Chapter XVII: ```Virginia, hail! Thou venerable state (2)

Soon after leaving Sherwood Forest, I entered a low, wet region, covered with pines, called the _slashes_. These extended to the banks of the Chickahominy, a distance of seven miles; and in all that journey, without a clearing to cheer the eye, I saw no living thing, except an occasional "wild boar of the wood," a dwarf breed of hogs which inhabit this dreary region. Here, where once broad fields were smiling with culture-blessings, and this road, now almost a quagmire, but fifty years ago was one of the finest highways in Virginia, wild deers and turkeys abound, as if the land was a primeval wilderness. It was a sad commentary upon the past husbandry of Virginia, and a sadder picture of the inevitable result of the present bad husbandry which prevails in many regions of the South. Year after year the tillers make constant drafts upon the vitality of the soil without an ounce of compensating manure, until all fertility is exhausted. I saw thousands of acres in the course of my journey, where tillage had levied its withering taxes until the generous soil could no longer yield its tithe, nor even its hundredth. The earth was completely covered with "poverty grass," dwarf pines, or stately forests of the same tree, patiently renewing its strength during a long Sabbath-rest of abandonment by man.

It was at meridian when I emerged from the wilderness and halted upon the high sandbank of the Chickahominy, a few miles above its confluence with the James River. Above, all appeared bright and beautiful; below, all was gloomy and desolate. Silence reigned here, where once the busy ferryman plied his oars from morning until night. No voice was to be heard; no human habitation was to be seen. The broad and turbid river moved sluggishly on without a ripple, and on the beach a scow, half filled with water, told only of desolation. There appeared no way for me to cross the stream. If denied that privilege, I must make a circuit of thirty miles' travel to a public crossing above! I looked for the smoke of a dwelling, but saw none. I shouted; there was no response but that of echo. Remembering that, just before reaching the clearing upon the Chickahominy, I saw a road, covered with leaves, diverging toward the James River, I returned, reined into it, and followed it with hope. Presently I saw a log hut upon the shore, and heard the voices of men. They were negroes, busily preparing a canoe for a fishing excursion. I inquired for a ferryman, and was informed that nobody crossed now, and the scow would not float. Two of the men speedily changed their opinion when I offered a bright half dollar to each if they would "bail out" the craft and "pole" me across. They worked faithfully, and within half an hour I was embarked upon the stream, with my horse and vehicle, in a shell just long enough and broad enough to contain us. To keep Charley quiet, so as to "trim the boat," I allowed him to dine upon some oats which I procured at Charles City Court House. The Chickahominy is here about a quarter of a mile wide. The current was quite strong, and so deep, that the poles, by which the bateau was impelled, were sometimes too short for use. We drifted some distance down the stream, and, at one time, I anticipated an evening voyage upon the James River, but by the great exertions of the motive-power we reached the landing-place in safety, after rather a dangerous voyage of nearly three quarters of an hour. The bateau was again almost half filled with water, and the ferrymen were obliged to empty it before returning. I was too much occupied while crossing with apprehensions of an involuntary bath to reflect upon the perils which Captain John Smith encountered upon this very stream, before the empire of the white men had commenced; but when safely seated in my wagon upon the Jamestown side of the river, I looked with intense interest upon the wooded shores of those waters, up which that adventurer paddled. More than sixty miles above the place where I crossed he was captured by Opechancanough, the king of Pamunkee, and carried in triumph to Powhatan, at Werowocomoeo, where he was saved from death by the gentle Pocahontas. These events we shall consider presently.

I was now eight miles from old Jamestown, the goal of my day's journey. Hungry and thirsty, I was about entering another dreary region of _slashes_, five miles in extent, when I

[[[Green Spring and its Associations.--Distant View of Jamestown Island.--Changes in the River Banks.--Tradition.]]]

{446}saw a log hut on the verge of the woods. I hailed, but no person appeared, except a little child of six years, black as ebony, and having nothing on but its birth-day suit and a tattered shirt. It brought me a draught of cool water in a gourd from a spring near by. Dropping half a dime into the emptied shell, I pursued my way. Emerging from the _slashes_, I passed through a portion of the celebrated _Green Spring_ plantation, its mansion appearing among the trees on my left, half a mile distant. *

It is now in possession of two brothers, named Ward, formerly of New Jersey, who, for many years, as skippers upon the James River, bartered for the products of this plantation, until they were able to purchase it. _Green Spring_ was the theater of an interesting episode in our Revolutionary history, for there the American army, under La Fayette, Wayne, and Steuben, were encamped for a few days in the summer of 1781, while watching the movements and foiling the designs of Cornwallis in Virginia.

It was almost sunset when I passed the morass in front of _Green Spring_, over which the Americans crossed to the attack of Cornwallis at Jamestown Ford. I crossed the plantation of John Coke, Esq., and halted upon the shore of an estuary of the James River, at the cottage of Mr. Bacon, opposite Jamestown island. It was too late to visit the consecrated spot that evening. I sketched this distant view of the portion of the island where-

* This was the residence of Sir William Berkeley, one of the early governors of Virginia. It afterward belonged to Philip Ludwell, one of the king's council, from whom it descended to William Lee, sheriff of London under the celebrated John Wilkes.

** This view is from the north side of what was once a marsh, but now a deep bay, four hundred yards wide. On the left is seen the remains of a bridge, destroyed by a gale and high tide a few years ago; and beyond is the James River. Near the point of the island, toward the end of the bridge, are the remains of an ancient church, a near view of which is given upon the opposite page. Mr. Coke resided upon the island when the tempest occurred which destroyed the bridge. The island was submerged, and for three davs himself and family were prisoners. It was in winter, and he was obliged to cut the branches of ornamental trees that were close to his house, for fuel. I was gravely informed by a man on the beach, while making the sketch, that Pocahontas crossed at that very spot "in her skiff," when she went to warn the Jamestown settlers of threatened danger. The dear child had no need of a skiff, had such a thing existed in America, for I was told by Mr. Coke that his father-in-law well remembered when a marsh, so narrow and firm that a person might cross it upon a fence rail, was where the deep water at the ruined bridge now is. Every year the current of James River is changing its margins in this region, and within a few years Jamestown Island, made so only by a marsh on the land side, will have a navigable channel around it. Already a large portion of it, whereon the ancient town was ereeted, has been washed away; and I was informed that a cypress-tree, now many yards from the shore, stood at the end of a carriage-way to the wharf, sixty yards from the water's edge, only sixteen years ago. The destructive flood is gradually approaching the old church tower, and if the hand of man shall not arrest its sure progress, that too will be swept away, and not a vestige of Jamestown will remain. Virginians, look to it, and let a wall of masonry along the river margin attest your reverence for the most interesting historical relic within your borders! Some remains of the old fort may be seen at low water, several yards from the shore.

[[[Mr. Coke's Plantation.--The Council Tree.--Remains of Old Jamestown Church and Grave yard.]]]

{447}on the ancient city stood, and then returned to the mansion of Mr. Coke, (who is brother of the late Richard Coke, member of Congress from Accomac district), to pass the night under his roof, where I experienced true Virginia hospitality. Mr. Coke was for many years sheriff of the county, is an influential man, and an excellent practical agriculturist.

He owns a plantation of nineteen hundred acres, nearly one thousand of which is under cultivation. Unlike too many agriculturists of the South, he is his own general overseer, and his family of seventy persons (only eleven of whom are white), receive his daily personal care. He owns all the soil that is left unsubmerged on which the English built their first town in America. His house has many bullet-marks, made there during the battle at Jamestown Ford, on the 6th of July, 1781; and in the broad level field in front of his mansion, the French army was encamped when on its way to Yorktown the same year. Within that field a venerable chestnut-oak, riven, but not destroyed, by lightning, was yet standing, under which a court-martial was held by Cornwallis, and upon its branches a culprit was hanged. It is called the "Council Tree." Mr. Coke's plantation is truly classic ground, for upon it occurred events connected with those widely-separated incidents, the opening and the closing of the heroic age of America. Over it the lordly Powhatan once walked, and the feet of his gentle daughter pressed its soil when speeding on her mission of mercy to the doomed settlement of Jamestown. Over it the royal and republican armies marched, and there fought desperately for victory.

I was at Mr. Bacon's cottage soon after an early breakfast, and before nine o'clock had crossed the estuary in a punt, and sat within the shadow of the old church tower, which stands like a sentinel, watching the city of the dead at its feet. This crumbling pile, surrounded by shrubbery, brambles, and tangled vines; and the old church-yard wall, of English brick, inclosing a few broken monuments, half buried in earth or covered with a pall of ivy and long grass, are all the tangible records that remain of the first planting of an English colony in America. As I sat upon the hollow trunk of a half-reclining and decayed old sycamore, and sketched the broken tower, the questionings of the eloquent Wirt came up from the depth of feeling: "Whence, my dear S---- arises this irrepressible reverence and tender affection with which I look at this broken steeple?

* This view is from the old church-yard, looking toward James River, a glimpse of which may be seen through the arches. The stream is here about three miles wide. It is uncertain at what precise time the church, of which now only a portion of the tower remains, was erected. It was probably built sometime between 1617 and 1620. According to Smith, a fire consumed a large portion of the town, with the palisades, at about the close of 1607, the first year of the settlement. Captain Smith and Mr. Scrivener were appointed commissioners to superintend the rebuilding of the town and church. Afterward, in speaking of the arrival of Governor Argali in 1617, he says, "In James towne he found but five or six houses, the church downe, the pallizados broken, the bridge in pieces, the well of fresh water spoiled, the store-house used for the church," &c. The tower here represented was doubtless that of the third church built, and is now (1852) about 234 years old. The tower is now about thirty feet high, the walls three feet thick, all of imported brick.

[[[Wirt's Musings at the Church at Jamestown.--The Ancient Monuments.--Paulding's Ode.--Efforts at Early Settlement.]]]

{448}Is it that my soul, by a secret, subtile process, invests the moldering ruins with her own powers; imagines it a fellow-being--a venerable old man, a Nestor or an Ossian, who has witnessed and survived the ravages of successive generations, the companions of his youth and of his maturity, and now mourns his own solitary and desolate condition, and hails their spirits in every passing cloud? Whatever may be the cause, as I look at it, I feel my soul drawn forward as by the cords of gentlest sympathy, and involuntarily open my lips to offer consolation to the drooping pile." * Around this=

```"Old cradle of our infant world,

````In which a nestling empire lay,"=

the Spirit of Romance and the Muse of Poetry delight to linger, and the bosom of the American glows with increased patriotism as he contemplates this small _beginning_ of the mighty _progression_ around him.=

```"What solemn recollections throng,

````What touching visions rise,

```As, wandering these old stones among,

````I backward turn my eyes,

```And see the shadows of the dead flit round,

```Like spirits when the last dread trump shall sound!

```The wonders of an age combined,

````In one short moment memory supplies;

```They throng upon my 'waken'd mind,

````As Time's dark curtains rise.

```The volume of a hundred buried years,

```Condensed in one bright sheet appears. ********

```Jamestown and Plymouth's hallow'd rock

````To me shall ever sacred be;

```I care not who my themes may mock,

````Or sneer at them and me.

```I envy not the brute who here can stand

```Without a thrill for his own native land.

```And if the recreant crawl her earth.

````Or breathe Virginia's air,

```Or in New England claim his birth,

````From the old pilgrims there,

```He is a bastard, if he dare to mock

```Old Jamestown's shrine, or Plymouth's famous rock.'

`````James Kirke Paulding.=

Although it was late in December, the sun was shining almost as warm as at [[ a Dec 21, 1848]] the close of May. While finishing my sketch, I was glad to take shelter from its beams in the shadow of the sycamore. Here, upon this curiously-wrought slab, clasped by the roots of the forest _anak_, let us sit a while and ponder the early chronicles of Virginia. **

I have mentioned, in the Introduction to this work, the efforts made by the English, Spanish, and French adventurers to plant colonies in the New World, and their failures. The idea was not abandoned; and the public mind, particularly in England, was much occupied with the visions of new and opulent empires beyond the ocean, of which a few glimpses had appeared. Sir Humphrey Gilbert, a step-brother of Sir Walter Raleigh, published a hypothetical treatise on a northwest passage to the East Indies, which attracted great attention, and exerted much influence favorable to colonizing expeditions. He obtained [[ b June 11, 1578]] a patent from Queen Elizabeth (b) to colonize such parts of North America as were already possessed by any of her allies. Raleigh, a young, ardent, and ambitious student at Oxford, had just completed his studies, and was about to engage in a military life in France. He was induced by his step-brother to join with him in an expedition to America. They sailed early in 1579, but never reached our Continent, because, as was alleged, their little squadron was broken up in a conflict with a Spanish fleet, when they returned to England. Gilbert's patent was limited, and he made great efforts to plant a colony before it should expire. He and Raleigh equipped a new squadron in 1583. ***

* Wirt's Letters of a British Spy, page 128.

** The slab referred to was a blue stone about four inches thick. The roots of the sycamore were so firmly entwined around it that no church-yard thief could take it away. It bore the date of 1608. The remainder of the inscription was so broken and defaced that I could not decipher a name. This is probably the oldest tomb-stone extant in the United States. Vandalism has been at work in that old grave-yard as elsewhere. Almost every monument has a fragment broken from it. A small piece, with some letters upon it, had been recently broken from one, and was left lying in the grass. This I brought away with me, not, however, without a sense of being an "accessory after the fact" in an act of sacrilege.

** The names of the vessels were Raleigh, Swalloir, Hind, Delight, and Squirrel. The Raleigh went but a lew leagues from Portsmouth, and returned.

[[[Loss of Sir Humphrey Gilbert.--Raleigh's Perseverance.--Amidas and Barlow.--Native Hospitality abused.--Grenville and Lane.]]]

{449}Raleigh did not sail with the expedition. Gilbert reached Newfoundland, and at St. John's he performed the feudal ceremonies of taking formal possession of the country in the name of his sovereign, in the presence of the Spanish and Portuguese adventurers who were located there. (a)

Soon afterward the expedition sailed southward. The flag-ship of [[ a August 5, 1583]] Gilbert was the _Squirrel_. Tempests arose. One night, "about twelve o'clock, the lights of the _Squirrel_ suddenly disappeared, and neither the vessel nor any of its crew was ever again seen." * The survivors of the expedition reached England in the _Hind_, on the 22d of September following.

Raleigh was not disheartened. He resolved to plant a colony in a more southern region, and readily obtained a patent from Elizabeth as ample as that of his lost step-brother. He was constituted a lord proprietary, with civil and political privileges in his prospective domain almost monarchical. He equipped two vessels, with an ample supply of men and provisions, and gave the command to Philip Arnidas and Arthur Barlow, two experienced mariners. They sailed for America on the 27th of April, 1584, and reached Cuba, in the West Indies, in July. Departing northward, they landed upon Wocoken Island, the southernmost of the group which form Ocracock Inlet, on the shores of North Carolina. The natives, ignorant of the character and designs of the English, received them with friendly greetings after the first emotions of fear and wonder had subsided. Amidas and Barlow explored Pamlico and Albemarle Sounds, enjoyed the hospitality of Granganimeo, the father of King Wingina, upon the beautiful island of Roanoke (now belonging to Tyr-rel county, N. C.), and then returned to England, accompanied by Wanchese and Manteo, two natives of the forest. The glowing accounts of his captains of the beauty and fertility of the land, and the gentleness of the natives, filled Raleigh's heart with joy. The captains were presented at court, and their tales of the enchanting region which they had discovered made Elizabeth feel that the most glorious event of her reign had just been accomplished. She named the new-found region in the Western world _Virginia_, as a memorial of her unmarried state.

Raleigh was elected a member of Parliament for Devonshire, obtained a confirmation of his patent, (b) was knighted, and became one of the most popular men in England. [[ b Dec 18, 1584]] In 1585, he fitted out another fleet. The command was given to Sir Richard Grenville, one of the most gallant men of the age. The fleet consisted of seven vessels, and bore one hundred and eight emigrants, designed to colonize Virginia. Ralph Lane (afterward knighted by Elizabeth) accompanied them as governor of the colony, and several men of learning were his companions. Among them was With, a meritorious painter, whose sketches of the people and scenery in the New World were made with remarkable faithfulness. This expedition sailed from Plymouth on the 9th of April, and reached Florida on the 20th of June. Coasting northward, they arrived at the beautiful Roanoke Island, lying between Albemarle and Pamlico Sounds. They went to the Main, and explored the beautiful county of Secotan, around Albemarle Sound and the Chowan, in various directions. Ignorant of the power of kindness, they foolishly quarreled with the simple natives; and because they supposed a lost silver cup had been stolen by one of them, a whole village was burned, and fields of standing corn were destroyed. From the ashes arose the spirit of discord which ever afterward separated the Indian and the white man.

Grenville returned with the fleet to England, leaving Lane and his colony to perfect a settlement. Instead of cultivating the soil for the production of maize and the potato, which were indigenous, they sought gold. A wily savage, intent on revenge, told them wondrous tales of a land of gold at the head waters of the Roanoke River. Up that broad and rapid stream, Lane and a portion of his people went, for the two-fold purpose of exploring the

* Bancroft, i., 91.

** This sketch is from a picture published in a Treatise on Navigation in 1595.

[[[Hostilities with the Indiana.--Colonists Return to England.--Another Expedition.--"City of Raleigh."--Virginia Dare.]]]

{450}country and seeking gold. They ascended no further than the present village of Williams-town, when a flight of arrows from the wooded shore revealed the enmity of the natives. Lane hastened back to Roanoke, and summoned Wingina, the most powerful of the chiefs, to an audience. The sachem and his followers appeared. Their secret plans for the destruction of the English were suspected, indeed, quite certainly known, and the white men were on the alert. With apparent friendliness Wingina appeared at the council. At a given signal the English fell upon the chief and his handful of warriors, and put them to death. The calumet was now buried forever; the hatchet was brightened and made sharp by intensest hatred. The English felt the danger of their situation, and were desponding, when the fleet of Sir Francis Drake anchored outside of Roanoke Inlet. He came from the West Indies to visit the domain of Raleigh, and generously offered to furnish the colony with means to pursue their discoveries; but fear gained the mastery of their avaricious de[[ a June 19, 1586]] sires, and the colonists sailed with Drake for England. (a) A few days after their departure a ship arrived, laden with stores for the colony; and, within a fortnight, Grenville also arrived with three well-furnished ships. The commander sought in vain for the colony, and, leaving fifteen men on the Island of Roanoke to maintain English dominion, he returned to England with the sad intelligence for Raleigh. *

Raleigh, undismayed by misfortunes, fitted out another expedition. He changed his policy, and sent a colony of men, women, and children to establish an agricultural state. John White was appointed their governor. They sailed on the 26th of April, 1587, and arrived on the coast of North Carolina in July. When they reached Roanoke, they found no vestige of the fifteen men left by Grenville, except a few scattered bones. The Indians had slain them all. Wild deers were in the untenanted habitations, and rank grass covered their gardens, They proceeded to lay the foundation of "the city of Raleigh," pursuant to the instructions of the proprietor, but it was an idle show. ** White endeavored to make treaties of amity with the natives, but failed, though aided by the friendly Manteo, who accompanied Amidas and Barlow to England. *** The neighboring tribes exhibited implacable hatred and jealousy. Winter approached, and the vessel which brought them was prepared for departure for England. White was urged strongly to go with it, and use his endeavors to send them immediate relief, for they had neither planted nor reaped, and to England alone they looked for supply. He was unwilling to appear as a deserter of his colony, and refused. He had another tie. His daughter, Eleanor Dare, had given birth to a child, the first offspring of English parents in the New World. Little _Virginia Dare_ twined the tendrils of affection close around the heart of her grand-parent, and he lingered. **** He at length consented to go, leaving his daughter and child as pledges that he would return. Very long the poor colonists waited for relief. Three years passed away before White returned, and then he found the settlement a desolation. There was evidence upon the bark of a tree that the people had departed for Croatan, (v) the residence of Manteo; but

* It is believed that these returning colonists first carried the tobacco plant to England, as prepared by the natives for smoking. Raleigh first used it privately. It is related that when his servant entered his room with a tankard of ale, and for the first time saw the smoke issuing from his master's mouth and nostrils, he cast the liquor in his face. Terribly frightened, he alarmed the household with the intelligence that Sir Walter was on fire.

** The Island of Roanoke is now uninhabited, except by a few wreckers and pilots. Slight traces of Lane's fort may be seen near the north end.

*** By command of Raleigh, Manteo was baptized, and invested by White with the rank of feudal Baron, as the Lord of Roanoke. It was the first creation of an American peer of the realm.

**** It is a coincidence worth noticing, that White was the name of the progenitors of the first two children born of English parents in America. One on the Island of Roanoke, in August, 1587; the other in the May Flower, in Plymouth harbor, more than thirty-three years afterward.

* (v) It was agreed, on the departure of White, that if the colony should go to Croatan, they would signify the fact by inscribing the letters C R O upon the bark of a tree. This inscription, and also the full name of Croatan, was found. White has been censured for heartlessness in not prosecuting his search with more perseverance, particularly as his own relatives were among the settlers. The colony was composed of eighty-nine men, seventeen women, and two children. What was their fate is left to conjecture. Lawson, in his Travels among the Indians, with a Description of North Carolina, published in 1700, hazards the opinion that the colonists intermarried with the Hatteras Indians, and cites the physical character of that tribe in support of his hypothesis. Such, too, was the tradition of the Indians at a late day.

[[[Loss of a Colony.--Other Expeditions.--London and Plymouth Companies.--Death of Raleigh.--Newport.]]]

{451}the season was far advanced, and search was abandoned. "White put to sea without intelligence of the fate of his daughter and child, and returned to England. Five several times Raleigh sent a vessel with trusty men to search for his colony, when hope fading, his fortune almost exhausted, and his health and heart broken by domestic griefs, he abandoned all ideas of settlement in America, and assigned his proprietary rights to a company. * Virginia, then including in its indefinite boundaries all of North Carolina, remained untouched by the English for twenty years, except by an occasional adventurer who voluntarily searched for Raleigh's colony. These attempts at settlement on the coasts of our Middle States, form a wonderful chapter of adventure and moral heroism in the history of the world.

We will now consider the modern settlement of Virginia. The efforts of Raleigh awakened intense interest in the public mind. Other expeditions were fitted out, but all failed to make permanent settlements. Gosnold, Weymouth, Pring, Smith, and others, who visited America, gave such glowing accounts of the country, that men of rank, capital, and influence were induced to embark in colonizing schemes. They were made acquainted with the general character of a fertile region, extending over eleven degrees of latitude, from Cape Fear to Halifax, all in the temperate climates, diversified with noble rivers and harbors, and displaying the most luxuriant vegetation. An association was formed, (a) of men eminent as merchants, and wealthy titled commoners, of London and Bristol. ** King James encouraged the scheme, and gave them a charter. (b) They formed two [[ a April 10, 1606]] companies; the men of London for colonizing the south portion of the territory, and called the _London Company_; those of Bristol for settling the more northern region, and called the _Plymouth Company_. A line of three degrees between both was allowed, upon which settlements in common might be made, it being stipulated that whenever one should first become permanently seated, the other should settle at least one hundred miles distant. Each of the colonies was to be governed by a council of thirteen persons. The companies were to have full property in all lands, fisheries, &c., except a fifth of the gold, and a fifteenth of the copper ore that might be found, which was to be paid to the king. James, with his usual pedantry, prepared a code of laws for them, written with his own hand. The colonists and their posterity were declared English subjects, but were vested with no political rights, not even trial by jury, unless in capital charges. Minor offenses were punished arbitrarily by the council. That body was to be appointed by the home government, the former choosing its own president. The property of the colonists was to continue in joint stock for five years. The English Church was exclusively established, and strict injunctions were given for the mild and just treatment of the natives. ***

Three small vessels, whose joint tonnage amounted to only one hundred and sixty, under the command of Captain Christopher Newport, with a colony of one hundred and five men, sailed for Virginia on the 19th of December, 1606. The king had placed the names of the future council of Virginia in a sealed box, which, was not to be opened until their arrival in

* Sir Walter Raleigh experienced the folly of "putting his trust in princes." For years after abandoning his schemes for colonization, he served his country nobly against its enemies. He also was sent by Queen Elizabeth on an expedition in search of gold, up the Oronoco, in South America. Once, because he married without the queen's consent, she committed him to the Tower for a brief season. Finally, on the death of his royal mistress in 1602, and the accession of James I., he became the victim of a conspiracy. He was tried, and condemned for treason; and for fifteen years he remained in the Tower a prisoner, first under sentence of death, afterward under the merciful provision of a reprieve. During that long imprisonment he wrote his History of the World. On being released, he went on another expedition to Guiana; but it being unsuccessful, he was cast into prison on his return, and the royal scoundrel who occupied the throne of England allowed the decrepit old man, who had given more true luster to the crown than any living mortal, to be beheaded. He was then in the sixty-sixth year of his age.

** Among these were Sir Thomas Gates; Sir George Summers; Sir John Popham, lord chief justice of

England; Edward Maria Wingfield, a wealthy, sordid, and unprincipled merchant; Richard Hakluyt, one of the assignees of Raleigh, who wrote an interesting collection of voyages, in three volumes; Robert Hunt, a clergyman; and Captain John Smith.

*** Chalmers, pages 15, 16.

[[[Captain John Smith.--Founding of Jamestown.--Visit to Powhatan.--Energy of Smith.--Bartholomew Gosnold.]]]

{452}America. Only twelve laborers and a few mechanics were among the voyagers; the remainder of the one hundred and five persons were adventurers, with hands unused to labor. Dissensions arose on the voyage, and, as there was no acknowledged head, in consequence of the folly of the king, much confusion ensued. Captain Smith possessed more genius than any man among them, and, consequently, great jealousy of him was felt. Under the absurd accusation of an intention to murder the council, and make himself King of Virginia, he was put in confinement. After a voyage of four months, the expedition entered the [[ a April 26, 1607]]Chesapeake, (a) having been driven by a storm northward of their point of destination. The capes of the noble bay they named in honor of the two sons of the king, Henry and Charles. They landed upon Cape Henry, made peace with the natives, opened the sealed paper of the king, discovered the names of the council, and chose the unscrupulous and narrow-minded Wingfield to be president. Smith was named one of the council, but was excluded from that body. His accusers thought it prudent, however, to withdraw their charges, and he was released from confinement.

A few days after their arrival in the Chesapeake, the little fleet entered the mouth of the noble River Powhatan, which they named _James_, in honor of their sovereign. Up its broad channel they sailed about fifty miles, and there, upon a charming peninsula, an island at high tide, they determined to build a town and plant a permanent settlement. The natives received them kindly; and in the beautiful month of May, 1607, the first sound of an ax was heard, the first tree was felled, and the first rafter was laid in Virginia. A village was planned, and, in honor of the king, was called Jamestown. While the carpenters and laborers were rearing the city, Smith and Newport, with twenty others, ascended the river to the Falls, and at his imperial residence of twelve wigwams, just below Richmond, they visited Powhatan, the "Emperor of the Country." The events connected with that visit have been noticed on page 432.

Newport returned to England with his vessels in June, leaving one hundred men, and a pinnace with stores, at Jamestown. The colonists, wanting habits of industry, soon perceived the helplessness of their situation. Many of them were of dissolute habits; and before autumn, the dampness of the climate, and the malaria arising from the decay of luxuriant vegetation, produced diseases which swept away fifty of their number, among whom was Bartholomew Gosnold, * the eminent navigator and projector of the settlement.

The survivors relied chiefly upon sturgeons and crabs, and scanty supplies of maize, for their subsistence, while Wingfield and a part of his council were appropriating the stores to their own use. Wingfield, and Kendall (one of the council), were detected in a conspiracy to abandon the colony, and escape with the pinnace and stores to the West Indies. They were deposed, and, Ratcliffe, an irresolute and indolent man, was appointed president. Fortunately for the colony, he was quite willing to bear the empty honors of his office without exercising its functions, and he allowed Captain Smith, by far the ablest man among them, to have the principal management of affairs. The colony at once assumed a new and better aspect under the direction of Smith. As far as possible, he infused his own energetic spirit into his companions; but they were generally too indolent and dissolute to profit much by his example. Smith quelled the spirit of anarchy and rebellion; restored order in the midst of confusion; visited the chiefs of the neighboring tribes, and inspired them with respect for the English; and, by his consummate skill, he procured from the natives an ample stock of corn and wild fowl when winter approached.

We are now at a point in the history of the New World full of the most romantic interest, and the pen is tempted from its present line of duty by a thousand seductive influences. The exploits of Smith--his exploring voyages--his discoveries--his indomitable perseverance

* Gosnold crossed the Atlantic in 1602. and, after a voyage of six weeks, saw land at the northern extremity of Massachusetts Bay. He sailed southward, and landed upon a promontory, which he called Cape Cod, on account of the great quantity of cod fish which abounded there. Pursuing his voyage along the coast, he discovered and named Elizabeth Islands, thirteen in number, Martha's Vineyard, and others in the neighborhood of Buzzard's Bay. After an absence of only four months, Gosnold returned to England.

[[[Progress of Jamestown Colony.--Smith's Voyage up the Chickahominy.--His Capture.--His Adventures in Europe.]]]

{453}and courage--his hardships, sufferings, escapes, and forbearance with his ungrateful companions, all plead eloquently for the services of pen and pencil. These must be briefly sketched in faint outline, for it is foreign to my plan to detail colonial history, except so much as is necessary to illustrate the main subject of these volumes--The War for Independence.

The Jamestown colony was placed beyond the effects of want in the autumn of 1607, and Smith, with a few companions, set out to explore the country.

He went up the Chickahominy, in an open boat, fifty miles from its mouth. * There he left his boat, the water being shallow, and, with two companions and two Indian guides, pushed into the interior. He ordered those in the boat not to leave it. Disobeying his instructions, they wandered on shore and were slain. Smith was surprised by a party of Indians, under Opechancanough, the "King of Pamunkee his two companions were killed, and he, after slaying several Indians, was made a prisoner. His life was spared, and he was conducted in triumph through the several Indian villages, from the Chickahominy to the banks of the Rappahannock and Potomac, and was finally brought back to the seat of Opechancanough, at Pamunkee, on the York River. There, for three days, the priests performed incantations to discover the character of their prisoner, and

* Among the positive instructions of the London Company, was an injunction for the colonists to endeavor to find a passage to the South Sea, or, in other words, to the East Indies, by a northwest passage, the object of the polar expeditions of the present day. For this purpose, they were instructed to explore every considerable stream that came from the northward; and hence we find Smith (who did not share in the geographical ignorance of his employers, but was willing to engage in discoveries) exploring the James, Chickahominy, York, and Potomac Rivers. The wily Indian mentioned on page 449 as having invented the wonderful story of a gold region at the head of the Roanoke, informed Lane that the source of that river was among high rocks so near the ocean on the west, that the salt water would sometimes dash over into the clear fountains of the stream!

** John Smith was born at Willoughby, in Lincolnshire, England, in 1559. He was early distinguished for his daring spirit and love of adventure. At the age of thirteen, he sold his school-books and satchel to procure money to pay his way to the sea-board, for the purpose of going to sea. He was prevented, and was apprenticed to a merchant. He left home when he was fifteen years old, and went to France and the Low Countries. For two years he studied military tactics; and, at the age of seventeen, having procured a portion of an estate left by his father, went abroad seeking adventures. On a voyage from Marseilles to Naples, a storm arose, and the Roman Catholic crew believing the heretic, as they called Smith, to be a Jonah, they cast him into the sea to quiet the waters. He was a good swimmer, and reached the shore of a small island in the Mediterranean, called St. Mary's. From St. Mary's he went in a French vessel to Alexandria, in Egypt. He soon went from thence to Italy, and then to Austria, where he entered the imperial army, and, by his daring exploits at the siege of Olympach, was rewarded by the command of a troop of horse. These obtained the name of the "Fiery Dragoons," in the war against the Turks. At the siege of Regall, a Turkish officer, the Lord Turbishaw, "to amuse the ladies," offered to engage in single combat with any Christian soldier. The lot fell upon Smith; and, in the sight of both armies, he cut off the head of Turbishaw, and carried it in triumph to the Austrian camp. He fought two other champions, Grualgo and Mulgro, with the same result. In a subsequent battle Smith was wounded, captured, and sold to a pacha. This dignitary sent him to Constantinople, as a present to a damsel whom he loved. She, in turn, loved Smith, and to place him in safety, sent him to her brother. There, however, Smith was cruelly treated. He beat out the brains of the tyrant, and escaped to Muscovy, and finally reached Austria. He went with a French captain to Morocco and the Canaries, encountered a sea-fight with the Spaniards, and returned to his native country. His restless spirit made him yearn for adventures in the New World. Here, after many great exploits, and the endurance of many hardships, he planted the Virginia colony on a firm basis, and returned to England. He died in London in 1631, at the age of 72.

[[[The Indians outwitted by Smith.--His Trial and Sentence.--Pocahontas--her Marriage, Death, and Descendants.]]]

{545}the most expedient disposition of him, for they considered him a superior being. * They finally carried him to Wevowoeomoco, ** the lower seat of Powhatan, and referred the decision to that powerful chief.

Seated upon a raised platform, the trunk and branches of the towering pine for a palace, the lordly Powhatan, with his two favorite daughters beside him, and his "grim courtiers" and women around him, received the prisoner.

In solemn state he was tried; with solemn words he was adjudged to die. On the right of the Indian emperor sat Pocahontas, his youngest and best loved daughter. Her heart beat quick with sympathy the moment she saw the manly form of Smith, and in her young bosom glowed intense desire to save his life.=

```"How trembled then the maid, as rose

````That captive warrior, calm and stern,

```Thus girded by his wolfish foes

````His fearless spirit still would spurn.

```How bright his glance, how fair his face,

```And with what proud, enfranchised grace

````His footsteps free advance, as still

```He follow'd firm the bloody mace

```That guided to the gloomy place

````Where stood the savage sent to kill."

`````W. Gillmore Simms=

* Smith showed them a pocket compass, and explained its properties, and the shape of the earth; how "the sun, and the moon, and the stars chased each other." They were astonished, and regarded him with awe. They made him offers of "life, liberty, land, and women," if he would tell them how to obtain possession of Jamestown. They also obtained some of his powder. Smith made them waste it (for they had been made acquainted with its use) by letting them sow it as seed and raise a crop for themselves. In various ways he outwitted them, and so perfectly retained his self-possession that they regarded him with great respect.

** Werowocomoeo, the scene of Smith's salvation by Pocahontas, was upon the north side of the York River, in Gloucester county, about twenty-five miles below the junction of the Pamunkey and Mattapony Rivers, which form the broad and navigable York. According to Charles Campbell, Esq., of Petersburg, Virginia, who has carefully examined the matter, Shelly, the scat of Mrs. Mann Page, nearly opposite the mouth of Queen's Creek, is the site of Werowocomoeo. Carter's Creek, emptying into the York at Shelly, afforded a safe harbor for canoes. Such was also the opinion of Governor Page, whose plantation (Rosewell) adjoined that of Shelly. The enormous beds of oyster shell (on account of which Governor Page named the place Shelly) at this point indicate that it was once a place of great resort by the natives.

*** Pocahontas was a girl "of ten or twelve" years of age when she saved the life of Captain Smith. Two years afterward, when not over fourteen years old, she went from her father's camp, on a dark and stormy night, to Jamestown, and informed Smith of a conspiracy among the Indians to destroy the settlers. This timely interposition saved them. While Smith remained in the colony, she was a welcome visitor at Jamestown, and often bore messages between the white men and her kindred. In 1612, after Smith had returned to England, she was treacherously betrayed, for the bribe of a copper kettle, into the hands of Captain Argali, and by him kept as a prisoner, in order to secure advantageous terms of peace with Powhatan. The Indian king offered five hundred bushels of corn for her ransom; but, before her release was effected, a mutual attachment had sprung up between her and John Rolfe, a young Englishman of good family. With the consent of her father she received Christian baptism, and was married to Rolfe. The former ceremony is the subject, of a beautiful painting by John G. Chapman, Esq., which graces one of the panels of the Rotunda of the Capitol at Washington. Pocahontas accompanied her husband to England in 1616, where she was received at court with the distinction of a princess. The bigoted King James was highly indignant because one of his subjects had dared to marry into a royal family, and absurdly apprehended that, because Rolfe had married an Indian princess, he might lay claim to the crown of Virginia! It is said that Pocahontas was much afflicted because Smith, fearing the royal displeasure, would not allow a king's daughter to call him father, her usual endearing name when addressing him. She remained in England about a year; and when on the point of returning to America, with her husband, in 1617, she sickened and died at Gravesend. The Lady Rebecca (for so she was called in England) had many and sincere mourners. She left one son, Thomas Rolfe, who afterward became a distinguished man in Virginia. He left an only daughter, and from her some of the leading families of Virginia trace their descent. Among these were the Bollings, Hemmings, Murrays, Guys, Eldridires, and Randolphs. The late John Randolph, of Roanoke, was a descendant of the Indian princess. Her portrait here given is from a painting made in England, while she was there. Her costume shows the style of a fashionable dress of that day.

[[[Smith's Life saved by Pocahontas.--Condition of Jamestown.--Newport's Folly.--Smith's Exploring Expedition.]]]

{455}With his arms pinioned, Smith was laid upon the ground, with his head upon a stone, and the executioner had lifted the huge club to dash out his brains. With a bound like that of a frightened fawn, Pocahontas leaped from the side of her father to that of the prisoner, and interposed her delicate form between his head and the warrior's mace;=

```Then turns--with eye grown tearless now,

````But full of speeeh, as eye alone

```Can speak to eye, and heart in prayer--

````For merey to her father's throne!=

```How could that stern old king deny

```The angel pleading in her eye?

```How mock the sweet, imploring grace.

```That breathed in beauty from her faee,

```And to her kneeling action gave

````A power to soothe, and still subdue,

```Until, though humble as a slave,

````To more than queenly sway she grew?

```Oh! brief the doubt--oh! short the strife;

```She wins the captive's forfeit life;

```She breaks his bands, she bids him go,

```Her idol, but her country's foe,

```And dreams not, in that parting hour,

````The gyves that from his limbs she tears

```Are light in weight, and frail in power,

````To those that round her heart she wears."

`````Simms.=

Smith's life was spared. The enmity of the natives was changed to friendship, and, with a guard of twelve men, he was sent to Jamestown, a wiser man; for, during his seven weeks of captivity, he had traversed a large extent of country, observed its resources, and the habits and condition of the Indians, and made himself quite familiar with their language. He established a friendly intercourse with Powhatan and his confederates, and often the "dearest daughter of the king," with her companions, brought baskets of corn for the garrison.

Disorder prevailed at Jamestown on Smith's return. Only forty men remained, and these were on the point of abandoning the country where they had suffered so much, and escape with the pinnace. The courage and energy of Smith compelled them to remain. Newport soon afterward arrived with supplies, and one hundred and twenty emigrants, chiefly idle gentlemen, "packed hither," as Smith says, "by their friends, to escape ill destinies," and goldsmiths, the very men least needed in the colony. Gold was the chief incentive of the Company and the adventurers to risk capital and life. Discovering something resembling grains of the metal near the site of Richmond, "there was no talk, no hope, no work, but dig gold, wash gold, refine gold, load gold." Newport loaded his vessel with, worthless earth, and returned to England with the idea that he was exceedingly rich, but to have science and skill pronounce him miserably poor in useful knowledge and well-earned reputation.

Smith remonstrated against idleness, and pleaded for industry, but in vain. He implored the settlers to plow and sow, that they might reap and be happy. They refused to listen, and he turned from Jamestown with disgust, and, with a few sensible men, explored the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries. He went up the Potomac to the Falls above Washington City. He also entered the Patapsco, and ate maize upon the site of Baltimore. These long voyages were made in an open boat, propelled by oars and paddles. It was one of the most wonderful of exploring expeditions, considered in all its aspects, recorded by the pen of history. Smith constructed a map of his discoveries, and every subsequent survey of the region attests its remarkable accuracy.

Three days after Smith's return to Jamestown he was made president of the colony. (a) Newport soon afterward arrived from England with a supply of food. With [[ a Sept. 10, 1608]] him came two females, the first English women seen upon the James River.

Smith again exerted his energies to turn the little industry of the settlers to agriculture, and succeeded in a degree. The colony was beginning to thrive under his management, when the features of its political character were modified. A new charter was [[ b May 23, 1609]] given to the London Company, (b) with provisions for a more powerful government.

* The new charter extended the limits of the colony, and transferred to the Company the power which had before been reserved to the king. The council in England, formerly appointed by the king, was now to have its vacancies filled by the votes of a majority of the corporation. This council was authorized to appoint a governor, and to delegate to him almost absolute power, even in cases capital and criminal, as well as civil. They could give him power to declare martial law at his discretion; and thus the lives, liberties, and fortunes of the colonists were placed at the will of a single man.

[[[Lord De la Ware.--Commissioners.--Anarchy at Jamestown.--Famine.--Timely Relief]]]

{456}The colonists had no voice in the matter; neither their rights nor wishes were consulted or respected. While extraordinary powers were given to the governor, not one new civil privilege was conceded to them.

Under the new charter, Lord De la Ware, or Delaware, a virtuous and upright nobleman, was appointed governor and captain-general of Virginia for life. Before his departure for America, nine ships, under the command of Newport, with more than five hundred emigrants, were sent to the James River. Sir Thomas Gates (the governor's deputy), Newport, and Sir George Somers, were sent as commissioners to administer the government until the arrival of Lord Delaware. A hurricane drove the fleet toward the West Indies. The vessel in which were the three commissioners was stranded on the rocks of the Bermudas, and only seven vessels of the squadron reached Virginia. The commissioners were not lost; but their arrival in the colony with the emigrants was prevented, and great confusion followed. A large portion of the new comers were idle and dissolute scions of wealthy families, without energy or good principles. They regarded the colony as without a head until the arrival of the commissioners or the governor, and were disposed to set at naught the authority of President Smith. That energetic man was equal to the exigency of the case, and he boldly and successfully maintained his authority until an accident prostrated his body, and he was obliged to go to England for surgical aid. * He delegated his authority to George Percy, brother of the Duke of Northumberland, and sailed for England in the summer of 1608.

The colonists, released from the control of Smith, now gave themselves up to every irregularity of life. The Indians lost their respect for, and dread of Englishmen; and when the ample stock of provisions of the latter was consumed, the former refused assistance. Famine ensued; thirty escaped in a vessel to become pirates; and within six months, hunger, sickness, and Indian hatchets had reduced the colony of more than five hundred left by Smith, to sixty persons, and these were perishing with hunger. "It was not the will of God that the new state should be formed of these materials; that such men should be the fathers of a progeny, born on the American soil, who were one day to assert American liberty by their eloquence, and defend it by their valor." ** This period of distress was long remembered with a shudder as "the starving time."