineers thronged him with appeals for protection, for the Indians had fallen upon them as soon as Smith left, and had slain many of West's party.

Accordingly the Captain again arrested the ringleaders, and, returning to Powhatan, settled the colony there in the purchased palisade fort, which was well fortified and contained good dry cabins and ground ready to be planted. Smith named it "Nonsuch" after a royal residence of that name in England.

This incident concluded his relations with the Indian emperor. He was nevermore to see him; indeed, he had transacted his present business through agents.

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