quests, and civilization of the New? America was then the California of Europe; your disinterested sons have only crowded into California "for liberty to worship God" of course-or "to found an empire," no doubt.

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When your fractious, meddlesome and noisy progenitors, were driven out of England for England's good, and could not stay even in fat, frouzy and most patient Holland, when the fatigued toleration of Europe would no longer permit you a spot whereon to rest the soles of your feet; then, of course, as America was the region of romance, where the heated imagination could indulge in the boldest delusions, where the simple natives wore the most precious ornaments, and by the side of the clear runs of water the sands sparkled with gold;" thither, your eyes, in common with those of all the world, were turned, and the spirit moved you to "found an empire" based upon "the right to worship God."

Not by any manner of means that you were moved thereto by any lust for gold or base carnal desire whatever!—although, at that time, gold was being sought with equal eagerness along the whole Atlantic border-from the voyagers in search of a northwest passage among the arctic ice and snow, who took home the holds of their vessels filled with what they thought to be golden earth-to the ungodly adventurers at Jamestown in the South!

But "who would have expected to find gold on the bleak rocks of Plymouth ?" and beside, their historian says, "They knew they were pilgrims, and looked not much on these things, but lifted up their eyes to heaven, their dearest country, and quieted their spirits."+

Very well it would seem then that they had indeed no other country to lift their eyes to, for the same historian says, "they had no homes to go to-so that at last the magistrates were glad to be rid of them on any terms." It would not do to call these people "vagabonds," of course, because, with a sanctimonious upturning of the eyes they had said "they looked not much on these things!" But as with an impious familiarity which has always characterized their modes of speech, they "found God going along with them," and turned their eyes upon North Virginia, applying to the Virginia Company for a patent.

Now Virginia was understood to be the safest place around which the aroma of hidden wealth in treasure clung, and thither they set out to go in the Speedwell and the Mayflower. They were driven off their course by storms, and landed at Plymouth "on compulsion!"

But Sam would remind them that "the beauty and immeasurable wealth of Guiana had been painted in dazzling colors by the brilliant eloquence of Raleigh; but the terrors of the tropical climate, the wavering pretensions of England to the soil, and the proximity of bigoted Catholics led them rather to look toward the most northern parts of Virginia.""

We can very well comprehend now, quoth Sam, how, in their humility, they have never emulated the " gallant spirit" of the "vagabond" cavaliers!

How many new worlds would have been discovered? How many Perus and Mexicos conquered? How many Mississippis found and Virginias built up, had these stigmatized cavaliers been turned aside by the "terrors" of tropical climates, wavering pretensions of kings, or proximity of adverse creeds?

• Bancroft.

CHAPTER XIV.

Prosperity of the Colony of Jamestown under the rule of Captain SmithSudden Treachery of the Indians and great Massacre of the Settlers.

BUT enough of this. It would seem that under the tutelary guardianship of Smith, the colonies were now prospering greatly. The first cotton grown in the United States had now been planted under his auspices (1621); and its "plentiful coming up" had been a subject of interest in America and England. "Yes," says Sam, "these libertine vagabonds seem likely to prove themselves first in everything."

The relations with the natives had been, as yet, comparatively pleasant. There had been quarrels, but no wars. From the first landing of colonists in Virginia, the power of the natives was despised. Their strongest weapons were such arrows as they could shape without the use of iron-such hatchets as could be made from stone, and an English mastiff seemed to them a terrible adversary.

Within sixty miles of Jamestown, it is computed, there were no more than five thousand souls, or about fifteen hundred warriors. The natives, naked and feeble compared with the Europeans, were nowhere concentrated in considerable villages, but dwelt dispersed in hamlets, with from forty to sixty in each company. Few places had more than two hundred, and many had less. It was also unusual for any large portion of the tribes to assemble together.

Smith once met a party that seemed to amount to seven hundred, and so complete was the superiority conferred by the use of fire-arms, that with fifteen men he was able to withstand them all. No uniform care had been taken to conciliate their good-will, although their condition had been improved by some of the arts of civilized life. A house

having been built for Opeehancanough, after the English fashion, he took such delight in the lock and key that he would lock and unlock the door a hundred times a day, and thought the device incomparable.

When Wyatt arrived, the natives expressed fear lest his intentions should be hostile. He assured them of his wish to preserve inviolable peace, and the emigrants had no use for fire-arms except against a deer or fowl. The penalty of death for teaching an Indian to use a musket was forgotten; and they were now employed as fowlers and huntsmen. The plantations of the English were widely extended in unsuspecting confidence wherever rich land invited to the culture of tobacco; nor were solitary places avoided, since there would be less competition for the ownership of the soil.

Powhattan, the father of Pocahontas, remained, after the marriage of his daughter, the firm friend of the English. He died in 1618, and his younger brother was now the sole heir to his influence. Should the native occupants of the soil consent to be driven from their ancient patrimony? Should their feebleness submit to contempt, injury, and the loss of their lands? The desire of self-preservation, the necessity of self-defense seemed to demand an active resistance. To preserve their dwellings, the English must be exterminated. In open battle the Indians would be powerless.

Conscious of their weakness, they could not hope to accomplish their end, except by a preconcerted surprise. The crime was one of savage ferocity. They were timorous and quick of apprehension, and consequently treacherous. The attack was concocted with impenetrable secrecy. To the very last hour the Indians preserved the language of friendship; they borrowed the boats of the English to attend their own assemblies; on the very morning of the massacre they were in the houses and at the tables of those whose death they were plotting. "Sooner," said they, "shall the sky fall than peace be violated on our part."

At length, on the 22d of March, at one and at the same instant of time, the Indians fell upon an unsuspecting population, which was scattered through distant villages extending one hundred and forty miles on both sides of the river. The onset was so sudden that the blow was not discerned until it fell. None were spared-children and women as well as

men; missionaries, who had cherished the natives with untiring gentleness; the liberal benefactors from whom they had received daily kindnesses; all were murdered with indiscriminate barbarity and every aggravation of cruelty. The savages fell upon the dead bodies, as if it had been possible to commit on them fresh murder.

In one hour three hundred and forty-seven persons were cut off, yet the carnage was not universal, and Virginia was saved from so disastrous a grave. The night before the execution of the conspiracy, it was revealed by a converted Indian to an Englishman whom he wished to rescue. Jamestown and the nearest settlements were well prepared against an attack, and the savages, as timid as they were ferocious, fled with precipitation from the apparent wakeful resistance. Thus the larger part of the colony was saved.

A year after the massacre, there still remained two thousand five hundred men. The total number of the emigrants had exceeded four thousand.*

Thus it seems that these "dissolute adventurers" had, up to this time, cultivated the most amicable relations with their savage neighbors, and that it was not until this horrible massacre of the trusting colonists, that "plans of industry were entirely succeeded by schemes of revenge," and a war of extermination ensued. These conditions, Sam thinks, as something unlike those which preceded the ruthless slaughter of the miserable and defenseless Pequods by his sanctimonious sons! Nor does Sam hear anything of "Rum" as a contracting party in the peace which was made with Powhattan.

"This account we epitomize from Bancroft.