History of the Colony and Ancient Dominion of Virginia

by Charles Campbell

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.