USA > Virginia > History of the colony and ancient dominion of Virginia > Part 2
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Lane extended his discoveries to the northward, as far as the town of Chesapeakes, on Elizabeth River, near where Norfolk
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stands, and about one hundred and thirty miles from the Island of Roanoke. The Chowan River was also explored, and the Roanoke, then known below the falls as the Moratoc. Lane, although a good soldier, seems to have wanted some of the quali- ties indispensable in the founder of a new plantation. The In- dians grew more hostile; conspiracies were entered into for the destruction of the whites, and the rash and bloody measures em- ployed to defeat their machinations aggravated the mischief. The colonists, filled with alarm, became impatient to escape from a scene of so many privations and so much danger. Owing to a scarcity of provisions, Lane distributed the colonists at several places. At length Captain Stafford, who was stationed at Croa- tan, near Cape Lookout, descried twenty-three sail, which proved to be Sir Francis Drake's fleet. He was returning from a long cruise-belligerent, privateering, and exploratory-and, in obe- dience to the queen's orders, now visited the Colony of Virginia to render any necessary succor. Upon learning the condition of affairs, he agreed to furnish Lane with vessels and supplies suffi- cient to complete the discovery of the country and to insure a safe return home, should that alternative be found necessary. Just at this time a violent storm, raging for four days, dispersed and shattered the fleet, and drove out to sea the vessels that had been assigned to Lane. The tempest at length subsiding, Drake generously offered Lane another vessel with supplies. But the harbor not being of sufficient depth to admit the vessel, the go- vernor, acquiescing in the unanimous desire of the colonists, re- quested permission for them all to embark in the fleet, and return to England. The request was granted; and thus ended the first actual settlement of the English in America.
During the year which the colony had passed at Roanoke, Withe had made drawings from nature illustrative of the appear- ance and habits of the natives; and Hariot had accurately ob- served the soil and productions of the country, and the manners and customs of the natives, an account of which he afterwards published, entitled, "A briefe and true report of the new found land of Virginia." He (Lane) and some others of the colonists learned from the Indians the use of a narcotic plant called by them uppowoc; by the English tobacco. The natives smoked it;
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sprinkled the dust of it on their fishing weirs, to make them for- tunate; burned it in sacrifices to appease the anger of the gods, and scattered it in the air and on the water to allay the fury of the tempest. Lane carried some tobacco to England, supposed by Camden to have been the first ever introduced into that king- dom. Sir Walter Raleigh, by his example, soon rendered the use of this seductive leaf fashionable at court; and his tobacco-box and pipes were long preserved by the curiosity of antiquaries. It is related, that having offered Queen Elizabeth some tobacco to smoke, after two or three whiffs she was seized with a nausea, upon observing which some of the Earl of Leicester's faction whispered that Sir Walter had certainly poisoned her. But her majesty in a short while recovering, made the Countess of Not- tingham and all her maids smoke a whole pipe out among them. It is also said that Sir Walter made a wager with the queen, that he could calculate the weight of the smoke evaporated from a pipeful of tobacco. This he easily won by weighing first the to- bacco, and then the ashes, when the queen acknowledged that the difference must have gone off in smoke. Upon paying the wager, she gayly remarked, that "she had heard of many workers in the fire who had turned their gold into smoke, but that Sir Walter was the first that had turned his smoke into gold." Another familiar anecdote is, that a country servant of Raleigh's, bringing him a tankard of ale and nutmeg into his study as he was in- tently reading and smoking, was so alarmed at seeing clouds of smoke issuing from his master's mouth, that, throwing the ale into his face, he ran down stairs crying out that Sir Walter was on fire.
Sir Walter Raleigh never visited Virginia himself, although it has been so represented by several writers. Hariot's "Report of the new found land" was translated by a Frenchman * into Latin, and this translation refers to those "qui generosum D. Walterum Raleigh in eam regionem comitati sunt." The error of the trans- lator in employing the words "comitati sunt," has been pointed out by Stith, and that error probably gave rise to the mistake which has been handed down from age to age, and is still preva- lent. A few days after Drake's departure, a vessel arrived at
* De Bry.
1
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HISTORY OF THE COLONY AND
Roanoke with supplies for the colony; but finding it abandoned, she set sail for England. Within a fortnight afterwards, Sir Richard Grenville, with three relief vessels fitted out principally by Raleigh, arrived off Virginia; and, unwilling that the English should lose possession of the country, he left fifteen men on the island, with provisions for two years. These repeated disappoint- ments did not abate Raleigh's indomitable resolution. During the ensuing year he sent out a new expedition of three vessels to establish a colony chartered by the title of "The Governor and Assistants of the City of Raleigh in Virginia." John White was sent out as governor with twelve counsellors, and they were directed to plant themselves at the town of Chesapeakes, on Elizabeth River. Reaching Roanoke near the end of July, White found the colony deserted, the bones of a man scattered on the beach, the fort razed, and deer couching in the desolate houses or feeding on the rank vegetation which had overgrown the floor and crept up the walls. Raleigh's judicious order, instructing White to establish himself on the banks of Elizabeth River, was not carried into effect, owing to the refusal of Ferdinando, the naval- officer, to co-operate in exploring the country for that purpose.
One of the English having been slain by the savages, a party was dispatched to avenge his death, and by mistake unfortunately killed several of a friendly tribe. Manteo, by Raleigh's direc- tion, was christened, and created Lord of Roanoke and Dassa- monpeake. On the eighteenth of August, the governor's daughter, Eleanor, wife to Ananias Dare, one of the council, gave birth to a daughter, the first Christian child born in the country, and hence named Virginia. Dissensions soon arose among the set- tlers; and, although not in want of stores, some, disappointed in not finding the new country a paradise of indolent felicity, as they had fondly anticipated, demanded permission to return home; others vehemently opposed; at length all joined in re- questing White to sail for England, and to return thence with supplies. To this he reluctantly consented; and setting sail in August, 1587, from Roanoke, where he left eighty-nine men, seventeen women, and eleven children, he arrived in England on the fifth of November.
He found the kingdom wholly engrossed in taking measures of
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defence against the threatened invasion of the Spanish Armada, and Raleigh, Grenville, and Lane assisting Elizabeth in her coun- cil of war-a conjuncture most unpropitious to the interests of the infant colony. Raleigh, nevertheless, found time even in this portentous crisis of public affairs to dispatch White with supplies in two vessels. But these, running after prizes, encountered privateers, and, after a bloody engagement, one of them was so disabled and plundered that White was compelled to put back to England, while it was impossible to refit, owing to the urgency of more important matters. But, even after the destruction of the Armada, Sir Walter Raleigh found it impracticable to prosecute any further his favorite design of establishing a colony in Vir- ginia; and in 1589 he formed a company of merchants and adven- turers, and assigned to it his proprietary rights. This corporation included among its members Thomas Smith, a wealthy London merchant, afterwards knighted; and Richard Hakluyt, dean of Westminster, the compiler of a celebrated collection of voyages. He is said to have visited Virginia, and Stith gives it as his opinion that he must have come over in one of the last-mentioned abortive expeditions. Raleigh, at the time of making this assign- ment, gave a hundred pounds for propagating Christianity among the natives of Virginia. After experiencing a long series of vexations, difficulties, and disappointments, he had expended forty thousand pounds in fruitless efforts for planting a colony in Vir- ginia. At length, disengaged from this enterprise, he indulged his martial genius, and bent all his energies against the colossal ambition of Spain, who now aspired to overshadow the world.
More than another year was suffered to elapse before White returned to search for the long-neglected colony. He had now been absent from it for three years, and felt the solicitude not only of a governor, but also of a parent. Upon his departure from Roanoke it had been concerted between him and the settlers, that if they should abandon that island for another seat, they should carve the name of the place to which they should remove on some conspicuous object; and if they should go away in distress, a cross should be carved above the name. Upon his arrival at Roanoke, White found not one of the colonists; the houses had been dismantled and a fort erected; goods had been buried in the
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earth, and in part disinterred and scattered; on a post within the fort the word CROATAN was carved, without a cross above it. The weather proving stormy, some of White's company were lost by the capsizing of a boat; the stock of provisions grew scanty; and no further search was then made. Raleigh, indeed, sent out parties in quest of them at five different times, the last in 1602, at his own charge; but not one of them made any search for the unfortunate colonists. None of them were ever found; and whether they perished by famine, or the Indian tomahawk, was left a subject of sad conjecture. The site of the colony was un- fortunate, being difficult of access, and near the stormy Cape Hatteras, whose very name is synonymous with peril and ship- wreck. Thus, after many nobly planned but unhappily executed expeditions, and enormous expense of treasure and life, the first plantation of Virginia became extinct.
In the year 1591 Sir Richard Grenville fell, in a bloody action with a Spanish fleet near the Azores. Mortally wounded, he was removed on board one of the enemy's ships, and in two days died. In the hour of his death he said, in the Spanish language, to those around him : "Here I, Richard Grenville, die with a joyous and quiet mind, for that I have ended my life as a true soldier ought to do, fighting for his country, queen, religion, and honor, my soul willingly departing from this body, leaving behind the lasting fame of having behaved as every valiant soldier is in his duty bound to do." His dying words may recall to mind the familiar verses of Campbell's Lochiel :-
" And leaving in death no blot on my name,
Look proudly to heaven for a death-bed of fame."
Sir Richard Grenville was, next to his kinsman, Sir Walter Raleigh, the principal person concerned in the first settlement of Virginia.
In 1602, the forty-third and last year of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, Captain Bartholomew Gosnold, deviating from the usual oblique route by the Canaries and the West Indies, made a direct voyage in a small bark across the Atlantic, and in seven weeks reached Massachusetts Bay. It was on this occasion that Englishmen, for the first time, landed on the soil of New Eng-
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land. Gosnold returned to England in a short passage of five weeks. In these early voyages the heroism of the navigators is the more admirable when we advert to the extremely diminutive size of their vessels and the comparative imperfection of nautical science at that day. Encouraged by Gosnold's success, the mayor, aldermen, and merchants of Bristol sent out an expedi- tion under Captain Pring, in the same direction, in 1603, the year of the accession of James I. to the throne. During the same year a bark was dispatched from London under Captain Bartholomew Gilbert, who fell in with the coast in latitude 37°, and, as some authors say, ran up into the Chesapeake Bay, where the captain and four of his men were slain by the Indians.
In 1605 Captain Weymouth came over under the auspices of Henry, Earl of Southampton, and Lord Thomas Arundel.
CHAPTER II.
1579-1604.
Early Life and Adventures of Captain John Smith-Born at Willoughby-At Thirteen Years of Age undertakes to go to Sea-At Fifteen Apprentice to a Merchant-Visits France-Studies the Military Art-Serves in the Low Countries-Repairs to Scotland-Returns to Willoughby-Studies and Exer- cises-Adventures in France-Embarks for Italy-Thrown into the Sea-His Escape-Joins the Austrians in the Wars with the Turks-His Gallantry- Combat with Three Turks-Made Prisoner at Rottenton-His Sufferings and Escape-Voyages and Travels-Returns to England.
IN 1606 measures were taken in England for planting another colony; but preliminary to a relation of the settlement of Vir- ginia proper, it is necessary to give some history of Captain John Smith, "the father of the colony." He was born at Willoughby, in Lincolnshire, England, in 1579, being descended on his father's side from an ancient family of Crudley, in Lancashire; on his mother's, from the Rickands at Great Heck, in York- shire. After having been some time a scholar at the free schools of Alford and Louth, when aged thirteen, his mind being bent upon bold adventures, he sold his satchel, books, and all he had, in- tending to go privately to sea; but his father's death occurring just then prevented the execution of that scheme. Having some time before lost his mother, he was now left an orphan, with a competent hereditary estate, which, being too young to receive, he little regarded. At fifteen he was bound apprentice to Thomas Sendall, of Lynn, the greatest merchant of all those parts; but in a short time, disgusted with the monotony of that life, he quit it, and accompanied a son of Lord Willoughby to France. Within a month or six weeks, he was dismissed, his service being needless, with an allowance of money to take him back to England; but he determined not to return. At Paris, meeting with a Scottish gentleman, David Hume, he received from him an additional supply of money and letters, which might recommend him to the favor of James the Sixth of Scotland.
(30)
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Young Smith, proceeding to Rouen, and finding his money nearly all gone, made his way to Havre de Grace, and there began to learn the military art, during the reign of the warlike Henry the Fourth. From France the adventurer went to the Low Countries, where he served for four years under the standard of the patriot army against Spain, in the war that eventuated in their independence. Embarking thence for Scotland, with the letters of recommendation previously given to him, and after suffering shipwreck and illness, Smith at length reached Scot- land, where he was hospitably entertained "by those honest Scots at Kipweth and Broxmouth," but finding himself without money or means to make himself a courtier, he returned to his native place, Willoughby. Here he soon grew weary of much company ; and indulging a romantic taste, retired into a forest, and in its recesses, near a pretty brook, he built for himself a pavilion of boughs, where he studied Machiavel's Art of War, and Marcus Aurelius, and amused his leisure by riding, throwing the lance, and hunting. His principal food was venison, which he thus provided for himself, like Shakespeare, with but little regard for the game-laws; and whatever else he needed was brought to him by his servant. The country people wondered at the hermit; and his friends persuaded an Italian gentleman, rider to the Earl of Lincoln, to visit him in his retreat; and thus he was induced to return to the world, and after spending a short time with this new acquaintance at Tattersall's, Smith now repaired a second time to the Low Countries. Having made himself sufficiently master of horsemanship, and the use of arms and the rudiments of war, he resolved to go and try his fortunes against the Turks, having long witnessed with pain the spectacle of so many Chris- tians engaged in slaughtering one another.
Proceeding to St. Valery, in France, by collusion between the master of the vessel and some French gallants, his trunks were plundered there in the night, and he was forced to sell his cloak to pay for his passage. The other passengers expressed their in- dignation against this villany, and one of them, a French soldier, generously supplied his immediate necessities, and invited Smith to accompany him to his home in Normandy. Here he was kindly welcomed by his companion and the Prior of the ancient
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HISTORY OF THE COLONY AND
abbey of St. Stephen, (where repose the remains of William the Conqueror,) and others; and the story of his misfortunes reach- ing the ears of some noble lords and ladies, they replenished his purse; and he might have enjoyed their hospitality as long as he pleased, but this suited not his restless, energetic and indepen- dent spirit. Wandering now from port to port in quest of a man-of-war, he experienced some extraordinary turns of fortune. Passing one day through a forest, his money being spent, worn out with distress of mind, and cold, he threw himself on the ground, at the side of a fountain of water, under a tree, scarce hoping ever to rise again. A farmer finding him in this condi- tion, relieved his necessities, and enabled him to pursue his jour- ney. Not long afterwards, meeting in a grove one of the gallants who had robbed him, without a word on either side, they drew their swords, and fought in view of the inmates of a neighboring antique ruinous tower. In a short while the Frenchman fell, and, making confessions and excuses, Smith, although himself wounded, spared his life. Directing his course now to the residence of "the Earl of Ployer," with whom he had become acquainted while in the French service, he was by him better refurnished than ever.
After visiting many parts of France and Navarre, he came to Marseilles, where he embarked for Italy, in a vessel carrying a motley crowd of pilgrims of divers nations, bound for Rome. The winds proving unfavorable, the vessel was obliged to put in at Toulon, and sailing thence the weather grew so stormy that they anchored close to the Isle of St. Mary, opposite Nice, in Savoy. Here the unfeeling provincials and superstitious pilgrims showered imprecations on Smith's head, stigmatizing him as a Huguenot, and his nation as all pirates, and Queen Elizabeth as a heretic; and, protesting that they should never have fair weather as long as he was on board, they cast him into the sea to propitiate heaven. However, he swam to the Islet of St. Mary, which he found inhabited by a few cattle and goats. On the next day he was taken up by a privateering French ship, the captain of which, named La Roche, proving to be a neighbor and friend of the Earl of Ployer, entertained him kindly. With him, Smith visited Alexandria in Egypt, Scanderoon, the Archipelago, and coast of Greece. At the mouth of the Adriatic Sea, a Ve-
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netian argosy, richly laden, was captured and plundered, after a desperate action, in which Smith appears to have participated. He landed in Piedmont with five hundred sequins and a box of jewels, worth about as much more-his share of the prize. Em- barking for Leghorn, he travelled in Italy, and here met with his friends, Lord Willoughby and his brother, both severely wounded in a recent bloody fray. Going to Rome, Smith sur- veyed the wonders of the Imperial City, and saw the Pope, with the cardinals, ascend the holy staircase, and say mass in the Church of St. John de Lateran. Leaving Rome, he made the tour of Italy, and embarking at Venice, crossed over to the wild regions of Albania and Dalmatia. Passing through sterile Scla- vonia, he found his way to Gratz, in Styria, the residence of the Archduke Ferdinand, afterwards Emperor of Germany. Here he met with an Englishman and an Irish Jesuit, by whose assist- ance he was enabled to join a regiment of artillery, commanded by Count Meldritch, whom he accompanied to Vienna, and thence to the seat of war. At this time, 1601, there was a bloody war going on between Germany and the Turks, and the latter had gained many signal advantages, and the Crescent, flushed with victory, was rapidly encroaching upon the confines of Chris- tendom. Canissia having just fallen, it was at the siege of Olym- pach, beleaguered by the Turks, that Smith first had an oppor- tunity of displaying the resources of his military genius, for which he was put in command of two hundred and fifty horse.
That siege being raised, after some interval of suspended hos- tilities, the Christian forces, in their turn, besieged Stowle Wes- senburg, which soon fell into their hands. Mahomet the Third, hearing of this disaster, dispatched a formidable army to re- trieve or avenge it; and in the bloody battle that ensued on the plains of Girke, Smith had a horse shot under him, and was badly wounded. At the siege of Regal he encountered and slew, in a tournament, three several Turkish champions, Turbashaw, Grualgo, and Bonny Mulgro. For these exploits he was honored with a triumphal procession, in which the three Turks' heads were borne on lances. A horse richly caparisoned was presented to him, with a cimeter and belt worth three hundred ducats; and he was promoted to the rank of major.
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In the bloody battle of Rottenton, he was wounded and made prisoner. With such of the prisoners as escaped massacre, he was sold into slavery at Axiopolis, and fell into the hands of the Bashaw Bogall, who sent him, by way of Adrianople, to Constan- tinople, a present to his youthful mistress, Charatza Tragabig- zanda. Captivated with her prisoner, she treated him tenderly; and to prevent his being sold again, sent him to remain for a time with her brother, the Tymour Bashaw of Nalbritz, in Tar- tary, who occupied a stone castle near the Sea of Azof. Imme- diately on Smith's arrival, his head was shaved, an iron collar riveted on his neck, and he was clothed in hair-cloth. Here long he suffered cruel bondage; at length one day, while threshing in a barn, the Bashaw having beaten and reviled him, he turned and slew him on the spot, with the threshing bat; then put on his clothes, hid his body in the straw, filled a sack with corn, closed the doors, mounted the Bashaw's horse, and rode off. After wandering for some days, he fell in with a highway, and observing that the roads leading toward Russia were indicated by a cross, he followed that sign, and in sixteen days reached Ecopolis, a Russian frontier post on the Don. The governor there took off his irons, and he was kindly treated by him and his wife, the lady Callamata. Traversing Russia and Poland, he returned to Transylvania in December, 1603, where he met many friends, and enjoyed so much happiness that nothing less than his desire to revisit his native country could have torn him away.
Proceeding through Hungary, Moravia, and Bohemia, he went to Leipsic, where he found Prince Sigismund, who gave him fif- teen hundred golden ducats to repair his losses. Travelling through Germany, France, and Spain, from Gibraltar he sailed for Tangier, in Africa, and to the City of Morocco. Taking passage in a French man-of-war, he was present in a terrible sea- fight with two Spanish ships; and after touching at Santa Cruz, Cape Goa, and Mogadore, he finally returned to England in 1604 .*
* " The True Travels, Adventures, and Observations of Captain John Smith," in his History of Virginia. Hillard's Life of Smith, in Sparks' American Bio- graphy. Simms' Life of Smith.
CHAPTER III.
1606-1608. 1326966
Gosnold, Smith, and others set on foot another Expedition-James I. issues Let- ters Patent-Instructions for Government of the Colony-Charter granted to London Company for First Colony of Virginia-Sir Thomas Smith, Treasurer -Government of the Colony-Three Vessels under Newport sail for Virginia -The Voyage-Enter Chesapeake Bay-Ascend the James River-The Eng- lish entertained by the Chief of the Quiqoughcohanocks-Landing at James- town-Wingfield, President-Smith excluded from the Council-Newport and Smith explore the James to the Falls-Powhatan-Jamestown assaulted by Indians-Smith's Voyages up the Chickahominy-Murmurs against him- Again explores the Chickahominy-Made prisoner-Carried captive through the country -- Taken to Werowocomoco-Rescued by Pocahontas-Returns to Jamestown-Fire there-Rev. Mr. Hunt -- Rage for Gold-hunting-Newport visits Powhatan-Newport's Departure-Affairs at Jamestown.
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