USA > Virginia > Virginia, a history of the people > Part 7
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This is, however, purely conjecture ; other proofs of the truth of the incident seem unassailable. Soon after Smith's return, Pocahontas, a girl of thirteen, made her appearance at Jamestown bringing food, and she contin- ued from that time onward to do all in her power to as- sist the colonists. When some Indians were arrested by Smith, Powhatan sent Pocahontas to intercede for them, and they were released at once " for her sake only." It is necessary to account for these incidents, especially for the interest felt by Pocahontas in the enemies of her people. It can only be accounted for on the ground that she took a deep interest in Smith. His own affec- tionate attachment for her is fully established. When she visited London, he wrote to the Queen, recommend- ing her to the royal favor, on the ground that she had saved his life and the life of the colony also. He declared that she had "hazarded the beating out of her brains to save his ; " and if the statement was untrue, Pocahontas, a pious and truthful person, countenanced a falsehood. On other occasions Smith referred to the incidents of his life in Virginia as occurrences to which Captain George Percy, and "other noble gentlemen and resolute spirits now living in England," could testify. In his " New England Trials," he wrote, " God made Poca- hontas, the King's daughter, the means to deliver me;" and the " General History " contained only the fuller account of an event which had thus been repeatedly re- ferred to. The only intelligible objection to the truth of the incident rests on the theory that Smith was a wander- ing adventurer, and invented it to attract attention to him- self as the hero of a romantic event. The reply is that he was not, in any sense, a wandering adventurer, since he enjoyed the favor of the heir-apparent, afterwards
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FIRST AMERICAN RULER AND WRITER.
Charles I., and had been commissioned by James I. Admiral of New England.
Other objections to the truth of the narrative con- tributed by Smith to the "General History " refer to points of the least possible importance - the amount of food and the number of guides supplied him by the In- dians. It is not necessary to notice them. It may be said that the Pocahontas incident rests upon the highest moral evidence, and that the assailants of the " General History " have in no degree discredited it. It remains the original authority for the first years of American history, and Smith's character has not suffered, except in the estimation of a few critics, who seem to feel a personal enmity toward him.
His writings will be spoken of elsewhere. They bear the impress of the voyager and soldier, and, it may be added, of an earnest Christian man. It is diffi- cult to find more serious and noble writing than some passages in his books. The rude sentences rise to the height of eloquence, and he exhorts his contemporaries to noble achievements in noble words.
"Seeing we are not born for ourselves, but each to help other," he says, " and our abilities are much alike at the hour of our birth and the minute of our death ; seeing our good deeds or our bad, by faith in Christ's merits, is all we have to carry our souls to heaven or to hell ; seeing honor is our lives' ambition, and our ambition after death to have an lionorable memory of our life ; and seeing by no means we would be abated of the dig- nities and glories of our predecessors, let us imitate their virtues to be worthily their successors."
Such writing is irreconcilable with the theory that Smith was merely a rough fighting man. The noble
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maxim, " We are not born for ourselves, but each to help other," might have done honor to the most pious of the English bishops. What the soldier insists upon is the duty of love and charity - that men should not look to themselves and their own profit, but to the good of their neighbors. Faith in Christ, he says, is the main thing, and the next is to leave an honorable memory behind us. He elaborates his thought, and urges a life of noble action as the only life worth living.
" Who would live at home idly," he exclaims, "or think in himself any worth to live only to eat, drink, and sleep, and so die; or by consuming that carelessly his friends got worthily; or by using that miserably that maintained virtue honestly ; or for being descended nobly, and pine, with the vain vaunt of great kindred, in penury ; or to maintain a silly show of bravery, toil out thy heart, soul, and time basely by shifts, tricks, cards, and dice; . . . offend the laws, surfeit with excess, burthen thy country, abuse thyself, despair in want, . . . though thou seest what honors and rewards the world yet hath for them that will seek them and worthily de- serve them."
And elsewhere we come upon this earnest passage, which appeals directly to the men of our own time - to Americans fretting under the cares and poverty of the older settlements, and to men of every nationality flocking to the shores of the Continent to establish new homes for themselves and their families : -
" Who can desire more content that hath small means, or but only his merits to advance his fortunes, than to tread and plant that ground he hath purchased by the hazard of his life? If he have but the taste of virtue and magnanimity, what to such 'a mind can be more
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pleasant than planting and building a foundation for his posterity, got from the rude earth by God's blessing and his own industry, without prejudice to any?"
This is the spirit of the American of to-day, - the pioneer who goes West to build a new home for his family in the wilderness. Smith tells his contempo- raries that the rude earth shall not daunt the man with that spirit in him. By God's blessing and his own in- dustry, without prejudice to any, a home for wife and little ones shall rise in the new land ; new societies will be founded, new States built up in the wilds ; and his words are almost a prophecy of the future United States. " What so truly suits with honor and honesty as the dis- covering things unknown," he says, "erecting towns, peopling countries, informing the ignorant, reforming things unjust, teaching virtue and gain to our native mother country . . . so far from wronging any as to cause posterity to remember thee, and, remembering thee, ever honor that remembrance with praise."
Thus, in the voice of the soldier-voyager of the seven- teenth century, speaks the man of the last half of the nineteenth. The new life awaits them ; they have only to set out with good heart to find it. They are poor and humble; they will be rich and powerful. They are wasting with ignoble cares; they will prosper and be happy. It is the dream of the modern world, and al- ready filled the mind of this man of the age of Eliza- beth. He adds a last exhortation. What could " a man with faith in religion do more agreeable to God than to seek to convert these poor savages to Christ and hu- manity " ?
It is impossible that this phrase, " Christ and human- ity " could have been written by a charlatan. And if
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we doubt the real character of this man, who is repre- sented as "a Gascon and a beggar," the full - length portrait drawn of him by one of his associates ought to set the doubt at rest. "Thus we lost him," says the chronicle, " that in all our proceedings made justice his first guide, and experience his second; ever hating baseness, 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 adventures were our lives and whose loss our deaths."
XIII.
VIRGINIA ABANDONED.
WHEN Smith sailed away from Virginia, in the month of September, 1609, Jamestown was a straggling as- semblage of fifty or sixty houses. They were built of wood, some of them two stories in height, with roofs of boards, or mats, or reed thatch. There was a church and a store-house - the whole inclosed by a palisade of strong logs, fifteen feet in height. At the neck of the peninsula was a fort, with cannon mounted on platforms ; in rear the forest, where dusky shadows flitted to and fro ; and in front the broad river flowing to the sea, toward which the straining eyes had so often been directed in search of the white sails coming from the home land.
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There were two hundred fighting men trained in In- dian warfare, and, in all, nearly five hundred men, women, and children in the settlement. There seemed to be no reason why they should feel apprehension. They had a sufficiency of provisions if they were only used judiciously ; five or six hundred hogs, horses, sheep, and goats ; fishing nets and working tools, three ships, seven boats, twenty cannon, three hundred mus- kets, swords, and pikes, and a full supply of ammuni- tion. It really seemed that the Virginia colony had taken root at last ; and we may fancy the men, women, and children of the little society going to and fro, in and out of the palisade, busy at their occupations or assembling at their devotions, talking of England, no doubt, and regretting the dear home over the sea, but thankful that their lot is cast in this beautiful land of Virginia.
Only one thing was wanting in the bright fall days at Jamestown, but that want was serious, -it was a head. There had been up to this time a very strong head in the colony to direct affairs, a man of real brains, who loved action more than words, and hated sloth worse than death. He had disappeared now, and there was no one to take his place. The old hatreds of the factions still smouldered, and the new President could not control them. Percy was a man of approved courage and character, but he was not a man of energy, and his health was feeble. Smith's sure eyes had fore- cast the future when he objected to surrendering his authority to him. The motley crew, ready to break out at any moment, required a strong hand to control them ; and the hand holding the reins was that of an amiable invalid, who asked nothing better than to be permitted to return to England.
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Percy found the work before him too much for his strength. The colony of Jamestown had become a little kingdom, with outlying dependencies, at the Falls of James River, Old Point Comfort, and elsewhere. These all looked to the central authority for supplies of pro- visions and protection against the Indians; and the central authority was in the hands of one without the health to exercise it. Events hastened; the prospect before the colony began to grow gloomy. The disso- lution of societies is rapid when it once begins. Like the pace of runaway horses it soon grows headlong, and the crash comes. The Indians saw their opportu- nity, and " no sooner understood Smith was gone, but they all revolted, and did spoil and murther all they en- countered." Martin's men, at Nansemond, and West's, at the Falls, were attacked, and retreated to Jamestown ; and Ratcliffe's career ended in sudden tragedy. He went to visit Powhatan, on the York, with thirty com- panions, and used no precautions. Smith had escaped, Ratcliffe perished. He was killed with his whole party, except one man and a boy, who were saved by Pocahon- tas. So the long intrigues of this old disturber of the peace came to an end. He had been an agitator from first to last ; an impostor down to his name, for his real name was Sicklemore; and Raphe Hamor wrote his epi- taph in a few pithy words. He was "not worth re- membering, but to his dishonor."
Having begun thus auspiciously, Powliatan resolved to continue the war in earnest. He had remonstrated pathetically with the " rash youth " Smith for troubling his old age, but the rash youth was gone now, and af- fairs had suddenly changed their aspect. " We all found the loss of Captain Smith," says one of the contempo-
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rary writers ; " yea, his greatest maligners could now curse his loss;" and Beverley, the old historian, says, " as soon as he left them to themselves all went to ruin." It was plain that the Indians fully realized the state of things at Jamestown, for a bitter hostility sud- denly took the place of their old friendship.
As the days passed on, the disorder increased, and the dissolution became more rapid. Percy was now " so sick that he could neither go nor stand ; " Ratcliffe was a corpse on the bank of York River; and West, in despair, sailed for England. Then, with every pass- ing hour, the prospect grew darker. There was no au- thority anywhere, though " twenty Presidents " claimed it. Thirty men ran off with one of the vessels, and be- came buccaneers. Utter hopelessness took possession of those left behind. Every day death was in some house, and when the owner was buried the house was torn down for firewood. Even the palisades were burned, and the open gates swung to and fro in the winter wind. Men, women, and children were starv- ing, and had lost all fear of Indian assaults. The sup- plies were exhausted; "hogs, hens, goats, sheep, or what lived, all was devoured." When parties went to the savages, piteously beseeching succor, they re- ceived " mortal wounds with clubs and arrows." They were forced to subsist on roots and acorns, and the skins of horses. At last they became cannibals. An Indian was killed and buried, but " the poorer sort took him up again and ate him, and so did divers one an- other, boiled and stewed with roots and herbs." The "common kettel," in these days, was a fearful cauldron ; the fumes of boiling human flesh ascended from it. All ties were sundered by the sharp edge of mortal famine.
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A man killed his wife, and had eaten part of the body before he was discovered. He was burned to death for his horrible deed, but that did not help matters much. Dire famine was stronger than the fear of death. The colony was tottering on the very verge of destruction. " This was that time," the chronicle says, "which, still to this day, we call the Starving Time."
The horrors of this terrible period are summed up in a simple statement. Nearly five hundred persons had been left in the colony in September, and six months afterwards " there remained not past sixty men, women, and children, most miserable and poor creatures." Of the whole number, five hundred, more than four hundred had perished, - dead of starvation, or slain by the In- dian hatchet.
In the last days of May (1610), this is what might have been seen at Jamestown : a group of men, women, and children huddled together behind the dismantled pali- sade, the faces pale, the forms emaciated, the thin lips uttering moans or stifled cries for food. The end was near ; " this, in ten days more, would have supplanted us with death." But help was coming. The last agony was near, when sails were seen approaching, and doubt- less a shrill, wild cry of joy and amazement rose from the throng, and mothers caught their children close to their bosoms, and sobbed over them, thanking God for mercy and succor.
The ships were the Patience and Deliverance from Bermuda. The good Admiral Somers and Sir Thomas Gates had come in their " cedar ship " to bring help to these poor people, shipwrecked in the wilderness, as they had been shipwrecked on the "Isles of Devils." They had arrived just in time : in a few days the Virginia
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VIRGINIA ABANDONED. 81
colony would have perished of famine ; but " God, that would not this country should be unplanted," sent them deliverance in the shape of the Deliverance ship.
Gates and Somers cast anchor, and at once went on shore. The shipwrecked looked at the shipwrecked. Jamestown was a scene of desolation. The torn-down palisades, the gates creaking on rusty hinges, the dis- mantled houses, the emaciated faces, the hungry eyes and babbling voices, scarce able to articulate the prayer to be taken home to die, - these were the piteous sights and sounds which greeted Sir Thomas Gates and the Admiral, as they landed from their cedar ship and looked and listened, in the midst of the dreary throng gather- ing around them on the shore. All was over for the Virginia colony, it seemed. Even the stout souls who had braved the storm in the Sea-Venture without los- ing hope lost it now. Heavy-hearted and despairing at finding famine where they had expected abundance, Gates and Somers, who had provisions for only fourteen days, resolved to sail for England by way of the New- foundland fishing settlements, and take the wretched remnant of the colony with them. The cannon and other arms were buried at the gate of the fort, and on the 7th of June the drums rolled, giving the signal to embark .. At the signal the disorderly crowd hastened towards the ships. It was only with great difficulty that they were prevented from destroying the last traces of the settlement. The place was about to be set fire to, but " God, who did not intend that this excellent country should be abandoned," says the old historian Stith, " put it into the heart of Sir T. Gates to save it." Gates remained on shore with a party of men to pre- serve order, and was the last man to step into the boat 6
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Then a volley was fired, the sails were spread, and the Patience and Deliverance, with two other ships con- taining the colonists, sailed away toward England.
Such had been the result of the long, hard struggle to found an English colony in the New World. Hun- dreds of thousands of pounds had been expended and hundreds of lives lost in the effort, and now, after three long years of trial, a little band of starving men, wo- men, and children were sailing homeward, leaving be- hind them at Jamestown only a few dismantled cabins to show that the place had been once inhabited. Virginia had been abandoned ; but a joyful surprise was near. On the next morning the little fleet of four small vessels was about to continue its way from Mulberry Island, in James River, where it had anchored for the night, when a row-boat was seen coming up the river toward them. It brought them joyful intelligence. Lord Dela- ware had arrived with three vessels from England ; had heard at the lower settlement that the colony was about to be deserted ; and had sent his long-boat with dis- patches directing Gates and Somers to return to James- town, where he would soon join them.
Such was the curiously dramatic event which pre- vented the New World from being abandoned in 1610 by the English. If a writer of fiction had invented the incident it would have been criticised as the most im- probable of fancies. The fleet under Delaware arrived in the waters of Virginia at the very moment when the fleet under Gates and Somers was about to disappear ; and an old writer, relating these events, bursts forth into exclamations of thanks and praise for " the Lord's infinite goodness." Never had poor people more cause to cast themselves at his "very footstool." They were
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saved by a direct interposition of his providence. "If they had set sail sooner and launched into the vast ocean, who would have promised that they should en- counter the fleet of the Lord La Warre? If the Lord La Warre had not brought with him a year's provisions, what comfort would these poor souls have received to have been re-landed to a second destruction ? This was the arm of the Lord of Hosts, who would have his people pass the Red Sea and Wilderness, and then to possess the land of Canaan."
On the next morning, which was Sunday (June 10, 1610), Lord Delaware landed at the south gate of the fort, where Gates had drawn up his men to receive liim. As soon as the new Governor touched the shore he knelt down, and remained for some moments in prayer. He then rose and went to the church, where service was held and a sermon preached ; after which he deliv- ered an address, encouraging the colonists.
Events had followed each other like scenes on the stage of a theatre. The curtain had slowly descended on the desolate picture of the abandoned colony, and now it again rose on a busy and bustling scene, - on the shore thronged with hundreds of persons, the devout worshipers kneeling in the church, and Lord Delaware announcing to the assembled people that all was well. In the space of three days the Virginia colony had per- ished and come to life again.
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XIV.
THE LORD DE LA WARRE.
VIRGINIA under Lord Delaware was a very different place from Virginia under the "rule or ruin " people, Ratcliffe, and the rest. All the turmoil had suddenly disappeared. Jamestown was a scene of tranquillity, and a well -ordered society had succeeded the social chaos. A stable government had all at once taken the place of that wretched mockery of an executive - the old wrangling council. Lord Delaware, Governor and Captain - General of Virginia, ruled now, and he had power to make his authority respected. This power was practically unhampered. He was to obey the in- structions of the Company, if they chose to send him any ; but if none were sent he was to govern at his discretion, under the charter. In any time of emer- gency he was not to await orders from England. He was to strike, and strike quickly; to declare martial law, and put down wrong-doers with the sword or the halter.
It was a wholesome state of things for a community lately a prey to the "unruly gallants," shouting and wrangling in the streets, drinking at the tavern, and making the days and nights hideous with their wild uproar. A single glance showed the gallants that the new ruler was their master. Lord Delaware kept the state of a viceroy. He had his Privy Council: his Lieutenant-General, Sir Thomas Gates ; his Admiral, Sir George Somers ; his Vice-Admiral, Captain New- port ; and his Master of the Horse, Sir Ferdinand Wy-
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man. It was an imposing simulacrum of royalty, a lit- tle court in the wilderness. Some of the old soldiers of Smith, no doubt resenting the wrong done him, looked sidewise at the fine pageant. "This tender state of Virginia," one of them growled, " was not grown to that maturity to maintain such state and pleasures as was fit for a personage with such brave and great at- tendance. To have more to wait and play than work, or more commanders and officers than industrious laborers, was not so necessary. For in Virginia," adds the grim critic, "a plain soldier that can use a pickaxe and spade is better than five knights that could break a lance." It was the old protest of Smith, who said " nothing was to be expected from Virginia but by labor." Give us working-men, not drones - laboring people in good fustian jackets, rather than fine gentlemen in silk and lace !
So the old settlers growled at my Lord Delaware, that " man of approved courage, temper, and experience, distinguished for his virtues and his generous devotion to the welfare of the colony." He was wiser than the critics. This splendor of which they complained had its advantages - it made his authority respected. The unruly gallants had due notice, and Delaware was never forced to proclaim martial law. He imposed and regu- lated. The colonists were ordered to go to work, and they went. The hours of labor were fixed, and were from six to ten in the morning, and from two to four in the afternoon. At ten and four the bells rang, when labor ceased, and the settlers attended religious ser- vices in the church. Thus all in the Virginia colony was well ordered at last.
1 The scenes at this old Jamestown church are painted
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for us in the chronicles. It was a building sixty feet long and twenty-four feet wide, which had narrowly escaped burning when the colony was abandoned. Lord Delaware at once repaired it, and would have it deco- rated with flowers. The pews and chancel were of ce- dar, the communion table of black walnut. There was a baptismal font and a lofty pulpit; and at the west end were hung two bells. This was the first church edifice worthy of the name erected in America. All about it was plain and decorous, unless exception be taken to the presence of the flowers. The old Virginians did not object to them. They certainly were not papists, and had no intention of ever becoming such, but God had made the spring blooms, they were among the most beautiful of his creations, and it was fit that they should deck his temple. So, at least, there is a prec- edent for the poor flowers which to-day arouse so much enmity.
Worthy Lord Delaware set the example of respect for religion by regularly attending the church services. He went in full dress at the ringing of the bells, at- tended by the Lieutenant-General, the Admiral, Vice- Admiral, Master of the Horse, and the rest of his Council, with a guard of fifty halberd-bearers in red cloaks marching behind him. He sat in the choir in a green velvet chair, and had a velvet cushion to kneel upon. The Council were ranged in state on his right and left ; and when the services were over, the Gov- ernor, his dignitaries, and halberd-bearers all returned with the same ceremony to their quarters. It was a very great contrast indeed to the rude old times, when the colonists worshiped under "a rotten sail ;" when the services were in danger of interruption by a burst
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