Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 1.djvu/300

 and November, 1623, to furnish supplies for the starving people in Virginia. A part of these supplies reached Jamestown in time to allow the colonists to plant a very large crop of tobacco.

In the following year, in spite of massacre, famine, epidemics, and malicious assaults upon the reputation of the Colony, the different communities composing it gave unmistakable indications of prosperity. The planters now held no communication with the Indians, and in consequence relied upon themselves for obtaining everything which they needed. Each dwelling-house was carefully fortified by a palisade; every man possessed a firing piece, sword, rapier, and coat of mail, and when he entered his fields he carried arms in his hands, and the upper part of his body in front and behind was guarded by steel plates against the arrows of the lurking foe.