CHAPTER VII.
1609-1614.
Condition of the Colony at the time of Smith's Departure—Assaults of Indians—"The Starving Time"—The Sea-Venture—Situation of the English on the Island of Bermuda—They Embark for Virginia—Arrive at Jamestown—Jamestown abandoned—Colonists meet Lord Delaware's Fleet—Return to Jamestown—Delaware's Discipline—The Church at Jamestown—Sir George Somers—Delaware returns to England—Percy, Governor—New Charter—Sir Thomas Dale, Governor—Martial Laws—Henrico Founded—Plantations and Hundreds settled—Argall makes Pocahontas a Prisoner—Dale's expedition up York River—Rolfe visits Powhatan—Dale returns to Jamestown—Rolfe marries Pocahontas—The Chickahominies enter into Treaty of Peace—Community of Goods abolished—Argall's Expeditions against the French in Acadia—Captures Fort at New Amsterdam.
Captain Smith, upon embarking for England, left at Jamestown three ships, seven boats, a sufficient stock of provision, four hundred and ninety odd settlers, twenty pieces of cannon, three hundred muskets, with other guns, pikes, swords, and ammunition, and one hundred soldiers acquainted with the Indian language, and the nature of the country.[92:A] The settlers were, for the most part, poor gentlemen, serving-men, libertines; and with such materials the wonder is, not that the settlement was retarded by many disasters, but that it was effected at all. Lord Bacon says: "It is a shameful and unblessed thing to take the scum of people, wicked, condemned men, with whom you plant; and not only so, but it spoileth the plantation, for they will ever live like rogues, and not fall to work, but be lazy and do mischief; spend victuals and be quickly weary."[92:B] Immediately upon Smith's departure the Indians renewed their attacks. Percy, the Earl of Northumberland's brother, for a time administered the government; but it soon fell into the hands of the seditious malecontents. Provisions growing scarce, West and Ratcliffe embarked in small vessels to procure corn. Ratcliffe, inveigled by Powhatan, was slain with thirty of his companions, two only escaping, of whom one, a boy, Henry Spilman, a young gentleman well descended, was rescued by Pocahontas, and he afterwards lived for many years among the Patawomekes, acquired their language, and often proved serviceable as an interpreter for his countrymen. He was slain by the savages, on the banks of the Potomac, in 1622. The loss of Captain Smith was soon felt by the colonists: they were now continually exposed to the arrow and the tomahawk; the common store was consumed by the commanders and the savages; swords and guns were bartered with the Indians for food; and within six months after Smith's departure the number of English in Virginia was reduced from five hundred to sixty men, women, and children. These found themselves in a starving condition, subsisting on roots, herbs, acorns, walnuts, berries, and fish. Starch became an article of diet, and even dogs, cats, rats, snakes, toadstools, and the skins of horses. The body of an Indian was disinterred and eaten; nay, at last, the colonists preyed on the dead bodies of each other. It was even alleged that a husband murdered his wife for a cannibal repast; upon his trial, however, it appeared that the cannibalism was feigned, to palliate the murder. He was put to death—being burned according to law. This was long afterwards remembered as "the starving time." Sir Thomas Smith, treasurer of the Virginia Company, was bitterly denounced by the sufferers for neglecting to send out the necessary supplies. The happiest day that many of them expected ever to see, was when the Indians had killed a mare, the people wishing, while the carcass was boiling, "that Sir Thomas was upon her back in the kettle." It seemed to them as if the Earl of Salisbury's threat of abandoning the colony to its fate, was now to be actually carried into effect; but it is to be recollected that a large portion of ample supplies, that had been sent out from England for the colony, had been lost by storm and shipwreck.
It has before been mentioned, that toward the end of July, 1609, in a violent tempest, the Sea-Venture, with Newport, Gates, and Somers, and one hundred and fifty souls, had been separated from the rest of the fleet. Racked by the fury of the sea, she sprang a leak, and the water soon rose in her hold above two tiers of hogsheads that stood over the ballast, and the crew had to stand up to their waists in the water, and bail out with buckets, baricos, and kettles. They continued bailing and pumping for three days and nights without intermission, yet the water appeared rather to gain upon them than decrease; so that all hands, being at length utterly exhausted, came to the desperate resolution to shut down the hatches and resign themselves to their fate; and some having "good and comfortable waters fetched them, and drank to one another as taking their last farewell." During all this time the aged Sir George Somers, sitting upon the quarter-deck, scarce taking time to eat or sleep, bearing the helm so as to keep the ship as upright as possible, but for which she must have foundered,—at last descried land. At this time many of the unhappy crew were asleep, and when the voice of Sir George was heard announcing "land," it seemed as if it was a voice from heaven, and they hurried up above the hatches to look for what they could scarcely credit. On finding the intelligence true, and that they were, indeed, in sight of land,—although it was a coast that all men usually tried to avoid,—yet they now spread all sail to reach it. Soon the ship struck upon a rock, till a surge of the sea dashed her off from thence, and so from one to another till, at length, fortunately, she lodged (July twenty-eighth) upright between two rocks, as if she was laid up in a natural dry-dock. Till this, at every lurch they had expected instant death; but now, all at once, the storm gave place to a calm, and the billows, which at each successive dash had threatened destruction, were stilled; and, quickly taking to their boats, they reached the shore, distant upwards of a league, without the loss of a single man out of upwards of one hundred and fifty. Their joy at an escape so unexpected and almost miraculous, arose to the pitch of amazement. Yet their escape was not more wonderful in their eyes than their preservation after they had landed on the island; for the Spaniards had always looked upon it as more frightful than purgatory itself; and all seamen had reckoned it no better than an enchanted den of Furies and devils—the most dangerous, desolate, and forlorn place in the whole world; instead of which it turned out to be healthful, fertile, and charming.
The Bermudas are a cluster of islands lying in the Atlantic Ocean, at the distance of six hundred miles from the American Continent, extending, in crescent form, from east to west; in length, twenty miles; in breadth, two and a half. On the coast of the principal of these islands, Bermuda, the Sea-Venture was wrecked; and, on landing, the English found, instead of those gloomy horrors with which a superstitious fancy had invested it, a terrestrial paradise blessed with all the charms of exquisite scenery, luxuriant vegetation, and a voluptuous atmosphere, which have since been celebrated in the verse of a modern poet. Here they remained for nearly a year. Fish, fowl, turtle, and wild hogs supplied the English with abundant food; the palmetto leaf furnished a cover for their cabins. They had daily morning and evening prayers, and on Sunday divine service was performed and two sermons preached by the chaplain, the Rev. Mr. Bucke. He was a graduate of Oxford, and received the appointment of chaplain to the Virginia expedition upon the recommendation of Dr. Ravis, Bishop of London. Mr. Bucke was the second minister sent out from England to Virginia, being successor to Rev. Robert Hunt. The company of the Sea-Venture were summoned to worship by the sound of the church-going bell, and the roll was called, and absentees were duly punished. The clergyman performed the ceremony of marriage once during the sojourn on the island, the parties being Sir George Somers' cook and a maid-servant, (of one Mrs. Mary Horton,) named Elizabeth Persons. The communion was once celebrated. The infant child of one John Rolfe—a daughter, born on the island—was christened, February eleventh, by the name of Bermuda, Captain Newport, the Rev. Mr. Bucke, and Mrs. Horton being witnesses. It would seem from this, that John Rolfe was a widower when he afterwards married Pocahontas. Another infant, born on the island, a boy, was christened by the name of Bermudas. Six of the company, including the wife of Sir Thomas Gates, died there. Living in the midst of peace and plenty in this sequestered and delightful place of abode, after escaping from the yawning perils of the deep, many of the English lost all desire ever to leave the island, and some were even mutinously determined to remain there. Gates, however, having decked the long-boat of the Sea-Venture with the hatches, dispatched the mate, Master Raven, an expert mariner, with eight men, to Virginia for succor; but the boat was never more heard of. Discord and insubordination found a place among the exiles of the Bermudas; and even the leaders, Gates and Somers, lived for awhile asunder. At length, while Somers was engaged in surveying the islands, Gates completed a vessel of about eighty tons, constructed somewhat after the manner of Robinson Crusoe, partly from the timber of the Sea-Venture, and the rest of cedar. A small bark was also built under the direction of Sir George Somers, of cedar, without the use of any iron, save a bolt in her keel. These two vessels were named, the one the "Patience," the other the "Deliverance." Finally, on the 10th day of May, 1610, after the lapse of nine months spent on the island, and nearly a year since their departure from England, harmony being restored, and the leaders reconciled, they embarked in these cedar vessels for Virginia.
The name of Sir Thomas West, afterwards Lord la Ware, or De la War, or Delaware, appears in the commission appointed in the year of James the First, for inquiring into the case of all such persons as should be found openly opposing the doctrines of the Church of England. Such was the spirit of that age, by which standard the men of that age ought to be judged. Lord Delaware was, nevertheless, distinguished for his virtues and his generous devotion to the welfare of the infant colony of Virginia—a man of approved courage, temper, and experience. The Rev. William Crashaw, father of the poet of that name, at the period of Lord Delaware's appointment to the place of Governor of Virginia, was preacher at the Temple; and he delivered a sermon before his lordship, and others of his majesty's council for the Colony of Virginia, and the rest of the adventurers or stockholders in that plantation, upon occasion of his lordship's embarkation for Virginia, on the 21st day of February, 1609-10. The text was from Daniel, xii. 3: "They that turn many to righteousness shall shine as the stars forever and ever." This sermon was printed by William Welby, and sold in Paul's Churchyard, at the sign of the Swan, 1610, and is the first missionary sermon preached in England to any of her sons embarking for Virginia. Crashaw, in this discourse, urges it warmly upon his countrymen to aid the enterprise of planting the colony; rejects, with indignant scorn, the more sordid motives of mere lucre, and appeals to loftier principles, and the more elevated motives of Christian beneficence. But although he rejects motives of mere profit, he tells his auditors that if they will pursue their object, animated by these enlarged views, they will probably find the plantation eventually a source of pecuniary profit, the soil being good, the commodities numerous and necessary for England, the distance not great, and the voyage easy, so that God's blessing was alone wanting to make it gainful. In his peroration, the preacher, apostrophizing Lord Delaware, excites his generous emulation by a personal appeal, reminding him of the gallant exploit of his ancestor, Sir Roger la Warr, who, assisted by John de Pelham, captured the King of France at the battle of Poictiers. In memory of which exploit, Sir Roger la Warr—Lord la Warr according to Froissart—had the crampet or chape of his sword for a badge of that honor. Crashaw bitterly denounces the Papists, and the Brownists, and factious separatists, and exhorts the Virginia Company not to suffer such to have any place in the new colony. Rome and Geneva were the Scylla and Charybdis of the Church of England.[97:A] Lord Delaware sailed in February for Virginia.
Gates and Somers, after leaving the Bermudas in May, in fourteen days reached Jamestown, where they found only sixty miserable colonists surviving. Sir Thomas Gates, Lieutenant-Governor, landing on the twenty-fourth of May, caused the church-bell to be rung; and such as were able repaired thither, and the Rev. Mr. Bucke delivered an earnest and sorrowful prayer upon their finding so unexpectedly all things so full of misery and misgovernment. At the conclusion of the religious service the new commission of Gates was read; Percy, the acting president, scarcely able to stand, surrendered up the former charter and his commission. The palisades of the fort were found torn down; the ports open; the gates distorted from the hinges; the houses of those who had died, broken up and burned for firewood, and their store of provision exhausted. Gates reluctantly resolved to abandon the plantation, and to return to England by way of Newfoundland, where he expected to receive succor from English fishing vessels. June seventh, they buried their ordnance and armor at the gate of the fort, and, at the beat of drum, embarked in four pinnaces. Some of the people were, with difficulty, restrained from setting fire to the town; but Sir Thomas Gates, with a select party, remained on shore until the others had embarked, and he was the last man that stepped into the boat. They fired a farewell volley; but not a tear was shed at their departure from a spot associated with so much misery. How often is the hour of despair but the deeper darkness that immediately precedes the dawn! At noon they reached Hog Island, and on the next morning, while anchored off Mulberry Island, they were met by a long-boat with dispatches from Lord Delaware, who had arrived with three vessels, after a voyage of three months and a half from England.[98:A] Upon this intelligence Gates, with his company, returned up the river to Jamestown on the same day. Lord Delaware arrived there with his three vessels on the ninth, and on the morning of the following day (Sunday) he landed at the south gate of the fort, and although the Lieutenant-Governor, Sir Thomas Gates, with his company, were drawn up to meet him, he fell on his knees, and remained for some time in silent prayer. After this he repaired to the church, and heard a sermon delivered by the Rev. Mr. Bucke. A council was then called, and the governor delivered an address to the colonists. The hand of a superintending and benignant Providence was plainly manifested in all these circumstances. The arrival of Sir Thomas Gates rescued the colony from the jaws of famine; his prudence preserved the fort at Jamestown, which the unhappy colonists, upon abandoning the place, wished to destroy, so as to cut off all possibility of a return; had their return been longer delayed, the savages might have destroyed the fort; had they set sail sooner, they would probably have missed Lord Delaware's fleet, as they had intended to sail by way of Newfoundland, in a direction contrary to that by which Lord Delaware approached.[99:A]
Lord Delaware, Governor and Captain-General, was accompanied by Sir Ferdinand Waynman, Master of the Horse, who died shortly afterwards; Captain Holcroft; Captain Lawson; and other gentlemen. Lord Delaware was the first executive officer of Virginia with the title of Governor; and the titles of Governor and Captain-General were ever after given to the colonial chief magistrates of Virginia. Under Lord Delaware's discreet and energetic management, discipline and industry were speedily restored, the hours of labor being set from six o'clock in the morning to ten, and from two to four in the afternoon. The store of provisions that he had brought over with him was sufficient to supply four hundred men for twelve months. He gave orders for repairing the church. Its length was sixty feet, and its breadth twenty-four, and it was to have a chancel of cedar and a communion-table of black-walnut, and the pews of cedar, with handsome wide windows, to shut and open according to the weather, made of the same wood; as also a pulpit with a font hewed out hollow like a canoe, with two bells at the west end. The building was so constructed as to be very light within; and the Lord Governor and Captain-General caused it to be kept passing sweet, and trimmed up with divers flowers. There was also a sexton belonging to it. Every Sunday there were two sermons delivered, and every Thursday one—there being two preachers who took their weekly turns. In the morning of every day, at the ringing of the bell at ten o'clock, the people attended prayers; and also again at four in the afternoon, before supper. On Sunday, when the Governor went to church, he was accompanied by the councillors, officers, and all the gentlemen, with a guard of halberdiers in his lordship's livery, handsome red cloaks, to the number of fifty on each side, and behind him. In the church his lordship had his seat in the choir, in a green velvet chair, with a cloth, and also a velvet cushion laid on the table before him on which he knelt. The council and officers sate on each side of him, and when he returned to his house he was escorted back in the same manner. The newly appointed council consisted of Sir Thomas Gates, whose title was changed from that of Lieutenant-Governor to that of Lieutenant-General; Sir George Somers, Admiral; Captain George Percy; Sir Ferdinando Wayman, Master of the Ordnance; Captain Newport, Vice-Admiral; and Mr. Strachey, Secretary and Recorder. Strachey, who appears to have been a scholar, published an interesting account of the colony at this period. Some of the houses at Jamestown were covered with boards; some with Indian mats. They were comfortable, and securely protected from the savages by the forts. Lord Delaware was a generous friend of the colony; but it was as yet quite too poor and too much in its infancy to maintain the state suitable to him and his splendid retinue. The fashions of a court were preposterous in a wilderness. On the ninth of June, Sir George Somers was dispatched, in compliance with his own suggestion, in his cedar vessel to the Bermudas, accompanied by Argall in another vessel, to procure further supplies for the colony. Captain Argall, in consequence of adverse winds and heavy fogs, returned to Jamestown. Sir George Somers, after much difficulty, reached his destination, where he shortly after died, at a spot on which the town of St. George commemorates his name. The islands themselves received the designation of his surname, and were afterwards called the Summer Islands. It is said that the Bermudas were at first named in England "Virginiola," but shortly after the "Summer Islands," partly in allusion to their temperature, and partly in honor of Sir George.[102:A] It was remarked of him that he was "a lamb upon land; a lion at sea." As his life had been divided between the Old World and the New, so after his death his remains were buried, part at Bermuda, part at Whitchurch, Dorsetshire, in England.
Lord Delaware dispatched Captain Argall to the Potomac for corn, which he succeeded in procuring by the aid of the youthful prisoner, Henry Spilman. His lordship erected two forts, called Henry and Charles, after the king's sons. These forts were built on a level tract bordering Southampton River, and it was intended that settlers arriving from England should first land there, to refresh themselves after the confinement of the voyage. Sir Thomas Gates, who had before sent his daughters back to England, now returned there himself, in order to render to the council an account of all that had happened. Captain Percy was dispatched with a party to chastise the Paspaheghs, for some depredations; they fled before the English, who burnt their cabins, captured their queen and her children, and shortly after barbarously slew them. Lord Delaware, visiting the falls with a party of soldiers, was attacked by the Indians, who killed some of his men.
His lordship having suffered much sickness, and finding himself in a state of extreme debility, embarked,[103:A] in company of Dr. Bohun and Captain Argall, and about fifty others, for the Island of Mevis, in the West Indies. Contrary winds drove them to the north, and having put in at the mouth of a large river, then called Chickohocki, it hence derived its name of the Delaware.
Lord Delaware upon leaving the colony, committed the charge of it to Captain George Percy, an honorable and resolute gentleman, but in infirm health, and deficient in energy. The number of colonists was at this period about two hundred; the stock of provisions sufficient for ten months, and the Indians peaceable and friendly. Before Lord Delaware reached England, the Virginia Council, discouraged by so many disasters and disappointments, were at a loss to decide whether they should use any further efforts to sustain the ill-fated colony, or should abandon the enterprise, and recall the settlers from Virginia. But Sir Thomas Gates made so strenuous an appeal in favor of sustaining the plantation, that Sir Thomas Dale was dispatched with three vessels, cattle, hogs, and other supplies. The title given to Dale was that of High Marshal of Virginia, indicative of the martial authority with which he was invested. He was a military man, and had served in the Low Countries, and he brought over with him an extraordinary code of "laws divine, moral, and martial," compiled by William Strachey, secretary of the colony, for Sir Thomas Smith, from the military laws observed during the wars in the Low Countries. This code was sent over by Sir Thomas Smith, treasurer or governor of the Virginia Company, without the company's sanction, as it has been alleged; but since the company in no way interposed its authority in contravention to the new code, their sanction of it may be presumed. Several of these laws were barbarous, inhuman, written in blood.
Arriving in Virginia in the month of May, 1611, Dale touched at Kiquotan, and set all hands there to planting corn. Reaching Jamestown on the tenth of May, he found the settlers busily engaged in their usual occupation, playing at bowls in the streets. He set them to work felling trees, repairing houses, and providing materials for enclosing the new town, which he proposed to build. To find a site for it he surveyed the Nansemond River and the James as far as the falls, and finally pitched upon a high ground, with steep banks, on the north side of the river, near Arrohattock, and about twelve miles below the falls of the river. The site was on a peninsula, known as Farrar's Island, in Varina Neck. Sir Thomas was prevented for a time from founding the new town by the disturbances that prevailed in the colony, and to restore order he enforced martial law with rigor. Eight of the colonists appear to have been convicted of treasonable plots and conspiracies, and executed by cruel and unusual modes, before midsummer. Among these was Jeffrey Abbot, who had served long in the army in Ireland and in the Netherlands; had been a sergeant of Captain John Smith's company in Virginia, who avers that he never knew there a better soldier or more loyal friend of the colony. It must be acknowledged that rigorous measures were necessary, and it was fortunate for the colony that the cruel and despotic code of laws, to which it was now subjected, was administered by so discreet and upright a governor as Dale.
Early in August, 1611, Sir Thomas Gates, commissioned to take charge of the government of the colony, came over with six vessels, three hundred men, and abundant supplies. He was accompanied by the Rev. Mr. Glover, an approved preacher in Bedford and Huntingdonshire, a graduate of Cambridge, in easy circumstances, and somewhat advanced in years. Arriving at Jamestown early in August, during the sickly season, he soon after died.
Dale, relieved from the cares of the chief post, cheerfully occupied a subordinate position, and now turned his attention to the establishment of new settlements on the banks of the James, at some distance above Jamestown. Furnished by Gates with three hundred and fifty men, he sailed up the river early in September, and on the spot selected before, he founded the town of Henrico, so called in honor of the heir-apparent, Prince Henry, eldest son of James the First. The peninsula on which it was built is formed by a remarkable bend, styled the "Dutch Gap," where the river, after sweeping a circuit of seven miles, returns within one hundred and twenty yards from the point of departure. The site commands an extensive and picturesque view of the winding river, which in this part of it is called the "Corkscrew." The fertile tract of land there produced tobacco nearly resembling the Spanish Varinas, and hence received the appellation of Varina, the name of a well-known plantation. This was afterwards the residence of the Rev. William Stith, the best of our early historians, who dates the preface of his History of Virginia there, in 1746.
The peninsula, surrounded on three sides by the river, was impaled across the isthmus from water to water. There were three streets of well-framed houses, a handsome church of wood completed, and the foundation laid of a better one to be built of brick, besides store-houses, watch-houses, etc. Upon the river edge there were five houses, in which lived "the honester sort of people," as farmers in England, and they kept continual watch for the town's security. About two miles back from the town was a second palisade, near two miles in length, from river to river, guarded by several commanders, with a good quantity of corn-ground impaled, and sufficiently secured.
The breastwork thrown up by Sir Thomas Dale is still to be traced, and vestiges of the town are indicated by scattered bricks, showing the positions of the houses.[106:A] Burk[106:B] and Keith[106:C] have fallen into singular mistakes as to the situation of this town.
On the south side of the river a plantation was established, called Hope in Faith and Coxendale, with forts, named, respectively, Charity, Elizabeth, Patience, and Mount Malady, and a guest-house for sick people, on the spot where afterwards, in Stith's time, Jefferson's church stood. On the same side of the river the Rev. Alexander Whitaker, sometimes styled the "Apostle of Virginia," established his parsonage, a well-framed house and one hundred acres of land, called Rock Hall.[106:D]
The work of William Strachey, already referred to, entitled "The History of Travel into Virginia Britannia," etc., appears to have been written before 1616, and two manuscripts of it exist, one in the British Museum, the other in the Ashmolean manuscripts at Oxford.[106:E]
Sir Thomas Dale, when he came over to Virginia, was accompanied by Rev. Alexander Whitaker, the son of Dr. William Whitaker, Master of St. John's College, Cambridge, and also Regius Professor of Divinity there. The doctor distinguished himself by his controversial writings against the Church of Rome, and took a leading part in framing and maintaining the Lambeth Articles, which were Calvinistic, and had they been established, might have gone far toward healing the divisions between the Church of England and the Presbyterians. Rev. Alexander Whitaker, when he reached Virginia, had been a graduate of Cambridge some five or six years, and had been seated in the North of England, where he was held in great esteem. He had property of his own and excellent prospects of promotion; but, animated by a missionary spirit, he came over to Virginia. The voyage is described as speedy and safe, "being scarce eight weeks long."
The Appomattox Indians having committed some depredations, Sir Thomas Dale, about Christmas, 1611, captured their town, near the mouth of the Appomattox River where it empties into the James. The town was five miles distant from Henrico. Sir Thomas, pleased with the situation, established a plantation there, and called it Bermudas, the third town erected in Virginia, now known as Bermuda Hundred, the port of Richmond for ships of heavy burden. He laid out several plantations there, the Upper and Lower Rochdale, West Shirley, and Digges' Hundred. In conformity with the code of martial law each hundred was subjected to the control of a captain. The Nether Hundred was enclosed with a palisade two miles long, running from river to river, and here, within a half mile of each other, were many neat houses already built. Rochdale, or Rock's Dale, enclosed by a palisade four miles in length, was dotted with houses along the enclosure; here the hogs and cattle enjoyed a range of twenty miles to graze in securely. About fifty miles below these settlements stood Jamestown, on a fertile peninsula, with two rows of framed houses, some of them with two stores and a garret, and three large store-houses. The town was well enclosed, and it and the neighboring region were well peopled. Forty miles below Jamestown, at Kiquotan, the settlers enjoyed an abundance of fish, fowl, and venison.[107:A]
Captain Argall now arriving from England, in a vessel with forty men, was sent to the Potomac to trade for corn, and he contrived to ingratiate himself with Japazaws, a friendly chief, and from him learned that Pocahontas was there. She had never visited Jamestown since Smith's departure, and on the remote banks of the Potomac she thought herself unknown. Japazaws, easily bribed, betrayed the artless and unsuspecting girl into Argall's hands. When she discovered the treachery she burst into tears. Argall, having sent a messenger to inform Powhatan that his favorite daughter was a prisoner, and must be ransomed with the men and arms, conveyed her to Jamestown. Three months thereafter Powhatan restored seven English prisoners and some unserviceable muskets, and sent word that if his daughter was released he would make restitution for all injuries, and give the English five hundred bushels of corn, and forever remain in peace and amity.[108:A] They refused to surrender Pocahontas until full satisfaction was rendered.
Powhatan was deeply offended, and nothing more was heard from him for a long time. At length Governor Dale, with Argall's vessel and some others, manned with one hundred and fifty men, went up the York River, taking the young captive with him, to Werowocomoco. Here, meeting with a scornful defiance, the English landed, burnt the cabins, and destroyed everything. On the next day Dale, proceeding up the river, concluded a truce with the savages. He then sailed up to Matchot, another residence of Powhatan, on the south side of the Pamunkey, where it unites with the Matapony. Matchot is supposed to be identical with Eltham, the old seat of the Bassets, in the County of New Kent, and which borrows its name from an English seat in the County of Kent. At this place, where several hundred warriors were found, the English landed, and the savages demanded a truce till Powhatan could be heard from, which being granted, two of Powhatan's sons went on board the vessel to see their sister Pocahontas. Finding her well, contrary to what they had heard, they were delighted, and promised to persuade their father to make peace, and forever be friends with the English.
John Rolfe, and another of the Englishmen named Sparks, were dispatched to let Powhatan know these proceedings. He entertained them hospitably, but would not admit them into his presence; they, however, saw his brother Opechancanough, who engaged to use his influence with Powhatan in favor of peace. It now being April, the season for planting corn, Sir Thomas Dale returned to Jamestown, intending not to renew hostilities until the next crop was made.
March 12th, 1612, another charter was granted to the Virginia Company, extending the boundaries of the colony, so as to include all islands lying within three hundred leagues of the continent. The object of this extension was to embrace the Bermudas, or Summer Islands; but the Virginia Company shortly afterwards sold them to one hundred and twenty of its own members, who became incorporated into a distinct company.[109:A]
On the 4th of November, 1612, died Henry, Prince of Wales, a gallant and generous spirit, the friend of Raleigh, and the idol of the nation; and his premature death was deplored like that of the Black Prince before, and the Princess Charlotte in more modern times. He appears to have been a warm friend of the infant plantation of Virginia, and Sir Thomas Dale speaks of him "as his glorious master, who would have enamelled with his favors the labors which were undertaken for God's cause," and laments that the "whole frame of the enterprise seemed fallen into his grave."
Mr. John Rolfe, a worthy gentleman, who appears to have been a widower, had been for some time in love with Pocahontas, and she with him; and, agitated by the conflicting emotions of this singular and romantic attachment, in a letter he requested the advice of Sir Thomas Dale, who readily gave his assent to the proposed union. Pocahontas likewise communicated the affair to her brother; so that the report of the marriage soon reached Powhatan, and it proved likewise acceptable to him. Accordingly, within ten days he sent Opachisco, an aged uncle of Pocahontas, and her two brothers, to attend the wedding, and fill his place at the ceremony. The marriage took place early in April, 1613, at Jamestown, and the rites were no doubt performed by the Rev. Mr. Whitaker.[109:B]
This remarkable union became a happy link of peace and harmony between the red man and the white; and the warlike Chickahominies now came to propose a treaty of peace.[110:A] This fierce and numerous tribe, dwelling on the borders of the Chickahominy River, and near neighbors to the English, had long maintained their independence, and refused to acknowledge the sceptre of Powhatan. They now sent two runners to Governor Dale with presents, apologizing for all former injuries, and offering to submit themselves to King James, and to relinquish the name of Chickahominies, and be called Tassautessus (English.) They desired, nevertheless, still to be governed by their own laws, under the authority of eight of their own chiefs. Governor Dale, with Captain Argall and fifty men, on the banks of the Chickahominy, concluded a treaty of peace with them, and they ratified it by acclamation. An aged warrior then arose and explained the treaty, addressing himself successively to the old men, the young, and the women and children. The Chickahominies, apprehensive of being reduced under the despotism of Powhatan, sheltered themselves under the protection of the whites—a striking proof of the atrocious barbarity of a race whose imaginary virtues have been so often celebrated by poets, orators, and historians, and who have been described as renewing the golden age of innocent felicity.
The system of working in common, and of being provided for out of the public store, although unavoidable at first, had hitherto tended to paralyze industry, and to retard the growth of the colony. An important alteration in this particular was now effected; Sir Thomas Dale allotted to each man three acres of cleared ground, from which he was only obliged to contribute to the public store two and a half barrels of corn. These regulations, raising the colonists above the condition of absolute dependence, and creating a new incentive to exertion, proved very acceptable and beneficial.[110:B]
Early in the year 1614 Sir Thomas Gates returned again to England, and Sir Thomas Dale reassumed the government of the colony. The French settlers of Acadia had, as early as 1605, built the town of Port Royal, on the Bay of Fundy; St. Croix was afterwards erected on the other side of the bay. Dale, looking upon these settlements as an encroachment upon the territory of Virginia, which extended to the forty-fifth degree of latitude, dispatched his kinsman, Argall, an enterprising and unscrupulous man, with a small force, to dislodge the intruders. The French colony was found situated on Mount Desert Island, near the Penobscot River, and within the bounds of the present State of Maine. The French, surprised while dispersed in the woods, soon yielded to superior force, and Argall, as some accounts say, furnished the prisoners with a fishing vessel, in which they returned to France, except fifteen, including a Jesuit missionary, who were brought to Jamestown. According to other accounts, their vessels were captured, but the colonists escaped, and went to live among the Indians. On his return, Argall visited the Dutch settlement near the site of Albany, on the Hudson, and compelled the governor there to surrender the place; but it was reclaimed by the Dutch not long afterwards, and during the next year they erected a fort on Manhattan Island, on which is now seated the commercial metropolis of the United States.
FOOTNOTES:
[92:A] The colony was provided with fishing-nets, working tools, apparel, six mares and a horse, five or six hundred swine, with some goats and sheep. Jamestown was strongly fortified with palisades, and contained fifty or sixty houses. There were, besides, five or six other forts and plantations. There was only one carpenter in the colony; three others were learning that trade. There were two blacksmiths and two sailors.
[92:B] Bacon's Essays, 123.
[97:A] Anderson's Hist. of Col. Church, i. 232.
[98:A] Anderson's Hist. of Col. Church, i. 263.
[99:A] The wreck of the Sea-Venture appears to have suggested to Shakespeare the groundwork for the plot of "The Tempest," several incidents and passages being evidently taken from the contemporary accounts of that disaster, as narrated by Jordan and the Council of the Virginia Company.
"Boatswain, down with the top-mast, yare
Lower, lower; bring her to try with the main course."
Captain Smith, in his Sea-Grammar, published 1627, under the article how to handle a ship in a storm, says: "Let us lie as try with our main course—that is, to haul the tack aboard, the sheet close aft, the boling set up, and the helm tied close aboard." Again, the boatswain says: "Lay her a-hold, a-hold; set her two courses." The two courses are the mainsail and the foresail; and to lay a ship a-hold is to bring her to lie as near the wind as she can. These, and other nautical orders, are such as the brave old Somers probably gave when trying to keep the ship as upright as possible.
"We are merely cheated of our lives by drunkards."
This was suggested to the poet by the recorded incident of part of the crew of the Sea-Venture having undertaken to drown their despair in drunkenness.
| "Farewell, my wife and children! Farewell, brother! | |
| Ant. | Let's all sink with the king. |
| Seb. | Let's take leave of him." |
These answer to the leave-taking of the Sea-Venture's crew. Jordan, in his narrative, says: "It is reported that this land of Bermudas, with the islands about it, are enchanted and kept by evil and wicked spirits," etc. Shakespeare accordingly employs Prospero, Ariel, and Caliban to personate this fabled enchantment of the island. Ariel's task is, at Prospero's bidding—
"To fly,
To swim, to dive into the fire, to ride
On the curled clouds."
The tempest, in which the ship was wrecked, is thus described by Ariel:—
"I boarded the king's ship; now on the beak,
Now in the waist, the deck, in every cabin,
I flamed amazement: sometimes I'd divide,
And burn in many places; on the top-mast,
The yards, and bowsprit, would I flame distinctly,
Then meet and join; Jove's lightnings, the precursors
O' the dreadful thunder-claps, more momentary
And sight-outrunning were not; the fire, and cracks
Of sulphurous roaring, the most mighty Neptune
Seemed to besiege, and make his bold waves tremble."
Again:—
"Not a soul
But felt a fever of the mad and played
Some tricks of desperation."
The almost miraculous escape of all from the very jaws of impending death, is thus alluded to by Ariel in her report to Prospero:—
"Not a hair perished;
On their sustaining garments not a blemish,
But fresher than before: and as thou bad'st me,
In troops I have dispersed them 'bout the isle."
The particular circumstances of the wreck are given quite exactly in the familiar verses:—
"Safely in harbor
Is the king's ship; in the deep nook, where once
Thou call'st me up at midnight to fetch dew
From the still-vexed Bermoothes, there she's hid."
Bermoothes, the Spanish pronunciation of Bermudas, or Bermudez, the original name of the island, taken, as is said, from that of a Spanish captain wrecked there. Another real incident is referred to in the following verses, the time only being transposed:—
"The mariners all under hatches stowed;
Whom, with a charm joined to their suffered labor,
I have left asleep."
The return of the other seven vessels of the fleet is described with a change, however, of the sea in which they sailed, and in their place of destination:—
"And for the rest of the fleet,
Which I dispersed, they all have met again;
And are upon the Mediterranean flote,
Bound sadly home for Naples;
Supposing that they saw the king's ship wrecked
And his great person perish."
For nearly a year after the Sea-Venture's separation from the fleet, it was believed, in Virginia and in England, that she and her company were lost. Smith and Pocahontas may have suggested some materials for the characters of Ferdinand and Miranda.
Shakespeare, after abandoning the stage, in 1607 or 1608, about the time of the first landing at Jamestown, remained in London for some four or five years. Smith, and the early colonists of Virginia, had many of them probably witnessed the theatrical performances at the Globe or Black Fryars; Beggars' Bush, now Jordan's Point, an early plantation on the James River, derived its name from a comedy of Fletcher's. Shakespeare was, no doubt, quite familiar with the more remarkable incidents of the first settlement of the colony: the early voyages; the first discovery; the landing; Smith's rencontres with the Indians; his rescue by Pocahontas; the starving time, etc. Smith, indeed, as has been before mentioned, complained of his exploits and adventures having been misrepresented on the stage, in London. That Shakespeare makes few or no allusions to these incidents, is because they occurred after nearly all his plays had been composed. "The Tempest," however, was written several years after the landing at Jamestown, being one of his latest productions—a creation of his maturest intellect.
[102:A] Court and Times of James the First, 160.
[103:A] March 28th, 1611.
[106:A] Va. Hist. Reg., i. 161.
[106:B] Hist. of Va., i. 166.
[106:C] Hist. of Va., 124.
[106:D] Stith, 124; Keith, 124; Beverley, i. 25; South. Lit. Messr. for June, 1845; Hawks' Narrative, 29.
[106:E] It has been of late years printed for the first time by the Hakluyt Society in England. The work is illustrated by etchings, comprising fac-similes of signatures, Captain Smith's map, and several engravings from De Bry. It contains also a copious glossary of Indian words. The first book comprises the geography of the country, with a full and admirable account of the manners and customs of Powhatan and his people. It is an important authority, but as it was printed only for the use of the members of the Hakluyt Society, it is but little known in this country. The second book treats of Columbus, Vespucius, Cabot, Raleigh, and Drake, with notices of the early efforts to colonize Northern Virginia, or New England. The period to which Strachey's History of Virginia relates includes 1610, 1611, and 1612. The same author published a map of Virginia at Oxford, in 1612. Mr. Peter Force has a MS. copy of it.
[107:A] Smith, ii. 13.
[108:A] Court and Times of James the First, i. 262.
[109:A] Hen. Stat., i. 98; Stith, 126, and Appendix No. 3.
[109:B] A letter was written by Dale on the occasion, dated in June, 1614, and addressed to a friend in London; another of Rolfe to Dale, before mentioned, was published in London, 1615, by Ralph Hamor, in his work entitled, "A True Discourse of the Present State of Virginia," etc.; Rev. Alexander Whitaker addressed a letter on the same subject to a cousin in London. These letters were republished in this country in 1842, in a pamphlet explanatory of Chapman's picture of the Baptism of Pocahontas.
[110:A] Stith, 131.
[110:B] Chalmers, Introduction, i. 10; Grahame's Colonial Hist. U. S., i. 64. Compare Belknap's Amer. Biog., ii. 151.
