Captain John Smith

by C. H. Forbes-Lindsay

Shortly, the whole weight of authority and the entire charge of the safety of the settlement fell upon Captain Smith. He was sick like the rest, but kept his feet by sheer strength of will, knowing that otherwise they would all fall victims to the savages in short order. Gosnold was under the sod. Wingfield, Martin and Ratcliffe were on the verge of death. Kendall was sick and, moreover, had been deposed from his place in the Council. In fact, all the chief men of the colony were incapacitated, “the rest being in such despair that they would rather starve and rot with idleness than be persuaded to do anything for their own relief without constraint.” In this strait the courage and resolution of one man saved them as happened repeatedly afterward. He nursed the sick, distributed the stores, stood guard day and night, coaxed and threatened the least weak into exerting themselves, cunningly hid their real condition from the Indians, and, by the exercise of every available resource, tided over the terrible months of July and August.

Early in September, Wingfield was deposed from the presidency. His manifest incompetency had long been the occasion of discontent which was fanned to fever heat when the starving settlers discovered that the leader, who was too fine a gentleman to eat from the common kettle, had been diverting the best of the supplies from the public store to his private larder. The climax which brought about his downfall, however, was reached when it transpired that the President had made arrangements to steal away in the pinnace and return to England, leaving the settlement in the lurch. Ratcliffe was elected to fill his place. He was a man of no greater capacity than his predecessor, but it happened that conditions improved at about this time and the undiscerning colonists were willing to give him credit for the change.

Early fall brings ripening fruit and vegetables in the South. The Indians, who fortunately had no idea of the extremity to which the colony had been reduced, began to carry corn and other truck to the fort, glad to trade for beads, little iron chisels or other trifles. Wild fowl came into the river in large numbers and, with these welcome additions to their hitherto scanty diet, the sick soon began to recover health and strength. Smith, so soon as he could muster a boat’s crew, made an excursion up the river and returned with some thirty bushels of corn to famine-stricken Jamestown. Having secured ample supplies for immediate needs, our hero, who was by this time generally recognized as the actual leader of the colony, put as many men as possible to work building houses and succeeded so far as to provide a comfortable dwelling for every one but himself.

Our adventurers, convalescent for the most part, now experienced a Virginia autumn in all its glory. The days were cloudless and cool. The foliage took on magic hues and presented patterns marvellously beautiful as an oriental fabric. The air, stimulating as strong wine, drove the ague from the system and cleared the brain. The fruits of the field stood ripe and inviting whilst nuts hung in profusion from the boughs of trees amongst which fat squirrels and opossums sported. Turkeys with their numerous broods wandered through the woods whilst partridges and quail abounded in the undergrowth. Where starvation had stared them in the face the colonists now saw plenty on every hand and, with the appetites of men turning their backs upon fever-beds, ate to repletion. With the removal of their sufferings, they dismissed the experience from their minds and gave no heed to the latent lesson in it. Not so Captain Smith, however. He realized the necessity of providing a store of food against the approach of winter, without relying upon the return of Newport with a supply ship.

The Council readily agreed to the proposed expedition in search of provisions, but it was not in their mind to give the command to Captain Smith. Far from being grateful to the man who had saved the settlement in the time of its dire distress and helplessness, they were more than ever jealous of his growing influence with the colonists. None of them was willing to brave the dangers and hardships of the expedition himself nor did they dare, in the face of Smith’s popularity, to appoint another to the command. In this difficulty they pretended a desire to be fair to the other gentlemen adventurers by putting a number of their names into a lottery from which the commander should be drawn. The hope was that by this means some other might be set up as a sort of competitor to Smith. There were those among the gentlemen who penetrated this design and had sufficient sense to circumvent it. George Percy, a brother of the Earl of Northumberland, and Scrivener, were among our hero’s staunch adherents. Percy contrived that he should draw the lot from the hat that contained the names. The first paper that he drew bore upon it the words: “The Honorable George Percy.” Without a moment’s hesitation he showed it to Scrivener, as though for confirmation, and crumpling it in his hand, cried:

“Captain John Smith draws the command,” and the announcement was received with a shout of approval.

“Thou hast foregone an honor and the prospect of more,” said Scrivener, as they walked away together.

“Good Master Scrivener,” replied the young nobleman, with a quizzical smile, “one needs must have a head to carry honors gracefully and I am fain to confess that I deem this poor caput of mine safer in the keeping of our doughty captain than in mine own.”

It was early in November when Smith, taking the barge and seven men, started up the Chickahominy. The warriors were absent from the first village he visited and the women and children fled at the approach of his party. Here he found the store-houses filled with corn, but there was no one to trade and, as he says, he had neither inclination nor commission to loot, and so he turned his back upon the place and came away empty-handed. Now, if we consider the impression that must have been made upon those Indians by this incident, we must the more keenly regret that so few others were moved by similar principles of wisdom and honesty in their dealings with the savages. In his treatment of the Indian down to the present day the white man appears in a very poor light, and most of the troubles between the two races have been due to the greed and injustice of the latter. John Smith set an example to later colonists which, had they followed it, would have saved them much bloodshed and difficulty.

Proceeding along the narrow river, the expedition arrived at other villages where the conditions better favored their purpose. The Indians seem to have gained some inkling of the impoverished state of the Jamestown store, for at first they tendered but paltry quantities of grain for the trinkets which Smith offered to exchange. But they had to deal with one who was no less shrewd than themselves. The Captain promptly turned on his heel and marched off towards his boat. This independent action brought the redskins crowding after him with all the corn that they could carry and ready to trade on any terms. In order to allay their suspicions as to his need, Smith declined to accept more than a moderate quantity from any one band, but by visiting many, contrived without difficulty to fill the barge and, as he says, might have loaded the pinnace besides if it had been with him.