These people proposed that Smith should assume the headship of the tribe and lead them in war against the Massawomekes and other enemies. Had our hero entertained any such ambition as that with which he was charged by Wingfield and his supporters, here was an excellent opportunity to set up a kingdom. The Susquehannocks were not only exceptionally warlike, but also one of the most numerous tribes in that part of America. No doubt, with a man like Smith at their head, they could soon have established sovereignty over hundreds of miles of territory. It is needless to say, however, that the offer was declined as tactfully as possible and the expedition turned homeward.
Smith arrived in Jamestown just as another crisis in the affairs of the colony had been reached. Ratcliffe, the President, had shamefully abused his office for some time past. He had taken for his private use the best things in the public stores, he had beaten several of the settlers, with little or no provocation, and had diverted a number of laborers from useful employment to the task of building him a pleasure-house in the woods. Smith appeared on the scene when the wrath of the colonists had almost risen beyond bounds. Had he not arrived when he did they would probably have taken Ratcliffe’s life. As it was, they would hear of nothing short of his deposition and invited Smith to take his place at the head of the government. Smith, however, who was the active instrument in disposing of the obnoxious officer, hardly thought that he could accept the proposal with a good grace and so persuaded them to allow him to substitute Scrivener for himself. So, with this change, the summer passed in peace, and satisfactory progress was made in the rebuilding of the settlement.
The colony had never been in a better condition than now to make good progress. The settlers were well content with the rule of Smith and Scrivener, who always knew just what they wanted to do and how to do it. Work and rations were fairly apportioned. Gentlemen were required to take their turn at labor with the rest. A military company was formed and drilled, and the Indians were kept in check by the practice of diplomacy and a show of force. This happy state of things was completely upset by the return of Newport with instructions from his employers to discover the South Sea, to bring back gold, and to search for the survivors of the lost Roanoke colony. But this was not the sum of Newport’s mad mission. He was also charged with the coronation of Powhatan, to whom King James sent a present of a wash-basin and pitcher and an Elizabethan bed with its furnishings. Newport failed to bring the food and other things of which the settlers stood in such constant need, but instead landed seventy Dutchmen and Poles for the purpose of establishing manufactories of “pitch, tar, glass and soap-ashes.” By this time, Smith had been regularly elected President. He was thoroughly disgusted with the foolish instructions of the London company, and when Newport undertook to undo much of the good work that had been accomplished with so great trouble, even going so far as to restore Ratcliffe to the presidency, Smith bluntly gave him his choice of immediately taking himself and his ship off, or of being detained for a year that he might gain the experience that he was sadly in need of. Newport wisely chose the former alternative and sailed away, having, as before, sown the seeds of trouble from which the colonists were to reap a bitter crop before long.
[XX.]
DIAMOND CUT DIAMOND
Smith goes on a foraging expedition and engages in a contest of wits with Powhatan—Doctor Russell and Captain Smith get into a tight place—And get out again—Powhatan plans to murder his adopted son—Pocahontas warns the Captain of the intended treachery—The feast and the disappointed waiters—How eight designing Indians afford goodly entertainment to three Englishmen—And how they are neatly laid by the heels by their intended victims—“The English sleep like the village dog, with one eye cocked”—How the ambushers were ambushed and the captors captured—“If there be one among you bold enough to essay a single combat, let him come out!”
With the approach of winter the colony of Jamestown found itself in hardly better condition than at the same time in the previous year. It is true that their health was now better but they had many more mouths to feed and rather less chance of obtaining provisions from the Indians. These, as we know, had been unfriendly for some months past, due to Newport’s reckless generosity towards them and particularly to his foolish gift of swords, which Smith refused to duplicate. The more experienced among the settlers had protested strongly against the crowning of Powhatan, fearing that the savage would interpret the ceremony as a measure of propitiation and a sign of dread on the part of the English. And this proved to be the case. It was soon evident that the great Werowance had risen mightily in self-esteem in consequence of the silly coronation and that his respect for the settlers had fallen in proportion. The neighboring bands, acting on his orders, refused to furnish corn on any terms, and messengers sent to Werowocomico returned empty handed, telling of having been treated with a high-handed contempt. After Scrivener and Percy had made futile expeditions, it became clear that, as usual, Smith must attend to the matter in person if the colony was to be saved from starvation.
Smith immediately began preparations for a visit to the capital of Powhatan, whose spies doubtless gave him early information of the fact, for, just at this time, an embassy arrived from the newly-crowned “emperor” demanding workmen to build him an English house to contain the gorgeous bedstead that his brother, the King of England, had sent to him. He also asked for fifty swords, as many muskets, a cock and hen, a large quantity of copper and a bushel of beads. This modest requisition he expected would be filled forthwith, and in return for his compliance he promised to give Captain Smith a shipload of corn, provided he came for it in person. Here was a very palpable trap and something like a veiled defiance. Smith was as little prone to shirk danger as he was to decline a challenge, and he returned answer that he should presently be at Werowocomico. In the meanwhile he was sending three Germans and two Englishmen to build the projected palace, but, for the rest of the request, he thought that he had better bring the things mentioned by the Chief himself, for he feared that the messengers might hurt themselves with the swords and muskets.
Leaving Scrivener in charge of the settlement, Smith, with forty-six volunteers, embarked in the pinnace and two barges. George Percy commanded one of the latter and Francis West, brother of Lord Delaware, the other. The journey by water was a tolerably long one for open boats, and they broke it by a stay of two or three days at Kecoughten, a village occupying the site of the present town of Hampton. The Chief received them with genuine friendliness and warned Smith that Powhatan contemplated treachery. Here the party “kept Christmas among the savages, where they were never more merry, nor fed on more plenty of good oysters, fish, flesh, wild fowl and good bread; nor never had better fires in England than the dry, smoky houses of Kecoughten.” The enthusiasm with which the chroniclers among the colonists expatiate upon such simple comforts as these when it happens to be their good fortune to experience them, gives us a very good idea of the miserable condition that generally prevailed at Jamestown.