Meantime Smith, going up to the Falls to look after Captain West, met that hero on his way to Jamestown.He turned him back, and found that he had planted his colony on an unfavorable flat, subject not only to the overflowing of the river, but to more intolerable inconveniences.To place him more advantageously the President sent to Powhatan, offering to buy the place called Powhatan, promising to defend him against the Monacans, to pay him in copper, and make a general alliance of trade and friendship.
But "those furies," as Smith calls West and his associates, refused to move to Powhatan or to accept these conditions.They contemned his authority, expecting all the time the new commission, and, regarding all the Monacans' country as full of gold, determined that no one should interfere with them in the possession of it.Smith, however, was not intimidated from landing and attempting to quell their mutiny.In his "General Historie " it is written "I doe more than wonder to think how onely with five men he either durst or would adventure as he did (knowing how greedy they were of his bloud) to come amongst them." He landed and ordered the arrest of the chief disturbers, but the crowd hustled him off.He seized one of their boats and escaped to the ship which contained the provision.
Fortunately the sailors were friendly and saved his life, and a considerable number of the better sort, seeing the malice of Ratcliffe and Archer, took Smith's part.
Out of the occurrences at this new settlement grew many of the charges which were preferred against Smith.According to the "General Historie" the company of Ratcliffe and Archer was a disorderly rabble, constantly tormenting the Indians, stealing their corn, robbing their gardens, beating them, and breaking into their houses and taking them prisoners.The Indians daily complained to the President that these "protectors" he had given them were worse enemies than the Monacans, and desired his pardon if they defended themselves, since he could not punish their tormentors.They even proposed to fight for him against them.Smith says that after spending nine days in trying to restrain them, and showing them how they deceived themselves with "great guilded hopes of the South Sea Mines," he abandoned them to their folly and set sail for Jamestown.
No sooner was he under way than the savages attacked the fort, slew many of the whites who were outside, rescued their friends who were prisoners, and thoroughly terrified the garrison.Smith's ship happening to go aground half a league below, they sent off to him, and were glad to submit on any terms to his mercy.He "put by the heels" six or seven of the chief offenders, and transferred the colony to Powhatan, where were a fort capable of defense against all the savages in Virginia, dry houses for lodging, and two hundred acres of ground ready to be planted.This place, so strong and delightful in situation, they called Non-such.The savages appeared and exchanged captives, and all became friends again.
At this moment, unfortunately, Captain West returned.All the victuals and munitions having been put ashore, the old factious projects were revived.The soft-hearted West was made to believe that the rebellion had been solely on his account.Smith, seeing them bent on their own way, took the row-boat for Jamestown.The colony abandoned the pleasant Non-such and returned to the open air at West's Fort.On his way down, Smith met with the accident that suddenly terminated his career in Virginia.
While he was sleeping in his boat his powder-bag was accidentally fired; the explosion tore the flesh from his body and thighs, nine or ten inches square, in the most frightful manner.To quench the tormenting fire, frying him in his clothes, he leaped into the deep river, where, ere they could recover him, he was nearly drowned.In this pitiable condition, without either surgeon or surgery, he was to go nearly a hundred miles.
It is now time for the appearance upon the scene of the boy Henry Spelman, with his brief narration, which touches this period of Smith's life.Henry Spelman was the third son of the distinguished antiquarian, Sir Henry Spelman, of Coughan, Norfolk, who was married in 1581.It is reasonably conjectured that he could not have been over twenty-one when in May, 1609, he joined the company going to Virginia.Henry was evidently a scapegrace, whose friends were willing to be rid of him.Such being his character, it is more than probable that he was shipped bound as an apprentice, and of course with the conditions of apprenticeship in like expeditions of that period--to be sold or bound out at the end of the voyage to pay for his passage.He remained for several years in Virginia, living most of the time among the Indians, and a sort of indifferent go between of the savages and the settlers.According to his own story it was on October 20, 1609, that he was taken up the river to Powhatan by Captain Smith, and it was in April, 1613, that he was rescued from his easy-setting captivity on the Potomac by Captain Argall.During his sojourn in Virginia, or more probably shortly after his return to England, he wrote a brief and bungling narration of his experiences in the colony, and a description of Indian life.The MS.was not printed in his time, but mislaid or forgotten.By a strange series of chances it turned up in our day, and was identified and prepared for the press in 1861.Before the proof was read, the type was accidentally broken up and the MS.again mislaid.Lost sight of for several years, it was recovered and a small number of copies of it were printed at London in 1872, edited by Mr.James F.Hunnewell.