All being assembled at Werowocomoco, the ensuing day was set for the coronation, when the presents were delivered to Powhatan—a basin, ewer, bed, and furniture ready set up. A scarlet cloak and suit of apparel were with difficulty put upon him, Namontack, meanwhile, insisting that it would not hurt him. Still more strenuous efforts were found necessary to make him kneel to receive the crown, till, at last, by dint of urgent persuasions, and pressing hard upon his shoulders, he was induced, reluctantly, to stoop a little, when three of the English placed the crown upon his head. At an appointed signal a volley of musketry was fired from the boats, and Powhatan started up from his seat in alarm, from which, however, he was in a few moments relieved. As if, by way of befitting satire upon so ridiculous a ceremony, Powhatan graciously presented his old moccasins and mantle to Newport, and some corn; but refused to allow him any guides except Namontack. The English having purchased, in the town, a small additional supply of corn, left Werowocomoco, and returned to Jamestown.
Shortly afterwards Newport, contrary to Smith's advice, undertook to explore the Monacan country, on the borders of the upper James River, with one hundred and twenty picked men, commanded by Captain Waldo, Lieutenant Percy, Captain Wynne, Mr. West, and Mr. Scrivener. Smith, with eighty or ninety men, some sick, some feeble, being left at Jamestown; Newport and his party, embarking in the pinnace and boats, went up to the falls of the river, where, landing, they marched forty miles beyond on the south side in two days and a half, and returned by the same route, discovering two towns of the Monacans—Massinacak, and Mowchemenchouch. The natives, "the Stoics of the woods," evinced neither friendship nor enmity; and the English, out of abundant caution, took one of their chiefs, and led him bound at once a hostage and a guide. Having failed to procure any corn from the Indians, Newport's party returned from the exploration of this picturesque, fertile, well-watered region, more than half of them sick or lame, and disheartened with fatigue, stinted rations, and disappointed hopes of finding gold.
Smith, the president, now set the colonists to work; some to make glass, others to prepare tar, pitch, and soap-ashes; while he, in person, conducted thirty of them five miles below the fort to cut down trees and saw plank. Two of this lumber-party happened to be young gentlemen, who had arrived in the last supply. Smith sharing labor and hardship in common with the rest, these woodmen, at first, became apparently reconciled to the novel task, and seemed to listen with pleasure to the crashing thunder of the falling trees; but when the axes began to blister their unaccustomed hands, they grew profane, and their frequent loud oaths echoed in the woods. Smith taking measures to have the oaths of each one numbered, in the evening, for each offence, poured a can of water down the offender's sleeve; and this curious discipline, or water-cure, was so effectual, that after it was administered, an oath would scarcely be heard in a week. Smith found that thirty or forty gentlemen who volunteered to work, could do more in a day than one hundred that worked by compulsion; but, he adds, that twenty good workmen would have been better than the whole of them put together.
Smith finding so much time wasted, and no provisions obtained, and Newport's vessel lying idle at heavy charge, embarked in the discovery barge, taking with him eighteen men and another boat, and leaving orders for Lieutenant Percy to follow after him, went up the Chickahominy. Being overtaken by Percy, he procured a supply of corn. Upon his return to Jamestown, Newport and Ratcliffe, instigated by jealousy, attempted to depose Smith from the presidency, but he defeated their schemes. The colony suffered much loss at this time by an illicit trade carried on between the sailors of Newport's vessel, dishonest settlers, and the Indians. Smith threatened to send away the vessel and to oblige Newport to remain a year in the colony, so that he might learn to judge of affairs by his own experience, but Newport submitting, and acknowledging himself in the wrong, the threat was not executed. Scrivener visiting Werowocomoco, by the said of Namontack procured another supply of corn and some puccoons, a root which it was supposed would make an excellent dye, as the Indians used its red juice to stain their faces.
Newport at last sailed for England, leaving at Jamestown two hundred souls, carrying a cargo of such pitch, tar, glass, and soap-ashes as the colonists had been able to get ready. Ratcliffe, whose real name was discovered to be Sicklemore, was sent back at the same time. Smith in his letter to the council in England, exhibited, in caustic terms, the preposterous folly of expecting a present profitable return from Virginia. He sent them also his map of the country, drawn with so much accuracy, that it has been taken as the groundwork of all succeeding maps of Virginia.
Not long after Newport's departure, Anne Burras was married at Jamestown to John Laydon, the first marriage in Virginia. Smith finding the provisions running low, made a voyage to Nansemond, and afterwards went up the James, and discovered the river and people of Appomattock, who gave part of their scanty store of corn in exchange for copper and toys.
About this time Powhatan sent an invitation to Smith to visit him, and a request that he would send men to build him a house, and give him a grindstone, fifty swords, some guns, a cock and hen, with much copper, and many beads, in return for which he promised to load his vessel with corn. Having dispatched by land a party of Englishmen and four Dutchmen to build the house, Smith, accompanied by the brave Waldo, set out for Werowocomoco on the twenty-ninth of December, with the pinnace and two barges manned with forty-six men. Smith went in a barge with six gentlemen and as many soldiers, while in the pinnace were Lieutenant Percy and Francis West, with a number of gentlemen and soldiers. The little fleet dropping down the James arrived on the first night at Warrasqueake, from which place Sicklemore, a veteran soldier, was dispatched with two Indian guides in quest of Sir Walter Raleigh's lost company, and of silk grass. Smith left Samuel Collier, his page, at Warrasqueake to learn the language. The party being detained, by inclement weather, a week at Kecoughtan, spent the holidays there among the natives, feasting on oysters, venison, wild-fowl, and good bread, enjoying also excellent fires in the dry, smoky cabins. While here Smith and two others killed one hundred and forty-eight wild-fowl in three shots.
At Kiskiack, (now Chescake, pronounced Cheese-cake,) the severity of the cold again compelled the English to take shelter in the Indian wigwams. On the twelfth day of January they reached Werowocomoco. The York River being frozen over near half a mile from the shore, Smith, to lose no time, undertook to break his way through the ice; but the tide ebbing, left the barge aground on a shoal. In this dilemma, although the cold was extreme, Smith jumping into the icy river, set the example to his men of wading near waist deep to the shore, where, quartering in the first cabins that they reached, they sent to Powhatan for provisions. On the following day he supplied them abundantly with bread, wild turkeys, and venison. Like Nestor of old, he told Smith somewhat extravagantly, that he had seen the death of all of his people thrice; that he was now old and must ere long die; that his brothers, Opitchapan, Opechancanough, and Kekataugh, his two sisters, and their two daughters, were to be his successors. He deprecated war, and declared that when he and his people, forced to fly by fear of the English, lay in the woods, exposed to cold and hunger, if a twig but broke, every one cried out, "There comes Captain Smith." At length, after a long dialogue, Powhatan still obstinately insisting that the English should lay aside their arms, Smith gave orders privately to his people in the boat to approach and capture him. Discovering their design he fled with his women and children, while his warriors beset the cabin where Smith was. With pistol, sword, and target, he rushed out among them and fired; some fell one over another, the rest escaped.
Powhatan, finding himself in Smith's power, to make his peace sent him, by an aged orator, a large bracelet and a string of beads, and in the mean while the savages, goodly, well-formed fellows, but grim-looking, carried the corn on their backs down to the boats. The barges of the English being left aground by the ebb-tide, they were obliged to wait till the next high-water; and they returned ashore to lodge in some Indian wigwams.
Powhatan, and the treacherous Dutchmen who had been sent to build him a house, and who were attracted by the abundant good cheer that they enjoyed at Werowocomoco, now together plotted Smith's destruction. But Pocahontas, the chieftain's dearest jewel, in that dark night, passing through the gloomy woods, told Smith that great cheer would soon be sent to him, but that her father with all his force would quickly come and kill him and all the English, with their own weapons, while at supper; that therefore, if he would live, she wished him to go at once. Smith would have given her such toys as she delighted in; but, with tears streaming down her cheeks, she said that she would not dare to be seen to have them, for if her father should know it she would die; and so she ran away by herself as she had come. The attempt to surprise Smith was accordingly soon after made; but, forewarned, he readily defeated the design.