Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 22.djvu/191

 JOHN.] SMITH 175 procrastination caused more to run away than went. I have spared neither pains or money according to my ability, first to procure His Majesty's letters patents, and a com- pany here, to be the means to raise a company to go with me to Virginia, which beginning here and there cost me nearly five years' [1604-1609] work, and more than five hundred pounds of my own estate, besides all the dangers, miseries, and incumbrances I endured gratis." Two colon- izing associations were formed, the London Company for South Virginia and the Western Company for North Virginia. Smith was one of the founders of the London Company. The colonies which Sir W. Raleigh had estab- lished at Roanoke and other islands off the American coast had all perished, mainly for want of a good harbour, so that really nothing at all was known of the Virginian coast-line when the first expedition left London on 19th December 1606; and therefore the attempt was bound to fail unless a convenient harbour should be found. The expedition consisted of three ships (the " Susan Constant," 100 tons, Captain C. Newport; the "God Speed," 40 tons, Captain B. Gosnold ; and a pinnace of 20 tons, Captain J. Ratcliffe), with about 140 colonists and 40 sailors. They made first for the West Indies, reaching Dominica on 24th March 1607. At Nevis, their next stopping place, a gallows was erected to hang Captain Smith on the false charge of conspiracy ; but he escaped, and, though afterwards the lives of all the men who plotted against him were at his mercy, he spared them. Sailing northwards from the West Indies, not knowing where they were, the expedition was most fortunately, in a gale, blown into the mouth of Chesapeake Bay, discover- ing land on 26th April 1607. Anchoring, they found the James river, and, having explored it, fixed upon a site for their capital in the district of the chief or weroance of Paspaheh, its chief recommendation being that there were 6 fathoms of water so near to the shore that the ships could be tied to the trees. Orders had been sent out for the government of the colony in a box, which was opened on 26th April 1607. Captains B. Gosnold, E. M. Wing- field, C. Newport, J. Smith, J. Ratclifie, J. Martin, and G. Kendall were named to be the council to elect an annual president, who, with the council, should govern. Wingfield was, on 1 3th May, elected the first president ; and the next day they landed at James Town and com- menced the settlement. All this while Smith was under restraint, for thirteen weeks in all. His enemies would have sent him home, out of a sham commiseration for him ; but he challenged their charges, and so established his innocency that Wingfield was adjudged to give him <200 as damages. After this, on 20th June 1607, Smith was admitted to the council. As in going to America in those days the great diffi- culty was want of water, so in those colonizing efforts the paramount danger was from want of food. " There were never Englishmen left in a foreign country in such misery as we were in this new discovered Virginia. We watched every three nights [every third night], lying on the bare cold ground, what weather soever came, and warded all the next day, which brought our men to be most feeble wretches. Our food was but a small can of barley sodden in water to five men a day. Our drink, cold water taken out of the river, which was, at a flood, very salt, at a low tide, full of slime and filth, which was the destruction of many of our men." So great was the mortality that out of 105 colonists living on the 22d June 1607 67 died by the following 8th January. The country they had settled in was sparsely populated by many small tribes of Indians, who owned as their para- mount chief, Powhatan, who then lived at Werowocomoco, a village on the Pamunkey river, about 12 miles by land from James Town. Various boat expeditions left James Town, to buy food in exchange for copper. They generally had to fight the Indians first, to coerce them to trade, but afterwards paid a fair price for what they bought. On 10th December 1607 Captain Smith, of whom it is said "the Spaniard never more greedily desired gold than he victail," with nine men in the barge, left James Town to get more corn, and also to explore the upper waters of the Chickahominy. They got the barge up as far as Apocant. Seven men were left in it, with orders to keep in midstream. They disobeyed, went into the village, and one of them, George Cassen, was caught; the other six, barely escaping to the barge, brought it back to James Town. It so happened that Opecanchan- ough (the brother of Powhatan, whom he succeeded in 1618, and who carried out the great massacre of the English on Good Friday 1622) was in that neighbourhood with two or three hundred Indians on a hunting expedi- tion. He ascertained from Cassen where Smith was, who, ignorant of all this, had, with Jehu Robinson and Thomas Emery, gone in a canoe 20 miles farther up the river. The Indians killed Robinson and Emery while they were sleeping by the camp fire, and went after Smith, who was away getting food. They surprised him, and, though he bravely defended himself, he had at last to surrender. He then set his wits to confound them with his superior knowledge, and succeeded. Opecanchanough led him about the country for a wonder, and finally, about 5th January 1608, brought him to Powhatan at Werowoco- moco. " Having feasted him after their best barbarous manner they could, a long consultation was held ; but the conclusion was two great stones were brought before Powhatan ; then as many as could laid hands on Smith, dragged him to them, and thereon laid his head. And, being ready with their clubs to beat out his brains, Poca- hontas, the king's dearest daughter, when no entreaty could prevail, got his head in her arms and laid her own upon his to save him from death. Whereat the emperor was contented Smith should live, to make him hatchets, and her bells, beads, and copper ; for they thought him as well of all occupations [handicrafts] as themselves." The truth of this story was never doubted till 1866, when the eminent antiquary, Dr Charles Deane of Cambridge, Mass., in reprinting Smith's first book, the True Relation of 1609, pointed out that it contains no reference to this hairbreadth escape. Since then many American historians and scholars have concluded that it never happened at all ; and, in order to be consistent, they have tried to prove that Smith was a blustering braggadocio, which is the very last thing that could in truth be said of him. The rescue of a captive doomed to death by a woman is not such an unheard-of thing in Indian stories. If the truth of this deliverance be denied, how then did Smith come back to James Town loaded with presents, when the other three men were killed, George Cassen in particular, in a most horrible manner ? And how is it, supposing Smith's account to be false, that Pocahontas afterwards frequently came to James Town, and was next to Smith himself the salvation of the colony ? The fact is, nobody doubted the story in Smith's lifetime, and he had enemies enough. 1 1 Pocahontas never visited James Town after Smitli went to England in October 1609, until she was brought there a state prisoner in April 1613 by Captain S. Argall, who had obtained possession of her by treachery on the Potomac river. The colony, while treating her well, used her as a means to secure peace with the Indians. In the mean- time, believing Smith to be dead, she fell in love with an English gentleman, John Rolfe, apparently at that time a widower. They were married about 1st April 1614. Subsequently she embraced Christianity. Sir T. Dale, with Rolfe and his wife, landed at Ply- mouth on 12th June 1616. Before she reached London, Smith