"It was done after Captain Newport had speech with Master Ratcliffe, and while I know nothing for a certainty, there is in my mind a strong belief that he brought word from the London Company for such an election to be made. At all events, it is done, and now we shall see Jamestown increase in size, even as she would have done from the first month we landed here had Captain John Smith been at the head of affairs."
The good preacher was so delighted with this change in the government that he unfolded all his budget of news, forgetting for the time being, most like, that he was not speaking to his equal, and thus it was I learned what were Captain Newport's instructions from the London Company.
CAPTAIN NEWPORT'S INSTRUCTIONS
He was ordered, if you please, not to return to England without bringing back a lump of gold, exploring the passageway to the South Sea, or finding some of Sir Walter Raleigh's lost colony, of which I will tell you later.
But whether he did the one or the other, he had been commanded to crown as a king, Powhatan, and had brought with him mock jewels and red robes for such a purpose.
To find a lump of gold, after he had brought to England a shipload of yellow sand!
To crown Powhatan king, when, to our sorrow, he was already showing himself far more of a king than was pleasing or well for our town of James!
Forgetting I was but a lad, and had no right to put blame on the shoulders of my leaders and betters, or even to address Master Hunt as if I were a man grown, I cried out against the foolishness of those people in London for whom we were striving to build up a city, saying very much that had better been left unsaid, until the good preacher cried with a laugh:
"We can forgive them almost anything, Dicky Mutton, since they have made our Captain Smith the head of the government in this land of Virginia."