Part 17

In May, nine vessels with five hundred emigrants were despatched from England, under the command of Gates, Somers and Newport. To each of these a governor’s commission was given with the understanding that he who should arrive first should take charge of the colony and supersede Smith. Evidently these gentlemen were not sportsmen, for, rather than take any chance, they decided to go in the same ship. This vessel, the _Sea-Venture_, was parted from the rest of the fleet in a hurricane and wrecked on the Bermudas. The lives of the prospective potentates were saved but they did not reach Virginia until months afterwards and when Smith had left. Meanwhile seven of the original ships arrived at their destination. Amongst the mixed company that they landed were Ratcliffe and Archer who figured large in the contingent of “gentlemen.” Most of these were “profligate youth, whose friends were only too well satisfied to give them ample room in remote countries, where they might escape the worse destinies that awaited them at home. Poor gentlemen, bankrupt tradesmen, rakes and libertines, such as were more apt to ruin than to raise a commonwealth.” The minds of these, naturally open to evil, had been poisoned by Ratcliffe and Archer against Smith, and they landed in a spirit of antagonism to him.

This “lewd Rout,” as one of the contemporary chroniclers terms them, were ripe for mischief and, led on by Ratcliffe and Archer, they plunged into all manner of license and disorder. It was their impression that in the absence of the commissioners the colony was without recognized authority and they might therefore do as they pleased without let or hindrance. They were never more mistaken, however. Smith took the view, rightly without question, that until a commission superseding him arrived, he remained at the head of affairs. He gave these gentry warning that unless they mended their ways he should deal sternly with them. This had the effect of moving them to plots and stratagems designed to put him out of the way. Forced to extreme measures, Smith seized the ringleaders, including those meanest of mortals, Ratcliffe and Archer, and confined them in prison. Order was speedily restored, and, the better to preserve it, Smith divided the colonists, who were in any event too numerous to live in Jamestown, into several parties which he sent into different quarters of the surrounding country to establish settlements. Despite the friendly attitude of the Indians these newcomers contrived to create trouble with them almost immediately, and more lives were thus needlessly sacrificed in a week than had been lost in Smith’s troublous dealings with the Indians in the course of a year.

At this juncture an accident--some think that it was the result of design--put a sudden end to Smith’s career in Virginia. One night as he slept his powder bag exploded, severely injuring him. For several weeks he lay in dreadful pain, unable to rise from his couch. When, at length, he was sufficiently recovered to be carried on board ship, he turned over the government to Captain Percy, and in the autumn of 1609 sailed from Virginia, which he was never to see again.

A sorrowing group of his faithful followers watched the vessel until its ensign dropped below the horizon. One of them has said: “Thus we lost him that in all his proceedings made justice his first guide and experience his second; ever hating baseness, sloth, pride and unworthiness more than dangers; that never allowed more for himself than his soldiers with him; that upon no danger would send them where he would not lead them himself; that would never see us want what he had or by any means could get us; that would rather want than borrow, or starve than not pay; that loved action more than words, and hated falsehood and covetousness worse than death; whose adventures were our lives, and whose loss our deaths.”

The literal truth of the last words was soon to be proven.

XXIV.

A DISMAL TALE

What befell Jamestown after Captain John Smith left it--A score of rival leaders create disorder and encourage license--The Indians overcome the white men and put them to flight--Ratcliffe falls into a trap and with his men is massacred--Winter finds them sick and starving--“Now we all felt the want of Captain Smith”--Reinforcements arrive but it is determined to abandon the colony--The appearance of Lord Delaware frustrates the move--Jamestown is restored and prospers for a spell--The tobacco craze and what it led to--Opechancanough directs a great massacre--The Colony of Virginia is at last firmly planted.

It is a dismal tale, the recital of what befell the five hundred colonists of Virginia after the departure of Captain John Smith, but no more striking vindication of his management of affairs could be found than in the rapid wreck of the colony when his guiding hand was removed from the helm. Almost at once a condition of anarchy set in. Percy was honest and not unwise but he lacked the iron will and indomitable energy of Smith, and nothing less was needed to cope with the situation. There were soon, in the words of an eye-witness, “twenty presidents,” each with his particular followers, forming a faction at variance with all the others. Strife and dissension pervaded the settlement. Idleness and waste prevailed. The Indians were treated as though the chief aim of the settlers had been to create their enmity. The more prudent of the older colonists sought to divert their fellows from the destruction upon which they were plainly heading, but without avail. Percy, depressed by anxiety, fell ill of a fever which confined him to his bed, and, with the last vestige of authority removed, the colonists gave themselves up unrestrainedly to riot and feasting.

The fruits of their wicked recklessness were soon visited upon these miserable incompetents. The Indians attacked the various settlements beyond Jamestown and with almost invariable success. Martin, at Nansemond, had been kindly received by the chief of the band of that name. This treatment he requited by suddenly falling upon the village and seizing its contents. The Indians recovering from their surprise assaulted the whites and routed them. Martin fled to Jamestown, having lost many of his men and--crowning shame!--nearly all their arms. Shortly after this episode, Ratcliffe and West went to Werowocomico with two ships, each carrying thirty fully armed men--a greater force than Smith ever took upon an expedition. Powhatan, by this time moved to anger and contempt, practised against the newcomers the tactics he had so ineffectually tried against Smith. Ratcliffe and his men fell into the Indian’s trap with childish readiness and all save one were massacred. West fled and turned his prow towards England where he and his company eventually arrived in safety. Similar occurrences at last produced an astounding condition. The white colonists became actually _afraid_ of the Indians, who treated them with well-merited contempt and almost domineered over them. Gradually, the entire stock of arms and ammunition found its way into the hands of the savages.

When things had reached this pass it would have been an easy matter for the Indians to have exterminated the whites. It is probable that they were only deterred from doing so by the prospect of the speedy starvation of the colony. They had consumed their provisions with blind improvidence and had made absolutely no attempt to secure a harvest. The fields had been given up to weeds and the plows allowed to rust. The Indians refused to give a grain for charity and would only trade on the most exorbitant terms. Beads and playthings were a drug in the market. Arms and ammunition were now demanded and readily obtained by the Indians, in whose minds the memory of Smith’s reception of similar proposals was fresh. Says one of the ill-fated colonists:

“Now we all felt the want of Captain Smith yea his greatest maligners could then curse his loss. Now for corn, provisions and contribution from the savages, we had nothing but mortal wounds with clubs and arrows.”

The cold of winter found them too weak and fearful to venture beyond the palisades in quest of firewood; besides, there was scarce an axe left in Jamestown. In this extremity, they burned the buildings and even tore down the stockade to feed the fires. They died like flies and presently the survivors were reduced to cannibalism. First an Indian who had been killed in a skirmish was eaten and then the poor wretches gave themselves up without restraint to devouring their fellows.

On the twenty-third day of May, 1610, the party which had been wrecked on the Bermudas sailed into the James in two vessels which they had constructed with infinite labor. Sixty emaciated creatures, little more than skeletons and hardly better than idiots, crawled out to greet the arrivals, whose coming was barely in time to save the lives of this pitiful remnant of the colony which Smith had left at Jamestown. That place was reduced to ruins. Many of the buildings had been torn to pieces and great gaps yawned in the palisades. So dismal was the picture and so fearful the stories of the ragged wretches who represented the prosperous colonists the newcomers had expected to meet, that Somers and Gates determined to return to England and abandon the settlement. The sixty starving and half demented men were taken on board the ships, which set sail down the river. The exultant savages who stood upon the banks congratulated themselves that once more the white intruder was forced to leave their land. But a strange incident suddenly turned the tide of affairs.

The departing ships no sooner cleared the mouth of the river than they perceived three vessels approaching and flying the flag of England. They proved to be reinforcements under Lord Delaware who had come out as Governor of Virginia. Somers and Gates of course put about and returned to Jamestown. The conditions of affairs quickly changed. Lord Delaware, though not a man of equal force of character and resource with Captain Smith, was nevertheless one of sound judgment and considerable energy. He had an ample supply to tide over a year and, together with Somers’s men, who had thrived on the food and climate of the Bermudas, several hundred strong and healthy colonists. He set them to work repairing the fortifications and buildings, tilling the fields, and performing other useful labors. Rule and order were established and strictly maintained. Smith’s policy of firm but just dealing with the Indians was resumed and they ceased to give trouble.

Thus, when sickness compelled Lord Delaware to return to England in the following March, he left Jamestown thoroughly resuscitated and on the highroad to prosperity. On the way home, the retiring governor passed Sir Thomas Dale coming to the colony with three ships and a full year’s supplies. If he did not make much progress, Dale at least preserved the advance which had been effected by Delaware until, at the beginning of August, Gates’s return as Governor marked the inception of a new era for Virginia.

Gates brought out three large ships, a number of cattle, horses, three hundred men, and so great a quantity of supplies as to put the question of starvation out of mind, for the first time in the history of the colony. Gates was well adapted by character, if not by experience, to rule the American possession. His emigrants were, for the most part, of a sort to benefit the settlement--men of good morals, accustomed to work and adept at various handicrafts. There were now a number of women in the country and family life began to make its appearance. Jamestown soon assumed the appearance of an orderly town, with a public hall, a church, store-house and neat dwellings. Along the river banks farms, plantations and cattle ranches appeared in time.

The rapid spread of the practice of smoking in England brought about the greatest changes in the condition of the colony of Virginia. Tobacco commanded good prices, with a constantly increasing demand, and soon every other enterprise in the colony was abandoned in favor of the production of the narcotic plant. The settlers went tobacco mad as in earlier days they had given themselves up to the gold frenzy. Nothing else was thought of. Fields were neglected, buildings and fortifications were allowed to fall into decay. It was said in England that the very streets of Jamestown were planted in tobacco. Every man saw in the leaf a prospect of speedy wealth, and readily sacrificed the demands of the present to the pursuit of a golden future. The Company was delighted with the rich cargos that poured into England and promised to fill their coffers to overflowing. Every encouragement was given the colonists to persist in their short-sighted policy. Smith, with true wisdom, warned the proprietors and the public that the result could not be anything but disaster, but he was scouted as a croaker, envious of the good fortune of his successors.

During the four years that the tobacco madness was at its height the former discipline was utterly relaxed. There was little disorder because everyone was busy in the tobacco fields from morning till night. But the defences were entirely neglected and no guard was maintained by day or night. Indeed, there did not appear to be any need for such precaution. The Indians had been friendly for years and many of them lived in the fort and even in the homes of the settlers. Opechancanough was now the Chief of the tribe, Powhatan being dead. The former was ever the implacable enemy of the whites but had up to this time hidden his true feelings under a cloak of cordiality. Secretly and patiently, meanwhile, the cunning savage was plotting the destruction of all the whites in Virginia, now numbering several thousands of men, women and children, scattered over a wide range of country.

The blow fell suddenly. On the same day the Indians attacked the settlers at different points and found them quite unprepared for resistance. Nearly four hundred were slain, and the massacre would have been much more extensive but for the fact that in many cases natives who had acquired a real regard for their white neighbors warned them in time and in some instances defended them. The tobacco planters now huddled in Jamestown, anxious only for their lives. Hurriedly the place was put in better condition to withstand assault and provisioned against a siege. But Opechancanough was too astute to attack Jamestown and an armed peace ensued.

The tidings of the massacre horrified England. The Company was panic-stricken and at a loss what to do. Smith called upon them with a proposal for the effective defence of the colony, and offered to go out and put it into operation himself. The proprietors hesitated to incur the expense and, in the meanwhile, their perplexity was relieved by the cancellation of their charter. The colony was attached to the crown and the settlers were left to their own resources. Under these conditions they seem to have fared better than when subject to proprietary interests at home, for from the year of the massacre, 1622, Virginia enjoyed a century and a half of uneventful prosperity.

THE END.

Transcriber’s Notes:

--Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).

--Punctuation and spelling inaccuracies were silently corrected.

--Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved.

--Variations in hyphenation and compound words have been preserved.

End of Project Gutenberg's Captain John Smith, by C. H. Forbes-Lindsay