authority. His superior talents, and the procured from them a supply of provisions; fame he had previously acquired in war, others he attacked with open force, and deexcited their envy, and possibly induced feating them on every occasion, whatever him to assume, that a greater deference their superiority in numbers might be, comwas due to his opinion than his coad- pelled them to divide with him some portion jutors were willing to admit: but at length, of their winter stores; and at length, as by the prudent exhortations of Mr. Hunt, the recompense of his toils and dangers, he their chaplain, the animosities which had saw abundance and contentment re-estabarisen were composed; Smith was admitted lished in the colony, and hoped he should into the council; and they all turned their be able to maintain it in that happy state undivided attention to the government of until the arrival of ships from England in the colony. In honour of their monarch, the spring. But in the midst of his ener they called the town, the erection of which getic measures, while exploring the source they now commenced, Jamestown; and of the river Chickahominy, he was surprised thus was formed the first permanent colony and attacked by a party of Indians. of the English in America. defended himself bravely until his companions were killed, when he retreated, incautiously, into a marsh, and, after suffering from cold, fatigue, and hunger, was forced to surrender. The exulting savages conducted him in triumph through several towns to He The vicinity of the settlement was a vast wilderness, though a luxuriant one, inhabited by a race of native Indians, possessing both the virtues and the vices peculiar to their state. At first they treated the colonists with kindness; but misunder- Werowocomoco, where Powhatan, their standings, from various causes, soon inter- king, resided in state, with a strong guard rupted the peace, and impeded the pro- of Indians around him. When the pri ceedings of the English. Nor were these, soner entered the apartment of the soveor the hostility of the natives, the only reign, all the people gave a shout. The occasions of discomfort; the extreme heat queen of Appamatuck was appointed to of the summer, and the intense cold of the bring him water to wash his hands; and succeeding winter, were alike fatal to the another person brought a bunch of feathers, colonists. From May to September, fifty instead of a towel, to dry them. Having persons died, among whom was Bar-feasted him in their best manner, they held tholomew Gosnold, a member of the council. a long consultation; at the conclusion of The storehouse at Jamestown accidentally taking fire, the town, thatched with reeds, burned with such violence, that the fortifications, arms, apparel, bedding, and a great quantity of private goods and provisions, were consumed. These distresses naturally led the council to reflect upon their situation; and having become sensible of their injustice to Smith, his personal talents and activity were, in their adversity, appealed to with that regard and deference which, in prosperous times, are yielded only to vested authority and official station. From some unaccountable jealousy on the part of the governor, the fort had been left in an unprotected state; but, by the advice of Smith, it was now put into a condition to defend them against attack. To procure provisions, and further explore the country, he made frequent and distant excursions into the wilderness. In one of these he seized an Indian idol, made with skins stuffed with moss, for the redemption of which as much corn was brought him as he required. Some tribes he conciliated by caresses and presents, and which, two great stones were brought before Powhatan. Smith had now reason to consider his career as drawing to a close: by the united efforts of the attendants, he was forcibly dragged from his seat, his head laid upon one of the stones, and the mighty club upraised, a few blows from which were to terminate his existence. But a very unexpected interposition now took place. Pocahontas, the favourite daughter of Powhatan, seized with emotions of pity, ran up to her father, pleading for the life of the stranger. When all entreaties were lost on the stern and savage potentate, she hastened to Smith, snatched his head in her arms, and laid her own on his, declaring that the first blow must fall upon her. The heart of her father yielded, and Powhatan granted to his child the life of Smith.* It appears at first to have been the intention of the savage monarch to detain the captive, and employ him in manufacturing utensils and ornaments for the use of the tribe; but from some cause he speedily * Smith's History of Virginia, p. 49. made careful observations during this excursion of discovery, he drew a map of Chesapeake Bay, with its tributary rivers, annexing to it a description of the countries, and of the nations inhabiting them, and sent it to the council in England.* The wisdom of his administration begat confidence; its vigour commanded obedience; and the military exercises, which he obliged all to perform, struck the Indians with astonishment, and inspired them with awe. changed his mind; and two days after- Smith returned to Jamestown; and having wards, sent him, unhurt, with twelve guides, to Jamestown, upon condition that he should remit two culverins and a millstone as his ransom. The condition was faithfully fulfilled by Smith; and the Indians who had conducted him to the English settlement, returned so well satisfied with the treatment The superior abilities of Smith had now they received, that, by their representations been so manifestly subservient to the geneto Powhatan and the tribe, a path was ral welfare, that they had at least silenced opened to further intercourse with the the malignity of envy and faction; and strangers. Smith had availed himself of the although it was comparatively short opportunities afforded by his captivity, to period since he had been so unjustly calummake some progress in the language of the niated, and deprived of his seat at the natives; and the frequent vists of Pocahon-council-board-immediately after his return tas to the fort, with presents of corn and from his voyage, he was, by the election of fruit, secured a mutual good understanding. the council and the request of the settlers, After his constrained absence of seven invested with the government, and received weeks, Smith arrived barely in time to save letters-patent to be president of the colony. the colony from being abandoned. His associates, reduced to the number of forty, were impatient of further stay in a country where they had met with so many discouragements, and were preparing the pinnace for their return to England; nor was it without the utmost difficulty, and alternately employing persuasion, remonstrance, and even violent interference, that Smith prevailed upon them to relinquish their design. Pocahontas, persevering in her generous designs, continued to supply the colony with provisions till a vessel arrived from England with supplies. Having preserved the settlement during the winter by his active exertions and careful management, Smith embraced the earliest opportunity, in the following summer, to explore the extensive and multifarious ramifications of the Chesapeake. In an open barge, with fourteen persons, and but a scanty stock of provisions, he traversed the whole of the vast extent of water from Cape Henry, where it meets the ocean, to the river Susquehanna; trading with some tribes of Indians, and fighting with others. He discovered and named many small islands, creeks, and inlets; sailed up many of the great rivers; and explored the inland parts of the country. During this enterprise, the Susquehanna Indians visited him, and made him presents. At this early period they had hatchets, and utensils of iron and brass, which, by their own account, originally came from the French, of Canada. After sailing about 3,000 miles, *This map was made with such admirable exactness, that it is the original from which all subsequent maps and descriptions of Virginia have The colony continued to proceed, under the administration of President Smith, as favourably as the nature of its materials would permit. They were, indeed, by no means of the most desirable description, being chiefly "poor gentlemen, tradesmen, serving-men, libertines, and such like; ten times more fit to spoil a commonwealth than either to begin or maintain one." "When you send again," Smith wrote to the company, "I entreat you to rather send but thirty carpenters, husbandmen, gardeners, fishermen, blacksmiths, masons, and diggers up of trees' roots, well provided, than a thousand of such as we have." As the emigrants went out usually with extravagant hopes of sudden and brilliant wealth, they paid little regard to any solid or substantial pursuit, and scorned even the slight labour which was necessary to draw subsistence from this fertile soil. caprice and suspicion of the Indians also assailed him with numberless trials. Even Powhatan, notwithstanding the friendly ties that united him to his ancient guest, was induced, by the treacherous artifices of certain Dutchmen who deserted to him from Jamestown, first to form a secret conspiracy, and then to excite and practise open hostility against the colonists. Some of the fraudful designs of the royal savage been chiefly copied. In Purchas, and in some copies of Smith's History of Virginia, this original map is still to be found; but it is very rare. The were revealed by the unabated kindness of materials as they could convert to the pur Pocahontas; others were detected by Cap- pose; and in those they at length sailed for tain Smith; and from them all he contrived their original destination-hourly picturing to extricate the colony with honour and to themselves the joyous welcome they should success, and yet with little and only defen- receive from their more fortunate fellow voysive bloodshed. But Smith was not per-agers, whom they supposed to be prosperous mitted to complete the work he had so and happy. They reached Virginia in honourably begun. His administration safety; but, to their great disappointment, was unacceptable to the company in Eng- they found nothing but misery where they land, for the same reasons that rendered it had expected comfort, if not abundance. The beneficial to the settlers in America. The patentees, very little concerned about the establishment of a happy and respectable society, had eagerly counted on the accumulation of sudden wealth by the discovery of a shorter passage to the South Sea, or the acquisition of territory replete with mines of the precious metals. In these hopes they had been hitherto disappointed; and the state of affairs in the colony was far from betokening even a moderate return for their heavy expenditure. The company of South Virginia, therefore, treated for, and obtained from King James a new charter, with more ample privileges. This measure added numerically to the list of proprietors, among whom we find some of the most respectable and wealthy, not only of the commoners, but of the peers of the realm. The council of the new company appointed Lord Delaware governor of Virginia for life; "and an avarice which would listen to no possibility of defeat, and which already dreamed of a flourishing empire in America, surrounded him with stately officers, suited, by their titles and nominal charges, to the dignity of an opulent kingdom." Sir Thomas Gates was appointed lieutenant-governor; Sir George Somers, admiral of the fleet; and Christopher Newport, vice-admiral: and seven ships, attended by two small vessels, having on board 500 emigrants, were provided for the expedition. Lord Delaware did not, however, accompany this expedition, not from any want of attachment to the cause, but from a desire to preside for a period over the council at home, and to make more efficient arrangements for further reinforcements. The ship in which the three other officers sailed, becoming separated from the rest of the fleet in a violent storm, was wrecked on the Bermudas Islands, where all the company, consisting of 150 persons, were providentially saved. Upon the is land on which they were cast, the voyagers remained, until they had provided means of departure, by building two vessels of such other ships, much damaged and distressed, A systematic design was now meditated against the whole colony by the sovereign of the country; but it was providentially discovered and frustrated. Pocahontas, the tutelary friend of Virginia, though but a child of thirteen years of age, went, in a an English boy, was saved by Pocahontas. The provisions of the colony being imprudently wasted, a dreadful famine ensued, and prevailed to such extremity, that this period was many years distinguished by the name of "the starving time." Of 490 persons left in the colony by Smith, sixty only remained at the expiration of six months, through the indolence, vice, and recklessness that prevailed; and those were so feeble and dejected, that if relief had not arrived from an unexpected quarter, they must all have perished. Happily, in this extremity, they received acceptable relief from Sir Thomas Gates and the company wrecked very dark and dreary night, to Jamestown, people, excepting two, slain: one of these, and, at the hazard of her life, disclosed to the president a plot of her father to kill him and all the English. This timely notice put the colony on its guard; and some favourable occurrences soon after contributed still further towards its preservation. An Indian, apparently dead through the effect of a charcoal fire in a close room, was, on the application of vinegar and aquavitæ by the president, reanimated. This supposed miracle, with an explosion of powder, which killed two or three Indians, and scorched and wounded others, excited such astonishment, mingled with admiration at English power and art, that Powhatan and his people came to them the previous year at the Bermudas; who, with presents of peace. During the remainder of Smith's administration, the whole country was entirely free from molestation, and the colonists pursued their plans of improvement, both in agriculture and in some of the manufactures, with tolerable success. Unhappily, however, the president, while exerting himself with his usual energy in the concerns of the settlement, received a dangerous wound from an accidental explosion of a quantity of gunpowder. Completely disabled by this misfortune, and destitute of surgical aid, he was compelled to resign his command, and take his departure (and it was a final one) for England. "It was natural," observed Grahame, "that he should abandon with regret the society he had so often preserved, the settlement he had conducted through difficulties as formidable as the infancy of Carthage or Rome had to encounter, and the scenes he had dignified by so much wisdom and virtue. But our sympathy with his regret is abated by the reflection, that a longer residence in the colony would speedily have consigned him to very subordinate office, and might have deprived the world of that stock of valuable knowledge, and his own character of that accession of fame, which the publication of his travels has been the means of perpetuating." having built two small vessels, were at length able to reach Virginia on the 23rd of May. Finding the small remains of the colony in a famishing condition, Sir Thomas Gates consulted with Sir George Somers, Captain Newport, and the gentlemen and council of the former government; and they determined to abandon the country. It was their intention to sail for Newfoundland, where they expected to meet with many English ships, into which, it was hoped, they might disperse most of the company, and thus get back to England. On the 7th of June they all embarked in four small vessels, and, about noon, fell down the river with the tide. The next morning they discovered a boat making towards them; and it proved to be the long-boat of Lord Delaware, who had just arrived at the mouth of the river, with three ships and 150 men. Hearing at the fort of the company's intention to return to England, he had dispatched an officer with letters to Sir Thomas Gates, informing him of his arrival. Gates instantly changed his purpose, and that night relanded all his men at Jamestown. On the 10th, Lord Delaware came up with his ships, bringing plentiful supplies to the colony, which he proceeded to resettle, after invoking the Divine blessing upon the work before him, which required The departure of Smith was, as might almost supernatural energy and wisdom to have been anticipated, a most inauspicious bring to a prosperous issue. The minds of circumstance for the colony. The Indians, the colonists were agitated by conflicting finding that the person whose vigour they emotions of joy for their immediate relief had often felt no longer ruled the English from famine; and of sorrow and dessettlers, generally revolted, and destroyed pondency at the uncertain prospect opened them wherever they were found. Captain to them as regarded the future: and it was Ratcliff, in a small ship with thirty men, with a deep sense of the responsibility of his going to trade, and trusting himself indis- task, and of the wisdom and energy required creetly to Powhatan, was, with all his of him, that Lord Deleware, on assuming was called his high office as governor, immediately death, he had charged his nephew, Matther held a council, to deliberate on the affairs of Somers, who commanded under him, t the colony, the government of which was return with the provisions to Virginia; but reorganised, consonant with the terms of instead of obeying the charge, he sailed it: the new charter," under which an essential England, carrying the body of his decease. change took place in the form of the ancient uncle for interment in his native country. Virginia constitution; for the original aris- The health of Lord Delaware not permit tocracy was converted into a monarchical ting him to retain the office of captaingovernment, over whose deliberations the general of the Virginia colony, he departed people had no control. Under the auspices for England, leaving above 200 people it of Lord Delaware, the affairs of the colony health and tranquillity. Not long after La were soon re-established. He allotted to departure, Sir Thomas Dale arrived at Virevery man his particular business: the ginia with three ships, 300 emigrants, and French, who had been imported for the a supply of cattle, provisions, and other purpose, he commanded to plant the vine; articles needful for the colony. In Augus the English, to labour in the woodlands; Sir Thomas Gates also arrived with s and he appointed officers to see his orders ships, 280 men, and twenty women; a cot obeyed. Regular hours were appointed for siderable quantity of cattle and hogs, milllabour, to which each in his station was tary stores, and other necessaries; and be required to conform. The beginning of the assumed the government. Finding the pe day was solemnised by prayer; and such of ple occupied with little but amusements the colonists as were not incapacitated by and verging towards their former stated sickness, were expected to assemble at the penury, he directed their employment church for the purpose; after which, the necessary works. The colony now bega rations for each family were distributed. The to extend itself up James River, where morning meal was then taken; and, at six several new settlements were effected, and i o'clock, every man proceeded to his allotted town built, enclosed with a palisade, which work, which continued until ten o'clock; and in honour of Prince Henry, again from two in the afternoon till four. Henrico. Under the prudent regulations All patiently submitted to an authority introduced by the late governor, the colony which experience had taught them to be progressed gradually, but surely-a circum wise and necessary; and peace, industry, stance in a great degree attributable to al and order, now succeeded tumult, idleness, by which the right of private property as and anarchy. Lord Delaware speedily for the first time, recognised. The portio erected two more forts for the more effec- of land allotted to each colonist was no tual protection of the colony; the one he considered his own, to be cultivated a designated Fort Henry, the other Fort appropriated as he thought fit; and th Charles. On the report of his deputy-gov- result was, that willing industry now to ernors, of the plenty they had found in the place of unwilling and ill-performed Bermudas, he dispatched Sir George Somers labour, in which all participated, and not to that island for provisions, accompanied exclusively benefited. A soon by Captain Samuel Argal in another vessel. principle of self-interest was called in They sailed together until, by contrary activity, the entire aspect of the colon winds, they were driven towards Cape Cod; changed. Unfortunately, amidst these ben whence Argal, after attempting, pursuant fits to the settlers, the rights of the l to instructions, to reach Sagadahock, found dians were disregarded, and their proper his way back to Virginia. He was next unjustly appropriated. The Appamatus sent for provisions to the Potomac, where who were chiefly injured in this w he found Henry Spelman, the youth who had been preserved from the ated; and to avenge some injuries inflicte English naturally resented the wrong, and retali fury of Powhatan by Pocahontas; and by by them, Sir Thomas Dale assaulted and his assistance procured a supply of corn. took their town, at the mouth of the river Somers, after struggling long with contrary of that name, about five miles from Her winds, at length arrived safely at the Ber- rico; and after slaughtering the greater mudas, and began to execute the purpose of part of the inhabitants, kept possession of his voyage; but, exhausted with fatigues, the place; calling it New Bermudas-00 to which his advanced age was inadequate, nexing to its corporation he soon after expired. Previous to his adjacent country. many as the miles of the |