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the incantations of their Medicine Men.* After much wandering he was brought before the aged Powhatan,† who seated amid his women, received him with a display of barbaric ceremony, and during the feast Smith's fate was decided. The Indians feared his supposedly supernatural powers, and therefore determined to kill him. He was dragged forward and his head placed upon a large stone and the warrior's club lifted ready to dash out his brains, when, according to tradition, Pocahontas, "the king's most deare and well-beloved daughter, a child of tenne or twelve years of age," intervened to save his life. She first passionately entreated her father for the life of the white man who had so strongly appealed to her imagination, but when the decision was made to kill him, she ran forward and clung to him with her arms, laying her head upon his own, and thereby preventing the fatal blow. This act saved Smith and won him the favor of Powhatan. In an endeavor to gain Smith's alliance in an attack upon the colonists, the Indians promised him "life, liberty, land and wo

As

*Cooke, Virginia, p. 34. Eggleston, however, says: "Captain Smith's earlier accounts of these achievements in Virginia seem to be nearer the truth than his later General Historie. years rolled on his exploits gained in number and magnitude in his memory. The apocryphal story of his expounding the solar system by means of a pocket compass to savages, whose idiom he had had no opportunity to learn, is to be found only in his later writings." Beginners of a Nation, p. 35 (copyright by D. Appleton & Co.)

His seat was on the York River, now hardly recognizable as Put-in Bay.

men," but Smith turned the Indians from their project, and after seven weeks of captivity* he was dismissed with promises of support and amity. Pocahontas, after saving Smith's life, "revived the dead spirits" of the colonists by bringing to them baskets of provisions, so that the enmity of the savages was disarmed and "all men's fear was now abandoned." +

In his early account Smith states this to be a month.

Regarding the Pocahontas story there is much controversy and it is hard to tell whether it is true or not. The principal authority upon which the statements are made is John Smith's Generall Historie. There is no question but that Smith was taken prisoner by Powhatan but in Smith's published account of his life in Virginia (True Relation 1608) he makes no mention of having been saved by Pocahontas. He simply says that she rendered important services to the colony. It was not until the publication of Smith's Generall Historie in 1624 that the story appears in full, though in 1616, in a letter to the Queen, he says that "at the minute of my execution she hazarded the beating out of her brains to save mine." Charles Deane, the antiquarian, in his edition of Wingfield's Discourse of Virginia, was the first to point out that Smith's stories varied. It was thought that Smith's known tendency to exaggerate and his desire to satisfy the curiosity of the English people led him to interpolate the story in his history, but many writers such as Edward Arber, in his Memoir in the Encyclopedia Britannica (9th edition, 1887) and his edition of Smith's Works (1884) and Charles Poindexter in his Capt. John Smith and His Critics (1893), have contended that Smith's account was entirely accurate. They argue that it is hard to understand Smith's statements in the True Relation, the employment of Pocahontas on difficult missions to the whites and Pocahontas's own benefactions, such as the supply of provisions to starving colonists, unless Smith's ac count is substantially veracious. See also Eggleston and L. E. Seelye, Pocahontas (1879); Robertson and Brock, Pocahontas and Her Descendants (1887); Fiske, Old Virginia and Her Neighbours, pp. 102-111; H. F. Parker, Morning Stars of the New World; Edward Eggleston,

CRAZE FOR GOLD; SMITH PRESIDENT OF COUNCIL.

When Smith finally reached Jamestown he found the colony on the brink of ruin, and it was only at the risk of his life that he succeeded in preventing the abandonment of the town by the 40 persons who still remained alive. In 1608 Newport arrived with 120 emigrants and a large quantity of supplies, but the new colonists, instead of being of advantage to the settlement, were a positive injury, as a majority of them were vagabond gentlemen and goldsmiths who were simply stirred by a thirst of gold and had come to the new country for it. When Newport returned to England he took with him a cargo of this worthless earth which was supposed to contain much gold, and it is stated that at this time" there was now no talk, no hope, no work, but dig gold, wash gold, refine gold, load gold."*

Beginners of a Nation, pp. 35 et seq., 61-64; J. E. Cooke, My Lady Pokahontas: A True Relation of Virginia Writ by Anas Todkill (1891); and the same author's Virginia, p. 70 et seq.; R. D. Owen, Pocahontas; Doyle, English Colonies in America, vol. i., App. E., pp. 407-411; Henry Adams's criticism of Smith in North American Review, vol. civ. (January, 1867), and W. W. Henry's answer in the Proceedings of the Virginia Historical Society (1882). On the conditions leading up to the publication of Smith's history see Brown, English Politics in Early Virginia History, p. 76 et seq., and on the Smith controversy, p. 170 et seq. Brown says that although Deane was the first among modern historians to question Smith's veracity as to the Pocahontas incident, Smith's history had really been impeached and his veracity questioned "by every record of the Virginia Company which had been found and by every historian of Virginia since Stith." p.

174.

* Cooke, Virginia, pp. 41-42.

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Smith, however, had little time to waste in such folly and set about exploring the Chesapeake Bay in an open barge of three tons' burden. During the next three months he visited all the territory on the eastern and western shores and explored the Potomac, Pctapsco and several other

of the tributaries that swell that magnificent basin. He opened trade with friendly tribes, subdued those who were hostile and left behind him among the natives of the land a high opinion of the valor and nobleness of the English character. He made two successive cruises of 3,000 miles, and

finally brought back to Jamestown an account of the regions bordering on the Chesapeake with a map that was long used as a basis for subsequent

delineations.*

Upon his return to the colony Smith was made president of the council, and from that time infused vigor and activity into its administration. In 1608, 70 new emigrants arrived, of whom two were females,† but like the previous lot, these were quite unsuitable to the requirements of the settlement, and when Smith wrote to the Company in London he said: "When you send again, I en

Henry Howe, Historical Collections of Virginia, pp. 28-29. This map was considered so correct that it was used in 1873 as an authority in the settlement of the boundary dispute between Maryland and Virginia.

Mistress Forrest brought with her a maid, Ann Burras (or Annie Burroughs), who soon became the bride of John Lawdon, in "the first recorded English wedding on American soil."

treat you [to] send but thirty carpenters, husbandmen, gardeners, fishermen, blacksmiths, masons, and diggers up of trees' roots, well provided, [rather] than a thousand of such as we have; for except we be able both to lodge them and feed them, the work will consume with want of necessities before they can be made good for anything.

And I humbly entreat you hereafter, let us know what we [are to] receive, and not stand to the sailors's courtesy to leave us what they please." * Nevertheless, Smith was equal to any emergency and ruled the colony with a firm hand; in spite of every difficulty, during 1608 and 1609, he enforced law and order among the colonists, laying down the law that "he that will not work shall not eat." † Abandoning the hope of securing gold, Smith attempted the production of tar, pitch, potash and glass, though as Fiske says, "it was hardly to be expected that such industries should attain remunerative proportions in the hands of a little company of settlers who were still confronted with the primitive difficulty of getting food enough to keep themselves alive." In addition, a well was dug

Smith's "Rude Answer" of November, 1608 (Generall Historie, Arber, p. 442), excerpts from which are given in Fiske, Old Virginia and Her Neighbours, vol. i., pp. 125-128.

Osgood, American Colonies, vol. i., p. 53; Bancroft, vol. i., p. 96; Cooke, Virginia, p. 53.

Old Virginia and Her Neighbours, vol. i., p. 123. Edward Eggleston says: "The main causes of the suffering at Jamestown during the first

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The London Company was chagrined at the failure of its colonists to acquire vast quantities of gold, and on May 23, 1609, agreed to a change in its constitution. The powers which the king had previously reserved to himself were made over to the Company which was now chartered under the name of "The Treasurer and Company of Adventurers and Planters of the City of London for the First Colony of Virginia." The stockholders were to choose the supreme council from among their own members, and the power to legislate and govern the colony was made en

winter were the waste of time and the consump tion of supplies while lading the ships with the glittering "dust mica" which is so abundant in

the Virginia sands. The worthlessness of this cargo could not weaken the hopes of those alchemists who were able to produce gold merely by the use of arguments. The mines of Virginia moved farther west. It wanted only that the explorers should reach the mountains. In spite of the sickness that wasted the colony in 1610, Lord De la Warr sent an expedition to dig gold on the upper James, but the warlike up-river tribes soon drove the prospectors back. In 1634, Sir John Harvey sent another body of men on the same fool's errand, though there had not been found in all the years preceding a particle of tangible evidence that gold existed in Virginia. But on the James, as on the Hudson, the glistering pigment with which the Indians besmeared their faces on occasions of display was believed to contain gold, and the places of its procurement were sought with ludicrous secrecy."— The Beginners of a Nation, pp. 13-14. See also p. 82 et seq.

*

Osgood, p. 54.

SECOND CHARTER OF VIRGINIA.

tirely independent of the king. Several of the nobility and gentry as well as a number of London tradesmen entered the Company as associates of the other members,* and in addition the limits of the colony were extended. The supreme council was empowered to promulgate such laws as might be deemed best for governing the colony and to send out a governor to execute such laws. Thus they obtained absolute control over the lives, the liberty and fortunes of the colony.

With this change, there seemed now no reason for the failure of the colony. The first act of the new council was to appoint Thomas West, Lord Delaware (or De La Warre), governor and captain-general of the colony. Until his arrival in the colony, Sir Thomas Gates and Sir George Somers were authorized to conduct its affairs. On June 1, therefore, an expedition, consisting of nine vessels with more than 500 emigrants and under the command of Newport, started on its way to Vir

* For the persons comprising the Company and

the amounts paid, see Brown, Genesis of the United States, vol. i., p. 228. Osgood, pp. 56-60, gives a good resumé of the powers granted under the charters. See also Alexander Brown, English Politics in Early Virginia History, pp. 11 et seq., 206 et seq., 229 et seq. For text of the second charter of Virginia see Thorpe, Federal and State Constitutions, vol. vii., pp. 3790-3802; Hening, Statutes of Virginia, vol. i., pp. 80-98. See also Appendix I. at the end of the present chapter. † Brown, Genesis, p. 336.

The instructions to Gates and Lord Delaware are among the Ashmolean manuscripts in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. See Osgood, p. 61

et seq..

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ginia.* The prosperity of the colony now seemed to be beyond the reach of danger, but an unforeseen accident interrupted their sanguine expectations. On the way over, a violent storm arose, and the vessel on which were Newport, Gates and Somers was separated from the rest and stranded on the coast of the Bermudas, though happily without the loss of life. The eight remaining ships, however, succeeded in reaching Jamestown in safety.

While these events were transpiring in England, Smith was occupied in maintaining order and security at Jamestown, but the sudden arrival of so many emigrants considerably disconcerted his plans, and as he says, the new emigrants were " unruly gallants, packed thither by their friends to escape ill destinies and unsteady habits at home." The criminal element among the among the new arrivals quickly destroyed the tranquillity of the settlement; as the new governor had not arrived, and as his fate was unknown, there was practically no government in the colony, and what provisional authority Smith possessed was not only doubtful but contested, a state of affairs which tended to a speedy dissolution of the little society. This situation was not so bad in itself, had there been nothing else to contend with, but unfortunately, the Indians were jealous of

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*The South in the Building of the Nation, vol. i., p. 13.

Smith's Historie, p. 90.

the encroachments of the English on their lands and watched every opportunity by which they might regain their lost possessions. Up to this Up to this time Smith had had little trouble in checking the savage desires of Powhatan of retaliating on the English, but at times he was not able to prevent Powhatan from formulating plans to massacre the whole colony. At such times Pocahontas acted as a guardian angel of the unruly and foolhardy colonists, and was, as Smith declared to the queen of James I., "the instrument for preserving them from death, famine and utter confusion. When her father," he observes, "with policy sought to surprise me, having but eighteen men with me, the dark night could not affright her from coming through the irksome woods, and with watery eyes gave me intelligence, with her best advice, to escape his fury, which, had he known, he had surely slain her."*

Indian treachery could not alone have forced the colonists to disband. Want of concerted industry and the rapid consumption of their stores, combined with the spirit of disunion, soon brought their rewards and all the horrors of famine followed.† Smith was possessed of a remarkable amount of public spirit, and although he had been superseded in authority

* See his True Relation, and Generall Historie; Fiske, Old Virginia and Her Neighbours, vol. i., p. 131 et seq.

For some of the details of which see Eggleston, Beginners of a Nation, pp. 38 et seq., 65.

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in the colony, he continued in his endeavors to bring order out of chaos and to protect the colony against Indian attacks, but at this critical period he was almost killed by an accidental explosion of gunpowder which inflicted so serious a wound that it was necessary for him to return to England for treatment. Delegating his authority to Percy, he embarked for England. Extreme suffering from his wounds, and the ingratitude of his employers were the fruits of his services. He received for his sacrifices and perilous exertions, not one foot of land, not the house he himself had built, not the field his own hands had planted, nor any reward but the applause of his conscience and the world. He was the Father of Virginia, the true leader who first planted the Saxon race within the borders of the United States. His judgment had been ever clear in the midst of general despondency. He united the highest spirit of adventure with consummate powers of action. His courage and selfpossession accomplished what others esteemed desperate. Fruitful in expedients, he was prompt in execution. Though he had been harassed by the

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