Page:History of the United States of America, Spencer, v1.djvu/60

36 Under such auspices, an expedition of unusual magnitude might have been expected; and nine vessels, under the command of Newport, containing more than five hundred emigrants, were soon on their way out. The prosperity of Virginia seemed placed at length beyond the reach of danger. An unforeseen accident interrupted their sanguine expectations; a violent storm arose; the vessel on board of which were Gates, Somers, and Newport, was separated from the rest, and after a narrow escape from foundering, was stranded on the coast of the Bermudas, but without loss of life. The rest of the ships, with the exception of one small ketch, succeeded in reaching Jamestown in safety.

Smith meanwhile had been zealously occupied in maintaining order and security among the little band of colonists. The sudden arrival of so considerable a reinforcement disconcerted all his arrangements. The new emigrants were "unruly gallants, packed off to escape ill destinies at home," men of broken fortunes and unsteady habits; the actual government was void, the fate of the new governor uncertain, the provisional authority of Smith doubtful and contested, and everything tended to the speedy dissolution of their little society. Union alone could insure their defence against the Indians, whose jealousy of their encroachments was steadily gaining ground; but every day their dissensions increased. Powhatan, checked at limes by the ascendancy of Smith, at others formed plans for cutting them all off. In these distresses and perils Pocahontas still proved herself the guardian angel of the unruly colonists: and, "under God," as Smith declared in a letter to the queen of James I., "the instrument for preserving them from death, famine, and utter confusion. When her father," he observes, "with policy sought to surprise me, having but eighteen men with me, the dark night could not affright her from coming through the irksome woods, and with watery eyes gave me intelligence, with her best advice, to escape his fury, which, had he known, he had surely slain her." While disunion thus exposed the settlers to Indian treachery, the want of concerted industry, and the rapid consumption of their stores, soon threatened them with all the horrors of famine. Although his authority had been superseded, Smith still continued, from a feeling of public spirit, to wrestle with the factious colonists, and to hold the helm until the arrival of his successor. But at this critical period, when every thing seemed to be rapidly tending to anarchy and ruin, an accidental explosion of gunpowder inflicted upon him a dangerous wound which the surgical skill of Virginia could not relieve. "Delegating his authority to Percy, he embarked for England. Extreme suffering from his wounds, and the ingratitude of his employers were the fruits of his services. He received for his sacrifices and his perilous exertions, not one foot of land, not the house he himself had built, not the field his own hands had planted, nor any reward but the applause of his conscience and the world. He was the Father of