Such was the effect of this speech that of the two hundred only seven died in this pinching time, except those who were drowned; no man died of want.Captain Winne and Master Leigh had died before this famine occurred.Many of the men were billeted among the savages, who used them well, and stood in such awe of the power at the fort that they dared not wrong the whites out of a pin.The Indians caught Smith's humor, and some of the men who ran away to seek Kemps and Tussore were mocked and ridiculed, and had applied to them--Smith's law of "who cannot work must not eat;" they were almost starved and beaten nearly to death.After amusing himself with them, Kemps returned the fugitives, whom Smith punished until they were content to labor at home, rather than adventure to live idly among the savages, "of whom," says our shrewd chronicler, "there was more hope to make better christians and good subjects than the one half of them that counterfeited themselves both." The Indians were in such subjection that any who were punished at the fort would beg the President not to tell their chief, for they would be again punished at home and sent back for another round.
We hear now of the last efforts to find traces of the lost colony of Sir Walter Raleigh.Master Sicklemore returned from the Chawwonoke (Chowan River) with no tidings of them; and Master Powell, and Anas Todkill who had been conducted to the Mangoags, in the regions south of the James, could learn nothing but that they were all dead.The king of this country was a very proper, devout, and friendly man; he acknowledged that our God exceeded his as much as our guns did his bows and arrows, and asked the President to pray his God for him, for all the gods of the Mangoags were angry.
The Dutchmen and one Bentley, another fugitive, who were with Powhatan, continued to plot against the colony, and the President employed a Swiss, named William Volday, to go and regain them with promises of pardon.Volday turned out to be a hypocrite, and a greater rascal than the others.Many of the discontented in the fort were brought into the scheme, which was, with Powhatan's aid, to surprise and destroy Jamestown.News of this getting about in the fort, there was a demand that the President should cut off these Dutchmen.Percy and Cuderington, two gentlemen, volunteered to do it; but Smith sent instead Master Wiffin and Jeffrey Abbot, to go and stab them or shoot them.But the Dutchmen were too shrewd to be caught, and Powhatan sent a conciliatory message that he did not detain the Dutchmen, nor hinder the slaying of them.
While this plot was simmering, and Smith was surrounded by treachery inside the fort and outside, and the savages were being taught that King James would kill Smith because he had used the Indians so unkindly, Captain Argall and Master Thomas Sedan arrived out in a well-furnished vessel, sent by Master Cornelius to trade and fish for sturgeon.The wine and other good provision of the ship were so opportune to the necessities of the colony that the President seized them.Argall lost his voyage; his ship was revictualed and sent back to England, but one may be sure that this event was so represented as to increase the fostered dissatisfaction with Smith in London.For one reason or another, most of the persons who returned had probably carried a bad report of him.Argall brought to Jamestown from London a report of great complaints of him for his dealings with the savages and not returning ships freighted with the products of the country.
Misrepresented in London, and unsupported and conspired against in Virginia, Smith felt his fall near at hand.On the face of it he was the victim of envy and the rascality of incompetent and bad men; but whatever his capacity for dealing with savages, it must be confessed that he lacked something which conciliates success with one's own people.A new commission was about to be issued, and a great supply was in preparation under Lord De La Ware.
XIII
SMITH'S LAST DAYS IN VIRGINIA
The London company were profoundly dissatisfied with the results of the Virginia colony.The South Sea was not discovered, no gold had turned up, there were no valuable products from the new land, and the promoters received no profits on their ventures.With their expectations, it is not to be wondered at that they were still further annoyed by the quarreling amongst the colonists themselves, and wished to begin over again.
A new charter, dated May 23, 1609, with enlarged powers, was got from King James.Hundreds of corporators were named, and even thousands were included in the various London trades and guilds that were joined in the enterprise.Among the names we find that of Captain John Smith.But he was out of the Council, nor was he given then or ever afterward any place or employment in Virginia, or in the management of its affairs.The grant included all the American coast two hundred miles north and two hundred miles south of Point Comfort, and all the territory from the coast up into the land throughout from sea to sea, west and northwest.A leading object of the project still being (as we have seen it was with Smith's precious crew at Jamestown) the conversion and reduction of the natives to the true religion, no one was permitted in the colony who had not taken the oath of supremacy.
Under this charter the Council gave a commission to Sir Thomas West, Lord Delaware, Captain-General of Virginia; Sir Thomas Gates, Lieutenant-General; Sir George Somers, Admiral; Captain Newport, Vice-Admiral; Sir Thomas Dale, High Marshal; Sir Frederick Wainman, General of the Horse, and many other officers for life.