USA > Virginia > Old Virginia and her neighbours > Part 11
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21
Commun- ing or fishing, he was working for the
isni.
community ; whatsoever he could get by his own toil or by trade with the natives went straightway into the common stock, and the skilful and industrious fared no better than the stupid and lazy. The strongest kind of premium was thus at once put upon idleness, which under cir- cumstances of extreme anxiety and depression is apt enough to flourish without any premium. Things had arrived at such a pass that some thirty or forty men were supporting the whole company of two hundred, when President Smith applied the strong hand. He gathered them all together one day and plainly told them that he was their law- fully chosen ruler and should promptly punish all infractions of discipline, and they must all under- stand that hereafter he that will not work shall not eat. His authority had come to be great, and the rule was enforced. By the end of April some twenty houses had been built, a well of pure sweet water had been dug in the fort, thirty acres or more of ground had been broken up and planted,
143
THE STARVING TIME.
and nets and weirs arranged for fishing. A few hogs and fowl had been left by Newport, and now could be heard the squeals of sixty pigs and the peeping of five hundred spring chickens. The manufacture of tar and soap-ashes went on, and a new fortress was begun in an easily defensible position upon a commanding hill.
This useful work was suddenly interrupted by an unforeseen calamity. Rats brought from time to time by the ships had quickly multiplied, and in April these unbidden guests were found Unbidden
to have made such havoc in the grana- messmates. ries that but little corn was left. Harvest time was a long way off, and it was necessary to pause for a while and collect provisions. Several Indian villages were again visited and trading went on amicably, but there was a limit to the aid the bar- barians had it in their power to give, and in the quest of sustenance the settlers were scattered. By midsummer a few were picking berries in the woods, others were quartered among the Indians, some were living on oysters and caviar, some were down at Point Comfort catching fish, and it was these that were the first to hail the bark of young Samuel Argall, who was coming for sturgeon and whatever else he could find, and had steered a straighter course from London than any Arrival of mariner before him. Argall brought let- Argall. ters from members of the Company complaining that the goods sent home in the ships were not of greater value in the market, and saying that Smith hau been accused of dealing harshly with the In- dians. This must have referred to some skir-
144 OLD VIRGINIA AND HER NEIGHBOURS.
mishes he had had with the Rappahannocks and other tribes in the course of his exploration of the Chesapeake waters during the previous summer. Another piece of news was brought by Argall. The London Company had obtained a new char- ter, and a great expedition, commanded by Lord Delaware, was about to sail for Virginia.
This was true. The experience of two years had convinced the Company that its methods needed mending. In the first place more money was needed and the list of shareholders
Second
Charter of was greatly enlarged. By the second the Lon lon Company, charter, dated May 23, 1609. the Com-
1009. pany was made a corporation and all its members were mentioned by name. The list was headed by Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, and contained among other interesting names those of the philosopher Bacon and of Sir Oliver Crom- well, from whose nephew, then a lad at Hunting- don School, the world was by and by to hear. On the list we find the names of 659 persons, of whom 21 were peers, 96 were knights, 11 were clergy- men and physicians, 53 are described as captains, 28 as engineers, 58 as gentlemen, 110 as mer- chants, while the remaining 282 are variously des- ignated or only the name is given. "Of these about 230 paid £37 10s. or more, about 229 paid less than £37 10s., and about 200 failed to pay anything." 1 It should be borne in mind that £37 10s. at that time was equivalent to at least 8750 of to-day. Besides these individuals, the list con- tains the companies of mercers, grocers, drapers, 1 Brown's Genesis, i. 228.
145
THE STARVING TIME.
fishmongers, vintners, brewers, masons, lawyers, fletchers, armourers, and others, - in all fifty-six companies of the city of London. Such a list, as well as the profusion of sermons and tracts on Virginia that were poured forth at the time, bespeaks a general interest in the enterprise. The Company was incorporated under the name of " The Treasurer and Company of Adventurers and Planters of the City of London for the First Colony in Virginia." Nothing was said about the Second Colony, so that by this charter the London Company was unyoked from the Plymouth Com- pany.
The jurisdiction of the reorganized London Company was to extend 200 miles south and 200 miles north of Old Point Comfort, which would not quite contain all of North Carolina but would easily include Maryland and Delaware. The gov- ernment of this region was vested in a The council in London.
supreme council sitting in London, the constitution of which was remarkable. Its meni- bers were at the outset appointed by the king, but all vacancies were thereafter to be filled by the vote of the whole body of 659 persons and 56 trade- guilds constituting the Company. The sole power of legislation for Virginia, with the right to appoint all colonial officers, was vested in the council. Besides thus exercising entire sovereignty over Vir- ginia, the Company was authorized to levy and col- lect enstom-house duties and even to wage war for purely defensive purposes. Thus this great corpo- ration was made virtually independent of Parlia- ment, with a representative government of its own.
146 OLD VIRGINIA AND HER NEIGHBOURS.
As for the local government in Virginia, it was entirely changed. The working of the local coun- The local cil with its elected president had been government. simply ludicrous. Two presidents had been deposed and sent home, while the councillors had done nothing but quarrel and threaten each other's lives, and one had been shot for mutiny, Order and quiet had not been attained until Presi- dent Smith became autocratic, after the other members of the council had departed or died. Now the new charter abolished the local council, and the direct rule was to be exercised by a gov- ernor with autocratic power over the settlers, but responsible to the supreme council in London, by which he was appointed.
For the Company as thus reorganized the two most important executive offices were filled by admirable appointments. The treasurer was the eminent merchant Sir Thomas Smith, of whom some account has already been given. For gov- ernor of Virginia the council appointed
Thomas, Thomas West, third Baron Delaware, Lord
Delaware. whose younger brother, Francis West, we have seen helping John Smith to browbeat the Indians at Werowocomoco and Pamunkey. This
Lord Delaware belonged to a family distinguished for public service. On the mother's side he was nearly related to Queen Elizabeth. In America he is forever identified with the history of Virginia, and he has left a name to one of our great rivers. to a very interesting group of Indians, and to one of the smallest states in our Union. With New England, too, he has one link of association ; for
147
THE STARVING TIME.
his sister, Penelope West, married Herbert Pel- ham, and their son was the first treasurer of Har- vard College. Thomas West, born in 1577, was educated at Oxford, served with distinction in the Netherlands, and was knighted for bravery in 1599. He succeeded to the barony of Delaware in 1602, and was a member of the Privy Council of Elizabeth and James I. No one was more warmly enlisted than he in the project of founding Protestant English colonies in the New World. To this cause he devoted himself with ever grow- ing enthusiasm, and when the London Company was remodelled he was appointed governor of Vir- ginia for life. With him were associated the sturdy soldier, Sir Thomas Gates, as lieutenant- governor, and the old sea rover, Sir George Somers, as admiral.
The spring of 1609 was spent in organizing a new expedition, while Smith and his weary follow- 'ers were struggling with the damage wrought by rats. People out of work were attracted by the communistic programme laid down by the Com- pany. The shares were rated at about $300 each, to use our modern figures, and emigration to Virginia entitled the emigrant to one share. So far as needful the proceeds of the enter-
prise " were to be spent upon the settle- istic pro- gramme.
ment, and the surplus was either to be divided or funded for seven years. During that period the settlers were to be maintained at the expense of the Company, while all the product of their labours was to be cast into the common1 stock. At the end of that time every shareholder
A commun-
148 OLD VIRGINIA AND HER NEIGHBOURS.
was to receive a grant of land in proportion to his stock held."1 Doubtless the prospects of be- coming a shareholder in a great speculative enter- prise, and of being supported by the Company, must have seemed alluring to many people in difficult circumstances. At all events, some 500 people - men, women, and children - were got together. A fleet of nine ships, with ample sup- plies, was entrusted to Newport, and in his ship, the Sea Venture, were Gates and Somers, who were to take the colony under their personal su- pervision. Lord Delaware remained in London, planning further developments of the enterprise. Three more trusty men he could hardly have sent out. But a strange fate was knocking at the door.
On the first of June, 1609, the fleet set sail and took the route by the Azores. Toward the end of July, as they were getting within a week's sail of the American coast, the ships were "caught in the tail of a hurricane," one of them was sunk. and Wreck of the the Sea Venture was separated from all Sea Venture. the rest. That gallant ship was sorely shaken and torn, so that for five days the crew toiled steadily in relays, pumping and baling. while the water seemed to be gaining upon them. Many of the passengers abandoned themselves to despair and to rum, or, as an eye-witness tells us. " some of them. having good and comfortable waters in the ship, fetched them and drank one to the other, taking their last leave one of the other until their more joyful and happy meeting in a
1 .Doyle's Virginia, p. 128.
149
THE STARVING TIME.
more blessed world." 1 The company were saved by the skill and energy of the veteran Somers, who for three days and nights never once left the quar- ter-deck. At length land was sighted, and pres- ently the Sea Venture was driven violently aground and wedged immovable between two rocks, a shat- tered wreck. But all her people, a hundred and fifty or so, were saved, and most of their gear was brought away.
The island on which they were wrecked was one of a group the early history of which is shrouded in strange mystery. If my own solution of, an obseure problem is to be trusted, these islands had once a fierce cannibal population, whose first white visitors, Vincent Pinzon and Americus Vespucius, landed among them on St. Bernard's day in August, 1498, and carried off more than 200 slaves.2 Hence the place was called St. Bernard's archipelago, but on crudely glimmering maps went wide astray and soon lost its identity. The In 1522 a Spanish captain, Juan Ber- Bermudas. mudez, happened to land there and his name has remained. But in the intervening years Spanish slave-hunters from San Domingo had infested those islands and reaped and gleaned the harvest of heathen flesh till no more was to be had. The ruthless cannibals were extirpated by the more ruthless seekers for gold, and when Bermudez stopped there he found no human inhabitants, but only swine running wild, a sure witness to the
1 Plain Description of the Bermudas, p. 10; apud Force, vol
2 See my Discovery of America, ii. 59.
150 OLD VIRGINIA AND HER NEIGHBOURS.
recent presence of Europeans. Then for nearly a century the unvisited spot was haunted by the echoes of a frightful past, wild traditions of ghoul- ish orgies and infernal strife. But the kidnapper's work in which these vague notions originated was so soon forgotten that when the Sea Venture was wrecked those islands were believed to have been from time immemorial uninhabited. Sailors shunned them as a scene of abominable sorceries, Otherwise and called them the Isles of Demons. they were known simply by the Spanish skipper's name as the Bermoothes, afterward more com- pletely anglicized into Bermudas. From the soil of those foul goblin legends, that shuddering remi- niscence of inexpiable crime, the potent sorcery of genius has reared one of the most exquisitely beautiful, ethereally delicate works of human fancy that the world has ever seen. The wreck of the Sea Venture suggested to Shakespeare many hints for the Tempest, which was written within the next two years and performed before the king in 1611. It is not that these islands were con- ceived as the scene of the comedy; the command to Ariel to go and "fetch dew from the still-vexed Bermoothes" seems enough to show that Pros- pero's enchanted isle was elsewhere, doubtless in some fairy universe hard by the Mediterranean. But from the general conception of monsters of the isle down to such incidents as the flashing light on the shrouds of the ship, it is clear that Shakespeare made use of Strachey's narrative of the wreck of the Sea Venture, published in 1610.
Gates and Somers found the Isles of Demons
151
THE STARVING TIME.
far pleasanter than their reputation, and it was well for them that it was so, for they were obliged to stay there nearly ten months, while with timber freshly cut and with bolts and beams from the wreck the party town, May, 1610.
Arrival of the pinnaces at James-
built two pinnaces which they named Patience and Deliverance. They laid in ample stores of salted pork and fish, traversed the 700 miles of ocean in a fortnight, and arrived at Jamestown on the 10th of May, 1610. The spec- tacle that greeted them was enough to have ap- palled the stoutest heart. To explain it in a few words, we must go back to August, 1609, when the seven ships that had weathered the storm arrived in Virginia and landed their 300 or more passengers, known in history as the Third Supply.
Since the new dignitaries and all their official documents were in the Bermuda wreck, there was no one among the new-comers in Virginia competent to succeed Smith in the gov- Arrival of the Third Supply, ernment, but the mischief-makers, Rat- August, 1609.
cliffe and Archer, were unfortunately among them, and the former instantly called upon Smith to abdieate in his favour. He had per- suaded many of the new-comers to support him, but the old settlers were loyal to Smith, and there was much confusion until the latter arrested Rat -. cliffe as a disturber of the peace. The quality of the new emigration was far inferior to the older. The older settlers were mostly gentlemen of char- acter ; of the new ones far too many were shiftless vagabonds, or, as Smith says, " unruly gallants, packed thither by their friends to escape ill desti-
152 OLD VIRGINIA AND HER NEIGHBOURS.
nies." They were sure to make trouble, but for a while Smith held them in check. The end of his stay in Virginia was, however, approach-
Smith re-
turns to ing. He was determined to find some
England,
better site for a colony than the low
October,
1609. marshy Jamestown ; so in September he sailed up to the Indian village called Powhatan and bought of the natives a tract of land in that neigh- bourhood near to where Richmond now stands, - a range of hills, salubrious and defensible, with so fair a landscape that Smith called the place Nonesuch. On the way back to Jamestown a bag of gunpowder in his boat exploded and wounded him so badly that he was completely disabled. The case demanded such surgery as Virginia could not furnish, and as the ships were sailing for Eng- land early in October he went in one of them. He seems also to have welcomed this opportunity of answering sundry charges brought against him by the Ratcliffe faction. Some flying squirrels were sent home to amuse King James.1
The arrival of the ships in England, with news of the disappearance of the Sea Venture and the
Lord Dela- danger of anarchy in Virginia, alarmed
ware sails for Virginia, Lord Delaware, and he resolved to go
April, 1610. as soon as possible and take command of his colony. About the first of April he set sail with about 150 persons, mostly mechanics. He had need to make all haste. Jamestown had be- come a pandemonium. Smith left George Percy in command, but that excellent gentleman was in poor health and unable to exert much authority.
1 Neill's Virginia Company, p. 32.
153
THE STARVING TIME.
There were now 500 mouths to be filled, and the stores of food diminished with portentous rapid- ity. The " unruly gallants " got into trouble with the Indians, who soon responded after their man- ner. They slaughtered the settlers' hogs for their own benefit, and they murdered the settlers them- selves when opportunity was offered. The worth- less Ratcliffe and thirty of his men were slain at one fell swoop while they were at the Pamunkey village, trading with The Powhatan.1 As the frosts and snows came more shelter was needed than the cabins already built could furnish. Many died of the cold. The approach of spring saw the last supplies of food consumed, and famine began to claim its victims. Soon there came to be more houses than occupants, and as fast as one was emptied by death it was torn down for firewood. Even palisades were stripped from their frame- work and thrown into the blaze, for cold was a nearer foe than the red men. The latter Horrible sufferings.
watched the course of events with say-
age glee, and now and then, lurking in the neigh- bourhood, shot flights of arrows tipped with death. A gang of men stole one of the pinnaces, armed her heavily, and ran out to sca, to help themselves by piracy. After the last basket of corn had been devoured, people lived for a while on roots and herbs, after which they had recourse to cannibal- ism. The corpse of a slain Indian was boiled and eaten. Then the starving company began cooking their own dead. One man killed his wife and
1 See Spelman's account of the affair, in Smith's Works. pp. cii .- cv.
154 OLD VIRGINIA AND HER NEIGHBOURS.
salted her, and had eaten a considerable part of her body before he was found out. This was too much for people to endure ; the man was tied to a stake and burned alive. Such were the goings on in that awful time, to which men long afterward alluded as the Starving Time. No wonder that one poor wretch, crazed with agony, cast his Bible into the fire, crying " Alas ! there is no God."
When Smith left the colony in October, it num- bered about 500 souls. When Gates and Somers and Newport arrived from the Bermudas in May, they found a haggard remnant of 60 all told, men. women, and children scarcely able to totter about the ruined village, and with the gleam of madness in their eyes. The pinnaces brought food for their relief, but with things in such a state there was no use in trying to get through the summer. The provisions in store would not last a month. The three brave captains consulted together and decided, with tears in their eyes, that Virginia must be abandoned. Since Raleigh first began, Virginia every attempt had ended in miserable
abandoned. failure, and this last calamity was the most crushing of all. What hope could there be that North America would ever be colonized ? What men could endure more than had been en- dured already ? It was decided to go up to the Newfoundland fishing stations and get fish there, and then cross to England. On Thursday the 7th of June, 1610, to the funereal roll of drums, the cabins were stripped of such things as could be carried away, and the doleful company went aboard the pinnaces, weighed anchor, and started
155
THE STARVING TIME.
down the river. As the arching trees at James- town .receded from the view and the sombre si- lence of the forest settled over the deserted spot, it seemed indeed that " earth's paradise," Virginia, the object of so much longing, the scene of so much fruitless striving. was at last abandoned to its native Indians. But it had been otherwise de- creed. That night a halt was made at Mulberry Island, and next morning the voyage was re- sumed. Toward noonday, as the little ships were speeding their way down the ever widening river, a black speck was seen far below on the Arrival of broad waters of Hampton Roads, and Lord Dela- ware. June 8, 1610.
every eye was strained. It was no red
man's canoe. It was a longboat. Yes, Heaven te praised ! the governor's own longboat with a mes- sage. His three well-stocked ships had passed Point Comfort, and he himself was with them !
Despair gave place to exultant hope, words of gratitude and congratulation were exchanged, and the prows were turned up-stream. On Sunday the three staunch captains stood with their fol- lowers drawn up in military array before the dis- mantled ruins of Jamestown, while Lord Delaware stepped from his boat, and, falling upon his knees on the shore, lifted his hands in prayer, thanking God that he had come in time to save Virginia.
CHAPTER V.
BEGINNINGS OF A COMMONWEALTH.
OF late years there has been some discussion as to which of the flowers or plants indigenous to the New World might most properly be selected as a national emblem for the United States of Amer- ica, and many persons have expressed a preference for that most beautiful of cereals, Indian
Indian corn. corn. Certainly it would be difficult to overrate the historie importance of this plant. Of the part which it played in aboriginal America I have elsewhere treated.1 To the first English set- tlers it was of vital consequence. But for Indian corn the company of Pilgrims at Plymouth would have succumbed to famine, like so many other such little colonies. The settlers at Jamestown depended npon corn from the outset, and when the supply stopped the Starving Time came quickly. We can thus appreciate the value to the Pilgrims of the alli- ance with Massasoit, and to the Virginians of the amicable relations for some time maintained with The Powhatan. We are also furnished with the means of estimating the true importance of John Smith and his work in the first struggle of English
1 See my Discovery of America, i. 27, 28, and passim. For a national floral emblem. however, the columbine (aquilegia) has probably more points in its favour than any other.
BEGINNINGS OF A COMMONWEALTH. 157
civilization with the wilderness. Whether we sup- pose that Smith in his writings unduly exalts his own work or not, one thing is
Importance of Smith's work.
clear. It is impossible to read his nar- rative without recognizing the hand of a man su- premely competent to deal with barbarians. No such character as that which shines out through his pages could ever have been invented. To create such a man by an effort of imagination would have been far more difficult than to be such a man. One of the first of Englishmen to deal with Indians, he had no previous experience to aid him; yet nowhere have the red men been more faithfully portrayed than in his pages, and one cannot fail to note this unrivalled keenness of ob- servation, which combined with rare sagacity and coolness to make him always say and do the right things at the right times. These qualities kept the Indians from hostility and made them purveyors to the needs of the little struggling colony.
Besides these qualities Smith had others which marked him out as a natural leader of men. His . impulsiveness and plain speaking, as well as his rigid enforcement of discipline, made him some bitter enemies, but his comrades in general spoke of him in terms of strong admiration and devo- tion. His nature was essentially noble, and his own words bear witness to it, as in the Nobility of his nature. following exhortation : "Seeing we are not born for ourselves, but each to help other, and our abilities are much alike at the hour of our birth and the minute of our death : seeing our good deeds and our bad, by faith in Christ's merits, is
158 OLD VIRGINIA AND HER NEIGHBOURS.
all we have to carry our souls to heaven or to hell ; seeing honour is our lives' ambition, and our am- bition after death to have an honourable memory of our life ; and seeing by no means we would be abated of the dignities and glories of our prede- cessors, let us imitate their virtues to be worthily their successors." So wrote the man of whom Thomas Fuller quaintly said that he had "a prince's heart in a beggar's purse," and to whom one of his comrades, a survivor of the Starv- ing Time, afterward paid this touching tribute : " Thus we lost him that in all our proceedings made justice his first guide, . . . ever hating base- ness, sloth, pride, and indignity more than any dangers; that never allowed more for himself than his soldiers with him ; that upon no danger would send them where he would not lead them himself ; that would never see us want what he either had or could by any means get us; that would rather want than borrow, or starve than not pay ; that loved action more than words, and hated falsehood and covetousness worse than death ; whose adven- tures were our lives and whose loss our deaths." 1
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.