seen. Here on the banks of the James had landed the men who were destined to light a lamp of liberty which all the tyranny of after ages could not extinguish.

THE BEGINNING.

Of the one hundred and five colonists who came to Virginia, more than half are classed as "gentlemen," and the remainder as laborers, tradesmen and mechanics. Many of them probably had been unaccustomed to labor, strangers to toil, and improvident. Such were the founders of the first American States. From that beginning came the Virginias of after times.

The London Company had prepared a form of government for the colony before the departure from England. This code of laws was put in a box, sealed and hidden until the arrival in Virginia, when it was to be opened and the government established according to its provisions. By it all power was vested in a body of seven councilors, whose names were as follows: Bartholomew Gosnold, the navigator John Smith, Edward Wingfield, Christopher Newport, John Ratcliffe, John Martin and George Kendall. At their first meeting Edward Wingfield was chosen president; in other words, the first governor of Virginia. This was the beginning of civil government in America.

While most of the colonists engaged in felling the forest, building cabins and erecting a fort for protection against the savages, Captains Newport and Smith decided to explore the country, and accordingly sailed up the James river as far as the falls of that river, when they paid a visit to Powhatan, king of the Indians in these parts. Here, just below the falls, near the present site of the city of Richmond, was the capital of him whose word was absolute law to the savage nations over which no civil code could ever have exerted the least influence. This monarch of the forest received the foreigners with courtesy, and manifested no uneasiness at their intrusion. After a short stay the party returned to Jamestown, and Newport sailed for England. Shortly after his departure the colonists began to realize their true condition. They were three thousand miles from home and friends, upon an unknown shore, surrounded by wild beasts and wilder men, subject to pestilential diseases over which their physicians had no control, and added to this were civil dissensions. These resulted in the displacement of Wingfield in the office of president, and the deposing, imprisonment, and finally the execution of Kendall. Newport was in England, and Ratcliffe, Martin and Smith were the only remaining members of the council. Ratcliffe was chosen president, but being a man of neither courage nor ability, he voluntarily resigned an office, which he was incompetent to fill. Smith and Martin alone were left. The latter elected the former president, and for the first time not the least opposition was manifested toward the new administration.

CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH,

Who, by his efficient management of the affairs of the colony, won the title of "The Father of Virginia," was a soldier, a traveler, and a statesman. His life is one filled with adventure and daring exploit. He was born in Lincolnshire, England, in 1579, and was early apprenticed to a merchant; but at the age of fifteen he left his master and went to Holland, served awhile in the Dutch army, then found his way to Austria, where he enlisted under the flag of that country and engaged in a war with the Turks. He was, at length, wounded, taken prisoner, and after his recovery he was carried to Constantinople, where he was sold as a slave and taken to the Crimea, in Russia, and subjected to the severest treatment and his life rendered a burden. From such abject slavery he determined to escape. An opportunity soon presented itself. He was engaged in threshing wheat about three miles from home, where his master visited him once a day. Smith watched his opportunity and dispatched him with a flail; hid his body in the straw, mounted his horse and fled into the woods. After many days' wandering he found his way into Poland, thence he traveled through Germany, France and Spain to Morocco, in Northern Africa, where he remained some time, then set out for England, where he arrived just as the expedition was fitting out to colonize the new continent of America. He immediately attached himself to the expedition and sailed for Virginia, where he afterward displayed those high qualities of statesmanship which secured the permanency of the colony.

At the time that Smith began his administration the colony was on the verge of ruin. Already disease had carried off one-half of the settlers, among whom was Gosnold, a member of the council and one of the best men in it, and had not the early frosts of winter put a stop to the ravages of the pestilence, not one would have survived to tell the fate of the colony. With the disappearance of disease and the better administration of Smith, everything began to show signs of improvement. One of the first acts of the new management was to begin the erection of better buildings; the fortification was strengthened, a store-house devised, and other preparations made for the winter. The great object now was to secure a stock of provisions for the ensuing winter. The Indians had grown a plentiful harvest, but to secure a portion of it was no easy task. Smith, however, determined to undertake it, and in company with five companions he descended the James river as far as Hampton Roads, where he landed, and went boldly among the natives, offering to exchange hatchets and coin for corn; but the savages only laughed at the proposal, and mocked the strangers by offering a piece of bread for Smith's sword and musket. Smith, ever determined to succeed in every undertaking, abandoned the idea of barter and resolved to fight. He ordered his men to fire among the savages, who ran howling into the woods, leav

ing their wigwams, filled with corn, to the mercy of the English, not a grain of which was touched until the Indians returned. In a short time sixty or seventy painted warriors, at the head of whom marched a priest bearing an idol, appeared and made a furious attack. The English a second time opened fire, made a rush, drove the savages back, and captured their idol. The Indians, when they saw their deity in the possession of the English, sent the priest to humbly beg for its return, but Smith stood firm, with his musket across the prostrate image, and dictated the only terms upon which he would surrender it, viz: that six unarmed Indians should come forth and load his boat with corn. The terms were acceded to, the idol given up, and Smith and his party returned to Jamestown with a boat-load of supplies.

Smith could not remain long inactive. No sooner had he seen the colony in tolerable condition for this, its first winter in the New World, than he, in company with six Englishmen and two Indians, embarked in the pinnace and sailed up the Chickahominy river. The opinion prevailed at Jamestown, and also with the London Company, that by proceeding up this stream it was possible to reach the Pacific Ocean, then called the South Sea. Smith knew the utter absurdity of such an opinion, but humored it for the purpose of gratifying his desire for making explorations. He ascended the river as far as possible in the pinnace, then leaving it, as he thought, in a safe place, he left it in the care of four Englishmen, and with the remainder of the party the journey was continued in a canoe, and when they could proceed no further in it, Smith traveled on foot with only an Indian guide. The men left with the pinnace disobeyed orders, went on shore, and one of them fell into the hands of the Indians, who learned from him the direction in which the captain had gone. Pursuit was made at once, but when they came up with him they found that he was no easy prey. He defended himself so bravely that they dared not approach him until he fell into a swamp, where he was at length forced to surrender. His captors carried him before their chief, who received him with all the pomp and ceremony known at a savage court. A long consultation was held to determine the fate of the distinguished prisoner, and it seemed that the death angel which had hovered around him all along his journey of life was about to claim the victory. The consultation terminated unfavorably; the executioners rushed forward and dragged their prisoner to a large stone upon which it had been decided his head should be crushed. The awful moment was come; the club was raised that was to dash out his brains, and thus end his toils and difficulties, and with them the hope of Virginia. But an advocate appeared as unexpectedly as would have been an angel just descended from heaven, to ask his release. It was none other than Pocahontas, the chieftain's own favorite daughter, who stepped forth and begged that the prisoner might be spared, and when

she found her entreaties unavailing, she seized his head and placed it beneath her own to protect it from the fatal blow. Powhatan could not resist the pleadings of his favorite child, and yielded to her wishes. Smith was released and allowed to live. In a few days he concluded a bargain with the old chief by which he was to receive a large tract of country in exchange for two cannon and a grindstone, which he was to send back from Jamestown by the Indians who accompanied him home. When they arrived at Jamestown, Smith, under pretext of instructing the Indians in the use of the cannon, discharged them into the trees, at which the savages were so frightened that they would have nothing to do with them. The grindstone was so heavy that they could not carry it, so they returned with a quantity of trinkets instead.

RETURN OF NEWPORT.

During the winter and spring the little colony had not been forgotten by the company in England. Newport, Newport, soon after his arrival in London, was again dispatched to America in company with another vessel commanded by Francis Nelson, both vessels freighted with everything which could be necessary for either the colony or the crew. Newport arrived in safety, but Nelson, when nearing the capes, was caught in a storm and driven so far out to sea, that he was forced to put into the West Indies, where he made the necessary repairs, and then reached his destination. Smith and Newport decided to again visit Powhatan, who received them in the same dignified manner as on the previous occasion; and during the conference the chieftain exhibited so much diplomatic skill that he was on the eve of closing a bargain with Newport which would have been very disadvantageous to the colony; but Smith prevented the transaction by passing some blue beads before the eyes of the monarch; and by placing great value upon them, and impressing him with the fact that they were only worn by the greatest personages, succeeded in exchanging a pound or two of them for about seven hundred bushels of corn. But no sooner had they returned to Jamestown with this new supply to their former stock, than, as is generally the case with ill-gotten gains, a fire broke out and consumed the greater part of it, together with a number of their cabins and some arms and bedding.

But this was not all; Newport, instead of returning to England immediately, remained fourteen weeks at Jamestown, consuming the provisions that he should have left for the defenseless and helpless colony after his departure. His delay was occasioned by the fact that he had brought over with him several refiners of gold who had discovered some glittering earth near Jamestown. which they pronounced